Extreme optimism leads , inevitably, to extreme Paranoia : it sounds counterintuitive but its true

Optimistic Paranoia

If you think reality and the Natural World is far too simple and far too benign to pose much of a threat to Modern Man and you have lost your belief in the possibility of Divine (or Devilish) Acts of Providential Intervention, how do you account for why even simple things can go wrong with no obvious signs of intervention ?


You are left to blame it on other humans, usually working in huge, well organized, highly invisible secular conspiracies --- which is why there are no signs of their intervention.

But if you claim you are very religious, as most "optimistic paranoids" do, why not credit this to God or the Devil and their minions : isn't doing invisible things in mysterious ways supposed to be in their very un-Earthly nature?

And don't most religions also teach us that Man is fallible and imperfect - not at all the sort of being capable of pulling off huge conspiracies -- or in keeping his mouth shut if he did ?

Those who are extreme optimists about controlling Nature, (aka DENIERS of any limits on Man's abilities), in practise also act as if they disbelieve God or the Devil can interfere in human activities.

As a result they are left in the position of those Victorians who lost their traditional explanation crediting God or Nature for their strong sense of the Sublime and had to find new explanations to account for it : most opting for the new Technological Sublime, in many scholars' view.

DENIERS all believe in the Technological Sublime in spades, in the technical fix for what ever small, temporary, local, problems Nature or Man can throw our way.

Extreme optimism about Man controlling Nature leads to extreme paranoia about Man controlled by other men - acting in secret conspiracies....

But that isn't enough : for mixed in with the "awe" of the traditional sense of the Sublime, is also a healthy dollop of "fear".

Free floating fear - nationalistic,ethnic, whatever - really grew up along with the new age of Scientism , being in fact a product of it.

For if we no longer find it easy to fear the dark, the tiger or the Devil, we now must fear being overrun by the Yellow Peril or the Socialist Hordes or the Jewish Banksters instead......

Tampa fears FULL MOON Republicans more than hurricane

Akins' FULL MOON Republicanism

Forget the hurricane threatening to wreck the GOP convention in Tampa ---- worry more ,America, about whether there will be a FULL MOON up in the sky whenever the Tea Party (hello Todd Akins!) wing takes over the microphone.


"Vipers inside our Nest" is how many long time Republican members are feeling about the Tea Party's takeover of the grand old party, because they put their own personal hubris and self interest against the hubris and self interest of the entire party.

The Tea Party cum Full Mooners hope the GOP's Tampa platform will formalize the distinction between "Legitimate Rapes" and "Illegitimate Rapes".

(Apparently, the feeling is that legitimate rapes are those performed against white or colored women by white, protestant , native born Americans while illegitimate rapes are all those performed by darkies and foreigners against white women.)

Todd Akins is typical of the new sort of FULL MOON Republican - one never quite knows what his synapses and neurons will lead his tongue muscles to say when the moon is full and shines across his optical nerve.

Australian PM Julia Gillard has taken to calling the conspiracy-prone right "The Lunar Right" and while I prefer "Full Mooners", we are sort of united in agreeing that conspiracy theories and being conservative-minded seem to go together.

Sort of, because I hold that all of today's conservatives are united only in defending yesterday's Modernity ----- which intellectually almost forces its adherents to blame every change and catastrophe on humans,  not Nature.

Conspiracy-prone ? Don't blame Moon , blame Modernity.

And since under the tenets of Modernity, Nature can't change, when millions of decent people sincerely believe that it is changing, the only possible explanation is that they have been deluded by secretive evil conspirators.

When the rational part of your brain sets you up to expect conspiracies under every bed and inside every watermelon, it only takes the brief flicker of faint moonlight to set the psychic  storm in motion : Tampa be afraid, very afraid....