Wednesday, October 11, 2006

The Attack on Unforgiveable Meanings

One of Michael Polanyi’s most important insights had to do with the difference between subsidiary and focal knowledge. Most of what we know--especially the more we know--is not explicitly available to us, as it is in the form of a tacit and “unspecifiable” integration of particulars that allows us to peer more deeply into reality: “all knowing consists of the integration of subsidiary and tacitly sensed particulars into a focal and articulate whole.”

Polanyi used several examples to illustrate his point. Take the human face. Although we can recognize a single human face out of a billion, we cannot say how we do so. Each face is constituted of the same features--eyes, nose, lips, etc.--but these merely become the background in apprehending the whole face. We could not see the face without these subsidiary particulars, but the face cannot be reduced to them.

As a matter of fact, there are some autistic and psychotic people who are unable to recognize faces. Instead, they see only the disconnected fragments of a face, which they cannot integrate into a meaningful expression.

Although there is no indication that he knew about Polanyi, the psychoanalyst W.R. Bion noted that particularly ill individuals actually reverse the process he describes and attack or prevent the emergence of unwanted meaning. I personally see this all the time. That is, even a neurotic individual will often attack or block the emergence of a particular meaning so as to reduce it to its meaningless particulars. Once you understand this process, you will see that the left (in its broadest sense) habitually engages in it, both voluntarily and involuntarily. For example, it is the reason why they think the economy is doing poorly despite the fact that it is performing spectacularly. Stock market at an all time high? Don't mean nothin'. Alls I see is that dang prevert congressman.

What is political correctness but an all-out assault on the ability of people to arrive at certain unwanted conclusions? What is deconstruction but a frontal attack on any meaning that places western civilization in a positive light? There are no conservative deconstructionists, because what is specifically being deconstructed--that is, attacked--is the truism that America is a good and decent nation, that western civilization is a uniquely precious gift, that America is not a racist-sexist-homophobic society, etc. None of these conclusions are permissible on the left. They must be assaulted both intellectually and physically, as when the fascistic Columbia students attacked the Minutemen last week.

Yesterday I made the point that science, properly understood, can only exist in a free society. Amazingly, some commenters disagreed with this axiomatic statement, which only goes to show how far cultural relativism has seeped its way into the collective mind. Has anyone ever heard of Soviet psychiatry, which is simply leftist psychiatry writ large, or drawn out to its ultimate implications? For in the Soviet system, the definition of mental health was dictated from the top down, determined by the needs of the collective. One was “sick” to the extent that one had thoughts, beliefs or behaviors that were inconsistent with the needs of the glorious revolution. Freely discovering one's own meaning--which is the meaning and purpose of liberty--is precisely forbidden.

In psychoanalysis, the purest of psychotherapies, the first rule is to “say whatever comes to mind.” Ironically, you could even say that one is “cured” when one is finally capable of actually doing this. But in any totalitarian society, saying whatever comes to mind is what one must never do. Eventually one is not even aware of the suppression, because it becomes internalized. There are whole areas of the psyche that are marked off with signs and barriers: do not enter! One eventually suppresses oneself, and even projects the part of oneself that wishes to be free into others.

This is at heart of the Islamist pathology. You could say that their own “id”--understood in the much broader sense as all that is unactualized and stillborn within the psyche--is projected into aggressive and sexually degenerate Jews and infidels. Importantly, once something is banished from conscious awareness, it undergoes a bizarre transmogrification, as it is subject to the very different laws that govern unconscious logic. This is why the rhetoric that emerges from the Muslim world takes on such florid and bizarre proportions, as documented every day by memri.org. It probably also accounts for the phenomenon of Bush derangement among the left’s kook base.

Imagine a Palestinian going to a Palestinian psychiatrist and free associating. “You know, I’ve been having these weird thoughts.... I don’t think that Jews are responsible for all my problems.... In fact, I’m starting to think that they’re an admirable people, and that we should be imitating them instead of murdering them.... Let’s be honest, Doc, Arabs have contributed nothing to the world, but just by being in proximity to Israel we were the most prosperous Arab ecomomy, but we stupidly destroyed all of that with the meaningless intifada. We actually cheered when those planes went into the Twin Towers, but now I’m starting to have second thoughts, Doc. Am I crazy?”

