In my recent piece, "What Happened to Hillary at the Level of the Spirit," I advanced the idea that Hillary Clinton had been morally and spiritually damaged by her traumatic encounter with the dark forces that assaulted her husband's presidency --and her personally-- during the 1990s. Ultimately more impressed by the effectiveness than outraged by the unscrupulous and dishonest nature of the tactics which America's proto-fascists employed against the Clinton Administration, Hillary ended up emulating the dark forces that traumatized her.
The encounter with evil left on her the imprint of the pattern of evil.
I can see how I, too, have become more like the Bushite forces that I detest.
In my case, it is not a matter of adopting the Bushites' amoral, "winning is everything" approach to life and power. The impact on me has been on a different level.
In the 1990s, I did a great deal of talk radio in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where I lived. It's a very conservative area --politically, culturally, religiously-- and I felt called to create conversations that would delve into and sometimes bridge our differences on controversial topics. My purpose on my radio shows, as I put it at the beginning of each show, was to create a conversation "in a spirit of genuine inquiry, as if we might actually learn something from one another." I loved what felt like my ministry in modeling tolerance for diverse opinions and openness to being shown that one's own views should be changed.
Now, as I continue to do radio by phone to that area, and as I contemplate possibly resuming a program of my own on my return to that Bushite part of the country, I feel repelled by the idea of talking with those people about our political controversies. I find what I regard as wrong-mindedness as intolerable as many of the Bushites of rural and small-town Virginia used to view my "wrong" ideas.
During the 1990s, I was quite aware that while I regarded my conservative interlocutors primarily as my fellow human beings, and embraced them as such, a good many of them looked on me --progressive, cosmopolitan, intellectual, Yankee that I am-- as a kind of enemy. I approached the show as part of an encompassing "Us," and at least a lot of them approached me in terms of an "Us vs. Them."
Now, as my psychic system continues to process the trauma of the Bushite nightmare that these people supported, my map of humankind has become much more like theirs. For me, the experience of fascism coming to power in America has drawn a line across the landscape-- a line that separates "Us" and "Them." A visceral feeling tells me that those on the wrong side of that line are my enemies.
This is not how I WANT to feel.
While I can find major justifications for my adversarial stance, and for my feelings of repugnance, I do not believe these attitudes I'm describing are the most enlightened. If would prefer to come from another place in my heart, if I could. But thus far, my feelings of disgust and enmity seemingly come from a place in my being beyond choice.
Where I am is, rather, part of the reverberation of my experience of trauma as the forces of darkness have swept over this land and impacted the deepest fibers of my being. It is a traumatic injury of the soul --just as I imagine Hillary's was-- and the effects seem likely to be slow to heal.
Evil has been assaulting my country, and I felt called to place myself between the two. On the one side, perhaps I can entitle myself to believe that I've played some small role in impeding the triumph of that evil. But on the other, I can see in my heart that, through the intensity of this encounter, evil has left its imprint.
I have become more fearful, just like the fear-driven people through whom this evil has worked.
Where I would wish to be filled with compassion even for my enemies, my compassion now is buried beneath my scorn-- just as the people with whom I used to engage on the radio had learned to regard "librels" with scorn.
Where I would wish to be a builder of bridges, I now can see in myself a longing to live in a world without certain sorts of people-- the people who are on the other side from me of some of our major political and cultural divides. The moat looks better to me than the bridge.
Where I would wish to love humankind, as I always used to, I find that now my view of my kind has become harsher-- just like the harshness of those Bushites in Virginia in whom I used to try to spark some wider feeling of empathy for other people, and other kinds of people. I now experience a Swiftian disgust at human foibles, closer to those whose sin-drenched religious vision feeds a vision of a world at war.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
'That heart which does not know how to hate will never learn how to love'
That was said long ago by a Russian Nicholai Nekrasov
But there is also a Western one:
' I leave to you my wholesome love, Roxanne
and to you my friends, I leave my sacred Hate'
E. Rostand 'Cyrano De Berzerac'
Love an Hate are the paramount emotions and only a dog (if I may) loves unconditionally. But smart dogs can hate too. They thus tell us, humans who we really are.
