Anonymous
our total inability to face what is happening (amen)
Mon Sep 1 18:18:04 2003
67.30.96.122

Safetrek/billym:

Your comments reflect many of my thoughts for the past three years. It was duirng 1999 that I confronted within myself the reality of the concept US Great Satan; the national paranoid-schizophrenia; the loss of my certainty that America was "good" and honest and well-meaning, in contrast to others.

The national motto should be "Do as we say, not as we do." Especially when it comes not merely to what we "say" but what we "demand".

If you did not read this article already, please do:

http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_Articles/2003/articles-070.html 
The Beast and his Mark August 30, 2003
By: Mark Glenn

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Further --

"Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad" Greek saying

The US typifies what the Greeks called hubris. Merriam-Webster merely gives the definition as "exaggerated pride or self-confidence" but it's much more. Ironically, here is a 60-page report prepared by Rand in 1994 -- which, of course, is about foreign 'megalomaniacs' only. I've slightly edited by removing some footnotes and text, just to focus on the introductory concepts.

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR461/MR461.pdf
Beware the Hubris-Nemesis Complex: A Concept for Leadership Analysis
David Ronfeldt: Prepared for the Office of Research and Development,
Central Intelligence Agency

Summary

In the years ahead, the United States will assuredly find itself in new international crises involving nations or groups that have powerful leaders. In some cases, these leaders may have a special, dangerous mindset that is the result of a "hubris-nemesis complex."

This complex involves a combination of hubris (a pretension toward an arrogant form of godliness) and nemesis (a vengeful desire to confront, defeat, humiliate, and punish an adversary, especially one that can be accused of hubris). The combination has strange dynamics that may lead to destructive, high-risk behavior. Attempts to deter, compel, or negotiate with a leader who has a hubris-nemesis complex can be ineffectual or even disastrously counterproductive when those attempts are based on concepts better suited to dealing with more normal leaders.
.....

1. Hubris and Nemesis Opposed--The Classic Dynamic

This paper introduces a concept for thinking about the mindset of a type of adversary that has been very difficult and sometimes dangerous for the United States to deal with. The concept emerged in connection with a study about Fidel Castro, but it might as well have been a leader like Adolf Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini, or Saddam Hussein.

It is often said that leaders like these are megalomaniacal, power-hungry, confrontational, vengeful, messianic, grandiose, crazy, etc. The concept of the hubris-nemesis complex offers a way to view such attributes comprehensively. Some concepts--notably about charisma and narcissism--already exist for this purpose. But the concept at hand may offer some insights and advantages. What is the hubris-nemesis concept? What can an analyst do with it? How can it be developed further? These questions are addressed in this pilot essay. If the concept seems fruitful, additional work should be done to build a theory and methodologies for identifying and analyzing leaders who exhibit the complex. First, I want to clarify the meaning of hubris and nemesis. The background story is simply this: I once unknowingly misused the word "nemesis." A wise RAND colleague, Konrad Kellen, said, "No, that's not correct," and told me about the classic Greek dynamic whereby hubris must be present to attract Nemesis.

In Greek myth and tragedy, hubris (or hybris) is the pretension to be godlike, and thereby fail to observe the divine equilibrium among god, man, and nature.

* It is "a state of mind in which man thinks more than human thoughts and later translates them into act. It is an offense against the order of the world" (Grene, 1961: 487).

* It is "the arrogant violation of limits set by the gods or by human society" (North, 1966: 6).

* It is "having energy or power and misusing it self-indulgently" (MacDowell, 1976: 21).

* It is "behavior that was intended gratuitously to inflict dishonour and shame upon others" or "to the values that hold a society together" (Fisher, 1979: 32, 45).

[Footenote: The term Nemesis is used to refer to the ancient Greek goddess and retributions attributed to her. The term nemesis is used to refer to the dynamics of retribution in general.]

In other words, hubris is the capital sin of pride, and thus the antithesis of two ethics that the Greeks valued highly: aidos (humble reverence for law) and sophrosyne (self-restraint, a sense of proper limits). Words and phrases like the following--overweening pride; self-glorification; arrogance; insolence; overconfidence in one's ability and right to do whatever one wants, to the point of disdaining the cardinal virtues of life; ignoring other people's feelings; overstepping boundaries; and impiously defying all who stand in the way--are found in descriptions of people who have hubris.

