I am always impressed that there is such a large market for books that offer advice. There are books that promise to unlock the secrets to becoming rich, books that promise to help you find a lover or spouse, books that promise to make you happy, books (the number of which probably dwarf any other genre) promising to help you lose weight, and myriad other topics of concern; it seems wherever there is a human problem there is an author willing and able to tell you how to fix it. The lucky authors get rich telling others what to do because there is a ready population of people willing and ready to cede some of their own agency to an authority figure. In our modern, increasingly complex world, it is absolutely necessary that we cede some agency to appropriate authorities but because the roots of our need for a reassuring authority run so deep, we must always be cognizant of the risk that between our needs and the authority's ambitions, too much authority (which is then nearly impossible to take back) will be vested in the authority.
[I recall one particular author of diet books and self-help psychological improvement books who I had the misfortune to know directly. He was hated by his colleagues (he had a habit of not showing up for his responsibilities which left his colleagues having to pick up after him) and died young, of a heart attack brought on by his obesity and cocaine abuse. I am sure many self-help and advice authors live exemplary lives and he was an outlier but I suspect such authors suffer from all the usual foibles of human beings and do not always follow their own advice.
On a related note, a friend once asked me why I was not a fan of self-help books; after all he felt good when he read them. I told him if any of them were actually to find and reveal the secrets they promised, such a book would very quickly crowd all others out of the market; everyone would want it. The fact that the genre was a booming growth industry meant that none of them were actually succeeding at doing what they claimed.]
The self help/advice industry is a reflection of our deepest infantile anxieties. We desperately need to know that someone can make sense of our frightening world. Children always need reassurance that "everything will be all right.' They desire such reassurance especially at those times when everything is manifestly not going to be all right. A Mother's or Father's reassurance can be of infinite value to a young child yet when an adult seeks such reassurance, it is rarely warranted and often a cruel hoax. One who accepts reassurance when anxious is a person who is surrendering agency and power to the other.
There are exceptions. A very bright young women was hospitalized several years ago.
She was overtly paranoid and delusional. She believed that some unknown group or person, possibly from the government, had developed an electronic device which used wireless technology to beam input into her brain. The input took the form of a voice telling her terrible things. This voice revealed to her the hidden motivations of others, especially their intent to harm her, and told her to do things to protect herself. When she tried to ignore the voice and doubted its veracity, it became acutely disparaging, calling her cruel names and insisting that if she failed, there would be dire consequences for everyone. Her vigilance increased. She only reluctantly came to the hospital after she was told she would be asked to leave her college if she did not receive help.
On initial evaluation, she described feeling that she was an extremely important person who was chosen because she was pivotal to the outcome of some grand design which she was not in a position to reveal to me. (I later found out that she was not sure I was not part of a conspiracy directed against her to keep her from succeeding at her mission.) She felt that her best option was to follow the recommendations of the mysterious voice and prepare to act when the time was right. She professed to be untroubled by the voice or her important role in consequential events, but did admit that often the voice was so loud and insistent that it made it hard for her to fall asleep. At that point I was able to convince her that medicine that could lower the volume of the voice could help her relax and sleep and that being tired was making everything more difficult for her.
As luck would have it she responded well, though it took some time, to an Atypical Antipsychotic medication. As her psychotic symptoms were resolving she had a period of intense depression, vulnerability, and anxiety. She feared she was losing her mind, that she was terribly ill, and would never recover. At that point I used my authority; much of it already earned by helping her identify what distressed her, allying myself with the healthy parts of her character, and finding an appropriate and well tolerated medication to resolve her symptoms; I reassured her. I felt that her ego was still so fragile and damaged that she could not find any comfort within herself. She was appropriately frightened and I could offer appropriate reassurance. I told her that we could not know what the future held for her; some people never have another episode, others end up struggling for a long time; but we now knew we had medication that could help her, that she had many abilities, including a new found ability to identify when she was having psychological difficulties, and that if she took steps to care for herself, there was a good chance she would be able to function well and have a good life. Beyond her relief, the idea that she was understood and that I was willing to work with her in the future, were instrumental in helping her recover. As an aside, she has been well respected in her profession, has managed to avoid further hospitalizations despite a number of relapses (that were aborted by rapid intervention), and is quite pleased with how she has done over the years.
My point in this vignette, aside from the fact that individual cases often offer microcosms of social structures, is to point out the parallels between Ms. L and our current psycho-social climate. According to the MSM, we are in an unprecedented crisis that brings into question all the structures we have relied upon for the last 30 years. The only reasonable alternative is to cede our trust and agency to someone who has been elevated far above the typical MSM depiction of the power-seeking politician. Even more troubling, Barack Obama rarely does anything to dispute that he is "the one" and often seems to believe it.
If, in fact, our current problems are unprecedented (and there is reason to believe that the size of the problem and the connectedness of our globalized economy do make the current crisis different in quality as well as quantity to past financial crises) then there are two clear issues we keep in mind. When a problem is new, the solutions must be, by definition, unknown. The equations must be solved before we can find the answers. It may well be true that Obama is a better problem solver than McCain, but that is by no means assured. The important point is that anyone who tells you they know exactly what to do to solve our problems is trying to sell you something. Clearly this applies to John McCain as well as Barack Obama, but in my opinion, though I would prefer more humility from both, Barack Obama has somewhat more unfounded confidence than John McCain.
The second concern involves the nature of the authoritarian leader. Thus far we have seen authoritarian tendencies in both candidates. John McCain's authoritarianism has been nowhere more apparent than in his presumption to understand better political speech than our founders. Our founders understood that controlling political speech was the first step toward tyranny and explicitly declared that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." John McCain has exhibited an authoritarian bent in other areas as well, arising from his conviction that he is more noble and pure minded than others. This is of concern. However, Barack Obama has explicitly directed his followers to restrict the free speech of those who have the temerity to oppose him. My post on Joe the Plumber last week documented some of the troubling ways in which his supporters have attacked a citizen whose only crime was to elicit an unhelpful comment from Barack Obama. Of great concern, Obama not only made no attempt to rein in his supporters but has used techniques which border on the extrajudicial to intimidate and silence his opponents int he past. Thus, while I find reason for concern about both candidates authoritarian tendencies, I remain much more concerned about Barack Obama's apparent comfort with efforts made to intimidate and silence opponents.
Ultimately, human agency is limited. Barack Obama may be talented and very smart, but he is not "the One" who is going to save our planet and bring Peace to all. The Secular left, in their need for a force greater than themselves to reassure and care for them, have imputed powers to Obama that can only lead to disappointment or disaster.
Perhaps the relgious have the better idea of whom to look to for reassurance and authority.
Religious people appreciate that the world is unpredictable and often frightening. Whether it is a crutch, as Barack Obama famously proposed, or a bet on Pascal's wager, a belief in a Deity is a profound comfort when navigating the dangerous waters of life.
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