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Humankind cannot bear much reality
T S ELiot
The poets know things before most other people do…I am sure many of us have heard of Freud and his “discovery ” that we are not conscious of many of our desires, fears and past traumas,That we may, without knowing, lie to ourselves about why we do things…[ he was not interested merely in sex]
That nervous illnesses may be an attempt to solve such problems may be known to some… however it seems this may make life harder.
So for example you may
hate your mother-in-law but you do not find this0 acceptable to your ideal self image…. of the loving person you believe you are [Of course we both love and hate most people who are really close to us]
A person in that situation might develop migrainous style headaches,agoraphobia,fear of walking on cracked pavements ,fear of driving,fear of women,obsessive cleaning etc… and so in a way they avoid the real issue… that they hate a family member.They don’t do this because they are stupid and they don’t choose their symptoms [ which may also be caused by perfectionism,overwork,fatigue,anguish].
They do it partly because anger or hatred are so painful for them because of past life events or severe punishments that they are completely unable to allow the emotions out into their conscious mind.At some level we all deceive ourselves.
I was wondering if something similar might be applied to politicians.Think of the bedroom tax,sanctioning benefit claimants leaving them starving,making people blind and mentally ill apply for work etc.
Or ask yourself did the British Government consciously want to commit genocide in South Aftica in the Boer War when they invented Concentration Camps and filled them with Afrikaaners?From our perspective it seems unthinkable that governments could do such bad things with no anxiety or fear
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Now,we can suffer from lack of imagination like Generals in WW1 who were horrified by trench warfare only after they saw it in the flesh.
Or could there be a mechanism like a neurosis where they do not really know what they are doing?
I suppose it brings us to a perrenial question:Is it SIN or is it SICKNESS / NEUROSIS/PSYCHOSIS?”
[If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives” (1 John 1:8-10).
]In recent years sin has gone out of fashion as a concept and we tend more and more to call bad people sick…This implies they have no choice or free will about some of their actions whereas sin implies we have chosen our actions to some extent,, and using a stupid economic model may be sinful if enough advice has not been taken
Just look at the American Handbook of Psychiatry where disobedient children have “oppositional defiance disorder” as opposed to normal childish ways of learning how to be a part of a family or group.. and knowing when it’s good to obey.. and when older maybe it’s not always good as adolescents learn slowly and painfully.Returning to discuss politicians I think it would require tremendous effort not to know what is happening to the poor here.
Indeed I was talking about this with a taxi driver, coming back from the biopsy, who was so interested in the topic and enjoyed it so much he knocked 30% off the fare for me…
Most of the people i know believe either the government is sinful or that the poor are sinful and deserve this punishing regime….
But what if they do not realise? How can Ian Duncan Smith go to Mass receive Communion [Jesus’s body] having confessed his sins and done penance then carry on with his style of politics unless he is using some defence mechanism to blind himself to the effects of his worksBTW how much have they wasted on new technology and how can they expect older unemployed people to buy computers and do everything online?
I found it a bit daunting and I am a mathematician… or was;I have forgotten most of what I knew but I suppose there are mental habits one gets.
I enjoy it now especially when I am ill and can’t get out or do much…. but it sometimes takes quite a lot of effort to sort things out…
I suppose I recall Jesus’s words a lot these days.
Father,forgive them for they know not what they do”
I am less kind than Jesus…I’d say give them some nightmares,Lord…… maybe it will get through but if they are psychopaths they will not change.But we can attempt to vote them out… it seems hard with Labour still being Blair-ish but that’s what i am choosing after the Lib Dems lies in 2010.I likw the Greens but is it a wasted vote?