The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Containing His Articles, Observations, Thoughts, Meanderings,
and some would say Wisdom (and some would say not).

Introduction

The book “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness” by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr. M.D. is about the psychological basis of the Progressives/Leftists mindset, and human nature and human freedom. Although the book was published in 2006, the Liberal Agenda has become more pronounced and easily understood by the words and deeds of today's “Progressives/Leftists”. All should read this book to understand the liberal mindset and its psychological basis, as stated From the Preface:

“This book is about human nature and human freedom, and the relationship between them. Its contents are an outgrowth of my life-long interest in how the mind works. That interest, beginning at about age twelve, eventually led me to careers in clinical and forensic psychiatry and to the particular access these disciplines provide to human psychology. Disorders of personality have been a special focus of this interest. First in clinical practice and then in forensic evaluations, I have had the opportunity to study the nature of personality and the factors which affect its development. The practice of forensic psychiatry has permitted an especially close look at the manner in which all mental illnesses, including personality disorders, interact with society's rules for acceptable conduct. These rules, both civil and criminal, largely define the domains of human freedom and the conditions that ground social order.

Historically, of course, western ideas about freedom and social order have come from fields quite distant from psychiatry: philosophy, ethics, jurisprudence, history, theology, economics, anthropology, sociology, art and literature, among others. But the workings of the human mind as understood by psychiatry and psychology are necessarily relevant to these disciplines and to the social institutions that arise from them. This book is an attempt to connect mechanisms of the mind to certain economic, social and political conditions, those under which freedom and order may flourish. Although I have made strenuous efforts to follow where reason leads, I have not written this book out of intellectual interest alone. My intent has been more "generative" than that, to use one of Erik Erikson's terms. It has, in fact, grown out of a deep concern for the future of ordered liberty. In their efforts "to form a more perfect Union," America's founding fathers intended, as the Preamble tells us, to establish justice, insure peace, provide for the nation's defense, promote its general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. But the entire twentieth century, and the dawn of the twenty-first, have witnessed modern liberalism's relentless attacks on all of these goals and on all of the principles on which individual liberty and rational social order rest. Although they are strikingly deficient in political substance, these attacks have nevertheless been successful in exploiting the psychological nature of man for socialist purposes. To counter the destructiveness of these attacks requires a clear understanding of the relationship between human psychology and social process. It is my hope that this book makes at least a small contribution to that purpose.”

Chapter 48, ‘Integrity and Treatment’, has the best explanation of the difference between the Liberal and Conservative mindset that I have ever encountered. I have extracted five sections of this chapter of the book as a basis for what is occurring in America today:

Integrity and the Lifecycle

In Erikson’s scheme, the onset of old age heralds the eighth and final phase of the human life cycle.1 The developmental challenge in this era is the achievement of a sense of psychological integrity and the avoidance of despair and disgust as dominant sentiments. While he offered no precise definition of integrity, he did describe a number of its features. In his view, the achievement of integrity confers upon an older person certain capacities for acceptance:

• Acceptance of himself as the person he is and has been, not the idealized person of his dreams
• Acceptance of his actual history of successes, failures and losses, not a fictional history of successes only
• Acceptance of the people and relationships that actually became important to him
• Acceptance of his parents as the persons they were
• Acceptance of responsibility for the choices he made that shaped his life
• Acceptance of old age decline and the inevitability of death
• Acceptance of the one and only life he can live.

These ideas extend the concept of integrity well beyond its common sense usage. Integrity usually means wholeness, completeness, soundness or lack of impairment, and Erikson clearly applies these meanings to his ideas about life’s last phase. Integrity can also have more specialized meanings. A person with moral integrity, for example, adheres to high standards of virtue in his personal conduct. In intellectual inquiry, integrity seeks truth based on verifiable facts and sound logic. Conceptual integrity requires an idea to be internally consistent, not self-contradictory. An individual displays integrity when he represents himself honestly, acts in good conscience and honors just obligations. A family displays integrity when, through shared ideals and bonds, its members validate the parental marriage, rear children to adult competence, establish a refuge of love and caretaking for each other, and discharge the economic, social and political functions appropriate to families. An economic, social, political or legal institution exhibits integrity when it rewards adult competence and reinforces the rights, laws and duties that maximize freedom within the constraints needed for social order. Society itself demonstrates integrity when its members, families, institutions and traditions recognize the nature of man and coordinate it with the ideals of civilized freedom. These observations imply the need for integrity at all levels of a coherent social system: in the individual, in the family, and in the institutions that sustain the overarching structure of society. In analogy to a living organism whose survival and function depend upon its constituent organs, a society may be seen as a dynamic entity whose overall integrity depends upon the integrity of each of its interacting parts. To achieve a systemic integrity—to avoid a literal disintegration of the whole—a society must permit the free but orderly incorporation of man’s biological, psychological and social nature into its economic, social and political fabric.

