Monday, March 11, 2013

A mind game

One of the ways I help patients to assess their behavior is to ask them, after they have described a situation, "If you had it to do over again, would you do it any differently?" It's sometimes pretty helpful. Of course, actually doing it differently next time a similar situation arises is another kettle of fish. Insight rarely changes habit.

Observing the panoply of failures which characterizes contemporary America in decline, one could ask about the country's history, "If you had it to do over again, would you do it any differently?" The realm of alt history.

Of course that would depend entirely on your stance. People like Reb Seidman and his friends, for whom the Constitution is the work of evil rich White men who owned slaves, would doubtlessly aim for some egalitarian fantasy.

My fantasy --at least this month--has gone from a humanely conservative one before the 2012 election to a more frankly traditionalist one now. Yesterday evening, while once more watching Harry Potter and Hermione and Ron and friends finally take down Lord Voldemort (great name, no?), I sketched some elements for how I'd re-write a Constitution. Not for Reb Seidman's reasons. The result was pretty scandalous, even to me. But I find that once you focus on facts and probabilities based on past experience, and make "being nice" an ancillary value, scandalous is what you're gonna get. At least scandalous to the superstitious idols of the contemporary UN/Davos tribe which rules our polite global culture, for whom the certainties of the last ten minutes are sacred dogma.

Some of these elements would not be entirely surprising, given the patterns of my rantings about multiculturalism, feminism and the rest of it. I am by nature much more inclined to curse the darkness than to light a candle --no LightWorker I-- but when I imagine remedies to what irks me, the results even make me a bit hesitant.

Yet, it would be a multicultural country. It would have both Italians and Danes in it. That's enough multiculturalism for anyone.

As I imagine a theoretically better form of America, though, I find that I am a Groucho Marxist; I'm not even sure I'd be welcome in it myself!

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Problems With Psychiatrists. Psychologist. David ROSENHAN. CORBY? GB? Leeds, GB. GOS Port, GB. Political Social Order. One Mouth Full Of?? Adore You, Parody. The Last Road Runner? Bart Baker? One On One? Dead Beat? ZOTEISM? Ben Michael? Mr. Gay? Australia, 2012? 16? Shane Dawson? MISO, Soup? LOVIN LIV? Go? 60? from Elise Gingrich.

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