It occurred to me that there may be some lack of clarity about the "major symptoms of large-group regression" that I mentioned yesterday. For example, splitting refers to a process in which all-good is attributed to one person while all-bad is attributed to a different person.
[This gets complicated when the all-good is conscious and the all-bad is attributed to split off and unconscious object and self representations, but for our purposes of understanding societal regression in the face of trauma, understanding splitting to involve making Manichean distinctions between "our" side "their" side is useful and accurate as far as it goes.
Furthermore, it is important to note that in mild forms much that is immature or poorly adaptive is well within the bounds of normal character and behavior. It is only when regression becomes significant that it becomes seriously maladaptive and pathological.]
This means that when one criticizes Barack Obama as incompetent, foolhardy, an illiberal liberal, or even a socialist in waiting, such attacks do not constitute splitting. In a similar vein, criticizing Rush Limbaugh as an ideologue, intemperate, ignorant, and a social Darwinist would not constitute splitting, but would simply reflect political na ideological differences. Calling Barack Obama "Stalinobama", Rush Limbaugh a racist, or George W. Bush "Bushhitler" does constitute splitting. These kinds of labels consciously attribute all-bad, evil, tot he target and do not recognize the complexity or reality of the man so attacked. At the same time, there are opportunistic politicians and commentators who use such language in the full knowledge that it is demonizing an opponent and has little relation to reality; such opportunists have roles in both of our major parties and are beneath contempt.
In the original post discussing Societal Regression, I pointed to the 14 signs of large group regression, as described by Vamik Volkan, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and founder of the Center for the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction at the University of Virginia and Emeritus Training and Supervising Analyst of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute at a panel of the American Psychoanalytic Association devoted to the consideration of Societal Regression. Since societies tend to regress under stress, and regression is a necessary prerequisite for devolution from free to less free societies (including, in the worst case scenarios, to tyranny), the subject remains germane in the face of our current highly stressful economic straights. In order to be able to recognize these symptoms, a brief discussion of each may be useful; this is going to be more of a didactic exercise than usual so consider that as warning.
1) Rallying around the leader.
This is somewhat self-explanatory. When people are stressed, as during an illness, they tend to regress to more dependent states. Patients look to their Doctors or loved ones to take care of them and sometimes to reassure them that "everything will be all right." After 9/11, the country rallied to President Bush. Even those who did not vote for him or approve of his policies supported him. Such near unanimity of approval faded quickly as the stressors that started with 9/11 followed a predictable arc. After an initial decrease of societal anxiety with the turning of passive into active (that accompanied our invasion of Afghanistan) the decision to invade Iraq then began a slow but inexorable increase in societal anxiety that became acute as the war proved to be more difficult than expected. We have already seen a similar "rallying around the leader" with the support that Barack Obama has received; he is in danger of squandering his support which paradoxically increases the risk that his personal reaction (#14) will become determinative; that is a discussion for later, however.
2) Losing individuality.
This pertains to masses of people who willingly surrender their selves ot the greater good. In The 21st Century Selfless Psychopath: Peace Loving Murderers, Dr. Sanity described the selfless idealist who was been a plague of the 20th century and has been a component of the anti-democratic left:
... far more menacing to humanity as a whole is the less well-known side of narcissism that originates from the unrestrained IO [Idealized Object], which has unlimited potential to cause human misery and death; and whose destructiveness we have seen dominate the 20th century. The countless dead bodies that are the direct result of this form of malignant narcissism are quickly forgotten because they died as some nations, religions, ideologies attempted to implement their IDEAL in the real world.
We have seen this in relatively benign form in the worshipful crowds that invested their idealism in Barack Obama during the campaign. Mild forms of selfless idealism can be important components of a well functioning democracy, but they can form the nidus of tools of oppression. For example, the ready to intimidate crowds of the Muslim street, prepared to use violence in response to perceived or manufactured insults, are often composed of useful young idealists who believe they are protecting their religion and their perfect future. Western useful idiots who facilitate such intimidation (by promulgating hate speech laws, for example and a "human rights" industry that attempts ot protect designated minorities from being insulted or having their feelings hurt, are often selfless idealists.
3) Severe splitting. This can occur as a polarity between "us" and "them" or within society.
