I'll preface this by suggesting that one of the dangers one faces in setting oneself in opposition to the wishes of others is that in moments of weakness we may forget the rules - and it is the rules in a way that we are really fighting for. It is adherence to a better set of rules, hypothetically at least, that makes us better then our opponents. But one does tire. Sometimes you get the feeling that beneath all the rationalizations, justifications and excuses the people you are are opposed to are just "bad guys." Basically that's how cops keep sane. They really can't go that far into motivation of the bad guys.
It also doesn't help when one has the certain knowledge that by cutting a few corners and applying rapid solutions to problems one will not be condemned, but rather applauded by those in their own camp.
Myth, which is my beat, so to speak, is very close to the id. It tries to, as it were, allow representatives from all over the psyche to co-exist..History, which shapes myth, is a slightly different story. In victory one may be magnanimous - but it is by no means necessary and in doing so one increases risk. In practical terms this comes down to killing everyone in a defeated tribe, or merely killing the males, or merely killing the males of the ability to fight. Do you see how merciful we have become? This sort of slaughter hardly ever happens nowadays,. even if it does happen in the bible all the time.
In any case one of the telling aspects of a professional it seems is they tend not to over rate their ability to change things. Al Jesson, my mentor and Pyschoanalyst, MD, Phd, etc constantly stated at the end of his career that he was unsure most of his patients would not have healed themselves.
The point I am getting at is that one must at all times bear in mind the strong possibility that a cure, however attained, by science, or belief, is not always possible. People may simply believe, in their hearts, that doing things that we think of as bad, are not so. What is more this process of belief systems goes beyond mere doing things for rewards. If the mind were that simple we'd have made a better world a long time ago. Do you see what I'm getting at? There are instances where no matter how sensible one argues for a truth the opponent will not accept it, even, or maybe especially, if one is arguing for the good of the opponent.
Basically Naomi's thesis is that Milton Friedman is the modern version of Herbert Spenser, a servant, apologist for those needing excuses to appropriate other people's money. Where I come from, Brooklyn, everyone was familiar with "the mob." It touched everyone and in some regards it was a poor man's social order. But the mob was an effective killing machine because the one who pulled the trigger was never the one who gave the command to do so - and hence the connection was easier to hide. The stupidity of the current Republican hit men is not unexpected, but let's pray it remains so.
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here's the actual essay as written offline
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Am currently reviewing Naomi Kleins' "The Shock Doctrine". Waited longer then ordinary because I thought I knew what it was about since she's been speaking about it for several years, in articles and interviews, but there's an element to it I was not aware of.
Incidently , for the sake of consistency, and because it's no longer a phrase in over use one can use the phrase "Through the looking glass" with a reasonable amount of certainly, as long as you don't over do it. Broad;y speaking it refers to the need or option of an operative to benefit from the exact opposite of their purported interest.
In other words the DA's interest is best served by convincing the public that a great threat is extant and that he or she can solve it, given resources and a free hand. The beauty of a looking glass operation is that since the perceived threat is non existent it is that much easier to prevent it's getting worse. My background in politics educated me all too well as to how this works and it borders on Taoist awareness.
The threat which is presented to the public is not a real threat and likewise if a real threat should arise it is then prevented from public perception. Politicians do this because we know that the public is simple minded and/or because we want to spare them any undue anxiety. It's like the many who cheats on his wife and gets upset when someone tells her, because he loves her.
And Klein and I have been traveling roughly parallel paths for years. She started with the No Logo thing, and I was was astounded at the way the creation of the corporate logo seemed to have an almost psychic effect on the corporation itself - as if it were taken beyond human responsibility.
And I may as well be honest here. Prior to the second world war ( a period when germans placed harelips in ovens) it was standard medical procedure to regard a cleft palate as part of a constellation of incurable birth defects, one of which was mental retardation. Having done rather well on intelligence tests in sixth grade I was not about to accept that designation. Aside from whatever hearing loss or the way people will shun "monsters" and avoid talking to them, I was of the mind to believe that the lifestyle of the harelip, which at the time meant being locked up in attic rooms, if you were lucky, was not conducive to generalized intelligence.
In short the world was dead set on driving me bonkers and I did not and do not wish this to happen. One might also add that genetic modification of the human species is just around the corner and there will be more like me in the sense of being "imperfect" and we are going to have to find a way to live, or die.
So what I did, even as a child, is I made it into a game. Rather then being Quasimodo haunting the heights of Notre Dame, I thought of myself as a space pilot on long missions, interacting primarily with technology.
In any event, Naomi Klein makes an interesting connection between the use of debilitating conditioning to remove a persons resistance to obeying orders and the strange insistence, which we must assume os an actual belief, among disaster capitalists that before a new world can be created the old must be destroyed. We've covered many times what could be called the primary advertising paradigm. Introduce pain, introduce product, remove pain and then the removal of pain is associated with the introduction of the product and then the subject does what you want , which is to buy the product.
It has nothing to do with whether the product is desirable or not.
Obviously I'm not going to review the entire Shock Doctrine book, but I will it's worth considering in light of personal survival terms. We've covered the myth of the eternal return in various ways, but obviously the human psyche is so predisposed to it that it really ought be thought of in terms of a primal force, a dragon if you will.Nietzsche was a jerk, with his beyond good and evil. The syphilis that killed him obviously was not - to live in a mytho-poetic reality however which is one way of dealing with the information war a truer metaphor is to live not through the looking glass, but in the looking glass, like the zen finger pointing at the moon.
And academics have names for everything - which isn't all that bad. Another myth so common as to be axiomatic is the myth of the golden era. We call it the garden of eden but the great tragedy about this myth ( and all myths have great tragedies associated with them) is that we may believe that the only way to return to the garden of Eden is to destroy everything in our present world.
The problem with that myth, suffice to say, is the believers usually are not willing to just destroy themselves, but insist on destroying the lives of everyone else first.
So don't kid yourself
-- Tamlin
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