Observation is less popular than superstition. Occasionally there are reports from the curious. Some of these teach.
The extent that paranoia occurs in the general public, 40% reports King’s College, tells us we embarrass ourselves under the paradigm of authority and war until the most praised of our powers merely bully common nightmare.
From my previous post:
In this King’s College study using Virtual Reality to mimic social interaction, the results showed that 40% of us are paranoid.
Piquepaille reports, “If you don’t know how common are paranoid thoughts, here is an answer. “In one recent survey, 70% of people said that they had, at some time, experienced the feeling that people were deliberately trying to harm or upset them in some way.”
Think about this. If 40% of us are generally paranoid and 70% of us have ‘sensed’ others are attempting to harm us, how does this affect our daily lives, our society, and our political choices?
Democrats, Republicans, Army, Navy, Diplomat, Preacher, each authenticate worry. War survives because we let the fearful rule. Pride is its cheap bargain.
Update written by Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”:
In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Ask any pastoral wordsmithy describing dandelion or sky: None say screech roots or threat flies. All flowers know our terror is useless appendage. Outside our dark cerebellum is living, better infinity than church; all creatures more gentle dying than we are alive.
I’m saying history will tell us our era is lifted on horror. I’m ashamed of that.
Splendor so forgotten, as aliens we endure. When will it be different? Splendor too forgotten, never strategy, might save us. We can promise again. It is our fearless tomorrow.