Wednesday 5 October 2011

The Münchausen syndrome in Politics

The Münchausen syndrome is a psychiatric disorder which causes someone to fake illness in order to be cared for - it is sometimes described as an addiction to hospitals or other types of care. But there is also a version of the syndrome very common among women known as "Münchausen syndrome by proxy". The afflicted woman simulates a disease for her child - she often will actually cause damage to the child in order for it to appear sick or vulnerable. The goal of this type of behaviour is to appear very caring and devoted in the eyes of others. Such a mother gets self-esteem from others telling how well she is taking care of her very sick child, while in reality she is the one keeping the child sick, often through very dangerous means. You can read an example here.
My point is that this is more or less how democratic politicians do their work. First they create all kinds of problems in society, and then they attempt to 'fix' them for us. Many people get tricked into believing that these problems are actually natural and that the politicians are actually curing them and performing a necessary task! Many of the politicians are tricksters (they know they are doing harm on purpose just to seem like celebrities later) but I am also sure many politicians come from the part of the population who are either stupid or naive, and they really believe they are actually doing good. The great Polish publicist and writer, Stefan Kisielewski, used to say that "Socialism is the system under which people bravely combat problems not present under any other system!" And he was essentially correct, democracy is a mild form of communism after all; democracy is the socialization of political power (where extreme political equality prevails over natural ability and rights).
I strongly suggest putting all politicians through thorough psychiatric evaluation. If any of them want to legislate anything above the Natural Law, their doctors should strongly suspect some deficiency, either in intelligence, or just pure megalomania (i.e. the type of Münchausen syndrome by proxy I just described above). Either way, the best thing we could do is just stop any of these people from getting power - so let's END DEMOCRACY NOW!
As H.L. Mencken wrote "Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary." These imaginary hobgoblins are threats created consciously by power-hungry politicians. And the real hobgoblins (few and far between) are all created by legislation through our political class.

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