“Yes. Not just crazy but evil. As a way of curing you, I am recommending that you be hung by your ankles from the nearest lamp post and be disemboweled by an angry mob.”

Is it really any different in America? Of course it is. Here they don’t string you up by your ankles, but merely fire you or ruin your career, like Lawrence Summers at Harvard, who had the temerity to utter a banal scientific truth about the differences between men and women in that ovary tower of maleicious feminist drivel. Conservatives are routinely vilified in this manner by the left, merely for having ideas of which they do not approve--Robert Bork, Rush Limbaugh, Samuel Alito... the list is endless. You will notice that they never actually engage the ideas, but attack the person who holds them as being malicious, evil and sinister. This is why the left must rely on scandal and judicial tyranny to advance its otherwise unpopular agenda. In a battle of ideas they lose every time, which is why it so so critical for them to keep the Foley matter on the front burner.

The matter of leftist control of my profession becomes particularly annoying for me every two years, when it is time for me to complete my 36 hours of continuing education in order to renew my license. Ironically, it is the one time of the year that I must temporarily suspend my education in order to absorb some semiannual left wing claptrap.

In a previous post, I wrote of my experience with the oral examination to became a psychologist. The examiners read you a little clinical vignette and ask you questions about it. What are your thoughts? How would you treat this person? What’s their diagnosis? They then change little details, asking what you’d do in this or that situation.

But then they come to the really, really important part, the holiest of holies, Cultural Competence. This is where you are presented with the opportunity to fall over yourself--which you had better do--in demonstrating how politically correct you are. It is one of the best examples I know of for how the left insinuates itself into virtually every profession, converting political dogma into what is essentially law. For a license is a legal document, and it is therefore “illegal” for me to not toe the leftist line on issues of multiculturalism, cultural relativism, victimology, and political correctness.

Normal people don’t think about these things, but leftists are not normal people. As activists, they are always active. You and I may go about our lives earning a living, raising our children, enjoying our hobbies, but the activist has no life, so he is actively involved in making your life more difficult. He will not cease his activity until there are no victims left on whose behalf he can activate.

So anyway, just when you think you’ve covered the clinical vignette from every possible angle, out comes the cross-cultural screw ball: what if the patient were African American?

African American! Oh my God! A negro! What would I do? That changes everything! They're not like us. They’re a completely different race, I mean, culture. The same rules don’t apply. They don’t think like you or I do. What’s crazy for white folks might be normal for them. Don’t forget the anger over slavery. And don’t forget they won’t trust you, because you’re white. No, that’s not paranoia. Perception is reality. You d’ Man. You an authority figure, and they don’t trust authority. And don’t forget, they have a matriarchal culture, so don’t mention the “F-word” (father). They just choose to organize their families differently, so don’t be projecting your own racist 1950’s Ozzie and Harriet values about marriage or the need for a mother and father. And remember, they’re rough on their kids, so don’t call it abuse. Mama don’t play!

I wonder how this process works for blacks taking the psychology exam. Are they presumed to be “culturally incompetent” to treat white folks? Are homosexuals incompetent to treat heterosexuals, secular psychologists incompetent to treat Christians? To even ask the question is to expose the nuttiness of the left.

But that’s not the end of the leftist fruit hoops through a licensed psychologist must jump. Oh no. They can’t risk you lapsing into cultural incompetence once you’re licensed. At heart you are an incorrigible racist and homophobe. Steps must be taken. The mandated thirty-six hours of re-indoctrination is another chance for the activists to activate.

My mandatory ethics class was a case in point. In over twenty years of seeing patients, only a couple come to mind who had AIDs. And yet, my ethics class was obsessed with the rights of homosexuals, in particular, those with HIV (not that it's a gay disease!).

Here are some samples from the course:

“HIV/AIDS has its own unique ethical issues. Because HIV can be transmitted through sexual activity and by sharing drug equipment, it evokes significant personal feelings and judgments in the general public, as well as in health and social service providers.