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Mark Sashine (38 articles, 19 quicklinks, 223 diaries, 3107 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 11:48:06 AM
I feel something very similar. I grew up and still live in Texas. I used to feel that people were basically good, but had these polarly divergent attitudes due to mainly societal and cultural pressures. Now I feel (feel, not believe or know, mind you) that there is something deeply WRONG with "those people". Something damaged on the DNA level. People who hold their fellow humans in utter contempt, vote TWICE for known and demonstrated evil; people who drive vehicles that don't even fit on roads and fill our air, water, soil, and even our food with poisons. I think very non-buddhist thoughts sometimes. I know that right now if I were make absolute dictator for a year, like Sulla, our population would shrink by about half. Bummer. Can we sue for psychological damage? -JN
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johnneale (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 1:04:22 PM
There's something wrong with anyone who hasn't been affected
by all this. There's been a drastic change in the whole fabric & character of society, & it's all been effected with astonishing speed (though, to be sure, the groundwork for it had been methodically prepared for decades).
When you mention the Shenandoah Valley, it makes me think of essays by Joe Bageant, whose columns often appear on CounterPunch, & who -- though very progressive himself -- colorfully describes the locals he knew in Virginia, in ways that are both perceptive & charitable.
BTW, Andy -- I'm reading "The Great Turning," by David Korten. He mentions your "Parable of the Tribes" in Chapter 1, calling it a "social science classic."
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 943 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 3:50:15 PM
Your "traumatic injury of the soul" statement hit home with me. Fortunately/Unfortunately for me, it was the second time in my life I was exposed to the "dark side" by those types of people. Your descriptions are accurate. It is difficult to come to the reality that these people exist in our society everywhere. Once you are exposed to this "mindset" it is a journey to recovery. You will question everyone and everything you come in contact with. It is a grieving process. Your soul will grieve. What keeps me "in the light" is knowing that I am not one of "them" and I try to keep my mind from drifting into their world. They are evil at their core, heartless, greedy, selfish, destructive, jealous, miserable, hateful, and are pleased when they see others suffer. They hate "us" because we are "good" compassionate, loving, productive, giving, selfless and happy. Just be greatful you are not a part of their "dark world."
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Viki (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 33 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 4:57:31 PM
About the core cadre of Bushites that brought us this darkness, I tend to agree about that "evil to the core" accusation.
But the people I'm talking about who have not initiated but have supported this regime, many of them are not evil to the core. A part of them has been available for manipulation and deception and exploitation by these dark forces, but that's hardly all they are.
Indeed, in many respects, when I lived in the Shenandoah Valley, I discerned in these people --in some important respects-- a level of decency and consideration that I've not always found in those places and groups where people can quite readily see through the Bushite evil and have been clear in their opposition.
My impression is that in that traditional conservative culture, people are more likely to stop and help someone whose car has broken down by the side of the road, or to come to the support of someone who is ill, than among other more liberal circles of people.
“They are evil at their core, heartless, greedy, selfish, destructive, jealous, miserable, hateful, and are pleased when they see others suffer.They hate "us" because we are "good" compassionate, loving, productive, giving, selfless and happy.Just be grateful you are not a part of their "dark world."
Absolutely incredible!Talk about a group self reinforcing exclusive cult like mind set!Wow!So anyone that doesn’t agree with you is inferior, a mental vegetable, and devil like?You would kill us all if you could!How about rounding up all us crap chunking chimps and put us in reeducation camps in which no one ever escapes, tee he.Because progressives are soooo much more tolerant and sooooooo much more good and way smarter than anyone else!Let us not forget that only progressives have the ability to feel anything as they and only they have evolved.
You are superior beings almost God like.You believe in an inherent superiority of a particular group, your group.When it’s about race its called racism!When it’s about thought its called thoughtism!
Bush won the second election because he is the best choice in a challenging world.Your lack of tolerance and devaluing of difference is not surprising, nor is it new.Progressives are and have been the least tolerant people on earth.They only play nice if they are getting there way, they attack and beat anything different.
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David C Beach (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 114 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 3:15:10 AM
Funny thing but everything what Mr. Beach accuses progressives of is promoted and prpagated by Bush and Co. According to them they are superior beings, they know where to go, they can make all the people in the world happy and ... God Bless America and PNACists. They surely had killed a lot that way. BTW, so far progressives in this country had not killed anyone. Mr. Beach atttributes to other people what he and his friends ARE. That's the oldest trick in the books. He surely feels nice and tolerant and all that, so ' Bush won because he was the best' etc. I want to mention something for the folks like Mr. Beach and some others: the best way to cure the deliberate madman is to prove to him that his anxiety is actually not baseless. So.. here is wisdom-progressives are humans and as all real humans we do not appreciate stupidity, malice and self- deceit. As such I would assume if we encounter someone with these unfortunate qualities (and Bush is a shining example) we not only say that but also explain that everyone who follows such person will acquire those qualities thyselves. The choice is yours.
