The Intelligent Stupidity and Well Adjusted Insanity of the Left

The infrequency of posting over the past week isn't due to an absence of ideas or inspiration -- AKA coonstipation -- just lack of time.

The irregularity does, however, make the continuity of logorrhea more of a challenge -- like going back to sleep and trying to resume the dream one was having. I can do that sometimes. Just not after a week.

What was the dream? Something about how to tell if conservative liberals are no better than illiberal leftists who use politics as a way to manage their psyche (mainly by projecting hatred and other impulses and emotions into conservatives). Although it's always best to deal with left wing arguments on the merits (in a face-to-face setting), this doesn't mean we can't afterwards examine leftism on a deeper level and laugh behind their backs.

As we've discussed in the past, leftism is a collective psychological defense rooted in primitive mechanisms such as denial, splitting, projection, delusion, fantasy, acting out, and even hallucination (what else to call it when someone looks at our president and sincerely "sees" a racist, or Russian spy, or anti-Semite?).

What I mean is that, if I'm having a conversation with a leftist, I don't just tell him to his face that he's crazy, or a retard, or needs to grow up. That would be rude. Nor do I like to play the Psychologist Card, because that is one of the tricks of the left. However, it doesn't mean that privately I don't regard the ineducable leftist as more in need of psychotherapy than dialectic.

In this regard, we want to do the opposite of the left, in that they dismiss conservative arguments by simply attacking our motives -- for example, we are opposed to affirmative action because we are White Supremacists, or don't accept AGW hysteria because we Hate Science. Much progress could be made in "healing our divisions" if the left would simply deal with our arguments on the merits instead of habitually accusing us of that which they are unconsciously guilty.

People who condemn imaginary motives may or may not be correct on this or that policy, but they are certainly immature, and immaturity is never the answer (and soon becomes the problem).

For example, a group of emotionally stunted liberals may "believe in free speech" as much as you or I. But this doesn't for one moment prevent them from violently prohibiting opinions they don't like, because of the nature of splitting. Splitting is a defense mechanism that allows one to simultaneously believe two opposite theses without any cognitive dissonance, or even any real awareness that one is being illogical.

To back up a bit, you might say that mature defense mechanisms are rooted in a horizontal division between the conscious and unconscious mind, whereas primitive defense mechanisms are a result of vertical splits that extend from the conscious into the unconscious. We've all heard of "multiple personality disorder," which is simply an extreme case of vertical splitting, in which the sub-personalities are autonomous and split off from one another.

But this is simply an extreme case of a much more common and mundane phenomenon. It's what humans do. Think, for example, of all the Hollywood feminists who, until a few days ago, loved Harvey Weinstein (HT American Digest). Now, if your mind is whole and integrated, then it is impossible to simultaneously "respect women" and "love Harvey." But with splitting, all things are possible!

Think of it: how can you detest Christopher Columbus, even while your public detestation is an outgrowth of the European values he brought to this erstwhile bleeding-edge world of Stone Age barbarism? Or, how can Black Lives matter to you, when your movement will result in thousands more blacks being murdered by other blacks?

Indeed, how can you protest the very flag that symbolizes the sacred right to petition government for the redress of grievances? Go ahead! Petition away! But why do so in a way that severs the limb you're protesting on? Granted, these protesters may well be borderline retarded. But that is no excuse for being crazy. Plenty of people with IQs lower than 85 are capable of understanding principles. Children certainly are (emotionally healthy children, I mean).

The other day it occurred to me that there are two main kinds of liberal: there are those who are susceptible to correction (as indeed was I), and those who are absolutely fixed in their beliefs -- who cannot benefit from any amount of fact, logic, information, or experience, no matter how brutal the mugging.

So, what explains the difference? It is certainly not a function of intelligence, or there would be no intelligent leftists such as Noam Chomsky, nor the stampeding herd of tenured lemmings more generally. Chomsky may be a genius for all I know, but this does nothing to prevent him from being a malignant retard. How is this possible?

Well, if the concept of vertical splitting didn't exist, then we'd have to invent something like it to explain someone like Chomsky. In a well-worn analogy, think of the mind as a wristwatch. We can observe the movement of the hands and changing of the date, but we have no idea why the actions are taking place. The best we can do is propose a theory that explains the phenomena. But we can never actually observe the causes beneath the phenomena, for subjectivity by definition cannot be objectified.

In this context, the concept of splitting is a way to imagine how a person can harbor mutually contradictory ideas. How, for example, is it possible for a Catholic to be a leftist? In (mere) reality it isn't possible, but that hardly prevents it from happening. Examples abound: Nancy Pelosi. Ted Kennedy. Joe Biden. Pope Francis.

You may argue that these people aren't mentally ill. Okay. But how exactly do you define mental illness? Mental illness, in my opinion, cannot be defined socially: for example, a well-adjusted, conflict-free Nazi or native American cannibal who fits in well with all the other Nazis and cannibals is nevertheless sick. But by what standard?

Ironically, psychology cannot answer the question, because it long ago drained the multicultural Koolaid to the dregs, so Who Are We To Judge? In this inverted world, judgment and discrimination based upon objective and universal standards is evil, such that the healthy person is rendered sick. Nice trick!

There is a bill in California that will make it against the law -- punishable even by prison -- to Misgender someone. In other words (to paraphrase Ace of Spades) it will be a crime for us to properly gender someone who misgenders himself.

As we've discussed before, there is rebellion and there is inversion, the latter far more pernicious than the former. The modern left has gone all-in for inversion -- for things that cannot be and mustn't be, the former going to ontology, the latter to morality; and if your ontology is wrong, then your conscience will follow.

Now, back to our definition of mental health. I dwelled on this question in the bʘʘK, but only after about two seconds of cogitation. In other words, the answer just popped into my head, but even so, I've never come up with a better one since then.

Two words: integration. And actualization. Despite the brevity, these are full of implications. Take the first, for example: the cure for the splitting described above is integration. And what is the cure for immaturity more generally? Well, immaturity presupposes maturity, maturity presupposes a developmental telos, and a telos presupposes an objective end of humanness, AKA actualization of an archetype.

So, what is this objective end? Note that the left would dismiss the question as either meaningless or pernicious. We'll pick up the thread tomorrow. If I wake up early enough. If not, then Friday.