The Cultural Revolt of the 60's - The UpsideDowning of the 90's

The revolt of the sixties flower-powered children has turned our world upside down. Amazingly, that revolt, largely waged against an authoritarian anything, including institutions such as family, religion, the military, and not least, government, now has evolved into an advocacy for a more intrusive and all encompassing government under the guise of compassion. This kind of irrationality has become pervasive in contemporary American culture among the politically correct.

The psychologist, John Rosemond has said that young children cannot differentiate between needs and wants; between superstition and logical thinking. Those two states merge in the child's mind as a unified sense of entitlement, and self-centeredness.

I first encountered this kind of thinking in the early sixties while living in Colorado. As an advisor to a community mental health center, I became familiar with a number of drug dealers in the area. These young men and women were the embodiment of flower-power, and aggressively marketed and indulged in their illegal wares until they each had amassed a considerable stake. And then, systematically, each converted to Jehova's Witness, and went on to convert that ill-gotten lucre into legitimate investments - regarding themselves as pillars of the community, and members of the elite, the annointed.

Charley Reese, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel recently pointed to other, similar oddities of thought: "The odd thing about post-modern America is that many people have rejected both religion and reason. Superstition and illogical thinking are the chief characteristics of public debate in America.

Pro-abortionists, for example, wish to be called pro-choice, though the child to be aborted is denied both choice and life. They state that a woman has a right to control her own body, but it is not her body that is killed at the abortion clinic. It's her baby's body that ends up in the dump. Abortion is infanticide. To show you how illogical the law is, a pregnant woman who uses drugs can be charged with child abuse by the justice (?) system, which says it is OK if she hires an abortionist to kill the same child. Laws should, at the least, be logical. Apparently killing is not considered abuse."

And we have extended that illogical thinking into child raising, that is, when we choose not to kill them. It seems that Dr.'s Brad Bushman of Iowa State and Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio have now "discovered" that programs designed to build self-esteem in children, by schools and parents, may artificially heighten self-esteem, and lead to a violent society by creating Narcissistic personality disordered children. Allow me to say "duh" here. First, Dr. Benjamin Spock encouraged a whole generation of parents to become more indulgent of their children and we have subsequently bred the most narcissistic (and violence absorbed) society since Greco-Roman times. Now we have the vaunted "self-esteem" movement as an extension of that indulgence, and we have kids killing kids at monstrously high rates. Charley Reese commented on the comparison between Rome and America: At the time of the Fall "Rome still had plenty of legions, but it had rotted from within. Napoleon, who knew something about war and power, said, 'There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.' How do we define spirit? Well, an American historian, who read all the letters written by Americans in the Revolution that he could get his hands on, said that four distinct themes emerged in all those letters -- love of God, love of family, love of country (note "country," not "government") and love of liberty.

These loves were so genuine that patriots of that generation were not only willing to sacrifice their material well-being but their lives as well. That's spirit, and people with that kind of spirit are tough to whip, as the British discovered.

Unfortunately, that spirit is lost today. Let me be more precise: It is lost largely among the elite who run American institutions, both public and private. It is still found among more humble Americans. If you are looking for people who love God, family, country and liberty, you are much more likely to find them on the assembly line, on the farm, in the small town and on the police and fire departments than you are on the alumni lists of Yale, Harvard and the other elite universities.

The American elite, it seems to me, love self, money, position and comfort. Those who love God, family, country and liberty will sacrifice themselves for what they love; those who love self, money, position and comfort will sacrifice others for their own benefit."

I am reminded of those druggies in Colorado that evolved into the "elite."

God must be laughing at our idiocy. Linda Bowles, another syndicated columnist, recently wrote: " For a long time, the thought has been that humanity not only doesn't need God, but He is actually in the way. Man is capable -- without any help, thank you -- of setting his own rules and achieving his own goals.

