The Politics of Self-loathing

Just a couple of things in response to supergoober's comments on my previous two blog entries before delving into what is most likely going to piss off anyone on the right or left of the political spectrum, even though that is not my intent. Supergoober mentioned on my Arnold rant that the governator has always been interested in health maintenance, and this is completely true. But my comment is that it is not his, nor the other legislators jobs to be our nannies. I understand that trans fat has some risks potentially associated with it (and, while the acupuncturist and I disagree on the risks, we both know that there is reputable science on both sides, and that the jury is still out on the level of risk it poses). If a product is truly a severe health risk, ban it completely, if it is a moderate health risk, label it as such (ala Prop 65 - although there are legitimate arguments about Prop 65 labels as well), if not then quit bothering us. Trans fats may be risky, but so is driving, and I would wager that the health risks associated with driving probably outweigh the risks of consuming a moderate amount of trans fat in a restaurant as part of an indulgent meal. Do I know that for a fact - no. But driving is extremely risky behavior, and we do not ban it. It is regulated to make it as safe as possible while still allowing the benefits that people get from driving (even the ephemeral benefits of going out to eat or enjoying a Sunday drive). It is a use of government that may make some people feel better and less responsible for their own shortcoming, but ultimately it is wasteful and dictatorial in nature. That is what I object to. And yes, I ended that sentence in a preposition; if you prefer, that is to what I object.

Also, in response to the comment on the s-o-o-o Bay Area thing, it was not intended to be, nor was it a rant against liberals. It was, instead, a rant against hypocrisy. There is plenty of hypocrisy on both sides, but being in the San Francisco Bay Area (not Silent Hill, as my bio says, many apologies for the misstatement of fact), much of the available hypocrisy falls left of center. And, really, the hypocrisy that I find most annoying is that which stems from stupidity, which, if you reread the list, is what most of the "Bay Area" comments are about. There are some which are outgrowths of the nature of the city that are simply musings on things that anyone else would find bizarre because they would not happen any place else. If I lived in Texas, I would have included drive-thru liquor stores on the list - you just won't find that anywhere else. You can see similar things on the "Reno" list - I really did see a commercial advertising how much you could make a month by donating blood.

But on to the title of the piece. GE. Through a number of conversations this weekend, along with a bit of reflection on the topics, I came back to a theme about which I had oft mused but never writ. I call it "the politics of self-loathing", and it occurs equally on the left and the right, which leads me to believe that it may be something endemic to the way human beings think and feel. It may also be colored by my own personality - diagnosed as I am with a depressive personality disorder - so perhaps this is the explanation that only a depressed person could come up with because it incorporates some of his own personality flaws. I'd like to think that I considered that as I came up with this little explanation.

Let me preface. I do not think that this type of politics encompasses the majority, nor do I really think that it is extremely prevalent in the mainstream. It is however, something that is a very powerful psychological motivator, so I think that this is what could be the foundations for why certain movers and shakers in the right and the left act the way that they do. In fact, I think that my explanation captures a lot of the motivation of the religious right and the religious left.

I know what many of you may be thinking; "there is no religious left". Let me explain terms. First off, there is a fairly large segment of the Catholic population that are quite liberal in their mindset (principally Jesuits and the lay-population that aligns with them, but also many liberation theogists who are Catholic). But beyond that, on the left and right, there is a "secular" population for whom their politics has transformed into faith. These are the people who are so slavishly devoted to their cause that they cannot look rationally at there beliefs - anyone who agrees is good, anyone who disagrees is evil. No arguments, no matter how rational, well-constructed, or persuasively given can shake them from their tenets of faith. You can find examples of this secular religion on the left and right equally - for example, the right wing guy that steadfastly maintains that expanding the school lunch program simply prepares people to be wards of the state, undermines self-reliance, and readies them to be dependant on Uncle Sam's good graces to survive. A similar example - the left wing guy who maintains that all heads of corporations are evil extremists who do not care who they step on to get what they want, and if they corrupt the planet simultaneously, then so much the better. While neither of these opinions describe mainstream conservative or liberal thought, they are held as a quasi-religious belief by a significant portion of the population. Interestingly enough, I do not think most politicians fall into this category, but many people who volunteer for either side do end up drifting towards these extremes. This is the true phenomenon of "religious politics", and you can see that the religious right do, indeed, fall into this category as well.

