tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post5083829123379963033..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: The Great UnravelingStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-82516599167644614892011-12-18T17:19:50.601-08:002011-12-18T17:19:50.601-08:00Thank you for reading and analyzing the column, it...Thank you for reading and analyzing the column, it spares me the effort. But I fear a rational analysis of the irrational is a futile gesture. <br /><br />I try to avoid the usual categories of liberal/conservative, red/blue, and left/right, because they tend to obscure rather than illuminate individual's motivations. <br /><br />Instead, I prefer to think of Mr. Gelb, and his tribe (including our president) as cargo cultists. This places them within an understandable and predictable context. <br /><br />A modern westerner knows that a wooden model of an airplane will never cause the gods to once again drop treasure from the sky. What he cannot do is explain to the model's builder why it is so. It is not that the words of explanation do not exist, it is that there is no way to penetrate the perfect shell of belief which forms the worldview of the cargo cultist.<br /><br />Normally this is not so much of a problem, but time, tide and the vagaries of politics have placed these believers in sympathetic magic in control of the complex machine which is the American economy. <br /><br />That the machine is crashing, despite all the virgin sacrifices, chicken blood, and sweat lodges, cannot mean their beliefs are wrong - indeed they cannot conceive there are beliefs other than theirs. The only possible explanation is rival and malicious sorcerers are casting counter spells to keep them from succeeding.<br /><br />My fear is their kind of thinking is so seductive it threatens to drag us back into barbarism.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09591653189783332797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-57625981779556420722011-12-18T08:44:47.364-08:002011-12-18T08:44:47.364-08:00If we go back 70 years, as you rightly suggest, we...If we go back 70 years, as you rightly suggest, we arrive at the same narrative.<br /><br />When the world burst into flames in the early 1940s, the cognoscenti were quick to ignore the fact that FDR had been conducting foreign policy for eight years, years that shadow the rise of the Third Reich. Since they could not imagine that FDR had anything to do with what was happening, then blamed Congressional Republicans.<br /><br />Same story, different players.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-36399653066119184922011-12-18T08:33:35.610-08:002011-12-18T08:33:35.610-08:00Why can't Gelb and millions like him see the o...Why can't Gelb and millions like him see the obvious truth?<br /><br />Because along with "too big to fail" we now have someone in the WH who is "too black to fail."<br /><br />The failure of Obama puts the entire liberal/progressive experiment of the last 70 odd years into shadow. Not good.vanderleunhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10296245324443413545noreply@blogger.com