Indeed, many Americans have became so convinced that God is irrelevant, that they are supporting efforts to dismantle a political structure linked to the Creator of the universe and a moral structure carefully put in place to help protect us from our Dark Side." But now it appears that God may be making a comeback through that most unlikely of vehicles, science. In commenting on a Newsweek piece, she notes: "I was happy to learn that an increasing number of scientists have experienced a leap of reason, and become convinced that the universe is purposeful and rational. I know angels rejoice at the news. However, the story title, 'Science Finds God,' reflects an ancient, anthropocentric perspective -- a self-centered, rather childlike view that man is at the center of the universe." Again, that ugly, childish, flower-powered narcissism is evidenced. And Linda Bowles, in a most un-narcissistic fashion, comes to the only logical conclusion: "Let's keep our perspective. In the struggle to find concordances between God and science, the burden is on science. Scientists do not create natural laws or phenomena; they merely investigate them. Scientists seek to learn about the handiwork of another. Scientists cannot add one speck of matter to the universe, or take one speck away. They may, within natural limits, rearrange the specks. It is the job of scientists to construct theories and hypotheses to account for established facts. Scientists have not, nor will they ever be able to, construct a godless hypothesis that will account for the existence of life and the existence of an infinite universe."

In his own inimicable style, Cal Thomas wrote of late on the deaths of the three Catholic boys in Northern Ireland, and of the similarly senseless murder of two Capitol police officers in Washington, D.C. Thomas relates: "As a child growing up in the Washington area, I recall walking freely on the Capitol grounds and having easy access to the buildings. Then, a metal detector was a device you took to the beach to search for lost change. In Northern Ireland, no one recalls a time when people who claimed to be Catholic and others who claimed to be Protestant were not warring with one another. ... Those who would divide to conquer, and prefer hate to reconciliation, have just enough fuel to keep the fires going." ... "A spiritual illness leads to murder in Northern Ireland. A mental illness leads to murder in Washington. Having sown the wind of indifference about the meaningful things of life, we are reaping its meaningless harvest."

Exploring the issue of America's disenfranchised mentally ill, Mary Mostert, a news analyst who writes frequently for Michael Reagan, looked at the history of deinstitutionalization which has flooded our city streets with the homeless mentally ill. "Severe mental illnesses affects some five million American adults, according to recent statistics. Overall, one in ten Americans experience 'some disability from a diagnosis of mental illness in the course of any given year.' If that figure is accurate, it means approximately twenty six MILLION Americans each year would be affected by mental illness. In 1959, with a population of 177 million, compared with today's 267 million Americans, there were only one half million people in mental institutions - and homelessness was not a problem." ... "E. Fuller Torrey, MD, wrote in the Harvard Medical School Mental Health Letter of August 1989, 'The homeless mentally ill are a product of the best of intentions followed by the worst of operations. They are the result of deinstitutionalization, the policy which evolved in the 1950s and '60s to shift care of the seriously mentally ill from state mental hospitals to community facilities. The policy is reasonable in theory, but in practice has proved to be a disgrace to the mental health professions and a national tragedy.' " ... "The failure of deinstitutionalization has many causes. One is the misuse of federally funded community mental health centers (CMHCs). They were originally conceived as alternatives to state mental hospitals for the treatment of the seriously mentally ill. A few of the 789 CMHCs accepted that responsibility, but most evolved into counseling and psychotherapy centers for people with much less serious problems. Counseling is an infinitely expansible need with a high capacity for diverting public resources.

Another cause of homelessness is the states' attempt to shift their costs to the federal government. In 1955 the federal government paid for 2 percent of the care of the seriously mentally ill; in 1985, it paid 38 percent. This increase has come about through the extension of such programs as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)."

Mostert reminds us of our evolved elitist reliance on the federal nanny: "We have become a nation of ceremonial hand wringers who confuse talking about a problem with DOING something about a problem. Forty years ago the mentally ill population was less than 1% of the population, and we had 550,000 hospital beds occupied by mentally ill. Today the 'experts' are saying it is nearly 10% of our population, 26.7 million people, are mentally ill and we have 110,000 mental hospital beds? Perhaps paying people to do nothing but collect paychecks as long as they are labeled 'mentally ill,' while depriving the rest of the population of guns with which to defend themselves when they become violent is not working?"

