27 June 2012

The Imperial Sociopath and Hypocrisy


A Sociopath believes the rules don't apply to him. He is above the standards that other people have to follow.
A sociopath is blind to his own shortcomings. He often critiques others for violating rules that he will violate with abandon. He is either completely blind to his own crimes or in every case makes an excuse, finds a justification for them.

He has no conscience and when someone critiques him...he lashes out in self-righteous indignation.
Psychology of course is often nothing more than Secularism's attempt to deal with guilt. A bankrupt system, it sometimes can be helpful in analyzing the dynamics of the mind, but can never provide solutions that accord with Christian theology. Lacking a doctrine of sin, it can diagnose the Sociopath, but it cannot recognize these people are under Judgment...on the road to reprobation. No longer merely suppressing the consciences, they have seared them and have come perilously close to eradicating the remnants of the Imago Dei within them. The Image of God is key to our human-ness, having a conscience and ability to grasp metaphysical categories like ethics distinguish us from the beasts of the field.
The Sociopath is but a hair's breadth from the status of Beast...no longer retaining the conscience and the ability to grasp anything other than their own appetites.
Our narcissistic consumerist culture generates Sociopaths... Reprobates. Though this is not in accord with the Christo-American narrative, I would suggest it actually makes perfect sense. Individualism has been such a key component to our psyche, that it is no great shock that Pelagian theology fit right in with our culture...telling us that we were good, and when we weren't, we could remedy ourselves. The power was within us. We made idols of ourselves. This is just my opinion of course, but as every fallen society has the Bestial Imperial tendency when given the opportunity, our American context was certain to give it a certain character.
Exporting American Values:
In the American narrative, the United States stands for worldwide freedom and certain values like Democracy and Tolerance, Transparency and Self-Determination, Human Rights and Justice. To many America's anointed task (either by world consensus or God Himself) is to lead the world. Empire is not a popular term because of its historical connotations, but that is clearly the idea. Euphemisms are employed referring to 'interests' and 'spheres of influence,' basically referring to geo-political realms that the United States has a right to shape and control.
The notion of planting a flag on a statehouse is antiquarian and only political in scope. The complex modern world means there is much more to controlling a country than mere politics. The same is true on our own shores. The President is a political figure and not insignificant, but there are many other players in the American Power Structure and at times far more powerful than a President, especially one who has lost his political capital and mandate. We're seeing something of that at present with Barack Obama.
America has proven to be an Empire like no other. It tries to mask its Imperial control and mechanisms and emphatically denies being an Empire. It hides behind these idealistic terms and employs them as a cover for what's it doing.
Our corporate driven propaganda machine is so powerful the majority of American citizens don't realize that this 'Superpower' is perhaps the most powerful Imperial structure in the history of the world. Dispensationalists run around looking for the One World Empire of the future Beast that dominates the World and promotes a false One World Religion. Aside from the errors of this theology they (perhaps worst of all) all completely blind to the fact that they live in such an Empire and do all they can to actively promote it. This has been the case at least since the end of World War II and unabashedly so since the late 1980's. Will this stay the same indefinitely? Of course not. But if you were ever looking for a fulfillment of the Beast-Babylon imagery of the Apocalypse, the United States as much if not more than any other Empire fits the description. I don't view the Mark of the Beast as a barcode or microchip, but if anyone bears it it's the Christo-American Evangelical.
Much of the rest of the world see this...not the Apocalyptic parallels, but the reality of American power and its true nature. Many are happy to work with the Empire. Many begrudgingly admire it. Many are baffled by it. Increasingly many are coming to despise it. Because the reality is for all the talk of these great universal values America represents, the chief value it exports and undoubtedly the most repugnant is: Hypocrisy.