Politeia: Obamania and the Psychology of Fear and Guilt

On the lighter side of politics and for the fence-dwellers, here's a rather good "who's your ideal candidate?".

In the bubbling cauldron of campaign passion a number of writers have taken a more contemplative attitude, analyzing the psychology behind Obamania that has taken the US by storm. Fouad Ajami on Wall Street Journal in "Obama and the Politics of Crowds", subtitled "The masses greeting the candidate on the trail are a sign of great unease," looks at the rather worrisome phenomenon of Third World style crowds.

It reminds him of what the media terms 'the Arab Street': "the tragedy of Arab political culture has been the unending expectation of the crowd -- the street, we call it -- in the redeemer who will put an end to the decline, who will restore faded splendor and greatness. (...) the faith in the Awaited One lives on, and it would forever circle the Arab world looking for the next redeemer."

Third World style demagogy of the meaningless platitudes of 'change' and 'hope' could just as easily turn into Third Reich passionate rhetoric. After all, there is no basic difference between tribal societies and totalitarian ones. From the faintings and hysterics at the mass rallies you'd have thought the nation was decimated by famine and pestilence over the last few years!

What we see is a collection of hedonistic Narcissists, force-fed on dialectically induced self-loathing through Ayers' educational reform. They're simply unable to deal with the surge in cognitive dissonance as a result of their idealistic self-image as caring, generous people, that clashes with the cultivation of intense hatred, of which Bu$hitler has been the main recipient.

Of course these drones are largely Subjectivists, meaning that they've substituted reason with emotion as a cognitive tool. At some point they'll find that feelings cannot guide them, but that they can experience no emotions save one: terror. To escape from its impotence they seek safety in numbers, a frantic desire to belong and attach themselves to some group, gang, clique, whatever hive.

For certain is, that the choice for Obama as the next POTUS is an emotional one, made on the basis of the dangerous potion of guilt and fear: the hope of white redemption. Policies (or lack thereof) are irrelevant to most, only few bother to rationalize their choice.

David Kupelian in "Yes, Barack Obama really is a Manchurian candidate" explains the power of guilt, of which - it must be said - Democrats, as the party of the KKK and segregation - may suffer more than - say, Evangelicals.

"(...) Americans – even though slavery and segregation are long gone from the national scene – still have a large and understandable reservoir of collective guilt over its past exploitation and mistreatment of blacks. Guilt is a fantastically powerful factor in all of our lives. (...) When we're guilty we try to relieve this inner conflict, and this is often a good thing. (...)

Manipulative and unprincipled humans soon discover how to use our guilt to get their way. They can even make us feel guilty when we haven't done anything wrong – for instance, by way of false accusation, a tactic the left has perfected. (...) With white voters in particular, there is a strong urge to finally move beyond our collective guilt over slavery and to prove, once and for all, that we're not a nation beset by racism – by electing a black president.

It's not an exaggeration to call this guilt-induced way of looking at Obama, this conditioned attitude, a type of trance. We hold him to a different standard, we see and feel (...) a desire for his success (...) all based on guilt. But love based on guilt is not real love. It's just an unconscious attempt to rid ourselves of guilt. Shelby Steele, author of "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era," puts it this way: "[Americans] struggle, above all else, to dissociate themselves from the past sins they are stigmatized with." (...)

Did you ever get angry at your kids – and then find yourself "being nice" to them to make up for the guilt of having been impatient? With that in mind, consider just one of many ways guilt (in this case, racial guilt) can find its way into you: Let's say you're walking down the street and a group of black men are walking toward you, and you become fearful (very similar to the story Obama famously told about his white grandmother). That fear has a little resentment attached to it, for that's the nature of fear. But when you become resentful for any reason at all, you automatically incur guilt, because resentment is a wrong, failing way for mature human beings to respond to the stresses of life.

Now, saddled with this new guilt associated with black people, a compulsion rises up from within you to make up for that guilt – which you do by discovering a mysterious affinity for black people that wasn't there before. But that "love" isn't real love – it's all rooted in guilt and resentment (just like when you got impatient with your kids, then suddenly became "nice" to them to compensate for your anger). Although my example here centers on race, this guilt principle is universal. (...) read it all, also why Barack Obama really is the Manchurian candidate >>> (read also "Who Sent Obama?").

As some would have it (and it makes sense) the MSM have made a reckless choice by putting all their cards on a "monolithic, single-party government [which] will crush the alternative media via a revived Fairness Doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe, be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there".

But once the ideology driven collective unfolds, perhaps they'll realize too late how much they've got to answer for. In an age of indoctrination induced self-loathing dictators rise because men do not know their own course, and values have no means to resist his promises and demands. A nation does not learn from disaster, it only does from discovering its cause.

Let us call it a day by drawing attention to the activities of a fellow Objectivist, a great campaigner for the Jewish and American cause ...

Atlas Shrugs: "The Great Reverse Schlep"