Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Alpha Mail: yeah, that's projection

Sarahsdaughter asks if women provide the same projection-based tell that men do when they go on the attack.  Her blog provides a precise example of the very behavior I was describing.  Consider the following attack on her by a woman named Kathy after she wrote about female submission in marriage:
That aside, I am so bothered by you and how you come across. You seem judgmental, critical, think you know it all, and use scripture as a weapon (to shut people up and be right). Those qualities are anything but Jesus like to me. I can have conversations with lots of people who see things differently than I do but with you, there is no conversation and no respect.
This is without question the sort of psychological projection I was describing.  In launching such an attack, Kathy is clearly confessing her own guilt and ascribing her own mindset to Sarahsdaughter.  It is not even possible to claim Sarahsdaughter was judging or criticizing anyone in what is nothing more than the contemplation of a concept and its definition.  In her post, there isn't even any specific target at which one could claim any hypothetical judgment or criticism is aimed.

Kathy, on the other hand, is observably doing both, and in doing so, indicates that she is guilty of the very acts she accuses Sarahsdaughter.

38 comments:

Roger Cook said...

Quoting Scripture as a weapon to shut someone up and be right?

"Man shall not live by bread alone..."

"You shall not put the LORD your God to the test."

"You shall worship the LORD your God and serve Him only."

ck said...

"You seem judgmental, critical, think you know it all, and use scripture as a weapon (to shut people up and be right). Those qualities are anything but Jesus like to me."

As opposed to the Jesus who used scripture as a weapon to demonstrate the His correctness, and He who called his enemies broods of vipers and hypocrites. Let's not forget the Alpha in the Alpha and the Omega.

SarahsDaughter said...

It was so fitting and helpful that you discussed projection that day.

When I started the blog, RLB and I had in mind the responses I might get, especially talking about subjects like submission. However, just as I had said yesterday about women and criticism, I had to step back and take a little time out after that one. Even coming from a stranger, the depth of her attack overshadowed the obvious projection that it was with regards to what I had said.

Thank you for the analysis, Vox.

Markku said...

Those qualities are anything but Jesus like to me

Undoubtedly they are. Because she is scripturally illiterate.

Of course, had she only said "Those qualities are anything but Jesus like.", then we might have something to discuss.

Jean said...

Hilariously that is exactly how Jesus used scriptures. To be right and shut up the orthodox jews. GG

Booch Paradise said...

I laughed at the "use scripture as a weapon" line. I mean, it's not like it's self described as a sword or anything.

Stingray said...

Sarahs Daughter,

Fantastic news on you having a blog! I shall be visiting.

taterearl said...

"Those qualities are anything but Jesus like to me."

Your own...personal...Jesus. Someone to hear your prayers, someone who cares. Your own personal Jesus...someone to hear your prayers
someone who's there.

Spacebunny said...

Yeah, I laughed at that comment the other day when I read it on her blog. I refrained from commenting on it though as SarahsDaughter had it well in hand.

VD said...

Yo Markku, Skype me later tonight. Post-midnight if you can.

Markku said...

Will do.

Sojourner said...

Just the word submission has become more inflammatory to women (Christian and secular alike) than any four letter word could muster it seems. Not enough testing of the spirits and dwelling on God's word it seems.

Sojourner said...

And there I go again, forgive the double "it seems."

Martel said...

Sojourner, not quite right about the word "submission". If men submit, it doesn't seem to bother them.

The One said...

I laughed at the "use scripture as a weapon" line. I mean, it's not like it's self described as a sword or anything.

^
This

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow.

Hebrews 4:12

Michael Maier said...

I've YET to meet any woman (in the flesh, that is) that accepts a duty before God to submit to her husband.

Including a "First Lady" of a church.

But I've also yet to meet any Christian man that asserts his wife has a duty to submit either so there's that.

It's a rather sad joke.

Sarahsdaughter: you nail it on your page.

Obfuscation and vanity are a (perhaps literally) damned awful combination.

Michael said...

I gotta say SarahsDaughter handled it all very well. Good job!

T14 said...

Off topic, but perhaps worth another post. Classic swole hate in the washington post.

"Every rippling muscle is a book not read, a movie not seen or a conversation not held."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-james-bond-and-the-new-sex-appeal/2012/11/26/098813e6-37f4-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html

VD said...

"Every rippling muscle is a book not read, a movie not seen or a conversation not held."

That is so true! Because no one ever talks to anyone at the gym.... It would probably blow his mind to know that I was reading Aristotle at the gym AND occasionally talking to people.

stg58 said...

"Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in HIS sight."

Hebrews 4:13

Jesus is that double edged sword! I desire to serve and worship an all powerful masculine God.

Josh said...

Isn't not possible to lift weights with the tv on?

Josh said...

It's not. Stupid phone.

Der Hahn said...

The concept of projection can also be a tool for evaluating your own reactions. It's often a useful check to make sure you aren't projecting your own motivations or biases onto someone else.

DaveD said...

I experienced this (and the rampant solipsism) a couple weeks ago. A pastor made the declaration "Single guys, don't overlook single moms." I agreed but said that a man should be very careful because not all single moms are innocent victims of bad men.

Every single (or formerly single) mom around attacked me for being "mean", "unChristian", and "immature". In fact, one friend stopped talking to me altogether over it. C'est la vie.

DD

Anonymous said...