You shall not judge the victim! Don't be leaping to conclusions about their "drug equipment." It's not like they smoke cigarettes in public or something.

“The principle of justice assumes impartiality and equality. It means that a clinician will treat all clients equally and give everyone their due portion of services. This principle applies to the individual client as well as on the larger societal level.”

You shall not prefer certain people or cultures over others! Doing so is unjust. And make sure that 13% of your patients are black and 52% are women. After all, that's their "due portion" of your services.

“Individuals have the right to decide how to live their own lives, as long as their actions do not interfere with the welfare of others. This principle respects the unconditional worth of the individual and promotes the concepts of self-governance, self-determination, and self-rule.”

You shall not make any moral judgments! Doing so is immoral. Everyone is unconditionally valuable, except for people who think they aren't. And we must value self-determination and self-rule, except for official victims whose lives are determined and ruled by white male victimizers.

“The impact of welfare reform may augment concern about access issues. Adding restrictions to a population that is already disenfranchised will require more creativity, patience, and determination on the part of the clinician who is trying to advocate for a client.”

Your job is not to "treat a patient” but to advocate for a client! And you must help your disenfranchised client register to vote (Democrat, of course), so that we can undo welfare reform.

“For some counselors, the knowing transmission of HIV is as serious as hearing their client threaten to kill someone. There are differences, however, between knowingly transmitting HIV and murder. For one, the campaign to stop the transmission of HIV has encouraged people to protect themselves. Therefore, every individual is responsible for safer sex practices, so it is not entirely the responsibility of the person with HIV.”

You are not a victim if someone intentionally gives you HIV. Hey, wait a minute, I don’t get this one... Finally, a real victim!

“Providers should consider the following questions: How can providers, and society in general, ensure that resources are distributed fairly?"

Easy. By becoming Marxists, of course. To each according to his need, and all that.

"How can such allocations be free of bias and assumptions about certain individuals, cultures, and populations?”

Umm, by having a load of politically correct cultural biases and assumptions about them?

“Cultural issues often are glossed over... For example, a gay, African American client may have difficulty dealing with his homosexuality and as a result may be having anonymous unprotected sex impulsively.”

Hmm... What if he's a closeted congressman who sends dirty instant messages? Should we cut him any slack? And what if having impulsive anonymous unprotected sex is the whole point of the subculture? Shouldn't we be sensitive to that?

And my favorite: “Dual relationships should be avoided if possible. A clinician who knows a client via a past sexual encounter should not assume a professional role with that client.”

I looked up the word encounter: a chance meeting; a direct often momentary meeting.

Do not, under any circumstances, be a provider of mental health services to a client with whom you’ve had a chance, momentary meeting without your clothes on.

Not that there’s anything wrong with it. You're probably just an African American who can't admit you're gay. Either that or you’re Bill Clinton.

34 comments:

Lisa said...

Grammatical question I have now seen twice, once in comments and once in your post, toe the leftist line or tow the leftist line? Or is that just a Bobism that means you must insert your own big toe into your tush in order to toe the leftist line?

You sure do have a hard day gig with all those PC rules! Explaining the Cosmos is much easier!

Anonymous said...

Yup, Lisa, I notice it too. Toe not tow, as in watching your step.

Though they drag/tow those lines around a lot, too.

"the campaign to stop the transmission of HIV has encouraged people to protect themselves."

Oh, man, I never thought I'd see it, those guys just Honored the Second Amendment! Incidentally, I think several people have been prosecuted and convicted for knowingly transmitting AIDS. It is assault, and, in the right circumstances, murder. Legal proof is difficult, of course.

And as to the main point of the thread. They're trying to indoctrinate the foolish, blame the straightforward, and drive clear thinkers nuts. Lets not let it happen, the driving-nuts part.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bob,

You wrote, "He will not cease his activity until there are no victims left on whose behalf he can activate."

But once it is perceived that "there are no victims", then victimhood and "oppression" are redefined in order to create more victims and ever more subtle and granular forms of "oppression".

You might remember the scandelous document issued by Caprice D. Hollins, Department of Equity & Race Relations for the Seattle school District, who wrote that "defining one form of English as standard" is an example of "cultural racism".

