Which Dem has a Shot?

[MisterMike]

That kind of hatred, ridiculous exaggeration and factlessness is a big chunk of our problems.

Well, you may think that's what it is. But these people could only make more jobs by increasing the size of government (workcamps). And all of this costs our tax money. The tax cuts were supported and opposed right down party lines buddy. And that was only for about 2%. These idiots will raise our taxes if let loose(70%), and I'm glad they haven't got a chance.

Take your head out of the sand, or wherever it is....

 

[michaeledward]

Originally posted by MisterMike
Well, you may think that's what it is. But these people could only make more jobs by increasing the size of government (workcamps). And all of this costs our tax money. The tax cuts were supported and opposed right down party lines buddy. And that was only for about 2%. These idiots will raise our taxes if let loose(70%), and I'm glad they haven't got a chance.

This type or rhetoric is simplistic in its ideology. To refer to the elected individuals as 'idiots' is really unneccessary. Why don't your run for public office and change it?

To think that they will raise taxes to any specific percentage is also ridiculous. Democrats believe in something called a 'social minimum', that by providing a 'base level' of support in the community, the entire community benefits.

Personally, I would like to see our military budget cut to provide that social minimum. Is there any reason the US needs to spend as much as all of the other countries in the world combined on 'defense'?

Your rhetorical support for something that is not proven, you demean the conversation.

 

[MisterMike]

Originally posted by michaeledward
This type or rhetoric is simplistic in its ideology. To refer to the elected individuals as 'idiots' is really unneccessary. Why don't your run for public office and change it?

To think that they will raise taxes to any specific percentage is also ridiculous. Democrats believe in something called a 'social minimum', that by providing a 'base level' of support in the community, the entire community benefits.

Personally, I would like to see our military budget cut to provide that social minimum. Is there any reason the US needs to spend as much as all of the other countries in the world combined on 'defense'?

Your rhetorical support for something that is not proven, you demean the conversation.

Until YOU can prove otherwise, don't demean the conversation with YOUR rank hypocrasy.

Glad to see what you would like cut. I stated what I would like cut. Don't get your panties in a bunch just because we're different.

It doesn't need to get so heated just to find out what my thoughts are. Just ask. I believe in a base level of community support as well. Like the military, and aid for people who cannot support themselves(the elderly and handicapped).

 

[rmcrobertson]

1, Carl Gustav Jung was a frickin' fascist, philosophically speaking--just another essentialist thinker, sure, he had the Big Guy's private number.

2, increasing the size of gov't=workcamps? Huh? And if we're gonna get into increases in the size of the gov...hey, guess who's presided over an enormous recent expansion of the size of government and its powers? Hint---it's not a Democrat.

3. Those, "tax cuts?" beyond the fact that they aided primarily the poor, picked-upon wealthy (when in the HELL are working people and others in similar boats going to realize who their enemies are?), simply SHIFTED THE TAX BURDEN ELSEWHERE. Onto "user fees," and etc. and endless etc...

 

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by rmcrobertson
1, Carl Gustav Jung was a frickin' fascist, philosophically speaking--just another essentialist thinker, sure, he had the Big Guy's private number.

Facist? Who says? That opinion is interesting. Carl Jung's thinking had lots of enemies in the establishment.

 

[pete]

where's Rudy Guiliani when we need him?

 

[TonyM.]

For everyones information work crews are the norm here in VT. Thank you howard. The cops are tripping over their dinks to bust kids for anything so they can get them sentenced to the work crews as the state has no budget to pay people for this.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Apparently Jung's ideas were not at odds with ALL establishments; this is off a "Books and Writers," website, easily findable (lousy annotation on my part, I know) through a google search:

