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Thursday, January 13, 2005

Oh, so THAT'S what makes them tick
Posted by Jill | 2:37 PM

Paul Levy, Baltimore Chronicle:

Bush supporters are not merely disinterested in seeing that they are in denial of reality; on the contrary, they actively don’t want to look at this, which is to say they resist self-reflection at all costs. Bush and his supporters perversely interpret any feedback from the real world which reflects back their unconsciousness as itself evidence that proves the rightness of their viewpoint. All of Bush’s supporters mutually reinforce each other’s unconscious resistance to such a degree that a collective, interdependent field of impenetrability gets collectively conjured up by them that literally resists consciousness.

[snip]

Bush supporters are not merely disinterested in seeing that they are in denial of reality; on the contrary, they actively don’t want to look at this, which is to say they resist self-reflection at all costs. Bush and his supporters perversely interpret any feedback from the real world which reflects back their unconsciousness as itself evidence that proves the rightness of their viewpoint. All of Bush’s supporters mutually reinforce each other’s unconscious resistance to such a degree that a collective, interdependent field of impenetrability gets collectively conjured up by them that literally resists consciousness.

[snip]

Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching something very deep in the American psyche. Bush is acting out on the world stage an under-developed psychological process that deals simplistically with issues such as good and evil. It’s as if he hasn't grown out of and fully differentiated from the realm of mythic, archetypal fantasy that is typical of early adolescence. This immature aspect of Bush's process speaks to and resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a reflection of their own under-developed inner process.

Whereas Hitler’s evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous. People who voted for Bush are somehow blind to what is very obvious to others. It’s as if they’ve become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that Bush is casting. Why would people vote for someone stricken with malignant egophrenia? People who support Bush are suggestible and susceptible to the same malady that Bush is embodying, as if they have a predisposition for it (based on their own trauma, dissociated psyche and tendency to project the shadow). Supporting Bush is a sign that a person not only doesn't see the deadly illness that is incarnating itself through Bush, but is an expression that this disease has taken up residence in their being and is using them to do its bidding.



Fascinating stuff...explains a lot not just about the mindless, grinning bulldogs and the traumatized abused spouse-equivalents who support the lunatic who currently occupies the White House, but said lunatic himself.

Levy may be a Jungian and a Buddhist, but there are elements in here that aren't so much different from what the Christian author M. Scott Peck wrote about in his book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. Peck defines these "people of the lie" as having no regard for the truth; they lie and live in a world of lies. They are masters of disguise and cloak themselves with masks of respectability, goodness and often piety. According to Peck, these people who house what he calls evil often use religion as a disguise. "It is almost common knowledge that the best way to cement group cohesiveness is to ferment the group’s hatred of an external enemy. Deficiencies within the group can be easily and painlessly overlooked by focusing attention on the deficiencies or ‘sins’ of the out-group. Thus the Germans under Hitler could ignore their domestic problems by scapegoating the Jews." Or Americans under George W. Bush can ignore their domestic problems by scapegoating Muslims. Or liberals. Or feminists. Or [insert your own Ann Coulter favorite bugaboo here].

It's not surprising that Peck's and Levy's views fall somewhat into synch, for Peck was a self-identified Buddhist before becoming a Christian AFTER his mega-bestselling book The Road Less Traveled was published. What Levy defines as the mental illness of ego-phrenia, Peck regards as more of the kind of demonic possession model more familiar to Christians. It's interesting, though, that his first book, which was on the New York Times bestseller list for 12 years, appears on many evangelical reading lists, for all that he was not a committed Christian at the time.

I first discovered Peck's writing when I was working for Peck's editor at Simon & Schuster in the early 1980's, and had the privilege of being an editorial assistant for said editor when People of the Lie was being edited and published. I found it fascinating and useful, mostly because I had been haunted for years by a high-profile murder case that took place in the town I grew up in, in which a religious man murdered his entire family, some members of which I knew. I wondered how someone who claimed to be religious could do such a thing. This kind of concept of evil, whether you define it as demonic in the Biblical sense, or a mental illness, or if you simply think that there is stuff Out There that we can't see and that isn't always friendly, and that people who are religious are more open to letting such things into their psyches, makes it easier to understand. And it makes it easier to understand what's happening in my country right now; this kind of thrall that Americans seem to have towards a very dangerous Administration.
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