So, Daniel Webster was a racist! And all those other dictionary manufacturers too! How dare they attach standard meanings to phonics!

It's like these leftists are playing God and trying to tear down the Tower of Babel again! The people are getting too empowered! Destroy their speech and scatter them!

Ironic that an official of a "public school" would take such a position. Aren't they supposed to teach standard English? No, they're supposed to make sure that there is no such thing.

Anyway, as a "graduate" of the Seattle school district, I can tell you that there wasn't any racism going on (none that I noticed anyway) thirty years ago, so I don't know why they need a full time position for a person to combat racism.

Unless of course, you decide that an all black school cannot provide a quality education and you must bus black kids againt their and their parents' wills to strange neighborhoods many miles away from home just so they can be around white kids.

Oh, and make sure that there is no discipline or grades in those integrated schools. Nobody can be allowed to fail at anything, academically or behaviorally. (I'm not making this up. I was there.)

That's what Seattle schools did in the 70's. But that's not racism, it progress. Oh, and it didn't work either. That's reality.

Eric

Anonymous said...

If PC and leftist dogma is so systemic in your profession, when license renewal time comes, don't you worry the Inquisitors will deny your renewal, throwing a big stack of One Cosmos posts in your face as evidence you are unfit to practice?

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes. But at least if my license is yanked, I can devote myself to thinking and writing full time, which I would much prefer. In this sense, you might say that One Cosmos is a "cry for help."

Lisa said...

Thanks, Dilys! Good to learn something old/new each day! ;0)

Anonymous said...

>>Therefore, every individual is responsible for safer sex practices, so it is not entirely the responsibility of the person with HIV.”<<

Wow. That Amish child murderer? Not entirely his responsibility because we're all responsible for gun control.

The 9/11 jidadist murderers? Give 'em a break because, hey, we're all responsible for airline safety.

In grad school I had to "tow" the lefty line (like a tugboat tows a crippled ocean liner) because I wanted to pass the courses. Working in very circumscribed perimeters, and with the understanding that I was foregoing any investiture of heart and soul in what I was spewing, I actually begin to have some fun in seeing what I could do with this very limited palliate. It was like a chess game, no inspiration in the larger sense, mostly mental back and forths. I could see how lefty theorists could enjoy this endless gerbil-in-a-cage "top that, Professor!" game.

But of course, this was just academics, limiting what I could say, not what I actually thought or did, for that matter. I take it, Bob, that, for the time being at least, you are not limited in what you can actually do vis a vis a patient. I suspect though, that if you want to publish anything strictly in the psychoanalytic field, you'd better use a moniker.

Gagdad Bob said...

Will-

Yes, it's always funny to me when leftists cite "academic studies," when only certain conclusions are allowed to be published! (We're talking about the humanities here, not true science.)

There are definitely certain lines you had better not cross in psychology, for example, suggesting that a homosexual can become heterosexual, despite the fact that the man responsible for removing homosexuality from the DSM now says that it is clearly possible and happens all the time. By no means does this mean that you should impose this treatment on someone who doesn't want it, but to make it unethical and illegal is totalitarian to the core, and is especially harmful to people with sexual identity confusion--as if you should tell them to just "flip a coin," and that it makes no difference which way they go.

Anonymous said...

Well, you sure are right about the overblown cultural kow-towing that is mandated for therapists. It's absurdly tolerant.
This is a reaction to "good-ol-boyism," of course. There is a reason for everything, and part of the reason the left is so insistent on "sensitivity" is because white males have always tended to become arrogant peckerwoods if left un-indoctrinated. Not that thats a bad thing, unless you happen to be some shade of brown or have tits.
White male control was so strong for so long, that once the fist had been loosened, the memory of those times keeps the lefties banging at those fingers to make sure they don't come crreeping back.
So, you're looking at an artifact of the C.S.A. Thank Jeff Davis for all that.

Anonymous said...

