July 29, 2003

WAR AND HUMAN NATURE: THE COWBOY VS. THE THERAPIST

        In our post-Freudian therapeutic age, geopolitical conflicts are increasingly viewed through a therapeutic prism. Personality trumps everything, and requires empathic understanding to solve problems. Media pundits simplistically focus on the presumed psychology of political leaders. An extreme version can be found in every column written by Maureen Dowd. Thus, President Bush was enacting his Oedipal wishes to triumph over daddy when he went to war with Saddam. Regrettably, the very person she so palpably loathes, at times seems to share her assumption that geopolitics is some form of therapy. His trust in his own ability to connect with the needs and feelings of others led him to decide that, for example, the former KGB man Vladimir Putin was someone he could trust. He famously looked into his soul. Unfortunately, Mr. Putin didn’t share President Bush’s benign view of human nature and simply made his own deals with Saddam and sided with the adversaries of America when he thought there was a possibility of weakening our power in the world.
        What makes the therapeutic stance "post-Freudian" is it’s view that human nature is essentially good. There is nothing innately destructive in human beings, but rather there are grievances based on deprivation that lead to frustration and angry reactions. The task then is to address the grievances, thoughtfully and caringly—the more so, the more extreme the grievances. Everyone will hold hands and sing kumbaya once the inequities of life are addressed and corrected. Jay Nordlinger quotes President Bush's psychotherapeutic stance towards Israel and the Arabs: "It's very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank." Nordlinger comments: "Yeah, well, it's very difficult to develop confidence when, day after day, terrorists come in to murder you. Look, the aim isn't to join hands like hippies in a Coke commercial, singing about love. The aim is to achieve a kind of peace, or a lack of war and murder. We must keep things modest here (speaking of realism) — such a peace, cold and hard, not warm and fuzzy, would be achievement enough."
        The U.S. State Dept. acts in the role of a couples therapist. It explains to our President how misunderstood our adversaries like Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians feel. He in turn, seeks to bury the evidence of Saudi complicity with al Qaeda. Why? Because it would upset them and we want them to be our friends. Personal relationships are cultivated, as between Colin Powell and Prince Bandar. How could one’s racket ball partner not be listened to when he requested that Osama’s relatives all be flown out of the U.S. to Saudi Arabia following 9-11? We wouldn’t want to inflame problems by subjecting them to interrogation, would we? Mr. Powell is the perfect couples therapist-- except couples therapy assumes the good intentions of both parties; each party has its grievances but each, it is assumed, wants to reach a reasoned accord. Mr. Powell is oh so understanding of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He wants to believe that deep down they truly desire peace, so he comes up with a wondrous formulation; they are really charitable organizations who happen to have terrorist wings unfortunately overshadowing their good deeds. He recently said: “Hamas provides "good works" for the Palestinians and could be reformed…Now, if an organization that has a terrorist component to it, a terrorist wing to it, totally abandons that, gives it up, and there's no question in anyone's mind that that is part of its past, then that is a different organization. But right now, Hamas still has a social wing to it that does things for people in need, but, unfortunately, its good works are contaminated by the fact that it has a terrorist wing that kills innocent people and kills the hopes of the Palestinian people for a state of their own."(emphasis added)
        Following his meeting with holocaust denying terrorist Abu Mazen at the White House, President Bush tried to convey the warmth of the personal connection they had forged. It was captured in a photo showing the President's arm around Mazen's shoulder with a broad smile creasing his face. This photo-op was meant to convey that the two men are truly simpatico and can work together for peace. Yet even assuming that President Bush saw the ‘goodness’ in Mazen’s soul, the fact remains that the man has done nothing to dismantle the terror apparatus and has made new outrageous demands on Israel to release more imprisoned mass murderers before he will comply with the road map agreement.
        Horsefeathers argues that our geopolitical dreams derive from a post-Freudian, benign view of human nature. It’s the Gee Officer Krupke school of thought: “We’re depraved on account of we’re deprived.” It leads us to a position of self-indulgent political correctness, wherein our adversaries are victims of misunderstanding and deprivation. There are no death cults masquerading as religions, rather, all faiths are equally “religions of peace”. There are no people who hate us simply for being what we are, a free, prosperous democracy full of 'infidels'. Instead they really must want to live in harmony with us and just need to see how truly good and kind we are. All we need do is get rid of those troublesome anti-utopian Jews who control the government and media.
        Actually, what plays out as a constant ongoing conflict between the State Dept and the Defense Dept. for President Bush’s favor, is really a duel between conflicting views of human nature. Call it the Cowboy view vs. the Therapeutic view. The State Dept.’s perspective embodies the media driven, politically correct, post modern, multi cultural sentiment that maintains all differences can be resolved by empathic talk. The Defense Dept. as represented by Donald Rumsfeld holds to a sterner, tragic view of human nature. It recognizes that when people declare their wish to kill you and follow it with attempts on your life, this is not a matter for discussion. It recognizes the limits of what words, both verbal and written can achieve. You must use as much or more violence against the savages as they do against you. There is no moral equivalence between terrorists and their victims. Our enemies must be dealt with the way our special forces dealt with Uday and Qusay. It seems to Horsefeathers that the much scorned “cowboy” Bush is far more likely than the “compassionate conservative” to bring peace through victory over our enemies. The struggle between State and Defense may actually mirror a struggle within the President himself, between the cowboy and the therapist. Horsefeathers is rooting for the cowboy.

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