It Is A Simple Question, Really
February 14, 2007
What exactly will leftists like Glenn Greenwald, Kos, Atrios, Yglesias, et al, fight for? What exactly do leftists believe is worth defending?
After savaging Glenn Reynolds for formulating what is a logical and appropriate response to the beasts in Tehran, these questions become relevant.
We know the left does not believe the Darfurese are worthy enough. We know it wasn’t the millions that were slaughtered in Rwanda, Congo, Sierra Leonne or East Timor, either, just to name a few places.
The left do not seem to believe Bahai, Copts, Kurds or minorities in China, Russia or Arab nations are worth defending, either. They has stood by for decades as millions upon millions were butchered by one dysfunctional tyrant after another.
The governing regimes in Tehran and Ramallah are no different than the Nazi regime upon which their ideologies and stated intentions are based. They make no secret of their admiration of Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich, nor do they make secret of their desire to ‘finish what Hitler started.’
The world watched as Mein Kampf became a reality. Had a concerted European effort been made to kill Hitler and the leading members of the Nazi party, 50 million lives would have been spared.
The question remains: With the benefit of hindsight, would the left fight Nazi ideolgies? Or do the policies of the German National Socialist Party trump their evil?
What will the left fight for?
In much of the Muslim world, Iran included, Mein Kampf and Holocaust denial serve as the foundation for the most heinous and ugly of ideologies. It is always interesting to note that those who insist the Holocaust is a lie, are the same people that believe it was a good idea to begin with.
If there were more hate and less love, there would not be the rapes and slaughter in Darfur.
If there were more hate and less love, there would be no real insurgency in Iraq.
If there were more hate and less love, there would be a functioning, peaceful Palestinian state.
Instead, we have none of those things, and in it’s place, we have more death, destruction and heartbreak.
We don’t hate the rapes and slaughter in Darfur enough, and we don’t hate the terrorists who claim they are fighting the ‘occupation’ in Iraq by slaughtering their own (explain that, please). We don’t hate the culture of violence and adoration of butchery in much of the Middle East enough, and as a result, we see the joy and celebration when innocents are killed and whole armies of apologists are quick to blame others for the barbaric and animal-like behavior so evident for us to see…
The fact is, we need more hatred of evil. We need to be outraged at Darfur and the other places like it. We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality. There is nothing to discuss about Darfur. There is nothing to discuss about terrorism perpetrated against civilians. If that is a hard concept to accept, close your eyes and imagine it was your wife or daughter in Darfur. Imagine it was your son or husband riding a bus or eating lunch in a restaurant that was to be blown up. There is nothing to discuss about the case for the insurgency in Iraq. That argument was lost when the insurgents started blowing civilians and other innocents, on the streets or at prayer.
The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution…
The silence and ugliness on much of the left is thunderous and revolting, indeed.
February 14, 2007 at 12:33 pm
It’s not “silence & ugliness”, it’s Concern (TM) and Compassion (TM) (and The Party Line).
February 14, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Being of the moderate persuasion I can not speak for the left….but I have never heard anyone on the left challenge our effort in Afghanistan, there are some I am sure but not many. But I have a question for those on the right, is their no Presidential strategy or edict they will not challenge? I hear that this is not the time to be challenging the Commander in Chief. I presume that means there might be a time in the minds of those who espouse such….how would they be any different than those who choose to challenge now?
February 14, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I agree with the post 100%.
Jon we ought to be challenging him now. But what should we challenge? His incompetance, disregaurd for the rights of citizens and overly dove like behaviour, or the ocational flashes of backbone.
February 14, 2007 at 5:34 pm
What exactly will leftists like Glenn Greenwald, Kos, Atrios, Yglesias, et al, fight for? What exactly do leftists believe is worth defending?
Their own comfort and convenience, of course.
NOBODY is as utterly, totally genocidal as a Concerned and Compassionate Intellectual Pacifist who has been personally inconvenienced, never mind personally threatened. I’ve seen it in action.
February 14, 2007 at 7:33 pm
If leftists ever gain power, they will fight like hell to keep it.
February 14, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I have never heard anyone on the left challenge our effort in Afghanistan, there are some I am sure but not many.
There are many. There were anti-war marches before the US even went into Afghanistan, and the declarations of “it’ll be another Vietnam” started almost immediately. Anyone else remember the “brutal Afghan winter”?
