[Oe List ...] Chopra on Palin - The shadow effect

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Obama and the Palin  Effect


from:
_www.deepakchopra.com_ (http://www.deepakchopra.com/) 
Posted  September 4, 2008 | 01:41 PM (EST)


Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche  
even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the  
rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in  
Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan  Quail 
as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the  complex 
affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000  residents, 
which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth  of New York 
City. By comparison, Rudy Gillian is a towering international  figure. 
Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real  appeal goes 
deeper.

She is the reverse  of Barrack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his 
idealism and  exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological 
terms the shadow  is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering 
our aspirations,  virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: 
anger, fear, revenge,  violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For 
millions of Americans,  Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to 
express  them. He is calling for us to reach for  our higher selves, and 
frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an  unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly 
clear, I am not making a verbal play out of  the fact that Sen. Obama is 
black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before  his arrival on the scene.) I 
recognize that psychological analysis of politics  is usually not welcome by 
the public, but I believe such a perspective can be  helpful here to 
understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin  sent a rousing call to 
those who want to celebrate their resistance to change  and a higher vision.

Look at  what she stands for:
-- Small town values -- a denial of  America's global role, a return to 
petty, small-minded  parochialism.
-- Ignorance of world  affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair 
America's image  abroad.
-- Family  values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for  
social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be  
heeded.
-- Rigid stands on guns and  abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these 
issues can be  negotiated with those who disagree.
--  Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed  war.
-- Reform -- an  italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out 
corruption and excessive  spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your 
ideology.

Palin  reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has 
been in play  since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities 
and  immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be 
ignored, that  progressivism takes too much effort and globalize is a foreign 
threat. The  radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and 
"Why  change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. 
Palin is a  woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple 
pie on her  resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. 
The irony is  superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of 
conservatism,  however obviously they are voting against their own good. The 
Republicans have won multiple national elections  by raising shadow issues 
based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and  narrow-mindedness.

Obama's  call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The 
shadow is  real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a  
shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of  
progress and inertia. Will the shadow  win again, or has its furtive appeal 
become exhausted? No one  can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she 
brought this conflict  to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It 
would be a shame to elect  another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking 
horse for the reactionary  forces that have brought us to the demoralized 
state we are in.We deserve to see what we are getting, without  disguise.

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_www.deepakchopra.com_ (http://www.deepakchopra.com/) 





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