Transcription
Does the left have the same problem? The left has a terrible problem. What's that, what is it in your mind? Complexity.
I'm gonna have to go back to what we call object relations theory, and in that view of the mind an early phase of development is very much like the narcissistic structure, the paranoid-schizoid position, which is schizoid because it's split and it's paranoid because any aggression and badness is not accepted as part of the self but is projected and seen as coming from outside. The developing toddler usually at that age thinks I'm just good and everything that's bad comes from outside and so you know temper tantrums and so on aren't seen as being bad, they're seen as a justified reaction to not getting what you want, the bad depriving person, what have you. So that can be a very stable position as opposed to what we call the integrated or depressive position, which doesn't sound very attractive, but when a person further matures and says, 'hey you know it's not just these other people who could be angry and aggressive I have some of that in myself too,' that's kind of a sad awareness that - just to talk about a borderline patient, I had a borderline patient once who said her husband was the most horrible person in the world. One day I got a call from the husband, he left a message, 'what do I do doc, I forgot my wife's birthday and she threw the television across the room at me.' So she comes in the next session, I said 'I got a call from your husband,' and she said, 'yeah what a horrible person, he forgot my birthday.' So I said, 'well I understand you threw the television across the room.' 'What else could I do, he hurt me!' So this is the paranoid schizoid position. Even if you act in a hostile way the badness is outside. Then when this patient began to be aware that she could be aggressive too, it's a sad realization but it's an important step in maturity because that's the reality of who we are and what the world is.
What I'm trying to say about people on the right and people on the left, people on the right in my mind tend to be organized in the paranoid-schizoid position so they hang together. 'We are good they're bad.' People who are leftist tend to think, 'oh well, you know we're a mix of good and bad so we have to accommodate everything,' and one of the things that annoyed me most about the debates a couple of years ago is you know everybody said 'Oh Hillary's too complex, you know you ask her a question, she talks for ten minutes and she..' Well these are complex questions. What annoys me is that simplicity wins out over complexity, but complexity is reality, and I think leftists are more in tune with reality so they get all kinds of discussions within themselves. 'No this is the right way, that's the right way.' They look at all the details and they sort of splinter instead of just saying 'we're good the others are bad let's just keep it that way and proceed to march on,' do you see what I mean?
You're saying what you think would be a better prescriptive for them to be effective would be to say 'we're good they're bad let's move on,' or? No. You see the problem is any group that functions with the we're good they're bad system is going to create problems for society because it doesn't integrate all the complexity of the world and people. I'm just saying that in our political system people who tend to be on the right side of politics have that sort of simplistic frame of mind that allows them to stay unified. Now, leftists can be just as simplistic as people on the right. I mean there are many examples in history of people on the left who got just as out of touch with reality and just as embedded in a simplistic 'we're good they're bad' frame of mind and that does damage too. So the problem really isn't whether you're on the left or on the right, but can you maintain a level of complexity in your appreciation of problems which the public may not want to hear because it makes things difficult. Or do you give up your complexity and just get to kind of a slogan mentality which is easier for people to accept but maybe doesn't adapt as well to reality.
Well it also I mean it feels good to split right I mean it feels good to feel like you know. Yeah. I mean it's a seductive feeling. You know in face of like mortality and you're gonna lose people and financial struggles and all of these things that are so unknown. To have some security you know I think probably is very seductive. It's extremely seductive that's the problem. We all subscribe to some kind of narrative of what makes sense in the world. Maybe there is no sense in the world, we all have to either create it or be nihilistic. I think the question is how complex can one's narrative be. It's extremely comforting to think 'we're the good ones the others are the bad.' I think the challenge to society is one of education. How can we educate people to not shy away from complexity. How can we educate people to embrace it and appreciate it rather than be threatened by it. Now maybe I'm idealizing part of my past but when I remember learning about America it was about equality and inclusion, and that narrative of inclusion I think was a more advanced one than the narrative of identity politics and excluding anyone who isn't self, and I don't know how we can get back to what we seemed to be moving toward but now seem to be losing in our way of thinking as a society.