Watching from Canada (where we have been abruptly snapped out of our complacency by threat of annexation from our southern neighbour) it is undeniably fascinating to watch as an entire country allows itself to be pulled under by the forces of a very highly organized and disciplined psychological operation that has been in the works by Russia for decades. While the US has been consuming and entertaining itself to death, the predatory oligarchy has been gathering strength over many years to eventually move in for the kill. Despite mountains of evidence, mainstream and social media pleas, expert warnings and testimonies about what is happening, it seems nothing can awaken the majority of Americans from their psychological slumber. Either that or the enormity of what is happening has created a mass freeze response. I suspect it is some combination of the two. Con artists, despots, and hustlers always operate in people’s blind spots.
“We do not have to invade the United States. We will destroy you from within.” ~ Nikita Krushchev, 1956.
It's worthwhile remembering another story of the world's most powerful empire's surprising defeat at the hands of an uprising. Everyone knows about Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, but how many know the story of another defeat? At the height of his powers, he lost to an uprising led by a slave who worked on a sugarcane plantation on the island of Hispaniola.
Toussaint Louverture’s secret weapon was to insist that adults under his leadership treated adults like adults, meaning he refused to tolerate the imposition or enabling of dominant-subordinate relationships. A critical variable supporting his success was that many of Napoleon’s own forces liked what they saw and joined the uprising. Maybe we can learn that lesson.
Will artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated processes help us?
The Roman hubris led to their denial of fallibility. Those who assert our machines are invincible lead us all into the deep dark forest where our own worst fears await us - our more vicious, more mad, ruthless, wild selves. The Romans created the resistance through their aggression and failure to understand the NATURE of the forest where the battle takes place.
In my studies of that ghastly war in Viêt Nam from 1945-75, I felt that defeating quagmire was similar to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Unfortunately, it seems that we did not learn, except for one very important point: not blaming the troops for failed civilian policies.
Your essay, Dr Lee, dives much deeper into the history of the battle itself to present a compelling analogy with where we are today. Trump et al. will over-extend and secure their eventual eclipse. The question for me is whether we can snap the psychosis in time to preserve the Republic.
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling up there in paradise. This great Rule of Law nation chooses to murder him in the middle of the night in his bedroom rather than return him to the USA where he could stand trial. Why? Well, I suspect most reading this know why.
Books i find fascinating are ones written long ago in last century. Schumpeter's book - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is one such book i recently read. It has a whole lot of philosophy about History, political economy and industry. But the best part of the book is the final section of book which is about Democracy. The last section of book can also be read standalone.
Today, many intellectuals talk about Democracy. Schumpeter meticulously explains the fallacy of classical theory of democracy (today most intellectuals like Ruth Ben Bhiat, Lawrence Tribe, Tim Snyder etc subscribe to classical theory). Schumpeter explains that Classical Democracy can only work in specific environment with certain requisites. All these requisites have now vanished. It's not surprise that US is now a failed political system.
"...despite our advanced civilization and information technology, we are utterly helpless when it comes to the unfamiliar terrain of the disordered mind." (Dr. Lee)
A mental immune system capable of defending from determined disordered minds attacking rational order through media technologies requires a rational model of psyche that describes how the subjective/objective are ONE. Such a model requires 1) a fulcrum point that is not Self, not psyche, and 2) a means of survival that is outside psyche, a bridge.
Such models exist, but most scientific materialists and spiritual practitioners deny it.
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for continuing to alert the public in regard to the global conflict in which mental wellness and mental unwellness play pivotal roles. Thank you, also, for the recordings. My wife and I have just returned, yesterday afternoon, from the ministerial retreat in Durban, where I received a long service award in the category of more than thirty years of service in our church as a ministerial worker. Now I will be focusing on the remaining part of the first session course(s) of the Spring 2025 Semester in my online graduate program, as well as on catching up with your educational newsletter posts to date. G-d bless!
“Complacency and overconfidence got us here, but treacherous will be the struggle to get us out.” So true… with lots and lots of prayers. I’m praying for conversion and softening of hearts.
I really like how you used this historical parable to demonstrate societal mental health degradation lead by dangerous unfit men. This is a great essay.
Your brilliant post is precision-targeted to and apropos our current moment, Bandy. It suggests that while political power is standardly founded on psychologically-undergirded consent, sometimes it relies on hubristic self-delusion, myopic purview and crimped, malign or nonexistent imagination, i.e., it is nothing more than Potemkin power. And one that presages a wicked ‘peripeteia’, (reversal of fortune, circumstances or turning point) as the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and literary tragedians, in particular, understood so well about the human psyche and fallible human mind. That is essentially knowing that, when empowered by physical arms and force but bereft of introspection and genuine moral character, political and societal power eventually collapses. The more contemporary concept of ‘political jiu-jitsu’, as the late Gene Sharp, the world’s leading expert on and proponent of strategic nonviolent struggle called it, also emphasizes the psychological weakness and self-destruction evinced in your metaphor the forest of the disordered mind. Your historical example of what happened in the Teutoburg Forest is exigently instructive, ironically, both as an explanation of the impotence and vulnerability of shared Trump psychosis and of the strategic possibilities for nonviolently disabling its pernicious existential threat to American democracy, world peace and, ultimately, human and planetary survival.
