Category Archives: Political extremism

What is Going on with Evangelical Christians???

2 Replies

Donald Trump continues to give my clinical mind plenty of “stuff” to play with though much of what he does and so is very scary for the sake of my country. One thing that staggers my imagination is how that he is handily winning the evangelical Christian vote over a much more egregiously Christian candidate, Ted Cruz, and in spite of stances and statements which are anti-thetical to everything Christians stand for. It is as if evangelical Christians have said, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts.” He can so or do anything and his numbers will continue to rise. In fact several months ago, he brazenly declared that he could stand in the streets of New York city and shoot somebody and “my numbers would still go up.” And even with that contemptuous observation about his constituency, he numbers continued to rise!

Two significant evangelical pastors have endorsed him. Jerry Falwell Jr, the son of the founder of the Moral Majority and the present founder of Liberty University, declared Trump an “outstanding Christian” as he endorsed him at Liberty University and then proceeded to listen to Trump use expressions like “What the hell” several times in his speech before the student body. I was thirty years old before I used that expression! And the pastor of First Baptist of Dallas, Robert Jeffress, endorsed him early in the campaign but did not cover his awkwardness real well. When Trump opened his arms to embrace the pastor, I remember noting that the pastor looked like a girl at the high school prom who was forced to embrace a disgusting football jock who she found repulsive.

But I think I understand why the Christian constituency is willing to overlook basic teachings of their faith and support such an unsavory man. Early in the campaign I was listening to one of Trump’s speeches on TV and had to share with my wife, “Wow, I understand why he is so popular! I want to give him at ‘atta boy.'” For his populist fervor and rhetoric appealed so readily to memories of my past when his simplistic solution to complex problemsappealed to me. “Make America Great Again” appeals to me still on some unconscious level though my reptilian brain is now countered by self-reflection.

Several evangelical voices have dared to confront their “family” and pose the question, “What about simple decency?” For example, Trump has publicly made fun for one of his critics for having a physical deformity, a physical deformity similar to what Jesus described as a “withered hand.” (This man’s entire arm was “withered”.) And on another occasion, he ridiculed a Fox commentator who is disabled from the waist down for not being able to stand on his own two feet. I was, and still am horrified with these two events. And evangelical Christians merely overlook it! And, furthermore, Trump has repeatedly revealed on TV that he has incestuous thoughts about his beautiful daughter but we never hear anything about that…other than Trevor Noah!

I can just imagine what other countries are thinking now as they witness this spectacle. And, the amusement and horror are justified as this phenomena does reveal something about our character, not just that of the Republican party.

Trump, Romney, and Courage

4 Replies

I am resurrecting this blog after a long hiatus.  I should explain that my past as a mental health professional will be reflected in my human emphasis to the political scene.  And the current campaign for the presidency of my country, the United States, provides so much fodder for this emphasis.  Yes, we are all individuals but we “individuals” always coalesce into groups which are very revealing about our individual…and often hidden…predilictions.

Today I’d like to focus on Mitt Romney and the courage he demonstrated yesterday.  He dared to attack current GOP front runner, Donald Trump, by suggesting that Trump has tax issue that could prove to be very problematic.  I do not think that Romney is stupid and he knew that Trump would fire back with venom and would point out the obvious that Romney himself appeared to have tax issues four years ago when he was the GOP nominee.  Well, of course Trump responded immediately with his “Tweet” obsession and castigated Romney as being “a dope,” as “awkward and goofy,” and “looked the fool” on his own tax issues in 2012.  Well, of course, Trump is right on target.  BUT, most politicians would confront Romney on these issues without being to rudely personal and personally insulting.  But Trump has consistently been completely without consideration of commonplace civilities in this campaign, revealing a nascent…well, maybe not so “nascent”… sociopathic disregard that most of us have to not undress someone that we oppose and even dislike.  This is because of a social contract, “I will not ‘undress’ you, if you will not undress me.”

