Wednesday, October 11, 2017

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.

14 comments:

julie said...

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!

Via Insty, another example: Oxford college bans ‘harmful’ Christian Union from freshers’ fair.

That would be the same university system founded by Christians seven centuries ago. If it's so oppressive, one wonders why any non-Christian would set foot on a university campus in the first place. Oh, right - splitting.

Rick said...

" ...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."

I recall, I think it was in the Gulag Archipelago, that there were some true believers in the camps; prisoners same as any others, who never gave up thinking their captors would soon discover it was just some mistake (and who they really were: faithful to the cause) and release them.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised you didn't mention a basic motive such as power seeking to explain leftist moonbattery. There is no cognitive dissonance in saying contradictory things in the service of manipulation and control. The goal is always very tightly focused and integrated. Power. Control. Dominance. They could be sane but scared.

The left is driven by the fear the redneck yokels will pollute the world just like they might build too many chicken coops and stink up 40 acres. Yokels with chain saws who will cut down any and all vegetation. Duh Earl what happened to the forest? Or conversely, urban rednecks who like to pave over marshes and erect garish roadside juke-joints. Big four wheel drive trucks emitting a diesel stench. Shotguns. Barbed wire. Hot dogs with sawdust in them. Snake oil. The basic fear is the redneck will make the world unbearable. Just like a next door neighbor accumulating junker cars in the front yard and who likes to walk around nude yodeling.

So the leftist wants to preserve her fern bars, nature trails, and all the other moonbat accoutrements of a "refined life." Save Bambi. Save Whales. Green Power. No GMO. et al. So they must castigate behaviors which seem "redneck" or too relaxed in any way. The leftist is very tightly wound around being "nice," "polite," or "campassionate."

The conservative, on the other hand, is also sane but scared. They believe in whooping it up while we're here. The goal is to accumulate chattel, money, poon-tang on the side, and all of the perks of relaxed and abundant living they feel the left could impinge upon with their whale-protecting nonsense. Whales? They make good oil for lamps, don't they? Rain forests? What for? Brown people? What good are they anyway?

Carbon emission control is a direct threat to the enjoyment of lots and lots of gasoline and diesel powered toys, especially the ultimate symbol of conservative lifestyle, the speedboat which mostly sits in the driveway. And the big RV which goes out on the road maybe once every three years.

Wind power? That's for snowflakes, right? C'mon. There's plenty of oil in the ground and plenty of good redneck labor to get it flowing.

Bob, there's no fancy psychology going on behind the scenes. It's all a grab for power or money powered by fear. On both sides.

julie said...

The conservative, on the other hand, is also sane but scared. They believe in whooping it up while we're here. The goal is to accumulate chattel, money, poon-tang on the side, and all of the perks of relaxed and abundant living they feel the left could impinge upon with their whale-protecting nonsense. Whales? They make good oil for lamps, don't they? Rain forests? What for? Brown people? What good are they anyway?

Do you actually know any conservatives?

Endurion said...

Something I wrote about a month ago while thinking about these very things:

So the postmodernist (progressive, leftist, et al) rightly perceives that any "objective" truth, including reality as it were, is the result of some positive will or desire on its own behalf, or the behalf of some force, that it may be thus. Imposed from above, so to speak.

So then truth is a result of a will, or an agency. And an agent is a servant of a master. And this is the charge that they level against it, ultimately.

And so the postmodernist interprets this situation as “evil”, and even as “evil itself” and a system of oppression, with categories of oppressors and victims - to which all beings belong and thereby derive their ontological category of “good or evil“ through those same categories.

God, the male, being the ultimate oppressor.

The Yin, the Female (being) is given form by the breath, the Yang ("gnon-being"), which is male. Male is what makes the female possible and yet it is through the son of the female that the male is known.

And so objective truth, manifested to the creature, is incarnate, in a body, which is the essence of the material, yin, given as form and revelation to that which is in form. This is received from above.

Truth comes down from above, from the Divine will, which is good. Not from below, from the will of man, which is evil.

Often it seems that those who begin to seek truth recoil at what they discover - instinctively feeling threatened and at animosity with the nature of being itself and their own being in particular as it relates to being in itself.

That they are helpless in the hands of God. That they are separated and at odds with The Way.

So the path of denial is the only defense.

So then imperfection is cast as the true perfection. Our sin is lauded as virtue, blaming God for making us sinners by His allowal of a differentiated category of being wherein there is someone who is “not God” and someone who is. That He is some how evil for making creatures in the first place. Or perhaps just for making them real and responsible... which is revealed by the fact that we can even answer thusly to him.

