I've been noticing that many among us seem to be suffering from a particular type of victim complex that I became acquainted with back in the days when I did statistical work for a School of Nursing where they had a practice and research group who maintained halfway houses for abused spouses and who studied the complex of physical, psychological, and sociological issues that naturally came with that territory.

One thing that I learned from that experience was this —

People can survive all types of abuse, harassment, intimidation, and even outright violence, but mystification is the real killer of the human soul.

People can survive abuse if they are clear about the source of abuse. Their natural tropisms will then kick in and give them the minimal sense of direction that it takes to begin inching away from the pain.

Mystification makes people believe that the source of pain is within themselves, that they deserve what is done to them, that they cannot escape their fate, that it's bad to be angry at their abusers, that it's hateful to hate hateful things. In the end, it is mystification more than anything that leads to paralysis and even death, spiritual if not indeed physical death.

So watch out for that …

Jon Awbrey

There is no shortage of spiritual torpor and acedia in our culture, but those of us who spend our careers in research are no stranger to protracted perplexity, either. Einstein reminds us that if we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call it research. If there is one thing we can do here on WR which is verboten on WP, it's genuine and unabashed research into the roots of dysfunctionality in our culture at large and in Wikipedia in particular.

M³ (Martian Mickey Mouse) says it best.

All I can think of to add is this —


Jonny

Random Bump

Jon

You should have that biopsied.