It is clear from even a brief scan of the blogosphere this morning that we, in fact and with apologies to John Edwards, are living in two different countries though we share the same physical space.
One country is involved in a struggle against totalitarian terror with one front in Iraq where we are succeeding, though more slowly than desired. The other country is involved in a misguided and lost war which distracted us from the war against criminal terrorists; we must retreat as quickly as possible and refocus on the real enemies.
One country sees a near existential threat from an impending new nuclear power and a subsequent nuclear arms race in the most unstable part of the world. The other sees a rational opponent who can be managed and persuaded through negotiations to behave in a civilized manner. Both split-countries have tacitly agreed that no definitive resolution of the situation will take place for at least one year.
The splits in our perception of the world continue on the home front and appear to be unbridgeable. Barack Obama may well be a new kind of politician, but no politician, no matter how talented, will be able to bridge the gap between the split images of ourselves and the world that remain the dominant lenses through which we view and understand the world.
What does this say about us at this particular time and place? And how best can the next President attempt to ameliorate the passions that will be aroused in the election cycle?
Splitting is the pathological defense that (unconsciously) divides important objects into all-good and all-bad. The typical example would be an abused child who sees the abusive parent as beating him or her out of Love. The child splits off the hated and devalued aspects of the parent and internalizes them; the child is bad and thats why the parent hits him. Alternatively, the mother is all-good, an idealized victim, and the father is all-bad, an evil monster. In both cases the bad imagoes are ultimately internalized and hidden, always liable to be projected into new objects and the outside world when the person is stressed.
Patients who use splitting as a predominant mode of defense are extremely difficult to treat. The slightest failure of empathy can result in an instant transition from being an idealized to a devalued (worthless) object for the patient. If the idealization can be mobilized to enable the development of a therapeutic alliance, small failures can be incorporated without threatening to destroy the relationship. After a very long time, often measured in years, the slow accretion of small failures mixed in with deeper understandings can allow the patient to more appropriately fuse the image of the idealized and devalued object-representations of the therapist. In other words, the therapist comes to be seen as a more three dimensional human being, with strengths and weaknesses, a good-enough therapist and person (though probably still somewhat idealized.) The experience of being in a relationship with someone who is good-enough can enable the patient to more fully integrate his own all-good and all-bad sides to accept himself as a good-enough person himself; from there, tolerating the faults of others and maintaining a caring relationship becomes more possible.
Splitting can occur in healthier people when they are stressed and regressed. In such situations the job of the therapist is to help the person identify the stressors that are evoking the regression and help the person re-equilibrate and restore previous functioning.
When societies are deeply stressed and regress in their functioning, there is usually a scapegoated population upon whom the all-bad can be projected. Nazi Germany directed their hatred and devaluation upon the Jews in their midst. For a time it protected the volk from the ravages of their own hate and rage, but ultimately their attempts to deal with societal regression by scapegoating the Jews ended up destroying them.
The United States has a more nuanced problem. Our splitting has polarized the population such that those who speak for the left have thoroughly demonized the right and those who speak for the right have demonized the left. It is unclear that such splitting can be repaired but there are a few lessons to be taken from Psychotherapy which can be used to ameliorate the problem.
(I do not in any way suggest that we are electing a Therapist-in-chief; we already tried that and it failed; in fact, because Clinton used the language of therapy while acting out of his own Manichean splitting, ie demonizing their political opponents and being demonized in turn, the Clinton Presidency set the stage for our current tumultuous political scene. Prosperity in the 90s masked much of this, but his impeachment brought it to a head.)
The next President needs to repudiate the extremes in his own party and the loyal opposition needs to do the same. The best chance for such an outcome would be an election in which there is a clear winner of both the electoral and popular vote. Yet, if the next President is temperamentally inclined to over-value the use of splitting either as a personality characteristic or a political tactic, a clear victory could actually worsen things, though this would be hidden from view during the honeymoon they would receive from the press.
Further, we desperately need a President who does not take criticism as personal attack , even, especially, when it is a personal attack. This was one of Ronald Reagan's greatest strengths; he used humor to defuse explosive situations. By refusing to engage in the typical political splitting that we have become so used to, one may be able to short-circuit the mutually reinforcing cycle of recrimination that has been so familiar. (While I do not think George Bush has personalized the attacks on him, he never adequately responded to them either, allowing the charges to metastasize and pollute our discourse.)
Finally, our next President needs to show that he understands the concerns of his opponents even when he disagrees with their policies. This requires an ability to communicate which has not been one of our current President's great strength. Where Bill Clinton "felt our pain" and implied he would make it all better, he fell short in his actions, which were always short term and poll driven. George Bush never seemed to feel our pain (though he was apparently quite deeply attuned to our military family's losses and sacrifices) and never adequately was motivated to explain his policies.
With the situation in the Middle East deteriorating by the day and the Iranian efforts to achieve mastery of the nuclear enrichment cycle nearing fruition by the day, our next President will face significant strategic dangers. It will be very hard for our nation to address these problems if we do not begin to heal the split within the body politic. The candidate who shows him or herself most able and willing to do so will be the best situated for a successful term in office.
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