Category Archives: group think

Does Professional Baseball Now Have More Moral Courage Than Hordes of Religious People?

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Is professional baseball more of a moral arbiter of our country than religion, at least with many of our religious people?  Yesterday, the Major League’s Baseball Writers Association of America voted to not allow Curt Schilling into the Hall of Fame and later explained that one of its criteria for admission moral turpitude  Schilling has demonstrated the absence of this “moral turpitude” in more than one occasion, just recently when he defended the 1/6/21 insurrection at the White House and in a 2016 tweet when he called for the lynching of journalists.  His past also includes a strident display of racism, sexism, an “general human ugliness.” He was fired from ESPN telecasting for similar offenses.

The Baseball Writers Association of America apparently does believe words…and actions…matter.  Oh yes, they have some ‘splaining to do about past blatant racism and other offenses…and they will now face pressure on the matter; but in our nation’s moment of grievous peril, “moral arbiters” need to step up.  And many religious leaders (i.e. Robert Jefferess, Franklin Graham, Paula White, et cetera ) will not offer a voice of disapproval to the dark “savior” they have adopted.  Nor will most of the Republican Congress who demonstrated yesterday when they voted on a matter which reveals how they will likely vote soon on conviction of Trump in the upcoming impeachment trial.

Yes, my “panties are in a wad” again.  And hopefully they will continue to be as I have much to say about how intelligent, college educated, “born again believers” can harbor gross attitudes, speak great evil, and behave badly all “in the name of Jesus.”  I “been there, done that.” The situation devouring my country now is not one of reason, or intelligence, or even politics.  It is “out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” and our collective heart is now speaking, in words and deeds great evil, and nothing but a spiritual reckoning beyond the pale of anything that Jeffress, Graham, White, et al have ever faced will suffice.

“As a Man Thinketh, So Is He”

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I do not think that the Bible or any Holy Writ was given us to amuse ourselves “like a kitten given its own tail to tease.” (Goethe) And it certainly was not given to us to “make us Christian.”  The Bible is Holy Writ that has come our way to enable us to live more simply and honestly.  But our ego will have the tendency to take it and run with it, shaping it into one of those kittenish baubles.

Notions such as “ye shall be judged” by the words from your mouth was a simple instruction for us to self-reflect occasionally and pay attention to that “self-narrative” from which we speak and in some manner “speaks” us. It is very revealing. Such is the case here with my sporadic musings.  If you blog, or keep a journal, or are a professional writer, you really ought to peruse your work from time to time and self-reflect and, let your musings reveal your heart. Yes, this biblical admonition conveys the power of language and is related to the Christian belief that Jesus was “the Word made flesh.” There is a sense in which our very identity is simply “a word” enfleshed, a “word” that reveals the very intentions of our heart.  Yes, “as a man thinketh, so is he.”

For example, take a gander sometime at politicians and you will find their words say so much more than what they intend. This is vividly illustrated at this time when our world is terrified by this “pestilence” the gods have sent our way. No, I am not speaking of Trump here though, though  Trump and Trumpism are part of the same pestilence. And for even greater amusement, “take a gander” at preachers.

The Trumpian Ego at Work Again Today

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The collective ego of our government faces another challenge today when the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to release undisclosed sections of the Mueller report. The request for this release is lawfully valid. But,Trump now having taken over much of our legal system has asked the Supremes to protect the House from this information, apparently knowing there is “material” there that would be dangerous for the President.

I described this as a machination of our government’s collective ego, for it functions like any ego—it does not want to let us know things that are painful to know.  My ego has done a marvelous job of doing this for myself, allowing me to live in denial until very recent decades. And now I know why; for it is painful to have the long-denied “light of day” to penetrate one’s conscious awareness. Furthermore, this “secrecy” on this matter and others is imperative for Trump and his minions.  Otherwise, we might even learn more about his infamous decisions to walk into the dressing room of teen-age beauty queens, when they were in various stages of undress.  He later explained, “Well, I own this pageant. I have the freedom of doing this.” AND, the beauty pageant debauchery I anecdotally shared here is child’s play to what he and his minions are overtly hiding. See below for Washington Post’s for initial paragraphs of this story.

Trump administration asks Supreme Court to temporarily block Congress from seeing Mueller’s secret grand jury evidence
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in March cleared the way for Congress to access certain secret evidence from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in one of a set of separation-of-powers lawsuits between House Democrats and the Trump administration.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court on Thursday that if it does not put the order on hold, the government will have to disclose those materials Monday, “which would irrevocably lift their secrecy and possibly frustrate the government’s ability to seek further review.”

 

In My Youth Romney’s “Kind” Were Not Even Christian!

