Charlie Rose

REMant  01/12/2010 01:09 PM Report

This is about 80% political, and it is so urgent to Obama, because he knows that it is stuff like this which can really cost Dems votes, and that's because it is the Dems who are so obsessed with FEELING secure. Republicans in contrast are mainly interested in not being shown up. For them it is a matter of honor and jealousy. The psychology involving security was a topic of academic interest, I think, for the last time in the 60's and 70's. The argument was made then, following Melanie Klein mostly, that children brought up permissively and without inculcation of respect for authority, never develop a sense of their own independence - the import of the Oedipal business. A succesfull resolution of the Oedipal complex will not necessarily make ppl responsible or sensitive to others, but it will, it was alleged, keep them from being wimps. Lasch gathered all this together, but it was around generally, and I think fundamentally true, tho I would not use the psychoanalytic language or make their assumptions. Simply, there is a difference between so-called uncivilized and civilized ppl, or rude and politically correct ones, romantic and sentimental ones, etc. Aside from this aspect this is much ado about very little. However, it also underscores the bureaucratic failing in Warshington, which doesn't surprise me at all.