Russian bombs bad. Our bombs good.

For some in the Western media there is a moral distinction between Russian bombs and our bombs when it comes to Syria. To tell this story they have to be sparse with facts – and, as is characteristic with much of Western media reporting – throw overboard normal standards of professional journalism. In seeing how this story of good bombs and bad bombs is told we can also see how shoddy much (but not all) of what passes for journalism is in the Western media.

Through the prism of moral depravity

This is an excellent article by Britain’s leading sociologist, Professor Frank Furedi, discussing the latest (at the time of writing) absurd spectacle in the retrospective search for child abusers. (Oh, gosh, we all believe them that they didn’t see them at the time). This is the smearing of dead Prime Minister Ted Heath.

Frank Furedi has his finger on the pulse with the authorities’ obsession with paedophilia. As he says in this piece:

But it’s important to understand that the attempt to demonise Heath is not an aberration from the general pattern, or an unusual, one-off case. The current cultural obsession with abuse, and its intersection with anxieties about a conspiracy of elite paedophiles, has acquired a powerful dynamic. It is fuelled by an imagination that continually sees the worst in human behaviour and which compulsively looks at relations between people, and between generations, through the prism of moral depravity.

Yes. “constantly sees the worst in human behaviour” and encourages people to see all relations between adults and young people “through the prism of moral depravity”.

This has several boons for the authorities:

  1. It legitimizes depravity. Convenient for those in authority with depraved minds.
  2. It destroys normal relations in the community between young people and adults. Any such relation is now suspect. This is politically useful. Such relations (as in youth work) are potentially critical and potentially revolutionary. By smearing such relations with the brush of potential paedophilia the authorities effectively shut them down. When they do take place they now take place in a space characterized by surveillance and caution. This space is much more suited to use to communicate pro-corporate messages rather than a freer environment in which democratic messages could be more easily communicated.
  3. This means that any youth work or education done outside of state regulated environments is now suspect and can be closed down on “Safeguarding” grounds. For example Ofsted uses concerns about “Safeguarding” to attempt to shut down non-regulated schools. [1] There was an attempt to use “Safeguarding” to shut down Home-schooling. [2] (In the 19th century when mass state schooling was getting under way the authorities used concerns about outside lavs as an excuse to close down schools outside their system). [3]
  4. Those with the most depraved minds can now cast aspersions on others, enjoy the taste of their own depraved imaginations, and claim to be moral crusaders all at the same time.

Everyone should be in therapy

Therapy started with an account of how it was a suitable treatment for those with serious “symptoms”. Freud’s initial patients generally had serious problems.

Nowadays the line is that “everyone needs therapy”. The whole of society is sick. Therapy is the cure for everyone.

One of the most extreme proponents of this view was the maverick sixties psychiatrist R. D. Laing. Laing popularized the idea of the psychotic as the most “in touch” person in a world gone mad. The “normal” were in fact one step behind. Thus, even though you look and feel normal,

That there is no effort in being “in therapy” tells us something about it

Therapy promises, amongst other benefits, that it will aid “self-development”.

Think for one moment.

Being “in therapy” requires no effort on the part of the client/patient. There is no self-discipline. No exercises. Nothing is being learned. No knowledge. No skills. There are no challenging experiences. There is no interaction with the external world.

All the patient has to do is a) pay the fee and b) regurgitate some nonsense about how they felt when they were 5 years old.

This is not going to aid self-development. There is no effort in this.

It is about confession. The all important factor is that it is a confession to the “authority” of the therapist. This (as discussed elsewhere in this blog) is a game of Christian mastery of the soul. By confessing your “sins” and any thoughts you might have which you are “holding back” you become pure in the eyes of the Church. The Church can now accept you (the sinner, the strayer) back into the fold. In psychiatric terms – by confessing your “pathology” you make yourself