Originally posted by: daveshel
Originally posted by: Maximilian Kolbe
Half of those 39M working poor are conservatives. Ironic how they support Bush. What is this strange phenomenon called? Stockholm syndrome?
I think that was something like Stockhausen, the theory that Patti Hearst could never have seen the renevance of the points made by the SLA.
But from a personal standpoint, I have been waiting to get back my 'buying power' since Reagan took office. I am still waiting for some of that to trickle down to me. I have an intimate knowledge of having too much income to get help but not enough to help yourself when things go wrong. I can't see anything in Bush's economic policies that will help me.
Stockholm Syndrome describes the behavior of kidnap victims who, over time, become sympathetic to their captors. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts, and afterwards refused to testify against their captors.
While some people are suggesting the recent Elizabeth Smart kidnapping sounds like a case of Stockholm Syndrome, the most famous incident in the U.S. involved the kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst. Captured by a radical political group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, Ms. Hearst eventually became an accomplice of the group, taking on an assumed name and assisting them in several bank robberies. After her re-capture, she denounced the group and her involvement.
What causes Stockholm Syndrome? Captives begin to identify with their captors initially as a defensive mechanism, out of fear of violence. Small acts of kindness by the captor are magnified, since finding perspective in a hostage situation is by definition impossible. Rescue attempts are also seen as a threat, since it's likely the captive would be injured during such attempts.
It's important to note that these symptoms occur under tremendous emotional and often physical duress. The behavior is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse, and has been observed in battered spouses, abused children, prisoners of war, and concentration camp survivors.
Link
The above explanation tries to explain the syndrome, but of course the explanation just runs in a circle since neither the authors nor anybody else but a few people know the real reason. The underlying mechanism is that, without any conscious knowledge at all, everybody hates themselves. The ego is our defense against that awareness. In other words the ego is already Stockholm Syndrome and it can and will take any form one wishes to manipulate it into to keep those feelings at bey. We have all been brutally abused, don't remember and don't want to. We adopted the roles of abusers, identified with the abusers to survive. It's called growing up and adjusting. It is the process by which we become monsters and think of ourselves as gods.
Remember though, this simple truth cannot be seen, taken in, or comprehended. One can only shine it on and maintain the pretense one is actually different. Complete identification with the false is what the syndrome is all about. The converted are really converted and only memory of the pain can undo it. That takes years of intense struggle. But the clues to this truth are out there. One of them is the Stockholm Syndrome.
