Letters to the Editor
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Paul R:
Have you considered adding questions of double-bind to your ideas on authoritarianism? It always seems to me one of the hallmarks of authoritarian thinking - attempting to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously.
And not just simply contradictory. But contradictory ideas that simultaneously imply each other, but are fended off with a temporal loop. For the Nazi it was power-worship, and the simultaneous failure of that power, which then became this mindless anti-semitism in an attempt to separate, temporally, both realities.
It also would seem to imply that modern authoritarianism must be ultimately self-destructive. That due to that double-bind, they must unconsciously search for self-destruction.
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Oops!
Another one of those prejudicial metaphors to add to my never-to-be-used-in-the-future list. Profound apologies, jojo.
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Well, at least not around those with the handle jojo!
Dog-faced isn't so bad - my dog is rather handsome.
It's more the equivalency to a decrepit (and starting to become fetid) pundit of the last century. I may be swine, but at least I can recognize a perl ;-)
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I don't think there's any doubt about it
It also would seem to imply that modern authoritarianism must be ultimately self-destructive. -- jojo++
History would confirm, I think, that it isn't just the modern forms, but ancient forms as well. The lone and level sands... etc. The modern forms, though, seem more virulent. They certainly have a shorter half-life, largely due, I think to the advanced instrumentalities at their disposal.
What's worrisome, of course, is the impressive number of us which they can take with them when they do self-destruct, and without giving us even a moment's notice. The flash of light in the sky, followed quickly by oblivion. If it were just ourselves under this threat, the instantaneous nature of it might be a blessing. As it is, the threat to our posterity makes an old evil new again, and causes the sane among us to wonder if the equally old virtues of patience and persistence might not fail us in the end.
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@ usmlrf
The added value I see in GG's posts is a) eloquently dismantling their arguments, b) figuring out how they think in order to better defeat them on the political playing field.
Glenn actually does a fair bit of this; in particular linking to Altemeyer's research. But understanding that a psychotic is hearing hallucinations doesn't prevent you, in polite company even, from saying that there are none. Expounding on reality (particularly to the passing observers) under such circumstances is never wrong.
I'm not sure that "figuring out how they think" from a quasi-rational standpoint (and how they manage to "rationalise" it) is worth the mental effort though. Understanding why they think what they think may be interesting (as Altemeyer's work is), but as long as there's no cure, not particularly helpful either.
No, as Jack here shows in spades, Haldol may be the only recourse. The purpose of the deconstruction of their "logic", and the ridiculing of their twisted views, is for the benefit of the passers-by, to prevent people from getting suckered in. The poison left by their babble is pernicious if not immediatey and decisively countered and buried; I was told yesterday by my sweetie (who's quite a leftist) that most of the fired USAs were Democratic. Where'd this come from? You folks that have been paying attention know. This is what we're up against, and it's what Glenn keeps hammering on from all directions, as well as he can. If you don't like his approach, I wish you'd offer a new one. We're not trying to "convert" Jack here. He's a goner (and thankfully seems to have slunk off). It's that rest of the folks out there, and we need to use every tool at our disposal to do it (seeing as the MSM is in bed with the Bushies, as Glenn has repeatedly pointed out).
Clear now?
Cheers,
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WT:
I don't know if I've ever posted this little snippet here before.
I had an anthropology professor who was a student of Gregory Bateson. He told me that during WWII, Bateson was hired to do a little analysis for the military. He locked himself in a room with Nazi propaganda films for 24 hours (Truly, a man of iron, or at least bronze!)
He popped out with the analysis that the Nazis had to lose. Not objectively, but subjectively. Nothing short of a complete cleansing by fire could satisfy the cultural/psychological pathology of Nazism.
So, Dresden and the rest of the cities in Germany. If they had held out just a bit longer... postwar history would be quite different. Imagine Berlin - even just with the incineration, parts of the city were still damaged in the early '70's.
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Krautshmsacher
This chairman of the FlatEarth Society has been out of communication with mankind for several centuries. Apparently the only flashes of light that have penetrated the man's skull came from the Bush blackhouse. His comments deserve far less then Glenn's attention.
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Sadly, I know about some of this
As a boy of twelve, joyfully exploring the mysteries of a foreign city, I blundered into the bombed-out sector of Pirmasens, Germany, which during the war had suffered the misfortune of remaining visible above low-lying cloud-layers on nights when other, larger German cities were too obscured to be bombed effectively. This misfortune was compounded after the war when Pirmasens found itself in the French Zone of Occupation at a time when the French were in no mood to allow les Boches to rebuild.
By the time I did my wandering, in 1955, the Wirtschaftswunder was already well underway in the rest of Germany, but only just beginning in Pirmasens. There were construction cranes almost everywhere, but none in this one small section of the town.
I had little real knowledge at the time about what had happened -- the war, the bombing, the allied victory, etc., yes -- but not the rest of it, not what had happened to those who onced lived and worked in what was now row upon row of broken walls, roofless partial buildings, three and four stories high, some of them, all surrounded by mounds of rubble covered with knee-high grasses. They seemed to me almost sepulchral, like a cemetary of giants, and muffled in a great sadness.
It was an hour out of my life, no more, and I was a kid, but needless to say, I never forgot it, and to this day I curse those who not only repeat this horror over and over again, but actually seem to enjoy doing it.