Why We Need to Have Empathy For Tea Party Lunatics

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/news/145848/why_we_need_to_have_empathy_for_tea_party_lunatics_?page=entire


Why We Need to Have Empathy For Tea Party Lunatics
Michael Bader

If we don't understand how decent, god-fearing, victimized people can come to espouse such dangerous ideologies, we won't be able to fight them effectively.

March 2, 2010



These Tea Party folks seem to most liberals -- well, to most of us who live in the "reality community," or, as I like to call it, "reality" --- like crazy fuckers.

As a recent New York Times article reports, this hodgepodge of people and groups spout frankly paranoid beliefs as received wisdom, e.g. the Federal Reserve is our enemy and should be abolished; citizens should stock up on ammo, gold; and survival food in anticipation of an impending Civil War; states should "nullify" federal laws and even secede; medical records are being shipped to federal bureaucrats; the army is seeking "Internment/Resettlement" specialists; and Obama is trying to create crises in order to destroy the economy, convert Interpol into his personal police force and create a New World Order.

Conspiracy theories involving shadowy elites like the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations have resurfaced. Self-defense and armed resistance are frequently called for. Racist stereotypes, innuendo and hostility run rampant. The Constitution is its sacred text and Glenn Beck its most beloved prophet. They don't usually wear aluminum hats but perhaps they should.

I hate these folks but I also understand them. And, well, uh, I also empathize with them. They share the same psychology as the paranoid patients I treat every day. The only difference is that the paranoid beliefs of the Tea Party movement are political while those in my consulting room are of a more personal nature. The causes and dynamics, however, are the same. And so just as I have empathy for my patients, I have come to have empathy for the Tea Partiers, even as I despise their influence and work hard to defeat their ideology. It's crucial that the Left does likewise because if we don't understand the ways that decent, god-fearing, and victimized people can come to espouse such a dangerous ideology, we won't be able to fight them effectively.

snip//

Perhaps the progressive movement shouldn't waste its time dealing with the Tea Party movement except as a spur to get our own house -- and movement -- in order. A legitimate argument can be made that these people are, simply, the enemy and that our challenge is to build progressive majorities immune to their sabotage and interference.

But I would argue that to the extent we want to reach people who are drawn to Tea Party, patriot, libertarian, and other right-wing movements but are not yet hard-line ideologues, or prevent others from becoming so, we have to begin with empathy. We have to get inside their heads, figure out how their choices are reasonable from their point of view. It would help if we found ways to get into relationship with them, to demonstrate a genuine curiosity not about their paranoid theories but about the underlying pain and fear that is the source of them.

In this way, perhaps we can figure out how to speak to that pain and fear in ways that are both authentic and comforting. Perhaps we can figure out what experiences they might need to have in order to feel safe enough to at least listen to another narrative: ours.

[tom_paine]

1. Empathize with the RW Authoritarian Followers who will be the backbone of Tyranny

while preaching how they LOOOOVE freedom (much the same way the originals did back in Germany in the 1930s)?

Sorry, no thanks.

Pity them...maybe. But then will come the Relocation Camps, which will be filled by people like these.

Well meaning they may be (at least originally), unwitting dupes of Totalitarian Evil they may be (while predictably believing they are the opposite), yet how will sympathy for them now still the cries of their future victims from the grave and beyond?

It won't.

Sorry, no thanks.

[babylonsister]

2. Not sympathy, empathy. I don't know that there would be anything

wrong with trying to figure out where they're coming from, and why. They're not all around the bend yet.

As for relocation camps, while I doubt they are in our future, if they are, who's to say we won't be filling them and the r/w loonies will be the guards?

[tom_paine]

9. People have figured out why RW Authoritarian Followers and Leaders do what they do

and it doesn't help worth a damn.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

ON EDIT: I was unclear in my initial post and now I can't edit it - they won't be the ones IN the camps - we will - they will be the ones filling up the camps with people like us, bringing us there in yellow school buses, I would guess, no one can be sure what manner of conveyance - THEY will then be the guards, etc. Back to my response.