Anonymous said...

Hi Julie:

I left the comment regarding the conservatives. I don't know any conservatives. So I just lampooned whatever tropes came to mind. I write satire, so that should explain that.

Since I live in a city, the population behaves pretty much all the same. Very hard to spot any ideology in play in a city. Differences in income can be spotted readily. City folk will spout off about ideology profusely but there is little evidence they actualize much of it. City dwellers spend a lot of time in vehicles or other conveyances. Suburbanites hoard boats, RV's, and ATV's however many of these seem to gather dust. The city dweller prefers the black military style firearm, which often just sits in a closet.

Get out into the countryside and things change. The rural folk have a different style which is very evident by observation, interview, or review of locally generated documents. People living more than 100 miles from an urban center display a curious mix of conservative and leftist viewpoints. Some believe in UFO's, and often have a mythic, credulous mindset which I greatly enjoy. They make the best conspiracy buffs one could hope for. There is a marked tendency to leave junk in front, back, and side yards, including non-operable vehicles. They are more "relaxed" in general. If they own a boat, they actually use it. Rural gents prefer the shotgun and/or bolt action sporter, which they will use with some regularity. Women are industrious and like to cook and sew if they are not working. They keep busy.

Other than that....yep. You called me out. I don't know squat.

Anonymous said...

Hello Endurion

I enjoyed your comment, thank you. Your comments on the leftist beef with God are especially interesting; how God is evil for making creatures in the first place.

The Left in general is Female, and God is Male. Some of the tensions between these two, which is a recurring topic of the blog author's posts, can be called sexual. The Left resents God's one-sided male power and authority, which they would rather share. Agreed?

That being said, in a more neutral viewpoint, God is of course responsible for making creatures in the first place. The nature of people, as evil sinners, is also God's fault. Human nature was crafted to be what it is. It didn't have to be so, but was created so. This is true, agreed?

So, when distressed, a person may reasonably direct a complaint to God regarding the source of displeasure, especially if their own nature causes an issue. Right?

The Rishis of old, as a work-around for this relationship tension, conjectured the soul consents out of free-will to God's imposed conditions of Earthly life ahead of time. Souls thinking of making a go of it are furnished with a disclosure, and can choose to sign up for a life or not, and if they don't like it once they get here, it can be pointed out they signed the waiver. I think it is an elegant theory and would tend to shut down the whiners.

Cheers.

vanderleun said...

In the regard I assume you are aware of the Cuckoo Clock in Hell by Vonegut. In case not, it goes like this:

The Cuckoo Clock in Kurt Vonnegut's Hell

"I have never seen a more sublime demonstration of the totalitarian mind, a mind which might be likened to a system of gears whose teeth had been filed off at random. Such a snaggle-toothed thought machine, driven by a standard or even by a substandard libido, whirls with the jerky, noisy, gaudy, pointlessness of a cuckoo clock in Hell.

"The boss G-man concluded wrongly that there were no teeth on the gears in the mind of Jones. 'You're completely crazy,' he said.

"Jones wasn't completely crazy. The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth hat are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined.

"Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell--keeping perfect time for eight minutes and twenty-three seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year.

"The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases."

Endurion said...

Hello Anonymous of 10/12/2017 11:43 AM...

I interpret it all, ultimately, through a traditional orthodox Christian perspective, though I lean on many other sources for support and inspiration, such as the Tao Te Ching, etc.

Agreed on point one. Though I would say that "being" itself is female while God (which we can only call non-being, or "gnon-being") is male. Yin/Yang. Although this categorization can be subject to some confusion and/or blurriness - but it works in general.

Not agreed on point two. The nature of people as evil sinners is not God's fault but the Enemy's and Adam's. Human nature was crafted "capable of sining" but also, simultaneously, "capable of not sinning". The capability conferred responsibility to man as an actor, or agent, to act as God's own son or on his own behalf. The Enemy fell into the trap first, acting "on his own behalf" - next convincing the man, Adam, to also act on his own behalf by sowing doubt as to the motives of God not desiring man to be "like God" having the knowledge of Good and Evil.

So, it did not have to be so, no... but God saw that the ultimate good should be achieved by it being so. That it would be "possible" for sin to happen - though the agent of sin/evil/curse is not God's will but His creature's own will. This has been described by some as the doctrine of Divine Concurrence or permission.

So, when distressed, the soul should not regard this defect of soul God's fault but it's own fault. God, by definition, has no fault. In fact, God provides the means of correction of this problem through the death of Jesus, who died for the sin of the world that a new world might begin in Him.

