thenatureofmind

Marie-Louise von Franz - "The Problem of Evil"

The ‘Human Side’ of War Criminals

War criminals and sociopaths often have a “human side” that can obscure how heinous their actions are, as in ex-President George W. Bush’s budding career as an artiste, writes William Blum.

A few years ago, when George W. Bush came out as a painter, he said that he had told his art teacher that “there’s a Rembrandt trapped inside this body.” Ah, so Georgie is more than just a painter. He’s an artiste.

President George W. Bush announcing the start of his invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.

And we all know that artistes are very special people. They’re never to be confused with mass murderers, war criminals, merciless torturers or inveterate liars. Neither are they ever to be accused of dullness of wit or incoherence of thought or speech.

The ‘Human Side’ of War Criminals

Without an understanding....

"Without an understanding of the seamy side of sexuality, there is no understanding of politics."

Norman O. Brown - Love's Body

Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence

Since 1982, there have been 28 cases of random school shootings in American high schools and middle schools. The authors find (a) that the shootings were not a national problem but a series of local problems that occurred in “red states” or counties (places that voted Republican in the 2000 election); (b) that most of the boys who opened fire were mercilessly and routinely teased and bullied and that their violence was retaliatory against the threats to manhood; (c) that White boys in particular might be more likely than African American boys to randomly open fire; and (d) that the specific content of the teasing and bullying is homophobia. A link between adolescent masculinity, homophobia, and violence is proposed. Finally, the authors offer a few possible explanations as to how most boys who are teased and bullied achieve the psychological resilience that enables them to weather adolescence without recourse to random school violence.

Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence.

The American Gulag: Health Care Professionals involved in torture

From the article: this is exactly what the Germans did in WWII. It is a direct contravention of medical ethics:

According to the report, prisoners do not have any medical confidentiality, which allows medical personnel to use what they have learned to aid in interrogations.

"Contrary to what the Bush administration has said, the rule is no confidentiality for the detainees at Guantanamo," said study co-author Dr. M. Gregg Bloche, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. "Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs William Winkenwerder said as recently as last week that confidentiality protections and exceptions were analogous to those enjoyed by American citizens."

However, there is a standing order that has not previously been reported, he said. Dated August 2002, Bloche said, the order requires health-care providers to report any information of potential interest to medical and non-medical personnel at Guantanamo.

"In addition, in a systematic fashion, medical information was employed by behavioral science consultants to support the interrogation process," Bloche said. "These behavioral scientists, typically a psychiatrist and psychologist, were assigned to a Behavioral Science Consultation Team."

These consultants had access to medical records and used them to develop profiles that could be used to help interrogators, Bloche said.

Health Professionals Involved in Guantanamo Interrogations

U.S. doctors linked to POW ` torture'

Armageddon

Over the past few years a number of articles have come to my attention that deal with a set of beliefs about the biblical prophesies concerning Armageddon. These beliefs are held by a segment of the evangelical christians in the US. Their belief centers around certain interpretations of the bible that specify the "signs", the things that will occur before Armageddon begins. One of these things is the total control of the ancient state of Israel by the Jews and the re-building of the temple after the destruction of the Dome of the Rock, the Islamic temple which now occupies the site where the Temple of Solomon once stood. When the prophesies come to pass, a nuclear war will ensue in which most of the population of the earth will be destroyed, except for the "elect", and of course those believing in these prophesies hold themselves to be that "elect". The elect will be whisked up to heaven without having to die and will be saved from all of this suffering.

What is Real?

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real -- that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans -- as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans.

-Philip K. Dick

Thanks to Boing, Boing and Cory Doctorow for this pointer to an article by Philip K. Dick titled How To Build A Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

Our Worldview

We take for granted that the worldview that we live in is real. We make the assumption that the way we see it is actually the way it is. But is it really?

Our notions of the structure of space and time, the notions of the earth whirling in space around a central sun in a very orderly solar system ordered by gravity and centrifugal force, our notions of the irreversible flow of time from past to present to future, and our place in it; all of these notions are based on scientific discoveries, scientific theories that were all formulated prior to 1900. But what of our more recent discoveries?

Weaving our models

A noiseless Patient Spider
By Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated.
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever reeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where do you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Ryokan's Opinion

Everything turns out false;
Everything turns out true
According to your way of thinking.
Falsehood does not exist outside truth
Nor truth lies outside falsehood.
Fellow truth-seekers,
Why do you seek after truth only?
I'd rather ask you if your mind
To seek after truth is true or false.

From: The Zen Fool Ryokan tr. Misao Kodama & Hikosaku Yanagishma