Category Archives: Psychology & Pop-Psychology

Updated Again: The 'Idiocracy' Has Spoken! (About My Hornbeck Pieces)

Media, Morality, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Zeitgeist

Some of the deficient comments that have poured into the blog in response to “Hornbeck & The Tyranny Of Low Expectations,” and “In Defense of Bill O’Reilly,” have, naturally, not been posted because their deficient originators have audaciously distorted not only my views, but the actual text of my columns on the topic. That’s a low that’s not tolerated on this blog. Disagreement is fine; any distortion of the opinion discussed is out of the question.

Others complained bitterly about the fact that this writer does work from first principles —always has, always will. Principled positions demand a theory of human nature.

And what would the “Idiocracy” be without those who’re filled with venom on encountering an English word they don’t know. (“What’s a dictionary, Butthead? Hehehehehe“) Dogmatic plebeians are always poised, pitchforks hoisted, to enforce the lowest common denominator. Really, save yourself the heartache; if you hate people who value first principles and utilize the English language to the best of their abilities —there are an infinite number of writers who don’t violate the tyranny of no expectation. Oh what would the Founders have said if they read my mail box! (Jefferson actually answered all his mail in beautiful longhand and in an English to which we can only aspire. And, woe is me, he was a First Principles kind of guy).

When interviewed for a Canadian men’s magazine, I said this: “When people are rational, they observe reality as it is, and are more likely to be concerned with justice and avoid misplacing compassion.” Indeed, rationality and reality are the enemies of the petty minded and the evil. Thus, because I have fought the pseudo-science of pop-psychology and believe that guarding liberty rests on upholding personal responsibility and combating the “diseasing of society” by the professional class and their patsies —I am viewed as heartless.

Speak to me about compassion when you’ve volunteered your time as an AIDS and HIV counselor in South-Africa, and held in your arms the newly diagnosed —just one of the things this heartless rationalist has done. But then the slobs that have written in have probably never been out of this country; much less acquainted themselves with the world out there —and some genuine sorrow.

And to the same weak-minded slobs I say, “Don’t dare to impugn my daughter’s kind, dear heart.” Like her mother, she doesn’t misplace compassion. In South-Africa, when she was a very small personage —five or six —her cruel and exacting mom would get her to make sandwiches each and every time we went out together on errands. She was to give the food to the street kids. In SA, they beg on every corner and at every traffic light. Yes, she was taught how to develop authentic empathy.

My greatest achievement is my daughter. Moreover, I consider being loved by my child both an honor and an accomplishment. Children should show their parents respect, but they are not obliged to love them, especially if parents have not inspired love. When you have earned the love of your child —well, then, you have surely ARRIVED.

I’m sure those of the “Idiocracy” who’ve written in response to my Hornbeck articles inspire great love— in their slobbering pets.

Updated: Michele Lowe (see Comments Section) was the only left-liberal who attempted some civility. (Yes, this is as good as it got. But, swearing like sailors, and leveling ad hominem, never argument —they all demanded to be published on my private property: this blog). She points out that my opinion is a minority opinion. Again, the sum total of my non-deterministic world view —to which Viktor E. Frankl, the existential philosopher and distinguished psychiatrist, would certainly not object —is an infuriatingly simple contention: Hornbeck, who was given ample freedom, was capable of contacting his parents, or muttering under his breath to the cops, who picked him up on numerous occasions, and with whom he even filed a complaint: “I’m that kidnapped kid.”

In any event, having a minority, or unpopular, opinion in no way invalidates it. I (and other libertarians) was in a minority when, starting in September 2002, I argued against a war many of the truly heartless lauded. It turned out my minority opinion was correct.

Incidentally, speaking of misplaced compassion: where is the sorrow for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis we’ve killed and caused to be killed and displaced? I bet none of the low-brow, frothing-at-the-mouth types writing in has shed tears for those who really need them: Iraqis. But poised they are to pounce like rabid hyenas if one so much as suggests that their prototypical indulged youths can phone home if abducted, and given considerable freedom (and a cellphone) to dick about at malls, on the Internet, at sleepovers, and so on.

