Vietnam - Palin - Obama: WHY?
Vietnam - Palin - Obama: Why?
-Explanation through Sign-Use (psychosemiotics*)
The Project: to explain the Data* (*historical record of actual signs used in the '08 presidential campaign and vote)
Part One: The Data* - condensed to token pairs (letters) for psychodynamic opposites
The sign used to distinguish the two contending political parties in the presidential campaigns can be condensed to words beginning with a small number of letters, linked as opposites*. To wit:
M - F (Male - Female) Reversed F - M (Father - Mother)
W - B (White - Black)
R - L (Right - Left )
R - D (Republican - Democrat)
R - B (Red - Blue)
C - L (Conservative - Liberal)
The opposites linked here are by: reproduction (sex and parenting), blood, handedness, political party, state colors (as shown on TV maps), and childraising philosophy.
The M - F/ F - M pairs are psychologically most potent. Financial failure of the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage firms was much on many minds. "Motherfucker" is perhaps the most widely used street curse. Human conception occurs by conjunction of Male -Female opposites. As the Male is to the Female in conception, so the Father vs.the Mother, is to the Children; and, by protocol, as the President is to the people.
The White - Black pair has the potency of DNA, blood, biology, Taken as anatomical features, the W-B are entirely distinct from the
M-F/F-M pairs, and this distinction is precisely the difference bridged by Barak Obama becoming President. A half-Black, half-White Male stands in the role of Father of America. The three-brain processing system is called upon to adjust to that by separating, then recombining differently, the psychological from the biological components of the process.
The upside-down opposition of the 13th and 23 letters M - W
also signal token associations between Man - WoMan and White Male.
The Right - Left opposition is the broadest, most generic political orientation. The two sides of the body, with one hand normally dominant, mostly the right, is the spatial pivot around which terms for the body and its attitudes are textually converted into metaphor for collective alignment. Again, the psychological process is categorically distinct from the physiological sidedness, but positing opposites linked
in an indirect way: Right-ness claimed for the active, Male force in the body, carried over by the token into politics. ("The right is Right"! is the token-tautology used on Fox news, the only context where its clear imbecility can be given gravitas -- nevertheless providing a pychosemiotic bridge.
Republican - Democrat (R. - D.) partisanship distributes the
R - L opposition to consciously designated groups carrying I- We identity with collective sanctions. . Predication on this opposition as a fundamental political division is not provided for by the U.S. Constitution, but came into existence as the means of implementing its mandated election cycles. Although 3rd parties have appeared (Libertarian; Socialist, Communist, Ross Perot's American party), and independent candidates regularly run for president, gross administrative constraints succeed in narrowing the decision to two parties.
Red - Blue State designations. This is the most artificial and seemingly chance or adventitious construction of collective opposites. Yet it was on U.S. maps repeatedly shown and referred to every day, near the end, as if these colors applied 'naturally', or by an acquired 'second nature', although a reverse assignment is certainly feasible. According to the snake brain explanation, the letter link between Red, Right, Republican played a determining "felt right."
There is re-inforcement of the Red- Blue opposition 'shining through' the image of the States of America in the ancient Egyptian myth of Horus. Although the stylized Eye of Horus, token of the omnipresent Son of Isis and Osiris, staring perpetually into the soul of all under the Pharoah, who embodied it, was a Left eye, the Right one having been gouged out by Seth, variant texts translated by Z. Sitchen speak of two eyes flashing these colors when 'powered'. He takes these as a literal record, as hues of flame in spaceship blastoff. In Archetypal terms, the myth is centered in the magical birth of Horus from Isis, after she, with the help of Thoth, revived her brother Osiris who had been killed by Seth and impregnated herself with his monumental fecundity (The Nile river's surge at flood stage). Sarah Palin played just this role for John McCain's flagging campaign, in late August, '08, pulling together the dismembered factions of the Republican party, then delivering the Spiritual child, if Republicans had won the election. All would have mysteriously* been brought together by a Grand Mysterium Conjunctionis, Horus Child Rebirth. This would provide the mythic texture of Big Brother Is Watching At All Times police state.
