By Prudence L. Gourguechon on 10/4/2009 6:51 PM
Like all psychoanalysts, I spend my workday in the landscape of anxiety. But I was surprised to see how a NY Times op-ed columnist, Charles M. Blow, used this intra-psychic concept to explain the conservative opposition to health care reform in a piece entitled “The Comfort of Conservatism” (10/3/09). I’m always interested to see how the concepts we psychoanalysts live with daily enter the public discourse.
Blow’s argument is that conservatism is “a collective mooring against the waves of change. It is a reflexive reaction to uncertainty.” He believes that major change has come much too quickly for many, and that much of the country has retreated to the “cocoon of conservatism”.
Blow supports the postulate of a movement towards a more conservative populace by citing several major polls. (I wasn’t enormously persuaded by the numbers.)
In one study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Blow reports, participants were asked to describe their feelings in relation to health care reform. This too is striking to those of us interested in psychoanalysis and the larger community. It is curious that a major and expensive study chose to find out about peoples’ feelings. Why was the Kaiser Foundation interested in feelings?
In any event, the Kaiser study that Blow cites found that those in favor of health care reform described their feelings as “hopeful”, “optimistic” and “positive”. In contrast, those opposed to health care reform described their feelings as “frustrated”, “confused” and “angry”.
Blow takes these three descriptors-- frustrated, confused and angry-- and first turns them into “fear and frustration” and then “cumulative angst” leading to “catharsis”. He concludes his piece by cautioning that the state of the anxiety of the nation is key to the success or failure of its policy and programs.
While I am more than pleased to see the vicissitudes of emotions being treated as important data by the Kaiser Foundation and Charles Blow, I don’t agree with this particular analysis.
The words in the Kaiser study were anger, confusion and frustration, not fear and frustration as Blow mischaracterized them. Anger fits. There is a fracture of the social compact in many arenas. A profound “splitting” of the body politic into “like me / other than me”. A deterioration of a sense of community. Understanding and addressing this ominous shift is a great challenge for the nation, and I think that attributing the great unease in the country to anxiety about a rapid rate of change lets us off the hook. Something in our society is increasingly tilting towards disintegration rather than cohesion. Now that is something to feel anxious about. |