Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

Aldous Huxley said,

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

There is no mistaking the evil that is Hizbollah, Hamas, and the terror supporting regime in Tehran for anything other than what they are. What ever distinctions there are between them only serve to highlight the degree of depravity that they have in common. Some groups are more depraved than others. The notion that it is ‘ideology’ that separates these groups is absurd.

That monument to mediocrity and hypocrisy on the East River are demanding that America and Israel cease their assault on hate filled ideologues that make no secret of their intent. European anti American ideologues at the UN have tried mightily to cast Hizbollah, Hamas and the Iranian regime as legitimate political entities- as if they could wash away the openly racist and bigoted ideologies these nations openly embrace. Emboldened by anti American Europeans,Hizbollah, Hamas, Iran, et al, usually forget they are expendable pawns in a political dance, designed more for domestic political theater than for anything else.

In order for the ideologies of hate to gain ground, they need an environment of chaos. This of course, is antithetical to the momentum and progress of civilization, which requires that order replace chaos.

Deriving order from chaos. A big part of our lives is derived from engaging in that very endeavor.

That effort has been the basis of every culture, society and religion. Cultures, societies and religions that have predicated their values on deriving order from chaos have thrived and endured. Cultures, societies and religions that have predicated their values on chaos and disorder, have proved to be failed entities, unable to keep up with and compete with the natural evolution of progress. Cultures, societies and religions fail because they fail to adapt to new realities or because they are influenced by political, religious or cultural leaders for who progress represents a threat to their control.Every teacher will tell you that a child learns by finding order in the chaos of new ideas as the child works to make sense of the world around him or her. The best parents and teachers encourage that exploration and the questions that are a necessary component of learning. The worst parents and teachers are threatened by a thinking and questioning child, fearing the loss of control.

For example, the organized study of science has been broken down into various disciplines, so that we might better understand our universe. That is accomplished by finding order and understanding scientific phenomena. The ‘Eureka!‘ miracle drugs and technologies that have so impacted our lives, came about as the result of finding understanding and harnessing the order from the chaos. In the future, the cure for cancer and other diseases will come about because scientists diligently examine and learn from studies in chemistry, biology, anatomy and a host of other scientific disciplines. Progress in all human endeavors is the result of finding order from chaos

The primary goals of psychologists and psychiatrists, are to help their patients find order in the chaos that has overtaken their lives and in some cases, to recognize the ‘triggers’ that might upend their lives. The degree of successful therapy is measured by how well the therapist taught and empowered their patient in managing heir own lives- again, order out of chaos.

Religion, faith, the search for God and finding meaning, is very much about finding order from chaos. That said, there are religious ideologues believe that never ending violence or the threat of is an acceptable form theology.What happens when our natural instinct and need to find order from chaos is impeded? In our time, there is a clear attempt to replace the theology of reason with the theology of violence- and a clear attempt to deal with this dysfunction as if replacing theologies of reason with theologies violence was an acceptable expression of equal ideologies. The disastrous implications are clear. Maxed Out Mama notes

I want to reiterate this: for every act of violence in the west, there are ten in the Muslim world. The ideology of Violence must be defeated, because it will never surrender - but that need not mean that Muslims must be outcast, or that being Muslim is at all incompatible within being humane and just. What we should do is speak and live reason, even if we have to carry a gun to do this. I must, in the end, have a radical addiction to freedom, because I would rather live in an armed society than in one which carried out pogroms against innocent Muslims.

Let’s examine this a bit more closely. For those who need to impose an ideology or theology of violence over reason, it becomes necessary to subvert those who might seek order from the chaos. In societies, cultures and even religions, the notion of order from chaos is upended if violence is given reign over reason. When violence or a culture of violence is given dominion over reason or a culture of reason, we are going back in time, reverting to more primitive instincts.

Those for whom reason and order are the ‘prime directive,’ cannot allow the wholesale degradation of a people into violence or chaos, led by a few dysfunctional and evil men. This is not a matter of religion. Anyone, regardless of religion or even belief, realize that real believers understand that we were not put here to blow each other off the face of the earth. If we turn a blind eye or ignore the plight of Muslims under these repressive and dysfunctional regimes, we do so at our own peril.