4) Massive, shared introjections and projections, such as societal paranoia. This phenomenon was seen in Enver Hoxha's Albania, where something like slave labor was used to build over seventy-five hundred bunkers in anticipation of an attack that never came.
A common accusation against the right ha been that we are paranoid, that Muslim terror and aggression is a minimal, manageable problem and that those who wish to aggressively engage it are misguided and acting out of their own unsubstantiated fears. Tom Barnett eloquently presents this case and the current administration appears to embrace it. Whether the right has been, and continues to be, projecting their own aggressive thoughts and feelings onto the Muslim world (a position I clearly do not agree with) is a question that will unfold over time. If Islamic extremism can be managed and its spread (via Shariah lawfare, intimidation of the aggrieved Muslim Street, or overt violent attacks like Mumbai) can be contained, then the danger should be understood as diminishing by the right; in the absence of Islamic aggression, continuing to "see" aggression where none exists will be correctly identified as quasi-delusional and based on the right's projections. On the other hand, if Islamic terror, etc continues or escalates, the argument that this is actually a manifestation of right wing projections will become less tenable. In such a case, the argument that the left has developed a negative quasi-delusion/hallucination (seeing no danger where danger objectively exists) will become more appropriately made.
5) A shared narcissistic preoccupation. An example is the grandiose historical view taken by Iraq that it is the cradle of civilization.
Again, there are two opposing views on this. For the internationalist left, the insistence on seeing the America as the shining city on the hill, an exception, is right wing narcissism writ large. For the right, the idea that we will find world peace and a new world order via the UN is a triumph of left wing narcissism (valuing the words over the facts.) Once again, fair minded people will note whether or not an approach that assumes the former is correct, since this was the announced basis of the Obama administration's foreign policy. If the world becomes more peaceful, he will be seen as correct; if conflicts escalate, we will know that internationalism is distinctly not "realist."
6) Magical thinking, blurring of reality, and new or modified societal patterns. The customary "kidnapping" of brides in South Ossetia is an instance of this last. What under normal conditions is a playful cultural norm whereby the girl is symbolically kidnapped and married has become under conditions of societal regression, far more aggressive; today's "brides" are kidnapped, tortured, and raped.
Luckily we remain very far from such regression. Although there are efforts underway to change fundamental ways in which Americans interact (by shifting wealth from one segment of society to another) we are thankfully not yet changing typical patterns of behavior. It is likely that there will be increased efforts by many to pay less taxes and the unofficial economy will grow in response, but wholesale tax evasion and criminal decompensation is yet unlikely. In other countries, however, such shifts are likely already underway. Mexico is experiencing a retreat from the norms of democratic structures as their narco coup escalates. There is a spill over into the Untied States, but thus far, social norms have not yet shifted. Likewise, the risk of regression to civil unrest as 20,000,000 Chinese laborers find their livelihoods disappearing, is mounting. How the Chinese manage their recession will be telling.
7) Inability to mourn or difficulty in mourning whereby a large group becomes a society of perennial mourners and the use of "linking objects" is recognized and institutionalized.... Volkan (1981) has described how perennial mourners ... keep the mourning process externalized and incomplete.
Post 9/11 America quickly determined that mourning should be personal and limited. After an initial period of appropriate mourning, we turned our attention to taking action. The MSM took this a step further by purposely deciding to eschew any use of images form 9/11 for fear of inflaming American attitudes toward our enemies. (The showed less diffidence in their use of inflammatory images to inflame others against us; this proved to be quite dangerous, as events proved following such instances as the Guantanamo Koran flushing and similar fictions.) Other societies specifically hold onto and use their losses as ways to keep the loss alive and avoid mourning. For example, each Palestinian death is celebrated and martyrs are kept alive in memory forever. This causes Palestinian selfless idealists to embrace the death cult of Islamic (murderous) martyrdom, actively works against peaceful coexistence, and supports totalitarianism in Gaza and dysfunction in the West Bank. Everywhere in the Muslim world where such refusal or inability to mourn has achieved society's imprimatur, death cults have taken hold and the overall functioning of society has suffered.
This is already getting to be a long post; I will address 8-14 in a future post.
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