It's All Fun & Games Until Your Delusions Collide with Reality

Generally speaking, things are never okay. Nor are they not okay. What mainly changes is the collective perception -- the group fantasy -- that things are or aren't okay. At the moment, the group fantasy that President Biden is okay -- that he is in charge of anything, including his own mind -- is crumbling. 

They gave me a list here... The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O'Donnell, NBC.

Thanks for the tip, Creepthroat! If I'm Kelly O'Donnell -- or a journalist, rather -- I'm obliged to cut out the muddleman and find out who they are: Who gave you the list, Grandpa? An extra scoop of ice cream if you can remember their names! 

In any event, this crumbling of the protective group fantasy leads to an upsurge of primitive emotions, including anxiety, fear, rage, and even panic. But it can also provoke primitive defense mechanisms such as denial. Wait -- are there still people in denial about Biden's cognitive dysfunction? 

It depends on what we mean by "denial, i.e., whether we mean it clinically or colloquially. People in the former category are just crazy and/or stupid and obedient, while folks in the latter category are either the usual cynical and manipulative political sociopaths, or else terrified for another reason, one that can be conveyed in two dreadful words: President and Harris. 

As is the case with the individual, the breakthrough of primitive emotion reveals what the defense mechanism had been defending against: individuals and groups inhabit fantasies of various kinds in order to ward off the emotions they would feel in their absence. When it happens to an individual, it's called "decompensation." When it happens to a group, it's called... 

I don't know if there's a specific word for it, but one can certainly see the effects of the crumbling group fantasy. But only those who weren't plugged into the fantasy can perceive it. Readers of this blog -- trolls excepted -- never adopted the delusion that Biden is in full possession of his faculties. We've been full of dread since last November, with no comforting delusions to distance ourselves from the cold hard facts of life. 

For us it hasn't been a matter of "if" but when: when will reality and delusion collide? In one sense we've drawn comfort from the truism that what cannot go on will not go on. Still, it's always a shock when it suddenly ceases to go on. This doesn't happen to other animals, only humans. Rabbits don't convince themselves that coyotes are their friends so they can go about their lives in peace. 

But in the past week or two, millions of Americans have been shocked to learn that their president is a cognitively diminished husk of his former mediocrity, truly incapable of leading a Cub Scout troop, much less the military. When did this happen? And why so suddenly? Poor Jill Biden! Her husband was so strong and vibrant just seven months ago, when he was sworn in!

The power of denial. 

Let's leave politics per se aside and go to the deeper metaphysics of it all. Again, other animals don't have this problem. Why? How are human beings different?

Ultimately it has to do with the distinction between appearances and reality. (Ortho)paradoxically, a properly functioning human being lives in neither, but rather, in the tension between these poles. This hardly mean reality doesn't exist. Rather, it exists and we know it exists, but we can never know the thing itself in its totality. This latter is reserved for God -- or, if you prefer to leave him out of it, just the nonlocal sponsor, or Principle, of our intellection.

It is possible, however, to live in the -- or a, rather -- world of appearances. Every ideology, for example, is but appearance, some more ludicrous than others. Why do people choose to inhabit this or that ideology, e.g., feminism, or environmentalism, or progressive wokeism? There's no specific answer, since people are motivated by different unconscious agendas. But generally speaking, it's in order to make the bad feelings go away. Remember?

Yes, but so many of these ideologies are the cause of bad feelings. Look at all the kids who are depressed because they think the world is going to end because of global warming, or the blacks who think they're being persecuted by imaginary white supremacists, or feminists who fantasize that their happiness is thwarted by Big Daddy, et al.

As we mentioned in the previous post, this is where the personal and political intersect: if I've got a lot of personal issues, the culture provides a menu ideologies to help me articulate and contain them. For example, if I'm a typical depressed woman, I can project it out into the Patriarchy, thus distancing myself from my dysphoria while nurturing a false sense of control and even hope for a cure: I'd be so damn happy and fulfilled if it weren't for those toxic men! 

Look at the ridiculous buffoon General Milley. The world is a dangerous place. Enemies are everywhere, and we don't mean loitering grannies, Ashli Babbitt, or the QAnon Shaman -- rather, people who will happily commit suicide if they can just bring a few Christians with them. No wonder he seeks refuge in the safety of his own delusions:

I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it.

Wait, you want to understand yourself? Why not just go into therapy? Why involve the whole military in your Daddy issues?

Me? I know why I'm angry. And I'm always angry; or rather, given the human condition, there are always reasons to be angry.  #1, this isn't heaven and never will be. #2, people aren't perfect and never will be. #3, come to think of it, people are inclined to evil and always will be. 

Memo to this thoroughly postmodern Milley: if you really want to externalize your anger, might I suggest Islamist rage? That should be enough to keep you busy for the next millennium or so.