Monday, June 19, 2006

MASS DELUSIONS

Do you want to know what happens when an entire country embraces a psychotic and paranoid delusional system? You get comments from their leaders like these:

-'Historically, there are many accusations against the Jews. For example, it was said that they were the source for such deadly disease as the plague and typhus. This is because the Jews are very filthy people. For a time people also said that they poisoned water wells belonging to Christians and thus killed them,' Ramin said.

-'When the Islamic Revolution of Iran succeeded and attracted many people around the world, including Christians, the AIDS epidemic came about, and fear again overtook the world. After the September 11 attacks, the deadly epidermic broke out, which was destroyed when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. On the eve of the invasion of Iran, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) illness broke out, but disappeared after the invasion,' he said."

-'Nobody Asks How a Bird That had the Flu Could Fly From Australia to Siberia'

-Ramin also claimed that the spread of bird flu was a conspiracy plot cause[d] by the failure of America, Israel and Britain in the Middle East.

-And repeating the president’s claims about the Holocaust, he presented four theories that are presented in its support.

"The first is that in order to deny the Germans the ability to increase their power, 'the British and Americans present them as a human-burning nation.' The second theory is that the Americans and the British have cocked up this story with the Zionists, so as to create the state of Israel in the middle of the Islamic world and thus control the Islamic world on the Holocaust pretext, and getting rid of the Jews from Europe. The third hypothesis relates to the traditional animosity between Christians and the Jews. 'The U.S., Britain with the cooperation of France, Russia and Germany, and because of their Christian leanings and its animosity with the Jews, launched the idea of the Holocaust after the Second World War to scare off the Jews and sent them to what is now Israel in order to get rid of them in Europe and America,' he said. He further said that the movement that created Israel is in fact against the Jews. The fourth theory relates to covering up the crimes of the U.S. and Britain. He claimed that Britain had killed some 100 million red Indians in the last 300 years and the U.S. had leveled Hiroshima, which he said were the real Holocausts."


-Claiming that the Holocaust was the principal reason why Palestine was occupied while Israel was the main cause of crises and catastrophe in the Middle East. 'So long as Israel exists in the region there will never be peace and security in the Middle East,' he said adding, 'So the resolution of the Holocaust issue will end in the destruction of Israel.'

In this last statement you begin to see why the Iranian leadership has been insisting that the Holocaust never happened. In their deluded minds, denying the Holocaust means they will have eradicated any justification for creating the state of Israel.

The logic of the paranoid is clear. The Jews are "filthy"; they are behind most of the plots of history; they are responsible for AIDS, SARS, Bird Flu--just as they were responsible for the Plague and typhus. Americans and the British cooked up the idea of the Holocaust as a way to get rid of the Jews in Europe and foist them on the poor innocent people of the middle east. The Jews (with the help of America and Britain) are responsible for everything that is bad in the world, but specifically what is bad in the middle east.

All these accusations are made with a straight face and a firm, unshakeable belief. The people who believe these things are not joking. Humor is not one of the prominent aspects of paranoia. The person who said all these ridiculous things is perfectly serious. As is the audience who believed him.

If, as you read this guy's speech at the link above you start to have the niggling sense that the man is going into all sorts of mental contortions and gymnastics to explain, but that his explanations don't make any sense at all---well, welcome to the world of the paranoid. No explanation is too bizarre or too complicated-- if it supports your fundamental premise.

And that fundamental premise shines through loud and clear from the collection of societal delusions vomited out by the Iranian spokesman.

And, it takes no great leap to understand that if someone actually believed the fundamental premise--that the Jews are behind all the problems of the world-- then what follows is perfectly logical from the paranoid's perspective. In fact, you will feel completely justified in doing almost anything to get rid of the "problem" as you have described it.

Even wiping them off the map.

I have seen the same perversely resolute determination in many paranoid patients over the years, as they gird their loins to confront the boogeman behind their most frightening delusions. One patient in particular stands out in my mind. This individual became convinced that his psychiatrist--a colleague of mine--was the root cause of his failure in life. Of course in his mind it was a lot more complicated than that. He had traced her influence in his life back to his birth (when the psychiatrist would have been only 5 years old) and constructed a theory with her at the center to explain every setback he'd had over the years. He regaled everyone he met with the details of that theory. One evening, he waited at the door to her office; and when she left to go home, he shot her dead.

As he explained to the police afterwards, why should anyone be upset at his actions? He had finally taken action to solve the problems in his life, and in doing so he had solved the world's problems and should be considered a hero! He was duly found guilty of premeditated murder.

Now, take this kind of individual paranoia and imagine a nation of paranoids, all who share the same delusion. Everyone is familiar with the concept of "mass hysteria", a condition in which a large group of people exhibit the same state of violent mental agitation. The countries of the middle east suffer from mass delusions.

And Israel and the Jews are at the heart of their delusional system. If Israel didn't exist, the paranoid residents of the middle east would have to invent it--otherwise how could they possibly explain their own economic, political, and social backwardness without experiencing overwhelming shame?

It must be a conspiracy.

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