America's Threat

 

 

Our Democratic Republic is under assault. Approximately 90 years ago, the Weimar Republic in Germany was terminated by a sadomasochistic authoritarian. Yes, the world was in a global depression then and currently we have a global pandemic with severe economic consequences as well. This disquisition proposes that deficiencies in moral and ethical behavior, limited cognitive functioning with herd affiliation are a few of the psychological aspects of the followers of authoritarian leaders. Authoritarian is defined as “favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority, especially that of government, favoring a concentration of power in a leader at the expense of personal freedom.”

Although the Weimar Republic had other difficulties that go beyond this essay, there are similar psychological conditions that are common to what took place in Germany. Let’s back track for a moment. Early on, we had religious prophets like Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius and Lao-tse whose teachings were based on moral and ethical principles that, if followed, would have resulted in a humanistic world order. Where are those ideals today? Applying Christianity as an illustration, it only took a few hundred years when Christianity ceased to be the religion of the poor, the humble, peasants, artisans, slaves when it became the religion of the white, wealthy ruling power of the Roman Empire with an institution that promoted supernatural ideologies, illusions, mythology or fables as in the Virgin Mary; Life after death; the Holy Ghost etc.. As a result, those initial honorable principles became suppressed for power, possessions, exploitation and control. Ethics and values were ignored and replaced. Decades later, Sigmund Freud agreed with the humanistic ideas of the prophets. He wrote that man’s mental health was dependent on seeking truth, knowledge; brotherly love; reducing suffering; independence and taking responsibility.

Man is born dependent and powerlessness and it’s this disharmony that generates his need to transcend this state. Man constructs mental images of the world which serves as a frame of reference regarding his disharmony as he has to confront the main experiences of living, as well as forming and reconstituting that  out of balance equilibrium. Because of man’s vulnerability and aloneness, man strives for unity and oneness while attempting to satisfy his orientation, dealing with feelings, and his intellectual quandary along with satisfying his psychological needs. This is no easy task so he devotes himself to an aim, or an idea or a power transcending man such as a God or other. This is merely an expression of man’s need for completeness in the process of living.

Man, in part of his human existence, may strongly devote and align himself to a god; a religion; a political party; a group; the idea of democracy; the flag; to capitalism; to socialism; to white supremacy and entitlement; to America; to Tina Turner; to the Rolling Stones; to the Beatles; to the University of Michigan; to the Oakland Athletics; to Ride and Tie; to psychoanalytic theory; to owning a Corvette; being a psychologist etc. It’s very important to faithfully follow and be loyal to your team etc. You can’t be affiliated with the team only when they win. You have to support and demonstrate your loyalty in your thinking, dreaming, imagination, soul and behavior. Furthermore, it’s clear, that we are emotionally attached to our ideals or devotions. In other words, they are important and significant to us and they can become rituals. What are your devotions and/or rituals?

On the other hand, one could also be devoted and driven and have a loyalty for power, fame, possessions, money, success, destruction, prejudice or hate. We are either talking about following a productive, ethical and moral healthy life or following a non-fulfilling unhealthy amoral and non-ethical existence. We are referring to one’s character structure. Remember, consensus, opinion or group size can be related to good – bad, love-hate, truth- lies etc.

.What happens, if you’re white, and privileged and then, there’s a local and global pandemic? What if you’re limited educationally as well? What happens if you lose your job and have little economic opportunity? What happens if you are racist and don’t believe in democracy for all? What happens if your primary focus is on being reelected as a politician? What happens if you’re afraid of losing your power? How can you purchase and fulfill all those costly “American dreams” propagated by advertising in support of the capitalistic machine?  How do you compensate for feeling powerlessness and dependent? To whom do you devote yourself? What happens if you’re trained to kill and then return to civilian life with little skill other than to kill?  What should these individuals do with their anxiety, insecurity, hate, paranoid thinking, fear of being alone and left behind, sadomasochistic tendencies and frustration? The answer is to emotionally devote, worship, and faithfully follow a sick and destructive authoritarian in an attempt to regain emotional balance from a conscious or unconscious sense of being powerlessness and dependence.

Let’s now return to religion.  Briefly, there was the establishment of moral and ethical principles to guide man’s behavior for the benefit of all. Then, religion became institutionalized with the Pope’s and their pursuit of power, control and rule. Pope Stephen V1, John X11, and the House of Borgias are a few examples. We also had battles between Kings, religious wars, crusades and the converting of the weak and powerless with cruel torture techniques. “Thank you” Queen Isabella for your Proclamation in 1492!   I recently saw on television a religious choir being close together and singing. I didn’t see many masks coverings with the choir or for the parishioners. We have a Southern Baptist Convention, while hundreds of its leaders are being accused of sexual crimes. Further, the former pastor of a mega-church was recently fired for lying and extramarital conduct. My friend’s neighbors have a Covid-19 diagnosis that they contracted at church services.  If Jesus was alive, he would think and say what?

