It’s hard not to be obsessed by recent American politics. I try not be, but I fail. Every day I have to keep my eye on the news. Clinton’s recent illness terrified me. Trump’s support seems horribly solid, no matter what he says or does. I do thoroughly approve of Colin Kaepernick’s protests, though.
People tend to project their bad qualities onto other people, but not so much their good qualities. Why? One explanation is that they are lazy and find it easier to assume that everyone is like them. Freud’s explanation was that projection is a mechanism of ego defense: we can’t bear the thought of our own faults so we transfer them onto others. I think it comes from the fact that people don’t think about others at all: they think only of themselves. They never really try to understand another person because there is no one else. Or better, those people most prone to projection are the people who think mostly of themselves. This applies to the projection of good qualities as well as bad: since no one but yourself is real there is only your own psychology, good and bad. Everyone is like me because no one is other than me. Projection stems from solipsism.
I have to concede victory to Usain Bolt: he has achieved the triple triple. I have only achieved the double triple. But I console myself that I am taller, younger, and can run faster than him. (I hope readers can detect the irony in these remarks, but if they cannot I give up. Compare a drunk man in a pub arguing that his achievements in local skittles are superior to the athletic achievements of the greatest sprinter of all time.)
He has been remarkably durable, given his failings, but surely now he has no way to claw back the ground he has lost. He lives in a fantasy world; he has no idea when he is lying or not. I am always fascinated by the white circles round his eyes (probably the result of tanning goggles). The rot started with George Stephanopoulos’ interview with him a week or so ago in which he lavished praise on his fabulous temperament. Since then he has seemed absurd and unhinged.
“I have one of the world’s top temperaments, believe me. It’s right up there with Putin’s. He admires my temperament by the way–compares it to caviar. I say gold caviar. I have a hundred times the temperament of Hillary Clinton. She has no temperament really. My temperament is soooo presidential, I can tell you that. I can tell you that. When I am elected president everyone will have a temperament like mine–though not as good, obviously. I will surround myself with people of outstanding temperament, people like me. Nuclear weapons will be glad to be ruled by a temperament as wonderful as mine. So yes, I have the temperament to be president.”
When Wittgenstein said “the world is the totality of facts” he obviously hadn’t anticipated the “fictional turn”: the world is now the totality of feelings, fears, wishes, prejudices, allegations, insinuations, ideologies, inventions. I liked Bill Clinton’s simple contrast in his speech of last night: there is the “real Hillary” and there is the “made up Hillary”. I envisaged millions of people responding, “Say what now?” For many people “fact” is a four-letter word. Don’t bother me with facts I have my beliefs to consider!
