Deepak Chopra's take on Sarah Palin
From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: September 4th, 2008
Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City . By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her fort hr ightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
The rousing effect...
The entire point of political conventions is to have a rousing effect. The only way you can see this as a bad thing is if you are making blanket judgments about the people who have been roused. If you believe that perhaps they are evil, or being incited to evil ends, then it is fair to question the rousing effect. Chopra is starting off with an assumption that doesn't speak very highly of his capacity for tolerance.
The complex affairs of governing...
I would imagine that the constitution of the state of Alaska, it's supreme court, its legislature, its executive branch are all sufficiently complex. If Chopra had passed the bar for practicing law in the sate of Alaska, or any state, I think I would take his argument more seriously.
She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of 'the other.' For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)
Anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, suspicion of the other...
Suspicion of the other indeed. Setting up Palin as the reverse of Barack Obama is Chopra's choice, not Palin's choice. For him to read all this into Palin without a shred of evidence is wholesale character assassination.
Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them.
This is is what George Orwell called 'thoughtcrime'. Nice one Chopra.
I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.
Look at what she stands for:
Even allowing for Chopra's immense nerve for presenting what HE thinks she stands for without any reference to how she describes herself or how she is interpreted by her supporters, he obviously is the provincial one steeped in the ghetto where he turns the meaning of the following attributes on their heads.
--Small town values -- a denial of America 's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
Small town values: Self-reliance, lack of pretense, community spirit, yet a willingness to sacrifice in military service for causes greater than oneself.
--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America 's image abroad.
Ignorance of world affairs? Like what. How can these dozen words capture anything more than a stereotype?
--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
Family values are just that. Putting value on the family. It's not a code for anything. As a policy matter it means providing a framework for the support of the family. Is this so difficult to understand?
--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
What rigid stands? ack..
--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
This phrase is so loaded it can't even support it's own proper punctuation.
--'Reform' -- an italicized term, since=20in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also t hr ows out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.
Meaning you circulate letters demonizing your political enemies by suggesting that they are psychologically unfit for public service?
Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from 'us' pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign t hr eat. The radical right marches under the banners of 'I'm all right, Jack,' and 'Why change? Everything's OK as it is.' The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.
Obviously women are voting against their own good. Didn't Chopra just say that Palin was the shadow of Obama? Anyway, this is so full of stereotypes of Republicans that I really can't go on.
Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
This is not political analysis, it is mumbo jumbo. I'm sorry I even began to attempt a critique of it. I can only suggest that it is little more than a thinly veiled character assassination of Palin and a stereotypical assault on the character of Republicans. He speaks of this state of demoralization 'we' are in, and places blame for it on 'reactionary forces'. Is this what psychology is supposed to teach us, that if we find the external causes for our own problems and demonize people associated with them that we break through? I don't think so. I think the man has taken leave of his senses. This letter is shallow and regrettable. It shows an inability to reconcile a 'woman' and a 'reactionary' and chooses to instead cast her as a blood and soil racialist among other pejoratives.
I've never been a fan of Chopra, but I've never considered that he might abuse his reputation in this way - for the sake of partisanship. It rather reminds me of the fact that Oprah too has refused to entertain the possibility of Palin being on her show. And so, there is the element of the self-fulfilling prophesy here as the authorities on self-help define Palin as beyond help and not to be trusted.
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