Liberal Defenses Against Reality

It is a truism in clinical psychology -- at least the kind in which I was trained -- that a crisis is an opportunity. That is, it is as if there is an incision in the psyche, such that one can see what is going on under the surface -- beneath the veneer of normality, so to speak.

Again, we all utilize defense mechanisms in order to get through the day life. As discussed in yesterday's post, what is called a "nervous breakdown" is essentially a decompensation, which is to say, a failure of defense mechanisms. The psychic walls have been breached and reality comes pouring in.

During the past week, the collective left has been behaving exactly like a person in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Clearly, they are struggling to cope with what is happening to them -- even though nothing has happened to them as of yet, since president-elect Trump won't even take office for another two months.

This suggests to me that liberalism itself is a collective defense mechanism. Over the past eight years we have seen (once again) that liberalism isn't actually useful for dealing with reality, which is to say, the real world. However, it seems that it is extremely useful for coping with the internal world of the psyche. In other words, its main purpose is as a defense mechanism, not a rational way to actually deal with the world.

Judged on the basis of its efficacy in the world, liberalism is a failure. That being the case, any rational person would be happy to be rid of it. But liberals are not happy, to put it mildly. Rather, they are experiencing varying degrees of terror. ("Fear has won. We are all scared.")

As to liberalism's efficacy in the world, consider just the fact that crime rates are greatly increasing. People are literally less safe. And yet, liberals are feeling terribly unsafe since last week. A couple days ago a defiant Mayor Emanuel warned us that Chicago will always be a sanctuary city, and that illegal immigrants "are safe in Chicago, secure in Chicago, and supported in Chicago."

Ironically, this suggests that illegals are the only people who are safe in Chicago! Wouldn't it be nice if he could say the same of the rest of the population? Chicago's murder rate is up 72%, shootings almost 90%. Don't worry -- it's only American citizens and legal immigrants.

At Happy Acres I found this cartoon, which is funny, but even more true than funny; I don't find it exaggerated at all:

Note how it incorporates a number of common defense mechanisms, beginning with denial. In reality, all defense mechanisms partake of denial, and can even be thought of as modes of denial, some more primitive than others.

Projection is another common defense mechanism, but one must first deny in order to project -- in other words, the denied part of the psyche is projected into the environment and/or into other people.

Hysteria is also a defense, usually involving somatization and dissociation. In the former, emotional pain and conflict are channeled into the body, while the latter involves discontinuities in identity, memory, and perception. You might say that their narratives are disrupted and distorted. It is quite common in adults who were traumatized as children. If you get too close to the trauma, they begin spewing a kind of agitated nonsense. The purpose of the nonsense is to conceal the truth from themselves.

An Immortal and Undeniable Aphorism: Socialism is the philosophy of the guilt of others (NGD). Thus, projection of guilt is central to the left. White privilege means that through a kind of metaphysical magic I inherit the projected guilt of the leftist.

Think of it: to deny guilt is to at once free oneself of responsibility, duty, and obligation. Therefore it is dehumanizing. Yes we are "born guilty," so to speak, but original sin is a very different thing from projection of guilt.

The point is, the leftist projects original sin into others, and calls it "white privilege." It is obviously crazy, but without it the left cannot function. The Bob never exaggerates. The other day a Clinton spokesloon declared that white women voted for Trump due to "internalized misogyny."

Yes, there is indeed such a thing as internalized misogyny. It's called feminism. But that is the subject of a different post, so we'll let it pass for now.

What else do we have... thought control and name calling. Let's begin with the latter. As you know, we are homeschooling the lad, and I have decided to teach him a course on logic. Why logic isn't taught to every child is a mystery to me. Just kidding! Ask yourself: who would benefit from such lessons in mental hygiene? It would absolutely wreck the left.

Ever since he was old enough to pay attention to the television, I've been informally teaching him about illogical methods of persuasion. It began with the commercials, but this year in particular we have been focusing on statements by politicians and their surrogates. So many fallacies!

Hillary Clinton's entire campaign revolved around ad hominem. In the book I'm using, it is the very first logical fallacy covered. Note, however, that ad hominem is not always a fallacy, in particular, if it is relevant to the matter under consideration. If I say, for example, that "Obama is a lying POS," that's ad hominem, but it is also true and can be substantiated ad nauseam.

But to say, for example, that Trump is Hitler, is just crazy talk. Or how about the latest from evil genius Noam Chomsky, who says that the GOP is the "most dangerous organization in world history." If he's being honest, then he is literally insane.

There is another interesting twist here, because ad hominem is what is called a psychological fallacy, in contradistinction to material and logical fallacies. You might say that the latter two fallacies are located in the person or materials used in making the argument, whereas psychological fallacies are ultimately in the audience; they are in essence appeals to the stupidity and prejudices of the people you are trying to convince.

As if we didn't know that liberal politicians treat their constituents like a lunatic treats an idiot! The point is, if you are convinced by ad hominem alone, then you are probably an imbecile.

Finally, thought control. This goes to another defense mechanism. We've all heard of "controlling" people, but what does this really mean? If we imagine a spectrum, hysterical and obsessional would be at antipodes. Hysterics are "out of control," while obsessives have an unusual need for psychic control. From an Old Textbook by Professor Gradschool:

"Obsessional defenses are repetitious acts or thoughts usually devoted to some act of controlling -- displaced from anxiety about controlling an internal state, an impulse or emotion..."

Such thinking is quite brittle, and the obsessional individual is prone to intense anxiety if the defense is threatened. In this view, the entire regime of speech codes is a kind of obsessional defense, for which reason safe spaces are needed when the defense is breached.

The end.