The following comment by Vito B. Caiati on an earlier post of mine deserves to be brought to the top of the queue. Minor edits and bracketed content added; otherwise verbatim. The above title is mine. Vito would probably not use the polemical word ‘lunacy.’ Comments of mine are in 10-point below.
Consider for a moment the fact that the personae of so many progressive women are structured around solidarity with designated marginalized groups, such as biological men suffering from gender dysphoria who identify as females and demand the right to participate in women’s sports and share women’s private spaces.
In this case, persons with egos of some strength are able simultaneously to hold onto (1) the observable fact that human sexual dimorphism results in marked disparities in strength, speed, and endurance between the sexes and that (2) opposing discrimination against marginalized groups is a worthy public policy position. Thus, a healthy ego rejects any resolution of this tension by simply effacing the rights of women in sports or private spaces.
Both (1) and (2) make a strong claim on our acceptance, although the nature of the discrimination mentioned in (2) needs to be spelled out. And yet the two propositions are in tension: although the merits of each ought to be acknowledged, they cannot both be accepted. How resolve the tension? A sane (non-lunatic) solution is by holding fast to what is empirically evident, namely, (1), and then reformulating (2) so as to make it logically compatible with (1). That is what I would say, and I am sure Vito would agree. The question then arises: why don’t our opponents on this issue agree? Read on.
For progressive women, however, once the status of marginalized groups is elevated inside their personae to a sanctified status, then any acknowledgement of sexual differences, however empirically evident, appears as a betrayal; such perceptions are thus repressed or relativized (“sex is a spectrum,” etc.). These repressed perceptions pile up in [what Carl Gustav Jung calls] “the shadow,” where they are intensified and distorted, and are projected onto critics, who are viciously attacked, their arguments denounced as “hate,” rather than countered rationally, as in the case of J.K. Rowling and so many other advocates of women’s rights. This all ends up in enantiodromia, and the abandonment of earlier, hard fought for, feminist goals. [‘Enantiodromia’ is Jung’s term for the tendency of any extreme to produce its opposite.]
In the above paragraph, Vito is doing two things. He is first of all giving a Jungian psychological explanation of why our opponents will not accept what to Vito and to me is obviously the case, namely, the fact of sexual differences between men and women, differences that make it unfair to allow biological males to compete against biological females in sporting events. One could ask, of course, whether the Jungian psychological explanation is the best explanation. Might there be a better one? There is also the meta-question: Is it ever logically kosher to refute a proposition by psychologizing those who advance the proposition?
The second thing Vito is doing in the above paragraph is pointing out that the extreme transgenderist position of feminists who traditionally demanded equal rights generates its opposite, namely, the violation of the rights of women and girls to privacy and fairness.
“O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall / Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “No Worst, There is None”)
Bill,
“There is also the meta-question: Is it ever logically kosher to refute a proposition by psychologizing those who advance the proposition?”
I would say that it is when dealing with political opponents who advance propositions that are so evidently contrary to common sense and normal perception and who tolerate no dissent from them. For in doing so, they, like any ordinary madman, are transgressing the commonly accepted boundaries of perception and reason and seeking to impose a deranged vision of the world on their sane fellows. What are we to think of those who publicly affirm that truth is subjective; that biological men are women; that the police should be defunded and hence abolished; that the borders of the nation should be open to the entire world; that women should always be believed; that everything from math, to classical music, to politeness is racist, and who then react with rage against anyone who questions these assertions, seeking to have them silenced, shamed, or punished?
Now, I admit not everyone holding to these lunatic notions is suffering from the same psychological imbalance, for we have to distinguish the leftist ideologues who consciously and quite often cynically devise them to advance some, often unstated, grand utopian project from the masses of men and women who, seduced, pick them up and adopt them as dogma. The question of why so many would so readily forfeit ordinary awareness and practical judgement in doing so is what makes the Jungian psychological explanation so powerful, whether the phenomenon appears on the Left or the Right, as with Jung’s analysis of the Nazi movement in Germany. This is not to argue that it provides a complete explanation for those moments in history when the egos of so many succumb to irrationality, for its notion of causation, for instance, is not firmly enough anchored in the givens of specific circumstances, but it certainly allows us to explain much of the “lunacy” of the present moment.
Vito,
Do you know anything about Cluster B Personality Disorders? It would be interesting to investigate how many leftists and leftist positions are understandable in terms of these disorders. Here is a Substack article that touches on these questions. You understand, of course, that my linkage does not constitute plenary, or even partial, endorsement.
https://lucytabrizi.substack.com/p/when-mental-illness-disguises-itself
Bill,
I know something about Cluster B personality disorders, both from reading and from extensive contact with two persons who suffered from two of them. These are very serious and debilitating conditions marked by lasting cognitive and behavioral patterns that lead to substantial disruptions and impairments across many areas of life. It is a serious error to regard, as does the Substack article to which you like, the psychological indicators that we are observing among many adherents of the Left–identify instability, projection and splitting, emotional explosiveness, a moralistic public persona, etc.—as evidence of these personality disorders. The move turns ordinary, neurotic psychological processes, such as imbalances in the relation of the ego with the persona and shadow, into something much graver and much rarer.
link not like
Thanks for that. I am in no position to disagree.
Do you have an opinion of Michael Savage? I’ve listened to him a few times, but haven’t read his *Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.* The following article strikes me as an accurate summary of his views: https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/is-liberalism-a-mental-disorder
The name is vaguely familiar, but I have never listened to or read anything by him.
By the way, Malcolm Pollack posted something on this blog today, his first post since early July.
Thanks for the Pollack update. I went to his site yesterday, but he still wasn’t back. Last couple of mornings I’ve been reading from Jung’s *Psychological Types.* His vast erudition and intellectual penetration puts us lesser lights to shame, or rather, in the shadow (no pun initially intended, but I’ll let it stand). I should not be ashamed of my limited abilities. I do my best, which is all we can ask of ourselves and others.
I tried to leave a comment at Pollack’s site but it was deemed “Not Acceptable!” So I’ll put it here:
Glad you are back. 70? You could be 76 like me or 80 like Vito.
Do the best you can with all you’ve got for as long as you can. “Balls to the wall” to use an old marathoner’s expression. Die with your boots on. That’s what I tell myself.
G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein were in animated conversation. Moore’s wife was worried that Moore was getting too excited. Wittgenstein said that if the old man were to expire in the heat of the dialectic, he would “die with his boots on.”