Are We Doomed?

 

 

Being a PhD psychologist in the eighth decade of life provides me with both a personal and professional perspective of the aging process. I looked back and traced my beginnings. I’m going to use aspects of my life story as a metaphor and compare it, using a few significant psychoanalytic concepts, to a brief history of the United States. Of course, I’m going to take some liberties.

Otto Rank described the birth trauma in his book “Das Trauma der Geburt.” Rank believed that there was traumatic change in the transfer from the all-encompassing, bliss of the womb going to painful postnatal conditions. He wrote that this propulsion had a deleterious effect on the newborn. This physical and psychological experience, results in a “mortal fear. “ It not only effects life but it is also a consequence of it.  Therefore, it is most normal for us, to carry a load of primal anxiety throughout the life cycle. This means, the first human goal is an attempt or need for a reinstatement of embryonic bliss and second, to avoid the greatest human terror which is fear of separation anxiety.  On a side note, separation anxiety is a main barrier and psychologically interferes with Covid -19 public health recommendations.

The Puritans, in the 1600’s under King James, the father, lived in the greatest empire on earth. Living conditions were not copacetic for these Puritans residing in this most powerful country, where the sun never sets, on this Empire. They experienced significant socio -economic and religious conflicts. Regardless, it took great courage to separate from one’s mother homeland and set sail for uncharted lands across the Atlantic. In 1607, with the London Company, they established the first colony in Virginia. Thus, these new settlers experienced a traumatic homeostatic change in their psyche, from separation, the rough voyage, and encountering Native Americans in a new land. There was separation anxiety in leaving their familiar homeland. Did they make the right choice to leave the “womb? “ They had to eat, make shelter and deal with all the necessities for survival. Thank goodness there was a “Pocahontas” to provide nurturance. Did the Puritans think about returning to their womb, of course they did?

 I was born with all my fingers and toes. I was totally dependent on my mother for meeting my physiological needs. Could she or any mother know what I needed, at the exact moment, during my early existence? How could she know or anticipate when I was hungry, cold, warm or thirsty? Yes, I could cry, move my arms and legs uncontrollably. Was she able to meet all my physiological requirements? Yes, but exactly when I needed them is another story. Psychologically, a mother is to provide some delay in meeting one’s gratifications in order for healthy ego development. In doing so, the ability to delay and develop frustration tolerance is important for the development of a healthy ego. A spoiled child, has not experienced a delay of gratification and is without boundaries. That child never learns about limits and consequences for actions.  Moreover, Alfred Adler wrote that the spoiled child forms the expectation in life that he will always be taken care of and that his whim is law. He added that many criminals were spoiled children. Currently, we have a criminal in the White House.

During development, I learned quickly about dependence, dominance, power and control in terms of interactions with mother. My jaw muscles developed and I guess, it’s only a guess, that I was aggressive during feeding.  Did I bruise her nipples? Perhaps, and the next major battle of wills between us, dependence, dominance, power, and aggression was over toilet training. Did I win that sphincter control battle? Then of course, I identified with both parents and began incorporating societal, moral and ethical rules and regulations. During this process, I formed my ego -ideal.

 Psychologically, my ego -ideal provided me with an unrealistic and narcissistic overvaluation of myself related to the idealization of parental power and perfection.  Notably, the ego -ideal can provide a source of dissatisfaction with life because its goals are perfectionist, requiring evidence that’s often unattainable. However, I fantasized about sport heroes and followed the careers of these individuals; and their teams became my teams. I identified with Gordie Howe of the Red Wings; Ted Gray of the Tigers and, Doak Walker of the Lions and others along the way.

 As an ordinary person, I learned more about delay of impulses, frustration, aggression and conflict. I also experienced dependence, dominance, aggression, and power in interactive experiences. Moreover, I  won football honors at  Denby high school in ; received a football scholarship to the University of Detroit; attained  a  PhD from Wayne State University ; earned a  100 mile Tevis buckle; mastered the Western States 100 mile run and conquered the Swanton Pacific 100 mile Ride and Tie.

Going back to the colonies, there were many dependence, dominance, aggression and power interactions over the next 400 years. Just think of all the conflicts between the land grabbing settlers and the Native Americans. Originally, we were dependent on the Native Americans but eventually dominated and wiped them out. A current fictional story between John Dutton and the Native Americans can be viewed with Kevin Costner‘s Yellowstone.

There were delays, frustration and conflict in separating from the mother homeland and their Kings {father}. The British Empire taxed the colonies unmercifully. On December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts, a political protest occurred.  The dependence, dominance, aggression, and power conflict was exacerbated in the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783. We fought for separation or independence. The founding fathers identified with Great Britain and incorporated a government with a president instead of a king along with other legislative branches similar to their home country. Because of separation fears, they created safety constitutional amendments such as freedom of speech and the ability to form a militia. In fact, George Washington, our first president, was called the father of our country. Dominance, aggression, power, and submission conflicts occurred again with our English parent country in the War of 1812 on June 18.  We’ve had other battles for dominance, submission and separation as in the Civil War.