Most of this religious sentiment stems from either the politics of self-loathing or the politics of narcisism. The former I will discuss now, the latter is closely related to revelation theology and I will probably comment on in a couple of days. So finally, I get down to the title of this diatribe. I refer to it as the politics of self-loathing because the psychological roots of this level of faith comes from an intense dislike of oneself. When a person doesn't have any sense of self-worth, it is very difficult for them to evaluate the worth of others. It is also very difficult to survive with this degree of self-hatred. I think that one way out of this is to direct the contempt that you may have for yourself onto an external target (you can confirm or deny this for me, supergoober). What I mean is that dealing with the cognitive dissonance of seeing others with high senses of self while you feel nothing but contempt for yourself is difficult. Rather than seeing and appraising that you have a problem, it is easier to project that you have all the answers and that these other people should feel as bad as you. I know that I am not being terribly clear in this, so I will attempt to give a couple of examples from both sides of the political aisle. I'll start with a left wing example, as many of you will expect because of the fact that I am significantly right of center, and end with a right wing example.

Take, for example, the phenomenon of the liberal celebrity. I will not pick any one in particular, just deal with the general aspects that drive many movie stars into this category. Suppose that you are a good-looking, moderately talented individual amongst the throngs of people in the LA/Hollywood area who fall into this same category - the undiscovered star. They are typically unconventional, emotive, and sensitive extroverts (not always, I know, but this is one of the main personalities drawn to acting). The unusual combination of sensitivity with the extroversion is what makes them so attractive to many of us (and so prone to substance abuse, but that's for another blog). This person is discovered by a studio, and immediately repackaged so as to be attractive to mainstream America, cast in roles that will catapult them into superstardom, and given ungodly amounts of money (as well as adulation and deification). They know that they are not so different than the hundreds of other actors/actresses still waiting tables and plying industry moguls with headshots, and they cannot reconcile their success with their abilites. Rather than become intensely self-reflective, it becomes easier to indict a system that allows this type of injustice to occur. Only in a corrupt, money-hungry nation like America could one person attain so much with so little effort. Anyone who attains this level of success is merely the result of random chance and not of hard work. While that person may have put in hard work, he/she does not correlate it to his success, and rather than come to grips with this, it is much easier to believe that the system is inherently unfair and flawed - that many people work hard and get nowhere, and that people who have made it have gotten there by random chance at best, and by unfair means at worst. This whole line of thought and political motivation stems from the very experience that propelled them to superstardom, and that feeling that they really are not worth what they are getting - that they are not so different from the myriad of people who have never made it.

On the right, take the evangelical Christian who "prayed the gay away" (yes, there are many other example of this on the right, I just chose one that is easiest to explain). A man who is attracted to other men feels intensely uncomfortable with this, falls prey to the whole "lifestyle choice" argument as well as societal pressures, and does not like this aspect of himself. He views it as part of his "sinful" nature, and he hates himself more and more. The power of Christ and prayer enables himto excise this part of himself, but he knows it is still there, and he can never seem to quite get rid of it. But rather than reconcile himself to his homosexuality and embrace it as part of who he is, he chooses to externalize his self-loathing in trying to help others trapped in his situation. He will crusade against immoral behavior and try to help people recognize that who they are is wrong, and that accepting this part of themselves will lead to their eternal damnation. He will push a sense of bigotry and repression that validates his own feelings about himself because he is on a crusade to save the world from sin. Other people who do not feel like him have embraced their sinful ways and are leading to the downfall of the moral culture of the world; he could not possibly accept that they are behaving in a way that God or nature has intended them to, because it means his self-hatred is flawed, and rather then abandon that core part of himself, he must make other people understand that they should feel more like him.

That's it in a (rather large) nutshell. I guess BW got thrown out the window today. Not everyone in the situations described above fall into this category, but I think that it is a pretty appropriate descriptor for some. It is more looking at the psychological motives for political activism - and this seems to be a big motivator. In a couple of days I will detail the opposite side of the coin, the politics of narcissism; something I came up with in part to clarify my own beliefs and motivations, because I have found myself, at times, slipping into that narcissistic modality. Upon self-reflection over a long period of time, I figured that out about myself, and wondered how many others might be similarly motivated. But I may just be projecting again.

Anyway, before I ever wander down that path I am going to do a much more relevant entry on our L5R game world to catch up anyone who cares to read it, and to help out anyone who is out there in internetland become aquainted with the wonderful world of The Legend of the Five Rings.

TTFN