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Mark Sashine (38 articles, 19 quicklinks, 223 diaries, 3107 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 8:03:42 AM
You said it all so well Andrew. I believe most Americans are at a loss these days for what we can do to stop the downward spiral of our nation. We vote in a majority of democrats in 06 to stop the war and what do we get? We no longer have checks and balances in our government. Our Republic has given way to a fascist dictatorship. The last decent man we had for President was taken out...JFK. His crime was to attempt to dismantle the CIA, get us out of Vietnam, and abolish the Federal Reserve. The last of those three, was enough for the Central Bankers to have sleepless nights. Now in my mid 60's I hope and pray that soon the younger generation wakes up to the message of Ron Paul and rid our Republic of the foreign banking cartel (The Federal Reserve).
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ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 81 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 5:44:33 PM
the Bu$h cabal believe the lies, while benefiting from the investment returns of their military-industrial-complex stock portfolios.
I'm amused how the republicans use minions who have made a mockery of the "Family Values" platform, like turn-coat wife swapping Ronald Reagan and AWOL cocaine abusing multiple convicted drunk driving and 5 Vietnam deferments Dybua and Buckshot Dick. With the bloated government and debt-ridden budget busting illegal imperialistic mis-guided foreign policy agendas they force upon the world.
With a blind following with unwavering support to share in the spoils on the War Of Terror.
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Stanimal (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 243 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 8:37:03 PM
Many of the corporate rich have gladly embraced this proto-fascism, benefitting from the transfer of wealth from the public to the greedy few.
But the people I'm talking about do not have any such portfolios. The region of which I speak is not made up of rich people. If they have "benefitted" at all from the BUshite regime, it has been through sleight-of-hand trickery that persuaded them of symbolic and borrowed gratifications. Phony purity. Phony virtue. God's country. Phony swagger in the name of Old GLory.
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (286 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 137 comments)
on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 9:29:56 PM
Andrew ,thank you for your deep honesty, courage, and spirituality. I love your attitudes and your work, and truly respect your courage and integrity in sharing with us so openly.
In so doing, as you can see from the comments here, you are affirming the experiences of so many. I want to say that I am one of them. I really appreciate what you have said because for the longest time, I have felt the same way. I have found it spilling over into my relationship with other people at times, finding it has changed my character in some ways (in ways which I don't like and which represent a departure of all I am, have been and truly value). It's really difficult to deal with this degree of evil, as seen in our current American political and spiritual climate. What a time this is!
"Don't become a casualty yourself" said an x-very close friend of mine. I believe she is right. And of course, she did not mean a physical casualty. She meant a spiritual one.
The moment we lose love and brew in resentment, is the moment we begin to die inside. Respectfully, I disagree with the response stating that "those who don't know how to hate will never know how to love". Resentment and hatred are cancers feeding on the soul, always destructive to our being within and never supporting an upward spiral that I have seen. If anything, I have only seen downward spirals from that. Alchoholics drink themselves to death not even because of addiction itself, but because of the root of that disease: Resentment and blame.
Yes, we have a lot to hate, resent and shun in what Bush is doing. Yes, only dogs love unconditionally and without discrimination. It's true.
And yet, I have had to take a step back from politics (notice how little I have been writing of late, after entering such a storm of articles??) because I found it was eating me up too. The same thing.
HERE IS A NEW CONCLUSION I AM COMING TO:
Only those devoid of any sense----not intellectually, but spiritually and in emotional experience-----of the divine in humans and the world, is capable of hte kind of harm and evil that Bush and Cheney have done. Only someone who does not recognize the God/dess within can go to war based on a lie, do the same for yet more profits, and declare it "hard work" to find compassion for a mother who has lost her son as Bush once said.
What would that experience be like? To be separated from any sense of the divinity and beauty in life? Oh my god, how empty and how sad and devoid. I just can't imagine living that way.
I don' t pretend to have mastered this in every way, but am *practicing* (the key word) what at thsi moment is the act of will of compassion. I am trying to remind myself that these people who are doing all the evil are the ones who are themselves suffering, in the truest sense. They have no sense of life, beauty, love, compassion, depth, heart....and therefore can also have no remorse or empathy. They are just plain dead. From within. Perhaps all the murder, chaos and mayhem is even its own attempt to feel alive from within, as it were? Is it possible that lacking love and reverence, that evil becomes the only way to *experience*, period?