"In 1933 Jung was nominated president of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy, an organization which had Nazi connections. He also assumed the editorship of its publication, Zentralblatt für Psychotherapie. Jung's activities with the organization and his writings about racial differences in the magazine have later been severely criticized. However, Jung had already in 1918 explained his differences with other schools of psychotherapeutic practice with racial terms: "...I can understand very well that Freud's and Adler's reduction of everything psychic to primitive sexual wishes and power-drives has something about it that is beneficial and satisfying to the Jew, because it is a form of simplification." He also saw in National Socialism "tensions and potentialities which medical psychology must consider in its evaluation of the unconscious." From mythology Jung took the figure of Wotan, an old Nordic god, "the truest expression and unsurpassed personification of a fundamental quality that is particularly characteristic of the Germans." In 1937 Jung said of Hitler less than critically: "He is a medium, German policy is not made; it is revealed through Hitler. He is the mouthpiece of the Gods of old... He is the Sybil, the Delphic oracle" (see Jung in Contexts, ed. by Paul Bishop, 1999) One of Jung's pupils, Sabina Spielrein, who was his patient first, and later mistress according to some sources, practised psychoanalysis in the USSR after completing her studies. She was killed with her two daughters by German soldiers in 1942."

Just lovely, eh? I realize that the bit about good old Adolf as an "oracle," in a fuller context, could be read (see "From Caligari to Hitler") as a simple explanation of his articulation of German ideology at the time. But the "beneficial and satisfying to the Jew," crack in reference to Freud? Yick. And then too, Jung's central ideas--the collective unconscious, the archetype--are perfectly consonant with racist theory.

No wonder Freud famously fainted twice around Jung. He prob'ly wanted to hit him, and was too civilized to do so.

Incidentally, Freud left Austria in 1933, after correctly realizing that Hitler was a good solid symptom of mass psychosis. And some of his family died in camps--real ones, not paranoid fantasies.

 

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by rmcrobertson
And then too, Jung's central ideas--the collective unconscious, the archetype--are perfectly consonant with racist theory.

Despite this interpretation, archtypes and collective unconscious neatly describe many of our political problems today. Ideas have become symbols and a programmed response has been inserted into the minds of the ideologically suseptible. A good case study of this are some of the responses from people on this board regarding politics.

Robert, every scientist has a slew of biases they carry around with them and these biases can fit into theories which are based off of real evidence. They can not totally shape them without ignoring evidence. I think it's fallacious to disregard a position because a person has proven their humanity. Take Ernst Haekle for instance his work with evolution was very insightful, yet, he supported social darwinism - an unpalatable interpretation of evolution.

 

[Cruentus]

Umm...what the hell was this thread about again........? :shrug:

 

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by PAUL
Umm...what the hell was this thread about again........? :shrug:

Carl Jung has some interesting philosophy regarding archtypes and collective unconsious. I was making a point about a groups use of symbols in order to trigger a programmed response in republican voters. This makes it difficult for the Dems because it means their message is going to change a person's mind based on the facts. Whoever wins this election is going to have to monopolize the symbols of power.

 

[rmcrobertson]

That's an absurd rationalization of Jung's active collaboration with Nazism, to say nothing of his active production of psychiatric and spiritual justification for Nazi ideology, certain aspects of racist beliefs more generally, and don't even get me started on the sexist crap implicit in his ideas.

Funny how you'd yell "fascist," at every phantasmatic opportunity, only to say, "nope, don't see a thing," when the real deal arrives.

The man a) headed a German psychiatric group with direct ties to Hitler from 1933 on, b) published articles in that group's main journals that were to say the very least racially stereotyping, c) dismissed Freud and others on the grounds of their identity as, "Jews," and d) spent his life developing his theory that life, mind and culture were properly understood to be expressions of collective and racial unconsciousnesses and we should give up and accept it.

For you, there's no problem with this? Oy. And arguing that this sort of thing, "merely reveals...humanity," c'mahn. If I lose my temper on the Internet, or drop a grapefruit on my toe and cuss, or snap meanly at somebody, THAT reveals my humanity. What Jung did amounts to (and this is at the rock-bottom least) an intellectual negligence that contributed to the ugly deaths and immiseration of tens of millions of people.

Personally, I'd call what Jung did direct intellectual collaboration with anti-Semitism and with Hitler. He provided intellectual support for horror, and while this may very be within the scope of human possibility, that sure as hell don't make it right.

