Mailvox: of rabbits and communism

AD sees the connection:

I read these quotes and can’t help comparing to your Rabbitology posts.

“What I had failed to understand was that the security I felt in the Party was that of a group and that affection in that strange communist world is never a personal emotion. You were loved or hated on the basis of group acceptance, and emotions were stirred or dulled by propaganda. That propaganda was made by the powerful people at the top. That is why ordinary Communists get along well with their groups: they think and feel together and work toward a common goal.”
School of Darkness, Chapter 16 (1954), Dr. Bella Dodd, head of the New York State Teachers Union , member of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) in the 1930s and 1940s, later a vocal anti-communist

“The process of completely freeing oneself emotionally from being a Communist is a thing no outsider can understand. The group thinking and group planning and the group life of the Party had been a part of me for so long that it was desperately difficult for me to be a person again. … But I had begun the process of “unbecoming” a Communist. It was a long and painful process, much like that of a polio victim who has to learn to walk all over again. I had to learn to think. I had to learn to love. I had to drain the hate and frenzy from my system. I had to dislodge the self and the pride that had made me arrogant, made me feel that I knew all the answers. I had to learn that I knew nothing. There were many stumbling blocks in this process.”

It is hard for rabbits to break out of the warren, and even harder for them to become a not-rabbit. Don’t expect much in the way of reason from the pinkshirts, for as it is said, it is difficult to reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into. This is why they switch fluidly between contradictory positions as easily as a school of fish changes direction; they’re not paying any attention to the direction of the school, they’re completely focused on the actions of the rabbits around them.