"That is, even a neurotic individual will often attack or block the emergence of a particular meaning so as to reduce it to its meaningless particulars."
I had an aquaintence who used to do that whenever I would try to have a meaningful conversation with him; he would always interrupt to correct some tiny grammatical error I made or some date I got wrong, totally missing the point of the conversation, and therefore sabotaging it, forcing me to look elsewhere for meaningful dialog. As if to illustrate your point, this guy was a teenager who had a genius-level IQ but was very awkward socially. I would imagine that part of his lack of friends was his inability to simply listen to a conversation and absorb the big picture, rather than constantly correct and reduce it to microscopic granularity, effectively ending it altogether. Fortunately, this individual is now a well-balanced young man who is married with a child now; I attribute his cure partly to marriage, and partly to simple maturity. But his younger years remind me of some of the calls that Rush, Sean, Laura Ingraham, Micheal Medved, and Dennis Prager get on their shows. You can tell these callers are young twenty-somethings, due to their habit of constantly interrupting and using the shout-down technique that leftie journalists use at press conferences ("but you're not answering my question, but you're not answering my question...."). To me it's a sign of both chronological and mental adolescence, and an inability to engage in a healthy way.

"Has anyone ever heard of Soviet psychiatry, which is simply leftist psychiatry writ large, or drawn out to its ultimate implications?"
Yes, it just so happens that the Soviets had an extensive system of asylums. They were of course mostly used for dissidents like Solzhenitsyn or Sharansky rather than actual patients. For to disagree with the Soviet system was to be "sick", and besides, committing someone was probably less messy in terms of appearances than jailing them.

"“Yes. Not just crazy but evil. As a way of curing you, I am recommending that you be hung by your ankles from the nearest lamp post and be disemboweled by an angry mob.”"
"But, you can still redeem yourself; just strap this nail-filled bomb to yourself and walk into a day care center in Tel Aviv, and the Virgins may yet await you."

"In a battle of ideas they lose every time, which is why it so so critical for them to keep the Foley matter on the front burner."
And it's also why they must use the courts and their secret network of leaking Clintonoids in the State Dept and CIA rather than the ballot box; their ideas, when they have any, are losers, and they know it.

"The matter of leftist control of my profession becomes particularly annoying for me every two years, when it is time for me to complete my 36 hours of continuing education in order to renew my license."
Bob, you ought to see what it's like in education. I decided against a career in teaching despite earning a Master's in Environmental Education; I just could not stomach the idea of spouting forth the Communist propaganda I had been fed to a class full of hapless kids. I also could not submit myself to running a gauntlet of mind-control rules and regulations that rival those you ran into, if not surpassing them. And I refused to be the combination baby-sitter, social worker, policeman, surrogate parent, union activist, and human punching bag that the educational politburo expected me to be.

"African American! Oh my God! A negro! What would I do? That changes everything! They're not like us. They’re a completely different race, I mean, culture. The same rules don’t apply. They don’t think like you or I do. What’s crazy for white folks might be normal for them."
The exact same thing is taught to you in education; you must teach black kids differently, because they have a different culture. And don't forget Ebonics.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,
"part of the reason the left is so insistent on "sensitivity" is because white males have always tended to become arrogant peckerwoods if left un-indoctrinated."

And black rappers who call women bitches and ho's and who talk about shooting cops are not "arrogant peckerwoods"? Who's indoctrinating them? And who's indoctrinating islamofascists who call for the death of Americans?


"White male control was so strong for so long, that once the fist had been loosened, the memory of those times keeps the lefties banging at those fingers to make sure they don't come crreeping back."
Who appointed those lefty thought-gestapo troops the guardians of what is right and wrong? Isn't this reverse discrimination, or two wrongs making a right? Have you been to a college campus lately? It's the left that holds the iron grip there, though I guess that's all right. Read David Horowitz for further info on that.


"So, you're looking at an artifact of the C.S.A. Thank Jeff Davis for all that."
And I guess we can thank Karl Marx and Angela Davis for the rest.

Anonymous said...

I think someone spending this much time and energy on a Cry for Help might want to investigate therapy... :-)

And I'd like to see any government agency yank a license because of publications on One Cosmos, unsupported by clinical or other evidence. That would make One Entertaining Lawsuit, almost worth it, though I wouldn't wish Bleak House on Bob. The discovery motions alone would make history and constitute a comic novel.

