Hunting The Muse

Emotional Trickery

There's been something bugging me for a while about various societal behaviors and I think I've reduced it down to one sentence.

Just believe you can prove yourself right doesn't mean you're right.

I've been experiencing this vague frustration in a variety of spheres lately. The most obvious one is the war. For an already boiled-down example: Say we go over the to middle east to deal with a problem by invading some country that has a lot of extremists, so we can reduce the anti-American hatred. Say that then in reaction Islamic fundamentalism manifests a huge increase in violent activity against America. Well then, it sure is a good thing that we're over there dealing with the problem! Proves us right!

Drugs are a huge problem and are getting more and more violent. We have to eradicate the drug population. When they get back out, they are committing even more violent drug crimes, which proves our point.

Mental illness is another one that often fits this pattern. Being diagnosed bipolar is a subjective affair. The symptoms can also disappear for long periods of time. And once you're diagnosed bipolar, you can never go off the meds, because if you believe you are cured and go off the meds, you are opening yourself up to the risk of "kindling", where the symptoms return again, much more harshly, doing permanent damage. That should not be risked so someone diagnosed bipolar should never go off the meds. Finally, the symptoms of bipolar can also occur if one is not bipolar. So, if someone goes off the meds, and experiences symptoms that can be associated with being bipolar, then it further proves that the person was bipolar and should never have gone off the meds.

Then, there's police-like forces. An authoritarian force asserts itself into a population, declaring it is needed due to all the chaos and damage that will undoubtedly occur without their presence. If there is no resistance, they start policing. If there is resistance, the police force uses the existence of this resistance against the police force as proof that they are needed.

In every case, the force has proven itself right. But in every case, it's not settled that they were actually right.

Every case can unfortunately also use its own presence as proof for why it should not go back to the way it was. Reaction against a force does not immediately disappear if the force itself does - it reapplies itself elsewhere. Even with improperly applied medication, there are withdrawal symptoms. The reacting forces may not choose to manipulate their way into greater violence like their original oppressors did, but they won't just disappear overnight.

Posted by Curt at April 18, 2003 12:06 AM