This is the narrative America barely escaped. Many half expected a McCain/Palin victory right up until the polls closed. Wm. Kristol even wrote a solicitous piece preparing liberals for the let down. My personal view is that an instinctive revulsion of the soul against this prospect was felt collectively, partly accounting for Obama's win. The massive outpouring of jubilation at the result was, on this view, fueled by relief at having been spared the fate of being obliged to adopt Trig Palin as sibling.
The Conservative - Liberal split is between psychoclasses, This is a division between individuals based on whether they were raised more strictly or permissively. In America, this split emerged as a group historical phenomenon in the Baby Boomer generation between the advanced psychoclass, consisting of those who rebelled against the Vietnam war; and older psychoclass, consisting of those whose
general world view remained unreconstructed. This split was the chief psychohistorical "Y" cleaving the collective psyche from 1968 on. This is where the deep inner opposition between "conservative" and "liberal" originated, in the attitudes of acceptance or rejection of the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war syndrome is the psychodynamic that has played out in the '08 election vote.
The pathos:
"The Mac is Back" -- John McCain adaptation of the McDonald's fast food restaurant successful "BIG MAC ATTACK" to make contact with the mass of voters. The fact that he was reduced to such an appeal is pathetic.
The projected target of the McCain - Palin attack was increasingly narrowed to: LIBERALS. -- "The most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate" tagged Obama. Less is more; they went with that.
White, Male, Father, Right, Republican, Red (state) CONSERVATIVES ATTACKING Black, Female, Mother, Leftist, Blue (state) LIBERALS. They failed. But the brain processes continue.
PART TWO: Explaining Why it worked out this way.
The hypercondensed Data* is most simply explained as the result of single common way of processing information. There is little reason the words should have been brought together as they are if not for a process that takes an interest in the tokens, 'how it comes out looking'. Something inexorable, fateful, unfolding like "God's plan", one religious conservative insisted. He was attuned to the mythic texture.
The flow of process through three brains* shared by normal humans, taking brains* as literal neuro-psychic locations with accepted functions verified by conscious self observation, suffices to explain the phenomena, as follows.
The two major processing nodes of the Central Nervous System are located in the head and spinal cord. Though the term "brain" is usually reserved for the organ inside the skull, it applies as well to the autonomous efferent-afferent interchanges between spine and movement, both Brains*, in this extended sense, operating together in normal routine tasks. The oldest brain, can be called the 'snake brain;', or "Brain 3", since its work its typical work is shared with vertebrates in general. Its domains are survival, reproduction and territoriality. Operation of these functions is without psychic quality.
Again, in this nomenclature, what is ordinarily called "the brain" is designated Brain 1, or "head brain". All operations performed with/on textual meaning, presupposing use of signs (pictures and words) learned in conversation.
These two centers are anatomically linked at the neck, where skull caps off spine. This, the oldest region of mammalian brains, brings together impulses from regions of the breast and abdomen, metaphorically, "heart" and "gut". Again, the function of this Brain 2 is entirely independent and autonomous with respect to both Brain 1 perceptual consciousness and Brain 2 biological imperatives. It manifests as desire, striving-toward (completion of its totality) and anxiety. In gross 'vegetative reaction', Wilhelm Reich correlated these these with expansion and contraction ('hanging out' and 'uptight'), and these with cycles of involuntary orgasmic convulsion (orgasm)
It is the inclusion of the lower and upper anatomical nodes called 'the limbic system' as a separate and distinct centre of efferent-afferent neural impulses, linking the autonomic nervous system, endocrine glands, blood chemistry, sexual and emotional arousals, that distinguishes the three brain functional analysis of human sign use.
*****
Obama won because of real soul brain flow through in the 'movement' of those supporting and voting for him. In rallies, organization, homes, groups and many acting as individuals, it was the shared feeling states: Hope! Believe! Change! Change We can Believe In, "Yes, we can!"
These were tokens of real flow. The words and phrases emerged spontaneously from the collective experience mostly minus textual content of thought. As Brain 1 content, they are pure psychological self-references. Few enthusiastic supporters would be able to give much account of Obamas positions and policies. (cf. James Petras: 12 Reasons to Reject Obama http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1760&more=1&c=1 ) Generally speaking, they follow the same line as Bush toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, S. Lebanon and Israel; or worse, to those opposing militarism. On fiscal matters he has consistently complied with Paulson, Wall Street, Big business interests. His health care plan is not universal, serves interests of Big Pharma and insurance companies. Whatever these are, he represents Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" America.