Anonymous said...

This has nothing to do with anything, but I think you'll find that "toe the line" refers to military parade ground etiquette rather than foot racing - enforced unity of thought being compared to enforced unity of...um, toe position.

Anonymous said...

Tsebring said

"Who appointed those lefty thought-gestapo troops the guardians of what is right and wrong? Isn't this reverse discrimination, or two wrongs making a right?"

To answer this:

The lefties are not appointed. They have come to power by various means.

They are not guardians of right or wrong-they are guardians of their own viewpoint.

It isn't reverse discrimination. It's just plain discrimination.

However, the point is that the lefties have control, and fight to keep it. White men were once in control, and they fought to keep it too but lost.

My overarching point is that there is nothing "moral" in the struggle for power between left and right.

Power is a legitimate goal in its own right; having or taking the moral highground is nice but not really material in political struggles.

What people think, or mass intersubjectivity, is where a power base is developed. "Spin," as they call it, is the important thing. The lefties are spin-masters, and so now they call some of the shots.

The right has the presidency, which is good.

Now, if you're a neo-con teacher or therapist buried in a hostile milieu, you'd better keep your cover; give all of the "correct" answers when interrogated or you'll be flushed out and stripped of your powers. Better to be quietly subversive.

Bob is taking a chance with this blog; some moonbat informer might register a complaint to the state board that regulates therapists and bring down an inquistition.
The P.C. police would probably find some pretext for revoking Bob's license.

In gaining mass power it is not as important to be right as it to seem to be right, sadly.

My message to this communication board is to strive for truth in your inner being, but when playing politics--spin, baby, spin.

The point is to win.

Anonymous said...

frederick--

That reminds me of certain cocaine addicts whose nasal membranes are so damaged that they can no longer "snort the line." I once read that this occurred to Stevie Nicks. It was the job of a certain roadie to use a straw to blow the cocaine... Oh, never mind.

Just think of this poor roadie when you find yourself thinking that you hate your job. Some people must do the jobs Americans won't do, like removing the Tom Arnold tattoos from Roseanne's butt.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous,
When I asked who appointed the lefties the guardians of right and wrong, it was a rhetorical question meant to imply that they had appointed themselves the guardians of right and wrong; I was also referring to lefties who are not in positions of power, but live to silence the opinions of others, such as the Columbia student jihadists.

I'm not sure I can entirely embrace your cynical take on power politics as being an entirely amoral game of chess where power, not what is right, wins. I just don't sense that in President Bush; he may have other faults, but being morally detached is not one of them. How else to explain the flak he has been willing to take to make some of the politically risky decisions he has made because he simply believed that they were the right decisions, rather than holding his finger in the wind like Clinton did (not all of them were risky, like the entitlement ones, which were pure calculation). Congress, that's another story. But if you want to see some real cynical moral detachment, look to the MSM, printing leaked info and unsubstantiated innuendo, all for ratings and Pulitzers.
As for having to be quietly subversive, we are already at that point in academia, entertainment and the MSM; we must not let ourselves be silenced in the political realm; too much is at stake. When I see replays of the fall of the WTC, I am reminded that certain political matters are more than just a game of chess. They are a matter of survival itself, and to me that makes them a moral matter to the highest degree.

shoprat said...

On several occasions I have heard leftists of various sorts say "There is no big picture, only a lot of little ones." or words to that effect. I must admitt that while I undestood what they were saying, I did not understand the significance of that statement until your example. Thanks for the clarification.

Anonymous said...

Understanding the many and varied tactics of the left is of utmost concern, especially since the “axis of evil” is becoming more pronounced every day, and the left is determined to assuage the threat and ignore the true potential. Having learned to recognize some of these tactics from sources like One Cosmos, I’m steadily growing more and more agitated with this mainstream PC society. I have a soon-to-be 4 yr old that will be going to school in the near future, and frankly, you folks are scaring the $#%!@% out of me.

