November 8, 2004

• First:  some followup

  on this morning’s entry

  Some of you speculated on what my dream might mean and wondered if I had any insight.

  It has been on my mind and I have some clues, I suppose.  In one
  symbol system with which I’m familiar, trees around the house represent
  people around us.  The more there are, the more social we are, the
  closer they are the more close friends we have, etc.  In the
  dream, one tree close to the house fell blocking the road the way I
  usually go in and out.  Someone (in Jung’s system it has to be me)
  ran into it, wrecked his car.  Until that happened, I was
  completely unaware of an even bigger tree that had fallen and blocked
  my exit in the other direction.  Both of those trees were bigger
  than any real trees around here.  The first one, next to our
  house, probably wouldn’t extend across the road if it fell now.

  In the dream I was ready to deal with the first, smaller tree.  I
  talked to Greyfox about getting out the chainsaw to get it out of the
  way.  When I saw the bigger tree down not across the road but
  lying lengthwise along the middle of it blocking it totally, I felt
  alarmed, trapped.  There are only two people really close to
  me.  If one of them “falls”, I can probably deal with it.  If
  the other one goes, I don’t know what I’ll do.  That doesn’t mean
  I can’t deal with it.  It means that first I will have to figure
  out what to do, and then I’ll have to try to do it.

   
  earthlovinglady was wondering also what the percentage of addicts and alcoholics might be who are also pathological narcissists.

  It is high.  The National Clearinghouse for Drug and Alcohol
  Information (or the National Institute of Mental Health, or both)
  estimates that about one-third of all those with NPD are also
  self-medicating with alcohol and/or other drugs.  That is the
  lowest estimate I’ve seen.  In 12-step meetings, we hear people
  expressing narcissistic attitudes all the time, and sometimes our
  meetings deteriorate into dueling NPDs, trying to see who can be more
  outrageous and get more attention. 

  Many addicts had addicted parents and the types of parental abuse and
  neglect that lead to NPD could be expected from addicted parents. 
  People with NPD are less likely to concern themselves with laws and
  mores than a normal person.  The constant threat of having true
  reality impinge on their false persona, and their general tendency
  toward dysphoria, give them perceived reasons to
  self-medicate.    There is some debate on this, but I
  think in most cases it was the NPD that came first and the addiction
  later.

  ---

  Religion & Politics

  Forget the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of separation of church and
  state.  It just isn’t happening.  Every move we’ve made in
  that direction has been countered or outmaneuvered or simply ignored by
  religious fundamentalists who believe that anything that conforms to
  and supports their belief system is RIGHT and everything else is
  WRONG.  When the ACLU and the Supreme Court get together and make
  a move to safeguard or restore the constitutional rights of minority
  believers, the Xian Fundies try to present it as persecution against
  themselves.

  You just can’t reason with fundamentalists of any religion. 
  Trying to tell them that there is more than one right way to think and
  to live is likely to sail right over their heads.  Telling them
  that theirs is fundamentally wrong can get you killed.  That’s
  just the way it is.

  After last Tuesday’s election, I found an op-ed piece by New York Times
  columnist Thomas L. Friedman, entitled Two Nations Under God, copied on
  ogreDAD’s Xanga site.  Mr. Friedman had a lot to say about his
  feelings regarding the outcome of this election.  It was this
  portion of his article that stuck in my mind:

  My problem with the Christian fundamentalists supporting Mr. Bush is
  not their spiritual energy or the fact that I am of a different faith.
  It is the way in which he and they have used that religious energy to
  promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad. I respect that
  moral energy, but wish that Democrats could find a way to tap it for
  different ends.

  “The Democrats have ceded to Republicans a monopoly on the moral
  and spiritual sources of American politics,” noted the Harvard
  University political theorist Michael J. Sandel. “They will not recover
  as a party until they again have candidates who can speak to those
  moral and spiritual yearnings – but turn them to progressive purposes
  in domestic policy and foreign affairs.”

  What is it with both of these men?  Are they unaware of the
  differences between spirituality and religion, and between morality and
  moralism?

  Religious intolerance is everywhere.  There is no such thing as
  spiritual intolerance.  That’s an oxymoron.  Where true
  spirituality lives, there is love — universal unconditional
  love.  Any religion which teaches hatred and intolerance is
  spiritually bankrupt.

  What are these, “moral and spiritual sources of American
  politics”?  Gay-bashing and Muslim-hating are not moral. 
  They are moralistic.   Fear is not a spiritual value, but it
  is certainly of great value to religious demagogues who play on
  people’s fears to consolidate their own power.

  Oh, what’s the use?  You either understand what I’m saying, or
  you’re too blinded by your beliefs and confounded by the words of the
  fearmongers to grasp that fundamental difference between religion and
  spirituality, and between moralism and morality.   If you
  know, you know you know, and if you don’t know, you don’t know you
  don’t know.  As I said, you just can’t reason with fundamentalists.
   

  

  • 8:20 pm
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