But I have a question for those on the right, is their no Presidential strategy or edict they will not challenge?
1. Border security/immigration “reform”.
2. Signing McCain-Feingold.
3. Prescription drug program.
4. Cutting another phony deal with North Korea.
February 16, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Mr Crawford…do you have any citations for those marches and declarations? Also I was referring to the conduct of the war when I asked about challenging the President. It seems to me that those on the right say that the Commander in Chief should never be challenged in times of war and I can go along with that to a point (22 year army vet speaking), but I would think that past results would be an indication of future performance. I always ask those of opposite parties of the guy in the white house if they would be holding the same position if “their” guy was in the seat? I tend to lean toward we only have one CIC at a time but even I have some serious concerns about the judgement shown by the CIC and his administration. Just for the record, I advocate 400k soldiers in Iraq, a true occupation, or we redeploy to the borders with what we have and allow the Iraqi’s to fight it out.
February 18, 2007 at 12:36 am
Carl Jung (and the preponderance of religious teachers) would tell you that all hatred is self hatred. He would advise you to use your hatred as a clue to an internal conflict.
It would be very valuable if you could take advantage of this opportunity. Terrorists are consumed by hatred and celebrate it. You are consumed with hatred and celebrate it. If you were able to take the journey by which hatred becomes a doorway to self knowledge it would help provide useful insights into the challenges and evils we face.
February 18, 2007 at 8:31 pm
You are right Copi, of course.
Fighting Hitler was a huge mistake and allowing the Darfurese to be slaughtered.
In fact, might I suggest we give the Iranians a few nuclear weapons, so that they won’t feel ‘less than’?
It might be a good idea to give Hamas and Hizbollah WMD’s too- you know, so they won’t feel isolated and less loved.
Yeah. we need to love the beasts that openly declare their intent to slaughter.
Brilliant.
February 19, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Few people take up the responsibility to study one’s self. Sarcasm is one stratagem for avoiding that responsibility. You say things you don’t mean in order to avoid a direct conversation.
Since you do have some contact and some regard for Carl Jung, you have access to resources that can support you in using your experience as an opportunity for self knowledge. You have reason to have faith that taking responibility for one’s own thoughts and feelings is the best path, even when it seems difficult or frightening.
February 19, 2007 at 2:52 pm
I want to add that I do not believe you should hate yourself as much as you express in this post. You are a child of God, a creature of light and carrying around this level of self hatred is totally unnecessary. You can set down your burden and not lose anything of value.
February 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
“Few people take up the responsibility to study one’s self. Sarcasm is one stratagem for avoiding that responsibility”
Clearly, projection.
That said, my point stands.
If you hated evil enough, it would be dealt with. Clearly, you don’t care. That has been an ongoing pattern with you- as long as the victims are not white or not in your backyard, you have consistently failed to back any plan that would stop the violence.
As I have noted before, in your world, the only real victims that deserve immediate justice and relief, are those who share your agenda.
When will you cease to hate and ignore everyone else and allowed their suffering to go unanswered? That is one conversation I would have with you anytime.
February 19, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I am not aware of using sarcasm. I invite you to point out any statements of mine which are sarcastic.
I have not celebrated my hatred. You do so in this post. We know from Jung the spiritual law that all hatred has its origins in self hatred. I don’t make the laws. I am just in a position to let you know what they are.
I am not understanding your subsequent points. You believe that you continue to encounter evil because your hatred is not adequate? If you hated more, it would overcome the evil in the world? You think if I hated evil with you, you would find less evil in the world? You believe that your hatred is an expression of your care? You believe that your violence will stop violence?
I don’t agree with any of your points. You share all of these beliefs with the terrorists.
To me, it seems like it is upsetting to you and to the terrorists that there may be things in the world outside your control and you experience your hatred as establishing a relationship with the world in which you feel in control.
Again, what would be truly helpful to yourself and to the world is to understand and communicate the sources of this hatred within yourself.
February 19, 2007 at 4:29 pm
You really are funny!- Seriously, I haven’t laughed this hard in a while.
OK, I’ll make this easy.
Do you think we were right to go to war in WW2? If so, why?
Do you think that after the death of 2 million in Sudan the time has come for intervention, militarily? Or are the Darfurese not worthy of saving? If not, why not?
Now, to be clear, history has taught us that the only way to overcome evil is to defeat evil. What exactly is wrong with that POV? I advocated that “We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality.