One sign that Jung's ideas continue to do damage is in your phrase, "monopolize the symbols of power?" What a grotesque version of democracy--whoever wins, a few strong men have taken control of millions.

And by the way, a technical point: Jung's ideas about symbology have nothing to do with "insert{ing}" them into the minds of the gullible through prrogramming or anything else. Jung believed that these symbols WERE ALREADY THERE, and at most needed uncovering. That's what an essentialism is--a belief based on the idea that certain archetypes (see Plato) were present in the universe and the human mind BEFORE any and all education. See Erich Neumann, "Eros and Psyche," or Jos. Campbell's books, or Jung's own journals, or that hilariously pretentious Laurens van der Post biographical film.

 

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by rmcrobertson


1. That's an absurd rationalization of Jung's active collaboration with Nazism, to say nothing of his active production of psychiatric and spiritual justification for Nazi ideology, certain aspects of racist beliefs more generally, and don't even get me started on the sexist crap implicit in his ideas.

2. Funny how you'd yell "fascist," at every phantasmatic opportunity, only to say, "nope, don't see a thing," when the real deal arrives.

3. The man a) headed a German psychiatric group with direct ties to Hitler from 1933 on, b) published articles in that group's main journals that were to say the very least racially stereotyping, c) dismissed Freud and others on the grounds of their identity as, "Jews," and d) spent his life developing his theory that life, mind and culture were properly understood to be expressions of collective and racial unconsciousnesses and we should give up and accept it.

4. For you, there's no problem with this? Oy. And arguing that this sort of thing, "merely reveals...humanity," c'mahn. If I lose my temper on the Internet, or drop a grapefruit on my toe and cuss, or snap meanly at somebody, THAT reveals my humanity. What Jung did amounts to (and this is at the rock-bottom least) an intellectual negligence that contributed to the ugly deaths and immiseration of tens of millions of people.

5. Personally, I'd call what Jung did direct intellectual collaboration with anti-Semitism and with Hitler. He provided intellectual support for horror, and while this may very be within the scope of human possibility, that sure as hell don't make it right.

6. One sign that Jung's ideas continue to do damage is in your phrase, "monopolize the symbols of power?" What a grotesque version of democracy--whoever wins, a few strong men have taken control of millions.

7. And by the way, a technical point: Jung's ideas about symbology have nothing to do with "insert{ing}" them into the minds of the gullible through prrogramming or anything else. Jung believed that these symbols WERE ALREADY THERE, and at most needed uncovering. That's what an essentialism is--a belief based on the idea that certain archetypes (see Plato) were present in the universe and the human mind BEFORE any and all education. See Erich Neumann, "Eros and Psyche," or Jos. Campbell's books, or Jung's own journals, or that hilariously pretentious Laurens van der Post biographical film.

1. You want to see the bones as they have been placed without a care for who placed them.

2. Never denied that Jung had ties to Nazis. I will use your own words "So did lots of people...big deal...move on." This was in response to my charge that the Bush family had dealings with Nazis. Seems like only you can play that card...

3. Depite the despicable ideology, the knowledge of symbology is useful today. I will say again, how many scientists in those days did not carry horrible bias? Sometimes you have to wipe the slime off the workings of nature, Robert.

4. Again, the Bushes, but further...many German scientists were imported after the war and many escaped Nuremburg. Why was this done? Other scientists thought they might have useful information despite the horror they may have accomplished. Robert, the Nazis were normal people, completely controlled with symbols and rhetoric. Put yourself in 30's Germany and we will see how "human" you become.

5. I agree with you on this point. Yet, so did Darwin and his gang provide support for european colonialism through social darwinism. And it has been a long hard road to convince people that the theory of evolution has nothing to do with racism.

6. If you truly deny that a few powerful men rule millions no matter who wins, then you do not know the nature of the enemy. Do me a favor and turn off your TV and then you will see symbology surrounding you in a cloud so dense its chokes the mind.