Regarding your point of the Rishis' conjecture - I like it. It attributes responsibility properly to the creature rather than the Creator.

The beauty of it all is that the Creator entered creation, taking upon Himself the nature of the creature, and subsequently responsibility for the sin of the entire world, eliminating it in his own perfect, sacrificial life and death - defeating the finality of the punishment through resurrection and ascension, Who indeed will come again to deliver the creature/creation from its bondage to corruption.

Anonymous said...

Hello Endurion:

I like your traditional orthodox Christian perspective, although I note the Christian work-around has a lot more moving parts than the older Rishi take. It does the job though, and should make complainers buckle down and focus.

The concept of an Enemy is interesting, since God would have to create this same Enemy, and so in a side-ways manner, has to to take responsibility for the Enemies crafty ways. The Enemy could not create itself, or it would be God. God and the Enemy therefore must perforce be regarded as the same entity playing in two different modalities. The Enemy must therefore be regarded as somehow necessary for God's intended outcome for the entire Earth project.

Looking at it from a business perspective, the CEO may always try to blame middle management or lower echelon employees for misdeeds, but properly, the buck must stop with the CEO, who vets and is supposed to monitor all company policies and practices. Nefarious CEO's have been notoriously successful at evading prison by finger-pointing.

Placing maybe 50-60% accountability on the creature, rather than the Creator, is of course proper, as the duties and responsibility of being a creature are made very evident and standards must be followed, applying discipline and effort.

But making God blameless is evidence a thorough job of gas-lighting has taken place, which should not stand uncorrected. There is no need to be a complete chump in this enterprise.

Endurion said...

Hello again Anonymous:

I would still insist that God need not take responsibility for the Enemy's decisions. The responsibility lies in each individual will in and of itself.

Yes, it appears that it was necessary for it to happen this way, otherwise it would not have. God, by definition, is perfect and completely omniscient and almighty - and so would never have chosen a path that was not the absolute best and only possible path to the ultimate good.

Consider this: God wanted a being that would be "like him". That is, capable of knowing and enjoying Him as He actually is - and so this required creating beings (angels) and a being (man) in His own image. In the Image of the I AM.

Now, God's will is totally free. Nothing other than Himself compels or constrains Him. And so the creatures that He made also were given an analog to this sort of freedom of will in that we each have our own individual volition. Yet for us this manifests itself into a scenario of "my will or thy will" be done.

And so Adam and all of the angels were created "capable of sinning" and "capable of not-sinning". Capable of exercising their "own-will" in perfect harmony with God's will, or setting up themselves (apart from God) as the prime standard, the north star, by which it should operate. We see in Isaiah that Lucifer was the most beautiful of God's creation. The full pattern. The tip of the pyramid in the hierarchy of heaven. We could infer that there was nothing above him but the uncreated God Himself. And in this economy there was a fullness, a pleroma, of beings ordered under YHVH. Isaiah says that Lucifer was "lifted up" within himself, filled with pride, and in this moment fell from grace. Revelation says he took 1/3rd of the angels with him. At some point shortly thereafter, Lucifer approached man with a proposition. That together they should exist in and of themselves, independent and apart from God, and that thereby they would become God.

This appears to have been an unavoidable problem. The pleroma of the hierarchy of being led to a situation where one at the top would indeed fall, and set his sites on the next highest order of being, Man. But this fault is not in the Creator (who is blessed forever) but in the creature. To rebel against this guilt is literally what Lucifer does and tempts man to do daily. "Be like me: blame God".

When instead we should thank God for making us in the first place and even more for paying the unimaginable price required to save us from our own treason and rebellion.

God alone is self-existent and un-contingent. All the rest of us derive our contingent existence from His necessary existence. Our existence was never necessary for His, but His for ours. So it is not God's being that required the death of His Son for sin - but our being. Otherwise He never could have had creatures like us to live with Him and enjoy Him forever. But it was not for His benefit that we were created, but for ours who had (and have) no life in or of ourselves.

I would note that the Christ is called "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" in Revelation 13:8. So clearly this "self-donation of God" was always part of what He understood must happen in order for humanity to be saved from the error of the Enemy.

God is blameless. We are the chumps. And then God appeared in our midst as a man and took the blame of the entire cosmos upon Himself. In Christ's death on the cross. So maybe God is a chump after all? Here we see the great exchange between the Creator and the creature in this one blessed event.

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... (and) for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 5:19&21

Anonymous said...

Endurion:

If you are not a professional minister, then you should be. That was the most lucid explanation of the situation, as seen through the Christian lens, I have been exposed to. There is also something very light and happy in your words which is appreciated. the post imparts a cheerful mood.