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In my youth, as a Baptist in the South, Mormons were not even Christian…in our estimation.  Today he is demonstrating “Christian” courage that I’m only now beginning to tippy-toe into.  He is about to speak truth to power by being the only member of the Republican Party to vote to remove Trump from office.  He has already faced intimidation from his party and now it will increase tremendously.  When group-think dominates a party, or any group, any one who dares to defy that toxic kool-aid will face exclusion.  That is why as a youth in the Baptist fold I kept to myself questions that were bubbling in my heart as the need to “fit in” was too important to me.

I am addressing here the toxic dimension of “belonging”, when “fitting in” becomes a tyrant and group-think is allowed to take over.  And, yes, even with noble veins of thought like the teachings of Jesus, toxicity can creep in when the ego, described by the Apostle Paul as “the flesh,”  is not recognized. I hope that Romney will gain courage under the tremendous pressure he will now face.  He has not been as outspoken as he should have; but now he has nothing to lose.  He will certainly be “primaried” by his party but he should use this opposition to “out-Christian” the “christians” who have sold their soul for “thirty pieces of silver.”

Greta Thunberg is More Wise Than Steven Mnuchin.

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Today U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a swipe at the climate change heroine Greta Thunberg, saying she is in no position to give advice on the matter since she has not been to college yet.  Well, let me point out he has been to college yet he works for a man who is so insecure that he had to reassure the nation and the world about the size of his penis and lacked self-awareness to the extent that there are numerous recordings of him clearly voicing his lecherous designs on his own daughter.  And these are but two “trivial” examples of Trump’s impaired judgement. Sometimes human judgement is less impaired when one has yet to be ensconced in the comfort zone of a group think that constitutes reality in her/his culture.  And yes, she is “autistic” and thus can be described as “mentally ill” given the “authority” of the DSM-V, but “mentally ill” is not so “mentally ill” in a culture that puts a mentally ill man at the helm of its government.  This brings to mind a note by Carl Jung, “If you find a sane man, bring him to me and I will cure him.”  Jung knew well that there was a “psychopathology to everyday life” that could produce madmen who would pass as “sane.”  From Thunberg’s “seclusion” in her very private world, she has not lost the ability to peer out and look upon this human comedy and offer critique, not unlike Shakespeare who noted so famously that, “Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Shakespeare saw the lunacy of his day and brought it to the attention of his fellow-travelers in 16th century England.  This lovely young 17- year old lady has the courage to offer a similar critique to our day; a prophetic vision always comes from beyond the pale.

Republican Party Stymied by Its Own Self-Referentiality

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Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is not “playing fair.”  The House has impeached Trump, but she is refusing to formally passing the formal impeachment document to the Senate where it has already been determined, and announced, it will not go anywhere.  The Republican Senate is now crying “foul play” as according to them the protocol clearly calls for this impeachment referral to be simply passed on to them.  But Pelosi is refusing to do this until she has the reassurance that a “fair” trial will take place, including one with witnesses. It is very ironic that the GOP is now diligently calling for protocol and “the law” to be followed though they have systematically followed the bidding of Trump to over ride such niceties when it serves their own interest.

 This is very revealing about the heart of this matter, and all matters of any magnitude involve the heart.  Yes, the GOP is correct that the Democrats have an agenda here, an “ax to grind” if you please, but then who doesn’t?  The Republicans have hoisted themselves on their own petard, hypocritically accusing the Democrats of the very thing they have assiduously practiced throughout the Trump administration…and before.  The GOP does not see that it too, like all humans, has “intentionality” though they readily see it with others.  But to those who lack “self-awareness”, the gift of at least rudimentary meta-cognition, there is no “intentionality” with themselves there is only the proclamation of what “is true.”  They fail to see that what they see as “truth” is a self-serving perspective and subject to the review of the rest of the human race.  But if you are locked in your own narrow little view of the world it is frightening to loosen the lock a bit and come to find that there are other viewpoints that need to be considered.  The more rigid one’s “narrow little view of the world” is the more difficult it is to loosen this lock a bit; at times for some it is not possible.

 Poet Emily Dickenson has a little quip that is so relevant, “The mind too near itself cannot see distinctly.”  She realized that a mind that is knotted into a self-referential ball of yarn, pulled tightly, it cannot see clearly.  It can only see what it wants to see, even if it is harmful to themselves and to those around them.  This is clearly seen in a religious cult; it is very telling that many people are seeing the Republican Party as very “knotted,” comparing the predicament of that party to cultic behavior.

Will the Madness Ever End?

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The White House intervened to prevent the U.S.S. McCain from being seen during the Trump visit to Japan.  The Wall Street Journal reported negotiations between the White House and the U. S. Navy to move this ship “out of sight” so that the President would not see it.  This is because of the rage that Trump has for this now deceased Senator who dared to be critical of him.  Trump denies having anything to do with this decision, of course. Trump may not have had anything to do with this silly decision…directly.  He does not need to as his handlers are completely in his thrall and automatically move to protect this two-year old child from anything that might make him uncomfortable or angry.  Can you imagine the time, energy, and expense that went into this decision-making process and negotiation between the White House and the Navy?  And they even bought a tarp to drape over the ship!

