Recommended Reading – Election Edition
When we set someone up as an icon, we say to ourselves, “Well, I might not be able to handle my life by myself, but X is really strong and smart and brave. X can guide me.” That’s the iconization of others.
Narcissism is when we iconize ourselves.
We decide (unconsciously) that we are the center of the universe. In our minds–and in our closets, our garages, and our bank accounts–we begin erecting an edifice of adoration for this new god, ourselves.
We convince ourselves that we are smarter, prettier, meaner, cooler, hipper, etc. than anyone else (or at least that we’re smart enough, pretty enough, and mean enough to handle any problem.)
In a way, this mechanism is healthy. In its benign form it’s simply self-confidence. And it’s often true that the narcissist’s beliefs about herself are valid, within reason. Often the narcissist is indeed brave, smart, strong, savvy, and so forth.
What is really happening inside the narcissist? [….]
Abu Muqawama (Trombly) –(Un)limiting War: “Perpetual War” in Historical Perspective
Fighting the Forever Small War
Pundita –Britain seeks to pull USA more deeply into Syrian rebellion
….As near as I can figure from the following report the plan is to go around the EU by pressuring the Obama administration to arm the Syrian ‘rebels’ — or, if the administration has been shipping arms in clandestine fashion to the ‘rebels’ via Libya, to ship weapons aboveboard. Oh and the rebels want money in addition to more weapons. Lots of money.
No worries; the British will supervise! But after what they did to us in Basra, in Helmand and in post-Gaddafi Libya, one would think the closet monarchists in Washington had learned their lesson. Somehow I don’t think they did.
Pundita. Come for the sarcasm….stay for the insights.
USNI Blog – Guest Post by CAPT David Tyler: On Warfighting: The Warrior Spirit
Self-evident topic.
Wings Over Iraq –Thursday Defense Briefing
“Courtney Messerschmidt“ or one of the peeps who are “her” is maintaining the fort for the Iron Major with defense news links. When we all found out Courtney wasn’t real it was like that ugly Santa Claus incident all over again 😉
FINALLY…..
I would like to depart from my normal protocol and feature a comment on a post here, regarding the election and the GOP, by Dr. David Ronfeldt because it is spot on. For those unfamiliar with Ronfeldt, a co-author of Networks and Netwars, “TIMN” refers to his analytic model of ” Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks”.
I am Zen and I approve of this message:
From a TIMN perspective, the Republicans lost because they’ve become excessively tribal, and much less institutional and market-oriented. More to the point, the Republicans lost because of the media: not the mainstream media or the liberal media, but their very own right-wing conservative media — particularly Fox News, along with right-wing radio talk shows, and all their well-known opinionators. These media have become so dominated by tribalists who aim to tribalize that they’ve become counter-productive, even destructive for the Republican party.
The usual frames for discussing what I’m trying to get at are “partisanship” and “polarization”. But those frames have become too dryly analytical and easy to treat as isolatable criticisms. At this point, when matters have become so excessive, tribalism is a more accurate, dynamic frame.
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