mwb970 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Thu Jan-27-11 12:13 PM
Original message
Are extreme right-wingers actually "evil"? M. Scott Peck says "yes".
From the Wikipedia article on Peck:
Morgan Scott Peck (23 May 1936 – 25 September 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author, best known for his first book, The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978.
(snip)
According to Peck an evil person:
* Is consistently self deceiving, with the intent of avoiding guilt and maintaining a self image of perfection
The reality-based community is the smartest people on the innerwebz. Not like those knuckle-dragging Bible-thumpers.
* Deceives others as a consequence of their own self deception
You wingnuts are always voting against your own best interest.
* Projects his or her evils and sins onto very specific targets (scapegoats) while being apparently normal with everyone else ("their insensitivity toward him was selective" (Peck, 1983/1988, p 105))
Why can't these warmongering, racist, Christianist, profiteering, haters be more loving like us?
* Commonly hates with the pretense of love, for the purposes of self deception as much as deception of others
If you don't give us free health care for the good of the nation you hate Obama because he's black!
* Abuses political (emotional) power ("the imposition of one's will upon others by overt or covert coercion" (Peck, 1978/1992, p298))
It doesn't matter that Giffords was targeted at DKos and a member of the hated Blue Dogs, those wingnuts telepathically ordered her assassination so it's importaant we use this moment to shut them down. gabby would have wanted it that way.
* Maintains a high level of respectability and lies incessantly in order to do so
We're not saying Bush ordered 9/11, we just want to have a full impeachment trial to hear the facts.
* Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency (of destructiveness)
I know we said DADT was a fair compromise but that was 20 years ago.
* Is unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim (scapegoat)
I don't have to understand wingnuts. I just change the channel every time FOX is showing in my psychiatrist's office.
* Has a covert intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury
Sounds like just another RW talking point. Your concern is noted.
Most evil people realize the evil deep within themselves but are unable to tolerate the pain of introspection or admit to themselves that they are evil. Thus, they constantly run away from their evil by putting themselves in a position of moral superiority and putting the focus of evil on others. Evil is an extreme form of what Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, calls a character disorder.
This sounds to me like a thumbnail description of Sarah Palin and so many others on the Far Right. Or do they merely have "character disorders"?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x283566