My concern here is not Trump.  He is but the symptom of the madness that is unfolding in our culture, a madness that is daily being aided and abetted by a supporting cast of handlers, aides, cabinet members, and Congress persons.  He has them in his grip and many of them do not have the “awareness” to know it.  Some of them are aware of this I suspect but are stymied by intimidation or black mail, and do not have the courage to speak out.

Trump’s two-year old narcissistic wound has been aided and abetted like this his whole life and he has always felt indomitable.  He still does!  And now he has what he sees as ultimate power, for he is the “duly elected” President of the United States!  Holding that office, to him and his supporting cast, is the ultimate validation of their beliefs and they support him steadfastly. BUT, the “hunger” of a frustrated and angry two-year old can never be satisfied unless an “adult in the room” will find the courage to set limits.  If the “parents” continue to indulge, a monster will be created and catastrophe will ensue.  In my clinical experience, this “catastrophe” often would find a “parent in the room” with my intervention which at times entailed hospitalization or juvenile court referral.  At times, this did not suffice and catastrophe did happen in the form of violence, often leading to incarceration.  The “acting out” of the two-year old, then running amok as a 16 year old, could not be contained other than by the strong arm of the law.  The phenomenon of a “brain-stem without arms and legs” in life is usually reined in by reality; but when “reality” allows it to occupy the Presidency, the peril for all is great.

Shame, Truth, Courage, and Jeff Bezos

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Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon and the Washington Post, shocked the world yesterday by disclosing an effort by AMI (the National Enquirer publisher) to blackmail him with salacious text messages they had uncovered, including sexually intimate photos.  Yes, these photos even included the now quite common “d…k pix.”  Ami was trying to get him to back off an intense investigation he had initiated to determine how they had intercepted his texts and emails. But Bezos did not play ball, declaring he preferred to “roll this log over and see what crawls out.”  He admitted the shame of this experience but determined he would not be blackmailed and was willing to call the bluff of the National Enquirer. The National Enquirer and its CEO, Jeff Pecker (chuckle, chuckle) have been intimately involved with Trump, Pecker now having defected under pressure from Robert Mueller’s investigation of the President.  Trump and Pecker colluded to pay off Trump’s hush money to a prostitute and former Playboy bunny.

My concern with this story is shame and its relationship with honesty.  A sense of shame…a “healthy shame”…helps make us human, giving us the motivation to participate in the very necessary social fiction that makes us human.  We keep things hidden and should do so.  Not everything needs to be disclosed.  But when “healthy shame” has been obliterated by toxic shame, it reveals that there is so much to hide that the individual will go to any extreme to keep the secrets of his heart hidden.  Mr. Bezos, like all mortals, has sexual peccadillos fluttering about in his heart and mind and he “imbibed” of a few like most of us have.  But he found the courage and stubbornness to not be blackmailed and owned up to the accusations, taking the “wind out of the sails” of the National Enquirer.  (And, admittedly this “courage and stubbornness” was facilitated by the fact that he is one of the richest men on the earth.)

Life, i.e. “reality”, often pushes us into a corner where we are forced to admit things that are not pleasant.  But when shame tyrannizes us into a façade that is not simply a persona but a prison, we cannot allow “truthfulness” to break out; sometimes we will go to any extreme to deny what we are accused of.  Related to this machination, Trump introduced to us the term “fake news” as a simple term for, “whatever I don’t like or is unpleasant,” is not true.

This issue, given Trump’s intimacy with the National Enquirer, brings to my mind the question of what he and his compatriots have dug up on members of Congress.  We all have stuff we don’t want to come out and it is now clear that if the intent is there to uncover it, it can be uncovered.  Blackmail would explain some of the blind compliance with Trump’s whims that many noted Republicans have demonstrated; Lindsey Graham and McConnell comes to mind, to name but two.

Does “It Take A Village?” Yes, It Does!

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“Families are to be from.”  This was a wry quip from a high school student of mine in the early 80’s when a sociology class discussion about families was wrapping up.  This young lady was grasping the complexity of family relationships even at her young age, recognizing poignantly that one needs to extricate oneself at some point in life from the familial orbit.  This is usually done with the normal developmental process as young people reach maturity, seek a mate, marry, have children, and begin a family of their own.  But sometimes even then the emotional ties with the family of origin will be inordinate and, one or both of the marital partners will not have “cut the cord” and complications will develop.

