POP PSYCH 101
Today's lesson in our remedial course, POP PSYCH 101 will be taught by Professor J(who can know anything and who really gives a damn?) Fred. Professor, if you please?
"Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. I am here today not to pass judgment on anyones thought: judgment is not possible. Those that think that it is are fools.
"I am not here, filling this space before the lectern, to try and convince you that I have knowledge. For everything is mutable and one man's ideas are as valid as the next. After all, the root of supreme knowledge is to know no knowledge is possible.
"Let me give you a concrete-bound example, that of Iggy and Terry two men obsessed with reality who are ignorant of the fact that nothing is actually real!
"Iggy and Terry are just "acting out" their narcissistic natures. It's a minor personality disorder really, the extreme counterpart being the personality of the rabid sociopath. OJ Simpson being an example of a sociopath."
(Here the professor pauses to allow the parrot students to scribble their notes and adjust their clacking beaks.)
"Politicians and entertainers are often narcissists. Both the narcissist and the sociopath have exaggerated ideas of themselves and constantly demand approval from their environment."
(One student looks up in surprise. Father Terrence never sought the approval of anyone! But the student silences his trembling beak.)
If they fail to get the attention they think is their due, or, God forbid, encounter criticism, they lash out. Their psyche is undeveloped in that they have an infant's demanding nature. As annoying as we find it, they also suffer from their personality disorder. No amount of attention is ever enough, and because they tend to treat others as "stroke objects" instead of real people, they can never achieve the intimacy that healthy people seek."
At this, the professors chest swelled, proud of the insightful analogy he had created. Even though he was dead wrong, his blank-out mind would not let him see the truth,. He had spent years training it to be that way. In his own, pitiful way, he was a success. |
