Interpreting the Defense - II

ShrinkWrapped analyzes the psychological defenses of the PC mindset:

In the face of all this evidence, it is still possible for a reasonable person to disagree with taking the war into the Iraq theater; it is certainly possible to disagree with the execution of the war; it is possible to disagree with the strategy and tactics of the entire war. However, most of the anti-war opponents never do any such things. They tend to look toward the past and accuse the Bush administration of lying, or misleading us into war, or accuse us of creating more terrorists by going into Iraq. What has been lacking has been any suggestion of how better to prosecute the war on terror. What could be behind this?

I would suggest that the anti-war, PC-thought, point of view, is a defensive structure which serves to protect a person form the reality of the threat we are facing.

The defensive nature of the structure is revealed by its lack of involvement with the mass of facts that counter their point of view, and their inability to articulate any alternative approach that can be supported by any reading of the situation. For example, the idea of turning to the UN, which was bruited about during the fall and has now disappeared, could only be held by denying that the UN has failed in every arena in which it has tried to protect innocent people or halt hostilities. The idea of getting out of Iraq as quickly as possible via training Iraqis to perform their own security is a non-sequitor; it is exactly what we have been doing. Thus, the divorce from reality and the essential non-involvement with contravening arguments (ad hominem arguments do not constitute arguments) reveals the defensive nature of the argument as a rationalization or intellectualization. This further implies that the defense has its roots in the unconscious and is directed at an unconscious threat or threats.

Read all of it. ShrinkWrapped is analyzing the defense of those who continue to be oblivious to what is happening in the real world. As he says, there is plenty of room for disagreement on the way the war has been managed and the strategy and tactics being used. But the reason that Democrats and many on the Left are unable to articulate any rational alternatives is because they are divorced from the real world. They remain in denial about the threat and are too emotionally invested in their ideology--and that ideology has become an extension of their sense of Self--to be able to adapt or cope effectively with reality.

ShrinkWrapped will get no disagreement from me.