From Wiki: Years later, as Marshal of Poland, Piłsudski recalled that Dzerzhinsky "distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon... Tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify; in any case this person did not know how to lie."
Oct 21, 2023·edited Oct 21, 2023Liked by Harrison Koehli
Very interesting article (and thanks for the shout out). This helps me crystallize in my mind a type of person with whom I am quite familiar, as there were many such people in and around the social justice co-op where I once lived.
They were usually the children of affluent parents, who were often ivy-league professors, architects, or similarly successful. The kids were brighter than the average person, though apparently less so than their parents. All the ones I knew were white and most were male. Several of them went into art school, despite lacking a passion for art. They seemed to have this intense fear of their own mediocrity, and I suspected then that art offered a level of subjectivity that made failure less apparent. They would gravitate to really nebulous, conceptual art that's difficult to objectively evaluate, and then they would eventually abandon this and change their major to Don't Be Racist—a discipline at which failure is basically impossible.
And yet—paradoxically—failure is also guaranteed for the adherent of a church which offers no salvation. It makes sense, then, that the white person who would persevere in such a hostile environment would have such entrenched self-loathing, autoflagellance becomes its own objective. He takes his badness as a given, so the ideology attracts him, resonates with him, and is reifying.
But then he drags his cohort down with him. He'll rigorously defend the most unreasonable demands from nonwhites, and champion the most anti-white positions, proud of his own contrition on behalf of his unwilling peers. He has found a way to vitality and purpose, at the expense of his own kind.
Some of these descriptions came uncomfortably close to my own reality.
I think the general conclusion from all of this is that the psychopath can take advantage of other personality types that are seriously out of touch by giving them more of what they think they need.
While a more rational person will notice that he is being manipulated, the less rational will miss it, or else convince himself that he should live with it. Any serious failure to live with the truth will reduce the survivability of the person or group who is involved in the deception. Reducing the amount of deceit in human life is important for its survival.
Both seemed to have similar style and demeanor, and somewhat muddled political affiliations. Garrett was a full-time caretaker for his quadruple-amputee fiancée, and Dolloff's wife appears to have WIlliams Syndrome, or is otherwise developmentally deformed in some way.
Garret was at an Austin BLM rally dressed like a militia member, ran up to a surrounded Uber driver while waving an AK-47, and the driver shot him dead. Dolloff was an "unlicensed" subcontractor hired through Pinkerton by a local Denver news station covering some patriot rally. He got in a fight with one of the pro-police protesters while "working," the guy slapped him, he drew a pistol, the unarmed protester backed up and sprayed him with bear mace and he shot the guy dead.
These stories were both insane. After Garret died, His girlfriend kept going to rallies and would throw herself on the ground and fish out in front of the police as some kind of "resistance." Garret's shooter was convicted of murder, and Dolloff had his charges dropped completely (?!?).
These guys do not read as cluster-B nutcases, from what we can glean from the few details we know about them, and their physiognomy. Interesting that they would both be drawn to similar, unbelievably rash and reckless behavior, and something about their similar choice of partner seems significant...
Whenever there's a story like this, I wish there were some good investigative pieces interviewing friends, family, teachers, to get a better insight into their personalities. That's also one of the annoying things about academic articles on the subject. Psychologists used to write up detailed case studies; now they just do psychometrics.
Oct 23, 2023·edited Oct 23, 2023Liked by Harrison Koehli
The press had zero interest in actually investigating any of these incidents. Even in these two cases, I had to really dig to find any articles that attempted to explain what actually happened. "Who, what, where, when and why" no longer matter, only "кто кого?"
I am reading The Triumph of Provocation by Mackiewicz. Piłsudski does also reveal a deep Personality Disorder. Antoni Kepinski evidently is one of the fine authors no publisher brings forward in English.
Oct 20, 2023·edited Oct 20, 2023Liked by Harrison Koehli
I once in the 80's was in books and small press non-academic publishing. Academics, allies of academics, institutes, foundations, millionaire donors, need to sit down with one another to ask what smart young scholar who can translate with a high degree of skill could take on a translation project in one language for the (like Cluny say) NEW CATHOLIC PRESS and given the internet for how many other authors can such translators be found. Further, only do e-books. This allows high quality and inexpensive publishing.
Thanks. Heads up for readers that the link is to an article titled "Life circle, time and the self in Antoni Kępiński’s conception of information metabolism".
From Wiki: Years later, as Marshal of Poland, Piłsudski recalled that Dzerzhinsky "distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon... Tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify; in any case this person did not know how to lie."
Very interesting article (and thanks for the shout out). This helps me crystallize in my mind a type of person with whom I am quite familiar, as there were many such people in and around the social justice co-op where I once lived.
