Politics on the Couch: Splitting

Splits within groups -- like the current split between Obama and Clinton supporters -- are even more absolute and dramatic than those within one individual.
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What follows is the second section of my new book, Politics on the Couch. Because we live in an interactive world and this election is an interactive process, I am conducting a new experiment -- posting sections of the manuscript twice weekly on my blog at HuffingtonPost.com and inviting readers' comments which may be folded into the final print edition.

SPLITTING

From early infancy, we try to organize our internal world, a need that persists throughout life. At first we simplify that world, turning our experiences into good and bad, comfort at our mother's presence and discomfort in her absence. This attempt to order psychic life into good and bad experiences is called splitting, and it is a fundamental way to make sense of different emotions by keeping opposite feelings separate from one another. This protects the child from feeling confused or anxious that his bad feelings will destroy his good ones.

When children divide up into teams of good guys and bad guys, they are splitting. When parents divorce, some children have to see one parent as the victim and the other as the victimizer in order to manage their fears and confusion. Whatever the circumstance, as children we all learn to split in order to manage anxiety. It is normal and a necessary part of emotional growth.

Politicians are aware of this universal unconscious process, and try to use it to their advantage. George W. Bush is a master at manipulating our tendency to split, tapping into the general public's need to protect itself from overwhelming anxiety. Psychic splitting is reinforced by fear: Bush exhorts us to fear terrorists. We hear his threat to other nations - "You are either with us or against us" - either as comforting if we link supporting America to supporting Bush, or as threatening if we disagree with his policies.

Splits within groups - whether the current split between Obama and Clinton supporters or the century-old American split between North and South - are even more absolute and dramatic than those within one individual. For example, when journalist Samantha Power called Hillary Clinton a "monster," not only was she splitting - unless Senator Clinton really is a monster (a term I generally reserve for unrepentant serial killers) - Professor Power herself was labeled a monster, and was given no room to admit a mistake or to apologize. Perceptions become absolute and splitting complete. The Obama campaign was itself acceding to the power of splitting when it fired her. She became the bad team member/monster who had to go.

I was shocked at some responses I got to my announcement that I was going to vote for Obama. Some friends said, "So you really hate Hillary." They didn't seem to believe me when I said that I actually liked Senator Clinton and thought she'd be a good President. People under stress in groups tend to divide their worlds into good and evil - no matter how well educated or thoughtful they are as individuals.

People split between idealization and demonization. Before the age of five, most children idealize their parents as powerful people without fault. Idealization facilitates growth and development, enabling the child to identify with the strengths of a parent. At the same time idealization keeps aggressive or murderous feelings from reaching the child's consciousness. The child thus avoids guilt feelings, remaining unaware of potentially destructive wishes against his perfect caregivers. But when the child becomes disillusioned with his parents - it usually happens around the age of five - organized patriotism, religious indoctrination, or team sports are there to pick up the pieces and form bases for new idealizations that protect the child from disappointment and anger. In healthy environments the child eventually gains perspective on parental faults

Political candidates try to convince voters of their moral integrity, their compassion, and their patriotism. They masquerade as ideal people - and ideal people can't admit mistakes, lest they be dethroned. When Senator Edwards acknowledged the mistake of giving Bush power to invade Iraq, he gained stature in the minds of many, but lost other voters who need to have a president who is never wrong. Childhood idealizations are activated in adult voters who are drawn to support one candidate over another. We've seen that process intensely at work in the rival Clinton-Obama camps. Threats to idealizations are rapidly dismissed.

Unconscious internal splitting is now reinforced by material splits that are starker than at any time in US history: voters face real-world splits between black and white, man and woman, young and old. Polling often emphasizes those splits. In this election cycle, groups are more likely to identify themselves by who they are not, rather than who they are. Splitting simplifies. Politicians use fear to maintain that simplification - Obama declares himself safe and different by calling McCain the same as Bush; McCain declares himself strong by accusing Obama of always wanting surrender in Iraq.

When a person splits, he becomes an unconscious hypocrite: he doesn't keep in mind the relationship of what he says to what he does. This kind of split is between thought and action, between public and private - and it can be complete. Gay-bashing Republicans who turn out to be gay themselves are clear-cut examples of total splitting: they eliminate all capacity for self-awareness.

Was Senator McCain splitting in his June 2 AIPAC speech? He said, "We should...divest from companies doing business with Iran" while at the same time his chief campaign advisor - lobbyist Charles Black - had just helped a Chinese oil company invest in Iran. I think McCain was splitting; he seems genuinely unaware of what his close friend, Mr. Black, actually does. If McCain were mindful he wouldn't be splitting, because splitting involves a total lack of mindfulness. If he is mindful, then he has made a conscious choice to lie.

How do you see splitting manifested in the current political process - in the media, in the candidates, in yourselves? What do you think about temporal splitting, about how we split what we say to day from what we forget having said yesterday?

Next: RACE AND SPLITTING

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