Etiology of Social Dementia - 16

Fig. 1 Great book !

One goal of this series has been to put the blame for denial of global warming where it belongs (Etiology of Social Dementia, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14).

Not on the masses, the victims, but on the few who plant and grow madness in the manner that corporate farmers grow wheat (The Ways of Bernays).

The book "The Madhouse Effect" is a succinct way of saying it (Fig. 1).

Our culture promotes dementia through the various processes of 'normalizing' cultural madness.

As a result, there is insane and there is criminally insane (The Criminally Insane Epoch Arises).

In some respects, ours is not a unique case of this social phenomenon:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). In other respects, our civilization is a unique case,  because it purposefully manufactures deceit and ignorance (The Deceit Business; Agnotology: The Surge, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).

Our uniqueness is also because our resulting social dementia infection threatens to murder many other species, as we collectively commit suicide.

It is so bad that, to a degree which no other civilization has or even could, ours fits the description of a one-of-a-kind mass-murder-suicide (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Since civilizations (ours included) have tended to be suicidal, the children of civilizations are given strong doses of propaganda, which not only alters cognition, but even alters brain and cranial structures (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala, 2, 4; The Skulls They Are A Changin').

One of the major signs of 'losing it' is that we treat the propensity for cultural suicide as a political problem, instead of treating it as a psychological problem:

If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization——or epochs of it——possibly even the whole of humanity——have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]
...
Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]

(Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 5, quoting Freud). Mis-diagnosis is one of the last things that fading civilizations tend to do.

Mis-diagnose this:

"In less than two weeks, 2016 will officially be the hottest year on the books in more than 120 years of record keeping by U.S. agencies.

It will be the third straight record-setting year — and of the 17 hottest years, 16 have been [during 2000 - 2016]" -

(Climate Central).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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"Who knew?" (Humble Oil-Qaeda)

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