It’s a problem I’ve been stuck with most of my life … reading too much which is then followed up the equally destructive addiction of thinking too much about what I’ve been reading.
I’ve recently been given to more fully understand that the solution to all the problems in our country are essentially encountered in the simple (or was it simplistic?) minds of the simple (or was it simplistic?) followers of national conservative thinkers like Messers Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and other members of that broadcast think-tank fraternity.
The key is in reducing complex issues into powerful straight forward but brief clarifications.
For example, unfounded concerns about climate change, pollution and ozone layers has been reduced to the straight forward clearing up of any confusion with Limbaugh’s dismissal of my concerns as the “neurotic hand wringing of tree hugging ‘environmentalist whackos.’"
Can it be any clearer than that?
And how could I have ever forgotten those years in the 80’s when I too was a devout dittohead and when Rush dismissed female equality issues as mere notorious “feminazism?”
Is there not something irrationally appealing about living in a world dominated by black-white certitude; where such things as nuances have no impact? That’s the beauty and loveliness of simple (or simplistic?) life in Right Country,
There has to be security in that psychic foreclosure stuff ... what psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called the state of psychic foreclosure.
Foreclosed persons are easily attracted to the beguilingly simple, one-size-fits-all belief systems of powerful others that they adopt as their own so as to avoid the sometimes lonely rigors of personal searching.
The foreclosed are the ready disciples of demagogues in every age. – Psychologist Paul Ginetty
It really isn’t about logic or common sense.
It really isn’t “I just wannabe loved.”
It’s more of “I want to be singing in the same choir and on the same page as somebody who is simply (or simplistically) famous, influential and popular among my friends.”
No matter that I sacrifice my individuality and intellectual integrity so long as I am loved and respected by all my fellow sacrificers. We are they who willingly shout “Amen!” to the simple (simplistic?) profound declarations of the national blowhards - those talkers who willingly admit to never having read up on or pursued knowledgeable command of the topic they wish to deride.
It’s not about that kind of sacrifice … its about inclusion and a “brothers-in-uninformed-arms” intimacy with a voice on a radio.
As psychology professor Paul Ginetty wrote,
They get a chance to feel real smart when the master seems to agree with them, failing to see that it is actually they who are agreeing with him.Yes, if I want to calm down and retire to a life of ignorant bliss I should repent, reconvert to dittoheadedness and join the Republican Party so that I too can enjoy a life of simplistic simple-mindedness.
… maybe even stake out a booth at the local Elk Snout Tavern where as a disciple I can spread the shallow gospel of simple arrogant ignorance
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