Several aspects of the visible and public behavior of the Enemy for many years have puzzled me, to which, at long last, an insight offers a possible key.
The first puzzle is an inability of the Enemy to name itself or its goals, or, indeed, to name anything by its true name.
The second is an unwillingness to treat true dangers to the public weal soberly, while, simultaneously treating imaginary or trivial dangers with hysteria.
The third is an addiction to paranoia, particularly in the form of antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The insight comes, among other places, from John Milton and from Saint Thomas Aquinas.
In his PARADISE LOST, in Book I the poet has Lucifer, the Prince of the Fallen Angels, say this about the ruin of his fall. In this passage Satan defies the Almighty, and vows never to repent nor change “… that fixed mind and high disdain from sense of injured merit …” which first led him to rebellion.
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