It cannot be a surprise that the South did not want to relinquish their dominance, power, control and exploitation with their slave based economy. In fact, they wanted to separate from the union. They had total social and economic dominance and they did not want to be subjugated, controlled or told by Abraham Lincoln that slavery was not allowed.  The battle of wills, frustration, conflict, delay of gratification was experienced with sadomasochism practices in the process. Do not forget about Andersonville and the destruction of Atlanta. Separation from the union was not allowed.

Our country also had conflict with others as in the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. General Santa Ana reclaimed the Alamo mission during a 13 day siege. During that fighting, roughly 200 Texans defenders and Davy Crockett died. Later in 1898, there was an armed conflict between us and Spain in Cuba over dominance. Our dominance, aggression and power was established as we acquired new territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

 Dominance, aggression and power over others was predicated on many things such as Manifest Destiny. This belief was that the settlers of the United States, were destined by God, to control North America. Sorry, Native Americans, we have that kind of god! The ego- ideal of the United States to dominate and control the world came to pass on August 6 and on August 9, 1945 with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At that point, we were supreme on the world stage. Other ego- ideals such as the New Deal, The Great Society, and landing on the moon were attained.

In the 1970s, the economic policy of neoliberalism was initiated. Under that dominant and aggressive economic policy, the federal government was diminished or dependent and Wall Street, wealth and the corporations became king and master. The goal was to privatize everything. During this occurrence, labor unions were decimated; federal government weakened; war on drugs specifically incarcerated more blacks; privatized prisons established, wage slavery became the norm; and the disparity between low and high income earners sky rocketed. Once again the dominance, power, aggression submission dynamic played out with greater frustration, anger and resentment among the populace.

Back to my story, in my development, the body-image or representation of body parts was significant. Body image enters into and becomes a necessary component of the self-image and of social roles. Typically, women have a more realistic depiction of their bodies because their body confirmation is more striking .Also, their body narcissism is normally greater than a man’s.  Body image and body contents are distorted for both sexes.  The area of the mouth becomes the initial mouth ego. Moreover, it’s not uncommon for an attractive woman to consider herself ugly. Just ask her if she has put on some weight? Body image distortion may have deep unconscious roots.

The self-image like the body image has both an external and internal or private social aspect. They are not identical and vary as external and personal circumstances change. People are sometimes unexpectedly pleased or shocked to learn how others regard them.  The image they have of themselves often does not correspond to the more objective and less complete picture that others have of them. Self-image is narcissistic because of the origins in the ego -ideal. My dad had free weights in our basement. That identification was clear and I went downstairs and begin working out with the weights. I became particularly strong and had my younger brother Ron and his friend Dave hand me the heavyweights so I could perform 350 lbs. bench presses. With other friends, we placed over 650 lbs.  or so on our shoulders to become comfortable and see how low we could squat.

With testosterone, hGH, DHEA, and free weights my body changed and I developed more strength and muscle. Other changes, over the years, took place as well. As a psychologist, I grew a full-length beard and had my hair tied in a ponytail.

Then, when I reached the six decade of life, things began to change in my body. There was no more pony tail, but there was a change in hair color. Thank goodness that Ron and Dave were not around to hand me the heavy weights. My running times slowed over the yearly competitive races. By mid-70s, I substituted 50 K’s for 50 mile trail runs and ran a fast ½ marathon in February of this year.  I have had a two hernia operation; consulted an optometrist and an ophthalmologist; had two MRIs’; and a meniscus surgery in one knee. Thus, there were external and internal reality changes regarding both body and self-image.

Returning to our country, there have been many changes over the past eight decades. We have the highest amount of Covid -19 death and disease; we have more gun deaths; we more obesity and overweight; we have continued systemic racism; we have more sick hate groups; we have more delusional conspiracy theories with paranoid followers; we have  more disturbed  amoral  and lying individuals and a dumbing down of the populace. Our statistics and achievement, for our students, in science and math are not good. We trail China, Singapore and too many other countries. We are no longer in the Paris Agreement Accord or Iranian Nuclear deal and are rapidly destroying our planet. Our time is running out. The Doomsday clock clicks closer to midnight than ever before. Our outdated electoral college is still relevant thanks to James Madison. Madison did not trust the populace with the important vote for the president .He thereby enabled the Electoral College with the dominant –dependent dynamic. Trump is a criminally perverse and lying threat to our democracy. In our Republic, the Republican Senate continues to disrespect the populace with their lies and silence on legislation coming from the House.

It obvious that my body is changing and I can’t reverse it. Our country is trending downward too. It remains to be seen if that can be reversed. Remember the dynasties of Alexander; Caesars; Ottoman Empire; and the British Empire are dead. Dynasties are made up of people so they are similar in regards to the functioning of the human body and die. We reach a zenith of power, aggression, control and then dependence; and then submission, frailty and “death” follows. Moreover, related to reality and future, are Murray’s abasement need which is associated to submit passively to external force…… To seek and enjoy pain, punishment, illness and misfortune. Freud wrote about the destructive drive that ends in the life cycle of death. The finis.