They were usually the children of affluent parents, who were often ivy-league professors, architects, or similarly successful. The kids were brighter than the average person, though apparently less so than their parents. All the ones I knew were white and most were male. Several of them went into art school, despite lacking a passion for art. They seemed to have this intense fear of their own mediocrity, and I suspected then that art offered a level of subjectivity that made failure less apparent. They would gravitate to really nebulous, conceptual art that's difficult to objectively evaluate, and then they would eventually abandon this and change their major to Don't Be Racist—a discipline at which failure is basically impossible.
And yet—paradoxically—failure is also guaranteed for the adherent of a church which offers no salvation. It makes sense, then, that the white person who would persevere in such a hostile environment would have such entrenched self-loathing, autoflagellance becomes its own objective. He takes his badness as a given, so the ideology attracts him, resonates with him, and is reifying.
But then he drags his cohort down with him. He'll rigorously defend the most unreasonable demands from nonwhites, and champion the most anti-white positions, proud of his own contrition on behalf of his unwilling peers. He has found a way to vitality and purpose, at the expense of his own kind.
Some of these descriptions came uncomfortably close to my own reality.
I think the general conclusion from all of this is that the psychopath can take advantage of other personality types that are seriously out of touch by giving them more of what they think they need.
While a more rational person will notice that he is being manipulated, the less rational will miss it, or else convince himself that he should live with it. Any serious failure to live with the truth will reduce the survivability of the person or group who is involved in the deception. Reducing the amount of deceit in human life is important for its survival.
A little psychasthenia is a good thing (according to Dabrowski)!
Perhaps. But I would prefer to be fully sane, and ultimately, fully free as a spiritual being.
I always wondered about these two guys, Garret Foster and Matthew Dolloff:
https://reason.com/2020/07/27/the-libertarian-party-mourns-garrett-foster-activist-killed-at-a-black-lives-matter-protest/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8832341/Security-guard-Matthew-Dolloff-shot-Patriot-Muster-protester-attended-Occupy-Denver-rallies.html
Both seemed to have similar style and demeanor, and somewhat muddled political affiliations. Garrett was a full-time caretaker for his quadruple-amputee fiancée, and Dolloff's wife appears to have WIlliams Syndrome, or is otherwise developmentally deformed in some way.
Garret was at an Austin BLM rally dressed like a militia member, ran up to a surrounded Uber driver while waving an AK-47, and the driver shot him dead. Dolloff was an "unlicensed" subcontractor hired through Pinkerton by a local Denver news station covering some patriot rally. He got in a fight with one of the pro-police protesters while "working," the guy slapped him, he drew a pistol, the unarmed protester backed up and sprayed him with bear mace and he shot the guy dead.
These stories were both insane. After Garret died, His girlfriend kept going to rallies and would throw herself on the ground and fish out in front of the police as some kind of "resistance." Garret's shooter was convicted of murder, and Dolloff had his charges dropped completely (?!?).
These guys do not read as cluster-B nutcases, from what we can glean from the few details we know about them, and their physiognomy. Interesting that they would both be drawn to similar, unbelievably rash and reckless behavior, and something about their similar choice of partner seems significant...
Whenever there's a story like this, I wish there were some good investigative pieces interviewing friends, family, teachers, to get a better insight into their personalities. That's also one of the annoying things about academic articles on the subject. Psychologists used to write up detailed case studies; now they just do psychometrics.
The press had zero interest in actually investigating any of these incidents. Even in these two cases, I had to really dig to find any articles that attempted to explain what actually happened. "Who, what, where, when and why" no longer matter, only "кто кого?"
I am reading The Triumph of Provocation by Mackiewicz. Piłsudski does also reveal a deep Personality Disorder. Antoni Kepinski evidently is one of the fine authors no publisher brings forward in English.
I learned recently that a ton of his books are available in ebook form in Polish. Yeah, it's too bad they're not translated.
I once in the 80's was in books and small press non-academic publishing. Academics, allies of academics, institutes, foundations, millionaire donors, need to sit down with one another to ask what smart young scholar who can translate with a high degree of skill could take on a translation project in one language for the (like Cluny say) NEW CATHOLIC PRESS and given the internet for how many other authors can such translators be found. Further, only do e-books. This allows high quality and inexpensive publishing.
http://vddb.elaba.lt/fedora/get/LT-eLABa-0001:J.04~2007~ISSN_0235-7186.V_18.N_1.PG_44-49/DS.002.1.01.ARTIC
Thanks. Heads up for readers that the link is to an article titled "Life circle, time and the self in Antoni Kępiński’s conception of information metabolism".
typo above?
"he is a conqueror rather than a conqueror"
You reading the email version? This one should already be fixed: conquered rather than conqueror.