Answer to Questions #2

Posted on November 6, 2006 in Campaign 2006 Interviews Terrorism

Dave Asked: Does it make sense to diagnose the mental health of societies as if they were individuals, or is that just a bad analogy?

Societies don’t acquire organic brain dysfunctions. They can, like the sufferers of personality disorders, begin to act in ways that qualify as dysfunctional. A fine example is the reaction that many Americans had after 9/11. For the longest time (and it may continue after the election with or without a Democratic victory). The United States became phobic and adopted all kinds of measures to “protect” itself. When all was said and done, many of these measures proved unenforceable (such as the airport security checks — Bruce Schneier’s blog provides a fine continuing account of these). Likewise, in our panic, we were unable to maintain national security. We were literally running around in a panic.

We can lay the greater part of this blame at the feet of the Republicans — who seem to suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder if not Sociopathy — but the Democrats have been caught up in it, too. They, in turn, have voted without criticism for many of the measures which have been introduced by the Republican majority. The uncritical thinking, I think, marks this disorder. The Republicans can’t criticize their leader, the Democrats can’t vote for measures that might offend the public, and the public can’t vote for third parties.

What we have is a set of individual phobias multiplied into a pandemic. The relations between ourselves have been affected by our personal fears. Does this make America a sick society? I can’t think of a better descriptor for it.

More questions? Keep asking them!