Relativism on the Couch with Dr Pat (II)

Dr Sanity is the blog alias of psychologist Pat Santy M.D. of AnnArbor, Michigan, who sees it as her duty to analyse these unhinged expressions of post-modernism from her professional angle - and she does so brilliantly. Her blog doesn't provide permalinks, so it takes a bit of scrolling from the top.

In an insightful article she looks into the psychology that's driving the Left. After months of studying the situation with sheer stupefaction my simplistic lay conclusion was, that they are scared out of their wits by the decibel producing and bomb-hurling Islamo-Nazis whom they don't dare to cross, while conservatives, Republicans and the faithfull (Muslims exempted due aforementioned reasons) serve as easy projections of that fear. This is largely borne out by Dr Pat's analysis.

What stands out first of all - at least, that would be my wake-up call - if you catch yourself wholeheartedly and profoundly hating someone you don't even know personally, this should be telling you something! By associative thought the first realisation should be: "Wow, wasn't that Jesus Christ the cleverest dude to get to the moral core ever so pointedly and concise, when he taught you shouldn't be holding a grudge [1]! First of all, you don't get into a vicious circle of vengeance and revenge of Middle Eastern infamy, and you don't get consumed by hatred which in the end always turns inward and destroys you. The second thought should be: "Why am I hating this person, (or group of persons, or school of thought,) so much?".

Dr Pat's answer is: "You do, because your subconscious refuses to become aware of a disagreeable reality; it turns its back on it and in imagination reverses the unwelcome facts; to be in touch with reality requires cognitive effort a.k.a. thinking - and it must assert itself over powerful emotions instead of drawing away from the real world to a place more comfortable to inner reality".

The good docter also details how you determine what is actualy true, and what is myth or delusion. First you have to become aware that reality objectively exists outside of a person's or group's ideology c.q. opinion. This is a profound piece of information for relativists, who do not believe in objective truth or reality at all. So there you go: the basis for the delusion is at the core of the pseudo-philosophy of relativism itself and we can add to our PMF list [2]:

#12. Relativism leads to serious psychological pathology, confusing mature adaptation to a changing reality, with myth and self-delusion.

Townhall.com columnist Jeff Emanuel today in an article "Terrorism Deniers: Like Holocaust Deniers, only, like, Way Cooler" details the lengths and depths some go to, so as to maintain the self-delusion and deny the unpleasant reality and the powerful emotions they cannot deal with.

To be continued.