Updated Again: I wish to repeat one of the comments with which I interspersed a letter hereunder. The histrionic hisser mistook me for someone who has “traveled to the ends of the earth to give aid,” and declared that “If you have never experienced abuse or control in a relationship, you truly do not have the perspective to make such judgemental comments on this subject.”
Such statements leave me marveling at the intellectual sloth and cultural insularity evinced by so many Americans on this matter, and in general. First, information about me is available on this site. I was born in South Africa; I didn’t travel there to give aid. If it were me writing to someone, I’d actually bother to make sure I was correct about their biographical details, rather than ass-uming a whole lot of stuff about her or him.
Next, how insular and stupid must one be to believe that a woman with an adult daughter, who is from South Africa, and who grew up in Israel, having lived through a few wars in that country, has never known trauma and tragedy? Only in America! My background alone and life experience make it highly probable that I’ve experienced far more than have the pop-psych fetishists writing in to fulminate. See, the thing is, I don’t go telling everyone about my past traumas. And if I were so tacky, I would never demand special breaks for them. Try it: such conduct was once known as dignity and grit and formed the foundation of this now-crumbling soft society. As my mother would say, when pushed to “share” things she was too much of a lady to share: “I have my pride and my privacy, respect those, please.”

Updated Again: The ‘Idiocracy’ Has Spoken! (About My Hornbeck Pieces)

Media, Morality, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Zeitgeist

Some of the deficient comments that have poured into the blog in response to “Hornbeck & The Tyranny Of Low Expectations,” and “In Defense of Bill O’Reilly,” have, naturally, not been posted because their deficient originators have audaciously distorted not only my views, but the actual text of my columns on the topic. That’s a low that’s not tolerated on this blog. Disagreement is fine; any distortion of the opinion discussed is out of the question.

Others complained bitterly about the fact that this writer does work from first principles —always has, always will. Principled positions demand a theory of human nature.

And what would the “Idiocracy” be without those who’re filled with venom on encountering an English word they don’t know. (“What’s a dictionary, Butthead? Hehehehehe“) Dogmatic plebeians are always poised, pitchforks hoisted, to enforce the lowest common denominator. Really, save yourself the heartache; if you hate people who value first principles and utilize the English language to the best of their abilities —there are an infinite number of writers who don’t violate the tyranny of no expectation. Oh what would the Founders have said if they read my mail box! (Jefferson actually answered all his mail in beautiful longhand and in an English to which we can only aspire. And, woe is me, he was a First Principles kind of guy).

When interviewed for a Canadian men’s magazine, I said this: “When people are rational, they observe reality as it is, and are more likely to be concerned with justice and avoid misplacing compassion.” Indeed, rationality and reality are the enemies of the petty minded and the evil. Thus, because I have fought the pseudo-science of pop-psychology and believe that guarding liberty rests on upholding personal responsibility and combating the “diseasing of society” by the professional class and their patsies —I am viewed as heartless.

Speak to me about compassion when you’ve volunteered your time as an AIDS and HIV counselor in South-Africa, and held in your arms the newly diagnosed —just one of the things this heartless rationalist has done. But then the slobs that have written in have probably never been out of this country; much less acquainted themselves with the world out there —and some genuine sorrow.

And to the same weak-minded slobs I say, “Don’t dare to impugn my daughter’s kind, dear heart.” Like her mother, she doesn’t misplace compassion. In South-Africa, when she was a very small personage —five or six —her cruel and exacting mom would get her to make sandwiches each and every time we went out together on errands. She was to give the food to the street kids. In SA, they beg on every corner and at every traffic light. Yes, she was taught how to develop authentic empathy.

My greatest achievement is my daughter. Moreover, I consider being loved by my child both an honor and an accomplishment. Children should show their parents respect, but they are not obliged to love them, especially if parents have not inspired love. When you have earned the love of your child —well, then, you have surely ARRIVED.

I’m sure those of the “Idiocracy” who’ve written in response to my Hornbeck articles inspire great love— in their slobbering pets.