The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution…”
Why do you find threating evil people offensive? Do you agree with their evil?
Do you think we ought to keeo making nice with Sudan until there are no more Darfurese left? Did you know there are virtually no more Christians left in Sudan, with well over a million having been slaughtered? Do you know why? Do you care?
Anyway, nice try- and thanks for making me laugh.
February 19, 2007 at 5:06 pm
I think your self hatred is painful to you. I think when you are oblivious to it, then you end up magnifying that pain and inflicting on others.
There is a kind of desperation in avoiding awareness of this pain. You’ll reach for any pretext to change the subject.
You have your beliefs about evil and your relationship to it. These are beliefs shared by the terrorists. If we were to take the following quote without an attribution we would be more likely to think it was written by an Al Qaeda operative:
“We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality. The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution…”
I recommend to both you and to the terrorists the beliefs about evil expressed by Carl Jung and by religious teachers. These beliefs are different from the beliefs you hold. They represent a more compelling approach to the problem of evil and point to the possibility of a real resolution.
February 19, 2007 at 5:12 pm
LOLOL
YOU, of all people are talking about self hatred? That is hysterical!
You’re the one who went through all kinds of gymnastics to applaud Bill Clinton for pardoning Marc Rich -something even Jimmy Carter excoriated!
How much do you have to hate yourself to have to NEED to do that?
By the way, were the questions I posed to you too hard for you to answer?
February 19, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Right now we are talking about your experience and beliefs about hatred and evil. If at another time you would like to talk about World War II or Sudan or Mark Rich you might write about it and I might say something about those subjects at that time.
Right now, I can only notice that it is important to you to change the subject. Rather than stand behind your statements or look within yourself for their origin it is very important to bring the attention to something else. If you are able to notice what comes up for you just before you need to change the subject, that would be a very valuable moment for you to observe and share.
It still leaves the mystery: why are you saying things you don’t stand behind?
When I talk about Carl Jung, I am referring to his treatment of the dynamics of the shadow. But the following quotes from Jung provide some context to what I am describing as a view of hatred and evil that is different from yours:
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.”
“We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
“The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.”
“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.”
February 19, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Your attitudes toward hate are a direct extension of your beliefs- and that is why the questions re WW2 remain both relevant and insightful into your belief system (such as it is).
Further, your dismissal of the Marc Rich remarks you made earlier cannot make them go away. They too, are highly instructive.
Finally, it is not I that changed the subject- it was you.
My remarks and post were about hate, tolerance of evil and so on.
Do you suppose that quoting Jung makes your opinions more credible?
Of course, I understand why you quote Jung- he, like you, was a supporter, if not a proponent of evil ideologies that that were to result in the deaths of millions. He was the editor of a journal that endorsed Nazism and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Like you, he denied he was a bigot or racist, but in the end, all the dancing in the world could not change the reality, any more than the you can change the reality that the failed ideologies you believe in can hide their dismal record or death, destruction and evil.
When it comes to shadows, Jungian and otherwise, look in the mirror.
Feel free to answer the questions I posed prior to attempting to derail the conversation. They were related to your response to the original post.
February 19, 2007 at 7:46 pm
The name of your blog is Sigmund, Carl and Alfred. You describe your blog as “a tribute to” Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler “by an admiring psycho-therapist.”
Do I understand now that you do not respect Carl Jung? You regard him as a Nazi and an instigator of genocide?
Wow. You’re pretty profoundly disorganized. There doesn’t seem to be any self there.
I encourage you to reconcile this conflict. If you have contempt for Carl Jung, then do not present your blog as “a tribute” to Carl Jung “by an admiring psychotherapist.”
February 19, 2007 at 7:52 pm
No, that is not what I said. I will assume you did not understand- I am quite sure you would not engage in any kind of deceit.
I said Jung was a Nazi sympathizer and thus, I can understand your affection for him. Do you concur with those beliefs?
Jung was a great psychotherapist, but certainly not without his faults.
Clearly, you do not understand the nature of this exchange. A bit over your head, clearly.
February 19, 2007 at 8:48 pm
You say that Carl Jung is a Nazi sympathizer, a bigot and a racist, a supporter of evil ideologies that resulted in the death of millions. You also volunteer your unequivocal “tribute” and “admiration” to him as the first thing we should know about you.