The family is a primary dimension of social life.  Family structure is the template in which a child finds his place and learns how to “find his place” in the family at large, i.e. the community, and eventually even in the world “family.”  The family is where connection is established, and explored, and the skills…or lack thereof…will be offered in the social body. The anchor of the family is the mother and father and if their relationship is not stable, or insincere, then the children will not have a stable basis upon which to find their roots in the family dynamic.  A college psychology professor of mine, decades ago, noted that for a child it is more important for a child to know that his parents love each other than that the parents love him.  For the connection between “mommy and daddy” provide an anchor for an inchoate identity and from that anchor will arise a knowledge of parental love that is not prosaic or formulaic.  The script always includes “mommy and daddy love me” but the nuances of the family dynamic, based on the connection between “mommy and daddy” often convey otherwise.

But let me close this grim assessment with a positive note.  The human soul is indomitable.  Most families provide what British psychiatrist Donald W. Winnicott described as “good enough ‘parenting’” (his term was “good enough ‘mothering’”).  If parenting were perfect, then children would get a naive impression life is about and would be ill-equipped to face that “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” And a facetious note is here in order.  My children are perfect!  That is because my “children” are only whims and fancies of what might have been, whims and fancies that I pine for, but have never experienced.  That is because I never had the courage to take that important plunge into the “dog-and-pony show” of this human endeavor and father children, trusting that Life is good and that all would be well.  But I firmly believe that “there is a destiny that doeth shape our ends, rough hew them as we may” and that all is well in the end.  Yes, even with this current political maelstrom that is gnawing at the soul of my country.

 

Fletcher Knebel Rises from the Dead!

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Knebel was a writer of popular political fiction during the Cold War of the 1950’s and 1960’s, novels such as “Fail Safe” and “Seven Days in May,” being made into popular movies.  Another novel which did not make it into the movies was entitled, “Is the President Stark Raving Mad.” However, nearly sixty years later someone…for reasons unknown (wink, wink), the novel is being re-released, certainly in part because of references made by Bob Woodward and Rachel Maddow.

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you were “stark raving mad”?  Would you know it and be able to tell someone, “I’m nuts.  Help me!” or would you refuse to acknowledge it.  It depends upon the degree of madness.  The closer one is to total madness, the less likely is he to ask for help as the ability to acknowledge any such infirmity is beyond the capacity of his feeble, fear-ridden ego.  Most of us deal with internal duress at some point in our lives…and times throughout our lives…and one might think of this as “madness” but not anywhere near deserving the label madness.  Life is difficult and at times the difficulties test our resources and our ability to make appropriate adaptation is challenged.  But we do it and never merit the label “mad” though often…perhaps, ”neurotic as hell.”  But those who are “stark raving mad” are so far beyond the pale that they are immune to any external feedback and will listen only to the feedback from their own internal haunts as well as those who have subscribed to the influence of these same haunts. Those who are under this influence have permitted this to happen because the haunts of the mad man, the “identified patient”, have resonated with some muted haunt in their own depths that they have surrendered to the siren call of this embodiment of madness that was before them.

Shakespeare offered pertinent wisdom on this matter, asking the question, “What is madness but to be nothing else but mad?”  Shakespeare here recognized the point made above, that we are all mad to some degree, and the problem would lie only with those who are “nothing else but mad.”  He realized that “madness” was only a problem when it consumed the individual to the point that his judgment was gravely impaired so that his choices put himself and/or others in danger.  Such an individual is out of touch with reality, relative to another observation by the Bard, “Madness in great one’s must not unwatched go.”

I hesitate to describe Trump as “a great one” but he does occupy a “great” office with immense power and influence in the entire world.  The evidence of his instability goes back decades, has become more prominent in recent decades as he became a more prominent public figure, and now is glaringly obvious as he occupies the office of the President. No, he is not “mad” for there is, at this point, “something else than mad” present.  But there is madness, “stark raving madness” roiling in the depths of his being, and it cannot but escalate as the Mueller investigation continues to close in on him.  “Acting out” always leads to conclusion, either humility and recognition of one’s excesses or an explosion of violence upon oneself, or others, or both.  The ugliness within must find expression.  We can run from it but it will always follow us until we address it or find a steady diet of “others” upon whom to project it.

I find it interesting that my country, the United States of America…the sole surviving superpower…has the ability to destroy the world but so far does not have within its heart the will or power to even “limit” this personification of its own avarice.  Like any individual, my country is powerless before its hidden, feared, subterranean depths which are now glaringly obvious to us all in this embodiment of our heart’s darkness.  Even his minions are aware of this but they are so “dug in” with his delusional system that they cannot admit it. This is the ‘will to self-destruction” which will relentlessly pursue its ends unless the gods, i.e. “God”, offers us a “deux ex machina” to resolve this mess.

Here is a list of my blogs.  I invite you to check out the other two sometime.

https://anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com/

https://literarylew.wordpress.com/

https://theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com/