In which the pond offers a few tips for doing a shrink job on the reptile hive mind ...

 

You have to watch the reptiles 24/7. A second's inattention and something like this slips into the top extreme far right slot of the digital edition, no doubt for a bit of hit cultivation ...

The pond was immediately reminded of a piece by Zoe Williams in the Graudian, Andrew Tate 'hates' eating. What is behind his performative disgust for food?

Luckily by morning things had returned to usual and Dame Slap was in her top right right perch, in the usual reptile Wednesday way ...

More of Dame Slap anon, but the tone had been set. Today was going to be a psychology kind of day ... with plenty of subjects available for analysis ...

A Lloydie of the Amazon and a Caterist and a startled meretricious Merritt and that notoriously bad leg spin bowler and inept batsman Bruce Chapman spinning up his usual desire to apply a levy?

The pond's cup overflowed and there had to be selective drinking and naturally Lloydie of the Amazon came out on top, as his commentary was appended to the "power play scare" splash designed to generate, if not energy, then more of the usual reptile FUD ...

Why was the pond astonished to see demonic whale-killing windmills at the head of the yarn? It's what's trotted out at every opportunity, what with the whale-killing up Hunter Valley way a most pitiful sight ...

Speaking of facing long hot summers, there was this story in the Graudian ...

Pshaw, failing water supply off a Lloydie duck's back, as he wrapped up his piece quickly ...

Oh dear, no chance to nuke the country? And there's an expected long hot summer? 

Say what? Is climate science and its implications real? Let the psychologising begin ...

Here the pond would like to reference an interview by Masha Gessen in The New Yorker with a surprisingly alert - for a man in his nineties - Robert Jay Lufton, under the header How to Maintain Hope in an Age of Catastrophe ... (paywall, but perhaps soft). In it, a number of Lufton concepts were discussed ...

MG: How about “psychic numbing”?
RJL: Psychic numbing is a diminished capacity or inclination to feel. One point about psychic numbing, which could otherwise resemble other defense mechanisms, like de-realization or repression: it only is concerned with feeling and nonfeeling. Of course, psychic numbing can also be protective. People in Hiroshima had to numb themselves. People in Auschwitz had to numb themselves quite severely in order to get through that experience. People would say, “I was a different person in Auschwitz.” They would say, “I simply stopped feeling.” Much of life involves keeping the balance between numbing and feeling, given the catastrophes that confront us.
MG: A related concept that you use, which comes from Martin Buber, is “imagining the real.”
RJL: It’s attributed to Martin Buber, but as far as I can tell, nobody knows exactly where he used it. It really means the difficulty in taking in what is actual. Imagining the real becomes necessary for imagining our catastrophes and confronting them and for that turn by which the helpless victim becomes the active survivor who promotes renewal and resilience...

So that's why the pond feels psychically numbed after a Lloydie of the Amazon piece ...

Climate scored a mention ...

...MG: now, according to the Doomsday Clock, we’re closer to possible nuclear disaster than ever before. Yet there doesn’t seem to be the same sense of pervasive dread that there was in the seventies and eighties.
RJL: I think in our minds apocalyptic events merge. I see parallels between nuclear and climate threats. Charles Strozier and I did a study of nuclear fear. People spoke of nuclear fear and climate fear in the same sentence. It’s as if the mind has a certain area for apocalyptic events. I speak of “climate swerve,” of growing awareness of climate danger. And nuclear awareness was diminishing. But that doesn’t mean that nuclear fear was gone. It was still there in the Zeitgeist and it’s still very much with us, the combination of nuclear and climate change, and now covid, of course.

"Climate swerve"?

So that's what Lloydie was doing. Instead of a pervasive sense of dread, do the swerve.

It turned out that these were also handy concepts for dealing with a third rate sociology student import from Britain railing at the British ... 

For a moment the pond had thought it would have to stop being vague and reach for a yesterday Hague ...

... but the proposition that the reptiles had snuck in late yesterday, the vaguely Hagueish talk of a "decent chap", a bumbling sort of boosting of Woosterism, was so risible, the talk of a "rational, respectful ministry" so comical in a dropkick loser Brexit way,  that a report from the front line by a correspondent ...

The quality of Sky News is not strained. This night, we had Sharri (disrespect) and the claimed national news editor of the Yellowgraph discussing (?) events in UK politics. In particular, Sharri upset that that Suella Braverman, who was doing such a great job sticking up for the Israelis, being fired by the PM - to be replaced by David Cameron. They discussed their ideas of why this seemed odd. No hint that one had been Home Secretary, one coming in as Foreign Secretary. I guess, to Sky News, all secretaries are much the same.

... and a good Hydeing ...Rewarding failure? With David Cameron's return, it's being celebrated like never before ... and a cracking Crace, 'Now, where was I?' Lord Big Dave dusts off old contacts book to return to the top table...

...and a letter from Suella, 'A betrayal of our agreement' ...

... and a Rowe cartoon ... and that was all that was needed ...

It's all in the eyes of course, and the pond suspects if the pond got close enough to the Caterist, a Pom import bashing Poms, there'd be the same glazed fish-eye zombie look ...

That's a cartoonish history? Isn't that what actually happened?  See talk of "psychic numbing" above ...

Well yes, far right loons, not least the reptiles at the lizard Oz, had helped generate a lot of disinformation, an all-purpose FUD useful to create a fog of war ...

Here the reptiles began some huge snaps designed to further terrify aged reptile readers, but they can be reduced without reducing the Caterist rage at interfering furriners and difficult, uppity blacks ...

At this point some might wonder what the Caterist is proposing by way of alternative to the Voice for disadvantaged Aboriginal Australians ...