Updated: Michele Lowe (see Comments Section) was the only left-liberal who attempted some civility. (Yes, this is as good as it got. But, swearing like sailors, and leveling ad hominem, never argument —they all demanded to be published on my private property: this blog). She points out that my opinion is a minority opinion. Again, the sum total of my non-deterministic world view —to which Viktor E. Frankl, the existential philosopher and distinguished psychiatrist, would certainly not object —is an infuriatingly simple contention: Hornbeck, who was given ample freedom, was capable of contacting his parents, or muttering under his breath to the cops, who picked him up on numerous occasions, and with whom he even filed a complaint: “I’m that kidnapped kid.”

In any event, having a minority, or unpopular, opinion in no way invalidates it. I (and other libertarians) was in a minority when, starting in September 2002, I argued against a war many of the truly heartless lauded. It turned out my minority opinion was correct.

Incidentally, speaking of misplaced compassion: where is the sorrow for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis we’ve killed and caused to be killed and displaced? I bet none of the low-brow, frothing-at-the-mouth types writing in has shed tears for those who really need them: Iraqis. But poised they are to pounce like rabid hyenas if one so much as suggests that their prototypical indulged youths can phone home if abducted, and given considerable freedom (and a cellphone) to dick about at malls, on the Internet, at sleepovers, and so on.

Updated Again: I wish to repeat one of the comments with which I interspersed a letter hereunder. The histrionic hisser mistook me for someone who has “traveled to the ends of the earth to give aid,” and declared that “If you have never experienced abuse or control in a relationship, you truly do not have the perspective to make such judgemental comments on this subject.”
Such statements leave me marveling at the intellectual sloth and cultural insularity evinced by so many Americans on this matter, and in general. First, information about me is available on this site. I was born in South Africa; I didn’t travel there to give aid. If it were me writing to someone, I’d actually bother to make sure I was correct about their biographical details, rather than ass-uming a whole lot of stuff about her or him.
Next, how insular and stupid must one be to believe that a woman with an adult daughter, who is from South Africa, and who grew up in Israel, having lived through a few wars in that country, has never known trauma and tragedy? Only in America! My background alone and life experience make it highly probable that I’ve experienced far more than have the pop-psych fetishists writing in to fulminate. See, the thing is, I don’t go telling everyone about my past traumas. And if I were so tacky, I would never demand special breaks for them. Try it: such conduct was once known as dignity and grit and formed the foundation of this now-crumbling soft society. As my mother would say, when pushed to “share” things she was too much of a lady to share: “I have my pride and my privacy, respect those, please.”

Letter of the Week: My Daughter Weighs In On Hornbeck

Ilana Mercer, Psychology & Pop-Psychology

If you’ve been participating in this here blog at all, you’ll want to read this. I have perused some of the antagonistic comments here and think there’d be more substance to my response if I didn’t comment about them. Instead, here are my impressions of the Shawn Hornbeck debacle. Straight from the horse’s mouth. The horse being Ilana’s daughter. And I’m not really a horse. I’m a person:

That little shit. That is my reaction; it has little to do with what my mother taught me. This reaction has to do with my mother and how I feel about her.

It is quite a thing, being my mother’s daughter, to read of her impressions of parenthood, and particularly in this article regarding Shawn Hornbeck. Bill-O is generally a man not good for one’s digestion, but I sympathize wholly with his low regard for this kid. And my mother’s, too.

I can see it now. This bathos ridden North American kid, quivering and gesturing at the keyboard. Still full of histrionics, even without an audience. To pen something so sinisterly anonymous to his parents, a simple sentence so torturous because it is coming from the child: “How long will you look for your child?” What kind of awful dramatic shit is that? How many crappy Hollywood flicks has this kid seen? How many books has he read in comparison?

Here’s a basic guide to escaping the torment Shawn suffered through. You email your folks, you tell them where you are and you get your ass home. They’ll come get you; parents are good at that. They generally like to keep kid and kid’s possessions altogether under one roof.

