Consequences of Accptance and Despair

Patty Hearst, a less than heavyweight heiress, was kidnapped in 1974 by a shard wacko revolutionary group called the Symbonese Liberation Army. She was kept in a closet, raped, and hectored by the loonies in the group with an almost incoherent political philosophy. Yet, as time went by, she became a willing participant in their crazy activities including a bank robbery. She became the poster child for the Stockholm Syndrome.

Stockholm Syndrome is named after a bank robbery in 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden where several bank employees were held hostage in a bank vault for six days. The captives rejected assistance while captive and defended the captors after they were freed. This psychological notion was expanded to include "traumatic bonding" where strong emotional ties develop between two people where one abuses or intimidates the other. It is quite reminiscent of the Aztec War of the Flowers where Aztec warriors  hunted potential prisoners for sacrifice during battle and the captor and captive developed a parent-child relationship; even the Conquistador prisoners did. The FBI's Hostage Database shows about 27% of victims show evidence of the Syndrome.


Apparently all that is required is a mutually acknowledged huge imbalance of power.

The willing submission of reasonable people to degrading and possibly fatal circumstances controlled by self-absorbed and possibly stupid people who have no regard for their victims in this country is called "an election."