Dig a Little Deeper

I had this to offer in a comment to an article in Salon about a pending anti-abortion law in Indiana:

Conversations on this topic, and any number of other "right" versus "left" topics will continue to go nowhere without anything deeper than a this is the latest outrage reporting. There is a psychology to supposed right-wingness, and it trumps any pretense to "ideology."

Partly authoritarian, partly parasitic, partly paranoid, "right wing" is a pathological state of mind. The parasitic part is one that gets too little attention. What are the rich if not parasites? Snark on the Web is also parasitic, intended to gain emotional payoff through insults and outrageous claims.

"Left wing" isn't exactly a transcendent state of being either, but is more likely to be a result of compassion and a sense of mutuality. When the ego gets too large, anyone can become a negative force. The difference, for analytical purposes, is that "right wing" can be seen as a multifaceted psychopathology.

The mania over abortion is a good example. My own attitude is that abortion is a big deal in a person's life, but that is that person's life. People attempting to do all kinds of things, including terrorism, to stop abortions are authoritarians, many adherents to a "faith" that I know much about, "Catholicism." Anti-abortion campaigns are the last, desperate attempt at imposing authority for this child-molesting religion that is in decline.

One question that could be asked in a study of anti-abortion campaigners is what would they be doing if it weren't for this cause. It gives their lives a sense of meaning, community, a way for singles to find instant success, and feelings of power. Maslow would find it a good case study in the fulfillment of deficiency needs.

We err when we ignore the psychology behind human behavior, pretending that "ideology" predominates. If someone is a "religious nut" a "gun nut," or an "anti-abortion nut," they are first and foremost, nuts. We should look at that first. What is it about our mass industrial system that produces "right wing" nuts? Are the fragmentation and anomie that a mass system produces the causes of fanaticism and authoritarianism? Or is it just roll of the dice - some of us are of the type?

Maybe this will go nowhere. I'm confident that over the long haul that the human species, in the interest of its own survival, will look at the underlying nature of its intransigence.
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I couldn't find the Doc Watson version of this song, but this is pretty good. This one's good too, just starts out bad. I remember Eric Bibb's father Leon Bibb, great folksinger, incredible voice. Here's some Doc Watson to give you an idea of what he would sound like doing the song.

Here's an example of the parasitism of the rich.

And, in matters Wisconsin, there's this.