I have come face to face with bullies before, back on the playground on my youth and the “playground” of my adulthood.  They scared me.  I knew they saw my foibles and could readily strip me naked and would readily do so if I confronted them, for they had no limits.  “Civility” is a contrivance, yes a “falsity” that we agree upon, but occasionally a sociopath comes along who reveals just how specious that contrivance is.  It is scary to have witnessed just how readily this current slate of GOP candidates have cowered before this sociopath.

We are such scared little critters.  I confess, I am.  But I’m gaining courage in my old age and thus I am speaking out here in this cyber black hole which is the only format I really have.  This powerlessness is because of the powerlessness and cowardice that has charactized my life.  But, perhaps I am now “growing a pair.”

The Pleasure of Being a Victim

2 Replies

In my country there currently a rise of “victimhood,” best illustrated by the current standoff in Burns, Oregon by right-wing armed extremists.  These men have succumbed to the siren call of politicians on the far right who routinely appeal to a profound sense of alienation and despair in the hearts of the disenfranchised often who happen to be “low-information voters.”  One of the most popular pieces of red-meat these politicians toss out there is, “President Obama is coming to take your guns.”  And related to this fear is the fear of “government/Presidential over reach” which is the suspicion that the government is intruding too far into individual freedoms.

I grew up in this madness, though the version I lived through never led to anything like we are witnessing today.  My father was the patriarch in my early life and he often brought home right-wing fears that evoked fears that were already in my youthful heart as I was discovering that life was capricious all too often.  But dad never would have participated in an armed insurrection.  And another factor in my life was hyper-conservative fundamentalist Christianity which presented me with a “loving” God who was always ready to pinch the heads off of any miscreant and that the world was a really bad place, merely a temporary abode we must endure before we go to heaven and pluck on harps and fawn over Jesus for quatrillions of years.  In my study of religious history, this style of religion is termed “the religion of the dispossessed.”  And my family roots, as well as denominational roots, stemmed from the post-Civil War era when Southerners were first dealing with the alienation that comes from having one’s life wrenched from them by some invading force.

But fear is just a fundamental dimension of human experience.  Human culture is a contrivance that has evolved to help us deal with this fear…usually by completely avoiding it…but also by providing adaptations that allow us to invest in the common good and realize that in spite of the fact that life is transitory and capricious it is a worthwhile and important endeavor.  And I think that religion, and other expressions of faith, can provide a helpful accommodation, but only if we can avoid the challenge of using our accommodation only to escape of the vulnerability that is intrinsic to the human experience.

I have fear, often a lot of it, usually in the form of anxiety.  But for some reason, I can now cope with it more effectively than when I was a child and so without the need for stockpiles of guns and ammunition, belief in an absent Despotic Deity, or even bowing before my country’s true God—consumerism.  So, what does this get me?  Well, if I take it down to MacDonald’s in the morning and lie about my age, and given them a dollar, they will give me a senior cup of coffee.  I don’t think there is anything to “get” other than the simple pleasure of life, the beauty of this world and being here to experience it and be able to handle my frustration that it will not last long enough to satisfy the demands of my ego.

But, this approach denies me the great delight and satisfaction of victim hood, knowing that “they” are always out there to get me, mistreat me, and shame me.  It was so ego-rewarding back then to know that my tribe was a “band of brothers” beleaguered by forces greater than I/we could control but that “we” were together in our faith and knew firmly that we were believing and doing the right thing.  And if anyone should challenge our belief system, we would merely rely on the comforting premise, “We are right, and they are wrong.”  And we knew this because God was leading us.  And armed men in Oregon have the same comfort today, knowing they are “right” and they are willing even to die and to kill because if their convictions.

But this emphasis on “being right” and certainty of having acquired this status always stems from a deep-seated lack of security and feeling of “wrongness”.  This existential doubt is buried deep in the unconscious and, of course, those driven by those subterranean forces never will consider its influence in the choices they make.  To consider these “influences” that are beyond the grasp of consciousness would require a knowledge of the mystery of life, feelings of not being as much in control as once thought, existential doubt all of which lead ultimately to a need of faith.

These feelings of powerlessness often evoke an expression of physical power often in the form of overt aggression.  The pain felt within has to find expression and inevitably leads to acting out, a phenomena vividly illustrated by anthropologist Rene Girard in his classic book, “Violence and the Sacred.”