7. According to Jung, using a symbol reveals an archtype that is already fixed in the mind. This response is an emotion which can be tied to another response through education and it is so powerful that it can cause people to do vastly horrible things. Robert, you can compare stories cross-culterally and across oceans and the same archtypes appear. If you know the context of these archtypes you can control people. Plain and simple. Also, the U of M twins studies support the theory of genetic archtypes which take the form of predilictions.

I am surprised by your vehemence as you argue against this. Politics is all about symbols and feelings and continually, throughout the history of this country, the real facts have not mattered as much as we would like. I have a friend who worked for P&G in Cincinatti. He was an executive in advertising until he gave up that kind of life. According to him, "you can convince anybody of anything given the right symbols and enough money. We used our symbols to make people feel things and then said, 'when you feel this, buy this.'" Can you honestly say that our President does not do this? Can you tell me that landing on the aircraft carrier was not a symbol to make people feel something? Can you tell me that you were not told how to respond to that feeling? You can't...and that is pure Jungian psycology. I suggest you read a few of the books and sift through the nazi wreckage to find the Nature beneath.

John

PS - perhaps birds of a feather flock together in this case.

 

[Rich Parsons]

Originally posted by upnorthkyosa

2. Never denied that Jung had ties to Nazis. I will use your own words "So did lots of people...big deal...move on." This was in response to my charge that the Bush family had dealings with Nazis. Seems like only you can play that card...

John

PS - perhaps birds of a feather flock together in this case.

I think te point was that, Jung in that time was associated with Nazi's. Bush today, some 60-70+ years later is not.


** Dang It, I hate to defend Bush and possibel agree with Robert in the same statement. Will you forgive me Robert, for possible agreeing with you?

 

[Makalakumu]

Originally posted by Rich Parsons
I think te point was that, Jung in that time was associated with Nazi's. Bush today, some 60-70+ years later is not.


** Dang It, I hate to defend Bush and possibel agree with Robert in the same statement. Will you forgive me Robert, for possible agreeing with you?

I am skeptical of the above claim. I'm not saying that our president has a secret tattoo that proves a secret Nazi conspiracy, though. If you look at the history involving the Bush family, though, you will see the same dirty tactics they used during those times are being employed today. The difference now is that they are global. When my students book subject is published, I will point you to the source of this information.

Rich, you would be surprise how much of our knowledge comes from Nazi Germany. Nuclear power for instance. Rocket technology. If we used Robert's moral filter, both the ideology and the information are lost. I prefer to filter the ideology and keep the technology. Anyway, back to the debate at hand...

Unless the dems can find a way to harness the power of the some of the rights symbols/ideas, they will not have a chance in 2004. I think the best man for the job is Gen. Clarck. With his military background, he can steal the fear away the President and become the archtypical american hero because he does actually have the credentials to back it up. Bottom line, this election will be about fear.

 

[Cruentus]

Yea...this is totally off topic now (which dem has a chance to take the election?), but I am engaged in the conversation because this seems very interesting to me!

Now, I didn't really study much psychology beyond the basics, so I don't have an in depth analysis on Jung, his history, or whatever. So...bear with me please.

What are these "symbols" that we are talking about? I ask because I could see how certian things are being used as symbols to effectively control the masses. At least, what I see is falacious comparisons are made to come up with seemingly true conclusions to get "the masses" to support certian ideas, for the gain of those with certian agendas. Basically, I see a clasic case of the Ad Logicam falicy all the time in our society.

Example: The idea of Patriotism is a "symbol" used to control people, I believe.

Premise 1. Being against terrorism = Patriotism.

Premise 2. Patriotism = also entails supporting your country and your leaders, especially in times of war.

Premise 3. There is such a thing as a War on Terror = a constant "war" against terrorism.

Premise 4. We are in a war on Terror = we are at war, a war with no evident end.

5. Since we are at war = we must support our leaders or we will be unpatriotic.

6. Supporting our leaders = not questioning our president or the administration.

Conclusion: If you question our President or his administration (which could include not supporting him, or not voting for him in the next election), then you are questioning our leaders in a time of war (war on terror), meaning that you are being unpatriotic, meaning that you support terrorism.

