Proprioception

When I was a kid, watching the Technicolor biblical epics of the mid-fifties; there were always Lepers. It wasn’t clear how it worked. They’d all just start loosing fingers and noses…. It was only fairly recently that I came across how Leprosy leads to amputation. It turns out that what happens is that the infection destroys sensory nerves and when a person can’t feel pain they can’t really judge the damage done, even in the most innocuous circumstances. Add in that any sign of Leprosy, at least in those unenlightened ancient times, led to social ostracism, homelessness, and abject poverty. Lepers would have to resort to the most grueling thankless tasks to eke out an existence.

What struck me today is that the kind of psychic damage that leads someone to chase after the Big Lie functions along similar lines. Instead of sensory nerve damage we have an acute lack of mental Proprioception. Unable to feel the damage they inflict on their psyches; their humanity starts to slough-off.