What Is Happening In The Middle East?

As I wrote in “Neither Left nor Right,” before there can be a rational way to deal with the political troubles that are currently escalating in the Middle East, there must first be an understanding of Arab societies and their culture. This requires an understanding of tribalism and its relationship to the states in the Middle East.

From a historical  perspective, tribal societies existed for millennia in the Middle East long before Arabs began converting to Mohammedanism in the seventh century and long before modern states with their precise boundaries were formed. In many ways these tribal roots are deeper than the Arab’s religious and political beliefs and they determine their behavior to a far greater extent. Tribal loyalties in the Middle East cut across the national boundaries that were arbitrarily laid down by England and France during the early part of the twentieth century. Furthermore, from a characterological perspective, Arabs belong in various degrees to the far right of the political center. These are important but frequently overlooked considerations at a time when America is struggling to work out a diplomatic resolution to the conflicts in that region.

As in the case of a medical disease there must first be an understanding of the disease before a rational treatment can be instituted. Symptomatic measures without knowledge of the underlying pathology are guaranteed to fail.

Putin’s Socio-political Character Structure

A person’s political character structure is a primary determinant of social events. Therefore, it is necessary  to have an understanding of political characterology which is the study of social and political behavior from the perspective of the individual’s socio-political character structure.

Even as America is sliding further to the left and turning into a socialist state and the Soviet Union no longer exists, the emotional plague in Russian politics continues to fester, reorganize and gather momentum. The emotional plague in Russia is now operating from the political far right under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. An ex-KGB officer and a rigid authoritarian, from a characterological standpoint Putin is an example of a reactionary politician belonging on the political right.

The reactionary character resists change. Sexually, he is very moralistic and restricted which is the basis for his sadism and mysticism. His mystical beliefs are rigidly held and are not subject to reason or proof.

As a politician, Putin has the mystical belief that Russian Society should be resurrected to it’s pre-Soviet “glory.” He has a great deal of brutality in his structure that is frequently overtly expressed or thinly disguised, and always rationalized and justified as necessary. Coupled with his brutality is his reputation for graciousness and hospitality – a reaction formation. Unlike the communist on the extreme left, Putin is governed not by his intellect alone but by his emotions that are rigidly contained in his muscular armor. This is particularly noticeable in the posterior muscles of his neck – He is “stiff-necked.” He does not set himself against religion but emotionally and politically aligns himself with the great Russian Orthodox Church which he attends regularly.

Putin is a militant nationalist, righteous in his political beliefs and intensely resentful of outside political interference in Russian ways of  life. He is adept at providing rationalizations for justifying his aggressively expansionist impulses toward other countries and assumes that these sentiments are shared by the Russian people. His reasons for the annexation of Crimea, for example, were justified by his appeal to Russian nationalistic feelings and by trumped up grievances against that country.

However, Putin’s decision to annex Crimea was not based on mystical feelings alone. As an aggressive plague character on the right, he is excited by the fear of aggression and the fecklessness that he perceives in his opponents led by the President of The United States and he knows that he will get away with the seizure without firing a shot.

Putin’s Land Grab

Whenever an acute  social problem surfaces requiring immediate attention people always focus on the symptoms, never on the underlying disease.  Putin’s grabbing Crimea is a symptom. The underlying emotional  sickness of human beings that made this act of aggression possible is the disease that is always overlooked.

The following, in brief, is the symptom: As a result of it’s anti-authoritarian transformation, Western countries including Russia are socially disintegrating. Faced with this problem, a strong leader like Putin moves to the political right to take control of the social chaos in his country. He also quickly sizes up Barack Obama the leader of the Western World as a weak and politically ineffectual individual. To further consolidate his power, he decides to take an aggressive international action and seizes Crimea.

Part of the underlying disease is the social disintegration of Russian Society that needs to be controlled. Another part is that the same process of social disintegration to a far greater extent is happening in America. However, America’s social sickness is aggravated by having elected a President who has proven himself to be unable to take an aggressive stand to protect America’s interests in any area, either domestically and internationally.