Condensed conclusion: If you question the President (which also includes not supporting him, or not voting for him), then you are supporting terrorists.

When I lay it out as I have done, you can see the falicies seeping through. Patriotism does not equal being against terrorism, for instance. The 9-11 hijackers are considered "patriots" for many fundamentalist muslims. We have had terrorists in our country, such as white supremecist groups, who are very "patriotic" in regards to the U.S.. So, Patriotism does not equal being against terror, so #1 is falicy. But, #2 could be true. Problem is; part of the definition is left out. For us in the U.S., our history was built on questioning our leaders. Questioning our leaders is a big part of patriotism for us, but that is not focused on. Second Problem is, we are supposed to believe #3, that we could actually wage war on a noun..."terror". War is waged against people, not nouns. THis is a falicy. Then we are supposed to buy #4; that we are at a never ending war. There is no proof what-so-ever that we are constantly under attack from terrorists. Sure, we had a horrible event occur where 3000 of our own people died (9-11). This would convince the biggest cynics that yes, there are people out there who would wish us harm. But the facts are deaths to terrorism accounts for not even a % of deaths in our country over any given time. Do you want to know how likely you were to be a terrorist death in 2000. Zero %. How about 2002? Correct...zero percent again. Even in 2001, the year of one of our greatest tragidies, your chances of being a terrorist victim was 1/100,000 or 0.00001%; meaning you were more likely to die from riding in a car (1/6500) or the flu or pnemonia (1/4500). How come we don't freak out when we get the sniffles? Point is, this idea that we are at some constant war with an unseen enemy is a scare tactic, simple as that. Yet, we are supposed to buy #4 based on #3, a war on a noun. Now, #5 is true if the rest is true, as is #6.

So we clearly have a case of logical falicy; faulty definitions and premises, but put together, they make what would be "true" conclusions if the definitions, and premises were true, which they are not. There are list of other falicies here as well, but you get the idea.

So "Patriotism" because of logical falicy propigated and accepted by some, becomes a symbol of control by our administration. Bush commercials for his campaign already made (not aired yet, at least not in Michigan) basically alluding to the idea that not supporting him is supporting "terror".

So I don't know what Jungs theory really is...but if it is anything like what I just described then I can see how the theory might have some credability. But, I could be way off base to what Jung was actually saying.

So, someone please elaborate. What were these "symbols" that Jung was refering too, and how exactly were they used?

PAUL

 

[Phil Elmore]

Most wealth in this country in inherited.

No, it isn't.

Have you seen Fight Club?

When you learn the difference between reality and movies, you'll be well on your way to forming a working philosophy.

Current human paleontological evidence shows that humans have always lived in communities. People work together in a collective to accomplish a common goal.

Cooperation for mutual benefit and individualism are not mutually exclusive. Mutual gain is the very foundation for individual prosperity, as people working with and trading with one another have more opportunity than do individuals living completely alone.

When you understand that individualism is not atomism and that individuals do not live outside of context, you'll grasp the idea that there are no communities -- only individuals who interact (by choice in a free society).

Its good that you can take care of yourself. Its good that you can provide for your family. Its good that you have no health problems (I assume). Not everyone is like you though.

Need does not constitute a valid claim on the efforts of others. You do not have the right to live at someone else's expense without their consent. Voluntary charity is fine; forced government redistribution of earnings is not.

Ability levels swing throughout a large spectrum and success in this society is loosely based on those abilities. We are products of our genetics and our environments if one or the other or both are bred in deficiency, is it right to hold accountable that which cannot be controlled?

Reality is the metaphysically given. Egalitarian wishes are irrelevant. There will always be people who are better at certain things and who have more than you. I see no reason to punish them it, any more than I would punish you for being better off than someone else.

You said "I am not most people" and there is a lot of truth to that. Spend some time in a ghetto or a prison and talk to the people there. Find out for yourself the truth of your statement.

