Unsanity; The great plague!

For the first time in the not so venerable history of The Long Hill Institute, our research has uncovered a malady that afflicts much of the population, often that segment that considers itself the most advanced.

The phenomenon is unsanity, that is, a condition where an individual believes feelings are thoughts, facts or arguments.  The Long Hill Institute explored the phenomenon in the April, 2015 issue of the Sturbridge Times Magazine.  Below is the article:

Call Me Crazy or Something

There is a vast population of high functioning  people who harbor ideas that seem valid, but are delusional.  They are everywhere, including the highest levels of government and business.  This class  are our friends and relatives, and sadly, you and I need only look in the mirror to meet them.

The folks under discussion are not people who need to be cared for.  Most can rise in the morning, competently dress and go to a business or place of employment and spend the day doing useful work.  Many attain success in their chosen field.

What is the horrible malady victimizing our population?  It is not insanity.  The afflicted need not be restrained from doing harm to themselves or others.  At large, they are not a threat to public order.  Indeed there is no description of the condition in the DSM-5(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5^th Edition, it is used to diagnose and classify mental disorders).

As pervasive as it is, there is almost no discussion of it anywhere.  The only thing to be done was to engage the resources of our official think tank, The Long Hill Institute for the Study of Heretofore Unrecognized Psychological Conditions (LHIftSoHUPC for short).

A wonderful aspect of the LHIftSoHUPC is that the shoot from the hip methodology means there are never interminable hours of research.  A name for the condition and a definition of terms were arrived at almost instantaneously.

Thus we have Unsanity, that is, a condition where an individual believes feelings are thoughts, facts or arguments.

Your columnist is himself a victim.  I firmly hold that ingesting huge quantities of  Stonyfield Creme Caramel Ice Cream is healthy because it's organic.  Even worse, I trust and act on the advertisement that says “Guinness is good for you” because they wouldn't let them say that if it weren't true.

The cognitive aberrations of a scribbler at a regional magazine are of no import in the great world.  However, when people of position pontificate wildly, it should give us pause.

Marie Harf is deputy spokesperson at State.  In that position she has the unenviable job of defending administration foreign policy.  In a well-reported exchange with Chris Matthews, Ms. Harf suggested; “we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs.”

So that's all it takes to win the War on Terror, a jobs program.  Forget that the guy known as Jihadi John, who beheads the hostages, is a highly employable tech grad.  Also put aside when suicide bombers blow themselves up they are yelling “Allahu Akbar” and not “if only I had a job at Goldman Sachs or flipping burgers or working as a spokesflack at Foggy Bottom.”

Marie, and one might guess a lot of Americans, might find it hard to grasp that not everyone in the world just wants wage slavery.  They would be well advised to read George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf.  Orwell, a man who was not unsane, noted that Hitler said, “"I offer you struggle, danger and death," and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.”  The lovely life of happy self-actualization the West offers is not a universal aspiration.  There is no lack of people who find it empty.

Then again, The Allies were able to disabuse Germany of the notion by killing one heck of a lot of them over five years.

 Ms. Harf accused her critics of not being able to understand “too nuanced an argument.” that would seem to be a new way of saying “I was taken out of context” except that she said it with not a little confidence.  On Long Hill, we agree the war is not going to be won by killing, but neither is the universal jobs idea a winner.  If after almost a decade and a half, all we seem to get is more war, maybe  the game is not worth it.  That's no more an unsane conclusion than any other.

Despite the fact that we have savaged conservatives such as Ann Coulter, Howie Carr and Mitt Romney in the pages of this magazine, there is the view extant that we are running a militia up on Long Hill.  Thus, we feel it incumbent on us to search to starboard for unsanity.  Fortunately, our country is a target rich environment across the board.

The Capo di Tutti Capi of conservative talk is a prime example of the phenomenon.  Rush Limbaugh rose to prominence in the early 90s when shilling for Gulf War I.  He has always been a self-proclaimed champion of liberty. His show is one long paean to freedom. 

Until it is time to hide under the bed in fear.  According to Mr. Freedom, in light of the Snowden revelations, “Our civil liberties are worthless if we are dead! If you are dead and pushing up daisies, if you're sucking dirt inside a casket, do you know what your civil liberties are worth? Zilch, zero, nada.”*  True enough as nothing matters at that point other than how you lived your life. The LHIftSoHUPC can only render a diagnosis of Grand Mal Unsanity.

     The LHIftSoHUPC can do little to help the high and mighty with the condition no matter how pervasive it is among the elite.  We are here for the citizenry of our region even if the fee structure has not been set and we are a bit fuzzy on treatment.  However, if a client is not satisfied, we offer a complimentary dish of ice cream or pint of stout.  Your choice.

*From No Place to Hide, by Glenn Greenwald reviewed in the Jul,y 2014 Sturbridge Times Magazine.