The deepest level of humanity’s disease is that the American public does not see that they have elected a man who is to a large extent responsible for bringing about this international crisis and the destructive consequences that will follow. The American public’s cluelessness is the central problem.

 

The Rise In People’s Cluelessness

Around 1960, a fundamental transformation in Western Society took place from authoritarian to anti-authoritarian. With the transformation, there was a change in the pattern of armor in young people. Ocular armor largely replaced muscular armor and this had destructive personal and social consequences. Emotional energy was no longer able to be bound and held back in muscular armor. As a result of the weakening of muscular armor and the increase in ocular armor, destructive emotions were expressed through intellectualized rationalizations, hatred and contempt of authority. Blame and resentment were directed at traditional authority figures in all areas of society.
Young people became more irrational and out of touch with themselves and with the world. They became more contactless. The word clueless that is in common usage today accurately describes this mental state.
Accompanying the anti-authoritarian transformation, there appeared for the first time a syndrome of symptoms in children characterized by disturbances in focusing, restlessness and hyperactivity. This condition was called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Today, the number of young American adults taking medication for ADHD has nearly doubled from 2008 to 20012. One in ten adolescent boys were taking a drug for the disorder.
Today’s adult population represents the children of the baby boomers that were growing up in the 60’s. From a bio-psychiatric perspective, a primary manifestation of the disorder that first appeared at that time, ADHD, are a result of ocular pathology. It is possible to treat this disorder without the use of medication by a qualified therapist.

Another Way To Contain The Emotional Plague

In the November 9-10, 2013 Wall Street Journal article, “What Mass Killers Want” by Ari N. Schulman, the author presents the personality profile of mass shooters and from the evidence compiled by the research states that their murderous acts are a kind of theater. “Fantasy, public expression and messaging are central to what motivates and defines massacre killers … Like terrorists, mass shooters can be seen, in a limited sense, as rational actors who know that if they follow the right steps they will produce the desired effect in the public consciousness…the perpetrators…are following a ready-made, free floating template for young men to resolve their rage and express their sense of personal grandiosity.”
He correctly concludes that “treating mass killings as a kind of epidemic or contagion largely frees us from having to understand the particular causes of each act. Instead we can focus on disrupting the spread.”

As a way to discourage future mass shootings, Schulman proposes that the killer must be deprived of an audience. He goes on to propose specific recommendations such as never publishing a shooters propaganda, hiding their faces and names and so on. What he is proposing is to deprive the energy behind the shooters motivation to carry out his destructive act.
Schulman’s “treatment” for the problem of mass shootings is correct because it is based on an accurate understanding of the dynamic forces operating in the minds of these killers.
His approach is an application of the medical-psychiatric model to social “diseases.”
In order to treat a disease an accurate understanding of it’s origin is necessary. Human destructiveness in the social realm of which mass shootings is one example, is a manifestation of people’s emotional sickness. It is the result of an actual bio-social disease called the emotional plague, the treatment of which I discuss in my book, The Emotional Plague, The Root of Human Evil,

Obamas’ Love Affaire With Iranian Islamo-fascists

Why on earth is Barack Obama courting Iran to negotiate about it’s plans to develop nuclear capabilities since there is nothing in this venture of his to be gained  for America?

On the surface it simply appears to be a narcissistic attempt on Obama’s part to make himself look good politically on the international scene and to bring up his declining political ratings.

On a deeper, characterological level it is an expression of the emotional plague character’s  attraction from the political left and the political right for one another. Obama, on the political left and individuals in the Iranian fascist regime on the political right share the same goal: to bring America down and to have the world under their control. It is expedient for emotional plague characters on the political left and the right to temporarily  join forces to achieve their common goal. (Remember the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact of 1939.) Once they have succeeded in this collaboration, they will, once again, go their separate ways to control and destroy the entire free world.

