 |
Daryl Temkin, Ph.D is the director of the Israel Education Institute which is devoted to teaching history and contemporary issues of Israel to Jews and Non-Jews. His weekly opinion column, "Pivotal Thought," has been the interview and discussion topic for various talk radio and television news commentary programs.
|
|
|
|
By Daryl Temkin, Ph.D
February 13, 2007
 Bookmark to del.icio.us
Obsession is a word that now conjures up an association with an "R" rating. The perfume distinctly named "Obsession" reinforced this lust-oriented definition with a multi-million dollar seduction oriented advertising campaign. But "obsessions" have little to do with cardinal thoughts as much as they have to do with a serious psychological disorder.
More clearly defined, obsessions are "incessant thoughts and ideas which dominate the so-afflicted mind, and constantly return to the same few themes, scenarios and questions; its meticulous examination and re-examination of banal minutiae for hidden meanings that simply aren't there; and the thoughts are not fascinating but are maddeningly dull."
One might now have second thoughts about naming a perfume, "Obsession" if it refers to something which is "maddeningly dull". However, the term succeeded to become a "delusional distraction" which could transfer the obsessive image from a serious behavioral dysfunction to a commercially desirable thought pattern.
Then, more recently, the movie, "Obsession" appeared. When first advertised, many thought it would be an "R" rated movie and expected sizzling scenes and tantalizing moments -- only to discover that the movie was an exploration of the horrific violence-oriented vulgarities based in and supported by the religion of Islam. Islamic clerics do boast about "martyred men" being the recipients of 72 awaiting virgins, a type of "R" rated obsession, which is sadly obsessively believed among too many Islamic adherents and obsessively repeated by too many Islamic clerics.
But in this riveting film, the obsession is about a religion which is transfixed on dominating the world at any price. As much as Islam tries to be a religion, it constantly reverts to being a political mechanism for oppression, subjugation, and submission of its adherents as well as non-adherents. Oppression, subjugation, and submission are acts of political tyranny and are not meant to be descriptive of seductive hallucinations and delusions.
Real obsessions occur when a problem cannot be solved by a chosen approach and one continues to come back to retry the wrong path no matter how many times that path is proven wrong. An obsessive psychology client related that when trying to leave his home he had to come back to the front door up to 30 times in order to check and re-check that it was locked before he could finally start his car and leave. His obsession required him to continually think and believe that his front door was unlocked, and every time he checked, the door was locked; yet, he perceived it as unlocked, even when again checked and proven to be locked. The encouraging aspect of this client was that he was able to realize that he was living with an obsession.
It is one thing when the obsessive client is able to identity the obsessive behavior as obsessive. It is quite another matter when obsessive behavior goes unrecognized and therefore never resolved.
With this in mind, let us view our current political crisis. I must surmise that choosing and re-choosing failed proposed solutions suggest that there is an obsessive behavior pattern which society is prone to accept -- hence the obsession is not only unrecognized but is thereby rendered off-limits to correctives.
How is it that the best scholars and political leaders can create and foster political solutions which are based on past failures and then promoted as the only viable solution? Now, keeping within the obsessive mode, let's try that again: It failed once, it failed again, and it has continued to fail every time it was tried. Perfect! Let's now try it again and call it a "viable solution."
One might think that a degree of refinement might be introduced to make the next experiment more productive. But no, all the givens remain the same on each trial. Why a different result is expected when the tested conditions remain the same is one of the strange dimensions shared and ignored by the leaders, known as the "best and the brightest."
Imagine a person discovers that the two-week old carton of milk in the refrigerator is spoiled, and then returns the milk to the refrigerator hoping or expecting that if more days pass, the milk will become fresh. How does one explain that the refrigeration is not going to improve the condition of the milk? At what point will someone understand that the chosen solution is not related the solution of the presenting problem.
Once upon a time, there was the thought that if the world would just provide an additional Palestinian state, the Arabs would be appeased and the world could live at peace. This thought has become an obsessive policy which an unbelievable number of nations have signed onto. It doesn't seem to matter that multiple past attempts at this solution have repeatedly failed; the obsessive failed solution has to be right no matter how wrong it has always been.
The following is the flow chart of our obsessive political path:
America and others have the belief that they can educate the terrorist enemy and thereby reshape its thinking with logic and Western incentives. Therefore, large sums of money are offered to induce them to want what you want them to want. Then there is the belief that they will come to want what you want once they have more power and more weapons. This false assumption is supposed to increase their self-esteem and then they will like you. Then there is the belief that they will become what you want them to become even though they tell you that they will never become what you want them to become, so you offer them more money. Or, you try to get them to become what you want them to become by showing them how wonderful their life will be once they do as you want them to do. But they tell you that they don't want your wonderful life. They don't want your life style, they done want your technology, they don't want your advancements, they don't even want your money. They only want your submission to their obsession. But your obsession is not to see, understand or comprehend their obsession.
You go as far as to believe that your obsession will win over their obsession. You don't want to believe that their obsession is rooted in hundreds of years of religious training and political beliefs connected to the religious training. You don't understand that your obsession is not religion based so you can't feel that you really have a right to impose your values on someone else -- but they have a religious doctrine which obligates them to impose their doctrines upon all believers and non-believers.
Your obsession is a belief that you know what all people want. Your obsession is that you think that all people want what you have. Your obsession is that you believe that all people want to be free. Your obsession is that you can't believe that certain people don't care about democracy. Certain people don't care about freedom. Certain people don't care about human rights. Certain people have been raised to believe that death is more important than life. As counter-intuitive as that sounds, there is a culture that is preparing its children to strive for death.
Our obsession is that we can't see beyond ourselves. Our obsession is that we think education is the solution to all mankind. Our obsession is that we have blinded ourselves to become invisible in this world and even invisible to ourselves. We can't see ourselves because, if we could, then our obsessions would become blatantly and overwhelmingly apparent.
Perhaps if we would stop and recognize our devastating obsessions, then we would stop thinking only about perfumes and sexuality and start thinking about what is really going on in our world.
It's time that we start being obsessive about the truth, obsessive about real evil, obsessive about real strivings for goodness, obsessive about life and begin to seriously realize that there are those who want our meaningful Western obsessions destroyed.
We also need to be obsessed about the shortness of available remaining time to refocus our obsessions and our recurring thoughts on what really matters and on how we will survive our enemies for generations to come.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
