Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Care and Feeding of Media Monsters

This morning I want to spend some timelessness discussing the propagation and dissemination of mind parasites, since this is what we are witnessing in real time, what with the left's vile attempt to blame the actions of a mass murderer on peaceful citizens who merely have different ideas than they do.

Human beings obviously did not evolve in an environment of mass media. Indeed, there was no medium at all except for speech and sign language. Nor were there "masses," only bands numbering thirty to fifty closely related souls.

A critical point is that in human psychological development -- both as a species and person -- the group precedes the individual; indeed, the group is the matrix, or soil, which nourishes the individual, and out of which the latter will "grow."

Thus, we may have groups without genuine individuals, but it would be impossible to have individuals without the group. Humanness is simply impossible in the absence of the intimate, intersubjective group relationship (beginning with mother <--> infant), which is one of many reasons I do not believe intelligent (self-aware) life has evolved elsewhere. The requisite conditions are just too imponderably specific.

In order for a coherent group to emerge, its members must inhabit the same "reality." Now, it is obvious that all human beings, regardless of the group, live in the same physical reality. But we inhabit vastly different psychological and spiritual environments, to such an extent that mere geography becomes incidental to human differences. Look at North Korea and South Korea, or Israel and the Palestinian terrortories, or Harvard and Hillsdale. Same species, completely irreconcilable psychospiritual realities.

Whether fortunately or unfortunately, we could say the same of "red" and "blue" states, except that blue states contain big heap plenty redman such as myself, and vice versa.

But thanks to mass media, this is no longer an obstacle to group membership. In the millennia prior to mass media, I wouldn't even know about other groups, only my own and maybe that other group that I wanted to exterminate. I would grow and be shaped by those immediately around me, and even if I felt that somehow I didn't fit in, there would be no alternative.

One of the wonderful things about modernity is that we may choose our own group based upon who we actually are. Look at this blog. It doesn't have many readers, but it has readers from all over the world who may have more in common with each other than they do with their immediate group.

Now, even though modernity gives us this new access to diverse groups, we must bear in mind that the same primitive rules apply. It is analogous to, say, sex. Just because you can meet someone through the miracle of the internet, this does not mean that, should you get together, the relationship will somehow transcend the most primitive drives and impulses -- lust, jealousy, possessiveness, and all the rest. Indeed, the desire to meet someone over the internet is still motivated by the ancient human drive for intimate relationships.

So in one sense the psyche rides piggyback on the technology, but in another sense, it is the converse.

Now, as alluded to above, although Americans obviously inhabit one physical country, they do not live in the same worlds. Let's not even get into the question of which is the "real world," but just acknowledge the fact that they are irreconcilable.

For example, one side believes that human beings are created equal in the image of their Creator, that our rights flow from this reality, and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights. The other group believes this is a pernicious fairy tale that provokes its members to commit mass murder. I know that's how I feel when I read the Constitution.

If you stand back from the historical situation and take a martian's-eye view, the transmission of mind parasites might seem unfair to the individual, but it ultimately benefits the collective, since each individual is tasked with the mission of eradicating the parasites that he has inherited from his parents (and they from theirs, all the way back to the dawn of human time).

This is one way to conceptualize our "fallenness," in that each of us repeats the fall, but in our own way. As implied in yesterday's post, one cannot undo the fall by "normalizing" it, nor can one undo it by imposing a coercive collective solution, the two main prongs of the left. Undoing the Problem of Man does not involve merely fine-tuning the rewards and punishments meted out by the state. It has never worked and never will.

Since they are not fully formed individuals, children can hardly avoid sharing in the moral merits and demerits of their parents and of the society to which they belong. While this seems to render them "less than human," it actually means that they are more than animal right from the start, in that they are engaging in psychic transactions with those around them, probably even in the womb -- and it is through these psychic transactions that we become -- or fail to become -- who we are. Again, membership in the group must be prior to the emergence of the individual.

An important point is that these psychic transmissions are projected back and forth from parent to child, within the fluid and boundary-less transitional space between them. For example, a hungry or frightened infant cannot imagine the absence of anything (since that would require abstract, symbolic thought, i.e., "bupkis"), only the presence of something bad. This concrete "bad object" is projected into the good mother, who transforms it into the experience of a soothing good object, which the child internalizes.

Please don't to be too literal, but try to imagine it in a more poetic and less mechanistic way. In a sense, it's easier to think about what happens when something goes wrong in the relationship -- say, a depressed or otherwise emotionally unavailable mother -- which will result in the inability of the baby to metabolize and transform its bad objects, which is how they gradually "solidify" into enduring mind parasites. What to do with them?

