Darryl,[snip]
I believe there is a percentage of people in the U.S. that are so angry at so many things in their own country that were wrong or they have no power over and cannot change that they need an scapegoat and any opposition to that scapegoating will not be brooked and may turn the angry mob against the well-intentioned information giver.
arthur
I think this rings true. Is this what Freud called sublimation?
I think "sublimation" is a complex and possibly plural notion (i.e., there may be a number of different kinds of sublimation).
I think the kind Freud most often had in mind does not apply to the current situation. It is the way that children give up their autochthonous desires as a tradeoff for gaining real "bennies": A young man becomes a model miliktary school cadet --> and eventually does become a general, having been all the other steps of commissioned officer along the way. Not quite "straight", but not an entirely one-sided transaction either (i.e., the individual got some rewards as well as the system getting the infividual's energies).
I personally like my own metaphorical interpretation of alchemical (and even chemical...) sublimation, where a substance changes from solid to ethereal state without passing thru an intermediate soggy (liquid) condition. On my model, the infant would go from infantile polymorphous perversity to tantric sexual ecstasy without an intervening period of sexual repression and frustration (etc.).
I don't think that "sublimation" has much relevance to persons like Mr. Timothy McVeigh and Mr. Mohammad Atta. The price on their souls is too high, and perhaps their souls really are not for sale. (The NYT ran a fine story on the origin of Mohammad Atta and his compeers, which I have summarized at:
http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/quotes.html#Q85
It should be remembered that Atta and his colleagues submitted their bodies to the seductions of the Sirens (American sexualized popular culture), without any binding like Odysseus used to protect himself from his desires, and they carried out their life purpose nonetheless.
\brad mccormick
-- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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