Archives for October 2019

"[There] is often, to a smaller or greater extent, a savior or Messiah complex, with the secret thought that one day one will be able to save the world; that the last word in philosophy, or religion, or politics, or art, or something else will be found. This can progress to be a typical pathological megalomania, or there may be minor traces of it in the idea that one’s time “has not yet come.” The one situation dreaded throughout by such a type of man is to be bound to anything whatsoever. There is a terrific fear of being pinned down, or entering space and time completely, and of being the one human being that one is." Marie Louise von Franz (Interviews with Susan Wagner ) "But the … [Read more...]

"He thought of men as fallen, and likely to fall further if they did not defend the walls of civility against the armies of Dulness. He believed (and this is a doctrine valuable to satire) that moral was reflected in linguistic decay; hence his fanatical interest in the inanities of polite conversation and in slang..." Frank Kermode on Jonathan Swift (New Statesman 2012) "...I also had noted that psychopaths have difficulty understanding the emotional content of words that add color and interest to communication. " Robert D. Hare (Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, 1999) "The death drive and the repetition that it installs in the subject follow a … [Read more...]