Further, Obama support is a flow through that, as opposed to the sentiment aroused at McCain/Palin rallies, does not call for DO-ing; to ACT!. "Just get out and vote, that's what we need," he said to angry audience sounds at one point. Like religious services, concerts, movies, participants return to daily routines perhaps inspired and invigorated, but without a program of action. This is how it differs from Brain 3 arousal. It is his reality as a soul brain figure that he is mocked as "the One", and "the Messiah" by conservatives who expect leaders to be Men of Action! --not philosophers.
The difference between the flow of process among the two camps is control of the historical group psyche by the Soul, vs. the Snake brain. In the literature, rallies, etc. of right-wing conservatism, the word and icons ("Country First", "National Defense", "Joe the Plumber") are used to arouse feeling, are not spontaneous expressions. When the latter occurred, they were hoots, mocks, yells that sounded like red neck yahoos living up to Joe Sixpack Beer Hall bull riders. Palin did indeed tap into a bandwidth of shared feeling state, but one that had not previously been politicized in the U.S., only made so now by her Snake brain charm. This lack of genuine soul reality in the flow of process was so marked, it was constantly being compensated for by some sort of 'humanizing' touch to an otherwise more formal occasion, as the presence of baby Trig onstage, or of McCain wandering aimlessly in front of Obama during the last debate, as if such distractions, done deliberately, mask its essential unreality. The existential sources of McCain's soul brain manifestation are: 1. identification with his biographical drama as surviving Vietnam prisoner of war; and 2. his autobiographical "Faith of My Fathers" narrative, He personally "squared" these two themes as candidate for President, 1. is the birth/rebirth repetition-compulsion. 2. replays the Oedipal Father-Son trauma. With the Never Abort! mother Sarah Palin covering his existential back -- let no one think of aborting HIM! -- it must have looked to conservative campaigners like they had a shoo-in. "It's not issues we are running on," insisted Rick Davis. "It the totality of impressions made by the persons, character, values."
Well, it didn't turn out. There was no Soul There. At the end it came down to "Never Surrender!", "Attack Liberals" "Resist Socialist Redistributors", and not much else.
-Explanation through Sign-Use (psychosemiotics*)
The Project: to explain the Data* (*historical record of actual signs used in the '08 presidential campaign and vote)
Part One: The Data* - condensed to token pairs (letters) for psychodynamic opposites
The sign used to distinguish the two contending political parties in the presidential campaigns can be condensed to words beginning with a small number of letters, linked as opposites*. To wit:
M - F (Male - Female) Reversed F - M (Father - Mother)
W - B (White - Black)
R - L (Right - Left )
R - D (Republican - Democrat)
R - B (Red - Blue)
C - L (Conservative - Liberal)
The opposites linked here are by: reproduction (sex and parenting), blood, handedness, political party, state colors (as shown on TV maps), and childraising philosophy.
The M - F/ F - M pairs are psychologically most potent. Financial failure of the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage firms was much on many minds. "Motherfucker" is perhaps the most widely used street curse. Human conception occurs by conjunction of Male -Female opposites. As the Male is to the Female in conception, so the Father vs.the Mother, is to the Children; and, by protocol, as the President is to the people.
The White - Black pair has the potency of DNA, blood, biology, Taken as anatomical features, the W-B are entirely distinct from the
M-F/F-M pairs, and this distinction is precisely the difference bridged by Barak Obama becoming President. A half-Black, half-White Male stands in the role of Father of America. The three-brain processing system is called upon to adjust to that by separating, then recombining differently, the psychological from the biological components of the process.
The upside-down opposition of the 13th and 23 letters M - W
also signal token associations between Man - WoMan and White Male.
The Right - Left opposition is the broadest, most generic political orientation. The two sides of the body, with one hand normally dominant, mostly the right, is the spatial pivot around which terms for the body and its attitudes are textually converted into metaphor for collective alignment. Again, the psychological process is categorically distinct from the physiological sidedness, but positing opposites linked
in an indirect way: Right-ness claimed for the active, Male force in the body, carried over by the token into politics. ("The right is Right"! is the token-tautology used on Fox news, the only context where its clear imbecility can be given gravitas -- nevertheless providing a pychosemiotic bridge.
