” . . . the appalling silence of the good people . . . .”

Literature wrestling with the concept of the “malignant narcissist” goes back decades, but I’m uncertain as to what’s available (in political psychology) now on followers and witnesses.

Sigh.

This is where I most want the “in” to grant funding for independent scholarship. It seems to me to be somewhere between difficult and not possible to immerse in so tightly focused area for weeks or months without compensation / social inclusion or recognition / support.

In response congruent with my personal situation, I try to condense these issues involving refractive perception down to “content of mind” as suspended by language and related unique cultural metonymy.

I’ve wanted to suggest, perhaps poetically, that perhaps the war one sees outside of one’s window is actually a reflection of the war laid out in one’s own heart.

It’s the war one expects to see because, perhaps, it’s the war one has been trained to want.

If for Jews: “all Arabs”; if for Shiite, “all Sunni”; if or “X” owning the perception: all “Y” — as much may seem true for the Jews, Shiites, and Xs noted while the true political and social topology, if/when measured, simply doesn’t add back to the perception.

When a state produces a large rolling army or military force, it’s enemies rightly hold the state and all of its people responsible for that state’s martial and political behavior; be that as it may or may not be, not one “hot” (“blast and battle”) conflict on the planet conforms to that state-anchored conception today.

Instead, we’re treated to horror out of the “land o’ winks ‘n’ nods” — mafia-style deal making and positioning everywhere and the now too common, too familiar, eruptions and rants of a few sewing chaos with blood. Those are hard to see, but most who are most opposed to that behavior should not be so hard to see.

Where are they?

America’s conservative line asked of Muslims immediately after 9/11 about the same question, which in that context amounted to accusation, while taking the stance that Islam would repeatedly prove itself irredeemable. If Those: all Muslims. I’ve never found that right, nor have I accepted de facto the position of “apologist”, which is also a form of accusation. 🙂 Instead, I have found an army of Muslim humanists and rationalists, with the legacy providing that definition but themselves determining the meaning of their own lives. Out of that comes greater clarity about the nature of the humanity involved in its totality and the possibility of eluding the Big War whose primary seat is in the minds of those would pursue the creation of it as their reality.

I think the Common Humanity way behind as regards this view of attenuated civilizational clash based in forcing / producing a higher level of integrity in human affairs universally — not creating trust per se or just because, but by way of the inspiration of a genuine cross-cultural, cross-religion, cross-sect trustworthiness. That’s a hard battle for fighting — it’s a true “people’s war” — and one out far beyond the province of armies alone.