Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Why you are absolutely WRONG about everything
Last edited Sun May 20, 2012, 06:21 PM - Edit history (1)
Are you convinced with every fibre of your soul, forged through your deep satisfaction with every iota of your own knowledge that our current president, Barack Obama, is a fine, handsome, upstanding, intelligent, diligent and patriotic citizen, who is doing his duty in the Oval Office in a way better than most of his predecessors?
Do you think that we're so very lucky to have such a fellow in charge of our nation's affairs?
Does he give you nothing but an abundance of warm fuzzies when you think about him?
Are you unflinchingly SURE that what you know about him is absolutely the hardened in steel and reinforced concrete, unvarnished truth, and that there is REALLY no way that ANY serious person can look at him AND the facts and think otherwise?
Well, if you are, then the sad state of affairs is that you don't understand what it means to be AN AMERICAN.
The sad truth is, that in your quest for knowledge to frame YOUR OWN personal worldview, while depending on provable, qualitative and quantifiable facts, you have ultimately FAILED to consider an undeniable aspect of American existence:
That is... the unfettered AMERICAN RIGHT to engage in, what I like to call, MAGICAL THINKING.
Now, I know what you're going to say; "You have right to your own opinions, but not your own 'facts'" or "How can you believe that something is true when it isn't, or exists when it's impossible for it to exist?"
Well, if you're to say that, then you've failed to understand that one can absolutely do it only with enough applied MAGICAL THINKING.
I have a caveat that I must put before you. Although we call it "Magical Thinking", at least I do anyway, the person who uses this form of reasoning doesn't think of it as "magical" at all. It's merely the culmination of one's own belief system, as formed by one's own perspective and synthesized through the limits of culture, education, prejudices, intelligence, fears and visceral reaction to observable stimuli. It's pure Pavlovian psychodynamics, baby!
You see, this is the greatest thing about MAGICAL THINKING; it justifies, quantifies, qualifies and manifests ITSELF in any way that the magical thinker wants it to be. It's the ultimate wish machine. It can frame a person's own history and the history of their own surroundings, or country, or race, ethnicity, religion and everything else that it's applied and can be done so without limits.
It can fit the very vast greatness of the Universe onto the head of a pin.
Not only can MAGICAL THINKING take the form of one's own self-delusions, but can easily be projected on others as objects of derision, hatred and fear. It can turn positives into negatives, facts into fallacies, fantasies into hard core truths about anyone, especially the undeniable existence of the vast conspiracy to conceal the truth about some traitorous, Socialist, Communist, Anti-American Kenyan guy, with no real life's accomplishment, whose actual legal name is "Barry Hussein Soetero."
Now, put it out of your own pointy little head, the dichotomy of believing that something like that can be both concealed as a fact, yet absolutely known. Because, when you're thinking like that you've failed to understand the awesome might and incredible versatility of MAGICAL THINKING. None of that "Reality Based Thinking" stuff can compare to a person who has this neat little tool tucked away in their handy-dandy toolbox.
The MAGICAL THINKING of others not only makes real things that you, yourself, know not to be real, but also creates the inalienable AMERICAN right for the user to believe in them as well. Think of it as an impermeable shield that's invulnerable to facts and figures from outside of itself. Some others would call this a "bubble".
It's all the same thing.
Now, I have a confession. I, too, have engaged in a somewhat alternative form of MAGICAL THINKING. We all do, as I think that it's something that we all have buried, deep down inside of our own psyches to cope with the un-copable things that we sometimes come across. It's a defense mechanism of sorts. Something that inhibits the inescapable urge to collapse into a puddle of protoplasmic ennui over the utter unfairness, complexity, confusion and frustration of dealing with basic existence on this earthly plane.
To be human is to live with both joy AND sorrow. It's Yin and Yang and we can't have one without the other. The only important thing is to properly balance the two. However, before it looks as if I'm going off on a tangent, I'd like to elaborate the importance of this observation:
My own personal issue is the subject matter of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
I look at the horrible things that these two men have done to the Nation, to Americans in general and to many other people around the world. My very first reaction is that of outrage, of course. As it would of any decent person who has witnessed the sheer level of mendacity, incompetence, vitriol, greed and corrupt behavior that these two have inflicted on everyone else (My own personal beliefs). The lies, the wars, the torture and devastation that they've left in their wake was horrible to behold and impossible to justify.
My problem, however, is that I held the firm belief that their deeds were unAmerican at their core. AND this is despite the fact that they were all done while they held high public office, and in the name of all of us who are American citizens.
The problem here is simple to explain, that in the formation of policy and the execution thereof, the same forces of both Yin and Yang, of the balance of chaos and order, is carried out in the actions of people who hold high public office. Because, of the way that our government and economy has an affect on all of lives, that impact is impossible to avoid. Even small actions by the Powers That Be, can have vast, far-ranging consequences. So, when the balance is far tilted to the negative side, as was in the case of Bush and Cheney, I had to cope with that fact by denying that their actions were representative of how things supposed to be done in this country or how they can be done.
The fact is that they were done because that's just who we are as a people. Not that they were necessary or even legal… Many times their actions weren't, but because in the deep recesses of how we conduct our own affairs, the fallibility of humanity is completely unavoidable.
Does that mean that we're supposed to make any of it right, or even justifiable in any way? Of course, NOT! We also have the capacity of telling right from wrong… That's how we all define ourselves, by determining what is right and wrong.
The point being: The ultimate, inescapable, yet somewhat unfathomable fact about this country is that we Americans simply do both good AND bad things to ourselves and to others. Unfortunately, those definitions of both good and bad can vary greatly with whomever you're talking to.
Yes, it is all relative.
You and I may believe that Bush and Cheney did unAmerican things while in office, however the fact exists that they actually did them and did them in the name of America.
We live in one fucked up country, don't delude yourself by thinking otherwise.
Let me conclude with the explanation about why you're wrong about Barack Obama… Quite simply, you're ONLY wrong to other people who think of him otherwise.
Yeah, I know that you were expecting some long dissertation, but that's ALL there is to say about it.
You can't expect other people to use you own perspective to judge the President, because everyone else comes to their own conclusions about the guy based on whatever they hold in their own individual tool boxes and not with what's in YOURS. If they use MAGICAL THINKING to reach those conclusions, the very nature of MAGICAL THINKING allows for them to use it. Again, it justifies itself.
Our goal, as people who support President Obama, The Democratic Party, justice, equality and everything that we hold as fair and good and best about America are tasked to create a more positive balance in the way that we conduct ourselves as a nation. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to do only good deeds, and even some of us are wont to justify some of the bad deeds that are done in our name. However, we have to take the hard path, which is right and best and fair and just to make of ourselves, and in general knowledge, and the understanding the things which should be held at heart to be the best of what we are.
In essence, it's a numbers game… We simply must increase our fold, and create the will in general to act and believe in things that are real and not just "Magical", merely because we can. If you don't build the support that you need, you are doomed to failure. We can't just believe that other people will do what we think is right, only because that's what we hold dear...
Ultimately, we have to go out into the world as it is and RECREATE it in the way that we want it to be.
16 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
