I THINK THEREFORE I ERR

The more I hear of neuropsychology, the more the madness of world politics seems to make sense. And the more I ponder the foregoing, the more I conclude that it has to be this way, because it is fundamental to mankind to be perverse. In less complicated times, we seem to have found ways to limit our perversity, strict taboos being one mechanism, but all that is behind us.

Human babies are born totally vulnerable, and in my view, programmed to mitigate that vulnerability whilst striving for control. Paradoxically, if these programmes are not modified or suppressed in the fully grown individual, without powerful cultural constraints being in place, the sort of runaway madness that we now see worldwide, must inexorably arise. Our massive capacity for manipulation, of both the outer and inner worlds, for survival and advancement, now runs rampant and destructively so. Highly driven individuals, whether engendered from nature or nurture, in the modern world of massive power residing in wealth or armaments or both, now rise rapidly to positions of near absolute authority and wreak havoc.

It is said that psychopaths are overrepresented in positions of power, and is also said that they are skilled practitioners of George Orwell’s doublethink. It would certainly appear so. In recent years, we have seen leaders of both America and Britain, behave very strangely, applying a mixture of oppression and subversion to their people, in launching righteous war, as they saw fit. The trend continues. Meanwhile, in both countries, all measures of civilisation are diminishing.

The problem with pondering such matters, is that one realises one’s own distortions, as well as those of source information impinge, and edge perception towards an Alice in Wonderland unreality which one must, necessarily, view from Alice’s perspective. A very odd perspective indeed! And should it all suddenly makes sense, there is a very real danger that the ‘sense’ is unique to oneself. This is no place to be if sanity is to be maintained! Looking for ‘validating purpose’ is clearly to no avail, so one might as well give up one’s life to an unknowable God!

It is presumably at this point, those with unconducive brain chemistry, cut off their ear, pluck out their eyes, or simply take an overdose. In this enquiry, I would not start from here.