The Invisible Counterpoint

I think there needs to be less attention to Trump and more to what's going on in the psyches of those who voted for him. He's their vessel; if he does anything astray they'll push him in the direction they want to go.  How tough will Trump voters be? Since they think that their's is a country which was hijacked 40 yrs ago by corporations and liberals who were anti-pathic to its gleaming Greatness, and who've infested all offices of power so there isn't a one whose ultimate goal isn't keeping Americans pacified whilst the invaders gain total dominion: petty tough. (In their view, immigrants brought in since American elites became more interested in their cosmopolitan centres than the Great American Heartland, weren't brought in to strengthen the country, but to confound and confuse it.) We have to be prepared for it. Trump voters will die for their country as they feel part of its renewed strength, and so far away from their previous experience of total d...

I've suggested that what we need is for people to really engage with DeMause's theories, and note when he says things that seem inconsistent. Perhaps he isn't. Perhaps there is a way in which apparent inconsistencies appear to exist, but which can be revealed as simply part of the complicated way things play out. But nevertheless, I wanted to provide an example of the sort of thing I wish people were taking on... testing, to see if they're sufficiently testing his work while reading him, rather than in a sense falling under his spell. Here's an explanation for the popularity of Hitler in Emotional Life of Nations, which explains Germania as a merging with the Terrifying Mother, but which emphasizes the merger with Hitler as merging with the protective Phallic Father: "The ecstatic enthusiasm of the jubilant masses of people who celebrated their Phallic Leader came directly from his promises of a violent Purity Crusade that would end what Hitler called ...

When Frodo is negotiating with Boromir the fate of the Ring, he says he will not take the easy way, which is what Boromir, he claims, is offering. But if he did anything other than trudge the dreary long way to Mordor, incur a long travail of suffering, then Gandalf would think less of him, Galadriel would think less of him, Glimi would think less of him, Legolas would think less of him, and Aragorn would think less of him. It would mean feeling immediately ashamed and cast out, by all the people he most admired. This would have been the truly harder way, the way that incurred what he most feared most -- shame -- as he admits earlier: "We still have our journey and our brand before us," answered Gandalf. "We have no choice but to go on, or to return to Rivendell." Pippin's face brightened visibly at the mere mention of return to Rivendell; Merry and Sam looked up hopefully. But Aragorn and Boromir made no sign. Frodo looked troubled. "I wish I was ba...

And Saruman spoke: "So Gandalf was just about to enter the fray of the most important and dangerous battle of Third Age of Middle Earth, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and suddenly was challenged with a choice -- should I stay or should I go? He had been sent back after death, ostensibly by heaven, and endowed with powers that made him now second only to Sauron. Here before him was the battle that would determine whether Gondor fell, and with it, as he had said repeatedly, absolutely the rest of Middle Earth." "But before all this, one of the little hobbits -- you, Pippen -- told him that Faramir was about to be burned alive in some old barbaric pagan ritual and no one was around other than the warrior Berragond, who, as it turns out, was in process of killing all the guards... and thereby maybe rescuing Faramir himself if maybe he had a little extra help --  like, perhaps, yours , Pippen? to prevent this from happening. Faramir's importance was pre...

We remember in Lord of the Rings, Boromir's failing, and how Galandriel sort of called it. But (the elf-queen) Galandriel knew too that she could have been one who could fail her test -- that is, to deny the Ring if within her power to take it -- and yet allowed herself to be alone with Frodo where her soothing sense of being able to take all travails away from the suffering, would very likely draw him to offer for her to take it from him -- that is, what in point of fact happened. When Frodo offers her the Ring, she gets excited about the possibilities that would be afforded her if she took it, and in her excitement grows into the stature of the dark, terrible queen who'd rule the world... but fortunately in the end she wills herself to withdraw, and even as it means she must herself withdraw into the West, she pleases in knowing she passed the test she evidently feared there was a decent chance she could fail. I would myself call this a pretty previous failing on her par...

If you re-read the part where Elrond agrees to let Merry and Pippen into the Fellowship rather than the two elf-lords he was considering, it's really rather amusing. What he actually does is relent, to Pippen's badgering -- pick me! pick me!-- and to Gandalf arguing for the importance of friendship over sheer might... as if friendship isn't something that is quickly forged when on travels, as it was between Gandalf himself and Shadowfax just before he got to Rivendale, and it will soon be between the elf, Legolas, and dwarf, Gimli, on their way to Mordor. Elrond the great leader more or less goes, "fine, it's only the end of the world if you fail... take your two munchkins over my elf-lords, even as even if two elf-lords can't "storm the Dark Tower, nor open the road to the Fire by the power that is in [them]," they could at least come closer to that pippenmerry possibly could. It's irritating that pippenmerry weren...

So at the Council of Elrond, there is an elf-lord, Glorfindel, who argues that the One Ring be deposited in the middle of the ocean. Gandalf acknowledges that if might well be safe there for "a passing of a world," but because the threat -- even if incredibly long delayed -- would still however exist, it must instead be dealt with for good immediately. To me this sounds a bit like someone arguing that, yes, the sun is in no soon danger of burning out, but a number of billions of years from now it nevertheless will do so, and so it is our greatest concern to do something about this fact -- NOW. Fortunately Elrond immediately steps up to argue that the way east to the sea will be under most watch -- it's likely what Sauron's expecting -- so it's not really an option, anyway, because otherwise Gandalf would seem a bit ripe for mocking; especially considering that the alternative he favours involves bringing it closer and closer to him, where the o...

I was thinking of writing a short essay on Lord of the Rings -- the book. Not sure, but probably. I'll mention now though that comparing the book with the film, one notes how much more democratic Jackson is compared to Tolkien. Jackson's impetus with the hobbits is to make each one of them leaders in the sense that with their decisions, abide the fate of the world... so leaders in the most flattering and worthy sense. Frodo decides to set off alone into Gondor, and the future King -- Aragorn -- has to react to this decision, and decides in fact to change course, which is what happens in the film. So all good both ways there: Frodo sheds himself the impetus of the great council of Elrond, which willed they go as much as possible as a team. But in the film it is Merry and Pippen who are responsible for destroying Saruman, they sway the ent-leader to his decision to participate and fight, when he had at first decided to play it the Tom Bombadil way and let the whole ranc...

From what I understand, this article is advocating sort of a Rousseauian understanding of human nature. That the infant is actually born beautific, but is warped into something pained and self-reproaching through the adverse influence of malevolent (a commercial, authoritarian) society. I think this is right, but why... but how, exactly, do these ostensibly absolutely anti-human manipulations get installed in the first place? If aliens from Mars who supremely hate humans didn't put them in place, just to royally screw with them, then humans themselves did.  Even if ultimately something that absolutely deserves the mocking and attack this article presents them with, did they once actually HELP humanity? Was somewhere in the past humans' developmental history so badly off, that the perversity of such conceptions of children and parents listed here, and the whole structure of an ostensibly dominant-class ruled society that joys in manipulating and cowing the rest of society...