It Ain’t Just Donald

Posted on by kay

 

In “The Strongmen Strike Back,” (Washington Post, March 18th) Robert Kagan did a very thorough job of making it clear that Donald Trump is not just some isolated aberration in American history. Trump is part of a world wide wave of authoritarianism endangering the very idea of democracy.

Kagan brilliantly covered the subject from a political perspective, and I heartily recommend his article. But my curiosity reaches toward the psychological.

WHY do so many people — not just in the USA, but all over the world — follow cruel and unethical strongmen whom they know they cannot trust?

WHY do so many of us so long to be told what to do?

WHY do so many of us long to be told who to hate?

That’s what we need to be worrying about.

Not how much we love or hate Trump, but what how much we love or hate Trump says about us.

Have we finally made it to 1984?

Posted on by kay

DOUBLETHINK

Stirring up hatred for the "others"…

being-dismissive-to-downright-lying about your opponent's policies and ideas…

saying the exact opposite of what is actually happening and true…

 

NEWSPEAK

Creating catchy soundbite "solutions" when you know they would never actually work…

relying on jingles rather than judgement…

using archetypal words (homeland, freedom, liberty, etc) to stir unconscious passions…

Are we going backwards? Have we finally made it all the way back to George Orwell's 1984?

Couple of questions

Posted on by kay

1) Was it Spengler who said that every mighty civilization so far started to fail when it got so successful it refused to tax itself enough to pay for those succcesses? And is that where we are?

3) When did an entire political party in the US — once honorable and devoted to democracy — become more interested in pleasing wealthy patrons and extreme talk show hosts than in governing wisely?

4) What the hell is wrong with compromise, anyway? When did we start confusing hardheadedness with backbone?

 

 

 

 

We all lie.

Posted on by kay

The stories we tell about ourselves shape our lives.

We build a psychic structure out of life stories, just like a carpenter builds a physical structure out of wood, and then we live inside that structure. "House," in dream analysis, stands for "the psychic space you're inhabiting."

The stories we tell about ourselves — our psychic structures — can be thoughtfully built over time, with an eye toward getting to the real truth of each situation. We can keep an eye out for leaks or weaknesses, and get to work repairing damage whenever we find it. In which case our psychic structures will be level and plumb, and will grow stronger with age, will settle solidly into themselves, so to speak.

Or the stories we tell about ourselves — our psychic structures —  can be hastily assembled out of whatever comes to hand, more with an eye toward making an impression than with a regard for what really happened. We can paint over any problems or failures, just slap the story together instead of building it consciously, in which case our psychic structures won't be "on the level," but will be rickety and out of plumb; will grow more dangerous, more unstable, with each passing year.

Here's the bitter truth about being human:  we all lie.

All we can do is try to figure out when we're lying and cut it out. (And, in self-defense, try to become more aware of when other people are lying to us. Try to be forgiving of each circumstance, without becoming susceptible to either.)

Building a sound psychic structure — a true life story — is a long process, a never-ending process. Because there's a shadow hard at work all the time within each of us trying to prove how innocent we are and how guilty everyone else is. The process is amazingly powerful and completely automatic. It's the ego's first, best and oldest line of defense.

Accepting and dealing with the falsehood in one's own heart has never been easy. And now, perhaps, has never been harder. We've reached some sort of crisis of untruthfulness. We seem to be approaching the acme of falsehood, collectively. We know the vast majority of people who appear in the news every day aren't even trying to be truthful. They're only trying to look cool, win points, gain power… and they're the famous ones, the "heroes" among us.

The macro reflecting the micro.

 

 

 

 

What It Is Like To Go To War

Posted on by kay

Karl Marlantes' new book, What It Is Like To Go To War, is astounding. He was already being halied for Matterhorn, one of the best books ever written about being "in country" in Vietnam, and this book is even better than Matterhorn.

Because not only does Marlantes tell us what it's like to go to war in this book, he tells us what we need to do for those returning from war, to help them re-enter and re-adjust to civilian life.

 

And things are different now… how?

Posted on by kay

The following passage is from Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy:

"You know that capital oppresses the laborer. The laborers with us, the peasants, bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that however much they work they can't escape from their position as beasts of burden. All the profits of labor, on which they might improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after that education, all the surplus values are taken from them by the capitalists. And society's so constituted that the harder the laborers work, the greater the profit of the merchants and landowners, while the laborers themselves stay beasts of burden to the end. "

and it was written in 1873. In Russia.

Perhaps we're not as advanced or unique as we like to think we are.

We're having arguments — fierce, government-stopping, I'm-going-to-take-my-ball-and-go-home-if-I-don't-get-my-way arguments — about simply asking the very wealthiest among us to pay as much in taxes as the laborers do?

It's a cryin' shame.

 

Fear of Change

Posted on by kay

A person who doesn't want to change themselves can't afford to acknowledge the changes that other people make. Particularly hard changes, soul changes, positive changes. On a sub-conscious level, it's just too threatening. Oh my gosh! If they can change, that means I could, too!

If we fear change ourselves for some reason — from a narrow and biased upbringing, or from love of the staqus quo, or from sheer spiritual laziness — we pigeon-hole another person early on So-and-so is like this, and then spend the rest of our lives trying not to let that particular pigeon out of the cage we've constructed for it in our minds. Even if it turns into a swan or an eagle or a phoenix right before our eyes.

You see it all the time in families. You see it all the time in politics.

