March 14, 2022

Projection in psychoanalytic circles means attributing certain qualities of thought, morality, and attitude onto a person or group or people that can be positive or negative but obscures the reality of the individual or group projected upon. For example, if a female adult has thoughts and impulses to experience carnal sexual activities with another male besides her husband she may accuse her husband of having these  proclivities and become very jealous. Introjection involves taking on qualities, attitudes, morality and beliefs of another as one's own. For example, if a boy child is told by his father that boys don't cry and this is introjected then even as an adult this male person will usually become conflicted with sad, anxious, or other upsetting feelings suppressed since they threaten him with tears. What I'm writing about is unconscious processes of the mind that an individual is influenced by so the other becomes imbued with the persons rejected projected complexes or he or she denies genuine feelings, thoughts, and behaviors because an authority sometime in the past taught him so.

Group dynamics, ethnic identity and behaviors, political affiliation dynamics, and news media made up news often contain projection and introjection messages and proclivities that prevent factual refutation and clarification from taking hold. We see this in our previous president's insistence that he was robbed of his rightful place as being reelected and his group and political party magnifying this great lie and attempting to change our election laws and procedures through labeling civil servants as traitors to the cause if they don't comply with changing the election results or preventing another election going against them. Just google "Georgia election officials harassment" and you'll get the point. 

Now we have a war which is developing into another genocide of Russia against Ukraine. Putin has concocted a view of history in which Russia is a colossal great power in their area so Russia must control the surrounding countries as vassal states. The Ukraine must be "denazified" so he sends in his army but he's been rebuffed so far with resistance he did not realize was there and now stuck in pursuing a blitzkrieg. He has blocked access to any news that shows the reality of his blunder and Russian atrocities perpetrated by his army and Russian casualties mounting. He has threatened long prison sentences for news contrary to his directives, and people in Russia who are free thinking are leaving in droves while others are frightened and some buy into his projections and introjections. 

Apple TV  has a docu-series on Lincoln and his metamorphosis as an abolitionist who finally agreed that the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness should apply to all people regardless of race or ethnicity. The series documents Lincoln's metamorphosis from a leader contemplating a compromise with slave owner states to a leader hell bent on making the constitution and the declaration of independence a reality regardless of what state you lived in. The civil war was a horror with serious death and destruction and uncertain outcome with inept and reluctant generals for a time. One of the conflict dynamics then which is present to this day can be described by the property owners (and cotton farmers and sweat shop entrepreneurs at that time) wish to have their wealth and privilege continue while the "commoner" works and can be exploited. Building infrastructure, safe water and health systems, etc require government revenue so taxes are required but they don't want to pay. In the United States an autocratic rule in the name of democracy has held sway for a time then a more democratic system for life, liberty, and then pursuit of happiness has come to the fore but then began fading again. This see saw history has been related to the so called rights of the individual to their property and way of life usually espoused in states rights or the rights of all including the disenfranchised, poor, disabled, and vulnerable citizens of our country. So if your with the autocrat group your propaganda machines will turn out "fact and opinions" to justify your interests which is not for free and fair elections. Rhetoric is manufactured to support this conservative view as the obvious dominant view of our founding fathers and of the history of our development as a nation when in fact the dominant view as surveyed repeatedly in objective studies sees our country as a freedom loving tolerant place where talent and hard work can lead to a fruitful life with a reasonable life style. 

I used to think that education in our country including college education prepared people to learn how to access information and discern propaganda from fact for example. I now realize how naive I've been. Human beings are homo sapiens an animal which if you study has an amazing ability to invent, create art, make tools, and tame a wildly savage and dangerous environment so that life has progressed to where we're now destroying our planet. Nevertheless, our animal nature includes mind complexes such as projection and introjection. Our rational mind can be hoodwinked into being sidelined so we accept the groups beliefs and propaganda as facts rather than propaganda. If we're so hoodwinked how do we box our way out of this bag we've surrounded ourselves in? 

Competition may be a key element. Can you have a democracy without competition? Can you have a free enterprise system without competition? Of course not! When I was in college for a time I participated in the Debate Club. There were rules to be followed. (Adopted from google search) The speaking order is as follows: First Affirmative, First Negative, Second Affirmative, Second Negative, Third Affirmative, and finally Third Negative. The debate is finished with a closing argument by the last speaker from each team. There were also rules concerning what you were not permitted to do in the debate. Do not interrupt other speakers while they are speaking. Do not shout or talk loudly. Do not use 'um' or 'em; within the speech. Do not use false facts within your speech. If our social media and news sources, political discourse and election information followed these rules we may be less subject to the group think traps including introjection and projection. But our real world experiences include being subject to propaganda and distorted reality to gain or keep in power people and institutions that care little for their constituents but want power and influence. Competition of ideas, beliefs, and world views require us to tolerate allowing some horrible viewpoints to be expressed. Free speech consists of allowing this competition so that we all can then come to more rational understanding and decisions regarding our planet. We evolved homo sapiens to function in small groups cooperating in an environment requiring cooperation and communication with each other. Once our numbers was so large the governing of our society made way to all sorts of configurations including autocrats, monarchy, democracy, theocracy, etc. The only configuration that depends on competition of ideas in my view is democracy. 

Last evening we watched a comedy special on Netflix Jo Koy in Honolulu. Here's a gifted comedian who is making fun of ethnicity, family life, puberty, sexual prowess, food preferences, racism, etc. He picks on himself, his family, his ethnicity, other people's sensitivities and gets laughs and nods of understanding while in another venue he might get assaulted. Competition of discourse requires us to have tolerance and respect for those who differ from us unless they are out to threaten us. There's the rub one person's view of threat is another's view of right and might. 

So my take away from these musing digressions is that we can not have cooperation and (and conformity) as the goal. Thomas More wrote Utopia a book attempting to describe a more perfect society. Many other versions of utopia have been written but attempting to pigeon hole us and get us to agree and cooperate wholly is a myth best read about than an actual reality (1984, Animal Farm, Gulliver's Travels, Candide, Lost Horizons, etc). The Communist Revolutions promised the freeing of human potential and the end of servitude and exploitation through a revolt of the common man against his exploiters. This revolution became a cause that dictator Stalin and others used to subjugate and exploit others. Currently we have China and Russia as prime examples of this misguided alternative system of governing (I'm not forgetting all the other dictator governed countries such as Myanmar, Syria, Egypt, etc. and countries that are going in that direction such as India and Turkey).    Competition is our means of human discourse while cooperation and conformity are attempts to defeat competition. We have devised many ways to compete including the deadly ball courts of the Mayan at Chichen Itza or the more civilized bull fighting ring. We go to battle at soccer competitions with opposing spectators attacking each other. So we have rules that we want followed or you can be arrested and even be put in prison. Our laws are promulgated through elected officials and appointed judges with opposing counsel requiring witnesses and data to be used to come to a decision regarding the rule breaking behavior allegations. Then we have penalties defined in the law which can be harsh and not fit the rule breaking behaviors which then can be reviewed and modified. Democracy is messy but the alternative is worse!

Leonard