Is there no root cause to the leftist mindset and distorted values? And accordingly is there no recipe or method to begin a conversion process whereby they start to appreciate absolute truth? Many of us have confessed to wandering about the leftist desert in our youth - probably due to the programming we received. How did the awakening begin? Can anyone remember? If so, please bottle it and mass distribute immediately? I’ll help get it in the water supply of the high electoral “blue” states. ;·)

Anonymous said...

9/11 ended up being a "blip" of a wake-up call to the general populace; I'm beginning to feel like the true wake-up call is only going to be preceded by a massive nuclear conflagration... :·(

Eeevil Right Wing Nut said...

Looptloop-
"Is there no root cause to the leftist mindset and distorted values? And accordingly is there no recipe or method to begin a conversion process whereby they start to appreciate absolute truth?"

I wrote a post yesterday on my blog that addresses your questions especially the first one. It is far too long to post here so I hope that Bob won't mind me mentioning it.

Van Harvey said...

“all knowing consists of the integration of subsidiary and tacitly sensed particulars into a focal and articulate whole.”
and "That is, even a neurotic individual will often attack or block the emergence of a particular meaning so as to reduce it to its meaningless particulars."

Oh, that is so true - the leftists most snarling attacks and snears are always against the idea of Principle, because principles, if grasped and used, will absolutely forbid any type of leftist policy from being stated or practiced. Every one of them, Socialism, redistributionism, victimization, deconstructionism, modern art... exists only by throwing huge quantities of isolated particulars in you face in the hopes of obscuring any grasp of the proper principles they are assaulting - Individual Rights, Property Rights, Capitalism, Individualism, Reality and Literary Plot themes and Thematic Composition.

They attempt to disintegrate all reality based integrations, so that they can patch together their conceptual slop in any fashion that pleases their whim of the moment, and it requires that nobody who has a concept of balanced composition and principled thought be allowed to exist, or that they be ridiculed to prevent their being taken seriously, and so becoming a serious threat to them.

Yuch.

Anonymous said...

Must say this post sheds some light on why my cats' veterinarian (aka "kitty doc") is such a cheerful guy who seems well content with his profession. I'm sure there are a lot of gummint-imposed regulatory hassles in veterinary practice (as there are in human medicine), but it's a PC-free zone, at least as far as the canine and feline patients are concerned. I don't think "kitty doc" has to prove that X percent of his patients are dogs, and then break the figure down by breed, or whether he's willing to treat the occasional parrot or other bird, or whether he's careful to respect the gender identity feelings of an intact cat or dog prior to spaying or neutering, or whether he has too many white, tabby, or orange cats as patients and not enough black ones.

Apropos of the nuttiness in clinical psychology, Bob, have the lefties gotten around to defining conservatism as a thought disorder yet?

Anonymous said...

The biggest difference, of course, is that nobody makes a federal case out of it if a vet has sex with his patient.

Gagdad Bob said...

CY--

"Apropos of the nuttiness in clinical psychology, Bob, have the lefties gotten around to defining conservatism as a thought disorder yet?"

Of course! This has been going on for decades, ever since "The Authoritarian Personality" by Theodore Adorno, and now with the rehashing of the same discredited nonsense by John Dean, "Conservatives Without Conscience." You should have heard Dean interviewed by Dennis Prager a few weeks ago. You rarely get to hear a "clean kill," but Prager just took him apart. Very satisfying to my authoritarian personality.

Gagdad Bob said...

CY--

"Apropos of the nuttiness in clinical psychology, Bob, have the lefties gotten around to defining conservatism as a thought disorder yet?"

Of course! This has been going on for decades, ever since "The Authoritarian Personality" by Theodore Adorno, and now with the rehashing of the same discredited nonsense by John Dean, "Conservatives Without Conscience." You should have heard Dean interviewed by Dennis Prager a few weeks ago. You rarely get to hear a "clean kill," but Prager just took him apart. Very satisfying to my authoritarian personality.

Van Harvey said...

Thank you Annonymous Thracymicus for that practical demonstration of disintegrating the vertical from the horizontal.

"The point is to win."

