The Fantasy-Based Community and their Messiah

So much for the Supercilious Bowl. The only way to make Obama's otherwise vapid speech interesting is to perform a Fantasy Analysis on it, a technique invented by psychohistorian Lloyd DeMause to supposedly reveal "hidden emotional messages embedded within seemingly bland and boring speeches and press conferences of leaders." Its purpose is to "capture how it feels to be part of a nation's emotional life" by focusing only upon emotionally charged "fantasy words" that resonate with the unconscious mind. It operates under the assumption that any leader is also a fantasy leader who necessarily answers to the group's unconscious emotions, needs and impulses.

A leader who fails to resonate in this unconscious manner simply will not be perceived as an effective leader, no matter how competent he is. For example, from even before Day One, because of resentment over Al Gore's unsuccessful attempt to exploit the judicial system to overturn the 2000 election, President Bush has been unable to use language in such a way as to bind up the anxiety and hatred of liberals. As has been evident for all to see, their raw hatred has been completely unbound for nigh on eight years. Truly, they're like fatherless children.

In order to perform a fantasy analysis on a text, one records all strong feeling words (including anything related to the family, e.g., mother, father, baby) regardless of context, plus any unusual metaphors or gratuitously repeated words. One also eliminates negatives, because of the symmetrical logic of the unconscious, which converts a negation to an affirmation (for example, the more Obama insists his forbears were from Kansas, the more it emphasizes that he grew up in Indonesia, or the more he complains about people questioning his patriotism, the more it emphasizes the lack thereof).

If you found yourself dozing off during Obama's speech, it's because, as DeMause writes, "most political meetings are usually held not to make decisions but to deepen the social trance, to switch into political alters, and to entrain the group's unconscious emotional strategies for handling the inner emotional problems of its hidden world." Because Democrats are by nature such emotional creatures who project so much undisguised emotion into politics, they are much more transparent in their fantasies (indeed, as is true of any more primitive group).

So without further ado, here's what Obama was transmitting to the Democrat underworld, unconscious-to-unconscious (I've inserted paragraph breaks where there was a lengthy stretch with no new material, or else a sudden change of emphasis):

profound gratitude... great humility... inspiration... love... love... proud... sacrifice... dreams... dreams...

jeopardy... courage... war... turmoil... lost... plummet... beyond your reach... broken... illness... disaster... chokes... drowns before our eyes... enough! enough... bravery... gratitude... respect... broken... strong anxiety... suffering... whiners... whiners... burdens... whiners... tough luck... failure... strength... sick... strength...

protect us from harm... provide every child... safe... help us... not hurt us... cut... cut... security... dependence... dying... sick... sick... sick... ailing... protected... strength... crime... despair... children... war... threats... stubborn... threats... strained... harm’s way... war... fight... conflicts... aggression... threats... genocide... disease... died... abortion... gun plagued... violence... criminals....

love... passions... mother... separated from her infant... child... undercuts... strength... happy talk... firmer... abandonment... scare... people should run... hopes have been dashed again and again... something is stirring... children losing a limb... floodwaters rise... powerful ... strong... envy... anger and discord... fear and frustration... cried... children...

First of all, we should probably ask the question: does fantasy analysis actually work?

I have no idea. It sounds good on paper, but it can obviously be subject to abuse. Plus, in the hands of an unskilled person, I suppose they could prove anything they wish. It's very much analogous to free association, which is the cornerstone of psychoanalysis. In that case, the therapist is "listening with the third ear" to what the patient is saying, in that one part of the mind follows along with the explicit words, while another part must always be attentive to the subliminal message and emotional undercurrents. Very much like being married to a female, actually. No, I didn't say that.

Furthermore, as the patient begins to surrender conscious control over speech, it is assumed that another Subject begins to organize the material, very much in the manner which (as Grotstein calls it) the Ineffable Subject of Being -- the Dreamer -- organizes our dream material. But once you start to appreciate this alter Subject, you begin to realize the extent to which it has been pulling the strings of your life all along. Yes, life is but a dream, dreamt by the vast Subject beneath, behind, and above your little ego-object.

Oh, forget about Obama and the Democrats. Those sleepwalkers are entirely predictable. I could have written the speech myself, and done it in half the time. First, I'd spend maybe ten minutes putting the delegates into a light trance, and then utter the following, in rhythm with their breathing:

children... babies... mommy... security... mmmmmm... love... milk... warmth... happy... mmmmm...

danger! daddy! violence... abortion... abortion... abandonment... separation... independence... be a man, Fredo!... welfare cuts... safety net... social justice... turmoil... walmart... haliburton... katrina... gitmo... torture... torture... scared... what happened to the breast... suffering... victim... victim... victim... whiner... whiners... whining... victim... victimizing... victim... I blame Bush...

mommy!... drowning... help!... powerful... powerful... rescue... safe... government... breast... government... breast... breast... breast... mommy...

Okay, moving on. As we were saying yesterday, you can learn a lot about the sane by studying the insane. I don't know how effective fantasy analysis is with relatively normal people, but it wouldn't be difficult to do on Hitler, since his fantasies were so close to the surface anyway. For example, Mein Kampf is like one long fantasy. Hitler is such a pure case, in that he lived in an explicit fantasy world, and yet, expressed the fantasies so directly (e.g., racial "pollution," the "Jewish bacillus," the "Aryan race," etc.).

Conservative texts are boring (in terms of fantasy analysis) for another reason, which is that they are so rational and straightforward. It's very easy for a conservative to just come out and say what they are for: limited government, low taxes, judges who do not legislate from the bench, school choice, religious freedom, etc.

But for an American liberal, they can never just blurt out what they believe, on pain of never winning an election, or of getting no ratings. Air America is a case in point. Like Hitler, they make no attempt to conceal their liberal agenda, so it is deeply unpopular, except I suppose in crazy places such as San Francisco.

So the liberal -- if he wishes to gain power -- must necessarily revert to either conscious or unconscious distortion and trancemission. It reminds me of what movies were like before the sex could be shown explicitly. Instead, everything had to be suggested and implied. This can be done in an artless manner or in a masterful way that is obviously more powerful than contemporary films, because of the unconscious resonance. Most people will agree that the sexual tension between, say Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, or Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, is much more interesting than that between... I don't know, you name it. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. {shudder}

Now, the most primitive psychological defense mechanisms are 1) denial 2) projection 3) splitting, and 4) projective identification. All are related, and are actually necessary conditions of each other. For example, what is denied doesn't just disappear, but is split off and projected, usually into other people. Likewise, what is projected is necessarily split off. The group unconscious relies upon all of these mechanisms -- for example, scapegoating is just group projection.

When one engages in projective identification, one is necessarily in denial. (As the wiki article states, projective identification involves projection into another, followed by behaving toward the recipient of the projections in such a manner as to invoke in the other person precisely the thoughts, feelings or behaviors projected.) For example, the primitive Palestinians project all of their sadism into the Israelis, and then, when Israel responds, it "proves" to the Palestinians how sadistic and oppressive the Israelis are. Or, closer to home, the left projects so much hatred and viciousness into President Bush, that most anything he does or says is proof of his hatred and viciousness.

One of the fascinating things about watching the train wreck over at MSNBC is how unhinged and undefended Keith Olbermann is. The more slack he is given and the more power he gains, the less he needs to conceal his evident madness. So it is a sight to behold, very much like the old days of the Jerry Lewis telethon. You just never knew what a drug-addled and disinhibited Jerry might say or do after Hour 23.

So, what have we learned in today's rambling and disinhibited post? I have no idea. Perhaps someone should perform a fantasy analysis on it.