I'm not. Neither are you. We are all individuals -- if we choose to be.

 

[rmcrobertson]

I'd put up a long post on this last night--but fortunately, it got eaten by the computer gods as MT went down for a few minutes. So, rather than reduplicate that effort to disentangle this tangle, let me just try and clearly explain a few of the concepts that are gettting tossed around here--pretty much inaccurately, I'm afraid. You can look all this stuff up if you like, and I'll try to remain an equal-opportunity offender.

First off, Jung. His basic ideas trace back to Plato's notions of ARCHETYPES--pre-existing, permanent, unchanging and universal patterns that are engraved somehow into the universe. These essential realities, for Jung, are expressed in people through what he thought was a COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS, a sort of reservoir of symbols (again, symbols that express the underlying universal archetypes existing before people came along) in which everybody shares. Our dreams and stories and art and politics and lives, then, simply draw symbols from that deeper storehouse, that collective unconscious, which got filled in the first place from archetypal reality. See Erich Neumann, "Amor and Psyche," or Jung's "Man and His Symbols," or Jos. Campbell, "The Hero With a Thousand Faces."

Second off, problems with this theory. a) The existence of the symbols--let along the collective unconscious and its archetypal origin--cannot be verified scientifically. These are metaphysical concepts, not physical ones, and their "proof," always relies upon anecdotal or otherwise-biased evidence ("my aunt dreamed of an angel the night before her father died") b) this sort of essentialist thinking (see Kaja Silverman, "The Subject of Semiotics" for a quick intro to the term) relies upon the notion that ALL human beings share the same collective unconscious. To call this ethnocentric, biased towards men's ideas, and slanted toward Western culture, is to be kind. Further, Jung's ideas clearly impose RACIAL notions upon who has what ideas. This stuff is bad scholarship: Campbell, for example, simply takes Western culture as all there is in the world, andd warps the few examples from other cultures into Western terms; c) this sort of "analysis," frequently gets employed to justify a whole host of really fairly nasty ideas--men are from Mars, women are from Venus; black people and white people are fundamentally different; Hitler is the symbolic expression of the German hero--a Siegfried--out of the raciallly-determined collective unconscious.

Third off--alternatives. See the extended literature on CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION, SEMIOTICS, and related themes. A good place to start wwould be Claude Levi-Strauss, "The Raw and the Cooked," or Robert Scholes, "Structuralism: An Introduction." Or see Freud's insistence that while a good psychiatrist must be very widely read in human culture so that they can understand the basic language of the unconscious, all symbols must be interpreted in the individual terms of the person who came up with them.

Fourth off--BEHAVIORAL GENETICS. Basically, this subdivision of physiological psychology investigates the ways in which our inherited DNA is expressed in our behavior. Since one cannot simply start playing around with human beings as one would with rats (well, we hope), much of this work is done by examining actuarial and demographic data, or studying patterns of behaviour such as alcoholism, schizophrenia, manic-depression, in families with well-documented histories. TWIN STUDIES, usually done in semi-isolated social groups (frequently Northern European more or less in terms of ethnicity--they tend to have the best records and public health documentation), refers to examinations of behavior in iddentical twins and fraternal twins, comparing these to ordinary siblings, relatives and strangers. You study their behavior, and compare, say identical twins raised together and raised apart. The first famous ones were done in Denmark; so you get DENMARK TWIN-STUDIES. The basic idea is this: you can't experiment on people, so you let society do your experiment for you, then look at the results. If a behavior is highly correlated with a particular genetic pattern, you'l see (for example) that identical twins will tend to behave the same way throughout their lives, whether or not they're raised together.

Will continue--hitting the space limit.

 

[Cruentus]

I am not flying with Jungs metaphysical ideas as you explained, Robert.

I think that certain things get turned into cultural "symbols", and these are used to sway public opinion. Patriotism, Saddam Houssien, The War on Terror; many of these things have become "symbols" for lack of a better term, as I explained. Yet, my idea is not even in the same ballpark as Jungs. As you explained them Robert, I don't float with his theories...