Evaluation and Diagnosis in Modern Liberalism

Like the concept of competence, the concept of integrity offers a standard by which to evaluate the pathology of modern liberalism. As in any evaluation, a careful inquiry into the presenting signs and symptoms of the disorder is essential to adequate diagnosis. To that end the following paragraphs review again the manifestations of the liberal neurosis, its destructive effects on social process, and the manner in which it undermines the integrity of the individual’s relationship to society at all levels. These effects can then be understood as the symptoms of a societal neurosis, one affecting the structure and functions of ordered liberty, not just the liberal mind itself. Insight based on these observations provides the basis for an educational campaign designed to neutralize the neurosis of liberalism at both individual and societal levels before it destroys ordered liberty beyond repair.

Recent chapters have set out in great detail the misconceptions of modern liberalism, its irrational prescriptions for social policy, its disastrous economic, social and political consequences, and its destructive effects on the development of adult competence. Special emphasis has been placed on liberalism’s conflicts with the defining characteristics of human nature and the conditions of human existence. Throughout this exposition the madness of its agenda has become most obvious in its violations of the ideals and values essential to civilized freedom. A summary list of these ideals and values is paired below with the destructive effects of modern liberalism. In the competent society, the competent individual is able to:

• Acknowledge the value of individual lives. [Modern liberalism devalues individual lives by violating individual rights and by treating citizens as fungible elements of economic, social or political classes.]
• Honor the sovereignty, agency, autonomy and freedom of human beings. [Modern liberalism curtails individual freedom of choice and action, substitutes regulation and dependency for autonomy and freedom, and overrides personal sovereignty.]
• Honor the freedom to consent and not consent that defines social cooperation. [Modern liberalism devalues voluntary cooperation in favor of government coercion and invalidates freely made contractual agreements.]
• Recognize the right to be let alone as a foundation right to individual liberty. [By invading every aspect of his life, modern liberalism’s endless taxes and regulations violate the right of the citizen to be let alone.]
• Earn a living through self-reliance and voluntary exchange with others. [Modern liberalism’s philosophy of dependency coupled with business regulations, licensure requirements, wage laws and union rules discourage and even preclude self-reliance and voluntary exchange.
• Honor the liberty rights and obligations that protect people, property and promises. [Modern liberalism’s policies invalidate promises, violate property rights, indenture the citizen’s labor, and overrule contracts in accordance with the state’s latest pronouncements on social justice.]
• Relate with honesty and integrity to other persons who can act similarly. [Modern liberalism’s social justice programs institutionalize theft and invite manipulation. Its ideals of indulgence and permissiveness undermine the moral integrity of the people.]
• Treat others with decency, courtesy, civility and thoughtfulness. [Modern liberalism promotes hostility, vulgarity, rudeness and defiance as justified rebellion against imaginary oppression, discrimination and exploitation.]
• Take care of children, the elderly and the chronically ill or disadvantaged. [Modern liberalism undermines the family, the institution best able to rear children and care for the elderly. Its welfare programs preempt charitable activities and community altruism through government welfare programs.]
• Aspire to the western ideal of individuated man: the self-reliant, self-directing and freely-choosing but ethical, moral and charitable individual who cooperates with others by mutual consent in a society ruled by law. [Modern liberalism promotes the collectivized man: the self-effacing, government-dependent and government-supervised man. It seeks a government administered welfare state regulated by ruling elites and supported by indentured workers. Morality in this utopia is adjusted to the appetites of the moment. Gratification of need, not the rule of law, is the controlling ideal.]
• Act effectively and legitimately under the rule of law, act freely because coercion is prohibited, act cooperatively because consent is voluntary, and act mutually by respecting the rights of others. [The policies of modern liberalism render individual action less effective because it is disempowered by the state, illegitimate because it is condemned by the state, unfree because it is oppressed by the state, less cooperative because it is coerced by the state, and less mutual because it is depersonalized by the state.]
• Accommodate the realities of human nature and the human condition; the moralities of obligation and aspiration; the negative rights that define liberty and justice; and the reciprocal interactions of the competent individual, competent family and competent society. [Modern liberalism ignores the realities of human nature and the human condition; degrades the moralities of obligation and aspiration; undermines the competence of the individual, family and society; and invites childlike subservience to the state.]