Republican - Democrat (R. - D.) partisanship distributes the
R - L opposition to consciously designated groups carrying I- We identity with collective sanctions. . Predication on this opposition as a fundamental political division is not provided for by the U.S. Constitution, but came into existence as the means of implementing its mandated election cycles. Although 3rd parties have appeared (Libertarian; Socialist, Communist, Ross Perot's American party), and independent candidates regularly run for president, gross administrative constraints succeed in narrowing the decision to two parties.
Red - Blue State designations. This is the most artificial and seemingly chance or adventitious construction of collective opposites. Yet it was on U.S. maps repeatedly shown and referred to every day, near the end, as if these colors applied 'naturally', or by an acquired 'second nature', although a reverse assignment is certainly feasible. According to the snake brain explanation, the letter link between Red, Right, Republican played a determining "felt right."
There is re-inforcement of the Red- Blue opposition 'shining through' the image of the States of America in the ancient Egyptian myth of Horus. Although the stylized Eye of Horus, token of the omnipresent Son of Isis and Osiris, staring perpetually into the soul of all under the Pharoah, who embodied it, was a Left eye, the Right one having been gouged out by Seth, variant texts translated by Z. Sitchen speak of two eyes flashing these colors when 'powered'. He takes these as a literal record, as hues of flame in spaceship blastoff. In Archetypal terms, the myth is centered in the magical birth of Horus from Isis, after she, with the help of Thoth, revived her brother Osiris who had been killed by Seth and impregnated herself with his monumental fecundity (The Nile river's surge at flood stage). Sarah Palin played just this role for John McCain's flagging campaign, in late August, '08, pulling together the dismembered factions of the Republican party, then delivering the Spiritual child, if Republicans had won the election. All would have mysteriously* been brought together by a Grand Mysterium Conjunctionis, Horus Child Rebirth. This would provide the mythic texture of Big Brother Is Watching At All Times police state.
This is the narrative America barely escaped. Many half expected a McCain/Palin victory right up until the polls closed. Wm. Kristol even wrote a solicitous piece preparing liberals for the let down. My personal view is that an instinctive revulsion of the soul against this prospect was felt collectively, partly accounting for Obama's win. The massive outpouring of jubilation at the result was, on this view, fueled by relief at having been spared the fate of being obliged to adopt Trig Palin as sibling.
The Conservative - Liberal split is between psychoclasses, This is a division between individuals based on whether they were raised more strictly or permissively. In America, this split emerged as a group historical phenomenon in the Baby Boomer generation between the advanced psychoclass, consisting of those who rebelled against the Vietnam war; and older psychoclass, consisting of those whose
general world view remained unreconstructed. This split was the chief psychohistorical "Y" cleaving the collective psyche from 1968 on. This is where the deep inner opposition between "conservative" and "liberal" originated, in the attitudes of acceptance or rejection of the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war syndrome is the psychodynamic that has played out in the '08 election vote.
The pathos:
"The Mac is Back" -- John McCain adaptation of the McDonald's fast food restaurant successful "BIG MAC ATTACK" to make contact with the mass of voters. The fact that he was reduced to such an appeal is pathetic.
The projected target of the McCain - Palin attack was increasingly narrowed to: LIBERALS. -- "The most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate" tagged Obama. Less is more; they went with that.
White, Male, Father, Right, Republican, Red (state) CONSERVATIVES ATTACKING Black, Female, Mother, Leftist, Blue (state) LIBERALS. They failed. But the brain processes continue.
PART TWO: Explaining Why it worked out this way.
The hypercondensed Data* is most simply explained as the result of single common way of processing information. There is little reason the words should have been brought together as they are if not for a process that takes an interest in the tokens, 'how it comes out looking'. Something inexorable, fateful, unfolding like "God's plan", one religious conservative insisted. He was attuned to the mythic texture.
The flow of process through three brains* shared by normal humans, taking brains* as literal neuro-psychic locations with accepted functions verified by conscious self observation, suffices to explain the phenomena, as follows.
The two major processing nodes of the Central Nervous System are located in the head and spinal cord. Though the term "brain" is usually reserved for the organ inside the skull, it applies as well to the autonomous efferent-afferent interchanges between spine and movement, both Brains*, in this extended sense, operating together in normal routine tasks. The oldest brain, can be called the 'snake brain;', or "Brain 3", since its work its typical work is shared with vertebrates in general. Its domains are survival, reproduction and territoriality. Operation of these functions is without psychic quality.