We are typical Liberals, 'sister. We want to KNOW why. Unfortunately, authoritarians and their followers don't bother much with that. While we are analyzing, they are DOING. The funny thing is that old "reality-based" community comment of Cheney's (or perhaps it was Rove's - Susskind never said) about how they create new realities and we study them, then while we're studying them, RW Authoritarians create new ones.

Of course it also describes Trotsky's perpetual revolution as well as Hitler's Germany.

You doubt Relocation Camps are in our future? Maybe so and maybe no, as no one can predict the details even WITH the trends staring us in the face like 100,000W neon arrows.

But now, as I predicted years ago, we are experiencing additional fracturing of our National Mind, with much of the RW Lie Machine and Propaganda now giving trumpet to all sorts of lunacy even more unhinged than it was during Bushler, and that's saying a lot. Teddy Roosevelt was evil. Progressivism = fascism. A grotesquely weak leader like Obama, constantly on his knees for compromise, painted as nascent brutal dictator.

Quite reminiscent of the Nazi calumnies against the mostly powerless Jews of Europe. Projection.

We are now coming to the end of the Middle Phase of Transition to What We Are Becoming, and the internal lexicon of the RW approaching new heights of lunacy and reality disconnect, points evermore psychologically to a mass of people who would tolerate and even welcome Relocation Camps, as long as it's for the Enemies of America (TM-BushCo).

You know: liberals, environmentalists, atheists, gays, freethinkers, deists and other evil "vermin" (as Savage likes to refer to his enemies) and "cancers" (as Beck likes to refer to HIS perceived enemies).

The other 70% will do what they have always done. Put their heads down, do their jobs, and hope the eye of the lunatic 30% Bushie-Brownshirt Teabagging Oath Keepers don't fall on them or theirs so they can keep living their lives.

Will the pressure be more Nazi-ish, Soviet-ish or even "kinder and gentler" Americanized, not unlike it is now.

Again, it's a fight between the Far-Right Corporatists and the Uber-Right Nazi/KKK/John Birchers who are now entering the mainstream of the Republican Party. Will the Aristiorcacy be able to maintain control over the demons they have awakened in our nation? It's the only question left to ask.

Sure, I hope you're right and I am wrong, babylonsister. But I have been singing the same tune for 9 years now and virtually every year another "checkbox" for the requirements for some truly awful totalitarian shit becomes closer to being fulfilled.

Not the least of which is the Oath Keepers, signaling open rebellion among our Law Enforcement and Military types against the Constitution. Ironically yet also traditionally, these Nazi-types who blabber on about not violating the Constitution and "rounding up Americans" will LINE UP to do it when Fuhrer Palin or Bush or whoever tells them to round up the liberals, environmentalists, atheists, gays, freethinkers, deists and other evil "vermin".

And I sure wouldn't want to be the 1 in 10 Oath Keepers to be thinking or saying at that future moment, "Ummm, guys. Didn't we just vow a few years ago that we wouldn't participate in rounding people up?"

"Yeah, but that's when we thought they were going to round up Americans like us. These are vermin and enemies of our nation. It's for National Security."

You'll see. Everyone will see eventually. Far-Right Corporate Neofeudalism, or something much MUCH Uber-Right worse?

Those are our choices left. Check fucking MATE.

[wolfgangmo]

12. So how many States do you see joining Canada?

Just sayin'. Will it look like this.







And just for fun here's how Reagan saw the world.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.zombietime.com/reagan_world/&h=610&w=612&sz=100&tbnid=kqUeIJnnHN8IvM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djesusland%2Bmap&usg=__G2LHsv34pUJpeW3AwpXSH7AwNHY=&ei=LZKNS6H_CYa8sgOFvcnnCA&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=9&ct=image&ved=0CCIQ9QEwCA

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Empathy, or Sympathy, no. I can see trying to tactically understand them, though -

as you said, for the same reason some brave souls amongst us (me not included) listen to hate wing radio, so we know what they are up to.

[timtom]

5. It kinda reminds me of the final scenes of "Yellow Submarine"

"Hellooo Blue Meanies..." etc.

[Demeter]

4. There Is a Great Gap Between Prudent Precaution and Paranoia

which this post ignores. Preparing for civil war is not a stupid idea--the tea leaves of history indicate that we are primed and ready for it.

