A discriminatory, over-and-above hatred, inexplicable in its hysteria and virulence whatever justification is adduced for it; an unreasoning, deranged and as far as I can see irreversible revulsion that is poisoning everything we are supposed to believe in here – the free exchange of opinions, the clear-headedness of thinkers and teachers, the fine tracery of social interdependence we call community relations, modernity of outlook, tolerance, truth. You can taste the toxins on your tongue.
Often in the rush that comes with appreciating a well known writer’s voice on a cogent topic, I’m wont to overlook the date or catch up with that detail after posting. Not this time. February 18, 2009 — the last war involving Hamas! Same evil — same useful idiots out on the street embarked on their very own experience of that syndrome well known to the Tutsi of Rwanda: Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation AKA “Reflection” or “Reflection in a Mirror.”
Try a hall of mirrors, for this habitual mode known well to the rank and file of the New Old Now Old Far Out and Lost Left (start with the rabid anti-Semites of the International Solidarity Movements, please) would seem well related to both the grandiose messianic delusions of malignant narcissists and the methods launched against others to get whatever it is they want, never mind that whatever they get, it’s never enough, for the damage in their souls is located elsewhere: nonetheless — flattery and patronage on one hand; intimidation, theft, and murder on the other.
And in between, “Gaslighting” with that capital “G”, i.e., the effort to produce so closed and pervasive an information environment — add an equally perverse communal group-think environment (bounded by ostracism or violence) — that their marks actually swallow their garbage.
Would that the manipulation had to do with only garbage, but these that fabricate their own “hall of mirrors” without end, who aggrandize themselves on their martyrdom of children and whole families, have ways of “taking off” that bring ruin to their worlds.
The case I make with that date and the persistent relevance of Howard Jacobson’s fine observations: what Hamas does in setting itself up and what it does to others by way of exploiting their energies and ultimately ruining their lives has to do with “habits of mind”.
Break those habits in the head suspended in cliches and tropes, and the criminality and the warring will diminish; keep them going — another six months or another sixty-six years — and they will grind down the humanity that keeps those habits in its possession.
Related from Pat Condell and posted to YouTube today:
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