Watching from Canada (where we have been abruptly snapped out of our complacency by threat of annexation from our southern neighbour) it is undeniably fascinating to watch as an entire country allows itself to be pulled under by the forces of a very highly organized and disciplined psychological operation that has been in the works by Russia for decades. While the US has been consuming and entertaining itself to death, the predatory oligarchy has been gathering strength over many years to eventually move in for the kill. Despite mountains of evidence, mainstream and social media pleas, expert warnings and testimonies about what is happening, it seems nothing can awaken the majority of Americans from their psychological slumber. Either that or the enormity of what is happening has created a mass freeze response. I suspect it is some combination of the two. Con artists, despots, and hustlers always operate in people’s blind spots.
“We do not have to invade the United States. We will destroy you from within.” ~ Nikita Krushchev, 1956.
It's worthwhile remembering another story of the world's most powerful empire's surprising defeat at the hands of an uprising. Everyone knows about Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, but how many know the story of another defeat? At the height of his powers, he lost to an uprising led by a slave who worked on a sugarcane plantation on the island of Hispaniola.
Toussaint Louverture’s secret weapon was to insist that adults under his leadership treated adults like adults, meaning he refused to tolerate the imposition or enabling of dominant-subordinate relationships. A critical variable supporting his success was that many of Napoleon’s own forces liked what they saw and joined the uprising. Maybe we can learn that lesson.
Will artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated processes help us?
The Roman hubris led to their denial of fallibility. Those who assert our machines are invincible lead us all into the deep dark forest where our own worst fears await us - our more vicious, more mad, ruthless, wild selves. The Romans created the resistance through their aggression and failure to understand the NATURE of the forest where the battle takes place.
In my studies of that ghastly war in Viêt Nam from 1945-75, I felt that defeating quagmire was similar to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Unfortunately, it seems that we did not learn, except for one very important point: not blaming the troops for failed civilian policies.
Your essay, Dr Lee, dives much deeper into the history of the battle itself to present a compelling analogy with where we are today. Trump et al. will over-extend and secure their eventual eclipse. The question for me is whether we can snap the psychosis in time to preserve the Republic.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-cruelty-isnt-the-point-its-the (The article immediately following this one is by conservative intellectual, Bill Kristol; it is interesting.)
For now, we are witnessing sadism as political theory.
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling up there in paradise. This great Rule of Law nation chooses to murder him in the middle of the night in his bedroom rather than return him to the USA where he could stand trial. Why? Well, I suspect most reading this know why.
If you need new ideas, read an old book.
Books i find fascinating are ones written long ago in last century. Schumpeter's book - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy is one such book i recently read. It has a whole lot of philosophy about History, political economy and industry. But the best part of the book is the final section of book which is about Democracy. The last section of book can also be read standalone.
Today, many intellectuals talk about Democracy. Schumpeter meticulously explains the fallacy of classical theory of democracy (today most intellectuals like Ruth Ben Bhiat, Lawrence Tribe, Tim Snyder etc subscribe to classical theory). Schumpeter explains that Classical Democracy can only work in specific environment with certain requisites. All these requisites have now vanished. It's not surprise that US is now a failed political system.
A hard rain’s gonna fall.
We need a Germanicus.
"...despite our advanced civilization and information technology, we are utterly helpless when it comes to the unfamiliar terrain of the disordered mind." (Dr. Lee)
A mental immune system capable of defending from determined disordered minds attacking rational order through media technologies requires a rational model of psyche that describes how the subjective/objective are ONE. Such a model requires 1) a fulcrum point that is not Self, not psyche, and 2) a means of survival that is outside psyche, a bridge.
Such models exist, but most scientific materialists and spiritual practitioners deny it.
Thank you, Dr. Lee, for continuing to alert the public in regard to the global conflict in which mental wellness and mental unwellness play pivotal roles. Thank you, also, for the recordings. My wife and I have just returned, yesterday afternoon, from the ministerial retreat in Durban, where I received a long service award in the category of more than thirty years of service in our church as a ministerial worker. Now I will be focusing on the remaining part of the first session course(s) of the Spring 2025 Semester in my online graduate program, as well as on catching up with your educational newsletter posts to date. G-d bless!
“Complacency and overconfidence got us here, but treacherous will be the struggle to get us out.” So true… with lots and lots of prayers. I’m praying for conversion and softening of hearts.
I really like how you used this historical parable to demonstrate societal mental health degradation lead by dangerous unfit men. This is a great essay.
Your brilliant post is precision-targeted to and apropos our current moment, Bandy. It suggests that while political power is standardly founded on psychologically-undergirded consent, sometimes it relies on hubristic self-delusion, myopic purview and crimped, malign or nonexistent imagination, i.e., it is nothing more than Potemkin power. And one that presages a wicked ‘peripeteia’, (reversal of fortune, circumstances or turning point) as the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and literary tragedians, in particular, understood so well about the human psyche and fallible human mind. That is essentially knowing that, when empowered by physical arms and force but bereft of introspection and genuine moral character, political and societal power eventually collapses. The more contemporary concept of ‘political jiu-jitsu’, as the late Gene Sharp, the world’s leading expert on and proponent of strategic nonviolent struggle called it, also emphasizes the psychological weakness and self-destruction evinced in your metaphor the forest of the disordered mind. Your historical example of what happened in the Teutoburg Forest is exigently instructive, ironically, both as an explanation of the impotence and vulnerability of shared Trump psychosis and of the strategic possibilities for nonviolently disabling its pernicious existential threat to American democracy, world peace and, ultimately, human and planetary survival.