However, the early crucial decision point, where God decided to give His creatures autonomous free will, was His choice alone. And this is what I'm talking about. Creatures didn't make that choice. But creatures are sure as heck feeling the consequences, which probably were foreseen by the Creator. And that's what I mean by accountability, in the basic foundations and rules of the game. All that unrolls afterward are consequences which can never be divorced from that crucial decision point. That God's special 40% of the blame.

You write "we should thank God for making us in the first place, and even more for paying the unimaginable price required to save us from our own treason and rebellion."

What? Who says we weren't more comfy in the un-created state? Who is making a sacrifice just by being here? Sure, its a good time for the most part. But let's not overplay that bit. Who knows, it might be a better time elsewhere.

God derives some sort of gratification from our existence, and I'm sure He thanks us too in His own way. But really, an unimaginable price to save us from "our" treason and rebellion? After ensuring we had the capability to be treasonous and rebellious? You don't think He calculated those odds ahead of time? I don't buy the big favor theory. This is a symbiotic relationship we have here.

It's like handing a baby a razor blade and then getting righteous when she cuts herself. I think the deal is a whole different thing. Not that Christianity doesn't work as a mode of worship; it is actually among the finest ever crafted.

Endurion said...

“Creatures didn’t make the choice” to be given a choice. You are correct about this. However, they were, in the beginning, given the capacity to choose rightly or not. So the fault lie in the creature itself for actually making the choice itself.

Yes, God knew what the creature “would do” - but God did not make the choice itself. The creature did. The federal head of humanity, Adam, made the fateful choice to sin, and by his action “many were made sinners”. As the Apostle Paul says “by one man, many were made sinners, so also by One man will many be made righteous”.

God foresaw, also, that he would be required to take on the flesh of man in order to raise up the flesh of man. The Apostle Paul declares that Christ is the Second Adam, who undoes the disobedience of the first Adam by His perfect obedience for us. So that, through His resurrecting power, we should receive a mind and a heart and a body and a will just like His in the age to come. Jesus is called “the firstborn among many brethren”, and the prototokos of the new race of men, begotten not in Adam, but in Christ.


If you’ll indulge me, I would like to share St. Augustine’s thoughts on this particular point, as he puts it so well, and it might help clear some things up:

“Neither are we to suppose that because sin shall have no power to delight them, free will must be withdrawn. It will, on the contrary, be all the more truly free, because set free from delight in sinning to take unfailing delight in not sinning. For the first freedom of will which man received when he was created upright consisted in an ability not to sin, but also in an ability to sin; whereas this last freedom of will shall be superior, inasmuch as it shall not be able to sin. This, indeed, shall not be a natural ability, but the gift of God. For it is one thing to be God, another thing to be a partaker of God. God by nature cannot sin, but the partaker of God receives this inability from God. And in this divine gift there was to be observed this gradation, that man should first receive a free will by which he was able not to sin, and at last a free will by which he was not able to sin the former being adapted to the acquiring of merit, the latter to the enjoying of the reward. But the nature thus constituted, having sinned when it had the ability to do so, it is by a more abundant grace that it is delivered so as to reach that freedom in which it cannot sin. For as the first immortality which Adam lost by sinning consisted in his being able not to die, while the last shall consist in his not being able to die; so the first free will consisted in his being able not to sin, the last in his not being able to sin. And thus piety and justice shall be as indefeasible as happiness. For certainly by sinning we lost both piety and happiness; but when we lost happiness, we did not lose the love of it. Are we to say that God Himself is not free because He cannot sin? In that city, then, there shall be free will, one in all the citizens, and indivisible in each, delivered from all ill, filled with all good, enjoying indefeasibly the delights of eternal joys, oblivious of sins, oblivious of sufferings, and yet not so oblivious of its deliverance as to be ungrateful to its Deliverer.”

One, same, free will in all of us. An autonomous heteronomy!

Message 1 of 2.

Endurion said...

Were we comfy in our uncreated state? Surely. More comfy? Well, “we” weren’t anything at all. There were no other “individuals” other than God with and in Himself.

This recalls to mind the writing of Chuang-tzu, which I took much comfort in, in my past life:

"How can I know that wanting to live is not delusion? How can I know that aversion to death is not like a homeless waif who does not know where to return?”

But the beautiful thing is that God wanted someone just like you to exist. And not for a moment only, but with Him, together, forever, to know and to share the life and the glory that the Son has had with the Father from before the world began - and to shout a shout of praise and adulation which consumes all space and time (past, present and future) in the light of the glory of His love - world without end.

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