Sorry, that's above the Caterist paygrade. When your real expertise is whispering about the movement of flood waters in quarries, all you can do is rant at bloody Poms for getting it wrong, and never mind the irony of the Caterist getting it wrong...

Well yes, but what if we wanted an expert class example of someone so far up himself no hint of sunlight or insight shined? What if we wanted a Caterist with such a high estimation of himself that he resembled a horse in blinkers? What if that high estimation resulted in his head stuck so firmly so far up his bum that all he could do was indulge in fluff-gathering navel-gazing? 

Why, likely we'd welcome the opening to to the final gobbet ... blathering on about the voices of better angels, and sounding like Homer ...

Yes, it came to that ...

As for that talk of integration, shouldn't the Caterist have been a little clearer, a little plainer, a little more willing to cite references for his good ideas ... integration, absorption, it's possible to catch the drift, see the affinity ...

...The most enthusiastic exponent of an extended concept of absorption was Western Australia's Commissioner Neville. At the 1937 Aboriginal Welfare Conference, which marked the peak of offical endorsement of absorption, he posed the rhetorical question that marks the zenith of absorptionist fervour:

Are we going to have a population of 1,000,000 blacks in the Commonwealth, or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there ever were any aborigines in Australia? (pdf on breeding out the colour here, direct download).

And so to Dame Slap, and the pond suspects she only ducked her usual hot topics so she wouldn't be red carded.

Lifton had a few ideas that help explain Dame Slap's psychological make-up ...

Masha Gessen: I would like to go through some terms that seem key to your work. I thought I’d start with “totalism.”

Robert Jay Lifton: O.K. Totalism is an all-or-none commitment to an ideology. It involves an impulse toward action. And it’s a closed state, because a totalist sees the world through his or her ideology. A totalist seeks to own reality.

MG: And when you say “totalist,” do you mean a leader or aspiring leader, or anyone else committed to the ideology?

RJL: Can be either. It can be a guru of a cult, or a cult-like arrangement. The Trumpist movement, for instance, is cult-like in many ways. And it is overt in its efforts to own reality, overt in its solipsism.

MG: How is it cult-like?

RJL: He forms a certain kind of relationship with followers. Especially his base, as they call it, his most fervent followers, who, in a way, experience high states at his rallies and in relation to what he says or does.

MG: Your definition of totalism seems very similar to Hannah Arendt’s definition of totalitarian ideology. Is the difference that it’s applicable not just to states but also to smaller groups?

RJL: It’s like a psychological version of totalitarianism, yes, applicable to various groups. As we see now, there’s a kind of hunger for totalism. It stems mainly from dislocation. There’s something in us as human beings which seeks fixity and definiteness and absoluteness. We’re vulnerable to totalism. But it’s most pronounced during times of stress and dislocation. Certainly Trump and his allies are calling for a totalism. Trump himself doesn’t have the capacity to sustain an actual continuous ideology. But by simply declaring his falsehoods to be true and embracing that version of totalism, he can mesmerize his followers and they can depend upon him for every truth in the world.

MG: You have another great term: “thought-terminating cliché.”

RJL: Thought-terminating cliché is being stuck in the language of totalism. So that any idea that one has that is separate from totalism is wrong and has to be terminated

MG: What would be an example from Trumpism?

RJL: The Big Lie. Trump’s promulgation of the Big Lie has surprised everyone with the extent to which it can be accepted and believed if constantly reiterated.

Totalist? Thought-terminating cliché?

It suddenly became clear. There wasn't a populist that wafted past Dame Slap that she hadn't found some way to like ... be it a Jordan Peterson, a "Lord" Monckton  ... or a mango Mussolini ...

This has to be remembered when venturing on any outing with Dame Slap ... because at any moment you'll be off the rails and into the thickets of a rant about "identity" in a way only a totalist offering thought-terminating clichés could do ...right from the get go, with a mind-numbing illustration

Sorry, the pond had to interrupt right at the start. That iStock image is of such unremitting banality that it's a fair warning of what's to follow.

Here are some of the contexts for it in recent times ...

What a sorry remnant of a graphics department, and yet what an accurate evocation of what's to follow ... starting with the bizarre notion that Dame Slap's devotion to populism of the Jordan/mango/"Lord" kind constitutes important contributions to Western liberalism and the development of civilised society ... when we all know she belongs to the tribe, the collective, the hive mind known as Murdochian hacks ...

The pond sometimes imagines Dame Slap ferreting through every news story in search of a fresh outrage - and being delighted when she stumbles across what she imagines is pure gold, as in the Lehrmann matter - and if it all turns iron pyrites, as hinted at by the Toowoomba affair, then it's on to ferreting out a fresh outrage ...

At this point the reptiles offered a couple of the usual huge snaps in the usual way, designed to pad out a piece ...

But why not a visual more in keeping with Dame Slap's interests?

Did the mango Mussolini ever thank her for her service?

Never mind, she's really got the woke bit between the teeth now ...

Who knows if it was a voluntary choice that Dame Slap made to become a member of the Murdochian hive mind? You'd have hoped for a better and a different career outcome, but here we are ...

Why, if she'd followed her first choice of a legal career, she might have ended up a learned judge instead of a partisan hack, and then would have been able to talk up originalism ...

Never mind, there's just one gobbet to go, and wouldn't Andrew Tate be proud to have such a companion?

Is that in the same way that the lizard Oz welcomes into the hive mind women who are devoted to populists, are scientifically and politically obtuse, and strategically sterile, and who lack all empathy, but are terrific at compliance and know how to fit in with the hive mind backwards? 

Yes please, sounds like just the person for a mate's rate job on the board of the ABC, just to show vulgar youff how it really should be done ...

Personally the pond would prefer to short the stock, or at least go with an infallible Pope to wrap up the day's proceedings ...