The difference between rational people and the truly 'round the bend' is, the rational people are working their butts off trying to prevent it while preparing themselves, their families and communities for the worst.

The mentally and morally deranged are actively pushing for cataclysm, in the belief that some higher purpose will be served and they themselves will be invulnerable. This includes people as diverse as the Tea Baggers and the management of Goldman Sachs, which has taken to arming themselves.

[OHdem10]

6. CNN did a profile on Tea Party Members. Above Average on Pay

Scale, White. Christian and Male and are better educated.

People are missing the boat, IMO, not recognizing the
real Tea Partyer's Income is above Average. Above
Average Income Status have different concerns than
the Median and Low Income.

This explains why Tax Cuts, Anti-Regulation(Small
government) are so important to them.

[handmade34]

7. lack of empathy is major cause for many of our problems

...my belief. It goes both (all) ways. I am working in Baltimore City right now. I move every three weeks to a different state and I go into neighborhoods to gather initial information for studies. I go into the devastatingly poor neighborhoods and uber rich neighborhoods and everything in between. Yesterday, a CDC official (of sorts) went with me into one of the city neighborhoods just to observe the beginning stage of the process for their studies. As we walked around the block this person was very uncomfortable and explained that she had never been in a neighborhood such as this and didn't realize people really lived like this. WOW! I am aware that MOST people do not understand and cannot comprehend how others live. I am in a unique position to live and observe in many different communities and experience what a wide variety of people (respectively) experience. I have maintained for years that until we can *get* what others go through we will have troubles. That doesn't mean we have to agree or condone or tolerate. We need to act from a place of some sort of understanding.
Lack of understanding and double standards are two big enemies of progress.


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/01-5
"...If empathy did not exist, we could not understand why we feel the way we do, or conceptualize something called an emotion or think rationally. Many scholars have mistakenly associated empathy with just feelings and emotions. If that were all it was, empathic consciousness would be an impossibility..."

"...It is awe that inspires all human imagination. Without awe, we would be without wonder and without wonder we would have no way to exercise imagination and would therefore be unable to imagine another's life "as if" it were our own. We know that empathy is impossible without imagination. Imagination, however, is impossible without wonder, and wonder is impossible without awe. Empathy represents the deepest expression of awe, and understandably is regarded as the most spiritual of human qualities..."

[safeinOhio]

8. A lack off..

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art6940.asp



Q. How important is empathy to proper psychological functioning?

A. Empathy is more important socially than it is psychologically. The absence of empathy - for instance in the Narcissistic and Antisocial personality disorders - predisposes people to exploit and abuse others. Empathy is the bedrock of our sense of morality. Arguably, aggressive behavior is as inhibited by empathy at least as much as it is by anticipated punishment.

But the existence of empathy in a person is also a sign of self-awareness, a healthy identity, a well-regulated sense of self-worth, and self-love (in the positive sense). Its absence denotes emotional and cognitive immaturity, an inability to love, to truly relate to others, to respect their boundaries and accept their needs, feelings, hopes, fears, choices, and preferences as autonomous entities.

[mudplanet]

10. Teabaggers = Personality Disorder Party

Bader calls for us to treat teabaggers with the same tolerance and understanding that we should have for the developmentally disabled and the mentally ill, "For example, someone I treat can't tolerate blame of any kind, can't take any responsibility for failures, and can't really be optimistic about the potential goodness in others. It's always someone else's fault. Other times, they're more severely paranoid."

This might save a whole lot of assessment time for those in the mental health professions. The first question in any assessment could be "are you a member of the teabag party," and if the individual answers in the affirmative, then the assessor knows that her basic task is to rule out schizophrenia in a diagnosis of personality disorder.

[Zoeisright]

11. Fuck no.

I don't emphasize with stupidity and cruelty. I fight it.

[wolfgangmo]

13. A tai Chi master would say...

That by resisting you create resistance, by giving way you create control/mastery.

What we need to do is not get into a bitch slap fight with them but rather to give way, but in a way that we control the outcome. What can I say, it worked well for me when I was a working in the prison system.