Psychotherapy is one way to process them, but that's only been in existence for a hundred years or so, and even then it usually only proceeds on a pretty superficial basis. Most people end up dealing with them in a pathological way, either through the development of symptoms or through acting out.

To greatly simplify, you could say that a neurotic mostly keeps his mind parasites to himself, while the person with a Personality Disorder (e.g., Borderline, Narcissistic, Paranoid, etc.) inevitably involves others in his or her psychodrama. (And the psychotic is in a world all his own, so he is in a different category altogether.)

If the world were filled only with neurotically conflicted people, it would pretty much be paradise, or as close as you can get to it on earth. This is because neurotics mostly hurt themselves and maybe disappoint or frustrate others around them, but they aren't sadistic or murderous, and are mostly prone to distorting reality in less significant ways, like unconsciously confusing your wife with your mother. The mere neurotic does not confuse Jews with Satan, or President Bush with Hitler, or Sarah Palin with a mass murderer.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you even know you have mind parasites with their own agendas, you are more evolved than around 99% of the humans who have ever lived. Most of the real wholesale evil in the world is obviously caused by failure to recognize the existence of mind parasites and consequently projecting them into others for their elimination.

Imagine if Yasser Arafat could have paused for a moment and pondered the question, "gee, why do I hate Jews so much? Where did that come from? And why am I so attracted to little boys? Could it be because of the Islamic fear and degradation of women? Or was it because I was so indulged by my mother that I'm afraid of being devoured by her vagina? Yeah, that's probably it."

Liberals, of course, want us to understand the terrorists. But one of the first things I learned in my psychoanalytic training is that real empathy has nothing to do with reinforcing someone's delusions just to make them feel better. Rather, it must involve things like confrontation, interpretation, clarification, etc.

So the most empathic thing you could do for a bin Laden -- for the whole Islamic world, for that matter -- would be to confront them with the truth of which they are so desperately in need, for a mind deprived of truth still "needs to eat," but it will feed on lies, which in turn creates a monster. You do not flatter them with the monstrous lie -- as did Secretary of State Clinton the other day -- by implying that "you folks have your politically motivated extremists and so do we, with that tea partier who murdered all those people the other day."

Lies are monster food. All monsters feed on lies, and a monster is simply a living lie. They are the lie made flesh.

Hitler could not have been the monster he was without a steady diet of outrageous lies with no connection whatsoever to reality. Stalin, Mao, Castro, Arafat, Pol Pot, and all the rest of the 20th century Monster Club -- all were soulless zombies because of their fidelity to the Lie which created them.

In this regard, you can certainly see how ideology becomes a substitute religion rooted in the satanic eucharist (or "dyscharist") of ingesting the Lie. Once the liar is in place, he needs a steady diet of more lies in order to maintain himself. Conversely, he will respond to truth in the way a vampire reacts to garlic or Obama to media scrutiny.

So, just as grace enters the human plane "from above" and then recirculates in unpredictable ways, even causing it to operate in people who specifically reject the very possibility, the Lie works in the same way. The Lie is a kind of anti-grace, as it were, which also circulates in the psychic economy and which will be picked up by susceptible host-minds.

One of the primary tasks of the MSM -- as we have vividly seen this week -- is to propagate these parasites in a rapid and efficient manner to the most weak and unreflective minds. For such media enablers and their passive victims, the gift of shame is impossible. No, they have no decency.

55 comments:

ge said...

wow did HC really say that?
may she fall on her face.

thinking of loughner's parents;
& tomberg's essay on the russian tragic spirit-- how we all share responsibility in every criminal's acts

katzxy said...

"Again, membership in the group must be prior to the emergence of the individual."

A one sentence summary of why the Libertarian party is fundamentally unserious.

A good clean kill.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, that is quite correct about their intrinsic flaw: incorrect first principle.

Sal said...

A very wise Episcopal clergyman used to explain in depth that apart from the community, one had no identity.
Even hermits had a bishop...

Been on a blogfast, but knew there would be excellent analysis of the last few days' events here.
Actually, read enough OC and you can DIY.

I broke my foot on the 31st -no, Ben, grog was not involved- and would appreciate any prayers for healing. The perennial care-er is trying to be a patient care-ee...
Thanks!

Russell said...

"One of the primary tasks of the MSM -- as we have vividly seen this week -- is to propagate these parasites in a rapid and efficient manner to the most weak and susceptible mind"

Notice, too, that IQ has no bearing, it's a function of the soul. Weak souls will accept nonsense into their minds.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, there are "attractors" in the phase space of the weak soul that draw in what the parasite needs in order to perpetuate itself. Intelligence has nothing to do with it, any more than intelligence ensures fulfilling relationships.

keepenemhonest said...