Again, in this nomenclature, what is ordinarily called "the brain" is designated Brain 1, or "head brain". All operations performed with/on textual meaning, presupposing use of signs (pictures and words) learned in conversation.
These two centers are anatomically linked at the neck, where skull caps off spine. This, the oldest region of mammalian brains, brings together impulses from regions of the breast and abdomen, metaphorically, "heart" and "gut". Again, the function of this Brain 2 is entirely independent and autonomous with respect to both Brain 1 perceptual consciousness and Brain 2 biological imperatives. It manifests as desire, striving-toward (completion of its totality) and anxiety. In gross 'vegetative reaction', Wilhelm Reich correlated these these with expansion and contraction ('hanging out' and 'uptight'), and these with cycles of involuntary orgasmic convulsion (orgasm)
It is the inclusion of the lower and upper anatomical nodes called 'the limbic system' as a separate and distinct centre of efferent-afferent neural impulses, linking the autonomic nervous system, endocrine glands, blood chemistry, sexual and emotional arousals, that distinguishes the three brain functional analysis of human sign use.
*****
Obama won because of real soul brain flow through in the 'movement' of those supporting and voting for him. In rallies, organization, homes, groups and many acting as individuals, it was the shared feeling states: Hope! Believe! Change! Change We can Believe In, "Yes, we can!"
These were tokens of real flow. The words and phrases emerged spontaneously from the collective experience mostly minus textual content of thought. As Brain 1 content, they are pure psychological self-references. Few enthusiastic supporters would be able to give much account of Obamas positions and policies. (cf. James Petras: 12 Reasons to Reject Obama http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1760&more=1&c=1 ) Generally speaking, they follow the same line as Bush toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, S. Lebanon and Israel; or worse, to those opposing militarism. On fiscal matters he has consistently complied with Paulson, Wall Street, Big business interests. His health care plan is not universal, serves interests of Big Pharma and insurance companies. Whatever these are, he represents Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" America.
Further, Obama support is a flow through that, as opposed to the sentiment aroused at McCain/Palin rallies, does not call for DO-ing; to ACT!. "Just get out and vote, that's what we need," he said to angry audience sounds at one point. Like religious services, concerts, movies, participants return to daily routines perhaps inspired and invigorated, but without a program of action. This is how it differs from Brain 3 arousal. It is his reality as a soul brain figure that he is mocked as "the One", and "the Messiah" by conservatives who expect leaders to be Men of Action! --not philosophers.
The difference between the flow of process among the two camps is control of the historical group psyche by the Soul, vs. the Snake brain. In the literature, rallies, etc. of right-wing conservatism, the word and icons ("Country First", "National Defense", "Joe the Plumber") are used to arouse feeling, are not spontaneous expressions. When the latter occurred, they were hoots, mocks, yells that sounded like red neck yahoos living up to Joe Sixpack Beer Hall bull riders. Palin did indeed tap into a bandwidth of shared feeling state, but one that had not previously been politicized in the U.S., only made so now by her Snake brain charm. This lack of genuine soul reality in the flow of process was so marked, it was constantly being compensated for by some sort of 'humanizing' touch to an otherwise more formal occasion, as the presence of baby Trig onstage, or of McCain wandering aimlessly in front of Obama during the last debate, as if such distractions, done deliberately, mask its essential unreality. The existential sources of McCain's soul brain manifestation are: 1. identification with his biographical drama as surviving Vietnam prisoner of war; and 2. his autobiographical "Faith of My Fathers" narrative, He personally "squared" these two themes as candidate for President, 1. is the birth/rebirth repetition-compulsion. 2. replays the Oedipal Father-Son trauma. With the Never Abort! mother Sarah Palin covering his existential back -- let no one think of aborting HIM! -- it must have looked to conservative campaigners like they had a shoo-in. "It's not issues we are running on," insisted Rick Davis. "It the totality of impressions made by the persons, character, values."
Well, it didn't turn out. There was no Soul There. At the end it came down to "Never Surrender!", "Attack Liberals" "Resist Socialist Redistributors", and not much else.
posted by Sid Thomas | 10:00 AM
1 Comments:
Sid,
I took your class in the 1980s...you're still a character.
Ben
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