About Collective Defense Mechanisms

As an effect of the present presidential primary elections and caucuses in the USA I am getting every day masses of political emails from the USA, very mostly from the Democrats.

And in spite of my sympathies for the Democrats (which are mainly based on my horror of the idea that any of the Republican candidates could really become the ”leader of the Western World”) I was on 5.03. more than a bit shocked to find the following piece of mail: We know that a conservative judge of the US Supreme court has recently died and that the Republicans do their best to sabotage the possibility that somebody nominated by Obama could fill his place (as would be constitutional). In this situation Donald Trump did mention that he, when being president, would nominate one Andrew Napolitano, upon which some Democrat group tried its best to black-paint Napolitano in a mail which was pointing to a number of things which he reportedly has said in the past. Most of those things I do not like either, but I DO think it remarkable that as the seemingly worst thing of all it was mentioned that the Washington Post had been calling him ”even a 9/11 truther” for (here follows the formulation of the Democrat writers of the mail) ”spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories about the September 11th attacks” in 2001.

The matter did interest me, so that I was googling Andrew Napolitano. What I found in Wikipedia was that, aside of having undeniably rather conservative opinions, he seems to have, once, expressed himself in a way which one could (if one wants) interpret in that way that he had seemingly some understanding for those who express doubts about the official version of the events of 9/11. From which the Democrat authors of the email then made ”spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories” … . Jaha. And I do in fact think that this is a pretty glaring example of (collective?) neurosis, more precisely a case of (collective?) mental defense.

Because: I am a biologist, had in the course of my studies also to refresh and enlarge my knowledge of chemistry and physics (just school physics, certainly no Relativity theory or similar), and I am fully confident that I can at any time in less than 5 min explain why the official version of the events of 9/11 is incompatible with the laws of nature – which leaves the listener with the choice whether s/he wants to believe in the laws of physics or in the report of a political commission. Of course it is so that since the event practically ALL of the mainstream media were spreading the official version and ridiculing any other ideas about the event (if they ever mentioned them) – Hbl is here an exception by twice letting Janne Strang express his doubts in print, but otherwise even such papers which in Germany are considered ”critical” (such as ”Stern” and ”Spiegel”) were serving ONLY the official version and suppressing (or ridiculing) any alternative theory. This is already as such pretty remarkable if one considers that very most of those journalists will have had physics at school. But well, let’s assume that the constant repetition of the official version has dulled even the minds of the journalist profession so far that they accept this now as ”the truth”. But from where then such totally exaggerated formulations as ”spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories” about something which looks in Wikipedia really VERY different? And I can report that this case is NOT the only case of totally exaggerated reaction which has come to my knowledge. A psychoanalyst would in his practice record such as a very clear symptom that here a painful neurotic misconception is being defended (with very strong fears involved what everything could happen if the misconception might be revealed as just that, namely a misconception). Are people afraid to be kicked out of their jobs, or is it even so that their whole identity could collapse (by discovering that they might not any more belong to the ”good” side of mankind)? I should welcome here the comment of a psychoanalyst (preferably one who does not mind expressing her/himself in clear formulations).

Anyway we should also give a thought to the consequences which we ”owe” to the unquestioned rule of the official version. For example it was used as the justification for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (of which we know the consequences) and, more general, given as the main reason for a world-wide ”war on terror” – which, among other things, is meanwhile being used by such people as Assad and Erdogan (and still others) to crack down on anybody who does not share their views (which makes them ”terrorists”). All of this, while a certain George W. Bush is enjoying a very comfortable retirement which he only now and then interrupts to earn some astronomical amount aside by giving some lecture … .