Could you furnish examples of where the left has "blamed the actions of a mass murderer on peaceful citizens who merely have different ideas than they do" but who have not expressed those different ideas in hostile ways that encourage violence of one kind or another against the federal government and its current Democratic leaders?

Gagdad Bob said...

Jared Lougner.

Gagdad Bob said...

And since those closest to Lougner say that his greatest influence was the insanely hateful left wing documentary Zeitgeist, I suppose liberals are actually blaming themselves for the murders.

julie said...

"dyscharist" - yes, just so. Given that "eucharist" literally means "thanksgiving," the Lie instead would feed it's subjects the dis-grace of ingratitude.

Katzxy - yep, indeed. What a great way to put it.

ge - I've been thinking about his parents all weekend. I can't even comprehend how awful this must be. Assuming they're fairly normal folks, and assuming he's really schizophrenic, they have to have been watching their son's oncoming madness for years. What a terrible thing, to see your beloved and seemingly ordinary child morph into a monstrous madness, and be helpless to do anything for him. I could be wrong, of course, but given the reports that his mother has been sobbing in bed since this happened, somehow I doubt it. Just the thought of losing my son that way hurts; the reality must be infinitely worse. God help that family.

Sal - sorry to hear about the foot. Praying for a speedy recovery! And in the meantime (as I had to remind myself over the holidays), for care-ers it's good to remember that being the care-ee can be a grace; it gives the people who love you a chance to give something back, and knowing how caring you are I bet your family is delighted to have that chance. I hope you feel better soon :)

walt said...

Those who are paying attention to these current events are getting quite an education. Viewing the scene from the perspective of mind parasites brings it, er, home.

Years ago in this space, I made a suggestion to a certain troll, and Petey immediately referred to it as the "satanic eucharist." Now I understand more clearly his reference.

I seldom listen to talk radio, but occasionally will dial by Ed Schultz. Talk about mis-and-dis- information (lies)! But what's scary are the listeners, who eat. it. up.

Don't try this while you are eating lunch.

A powerful post again, Bob. You're really helping me properly digest all that's going on.

julie said...

For a little diversion, Klavan.

julie said...

Re. intelligent life elsewhere, even if it's out there it's probably just as fallen as we are.

Gagdad Bob said...

I have no idea if it's any good, but the title is: Pathology of the Elites: How the Arrogant Classes Plan to Run Your Life.

mushroom said...

It doesn't have many readers, but it has readers from all over the world who may have more in common with each other than they do with their immediate group.

Ain't that the truth, and I thank God for every one of you.

We'll all be praying for you, Sal. Do you need both feet to spin?

julie said...

Re. the book, looks interesting.

"Their enlightened pity for their fellow citizens, he charges, conceals an instinct for power rather than compassion. Mr. Beran argues that today's elites have come to rely on a social philosophy that reduces people to a mass of social groups and types, obscures their individual humanity, and makes them easier to manipulate."

Brings to mind the sad but truism that such manipulation only works because enough people go along with it. So many are willing to be grouped, classified and dehumanized collectively, because then they get theirs; they don't realize that by going along with it they lose the value of their individuality. In other words, they think they can still be whatever PC labels they've been assigned and still also be themselves.

keepenemhonest said...

You evaded my previous question. You did not cite any examples where people on the left criticized someone on the right for using non-violent rhetoric in their protests against the federal government or the Obama administration. So, the opening paragraph of your appears to be baseless.

Gagdad Bob said...

More incredible ghoulishness from the left. It's really breathtaking, and my breath is not easily taken away by the enormities of the left.

julie said...

I know Schuon recommended "not reading the newspaper all the way through," or words to that effect, meaning it's unwise to be glued to all the media hype for too long, and normally I think it's very good advice. It occurs to me, however, that what is happening with the media in this case is too important not to pay attention and bear witness. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems as though to ignore it would be tantamount to turning one's back while a crime is underway.

Maybe that's why all this news is so dreadfully compelling...

mushroom said...

I'm glad this discussion is ongoing. As you said yesterday, this is beginning to look more and more like a watershed moment -- perhaps even a Waterloo moment as the left attempts to shut down debate and use their allies in the MSM to serve talking points to the general public.

For those who don't understand this, the First Amendment is meant to protect ugly, hateful, radical, unpopular, anti-government speech -- because discussions about whether you like fluffy bunnies or cute kitties more does not really require much defense. Only offensive speech needs to be protected from government censorship.

