Talk:Einmal ist keinmal

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Psychobabble[edit]

The passage below is a complete mess:

The phrase was also significant in the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera. In this book, the adage encapsulates the "all-or-nothing" cognitive distortion that the protagonist (Tomas) must overcome in his hero's journey, namely "If we only have one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all," and specifically his initial fallacy, "Was it better to be with Teresa or to remain alone? There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison."

Is there anything sourceable about the statement that the Tomas can be said to have a "cognitive distortion," or is that just somebody shoehorning the novel into some pet pop-psychological scheme? "Hero's journey": likewise; leave Joseph Campbell in peace. And who's to say that Tomas is prey to a fallacy? 850 C (talk) 16:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here, by the way, is Campbell's definition of "the hero's journey" concept: "A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man." Anyone who's familiar with Kundera's novel will be aware of how little this definition applies to anything in the book. 850 C (talk) 16:56, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]