UNDERSTANDING THE INSANE

Maybe its easier for me, having been a "true believer" in the leftist fantasy world and so totally divorced from reality, to understand where these poor, damaged (and dangerous) people are coming from that are running our schools, media and now government.

Its why Dr. Sanity consistently rings so true when she speaks of the mental health epidemic in what's left of America and why I never tire of shamelessly quoting her at length:

Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer makes an irrefutable point in saying that an essential aspect of any mass movement (e.g., Islamism, fascism, communism, socialism etc. etc.) is that it spreads by encouraging utopian fantasies and promises of future societal bliss. In order to succeed, all such movements must have followers who are "true believers" through and through; and, as the annointed ones, they are eager and willing to sacrifice themselves (and often many others) for the sake of their cause.

As people become unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives, they become succeptible to anyone or any group who makes vague promises of the "hope and change" kind.

From a psychological perspective, all such movements are particularly attractive to any individuals who happen to have significant defects in their own sense of self to begin with. Belonging to a "glorious cause" (and such causes are certainly not exclusive to one side of the political spectrum or the other)and immersing one's defective self in the "collective", offers an opportunity to create a "new" self; one that is usually quite imaginary, but gives you much more of a sense of your own importance....

...Most people have some cracks in their individual identity, and the need to belong--to a greater or lesser degree-- to something beyond our narrow selves is quite healthy (see my series on Narcissism and Society for a more in-depth discussion of this). But when true believers slip into what I have termed "narcissistic awe" or narcissistic idealism"; they begin to believe they that they know better how to run your life than you do; and when the cracks in the self can only be filled by exerting power over others, then they become absorbed in what T.S. Eliot calls "the endless struggle to think well of themselves."

They may not mean to do harm, but they do. The history of the last century is littered with millions of dead people who were the objects of the true believers' good intentions.

Read the whole thing. Awesome.