Those on the left should actually be happy -- not about the atrocity itself -- but about all the vitriol spewing around it as it gives Obama a much needed opportunity to look like something other than an far-left ideologue. His moment of national healing today will result in a substantial jump in his popularity, no doubt.

julie said...

Just got to the Newseek part of Taranto's article. Those passages by Alter are truly sickening.

Gagdad Bob said...

He has always struck me as a particularly sick little f*ck.

julie said...

I don't think I've ever really read anything he had to say. I can't say that I'm glad I have now; yeesh.

This is what Newsweek considers publishable? When I was in high school, I took a social studies class where we were required to subscribe to Newsweek in order to be aware of current events. I shudder to think what effects such a requirement would have on an impressionable young mind today.

Van Harvey said...

"Look at this blog. It doesn't have many readers, but it has readers from all over the world who may have more in common with each other than they do with their immediate group."

And I don't think that even the most techno-utopian mathead out there has even a glimmer of an idea of the real implications of that sort of thing.

If England's "Glorious Revolution" and America itself grew out of 'idle chatter' in coffee houses and pubs in confined geographic areas... try and imagine what is brewing for the relatively near future.

Gagdad Bob said...

Glass bottom boat in the left wing sewer.

Gagdad Bob said...

Ace has been en fuego lately.

julie said...

Re. the Twitter, the complete lack of self awareness and any sense of shame there... just wow. I'm not really surprised, I just find it appalling. Is it really so difficult to disagree with someone, even think they're being evil, and yet not wish them torment and death? Because as awful as all this has been, it's genuinely never crossed my mind to wish death or cancer on anyone just because they've been spewing some truly disgusting rhetoric. I almost feel weird for being so non murderous!

Van Harvey said...

"Again, membership in the group must be prior to the emergence of the individual."

katzxy said "A one sentence summary of why the Libertarian party is fundamentally unserious. A good clean kill."

Gagdad Bob said "Yes, that is quite correct about their intrinsic flaw: incorrect first principle."

Ya know... that's really annoying. I've expended several thousand words several posts over saying that... and you two get it done in a couple sentences.

That's really annoying. If you'll excuse me, I've got to go shopping for a nice used mind parasite that I can try on and see if it can help me make that all your fault.

Sheesh.

wv:sparr
Na, I try sparring all the time, doesn't do it. Do you have anything in a nice XL Martyr Monster that might fit?

Van Harvey said...

... and won't make my 'but' look too big....

julie said...

:D

Sal said...

Mush- yes, my wheel is a double treadle, so no spinning for me.
A great opportunity to knit through the stash, though.

Someone put the long form Prayer to St. Michael on YouTube not too long ago- there's a phrase in there about "men of ruined intellect". Can't count how many individuals that makes me think of.
The waste makes you sad.

julie said...

Switching gears for a moment, one thing that I saw in the aftermath that is getting little attention was the behavior of one of the heroes who helped pin the shooter down until the police took him. I mention Joe because he was armed, carrying concealed. And yet, wisely and presumably according to the training he had to have received in order to get his permit, he never drew his weapon, even though he was fully prepared to do so.

Rick said...

Sorry I'm late to class. Been snowing a bit over here in CT.

Anyways, GREAT post.
Oh, and yes, What the Raccoons SaidTM.

'specially:

"Ace has been en fuego lately."

You can't go there and not think that. No way. No how.

Rick said...

Speaking of Ace, you know there Andy linked to the Krauthammer piece and, I love The 'Hammer, but I mean the only good part was the title. No offense. Already said that.
But I mean, Ace is putting us some knowledge at like 10 times the rate.

Gagdad Bob said...

More left wing ghoulishness: what an awesome mass murder!

They're getting close to actual thanatos worship, if they aren't there already.

Gagdad Bob said...

Rick -- the Larchet book on spiritual disorders is excellent so far. Such wisdom the early fathers possessed! Just about to get into the chapter on demonic possession, which I hope will illuminate this week's parade of parasites.

SippicanCottage said...

Bob- I'm always entertained by the liveliness of your prose.

JP said...

With respect to extra-terrestrials, it is also quite possible that there simply isn't enough energy available in any given extra-terresterial civilization to mount an invasion or strip mining of another planet controlled by another sentient species.

Who knows? Any visit to another world might amount to a vanity project that requires an extensive amount of excess resources. You can visit Earth, but those two interstellar spaceships that cost $100,000,000,000,000 in Alien Monetary Units was all that was available. And they don't come equipped with an invasion force.

Alien civilizations would also be constraied by economics. Just like us.

