I’m not a fan of remote psychoanalyzing individuals or groups. Without sufficient personal time with the individual, it is guesswork about their motivations. Without sufficient such information about the members of the group, and taking account of differences in behavior within the group compared to individually, it can compound the errors. I think one can get enough information from an individual or group's behavior.
(NOTE: Steve just emailed me this, and I agree: " I, like you am not a fan of psychoanalyzing individuals I don't know, however applying some psychological perspective to a movement and ideology and its symbols is fair I think.")
Nonetheless, my friend Steve Rittenhouse M.D. is a noted psychoanalyst of many decades experience. In a piece at American Thinker he tries to make sense of the liberal attachment to defending Big Bird after the first presidential debate. Big Bird earns tens of millions of dollars and does not need taxpayer subsidy. This attachment is simply pathetic. Personally, I think the Obama partisans are just desperately grasping at straws, or feathers, to have anything to chant while avoiding Obama’s myriad failures.
Here’s the gist of Steve Rittenhouse’s thoughts:
Fifty years of clinical observation have taught me the unwillingness of many to relinquish childhood dreams of perfect bliss….
Gov. Romney in one witty comment suggested that it is time to grow up, to relinquish the utopian fantasy of a blissful androgynous childhood free of conflict. In one comment, he leveled a blast at the feminized metrosexual culture of contemporary liberalism. He went on to link his opponent to childhood, by likening him to his own boys when they were young, a time when wishes often prevail over reality.
No wonder liberals reacted with rage. No wonder the president mentioned his defense of Big Bird thirteen times in the week following the debate. Liberals long for what Big Bird represents: that utopian childish dream world where differences of gender, talent, fortune, looks, race, color, intelligence, etc. do not exist….
In the coming election, America is choosing not just between different domestic and foreign policy alternatives. It is choosing at a deeper level the shared idea of America. There are two competing and conflicting versions. There is the shared liberal fantasy of an America that is an egalitarian utopia….
This liberal vision of America is now in a contest with another, older shared idea of America. This older idea asserts that our greatness lies in our uniqueness -- the uniqueness of our founding and of the generations that followed. It asserts that we are unique in our history and composed of individuals, each with different abilities and limitations….
Let us not underestimate the skill with which the president is able to represent his postmodern, androgynous, egalitarian vision. He goes on The View and schmoozes with Oprah, just like the gossipy woman next door. He prides himself on identifying with angry women and children. You would not be surprised to hear him share his deep feeling for what women go through physically when the patriarchy forces them to submit to men. Maybe a government program can correct this unfairness. His opponent, on the other hand, represents an older American ideal -- a proud, unapologetic ideal that doesn't blur the differences between the sexes, but celebrates them. He is combating an elite media, educational, and journalistic culture that has been promoting the utopian views of aggrieved, entitled liberalism for years. How far has America gone down that cultural road? This coming election will tell us a great deal about where we are and what we have become.
Read the whole thing. Share it with a liberal friend. Tell them it's less costly than $100 or $200 an hour on the psychoanalyst's couch.