We have to pray for these people that they find life inside. Real life. Healthy life. Beautiful life.
When you resent someone, pray for them for ten days in a row, say the Twelve Step Programs. Someone I know did that and said it changed her relationship to her x-husband, who was abusing the hell out of her, in a permanent way, and much for the better. Maybe we ourselves will feel better within as we pray for Bush, Cheney et al to find a real life. A life of love, care and spirit. Perhaps when they find it, then they will be able to wake up to the reality of the suffering they are invoking in others, and depart from their evil ways.
I close this entry by reiterating the wonderful and wise words of my dear friend: "Don't become a casualty yourself" in spirit. Keep the love, keep the faith.
Sending appreciation and best wishes, Andrew, and to all of you here who have so courageously posted your own truths and touchingly shared your inner truths with us! Thank you all---KS
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Kathryn Smith (57 articles, 0 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 144 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 12:54:10 AM
If only there were more people like you on this earth. I too become so disgusted with the political climate in our country. I am astounded by the level of evil that has overtaken our society. From the events of 911, through the mideast wars, and the destruction of our Constitution. How do Bush/Cheney and those that support these evil-doers, manage to live with themselves? How do they sleep? I just don't understand. Your calming, spiritual message will stay with me. Keep writing and spreading your positive ideals of love and peace. You're an Angel.
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ronheri (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 81 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 10:24:01 PM
I think these people are fooled, like you say Andrew. But not evil inside, necessarily.
I attribute a lot of peoples' inactions, or voting for Bush twice in some cases, to denial. Denial can be so thick it can take us to our graves. Its function is to shield us from the pain of awareness. Some truths are just too much for some people to take in, and so the walls of denial go up in order to protect themselves from the pain of realization. Realization of the truth that some people----yes, our own prez and VP----are up to no good, and DELIBERATELY so. That is something which many people----most people----simply can't and won't fathom. Even with all the facts spelled out in front of them, in clearly analyzed scientific detail, they still won't take it in. Not because they are stupid. Not because they are evil or rotten to the core. No. Instead, it's because of denial. The walls are like the lead walls surrounding a cyclatron. Thick, heavy, impenetrable. They have to melt to be penetrated. ANd what melts them is a hell of a lot---repeat, a hell of a lot----of heat. Life would have to hit people awfully hard before they finally melt away their denial. Some people melt and "Come to", and others never do.
I think that's why there are still many Bushites. They are simply being blind, not deliberately evil or harmful.
And maybe many of them are just plain ignorant, not thinking things through. Well once again, even if they think things through, up come the walls of denial. Those thick, leaden, cyclatron-type walls which seal out all reality and life in the outside world. WHich leaves only what is within. The ignorance which is bliss. For a while. Once the walls melt, the reality will be so heated up that the pain of awareness will be worse than before. I think we need to point that out to people.
Who would ever have thought the Nazi Concentration Camps were happening? That's a good one to point out to people, to help them break their denial. Yes, people are capable of true evil, and no we can't put that past two men who go to wars based on lies.
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Kathryn Smith (57 articles, 0 quicklinks, 23 diaries, 144 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 1:36:54 AM
I read your article with that eerily resonant feeling one gets when you see something outside of yourself that is EXACTLY how you feel, that you have not seen expressed before. Andrew, your expression of this feeling was very eloquent. While I had not been able to express it so well to myself, I have become increasingly aware of how my continual anger is destroying my prior sense of fun and love of life. I am a very different person than I was 7 years ago. I feel intense disgust with Bush supporters and cannot get past that. I have dropped all Republican friends and groups with Bush supporters in them. My first filter in judging people I meet is "Are they another Bush idiot, or are they like me". While I always had people I liked and didn't like, my judgement was never by "catagory" of people as it is now. Being a conservative gets an automatic judgement of disdain from me, no matter what other attributes they possess. I was not like that before and never cared which political party people belonged to. At the same time I feel all this, I am aware of a spiritual deadening of compassion for these people, just as Andrew describes. It is scary and sad . I only hope that I as well as the obviously many people who feel this way, can get beyond this.
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Mary B (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 1:52:50 AM
Don't misinterpret my comment. Let's start with definitions for evil:
morally bad or wrong; "evil purposes"; "an evil influence"; "evil deeds"
morally objectionable behavior
having the nature of vice
that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred (buried) with their bones"- Shakespeare
tending to cause great harm
the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; "attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world"
Would you not agree that Bush & Co.'s behavior is morally bad or wrong?
