There’s also one at the bottom of comment 10, to Deana.

Thought I’d slip in some attack philosophy in there somewhere.

but imagines this only in regards to violence.

Where did you get that from? Shrinkwrapped didn’t write about it in relation only to violence.

Many children ask, “Why is everybody picking on me?”

Cause they’re weak and thus on the bottom of the social hierarchy for their group. There’s a social reward for those above to get some kicks by kicking the omega dog in the pack.

Good catch on Y’s “error.” (I think it was just a Freudian slip on his part. Hee-hee-hee!)

You are definitely an editor!

Deana

Y, was this (Demon-crat) just a typo? A Freudian slip? Or an intentional play on words?

Whatever the case, I loved it!

I’m glad you liked them.

The process of connecting the dots is something I learned from the study of war, where knowing an enemy from fragmented and oftentimes contradictory data is vital to the success of any campaign or battle.

Has up a very good post people should read. This is my recommendation and if you know what kind of things I tend to link to, you can get a preview of whether this is something you need to read or not. However, if you can’t quite piece together that kind of vision, here’s a quote.

Most people confuse “self-esteem” with what I will refer to as a “sense of self”. It is the latter–not the former, that is so often screwed up in the angry, violent, grandiose, and generally narcissistic people in the world. If you have a healthy “Self”, you are likely to have a healthy self-esteem–which is not the same at all as a high self-esteem.

The psychological defect that leads to so many problems is a defective or distorted sense of one’s SELF. The excessive self-esteem you see in a bully comes from a distortion of reality that person has with regard to their self. It was once widely believed that low self-esteem was a cause of violence–and you see that idea reflected today in the platitudes and rationalizations of terrorism– but in reality violent individuals, groups and nations think very well of themselves.

….

The pop-psychology that promulgated the widespread belief that if you nurture kid’s self-esteem neglected to mention that if the sense of self was already damaged, all you managed to do was to create a narcissist; and it is simply a waste of time and money….

In my post on The Rising Tide of Narcissism, I added to Dr. Sanity’s discussion by pointing out “another problematic aspect of the disorders of self known as narcissism.”

One point often glossed over is that the Narcissist’s self esteem is actually quite fragile. Since it is based on an inflated sense of the self, ie it is not based on a realistic assessment of the self, the Narcissist needs constant affirmation by the environment that they are, indeed, the “special” person they have always been told they were. Such people have a noticeable lack of resiliency. When the Narcissist inevitably smacks up against an indifferent environment, as when the young person graduates college and enters the work force, reality intrudes in unmistakable fashion. Your boss does not consider you special unless you can actually do a good job. It is very easy to see how the Narcissist, who already tends to use projective defenses to avoid knowing of his own short comings, can very easily slip into a paranoid position with the real world.

“Since I know I am special, and have never really been challenged, when my boos tells me I have done a poor job, it can’t be true. ——> He must have something against me!”

Now, multiply that attitude to a much larger scale. Major societal problems arise when a large group of people with fragile self esteem and a poor sense of self collide with modern day tribalism, ie, identity politics. Then the problem becomes the system, or the man, or the ruling class, or the Jews, or Bush and the Rethuglicans, or racism; never does the person take responsibility for their own failures because to do so risks a psychological catastrophe. Suddenly, one’s always fragile self esteem, artificially buttressed all these years by a facile environment, crumbles. The result is devastating despair. Alternatively, reality can be denied and the despair defended against by externalizing the rage and directing it at those you believe now oppress you.

There is power in the truth.

Like this little incident that has everything I hate about public speakers and those that use verbal skills to manipulate and attack people.

http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2008/05/03/speaking-truth-to-power/

I have almost all the theory and some of the practical applications behind manipulation and attack philosophy, but I don’t have the verbal skills to carry such things out. The strategic pauses, the fake body language, the modified voice tones, etc. are all needed to craft a visual-auditory message in face to face communication. The skill sets with the written word just does not transfer directly to the rhetorical-oratory line. The theory does, however.

Y - I really enjoyed your thoughts on why one sees less loyalty by conservatives to the Republican party and such unquestioning loyalty by liberals to the Democrat party. I had never thought of that before but of course, that makes perfect sense. Conservatives are, by definition, individualists who see themselves as responsible for achieving their goals and dreams. They look toward party affiliation only as a means of ensuring that government and other forces do not get in their way and limit their liberty.

But a liberal is a different breed. It’s like you said - the relationship between a liberal and the Democrat party is not so different from that of a serf and lord or a woman and her sugardaddy. They NEED the party to ensure that they keep getting the benefits they’ve grown accustomed to. Which makes it convenient - because the party needs them to continue to justify its existence and prop up its power. All that this can lead to is dependence and debilitating weakness - two ideas that were anathema to those who laid the foundation of American greatness.

Deana