Taken together, the Thomas and Mostert articles make the case that the world has been stood on its head, that our values system is upside down, and that the inmates are literally running the asylum. I would be the first to agree that the deinstitutionalization of the 60's and 70's was a wrongheaded and misguided theory - and a massive bureaucracy of mental health workers has grown up from it. Now our society has become obsessed with protecting the homeless and the criminally mentally ill - something that the state institutions did quite well before the "enlightenment".

Ted Kazinsky was but a fallen angel and a great intellect (who adopted Al Gore's book as his bible)?? We now bend over backwards to understand the dysfunctional mind of the criminal so that they can avoid the ultimate aim of the justice system; and we build more jails. This same mindset, the one I first encountered in Colorado, is the one that has allowed the current administration to perpetrate the most unethical and corrupt administration on the American people - and we understand, and we coddle (that's just what one does to create a culture of narcissism).

As long as anyone can remember, the lunatics have been running the asylum in Ireland, with the alleged "holy" war. But the fact is that it has probably been a charade as long as anyone can remember. There is no valid ideology that supports this disorder, it is merely the acceptance of the criminal - because the Irish people bend over backwards to understand the religious convictions of the dysfunctional minds that are terrorizing their society. But these thugs are just criminals. Period.

If we want to see what the future holds, given our efforts to enshrine the mentally ill and criminally immoral, and the Elitists' effective use of triangulation to pit various segments of our society against one another, we merely need to look at Ireland's past. They've been playing this game much longer than us, and are far more expert at rationalizing an upside down world.

As for today's psychologists, its high time that they were reigned in before they declare the whole of our society to be victims of mental illness in order to justify their existence. When the seriously mentally ill were effectively differentiated from the criminal by the method of institutionalization, it was more to the interest of the diagnostician to triage that designation, rather than lump everyone into the pity pot. When we can once again call criminality and social pathology what it is - and punish it or segregate accordingly, whether it be caused by sociopathy or a legitimate mental illness, we may not be so eager to diagnose someone as having a mental illness. And we can begin to shrink the federal behemoth.

We may yet begin to right ourselves and the American Culture.

First, Dr. Benjamin Spock encouraged a whole generation of parents to become more indulgent of their children and we have subsequently bred the most narcissistic (and violence absorbed) society since Greco-Roman times.

Perspectives - Vol. 6, No. 1 - A Primer on Narcissism - Page 1 of 3
by Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

NARCISSISM (n. sing.)

A pattern of traits and behaviours which signify infatuation and obsession with one's self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one's gratification, dominance and ambition.

Narcissism is named after the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus who was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. In punishment of his cruelty, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, he pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name to this very day.

WHAT IS NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder)?

The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) has been recognized as a seperate mental health disorder in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM) in 1980. Its diagnostic criteria and their interpretation have undergone a major revision in the DSM III-R (1987) and were substantially revamped in the DSM IV in 1994. The European ICD-10 basically contains identical language.

An all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts. Five (or more) of the following criteria must be met:

Feels grandiose and self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents to the point of lying, demands to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion
Firmaly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation -or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (narcissistic supply).
Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favourable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations
Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends
Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with or acknowledge the feelings and needs of others
Constantly envious of others or believes that they feel the same about him or her
Arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted.

Sound like anyone you know???

needs and wants ... superstition and logical thinking ... merge in the child's mind.

And in the liberal's. Which, of course, are the same thing.

Seriously, liberals share many characteristics with children: an unwillingness to accept unpleasant realities (often called "denial"); a simplistic approach to the solution of complex problems, and a complex approach to simple ones; engagement in wishful thinking, as though intent constitutes success; unwillingness to accept responsibility for their failures, or a casual inability to see a project through once its initial luster tarnishes; and most of all, a conceit that they and they alone are at the center of the universe, and that their perceptions are the only ones worthy of consideration.

Those are traits that would earn a 6-year-old a slap on the backside. They are vastly more irritating, dangerous, and ultimately, pathetic, in so-called adults.

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