john vanlandingham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jay Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Nobody is gonna change anybody's mind here,
> > specially seeing's how this thread started
> off as
> > a which gun advice question. I could go on
> but
> > why.... don't judge me and I won't judge
> you,
> > howzat?
> >
> Agreed that nobody will ever change anybody's
> mind, and that is part of the problem we face as a
> country. basic irrationality is so ingrained and
> reinforced in our culture that it merits whole
> essays and books have been written on how fear is
> manufactured, and perpetuated and persists
> regardless of documentable facts to the contrary.
> A serious essay written in 1964 lays out the
> problem which has only become worse in the
> intervening years:
>
> The Paranoid Style in American Politics
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> Jump to: navigation, search
> Q
>
> The Paranoid Style in American Politics[1] is an
> essay by the American historian Richard J.
> Hofstadter, first published in Harper's magazine
> in November 1964. Written at a time when Senator
> Barry Goldwater had won the Republican
> Presidential nomination over the more moderate
> Nelson A. Rockefeller, Hofstadter's article
> explores the influence of conspiracy theory and
> "movements of suspicious discontent" throughout
> American history.
> Contents
>
>
> * 1 Themes
> o 1.1 The paranoid style as a recurring
> theme in American political history
> o 1.2 The paranoid style defined
> o 1.3 The Enemy Reified
> o 1.4 Emulating the enemy
> * 2 Reviews
> * 3 See also
> * 4 References
>
> Themes
> The paranoid style as a recurring theme in
> American political history
>
> Hofstadter begins by noting that:
>
> American politics has often been an arena for
> angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry
> minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers,
> who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater
> movement how much political leverage can be got
> out of the animosities and passions of a small
> minority. But behind this I believe there is a
> style of mind that is far from new and that is not
> necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid
> style simply because no other word adequately
> evokes the sense of heated exaggeration,
> suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I
> have in mind.[1]
>
> Hofstadter goes on to detail historical paranoia
> directed against Illuminism, Freemasonry, and the
> Jesuits, and follows this strain in American
> politics through what he considered its modern
> incarnations in McCarthyism and the activities of
> the John Birch Society.
> The paranoid style defined
>
> Hofstadter describes the unifying characteristics
> of the paranoid politician thus:
>
> The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of
> conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in
> the birth and death of whole worlds, whole
> political orders, whole systems of human values.
> He is always manning the barricades of
> civilization... he does not see social conflict as
> something to be mediated and compromised, in the
> manner of the working politician. Since what is at
> stake is always a conflict between absolute good
> and absolute evil, what is necessary is not
> compromise but the will to fight things out to a
> finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being
> totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be
> totally eliminated — if not from the world, at
> least from the theatre of operations to which the
> paranoid directs his attention. This demand for
> total triumph leads to the formulation of
> hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these
> goals are not even remotely attainable, failure
> constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of
> frustration. Even partial success leaves him with
> the same feeling of powerlessness with which he
> began, and this in turn only strengthens his
> awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of
> the enemy he opposes.[1]
>
> The Enemy Reified
>
> Perhaps the most trenchant part of his essay is
> the descriptive phrase of how the enemy is thought
> to act, the description of that personality:
>
> The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a
> perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral
> superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel,
> sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the
> enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast
> mechanism of history, himself a victim of his
> past, his desires, his limitations. He wills,
> indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history,
> or tries to deflect the normal course of history
> in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on
> banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters,
> and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has
> produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history
> is distinctly personal: decisive events are not
> taken as part of the stream of history, but as the
> consequences of someone’s will. Very often the
> enemy is held to possess some especially effective
> source of power: he controls the press; he has
> unlimited funds; he has a new secret for
> influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a
> special technique for seduction (the Catholic
> confessional).[1]
>
> Emulating the enemy
>
> Hofstadter also notes the element of psychological
> projection inherent in the paranoid style of
> politics. That is,
>
> It is hard to resist the conclusion that this
> enemy is on many counts the projection of the
> self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects
> of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may
> be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid
> will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship,
> even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to
> combat secret organizations give the same
> flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to
> the point of donning priestly vestments,
> developing an elaborate ritual and an equally
> elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society
> emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret
> operation through "front" groups, and preaches a
> ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along
> lines very similar to those it finds in the
> Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various
> fundamentalist anti-Communist "crusades" openly
> express their admiration for the dedication and
> discipline the Communist cause calls forth.[1]
>
> The article also notes that "sexual freedom" is a
> vice often attributed to the paranoid politician's
> enemy, and notes that "very often the fantasies of
> true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic
> outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the
> delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic
> punishments."
> Reviews
>
> In an August 2007 article, Scott Horton wrote that
> The Paranoid Style in American Politics was "one
> of the most important and most influential
> articles published in the 155 year history of the
> magazine
>
> Full essay here:
>
>
> Look out! there's another ________________________
> behind that bush gonna get you!
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Jay Woodward
> > Snohomish, WA
> > '90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
> > Chronologically, 40...
>
>
>
>
> John Vanlandingham
> Sleezattle, WA, USA
>
> Vive le Prole-le-ralliat
>
> www.rallyrace.net/jvab
> CALL +1 206 431-9696
> Remember! Pacific Standard Time
> is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.
Excellent example of BS !
As always IMHO
SEAN TENNIS KF7JJR
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SAAB 99, SAAB 850
SAAB V4, SAAB 99T