Statistics on nationwide Catholic churches along with their parishioners have declined. Further, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has lost 200,000 members and closed 150 churches. The religiously unaffiliated now count for 23% of the adult population, up from 16% in 2007. Do not forget that Nietzsche over a couple hundred years ago talked about the collapse of religion and that God is dead. In our country, it’s sad to say, but not surprising that during slavery, black skinned individuals had to go to “praise houses” in order to worship god.

Evangelicals have an antiabortion belief yet are extremely prejudiced as evidenced by attitude toward living black and Brown people. They even rationalize in order to support a lying, criminal despot individual that was responsible for the capital riot in January. At one time, the religious prophets were moral and ethical in their behavior and their words. Moral and ethical behavior has declined and might be correlated with declining worship. What about a $15 minimum wage to allow people to overcome poverty?  Oh yeah, it might interfere with the profits for white business owners? I ’m sure Jesus Christ would have an opinion about the paucity of moral and ethical standards in our so-called Christian institutions.

Along with declining worship, moral and ethical behavior, there’s an increase in crazy and irrational conspiracy beliefs with increased violent prejudice. The pursuit of illusion and nonsensical ideas is both hateful and prejudicial. Essentially, there’s minimal intelligent thinking and rationalizing that interferes with pursuing wisdom and reason objectively.  What is more important is truth and fact compared to judgment, opinion and belief. With illusion, there is increased mistrust between people, suspiciousness, rationalizations and paranoia, that results in irrational self-destructive thinking and behavior.

My friend Paul has had discussions with a few of these cognitively limited individuals. It’s clear, they exhibit a lack of historical and current knowledge as well as an inability to think coherently. These individuals are clearly cognitively impaired. I hypothesize that white hate groups, individuals with conspiracy ideas, and hateful Evangelicals would have significantly lower scores on intelligence sub tests such as Information, Comprehension, Similarities and Vocabulary that measure cerebral functioning in the left hemisphere. These tests measure and assess remote memory, ability to comprehend, capacity for associative thinking, social and moral behavior, the ability to use practical judgment, rational thinking with emotional balance and stability, degree of abstract thinking, and the ability to analyze, synthesize and reproduce employing logic and reason. I would like to believe that most right wing politicians might know right from craziness but are primarily driven to hold onto their present and future employment.

Clearly, we see many individuals in our country completely emotionally devoted and dependent on a crazy and sadistic authoritarian. This is a devotion to a man, whose only interest is in himself, for whom the flag is a somewhat symbol of his group, and is like a totem of spiritual significance and worship. These individuals have sacrificed their integrity and reason and joined and aligned themselves with the principle of” my white supremacy country.” With a considerable number of people in line, the adopting of the most irrational lies {the election was stolen] is popular because of group consensus. This allows the individual a feeling of oneness with others, certain amount of security and emotional stability which the person lacks. The irrational lie and sophisticated rationalizations gains power by social media, TV and radio repetition. It doesn’t matter that 62 court rulings found no evidence .With that, repetition , consensus and group affiliation , the individual feels less ostracized and isolated. Inconsistency in thinking is expected and rationalized away. It’s not surprising that these lies violate the spirit of moral and ethical ideals which was in play at the Capital. They would say on one hand that they believe in democracy and yet on the other, acknowledge that it was their patriotism to attack the one and only democratic institution that facilitates the peaceful transition of power. Rationalization at best. Remember, it’s imperative to follow, to please, to employ violence and hate that’s commanded by the authoritarian.

This worship, results in obedience and reverence. It has nothing to do with the moral qualities of the authoritarian but the fact that he is in control and he has that power over man. It’s very important that the main virtue of being loyal to an authoritarian is obedience and the cardinal sin is disobedience. One can only gain security and love from the authoritarian by complete surrender. Yes, to submit to this powerful authority actually allows individuals to escape from feelings of aloneness and limitations. In the active surrender, man loses his independence and integrity as an individual. He gains the feeling of being protected by the power of which he is now part. The authoritarian works on the principle that the ends justify the means along with his ability to control the lives of his loyal followers.

With a tremendous amount of disequilibrium in one’s psyche, with a herd mentality, a sadomasochistic character tendency, one has to find meaning and security in an unforgiving and scary world. If one has too many emotional deficiencies because of early improper or hateful parenting experiences, one can be in a troubled and severely impaired emotional state and vulnerable. Add,  economic insecurity, inability and lack of fully functioning cognitive  ability to seek wisdom, knowledge and truth with rationalization they can become part of the herd; a deterioration of ethics and moral judgment behavior experiences; fearful of losing power; tremendous frustration and mistrust in others; seeking security and dependence; need for group membership in a hateful and sadistic community; need for simplistic solutions and structure, one then identifies ,follows ,becomes dependent and submits to a ruthless, criminal authoritarian which results in a  threat to democracy and humanistic ideals.

PS

Per Abbe Pire “What matters is not the difference between believers and unbelievers, but between those who care and those who do not care.” For a more detailed analysis consult, Fromm, Erich, Escape from Freedom, Avon Books.