We accuse the other person (or the other party) of acting the way they did 20 years ago or 30 years ago or 40 years ago, rather than making an honest effort to see how they're acting right now.

Wonder what this world would be like if we let one another change, if we let one another grow.

 

 

Debt Reduction Is Not Our Biggest Problem, Folks

Posted on by kay

Why is the entire “conservative” wing of our country obsessing about debt reduction right now? Is debt reduction actually our biggest problem? Or is debt reduction just a distraction, a dodge?

Our leaders leaning-to-the-right seem to think that citizens of the USA are so weak-minded and easily distracted they will completely forget that their budget was balanced the last time one of their chosen took up residence in the White House. That after 8 years of George Junior’s leadership—including two unfunded wars, massive deregulation and unbridled speculation—our whole economy imploded. Just flat fell in on itself. We are supposed to be so stupid and gullible that we will forget what happened to us in the past, as well as what is happening to us at the moment, and just buy whatever line they happen to be selling… which is whatever line they feel will get them into the White House again, whether it’s true or not, and whether it makes any sense or not.

Every economist alive (except the ones being paid by right-wing think tanks) is trying to telling us that debt is not our most pressing problem right now. That getting people back to work is our most pressing problem right now. So why all this preoccupation with balanced budgets and the national debt? The best defense is a good offense…

The human shadow (the part of ourselves we just don’t want to admit) comes in layers, as does the subconscious mind where it dwells: there’s a personal layer, and there's a collective layer.  So we each have a personal shadow that can get out of hand—for example, we might make fun of how other people look if we’re insecure about our own attractiveness. And then we each participate in a collective shadow that can get out of hand—for example, we accuse other groups of evil when we can’t bear to face the evil our own group has done.

An excellent example of the latter type of projection occurred in US history at the end of WWII. After a saturation bombing of German cities by British and US forces that culminated in a firestorm at Dresden which was so intense it literally melted 100,000 people, the USA dropped two atomic bombs on a country that was trying to surrender to Allied forces.*

At Hiroshima and Nagasaki 150,000 people were killed instantly, and tens of thousands later died slowly and hideously from radiation poisoning. We’re talking more than 300,000 dead people here, and not soldiers, either—these were all completely innocent civilians who were going about their business in big cities. Gruesome. Way beyond gruesome.

Yet soon after these events, unable and unwilling to comprehend that such colossal evil could be perpetrated by their own country, citizens all over the USA (spurred on by their leaders), began to obsess about how dangerous Russia was, and to build bomb shelters in their backyards. Enter the ridiculously expensive and totally unnecessary Cold War.

I grew up with one of those bomb shelters in my backyard. (No lie: my Dad had an actual bomb shelter built on our property in Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1950s. At first it was all clean and full of water and canned goods, later it got dirty and full of spider webs and snakes, and then finally, after many years of neglect, my Aunt Eddie planted iris all over it, so it eventually became a little hill of flowers with a hollow core.) I also grew up hearing stories about how brutal the Japanese were in WWII. No one ever mentioned Hiroshima or Nagasaki or Dresden in my family.

In other words, there is a ‘me against you’ aspect to the personal shadow, and there is an ‘us against them’ aspect to the collective shadow. And projected out onto others, both types of shadow material harm—do actual damage to—the targets of their projections. Not just psychic mumbo-jumbo, real harm.

Debt reduction is not our biggest problem, folks. The shadow looming behind the need to fabricate such cock-eyed stories is our biggest problem.

* Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. 421-25.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward knows about politics

Posted on by kay

These are excerpts from an essay Edward C. Whitmont wrote for Meeting the Shadow called "The Evolution of the Shadow." They're as great as ever, in fact, they get more pertinent all the time, so I'm bringing them to light again today.

The book I'm taking them from, Meeting the Shadow, The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature, should definitely be in your library. It's a collection of 65 different essays on the shadow. Edited by Connie Zweig & Jeremiah Abrams, A New Consciousness Reader, St. Martin's Press, Jeremy Tarcher, 1991.

"The term shadow refers to that part of the personality which has been repressed for the sake of the ego ideal. Since everything unconscious is projected, we encounter the shadow in projection — in our view of "the other fellow."

…Where a shadow projection occurs we are not able to differentiate between the actuality of the other person and our own complexes. We cannot tell fact from fancy. We cannot see where we begin and he ends. We cannot see him; neither can we see ourselves.

…Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics… the qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others… negative qualities which we find relatively easy to forgive are not likely to pertain to our shadow.

…The shadow is the archetypal urge for a scapegoat, for someone to blame and attack in order to vindicate oneself and be justified; it is the archetypal experience of the enemy… to the extent that I have to be right and good, he, she, or they become the carriers of all the evil which I fail to acknowledge within myself…"

 

 

quote 5

Posted on by admin

"This is a powerful little book—a gem whose facets gleam with insights into our shared American identity. It is also a dangerous little book. Plumb strips away our delusions of God-given moral superiority to expose the emptiness of contemporary American life and the dark powers of hatred and greed with which we deny that emptiness. Why read this book? Because somehow it also manages to be delightful. It’s a powerfully written, exquisitely illustrated tale of profound psychological importance—the first of its kind, as far as I know. And because the true potential of the USA—as well as the true potential of individual freedom—can only continue to evolve if we dare to look into such mirrors."
                    –Robert Tompkins, PhD, MFT,, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Western Oregon University; licensed Marriage and Family Counselor.