Profile of a deeply divisive defence mechanism in our democracy today

THE curious case of an ex chief executive's indictment has brought on a battery of psychiatric symptoms among denizens of the Demotic Social-media Republic of Sri Lanka. ‘Demotic’ in the sense of the common people and ‘Social-media’ is self-explanatory. The hoi polloi have waged psychological warfare online — hat in hand, a PDA in the other — ever since the shock arrest.

- 

Far more interesting to followers of social studies is the plethora of symptoms suggesting that there is something rotten in the web-side state of Denmark other than the political milieu we presently muddle through. The issue is mostly of the defence mechanism type. It was defined by the father of psychoanalysis Prof. Sigmund Freud as an unconscious psychological strategy used by the ego to manage internal conflict and reduce anxiety by distorting or denying reality. And the concept was refined by his equally influential protégé Dr. Carl Jung as unconscious ways individuals avoid confronting distressing or disruptive material from their subconscious, such as instinctual urges, to protect the conscious mind.

And suffice it to say that as with the heart, which has its reasons of which reason knows nothing, so with matters of the mind... If you don’t mind too much that the propaganda wars on the internet in our fair to middling neck of the cosmic woods are mediocre at best and mindful of Machiavellianism at worst, it doesn’t matter too much in the larger scheme of universal things.

But read on ye brave for a sharp, short insight - intuition is a brief madness — into the mindsets of our armchair warriors, sofa-side social commentators and sundry citizens of a sunny isle clouded over for the nonce by a deeply divisive issue.

ACTING OUT (behaving contrary to what one truly feels or thinks to hide the truth): Query: "Surely you are not suggesting that doing one's job (he signed up to 'save' the country) entitles one to a free pass to abuse laws and regulations and raid the Treasury for personal gain?" Reply: "Since you are a friend of [the owner of the original post], I won't get into an argument with you."