(New York Times article related to the above:  The delight of victimhood—http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/27/opinion/sunday/the-real-victims-of-victimhood.html)

 

 

Waging the War we Are

2 Replies

“We wage the war we are.”

I probably use this quote from W. H. Auden more than any other, in this venue and also in my day to day life.  And, yes, it is very telling for my life is, and always has been a war zone most of these sixty-three years.  Of course, I carefully contained this warfare inside my canned-Christian veneer.  Yeah, I kinda identify with Ben Carson!!!

Auden was an astute observer of the human heart as are all great poets.  He made this poetic observation in recognition of his own conflicted heart and his poetry revealed recognition of the turmoil that rages inside the heart of all human beings.  Yes, “most men live lives of quiet desperation” but Auden knew that beneath the surface of this “quiet desperation” warfare was simmering, mercifully kept under control beneath the social veneer.  Well, most of the time anyway!

Why?  Where does this conflict come from?  Simply stated, we are spiritual beings temporarily confined within a mortal body.  And, a spiritual being is infinite by definition and does not really fit inside what the philosophers call the world of “form.  To illustrate, I am now so very aware of just how I want everything! I don’t want to deal with privation and on some level it even angers me!  Why should I have to want anything? Who dares to get in my path at Wal Mart, or cut me off in traffic, or fail to laugh at my jokes, or scoff at my literary acumen?  How dare them?  On some level I have the narcissitic illusion that the world is my oyster and though I cover it up with this carefully contrived social veneer, I often catch gut-level, reptilian brain, unmitigated hunger surging in my heart.  I want it all!

Though this is a literary exaggeration, it is an honest reflection of “waging the war” that I am.   For, I do have these frustrations and fears and now realize I’ve had them all my life but have kept them carefully pent up, knowing that to do otherwise would not be prudent.  And this “prudence” is what makes us human as without social sensitivities we would all be at war with each other literally. But at some point in our life, it is imperative that we find private venues where we can air these “grievances” about life and hopefully discover that an individual, or group of individuals, can assure us that they are fighting the same battle.  I have been blessed with these venues.

The current terrorist crisis in France is an illustration of what happens when we cannot recognize our own internal warfare.  Until we can own this internal conflagration, we will always see it “out there” and seek to obliterate it.  “We wage the war we are” often by battling that vast category we call “them,” a convenient category comprised of those qualities of our own that we do not wish to own up to.  Yes, this is true for Daesh but also for “us.”

 

 

 

 

Conspiracy Theories Running Amok!!!

1 Reply

Gawd  l love conspiracy theories!  In the link provided here, you will find some of the juiciest ones that have circulated in my country lately as well as a few of our favorites from the past.  And, I confess that I grew up in conspiracy infested South, imbibing to the bitter-sweet nectar of the knowledge that the Communists were lurking around every corner, ready t to take over the country.  I remember vividly in the election of 1959 when Catholic John Kennedy was the Democratic nominee for President running against Republican Richard Nixon, hearing my Dad express solemn concern that the Pope would be waiting in a submarine off the east coast ready to take over our country should Kennedy win the election.  My fear-base was only then beginning  to constellate in my seven year old heart but it was strong enough to give me the numb realization that dark forces were “out there” ready to imperil “truth, justice, and the American way.”  But this muted terror was mitigated…speciously, albeit…by the reassurance that my family were born-again Christians and part of our lot in life was to be part of a beleagured minority who would always have to stand up against the forces of evil that were always “out there.”