In Greek literature, hubris often afflicted rulers and conquerors who, though endowed with great leadership abilities, abused their power and authority and challenged the divine balance of nature to gratify their own vanity and ambition. Thus hubris was no common evil: It led people to presume that they were above ordinary laws, if not laws unto themselves--to presume they deserved to exceed the fate and fortune ordained by the gods.

Acts of hubris aroused envy among the gods on Mt. Olympus and angered them to restore justice and equilibrium. Nemesis, the goddess of divine vengeance and retribution, might then descend to destroy the vainglorious pretender, to cut man down to size and restore equilibrium.

Not much is known about Nemesis, and much of that is inconsistent. An ancient creation myth has her issue from a union between Night and Erebus, as one of a set of female spirits and goddesses who are to assure that fate and necessity play strong roles in life. Other early accounts associate her with a personification of moral reverence for law and for the lot that each person is due (by necessity). Thus she is in harmony with aidos and sophrosyne--in some versions, she is paired with Aidos personified. Still other accounts suggest that she emerged to represent some dark, punishing aspects of Themis, a powerful early goddess, or of Artemis, the later well-known goddess who was both a huntress and a protectress. Finally, there is a myth in which Nemesis gets identified with Leda, in a story about a pursuit and rape by Zeus that leads to the birth of the only daughter he bred on earth: the Helen who becomes Helen of Troy. There is no easy way to make a coherent, reliable whole from these varying accounts. However, a Jungian analysis uses the myth about Nemesis's rape by Zeus to show how this beautiful goddess, who is not initially identified with vengefulness, may have evolved into an archetype of retribution:

Here the bride--the original Kore--was called Nemesis; the bridegroom and seducer, Zeus. Pursued by the god's desire, the goddess transforms herself into various beasts of the earth, sea, and air. In this last mutation, as wild birds of the primeval swamp--she as a goose, he as a swan--the two divinities celebrate their marriage by rape. For this marriage was and remained a rape. The goddess was not to be softened by love; she succumbed to violence and therefore became the eternal avenger" Nemesis. (Kerenyi, in Jung and Kerényi, 1969: 122)2

A case may be made that, with this rape, Zeus committed "the most formidable theological gamble" and "the greatest exploit" of his reign. By raping a deity of necessity, he "forced necessity to bring forth beauty"--nearly committing an act of hubris on his part (Calasso, 1994: 127, 137). Hence, it is no wonder that Nemesis becomes the goddess of the offense that boomerangs back on its perpetrator. . . . Herself the great enemy of hubris, she gave birth to a daughter whose very body was an offense and in so doing provoked the most magnificent unfolding of hubris in all of Greek history: the Trojan war. (Calasso, 1994: 138) Thus a long cycle of hubris and nemesis, followed by new acts of hubris and nemesis, is set into motion.

Hubris above all is what attracted Nemesis, who then retaliated to humiliate and destroy the pretender, often through terror and devastation. Thus she was an agent of destruction. The battle won, she did not turn to constructive tasks of renewal and redemption--that was for others to do. Yet her behavior was never a matter of pure angry revenge. There were high, righteous purposes behind her acts, for she intervened in human affairs primarily to restore equilibrium when it was badly disturbed, usually by figures who attained excessive power and prosperity. Examples appear in myths about Narcissus, Phaeton, Icarus, and Niobe, though Nemesis's appearance is often allegorical rather than personified. The dynamic is also central in plays by Aeschylus, notably Agamemnon, and in histories by Herodotus, notably about Croesus.

According to the behavior patterns embedded in the logic of myth, people should beware the dynamics linking hubris and Nemesis. While the former vainly and arrogantly defies proper conduct and balance in human affairs, the latter harshly restores them. In so doing, both have a tendency to get out of control--and both to victimize.

In modern parlance, the ancient terms are rarely used. But the dynamic reverberates in Christian thinking (cf. Pagels, 1993), and remains contemporary in Biblical sayings like "Pride goeth before a fall." Modern examples of the ancient dynamic often revolve around an "arrogance of power" theme, as in pairing the United States and the Vietnam war, Nixon and Watergate, or the Shah of Iran and the Islamic revolution.