To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com
From: target@batstar.net
Subject: Re: [psysr-disc] Criticism of Obama
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:20:04 -0800
Hi
I got to know Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson when he came to Berkeley after his traumatic experience with the Freud Archives and then Janet Malcolm. When the Berkeley Drop-In Center, (a self-help center for "client/survivors") went non-profit, he and I were each selected for the Board of Directors.
Quoting Prt:
As an American refugee from George Bush, in Aotearoa/New Zealand, I am hugely disappointed by the apparent petty-mindedness and short-sightedness shown by those in the progressive community who target Obama for criticism. Criticism and sabotage from the right wing is to be expected but, I have to ask progressive critics of Obama: What planet are you on?
Eventually Jeffrey also moved to New Zealand, where he started writing about the feelings of animals. Much later, at a book signing in Berkeley, he told me, "Andrew, you are into 'herding cats'."
This guy is intelligent, compassionate, well-educated, knowledgeable of the U.S. and of the world, has integrity, has rich life experience, has rich personal heritage (psychological, cultural, linguistic .. you name it ..). What more do you want? What more do you think YOU could do, given the HUGE and powerful forces that exist to maintain the status quo and the privileging of the few over the many?
And the cat-herding problem is as you indicate one that engages Barack's imagination today. [!]
While loud anger and outrage is clearly needed at the compromises that he has had to make, please target those who have forced these compromises upon him, not at the man himself. This guy is trying to move a HUGE ship from a headlong rush to suicide towards a life-affirming, humane, sustainable, and productive future. In Obama, the world has the best hope that it's had for a hundred years. Give the man a break!
Qsu wrote (Nov. 21):
I would call it ideologization - forcing people into unidimensional positions that do not reflect the complexity of the issues we are facing
In that vein, the conversations here need to go over into the "complexity of the issues." I have argued that the social construction of a "cat-herding tradition" is one genuine contribution people here can make towards that complexity.
I have seen many positive contributions here each adding to the complexity, and some few that represent little more than "rage dynamics" and over-simplification. The "next level" of the argument involves a unifying psychology: "Feelings of animals" is within the tradition of inductive reasoning, but to my mathematician's eye it lacks a comprehensive character. History of science, as with Thomas Kuhn's insight, indicates that "building a culture of peace with social justice" is a lengthy process (measured in generations) and
that we can't expect that unifying psychology just to "pop up." We have gotten past the cynicism of accommodating "learned helplessness," and now we must engage the mentality and psychological practice of over-simplification and the Rx of "social engineering."Come, kitty!
Andrew Phelps