This is What Insanity Looks Like
An interesting bit of public display:
Please note that Mr. Jones is not, in the psychological meaning of the word, insane. There is nothing physically wrong with his brain chemicals, for example.
However, he accepts a worldview which brings him to this point. In his worldview, Muslims were hated by the President, and immigrants (the word means those legally here) were being hauled away arbitrarily. Trump was a racist and a woman-hater and a Russian spy in the pay of the Kremlin.
These evils were so dreadful, that the return of the USA to military and economic greatness, achieving energy independence, record low unemployment, the return of troops abroad, obliterating the ISIS Caliphate, halting domestic Muslim terrorism, saving millions of lives through decisive action during a worldwide plague, and brokering peace in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, all account for nothing by contrast: he is perhaps not even aware of these events, or thinks Obama should have the credit.
To what degree this is fake, to what degree this is autohypnosis, to what degree this is willing suspension of one’s own rational faculties, and to what degree this is the result of life in an information bubble where no truth lives, cannot be assessed. Who can read hearts?
But a comparison of reality with the words coming out of his mouth, the behaviors such as daubing eyes, sighing, shaking voice, ad nauseam is fascinating in a morbid way.
It is functional psychosis, that is, an entire break between cognitive function and real world information, and is a functional neurosis, that is, an emotional response grossly disproportionate to the alleged stimulus. By this, I mean he is a sane person whose moral and mental faculties have been do corrupted, stunted, and deceived that he, willingly and perhaps knowingly, acts like a psychotic and like a neurotic.
You are seeing a man moved beyond words by the passion of a belief that an utterly unreal boogieman, Strawman Trump, can been vanquished by an only slightly less real event, an election whose vote count and recount is not yet complete, and whose result, barring the unexpected, will be a rather definitive Trump victory.
The whole thing is in his imagination. He cannot see real from unreal.
Whether it were better for him to be honest but insane, or to be sane but dishonest, is a matter of debate. Either way, it is a sad comment that this man has a platform, sponsors, and an audience.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
