lickhaven

Linda and I got talking about pattern-recognition the other night. The conversation started because of a major plot element in the book I’m working on, then it veered into illuminating something that’s been flitting through my head off and on for ages.
It started with Bush the Younger. The general consensus among leftists (at least) was that he was just plain dumb. I’m not saying he wasn’t or isn’t, but watching his responses, what struck me as more likely was a learning disability. Maybe that response came from Linda having been a reading specialist who dealt with first-graders who had a rough time untangling written words.
There was one time Bush was pictured supposedly reading to a kindergarten class in Florida but looking like he was being held hostage on another planet. I thought then (and still think) that it was not only a really bad photo op, but that it fit fit well with that look of scrambled confusion that so often would cross his face when he was trying to make sense of something – less stupidity than, “Geez, what the hell?” Having difficulty comprehending the written word is not the kind of thing a major country’s leader is going to announce, but it would have created a hell of problem for those briefing him on anything complex.
More recently, massive amounts of time were spent on Beloved Seditionist Leader’s bumbling, nonsensical pontifications, analyzing how they reflect stupidity, ignorance, a racist mental rash, and/or narcissistic self-glorification. I’ll go with all of them, but I also think there’s some important underlying neurological problem. I mean, what’s really going on back there in Rump’s head? And what does it say about the man himself – who’s a unique entity, as is each of us?
When he mischaracterizes a fairly simple statement made to him, is it lying, deliberate misdirection, political gamesmanship, or simply failure to understand because he can’t form the words into a coherent pattern? When he rants against anything that doesn’t mesh with his pre-conceived ideas, is it (only) bilious arrogance, or that he can’t assimilate new information and so has to deny its existence?
He comes across as bad enough in interviews and briefings, but his staff have made it clear that he never “liked” to read anything put in front of him. What if he just couldn’t? I’m sure he can recognize individual words, but what if sentences disentangle from their meaning, run off the page and fornicate in the undergrowth? What if he can’t assemble a coherent pattern in a paragraph?
[Hell, I get that way with certain essayists. I was trying to read Francis Bacon last month and it was like somebody forcing my head under muddy water and yelling “Drink!” There are still a few scholars who want to credit him with writing Shakespeare’s plays; let me tell you, simply and flat out – “NO!”]
I’m making no apology for Dump’s behavior as President or as a more-or-less-human being. I’m just trying to find ways to explain some parts of it: because if you don’t know the cause of a given problem, you’re not going to find a viable solution. As for the larger issue of personal responsibility… many a soul with learning problems is fully decent. For any limiting physical or mental condition – no matter what the details – like the rest of us, some will be upstanding, most will be of average moral character, a few will be, by nature, rotten.
Morally, spiritually, Sump is a vile being.