| Subject: | [socialcredit] The Psychopathology of Hatred | | Date: | Tuesday, July 4, 2006 14:41:08 (-0700) | | From: | William B. Ryan <w_b_ryan @.....com>
|
Excerpts from submissions to this list earlier today
that I rejected for distribution:
Excerpt 1: "And as for your 911 reference, you might
recall that practically everyone else in the world
writes it the proper way round, 11.9. Frankly, that
bit gives weight to the conspiracy theories of an
internal job to justify a war for oil."
Excerpt 2: "Bin Laden and those that follow him are
'evil' and 'insane'? Well, I don't adhere to the
concept of murder, whether that murder takes place in
the name of Islam, or in the name of ZOG, so I guess I
consider both sides 'evil', but I will state that I
believe it's foolish to believe that members of
Al-Qaeda , especially the leadership, is 'insane'."
For those uninitiated in the jargon of paranoid
conspiracy theory, ZOG refers to "Zionist Occupied
Government," their term for the government of the
United States.
Most persons with such deviant personalities are
probably able to go about their daily lives without
harming themselves or others in ways that are
prohibited by law.
The supreme task for the rest of us, in terms of civil
society, is to keep them out of positions of authority
and power. Otherwise, we have no problem with them
going about their daily lives.
We do that constitutionally and democratically through
structured checks and balances in an environment where
most people are literate, a condition which we in the
United States have achieved.
A monster like Stalin or Hitler could never achieve
power in the United States, I am quite certain.
A mediocrity could, yes. We've had many of them. And
the trains don't always run on time, I will admit.
-
And, by the way, while we're on the subject of
mediocrities, congratulations to the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration for a job well
done.
Godspeed, Discovery!
On this Fourth of July, 2006.
--------------------------------------------
FAIR USE CLAIMED:
Bob Robins' latest book, co-authored with Jerrold
Post, is Political Paranoia: The Psychopathology of
Hatred (Yale University Press, 1997). Among other
things, this work examines the psychological factors
that contribute to the willingness to espouse wild and
usually unfounded conspiratorial thinking. From the
Kennedy assassinations to the belief that the US
government continues to hide conclusive evidence of
alien visitations, such theories abound, not only in
the realms of tabloid journalism.
----------------------------------------------------
From Library Journal:
Paranoia is an underlying theme in political life.
While healthy suspicion is invaluable to leaders,
extreme cases are disastrous for citizens and nations
alike. Arguing that humans have a natural tendency
toward paranoia based on the fear of strangers and the
need for friends, Robins and Post (When Illness
Strikes the Leader: The Dilemma of the Captive King,
LJ 2/15/93) examine the role of paranoia in the
political context. They first discuss the basic
elements of the paranoid condition, then explore past
paranoid episodes (Salem witch hunts,) paranoid
societies (the Dobu society of New Guinea), and
conspiracy thinking. Along the way, they examine the
paranoid regimes of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin,
and Adolf Hitler as well as those of Jim Jones, David
Koresh, and Middle East terrorists. The result is a
fine complement to Anton Neumayr's Dictators in the
Mirror of Medicine: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin (Medi-Ed
Pr., 1995). Recommended for public and academic
libraries. Stephen L. Hupp, Univ. of Pittsburgh at
Johnstown, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-
From Kirkus Reviews
Lightly bolstering commonsensical armchair analysis of
history's despots and cultists, this cursory survey
manages to tell a bit less than we may sense we
already know about the pathological use of power. Of
Robins's (Political Science/Tulane Univ.) and Post's
(Psychiatry/George Washington Univ.) theme-- "that
paranoia is a characteristic mentality of the late
twentieth century''--this review of destructive
regimes leaves little doubt, if there ever was any.
But primarily retailing the well-known behavior of the
likes of Pol Pot and cult leader Jim Jones, it is
weaker on the more vexing question of their success in
leading, in the extreme cases, entire societies to
severe self-mutilation. After summarizing some basic
psychology about the "need for enemies,'' the authors
largely neglect much examination of the specific
conditions that allowed these paranoid delusions to be
writ so large--save to quickly observe, for example,
that in the Middle East conspiratorial thinking is
fostered by a history marked by actual conspiracies or
that interwar Germany was in "distress.'' By the
chapter on Hitler, the tininess of the psychological
analysis (the possible Jewish grandfather) relative to
the magnitude of the events in question becomes
obvious. When the French and Russian revolutions are
principally cited for operating "as if [they] were to
produce a messiah or introduce a millennium'' (a
condition the authors classify as a "pairing group''
state), it seems that any contextual understanding of
social movements or conflict has been overshadowed by
the psychopolitical angle. And yet the banal truth of
political paranoia's rampancy is not even fully enough
represented here, as the diagnostic line drawn around
the pathological--decontextualized even in an example
as immediate as the militia movement--underplays the
wider spectrum of irrationality, superstition, and
resentment along which most mainstream politics reside
as well. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP.
All rights reserved.
-
American Political Science Review. September 2000:
"insightful ... compelling blend of ... theory and
historical analysis." "thoughtful overview of how
paranoia can insinuate itself into the body politic"
-
Book Description:
Paranoia is not an obscure mental state afflicting
some individuals but a widespread condition of modern
societies, say the authors of this engrossing book.
Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality,
explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary
history, and examine the conditions that must exist
before the message of the paranoid takes root in a
vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and
genocidal violence.
-----------------------------------------------------
Paranoia is not an obscure mental state afflicting
some individuals but a widespread condition of modern
societies, say the authors of this engrossing book.
Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, M.D., experts in
political psychology, document and interpret the
malign power of paranoia in a variety of contexts—in
political movements like McCarthyism, in organizations
like the John Birch Society, in leaders like Hitler,
Stalin, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, and
among extreme groups that commit violence in the name
of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Indeed, Robins
and Post show that the paranoid dynamic has been
aggressively present in every social disaster of this
century.
Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality,
explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary
history, and examine the conditions that must exist
before the message of the paranoid takes root in a
vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and
genocidal violence. Their wide-ranging discussion
sheds light on many troubling episodes in our history:
· why more than 900 people committed suicide in
Guyana in 1978 with their leader, Jim Jones;
· how the terrorists who bombed New York’s World
Trade Center in New York in 1993 justified their
violence in the name of God;
· how the need for enemies in the wake of the
dissolution of the Soviet empire led to a rise in
anti-Semitism in some Eastern European countries even
though the Jewish population had been nearly
decimated;
· how paranoia underlies racism—among both whites
and blacks;
· why the conspiracy theory elaborated in Oliver
Stone’s film JFK strikes such a resonant chord in the
viewing public;
· and much more.
Robert S. Robins is professor of political science and
deputy provost at Tulane University. He has served
several presidential administrations as a consultant
in political psychology. Jerrold M. Post, M.D., is
professor of psychiatry, political psychology, and
international affairs at George Washington University.
He founded and for more than two decades headed the
U.S. government’s Center for the Analysis of
Personality and Political Behavior.
-----------------------------------------------
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