From “Political Science” To A Science Of Politics

Politics today consists of a confused mixture of irrational and rational human ideas and drives.  This hodgepodge is erroneously called ” political science.”   However, it is now possible with our political knowledge of orgonomic sociology to have a genuine science of politics.  There are two requirements that must be fulfilled for this to happen: 1) A capacity to think functionally about natural, including political, processes. 2) An in-depth knowledge of socio-political characterology including an understanding of the emotional plague of mankind and the effect that people’s various socio-political character types have on social processes. These requirements are necessary to separate the rational function of politics from the irrationality and the widespread destructiveness of socio-politics.

Obama Is Not A Leader: He is A Politician

When President Obama learned that the Syrians were using poison gas on their people he had two options: either to respond in some way militarily or to do nothing and say it was not  America’s business to interfere. Instead, he expressed outrage at what the Syrians did and handed the problem of responding over to the Congress. In a way that is typical of him, he said one thing and did another.

In effect, Obama is saying now that “the American people” should lead America in this matter of what is to be done since he is not up to doing his job as leader of his country. Putting the problem in the hands of Congress turns it into a political issue between those who are for responding and those who are against doing anything. This is an example of how socio-politics enters into politics and covers up the original problem which as President of the United States is the responsibility of Barack Obama.

It is also typical of Obama to conceal himself behind the social confusion and divisiveness that he , himself, generates by politicizing the problem.

Schizophrenia And Marijuana Use

Clinical experience in medical orgone therapy shows that patients who have a schizophrenic character structure and  use marijuana often develop a psychotic reaction.  Patients with a non-schizophrenic character structure who use marijuana do not become psychotic but are emotionally deadened and unable to respond in the process of therapy.

In “Pot-Smoking And the Schizophrenia Connection,” an article in The Wall Street Journal July 2, 2013,  evidence is provided of  “a significant and consistent relationship between marijuana use and the development of schizophrenia and related disorders.”  The article cites other articles in the medical literature confirming the association between marijuana use and schizophrenia.

However, there is a segment of the population that uses marijuana that does not develop schizophrenia.  In order to make sense of the difference in people’s responses to the same drug there has to be a better  understanding of the schizophrenic character.  Schizophrenia is the result of ocular repression with panic and splitting (See Man in the Trap, page 141 by Elsworth Baker). Because traditional psychiatrists do not understand the role played by ocular armor in schizophrenia, many people in the general population who are schizophrenic characters are not recognized to have the illness by them.

There are all degrees in which panic and splitting occur in the schizophrenic population.  Many individuals with a schizophrenic character structure who are able to live fairly normal lives can break down and become psychotic if environmental stresses become more than they can handle.  In these individuals marijuana use can act as a stressor and induce a psychotic reaction.

This is an example illustrating the importance of having an accurate bio-psychiatric diagnosis before  evaluating any social situation.

Circumcision: An Assault On The Newborn

An article, “Do the Heath Benefits of Neonatal Circumcision Outweigh the Risks?” in the Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2013, discusses the pros and cons of neonatal circumcision. The issue of circumcision illustrates a crucial difference between functional and mechanistic approaches in handling the living. Functional thinking views an action not in terms of the intent of the individual ( intentions are subjective and frequently open to question) but rather on the objective effect that it has on the living. That is, a particular action is viewed according to its life-enhancing or life-destructive aspect. This leads directly to an understanding of the  emotional plague, which may be defined as man’s destructive behavior in the social realm.

The mechanistic scientist is unable to think clearly about human destructiveness. He cannot recognize others’  arguments as rationalizations when they support socially destructive acts because he himself is caught up in intellectual rationalizing. The essential point, such as the cruelty and barbarousness of circumcision is thereby lost.

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 121 other subscribers
  • Follow Charles Konia, M.D.’s Tweets on Twitter

  • See Charles Konia, M.D. on Amazon

  • See Charles Konia, M.D. on Facebook

  • American College of Orgonomy