Hon. Brett Kavanaugh Part 3

When we have an important emotional belief and are verbally or physically confronted with a dissonant view, we consciously or unconsciously experience anxiety, which is a reaction to danger to our ego or self. Because of identification dynamics, a perceived attack on judge Kavanaugh becomes personalized as an attack on us, which we therefore defend.  Anxiety is unpleasant and although we may or not be aware, psychically. we attempt to defuse it, avoid it or to eliminate it. So when one member of the tribe, hears that the judge sexually assaulted Dr. Ford, they rationalize and refute the accusation and put their energy into proving the statement wrong like “it happened 35 years ago.” Or employ denial, “How could she remember that it was him?”

Another member, of the tribe inserted the idea of him being a sexual predator. He added something to the effect that there were no current charges of sexual assault and therefore the Hon. Kavanaugh cannot be a sexual predator because he doesn’t fit the profile. That’s an example of rationalization by misusing, creating and employing a distortion of the facts with pseudo- logic.

Being human, it’s not surprising that the Hon. Brett Kavanaugh was anxious during the second hearing. He could not escape the feeling of helplessness, nor the anxiety associated with it. This anxiety becomes almost unbearable for a person mainly in control of most situations .The greater the anxiety results in aggressiveness or hostility as a defense against experiencing it.  The Hon. Kavanaugh felt danger and threat as if he was attacked. The anxiety surfaced and anger and hostility followed by him becoming more entrenched in his view of being right and perfect. As a result, his fighting back behavior exemplified partisanship, an anxiety reaction with episodes of anger; exposing character during his job interview.

The existentialists are correct in that man has strong irrational forces within him, and he cannot be comforted by political or other illusions. It doesn’t take much for man to express his biases based on his perceptions and defense mechanisms as a consequence of living in our society as conflict is inevitable.