Chapter 9 is titled: “Sin, So what?”
Menninger began his reverie by asking: How can Man control Man?
Did he realize that one question answers the other?
In order for one human to control another, the both parties must surrender personal responsibility, what the vertical nested form denotes “consciencefree”. Also, both have to give up the concept of “sin” as a product of individual responsibility and a cause for individual guilt.
This had already occurred decades before the humorous and catch-all term “political incorrectness” was popularized.
Political epithets – so popular from the 1960 to 2012 – convey all the implications of “sin”. “Anti-environmentalist”, “sexist”, “racist”, “homophobe” and “fundamentalist” imply personal responsibility (for the accused), identify something to be eliminated, expect further action and restitution, and impose a cost or penalty (of lost reputation, if nothing else).
Similar to “sin”, if not more so, “political incorrectness” has been criminalized and symptomized. In the next two blogs, I present two examples, each with a twist.