The liberal agenda is the liberal neurosis made manifest. It is not a rational program for the organization of human action. It is instead an irrational conglomeration of neurotic defenses which the modern liberal uses for his mental and emotional equilibrium. By attacking the sovereignty of the individual and the institutions essential to ordered liberty, the agenda attacks the very foundations of a free society. In fact, modern liberalism does not seek authentic freedom, despite its historical association with that ideal, nor does it foster the individual’s growth to competence. It does not promote the virtues of individual liberty: not self-reliance, responsibility, dependability or accountability; not cooperation by consent or initiative or industry; not high moral standards or caring or altruism. It does not seek a society of sovereign citizens, but fosters instead a society of allegedly victimized dependents under the custodial care of the state. In keeping with its origins in early childhood, the liberal agenda endorses self-indulgence through short-term hedonism and primitive impulse gratification. In keeping with its ethic of injustice collecting, the agenda seeks ever increasing government regulation to defeat alleged villains, and ever increasing levels of unearned compensation, reparation and restitution to compensate alleged victims. In keeping with its secular tradition, modern liberalism attacks the legitimacy of formal religion, dismisses its historical importance and denies its critical role in maintaining the nation’s moral integrity .

The entire agenda is a product of wishful thinking: it attempts to transform the real world of adult relationships into a fantasy world whose fictions will sooth the liberal’s neurotic misery. It is a utopian world imagined by childlike adults longing for universal benevolence, brotherhood, generosity and love, but in its rhetorical proclamations and real world operations the agenda is viciously hostile. The liberal ideal of inclusion promises that no one will be deprived of what he needs, but the plan by which all of the earth’s citizens will adopt each other in a universal welfare state is never explained. In the liberal’s fantasies, the world will be notably peaceful, but not because of respect for the law nor because the threat of retaliation deters aggression. The liberal’s idealized world will be at peace because empathy, sympathy, understanding, identification, negotiation, charity and appeasement will dissolve any adversary’s destructive motives. Unfortunately, however, history records the futility of this wishful thinking. Liberalism’s past attempts to realize these fantasies have brought catastrophic damage on millions by empowering governments with the means to dominate their citizens. For all of the reasons noted, the liberal agenda, whether benign or radical, is completely incompatible with rational social order.

Symptoms of Neurotic Liberalism

Arising from early developmental trauma acting on inherited temperament, the neurosis of the liberal mind is an enduring maladaptive and harmful pattern of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating, and thus strongly resembles a personality disorder. The signs and symptoms of the disorder result from the combined effects of deprivation, neglect and abuse, and the defense mechanisms erected against mental and emotional pain. The neurosis manifests itself in various beliefs, emotions, behaviors and modes of relating that are acted out in, or focused on, the political arena. Typical transference psychodynamics include at least some of the following:

• Mistrust of mutually consenting relationships.
• Fear of helplessness.
• False perceptions of helplessness in others.
• False perceptions of exploitation, injustice and abuse by others .
• Excessive fear of separation or abandonment.
• An excessive need for nurturance and support.
• An excessive urgency to seek caretaking from others.
• A need for others to assume responsibility.
• A sense of entitlement to the services of others.
• Unjustified suspicion that others intend harm.
• Excessive hostility and blame toward others.
• Exaggerated self-importance.
• An attitude of superiority without proportionate achievement.
• A belief that one is special or belongs to an elite class.
• Overestimation of one’s talents, abilities or appeal.
• An excessive need for admiration.
• Prominent arrogance.
• Preoccupation with envy.
• Insistence on exemption from ordinary obligations, duties and responsibilities.

In addition to these dynamics, the liberal neurosis predisposes to anxiety, insecurity, hopelessness, depression, despair, cynicism, shame, disgust, spite, anger, rage, bitterness, jealousy, hatefulness, guilt, blaming, grudge holding, excessive competitiveness, feelings of inadequacy, and doubt about one’s lovability. The use of primitive defense mechanisms of externalization, projection, splitting, denial and projective identification is prominent; so is the use of manipulation and coercion. The radical liberal’s neurosis distorts the realities of human relating by transferring the experiential traumas of his formative years into the contemporary arenas of economic, social and political process. The liberal’s mind’s neurotic transferences strongly determine how he thinks, feels, behaves and relates in these realms.

Spontaneous Remission

Like other conditions arising from early developmental trauma the liberal neurosis tends to persist over time. It endures for many reasons already noted: it defends powerfully against psychic pain, gratifies primitive needs for hope and attachment, promises to satisfy dependency longings, endorses self-centeredness and self-indulgence, wards off shame, discharges aggression, avenges envy, mitigates feelings of inferiority, and provides identity, affiliation and self-esteem, to name a few benefits. Nevertheless, some liberals, even those of a radical bent, are able eventually to renounce the madness of liberalism and become competent adults. What usually triggers these conversions are the recurrent collisions of the liberal agenda with the realities of adult life, especially those that expose the agenda’s irrational nature and destructive consequences. In these cases, the facts of life overcome the dogma of illusion: a combination of painful experience with liberal social policy, coupled with healthy growth that mitigates early trauma, allows the reflective liberal to reject the fallacies of liberalism for the truths of ordered liberty. In these fortunate cases, the individual is able to disconnect his neurosis from its projections into the political world. The result is that both types of madness, neurotic and political, are seen for what they are.

