The talk of healthcare reform has really become a rallying point for paranoia. I blogged about projection, which is the psychological act of seeing out in the world or in other people something that is actually true about you. From the far right comes a fear that somehow healthcare reform will usher in an evil empire of government that will deprive us of our liberty, our rights, our ability to just live like plain folks do. Claims that Obama is a communist, a muslim, Hitler even (how bizarre)are symbols of this paranoia.
Going along with the theory of projection we can entertain the possibility that what is happening is that a deep, hidden part of the American psyche is being activated. The fear of some evil empire, which used to be the USSR, then terrorists, now Obama is a projection of who we are. We are that evil empire. We imported slaves from another continent. We wiped out an entire indigenous culture. We are the evil empire other countries are afraid of. We have undermined legal institutions in other countries by covert means so that our needs are met. Naturally we as Americans prefer not to think about that too much. For one, it’s not really us who did those things. Those things were done by other people or some other government I didn’t vote for.
Yet it did happen. Ask any Native American or African American. It resides in the national psyche and we are conflicted about it. Shame, guilt, remorse lurk beneath the national consciousness. As well as lust for power and domination. All great nations in the past have been through this. Greece. Rome. France. England. USSR. Germany. All of them in one way or another had at one time great power and tried to impose its will on others. Great things happened as a result. Bad things happened too. And now it seems it is our turn to re-vision who are in the world and how we take care of our own. But can we truly do this if talk of evil empires and death panels keeps showing up? For what lies behind those assumptions is not really a concern for personal liberty or quality of life, what drives these labels is the quest for power. Power is intoxicating. Any form of mudslinging, name calling, cheating, lying will do as long as it serves its purpose. And guess who gets lost in the shuffle?