We noted in Peace In The Middle East Starts At Home, that

The biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac is instructive. Now matter how willing his servant is, God does not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son.

God does not demand from Abraham that he obviate his role as a parent. He insists rather, that Abraham resume his natural role as a parent. God does not need Abraham’s son as a sacrifice.

God demands a theology of reason over violence, and order from chaos. We are not meant to sacrifice our children, to use them in fact, as weapons to kill others in God’s name.
To parent and elevate our children is to find order and reason in the most important part of our lives, as custodians for the next generation.

If we are to help each other, nourish each other and support each other as we fulfill the human destiny of progress, we must accept that our mission on this earth is not to destroy each other. Rather, we must accept as truth that the principal raison d’etre of our lives is to keep reason and order as an anchor against the vile and foul winds that are violence and chaos. This is the message we repeat over and over again. The problems in much of the Islamic world are very fundamental and are in no way the result of anything other than a spectacular dysfunctionality. To place the blame elsewhere (on America, Israel, Jews, Christians, etc.) is no more than an attempt to validate the idea that chaos can take precedence over order, if and when that serves a particular need.

The accumulation of our contributions, as we endeavor to always demand and expect order rather than chaos, are what defines civilized society. Those that do not contribute or demand to that chaos rule the day, exclude themselves from civilized society.

Our adversaries, by deliberate deed, action and by their own admission, have come to value violence over reason. They have destroyed much and wish to destroy even more. They wish to upend the truth that we are not meant to destroy each other.

A civilized society does not exclude others easily or separate itself from others with great pleasure. It is an undisputed and sacred reality that civilized societies are built on the principle and foundation of inclusion. We wish peace with our neighbors. Peace by definition, means order and reason, a live and let live culture. Societies that share the values of order and reason have proved to be the most successful societies in history, from cultural, educational, legal and economic standpoints, among others.

Tragically, there are those that claim to want peace- but only if that peace is based on the threat of violence and capitulation to an evil that destroys, hates and rules by threat of chaos.

Dr Sanity, in Repression And The Mirror Of Insight, prefaced her remarks by noting “Freud is reported to have said that the very act of entering into civilized society entails the repression of various desires, impulses and feelings.”

In her post, Dr Sanity discusses order over chaos, albeit indirectly:

The most psychologically healthy… are those those that allow us to transform the primitive instinctual energy of even the most destructive emotions into works of art or entertainment that give pleasure to others (sublimation and humor); or behavior that is socially beneficial (altruism, anticipation, suppression). People who achieve optimal psychological health are those who have come to satisfactory terms with their neurobiology. They are people who have learned to accept their anger, rage and other potentially deadly emotions and, instead of destructively acting out, repressing, denying or projecting; have creatively expressed those feelings in a way that improves life both for themselves and for others…

Insight is a wonderful thing. The power or act of seeing into a situation and apprehending the inner nature or motivation of one’s self–especially the why–can be extremely liberating… Only by being aware of these kind of hidden truths and inner motivations can a person gain control over them and correct the behavior that they generate.

Without real insight, we are playing a kind of lottery, not only with our own lives, but with the welfare and future of our community as well.

In one form or another, we are all weighted down. We all carry some kind of baggage- our responsibilities, our home life and the influences of our childhood all contribute to the ‘load’ each of us bears. It is true that with the help of a therapist, we can learn to ‘unload’ that baggage and bask in a kind of new found freedom. That said, without real insight into ourselves and understanding why individually and collectively, we must constantly work at finding order from within chaos, we will find ourselves weighted down again, very quickly. Without real insight, freedom from chaos soon becomes ethereal, because learned dysfunctional behaviors and biases reassert themselves.

In other words, a prerequisite to civilized society a clear demand that we find order in chaos. We must come to insight- to understand what motivates us and to recognize our biases and those dysfunctional behaviors that influences the choices we make. When chaos or violence, even dressed up as ‘reasonable expression,’ is allowed to the fore, our ‘civilized society’ suffers- and we and society reverts back to more primitive behaviors.

Those voices that call for or defend the policies of those who place violence over reason and demand chaos over order, are equally as dysfunctional as those for whom the ideologies of violence and chaos are a reality- and they are equally threatening to civilized society.

Portions of this post have been previously published.