I welcome your elucidation of this. To me, I think you owe Carl Jung and your readers an explanation of why you are offering tribute and admiration to someone you regard as a Nazi sympathizer, bigot, and racist who helped instigate the death of millions.
In the post itself, you write that you feel we are obliged to hate this sort of outlook when we find it in others. But now we learn that in Jung’s case, you are able to overlook his evil in order to offer tribute and admiration.
My understanding is that you don’t have an internal sense of self that can maintain intellectual integrity. Instead you present a desperate, restless series of psychological defenses to cover over the emptiness of not having a self. I did not know how bad it was when we started this conversation.
If another explanation makes more sense, I invite you to offer it.
February 19, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I said he was a sympathizer, not an instigator. I also noted in that you are of a similar mind (although Jung, you have not renounced or distanced yourself from the ideologies that have cause so much death and destruction. It is for that reason that Jung remains credible. You have yet to distance yourself from the affection and support for murderous tyrants and dictators
So as to better understand you, I will pose the questions again:
Do you think we were right to go to war in WW2? If so, why?
Do you think that after the death of 2 million in Sudan the time has come for intervention, militarily? Or are the Darfurese not worthy of saving? If not, why not?
Now, to be clear, history has taught us that the only way to overcome evil is to defeat evil. What exactly is wrong with that POV? I advocated that “We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality.
The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution…”
Why do you find threating evil people offensive? Do you agree with their evil?
Do you think we ought to keep making nice with Sudan until there are no more Darfurese left? Did you know there are virtually no more Christians left in Sudan, with well over a million having been slaughtered? Do you know why? Do you care?
February 21, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I can only imagine how frightening it would be to live in a world in which one moment a man is your hero, someone you offer tribute to and admiration for, someone with whom you identify and name yourself after. The next moment the same man is a nazi sympathizer, a racist and a bigot, a supporter of evil ideologies that result in the death of millions of people and anyone who admires this person’s work is also a racist, bigot, supporter of genocide.
There doesn’t seem to be anybody home at your house who can recognize you are contradicting yourself. You seem split into two sides which do not talk to each other.
Splitting like this is understood to be a primitive defense that has its roots in wounding that takes place before the attainment of object constancy at 18 – 24 months. The infant splits the mother into a good mother who is nurturing and a bad mother who is hurtful because it is unable to tolerate the anxiety that the nurturing mother may at any time also be the hurtful mother. If there is too much wounding going on at that time, the infant is never able to integrate these two sides into a single picture of a mother with good and bad qualities and carries this split inside itself and into adulthood. It isn’t my intention to embarass you (though if you were able to attend to the embarassment that led you to hide this post, it would be helpful to you. That embarassment would be the beginning of genuine feeling. I am just talking about what psychology teaches us about the internal life of a hater and how we can observe that in your case. Something similar would be going on in the hating of Islamic terrorists.
It would be fundamental to Jungian psychology that war and hate comes out of these sorts of psychological deficits. Hate serves as a substitute for control in the internal life of a person who feels out of control because they do not have a sense of self. Hate is a kind of negative, anti-self. It is important to notice that hate does not provide genuine control. Your violence does not help you achieve safety.
I can see that you are unable to tolerate self awareness — at least in my company. I understand that we do not have an alliance and it may feel unsafe with me. I can only witness that none of this pain and difficulty is necessary in your case. If you put it all down and make contact with the fear and chaos inside you, the fear and chaos will abate. A sense of self will develop when you can develop an intention to look inside yourself and a faith that you can do this without being overwhelmed.
I’ll answer your questions though I have the sense they are an effort to avoid conversation and self awareness rather than an effort to engage it. The Nazis and Japanese empire were wrong to start a war. They started a war out of these same deficits described above and the same deficits that animate the war in Iraq. After they attacked us, it was right for the United States to end the war they started. It was not necessary to hate in order to prosecute that war.
I don’t know how to solve the problem in the Sudan or what should be done about it. I haven’t heard anyone propose a solution as to what to do about the problem in the Sudan. I was impressed that Bill Richardson was able to negotiate a cease-fire. If you have a solution or proposal I invite you to share it. I have not heard you do so.