PAUL

 

[rmcrobertson]

Moving on then. Problems with taking genes as determining of behaviour. Oops--that's not what the work says. I suggest looking up Robert Plomin's work; he's one of the early good researchers in the field, and as it happens I had him as a prof back in the 1970s. In lectures, discussions, published work, and office visits, he was insistent that genes do NOT determine behavior. They--at most--pre-dispose individuals. Similarly, one may inherit a sort of talent for, say, breast cancer--that doesn't mean you'll develop it, it means watch you diet and environment, and make damn sure you get mamographies done early and often.

Next problem: it's a big jump from Jung's archetypes to genes. Not only was he talking religion and metaphysics, not biology and genetics, but some of the work arguing for strong linkages of genes and behavior (the obvious example was Cyril Burt, but "The Bell Curve," provides more-recent bad science) was racist lousy science (Burt, for example, never did the studies he said he did, apparently because he "knew" how they'd come out) and outright fraud. But if you must buy this cheese, look up that idiot Leonard Jeffries and the whole "ice people," vs. "sun people," nonsense of a few years ago, which you should easily be able to find as an aspect of AFRO-CENTRIC theory.

As for the social and moral issues.

Well, if you want to see human beings as a crowd of self-deluded individuals only ostensibly living in communities, there's no strict way to prove you're wrong. It sure doesn't seem to look like our history, like the anthropological results, the results of looking at similar animals, or our evolutionary past to me, but again you can't run the experiments on people to find out what's actually going on in their thick little heads. I would suggest, however, that a look into the ideological origins of these ideas might help--again, try checking into the historical and cultural construction of ideas like, "rugged individualism," as aspects of capitalist ideology--perhaps Frances Barker, "The Tremulous Private Body," Trilling's "Sincerity and Authenticity," Foucault's work, those extended histories by...dammit, what's his name...

As for scraping the slime of what we want. Sorry, that particular slime don't scrape off so easy--unless, of course, we lie about what's on our hands. That's why good old Freidrich Wilhelm (yes, I saw "Blazing Saddles," so insert appropriate line here) wrote that there was no document of civilization that is not, at the same time, a document of barbarism. However, there remains such a thing as moral choice.

We none of us know what we would do in such a situation as that of 1933 Germany. But it is an insult to the memories of the White Rose, Martin Niemoller, and a LOT of other people to even suggest that we'd all just collaborate in one way or another. And this, "they were all good people who had NO idea what was going on," crap...all Good Germans, eh? All misled by a few conspirators eh? Where the hell are Robert Jackson and Simone Weil and Eichmann when you need them?

This ties into that ridiculous claim by the ad exec. Advertising has two methods: fear, and desire. These haven't changed since forever. And ads don't "work" on their own--that's self-aggrandizing bull. Ads do their work as part of a whole suite of devices belonging to what Marx correctly identified as the ways capitalism reproduces itself across generations. Cultures need ways to perpetuate their ideas, their, "MEMES," to use last year's fashionable terms, and ads are one of them. By themselves--nada. Give your buddy an unlimited budget for throwing ads at me, aand unless he can directly affect my freedom, health, relationships or livelihood, ads as such won't do jack. Except get his *** sued for harassment.

Why am I so bugged by this. Here are the elements of "upnorth's" argument.
1. People are helpless pawns of a small, secret elite.
2. Symbols drawn from a collective and racial unconscious are totipotent in their ability to control thought.
3. These symbols are being manipulated on behalf of an international conspiracy.
4. This conspiracy can be seen through its appearance in certain quasi-secret groups--the Trilateral Comission, the Masons, etc.
5. The intellectual ground for my ideas contains a) a lot of "scientifc," notions about genes and behavior; b) a lot of C.G. Jung's ideas about archetypes.
6. The history of such theories traces straight into some very, very ugly ideas indeed--and in Jung, we see once again the same old same old enemy: them Jews.

Man, I would very strongly suggest getting yourself a bucket and a big brush and painting some of that "slime," back ON to the theories you're espousing.