JP said...

And what would methane breathers want with an oxygen based world, anyhow?

Too much effort given the potential returns.

Gagdad Bob said...

Thank you Sippy -- we do try to make mystical theology fun for the whole family!

Mizz E said...

Sal, I'm so sorry to hear about your foot and hope it's soon mended 100%. Chesterton experienced a similar inconvenience and wrote a short essay, entitled "The Advantages Of Having One Leg."

Chin up.

Gagdad Bob said...

The hermetically sealed reality of the left: even when a leftist assassinates the president in a climate of Democrat anger, it's still the fault of right wing hate.

Mizz E said...

Rick,
RE: Ace. Yes, I find his anger authentic and his expletives appropriate, so palatable. I come to OC for the bobscure, laughty wisdom.

Rick said...

Bob, just ordered the book. So glad to hear it's a good one. I didn't know I was looking for something along those lines.

Hunch: The better the science of psychology gets, the closer it gets to looking like the ways of the early fathers. (a part of me says, how can it not.)

Maybe a poor example: I was watching a movie the other day and there was a scene depicting in a serious way a person in a confessional. The person was not being "honest". The person was actually envious and ratting another person's sins. Maybe the next day was another movie with a serious depiction of a patient on a psychotherapist's couch. The person was comfortable and being honest. Yet, I was struck by their similarities. Certainly the practices "look" similar, which I can't say I actually noticed before. But more than that. More like how and why they go about it. Or when they heal and when they don't.

I mean, does even the mere act of honest "confession", the sincerity of course, and where another person must be present, play an important role in how the "patient" is changed in both situations?

Rick said...

Mizz E, you know today, I was reading something at Ace's and thought for a sec he might be reading OC. I haven't ruled it out.

Anna said...

Van said... "and you two get it done in a couple sentences."

Maybe Robin S. can simmer it into a haiku couplet. :)

mushroom said...

Robin just adds the haiku like footnotes for us mere mortals -- his f/zero lens does his talking for him.

I went over and viewed those twittershots on Youtube. The most common theme seems to be a desire for a shooter to open fire at a Palin rally. The thing that kept coming to my twisted mind was an image of SP saying, "Fill your hand, you SOB!"

Gagdad Bob said...

" does even the mere act of honest "confession", the sincerity of course, and where another person must be present, play an important role in how the "patient" is changed in both situations?"

Yes. Somehow.

Gagdad Bob said...

Classic Iowahawk tweets;

Forget the somber decorum of the Wellstone funeral. At this point I'd settle for the somber decorum of WWE Monday Night RAW

Let's get ready to HEEEEAAAALLLLL

Waiting for the Phoenix Suns gorilla mascot to do some trampoline slam dunks

This grief moment brought to you by Mountain Dew® Voltage™, the official thirst quencher of Griefapalooza

Step 4 of the grieving process is "branding.

Nothing says "profound grief" like focus-group tested merchandising materiel.

Mizz E said...

Doc_0: This crowd is the product of a youth culture that confuses "authenticity" with a lack of restraint.

Gagdad Bob said...

I just don't think liberals are capable of being intellectually, much less spiritually, serious.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Hi Sal:

I hope n' pray you feel better and heal soon.
That break dancing can be dangerous so you might wanna cut back a bit. :^)

Skully says he's happy to know grog wasn't involved because it gets a bad enough rap as it is.
"All things in modulation," I think he said, but his voice was slurred.

Hopefully, Skully will be able to give his double dog D.A.R.E. presentation tomorrow at the elementary school.
The teachers don't like him much but the kids love him and his harrowing sea stories that illustrate what happens to the unmodulated grogger.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

For example, one side believes that human beings are created equal in the image of their Creator, that our rights flow from this reality, and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights. The other group believes this is a pernicious fairy tale that provokes its members to commit mass murder. I know that's how I feel when I read the Constitution."

Aye. And the leftists always repeat the lie that conservatives are anti-government, when we are only anti-big brother-over bloated bureaucracy-ineffective-overspending-overtaxing-overregulating-nanny state-corrupt-unConstitutional-government.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Ha ha! Iowahawk brings the funny.
I'm glad he took one for the team and actually watched those clowns beclown themselves.

julie said...

I just don't think liberals are capable of being intellectually, much less spiritually, serious.

Agreed. And yet at the same time, they take themselves so dreadfully seriously. Sure, they have comedy, but it's almost always a cynical, bitter, misanthropic sort of humor. And even if they manage to laugh at themselves, it's usually at their own perversions and comes with an implicit understanding that everyone else is the same or worse, even if they won't admit it.

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