Maturity sheds light on my youthful vulnerabiity and education gives me the perspective of history and psychology on social and political phenomena.  I see now so clearly now how fear is such a driving force in human experience and conspiracy theories are ready-made fodder for people whose fears are the driving force in their lives.  Psychologically it helps immensely to “know” that some entity “out there”, an individual or a group, are seeking to do one harm as one’s energy can then be directed there.  But we forget the wisdom of Pogo, the cartoon character, who told us, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

The sad thing currently is to watch politicians who know better, or should know better, deliberately stoke the fears of the “low-information voters” who constitute their base just to galvanize their energy.  The most graphic example of this occurred last summer when Texas conservatives were fearful that President Obama was using the ruse of a military training exercise (Operation Jade Helm) to take over the state; and even the Governor, Gregg Abbott, played along with their fears.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/05/the-conspiracy-theories-animating-the-right.html

The Courage of Admitting We are Wrong

2 Replies

It is so hard to admit that we are wrong. In this venue I’ve shared several times of a life-long effort to “be right,” an effort that still rears its head even in this venue! And the obsessive effort to “be right” always reflects a deep-seated conviction that one is inherently “wrong” and can only be “right” by investing in some external value or belief system or individual. And the more that alienated belief is challenged, the more fierce, vehement and even violent will be the defense of that belief.

I have recently held forth how the right-wing extremists in our country epitomize this arrogant insistence on being “right” and have been delighted to see some of them equivocate at times recently. It is hard to equivocate when the “club” that you are a member of does not permit equivocation.

Just yesterday the chairman of a Young Republican college group in the state of Mississippi, Evan Alvarez, had the courage to not only resign from his chairmanship of that club but to denounce the Tea Party and chide the Republican Party for the stance they were taking on critical issues in our country, particularly in the “culture wars.” Furthermore, he announced he was becoming a Democrat. (See http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/02/1311119/-College-GOP-Chairman-Slams-Republicans-Resigns-And-Joins-Democrats?fb_action_ids=10203306166847689&fb_action_types=og.likes)

Now the childish side of me said, “Oh boy! One of ‘them’ defected!” But that voice was a faint impulse as the thing I most appreciated was his articulate description of the ills of the Republican Party, ills of which most of them are deliberately oblivious. The essence of these “ills” is the pitfall of subscribing to ideology to the point that one becomes an ideologue and worships the idea rather than the “thing” to which the idea refers. And this is a passionate concern of mine because as I also shared recently I am an ideologue in recovery myself and just as with an alcoholic in recovery, I must admit that I realize I am not completely past being intoxicated with my present set of ideas! But to paraphrase the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle on this issue, “To name the beast is to begin to process of avoiding and/or escaping it.” But it takes a lot of courage to “name” this beast as one has to recognize that he/she has been short-sighted and ego-ridden and therefore “wrong.”

“Apocolypse Now”—Always Near to Some

2 Replies

Two days ago Senator Ted Cruz presented his stock-issue tale of woes, wrapping it up by saying, “Your world is on fire!” An alarmed three-year old girl in the crowd innocently asked, to no one in particular, “Is the world on fire?” As the crowd chuckled, Cruz tried to soften the blow with an answer but he had done his damage. This young sweetie had implanted in her innocent little heart the knowledge that the world is a dangerous place and doom is near at any moment.

Well, the world is a dangerous place and “doom” is possible any moment in that misfortune or even death is always a possibility. But Mr. Cruz and his fear-mongering allies know that trotting out a litany of woes and emphasizing impending doom is a perfect way to impact the old-brain fear-base that we all have and is especially predominant in his party’s base. Now three-year old children are very impressionable but so are these “low-information” voters that predominate the extreme of Cruz’s party. I, too, have a fear-base but I also have a neo-cortex that allows meta-cognition and the ability to formulate a hopeful scenario even in the face of apparent “doom.” For example, I am aging and the River Styx is fast approaching but this dreadful notion is not as frightening to me as I’m able to approach the end of life with hope. (So far, anyway!)

Being a Christian like Mr. Cruz, I subscribe to the notion that “Perfect love casteth out fear” but I think this should disallow fear as a political ploy. Though not a politician, I do not have any reason to subscribe to, much less constantly promulgate, a litany of woes when there is so much to be grateful for and so many opportunities before me. But, if I was a politician in the Republican Party, I too would probably have “drank the kool-aid” and know that fear-mongering…or “catastrophizing”…was the sure-fire way of winning over the base of my party. Certainly the ills of our society and of the world need to be addressed, but focusing on these issues to roil the masses is cheap and even tawdry.