John B and Y'all:
I think there are a lot of interesting angels on the issue of projection.
Although it might not be explicit, Pirsig does seem to address the problem.
But first let me back up a little.
>From the Gnostic Gospels, that introspective brand of Christianity that was
crushed long ago...
IF YOU BRING FORTH WHAT IS WITHIN YOU, IT WILL SAVE YOU.
BUT IF YOU FAIL TO BRING FORTH WHAT IS WITHIN YOU, IT WILL DESTROY YOU.
I'm sure this was considered to be spiritual wisdom when it was written two
thousand years, but today I think we can recognize it as a profound
psychological insight. Bringing "forth what is within you" is the healthy
and necessary part of projection.
This is hard to talk about, so please forgive me if it sounds like
psycho-babble. And I don't really know enough about Leuchter, but if he's
anything like the other neo-NAZIs I've known he has a deep-seated mistrust
of the world. To feel hostility all around seems perfectly natural to him.
In deed, he's learned to use this hostility to confirm a paranoid political
view and agrandize his own rejection by the courts, turning it into heroism
instead. I've been interested in this personality type specifically in the
past few years, especially since the rise of the militias and the Oaklahoma
City bombing and all that. As a part of my job, I had the chance to talk to
alot of these guys, including The Trochman's of the Militia of Montana and
William Pierce, the author of THE TURNER DIARIES, that racist and
apocalyptic novel that inspired McViegh. Blah blah blah. I also worked
closely and for extended periods with some guys who were essentially the
same, although they were certainly less extreme in their views. I've seen
all shades of this right-wingedness and you know what they all seem to have
in common? Don't laugh. They all had serious problems with their mothers.
It may not seem important because its so obvious and simple, but I think its
huge. These guys all had a paranoid world view and were attracted to
ideologies that stress the role of the police, the military and other
security issues. Their notions of freedom seemed to boil down to an
infantile wish to have what they want exactly when they want it. They even
seemed to categorize their personal relations in terms of friend or foe.
They take a keen interest in loyalty and betrayal and tend to like
conspiracy theories. Because of a deep-seated insecurity, the slightest
criticism will unleash a torrent of irrational hostility. Even the
expression of opinions other than their own is seen as a personal attack.
There is a direct correspondence between personality and politics, emotional
needs and world view. In fact they are one and the same. They project fear
and mistrust onto the whole world, and they don't do very well at cocktail
parties.
I don't wish to merely insult the klansmen and skin heads, but to explain
them in psychological terms, to describe that ideology in terms of neurotic
projection. In a different time and place we could say the same things about
completely different ideologies, but in our recent history this personality
type has clustered around right-wing reactionary movements. I think this is
because of the battle between social and intellectual values, the theme song
of the 20th century an all that.
Remember how Pirsig describes insanity in terms of Lila's final hours on the
boat? She'd moved to a set of private static patterns, entirely outside any
cultural patterns. (The ultimate culture shock comes from talking to the
insane?) Interesting that Lila not only projects some of these private
patterns onto the doll, and that Pirsig honors the "charged" artifact in a
ritual burial. In any case, I think his descriptions of insanity are
relevant to the issue of neurotic projection. Lila's shift was toward unique
patterns, and she'll project them onto whatever is around her, .. or floats
by. In the much less extreme case of a common neurotic, he'll have plenty of
company and there will be a ready-made ideology that seems to validate all
his instincts. The charged artifact is already there for him, so to speak,
because he's projecting some basic and common stuff.
And this is even true for those who are relatively healthy. In this case,
there is no escape to private patterns and there is no attraction to cults
or ideologies. A sane and undamaged person can use the entire culture as a
field of projection and is therefore neither lost like Lila nor alienated
like Leuchter. (Then there's the problem of trying to make this function in
a culture that is insane, but that's another topic.) The normal individual
can see herself in the myths and legends, can relate to the messages of that
culture's religion, knows her place within the society, etc. All this kind
of projection functions to "bring forth what is within". Its why we cry over
sad movies. We project our own feelings on to the screen and the actors
understand and reflect those same feelings. They are acted-out,
demonstrated, and articulated in a charged artifact. But in this case its a
story, a play, a movie, a book or some other reasonable cultural container.
This kind of projection is limited to appropriate fields of projection, not
the world at large. It operates on the same psychological principles as it
does for the cultish fanatics, except it validates a broader range of human
values, not just fear and hatred. I'm sure there are no clear cut lines. Its
just a matter of degree. It seems to me that certain kinds of projection are
proper and healthy, are an essential part of the growth process, but that
the neurotic is stuck in a rut and only likes one kind of movie over and
over and over and over...
I don't wish to make this topic muddy or murky, it just seems to be
complicated all my itself. In fact, I think the idea of projection is tied
up in a wonderful mystery. I mean, If the MOQ really is a good description
of reality, then we ARE patterns built upon patterns and OUR UNDERSTANDING
OF EVERTHING is also made of patterns. Conscousness itself seems to be built
of analogies on top of analogies. It becomes less clear what is "inside" and
what is "outside", what is projected and what is really "objectively" out
there. In the MOQ the great gulf between subjects and objects has been
filled with a hierarchy of patterns. In the MOQ, we ARE what we see. Thou
art that. We can ONLY see what we are. We can only see what we "bring forth"
from within. As the gnostic gospels have it, failure to do so will destroy
you. But it'll save you if you do it right.
Lila Dynamically chooses her sex partners, the one she wants to PROJECT into
the future.
Sometimes revolutionaries are just working out their own personal problems,
and it just so happens the culture is working on those same issues too. In
the hero business, time ing is everything.
Ah, oops, gotta go. I'm working on a project.....
MOQ Online Homepage - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Unsubscribe - http://www.moq.org/md/index.html
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:35 BST