February 21, 2007 at 2:47 pm
It is usually a sign of mental instability when an individual is unable to cope with the concept that people have both good AND bad qualities. Most of us in the mental health field understand that one of the tasks of maturity is to be able to recognize that that is the human condition. In other words, copithorne, we can accept that Jung was a brilliant psychiatrist whose ideas were groundbreaking AND that he was also capable of becoming a Nazi sympathizer. Mentally unstable people will “throw the baby out with the bathwater”, refusing to accept imperfection; or if imperfection exists, then rejecting not only the person, but also the idea. This has been the tactic of those on the left, like yourself, who cannot tolerate imperfection and expect–nay DEMAND–perfection in people. This inabililty to tolerate this kind of ambiguity in human nature leads to unrealistic expectations and a general lessening of the connection with reality. An excellent example of this is the bizarre expectation from the left that the Iraq war–or any way, for that matter–MUST be perfectly executed without errors, mistakes, or messiness; otherwise it must be abandoned. This is not only immature, but exceedingly stupid when you think about it. You accuse Siggy of this (and by the way, it is YOU who happen to be “splitting”–a normal person is able to tolerate both the good and the bad together)but he accepts the imperfections in Jung.
Oh, and by the way, you never managed to answer his questions. Is this avoidance because you cannot tolerate your own imperfections, perhaps?
February 21, 2007 at 5:18 pm
What I wrote was based on what Sig Carl and Alfred said and I referred to his writings. SC&A adopts Carl Jung’s name, pays admiring tribute to him and regards him as a racist bigot, Nazi sympathizer, proponent of genocide. He says that quoting Jung is evidence of being a evil racist bigot. This is not an integrated single view. It’s splitting.
Are there other racist genocidal bigoted nazi sympathizers you pay admiring tribute to? SC&A’s post argues the obligation to hate evil people. Now we understand that that only applies to some evil people. Some evil people can be the object of admiring tributes. Other evil people should be hated. I would welcome a clarification in how you distinguish between the two types of evil people.
Are you able to connect your interpretation with any words I wrote? I simply quoted Jung as a person with interesting ideas.
As far as I know, I answered his SC&A’s non rhetorical questions. If there are some I missed, I invite you to point them out and I will do my best to answer them for you.
February 21, 2007 at 5:26 pm
We’ll give this another shot:
Do you think we were right to go to war in WW2? If so, why?
Do you think that after the death of 2 million in Sudan the time has come for intervention, militarily? Or are the Darfurese not worthy of saving? If not, why not?
Now, to be clear, history has taught us that the only way to overcome evil is to defeat evil. What exactly is wrong with that POV? I advocated that “We must be so outraged that we must be ready to inflict a pain so great and a punishment so profound, that the evil doers will take note and cease their brutality.
The evil doers must tremble in fear from the thought of our hate for them, and at the thought of retribution…”
Why do you find threating evil people offensive? Do you agree with their evil?
Do you think we ought to keep making nice with Sudan until there are no more Darfurese left? Did you know there are virtually no more Christians left in Sudan, with well over a million having been slaughtered? Do you know why? Do you care?
February 21, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I don’t know of what to make of your inability to register my answers to your questions. But as I said, I answered all non rhetorical questions.
Do you think we were right to go to war in WW2? If so, why?
I answered that question: “The Nazis and Japanese empire were wrong to start a war. They started a war out of these same deficits described above and the same deficits that animate the war in Iraq. After they attacked us, it was right for the United States to end the war they started. It was not necessary to hate in order to prosecute that war.”
Do you think that after the death of 2 million in Sudan the time has come for intervention, militarily? Or are the Darfurese not worthy of saving? If not, why not?
I answered that question: “I don’t know how to solve the problem in the Sudan or what should be done about it. I haven’t heard anyone propose a solution as to what to do about the problem in the Sudan. I was impressed that Bill Richardson was able to negotiate a cease-fire. If you have a solution or proposal I invite you to share it. I have not heard you do so.”
“What exactly is wrong with that POV?”
I answered that question.
“Why do you find threating evil people offensive?”
I don’t.
“Do you agree with their evil?”
No.
“Do you think we ought to keep making nice with Sudan until there are no more Darfurese left?
This is a repeat of a question I already answered. I don’t know what to do about Sudan. I don’t claim any expertise about what is going on there. I don’t perceive myself as having any control over events there. If you have a proposal, I would be interested in hearing it. I could then tell you whether I thought that proposal was an approach I could share.
I answered your questions. Will you reciprocate?