The policy analyst, Lee Harris, characterizes the political faith of Al-Qaeda as a "fantasy ideology". Al-Qaeda's philosophy came into being isolated from reality and is untested by reality. Untested, it bears no relation to reality. Its view of the United States, for instance, is simply a fantasy. Al-Qaeda is not the only political faith in the category of fantasy ideology. Much political opinion boiling in the electoral pot of the current American presidential election campaign is simply fantasy ideology. Blogging has given an international forum to everyone where they can say anything they want without being challenged by opponents and without verifying their claims by empirical tests. Unchallenged, authors say anything that satisfies them. Fantasy opinions are not only fantastic, they are also wishful thinking. Here we mean wishful in same sense that Freud described dreams as wish fulfilment. Political opinion has become, for Everyman and Everywoman, a semi-pathological psychological dream-fantasy, whose only function is to satisfy the private psychological needs of the author. This situation defeats the purpose of an election. An election is supposed to anchor political leadership in social reality. The election cannot do that if voters form political views while intoxicated by fantasy opinions.
Worm View
- From Wordsworth's "The Prelude" ----------Enough of humble arguments; recall,/ My song! those high emotions which thy voice/ Has heretofore made known; that bursting forth/ Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,/ When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,/ And all the several frames of things, like stars,/ Through every magnitude distinguishable,/ Shone mutually indebted, or half lost/ Each in the other's blaze, a galaxy/ Of life and glory. In the midst stood Man,/ Outwardly, inwardly contemplated,/ As, of all visible natures, crown, though born/ Of dust, and kindred to the worm; a Being,/ Both in perception and discernment, first/ In every capability of rapture, Through the divine effect of power and love;/ As, more than anything we know, instinct/ With godhead, and, by reason and by will,/ Acknowledging dependency sublime.
March 2011
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My Blogs
- Bag of Worms Yet Words
Philosophical discussion about values - Skin and Bones
My creative interests - Body Parts
Ruminations and rants about my life and times
Thanks For The Reference
- By "Adeimantus"
This week's featured blog is "Bag of Worms Yet Words". Bag of Worms is not an easy read. The proprietor is not chatty, witty, or cynical; he does not seek to ridicule his ideological opponents. Instead he treats them and the argument seriously and respectfully, which is not to say that he worries a whit about hurting somebody's feelings. Instead, he bravely goes where the argument points him, which is often into territory others have ignored or are too timid to enter. The left's intelleltual elites, "the professoriat," the pundits, and the liberal judiciary are frequent subjects of his musings. Broad, deep, and ambibitious is the range of the topics he addresses: language theory, law, academia, politics, social theory, religion. The effort he puts into his thinking and writing pays off.
Recent Posts
- 126. Why Do Dogs Run In Front of Cars in a Street?
- 125. Can There Be Coincidences In A Dog's World?
- 124. Neandertals Might Not Have Made Art Objects and Jewelry Attributed To Them
- 123. Marc Hauser, Harvard, Found Guilty of Misuse of Data and Use of Bogus Data
- 122. Sound Technology Can Create An Aural Landscape That Is Seen By Blind Hearers
- 121. When Male Mice Cry It Turns Female Mice On
- 120. Ovulation Hormones Increase Women's Perception Of Faces
- 119. Voice Pitch Determines Whether Sentence Will Be Declarative or Interrogative
- 118. Women Can Judge A Man's Upper Body Strength By His Voice Alone
- 117. Rats Have Inborn Navigational Brain Neurology
Earlier Articles Bag
- The Radical Canon of American Educators
Required reading of essential works - the canons - of conservative, progressive, and radical left educational establishments in America reveal the ideology and its origin of the New Left that is represented in the White House by President Obama - Humanism and Terrorism
In revolutionary Marxism, humanism requires terror against the violence of capitalism - Values Journal (ongoing series of numbered articles)
Philosophically speculative natural history of human values - Is Islam A False Religion? (4 articles)
Can there be a "false" religion? God's truth and the nonbeliever. - Mood and Post-Modern Politics (9 articles)
A primer on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, father of post-modernism - Introduction to Values (8 articles)
What are values? - Ontology of Values (5 articles)
A theory of the objectivity of values, contra post-modernism - Total Schools (6 articles)
The role of Brown v. Board of Education and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in creating totalitarian schools to mold the subjectivity of students - The Reign of Subjectivity (9 articles)
The role of Brown v Board of Education of 1954 in directing the schools toward a curriculum devoted to the subjective feelings of students - University Lights (6 articles)
Why university profs belong to Democratic Party, are Liberal and often Left; desperation and viciousness in academic life; class system of the professors; how affirmative action and sexual harassment aggrevate academic viciousness and destroy excellence. - Propaganda and News (9 articles)
Analysis of the definition and kinds of propaganda; an argument for a narrow use of the term; explanation of major social differences in how words and concepts obtain meanings; what is at stake in the mud-slinging between political partisans when the word propaganda is used. - The Folly of News Journalism (4 articles)
The investigative method of news journalism; why it is flawed; alternative methods.
Recent Comments
- paper writing on Ontology of Values (2) Values as Expressions of Contradiction
- Term Papers on 80. Mediation of Sexual Behavior By Pheromones and Mediation of Territoriality
- Custom term papers on 80. Mediation of Sexual Behavior By Pheromones and Mediation of Territoriality
- David Lane on Ontology of Values (1) Ontological Status
- Turin on Terrorism and Humanism
- on Terrorism and Humanism
- steven davies on Mood and Postmodern Politics, 6
- Turin on Values (1) Introduction
- Andrew Glynn on Mood and Postmodern Politics, 8
- Andrew Glynn on Mood and Postmodern Politics, 9
Categories
- Academe (23)
- Books (20)
- Current Affairs (7)
- Education (27)
- Feminism (3)
- Humanism (7)
- Ideology (27)
- Journalism (5)
- Language (4)
- Law (19)
- News (14)
- Philosophy (22)
- Politics (39)
- Post-Modernism (19)
- Propaganda (10)
- Public Life (12)
- Religion (13)
- Science (24)
- Television (5)
- Terrorism (3)
- Values (13)
- Values Journal (124)
- Weblogs (1)
Proud Friend of Israel
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August 13, 2004
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