My experience is that most single mom's are just that for a reason of their own doing, and it has very little to do with the men they have chosen to date/sleep/co-habitate with.

Michael Maier said...

Well to be a little bit fair, at least those single moms didn't murder their own babies and compound their error.

How many women pawn themselves off as NON-murderesses without their man ever being the wiser?

Sarah said...

"than any four letter word could muster it seems"

Well, there may be one *other* four letter word that riles certain women up even more.

Michael Maier, how many women murder their babies without the father ever being the wiser? I think that's a better question.

Guaranteed that if you get an out-of-left field attack by someone, you're not the person who has to feel guilty about it. But what a really odd statement - "using scripture as a weapon". It sounds like she or someone she knows or heard of has felt the prick of such an attack. It's a shame that people always blame the messenger. Look what happened to the prophets of old.

taterearl said...

"Single guys, don't overlook single moms."

Sorry preacher...this is my one and only life and I don't want a used uterus connected to a lady that makes bad decisions.

Desiderius said...

Der Hahn,

Agreed on the utility of checking oneself for peojecrion. The fact that we've gotten out if the habit if, or were never taught how to, reflect on our own sin (i. e. confession), has left us vulnerable to the predations on greater sin on the part of others.

Confession was our immune system. It has been compromised and we've thus got a serious infection on our hands,


Kathy is not just some innocent who knows not what she does in her ignorance. She is wllifully participating in an evil ideology.

She's a predator, and Sarah's Daughter is her prey.

Martel said...

Another problem with the single moms is that there is a dad.

Whether the dad's been unjustly frozen out or he's an alcoholic Alpha who doesn't give a damn about the kid, the step-dad puts himself perpetually in the center of conflicts between the mom and the dad and has to compete for the kids' affection. Perfect for a White Knight, I suppose, though.

I suppose I would maybe consider a widow, but there aren't many of those.

Completely stunned said...

DaveD

Wow, just wow. Please tell that pastor he's giving really, really bad advice. Advice that's often unbiblical as well.

Wow.

I'd leave that church.

Desiderius said...

"I'd leave that church."

You'd leave it all right, you'd leave it in the hands of pastors like that one. Our schools have likewise been left to those without our best interests at heart or those incapable of resisting them.

That's how we got in this mess.

Definition of insanity, etc...

Martel said...

Stunned and Desiderius exemplify two sides of an eternal arguement. Stunned wants to do what's best for their own family by finding a better church. Desid wants to do what's best for the church by staying in it and changing it from within. There's a case to be made for both. I've been on both sides of the issue and have done both, myself

Brad Andrews said...

I had a Roman Catholic chastise me years ago for leaving that church rather than trying to make it better. Abandoning failing institutions is generally a good idea.

I may stay someplace I can change, but I would not stay someplace I had to constantly fight against what the leadership was presenting. That is fruitless and violates the principle of not being a source of strife.

The government schools are completely corrupt and we should let them sink under their own weight. Children will get hurt, but they are getting hurt now. It is a flawed model (factory education) and it truth is locked out. Any judgment for the failures with it should go against those who push the system and control it. The same would be true for a church preaching false doctrine.

Though I would consider talking with the pastor alone and directing him places like here to widen his views. That may not work, but it will likely be much more effective than just arguing in the congregation.

Daniel said...

You'd leave it all right, you'd leave it in the hands of pastors like that one. Our schools have likewise been left to those without our best interests at heart or those incapable of resisting them.

Totally disagree. Shake the dust off, especially in regards to public schools which have been a social engineering experiment on our children since the beginning, designed to destroy families.

And a church is not a democracy. A lone member has no power to overthrow feminist teaching from the pulpit. Best to go where the bible is followed, if you aren't going to do the Christian thing and beat the pastor with a scourge.

DaveD said...

I agreed with this pastor. If a woman has truly repented & can explain the changes she's made, sure consider her. My warning was simply to go in with your eyes open, to count the cost. Yet, to virtually every one else in the conversation blamed men. It was men's fault they got pregnant, we're either divorced or never been married, that they weren't married now, & that they ever even had sex (yes, a White Knight made the claim that the only reason women have sex &/or sleep around is because men watch porn & women feel pressured to compete with porn).

Every single or formerly single mom around took it personally. "So you're saying I'm a bad person?" "So I'm a slut for divorcing my husband who did X?" Without exception, the women in the conversation refused to believe that the single moms could be anything other than the innocent victim of some man. Sadly, a lot of the men agreed.

DD

Desiderius said...

Well, my namesake worked within the existing institutions of his day as well - not without sympathy for those dissenters who made a different choice.

I can say that all is not lost within those institutions, and it is more true to say that the institutions have marched throught the Left than vice versa.

But the future belongs to those who show up, and having set out to march through those institutions, the Left were the ones around when the non-Left left en masse like a bunch of butthurt gammas who imagined the institutions would care.

Aloof alone won't get it done.

Unknown said...

People read it how they want to read it. Also, when you are guilty of things that are described in a writing of some sort, you become defensive. Kathy is a perfect example of that and wanting to defend her decisions. I can say I pretty much agree with SD and I read it as if I was having a conversation with her. That's how I read most things. Also, when someone writes in an educated manner, it seems people automatically thing someone is talking in some posh accent with a pinky stuck in the air drinking tea. If SD were to talk that way, there would be no point in her repeating scripture when she would clearly run into a scripture telling us not to act in such a way.

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