Would you not agree that Bush & Co.'s behavior is morally objectionable?
Would you not agree that Bush & Co.'s behavior has the nature of vice which "offends the moral standards of a community?"
Would you not agree that Bush & Co.'s behavior causes harm, destruction, misfortune?
Would you not agree that Bush & Co.'s behavior is morally wrong in principle and practice?
My comment was related to the Bushites and people like them, not the republican base, people who support them. Their supporters, for the most part, have good intentions, and in doing so have bought into the lies of this administration. The policies which Bush & Co. campaigned on were definitely not the truth, as we all came to find out, painfully so. In your view, what would you call this administration if not evil? Innocent men, women and children are dying as he tapdances on the White House steps. The audacity of this man is incredible! In my eyes, it is morally bad and wrong, hence evil!
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Viki (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 33 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 5:58:45 AM
It's pretty straight forward when you reduce it to its core...when it comes to questions of governence your motives are either selfish or altruistic. Most of us are on a constant sliding scale between the two. People who are self labled 'progressive' tend to stay to the altruistic. People who identify themselves as 'conservative' keep to the selfish side. The tragity is that after 7 years of policies driven by selfish motivations, even progressives are becoming selfish ... to survive. Here is something to think about. Let's say there is no ban on any type of weapon for private ownership or sale. Let's say this happened slowly over the course of 2 years. Let's say you are a progressive who has been fighting this aggressively but utilimately failed against the money and power of gun manufacturers and the NRA. Let's say after the opening of these laws 3 out of 4 households have fireams. As a progressive what would you do? As a father, husband, and home owner I would buy a gun.
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erik mouse (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 69 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 8:37:38 AM
This is pretty much how the present administration and GOP can be summed up. The country has been taken over by NPs.
narcisstic psychopaths feel no empathy whatsoever toward other human beings, and can therefore inflict horrible suffering to further their own goals and ambitions without bating an eyelid.
And it's highly contagious too, like in horror movies where people who have been bitten by vampires turn into vampires too-those who have been exposed to narcisstic psychopaths when young tend to become NPs themselves later, through a psychological process called identification with the agressor: the victim of an NP tries to emulate his predator's personality traits and ways of thinking to avoid being victimized again.
No wonder you feel contaminated somehow; unless they left Germany in the 1930s, even decent Germans could not help being contaminated by the nazi stench. Having had to deal with several NPs myself, I nearly became one at some time, out of disgust at seing how NPs fare so much better than decent people in our world.
An unlucky European monarch once said: ''Good crawls, Evil flies"; and NPs could be called frequent flyers :-D. The good thing is, their success is usually relatively short lived, since they are often self destructive, by the sheer impact of their own excesses. The bad thing is, they are usually pied pipers who take down everybody around them in their final collapse--let's hope we can stop them before this happens.
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francine (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 111 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 8:49:15 AM
I like your use of the word 'evil.' Although it isn't a politically correct construct it's clear to many, many, of us that it exists in nearly tangible dimensions, just like 'good'.
I've come to think of the form of evil of which you speak as a sub species of narcississm: no empathy, no reasoning, just narrow egotism. My psychologist daughter tells me that narcississm is a type of personality defect that affects one or two percent of the population. I think that figure is much too low.
You say: impeding the triumph of that evil. Wrong! Evil in America has already triumphed. If you do not see that, then you are blind to reality. Rising, intolerable economic inequality, the destruction of the middle class, global American imperialism, fraudalent elections, etc, etc all testify to the triumph of evil made successul by the two-party plutocracy that has wrecked our democracy.
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Joel S. Hirschhorn (109 articles, 13 quicklinks, 44 diaries, 406 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 9:21:01 AM
Although dialog is one thing, the bottom line is....
...when one is pushed enough, eventually they start pushing back. Talking to the neocons or even trying to rationally debate them on any isssue is like talking to a brick wall with name calling graffiti. Their adversarial approach has been reaped and gone full circle and deservedly so.
As for Hillary, perhaps to a degree you are right. Her poetic justice would be realized in a presidential nomination and subsequent victory over the neocons, who were so cruel and often unjust to her. But wouldn't any victory over the neocons fulfill this justice? The time has come for her to wake up and snap out of it and do what's best for the party and the nation. What is happening here is bigger than the wants and needs of any individual and a self serving crusade is clearly no answer to getting on with righting the many wrongs brought on to us by this compassionless, mindless brick wall.
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Michael Shaw (6 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 250 comments)
on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 10:41:19 AM