The Treatment of Modern Liberalism

Once the liberal neurosis is no longer disguised as a rational political philosophy, it can be analyzed and treated in whatever manner is necessary to overcome symptomatic distress and functional impairment. Treatment of the underlying personality and character disturbances through a combination of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral and educative techniques stands the best chance of resolving the primitive dynamics that drive the neurosis. The condition’s major defects in autonomy and mutuality must be addressed. Prominent among them are a basic mistrust of cooperation; false perceptions of victimization; intense envy and underlying shame; a need to vilify and blame others; deficits in self-reliance and self-direction; a marked fear and avoidance of responsibility; infantile demandingness; an intense and often paranoid hostility; a need to manipulate, control and depend on others; a lack of courage, resilience and frustration tolerance; and various defects in ego ideals, conscience and impulse control. Therapy must also address the liberal’s self-pathology, especially his immaturity, self-centeredness and grandiosity; his lack of empathy for and recognition of others; his marked sense of entitlement; and his impaired self-esteem and identity. Educational programs to cure the liberal’s ignorance of free-market economics, libertarian political process, constitutional democracy, and the psychology of cooperation rank high among therapeutic priorities. Theory and techniques for treatment of this type are described in detail in standard psychiatric texts; additional discussion of these topics is beyond the scope of this book. Treatment of a society stricken with neurotic liberalism depends upon the insight of its citizens into the agenda’s destructive effects on human relating and the irrational beliefs and values at its core. Only widespread knowledge of the nature and causes of the disorder will allow a society to recover from its liberal madness and restore itself to economic, social and political health. This knowledge must be grounded in a comprehensive understanding of human nature, the human condition and the individual’s reciprocal relationship to his society. Large-scale public discussions of the biological, psychological and social nature of man, especially his essential dispositions to autonomy and mutuality and his embeddedness in economic, social and political processes, are the starting point for a program to counteract the unreason of modern liberalism. A clear understanding of ordered liberty and the indispensable rights and obligations that structure it is a critical part of the discussion. The rational citizen must realize that the nature of man, his relatedness to others, the ideal of ordered liberty, and the conditions necessary for that order are not mere hypotheses; they are not simply optional alternatives to equally valid competing theories of how a viable society may be organized. The realities of human nature generate certain verifiable and non-negotiable rules for the governance of human affairs. Widespread education of the citizenry on these principles is imperative. The future of civilized freedom depends upon it.

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More information about this book can be viewed at his website The Liberty Mind,. Although the book was published in 2006, the Liberal/Progressive/Leftist Agenda has become more pronounced and easily understood by the words and deeds of today's "Progressives/Leftists" and the Democrat Party. These political goals and policy agendas are antithetical to our American Ideals and should frighten any person who believes in “Freedoms, Liberties, Equalities, and Equal Justice for All”. Consequently, it is the duty and responsibility of freedom-loving Americans to actively oppose Progressives and Leftists and the Democrat Party, for the purposes of retaining our freedoms and liberties. This book inspired me to create articles that are extractions from this book. I would suggest that you read these articles in the following order to obtain the essence of this book:

• The Liberal Mind Overview - This article is an overview of the three sections of this book, which I have titled: I – The Nature of Man, II – The Development to Adulthood, and III – The Adult Liberal.
• The Liberal Mindset – This article is the author's selections from the book that highlight the major topics of the book.
• The Two Liberal Minds Beliefs - This article defines two types of liberals: ‘The Benign Liberal’ and ‘The Radical Liberal’ and their different viewpoints and perspectives.
• The Liberal Manifesto Major Principles - The section “The Liberal Manifesto: Major Principles” from Chapter 35 examines their political goals and policy agendas of today's Progressives/Leftists and the Democrat Party. I have excerpted this section of the book for your review and consideration.
• The Liberal Integrity and Treatment (this article) - The Chapter 48 section, ‘Integrity and Treatment’, has the best explanation of the difference between the Liberal and Conservative mindset that I have ever encountered. I have excerpted four sections of this chapter of the book for your review and consideration, and as a basis for understanding the psychological nature of the political divides that are occurring in America today.
• The Ideal and Reality in Radical Liberalism – The Chapter 47 sections, ‘The Liberal Agenda as an Evil’, and ‘Ideal and Reality in Radical Liberalism’ contradicts the claims of moral superiority and correctness that The Liberal Mind so often self-proclaims.