Facing Up to Clay Feet

It's a bugger but when one goes buggy other someones have to watch out for their own faults too. That's the power of self-deception if those involved don't understand how it is transmitted. In several discussions I have recently been embroiled in it appears that getting a grip on self-deception and how indoctrination perpetuates it has hardly been touched upon. If you know what I'm getting at then here's food for thought.

And a couple of handy paragraphs . . . . . .

The most intriguing maneuver among the tactics of indoctrination is to leave undisturbed the delusion among intellectuals that they are exempt from viruses of indoctrination and propaganda. Far from immune, intellectuals have exhibited unique vulnerability to these viruses. Whatever their superior abilities in logic or assessments of data, intellectuals remain, as persons, no more important than others, and no less vulnerable to indoctrination and manipulation. They stand equally subject to negative emotions, such as hubris, fear, resentment, and subtle loathing for one's self and others. In addition, intellectuals suffer common psychological aberrancies and group-think.

Some intellectuals pursue noble and critical causes so rigorously, that they either burn themselves out or become counterproductive. Over-compensating with familiar neuroses of rigor, extremism, and other negative aspects of fundamentalism, they alienate potential allies from the vital ideals, which they pursue all too scrupulously or compulsively. Confusing what is trivial with the substance of admirable values and praxes, such intellectuals become both casualties and agents of indoctrination and self-deception. Their quest for core fundamentals washes ashore in scrupulous and self-defeating literalism. Saddest of all, their potential allies are less attracted than repelled.