Why? Why would you want to win? To accomplish what, just to gain power? Why? Power to do... what? Power to do something, to accomplish something that you think is important enough to struggle for the power to do... or just for the fun of ordering people around? ‘Power’ just to not have someone else able to order you around?

"Power is a legitimate goal in its own right; having or taking the moral high ground is nice but not really material in political struggles."

Political struggles are for gaining the power to govern in a manner you think is Right... but, oh, wait a minute, if the point is only to win, then you only want to win because... ah shucks, we're back where we started, aren't we?

Without some idea of what those old dead "arrogant peckerwoods" had in mind, there would be no Individual Rights, or Gov't of, by and for the People to hold you back from your quest to "Win".

"What people think, or mass intersubjectivity, is where a power base is developed" - hmm. Where a Power base is developed under the idea that "'Spin' is the important thing", is where tyranny is developed, and in that place foolish peckerwoods such as yourself who thought the only important thing was to "Win" are sure to soon discover that the only important thing left to them is to seek one more breath at the expense of the last breath of all those you once thought to be useful, just another spin of power in order to take another breath, why take another? Why? Just chase the power to take another breath around and around and around.

Spin baby, Spin.

Anonymous said...

Petey--

You may have spoken too soon. Supposedly PETA is accusing some vets in Alabama with large-animal practices of having sex with their (equine) patients.

With regard to small-animal practices, I came across a series of articles indexed in PubMed from a British veterinary journal concerning the incidence of physical and sexual abuse of cats and dogs in the UK. [I was researching the incidence of cruelty to cats for the no-kill shelter I work with.] The authors took a survey of UK vets and published their findings--3/4 of the vets with small-animal practices reported treating cases of physical abuse, and over half reported treating cats and dogs that had been sexually abused. So it's only a matter of time until somebody finds a Foley with a DVM after his name.

Note to Fergus and Booger: I have no idea how a guy could go about performing unnatural acts on a cat without having his own equipment shredded or amputated in the process. Cats of either sex can be mean little ninjas.

Anonymous said...

Great Jogging Liberals, folks! . . could we change the topic?

Anyway, I leave you with one thought - do you have any idea what the purgatorial comeuppance is for someone who abuses animals in such a manner?

Hint: it involves manacles and Sinbad the Gorilla, formerly of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo.

Anonymous said...

A cry for help?
More like a voice crying in the wilderness to help,
to Help.
Like Jeremiah, the left wants to throw you in the sewer and kill you.
The left have no idea Who you work for, Bob!
Thanks for an outstanding post!
Truly one of your best!

Anonymous said...

Van says:

"They attempt to disintegrate all reality based integrations, so that they can patch together their conceptual slop in any fashion that pleases their whim of the moment:"

Yes, and I seem to remember a certain psychotic scientist in a certain Mary Shelley novel that did the same thing with human bodies, and with pretty much the same end result.

Gagdad Bob said...

That was the former Mary Godwin, my crazy great aunt, daughter of my even crazier uncle, William.

Van Harvey said...

Gagdad Bob said...
"That was the former Mary Godwin, my crazy great aunt, daughter of my even crazier uncle, William. "
WHAT?!?!?!?!
Are you SeReIoUs?!
Ah-ho!
Irony and balance in one fell swoop!
LOL!

Van Harvey said...

confudeforeigner said...
"Either you have no inkling of how brutal and violent the Israeli occupation is (which necessitates some research in my view), or you're just a plain flat out racist. Which is it?"

The utter lack of thought such a statement requires; to think of the energy that must be required to maintain such a near constant shunning of facts and values and even current events, to say nothing of history - the absolute focused determination required to not make any rational connections or judgements amidst all the 24-7 news cycles, the energy that must be burned to keep your perfect ignorance so pristine as to 'think' of that statement, let alone believe it - it is truly astounding. Glow-bowl warming indeed.

"which necessitates some research in my view" Truer words... but I'm too tired, and the prospect is far to boring.

To put this in words you can relate to, either you are a truly dumb ass, or as your profile says, "...you are a pathetic, contemptible waste of skin" - which is it?

Anonymous said...

Jew-hating kangaroo--

You are either satan or one of his minions. Which is it?

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