[Peace-discuss] Narcissism of small differences

[C. G. Estabrook]

Freud seems to have borrowed this phrase from a British anthropologist, Ernest Crawley. "Crawley, in language which differs only slightly from the current terminology of psychoanalysis, declares that each individual is separated from others by a 'taboo of personal isolation' ... this 'narcissism of minor differences'". The term describes "the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other."

"By feigning large differences between the political parties what is hidden is the narrow set of interests that both parties serve. In polls liberals, progressives and even most conservatives favor ‘getting the money out of politics’ while continuing the fiction that singular economic interests result in oppositional politics. This finds faux-form in the alleged political differences between George Soros and the Koch Brothers. Both owe their economic existence to a single economic system. One is nominally ‘Democrat’ and the other ‘Republican,’ but both are capitalists. Make whatever excuses you care to for Barack Obama, the one area where he consistently delivered results was in keeping the ruling class out of prison and extremely well fed. His policies benefited both George Soros and the Koch Brothers." [Rob Urie]