As a child partially schooled at a private elementary and middle school in Cape Town, South Africa, I have seen a different kind of child than the North American specimen. I was shocked to my core when I first stepped into a North American classroom. I was disgusted with and dismayed by my classmates, as they genuinely, unblinkingly quizzed me about the population of lions in my back yard, how come I wasn’t black, and, “Why did you leave a place that had such nice weather.” Not to mention the petulance and total lack of respect for the teacher, the teacher’s lack of discipline with respect to the feet on the desks, the eating in class, the idiotic guffawing and god knows what else I took in within 10 minutes of immersion with my fellow 12-year olds. [I recall you came back crying. You said: “Mom, the children in my class are retarded. Take me out of there.” So I did.] This is the way fellow feelings are nurtured in North American schools and obviously in the homes, too. I couldn’t bring myself to act that way with my peers, even away from home.

I quickly skipped a grade and moved just slightly beyond the level of the stupid and ascended to the heights of mediocrity. That is about as good as it gets in the North American schooling system (sadly it has gone that way now in my place of birth, too).

A combination of my experience in schools here and in South Africa and my home life lead me to this overall impression of Shawn Hornbeck’s behavior. It is mostly a gut reaction, hence the emotion. Yes, I accuse this victim for his total lack of care. If he hated where he was, he would have emailed his parents and told them where he was. If he was feeling the slightest discomfort he could have shuffled over to the computer and told mom and dad he was bored and was ready to come home now. He didn’t. He toyed with them. He cruelly toyed with his parents. How could you live with yourself? If you’re old enough to play a video game (I can’t even get them —they’re not as easy as they look), you’re certainly old enough to give a damn.

Okay. So for a moment I linger on his selfishness. Then I can’t help but think of my mother in place of his parents. It breaks my heart. I can’t even let my imagination wander there without shedding tears. Tears of disgust with myself if I were to do such a thing. When my mom writes about life coming to a stand still for a parent in this kind of situation, I know she ain’t kidding. I’ve seen her concerned for my life and it is an earth-shattering thing to look at. One should feel privileged and fortified for being the object of such emotion. I can say with utter confidence that I would have felt the same way at age eleven or fifteen and will continue to feel that way until I am an old woman.

Shawn could obviously access a computer and other people. That premise alone is evidence enough that that child could have done something. But he did nothing. He prolonged his situation unnecessarily. And why am I not surprised? My old peer group in South Africa understood the value of life and respected their families. No matter how belligerent we all were as teenagers, no matter how much we would push our parent’s patience and write horrid things about them in our diaries, we loved them utterly and would never give them cause to worry for our lives. No way. We acted out within known boundaries. We were grounded, sure. We had to do extra chores. Absolutely. And we had to shed the attitude, definitely. So what? Did it kill us? No. It just made us human with a value for our lives and the lives of others. We don’t require special tuition in order to learn how to give a damn.

And that is my take on things.

Thin gruel, indeed.

Updated: Hornbeck: Too Busy Playing Dragon Ball Z and Gears of War

Crime, Morality, Psychology & Pop-Psychology

To all the muddled thinkers out there, who’ve bought into the (decidedly progressive) paradigm, according to which every misdeed is a disorder–think about Shawn’s parents. Quit working overtime to reduce cognitive dissonance and, instead, think rationally:

If my daughter were abducted, and given such freedoms as this boy was given; if she then visited her mom’s website and posted a message thereon, as this boy did, saying, “For how long will you be looking for your daughter?”–I would be furious. A parent in this situation is beside himself with worry — all he or she can think of is, Is my baby alive; is she warm enough. Is she suffering? Parents would be living every day with the fear that their child died in agony.
And this little shit can’t even add to his e-mail: “Your son is alive, don’t sweat … like, whatever. Sorry gotta run; I have a game of Dragon Ball Z and Gears of War on the go with my buddy Tony.”
Use your heads!
I know that my daughter, who still checks in with me even though she’s an adult, would have let me know she was alive. She’d be too scared not to. And she knows better than to try this line on me: “Mom, I was suffering that syndrome that nice lady on TV said I had, and that prevented me from calling.”
Perhaps my kid was brought up to think logically, which is why she’s such a mensch.

Update: Consider: small children during the Holocaust performed amazingly brave acts, such as smuggling food in and out the ghetto for their families. Some were shot on site by the Nazis. Read about the brave children of Afghanistan. The human spirit — that of children too—is irrepressible. Yet here people are suggesting that this lad was incapable of contacting his poor parents for 4 years, not even to let them know he was alive.