don’t-tread-on-me fundamentalism

Coldplay: Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends (2008)

While I was traveling in beautiful Louisiana, apparently there was much going on in the wide world of "news" surrounding the health care bill pushed through by the Obama administration. Politicians supporting the bill were called "baby killers" and statesmen of color were hailed by the n-word. A number of lawmakers have received death threats, in tweets and faxes, and to top it off Sarah Palin is urging her fans to "reload" as she visually targets democratic opponents.

What is going on?

I know I'm not the only one who finds the weaponry talk disturbing, riding the wave of cultural assassination fantasy as it does (but with the misdirection of "campaign-as-war is commonplace" excuse). I think Jim Aune makes a very compelling case for worry in his Obamanon conference paper, "Obama's Two Bodies." I won't rehearse his paper here, but I encourage folks to read it because of the "deeper narrative" he hints at in conclusion. If I might extend an explanation: the symbolic body of Obama, as much as the symbolic body of Palin, is superegoic in character.

Mark Edmundson's highly accessible explanation of Freud's insights on group psychology a few years ago is helpful. In Freud's later work, he advanced the "secondary topography" of ego, id, and superego to explain the economy of motive. The "id" of impulsive, primal desire is held in check by the superego, internalized codes of right and wrong. The "ego" has to hold these two competing forces in check, as well as the demands of external reality. To be a paradigm person is to be, at base, in constant conflict with oneself. Sleep is usually our most cherished relief from such conflicts, as are various intoxicants that relax, for whatever reason, the exacting conformity demanded by the superego. Booze is a good example: it somehow deadens guilt and inhibition . . . .

Anyway, as Edmundson suggests, Freud's conjectures about group behavior go something like this: a powerful leader is able to substitute his or her symbolic self (the second body, as it were) for the superego, as if he or she were a kind of intoxicant. Political leaders often do this: Obama certainly did during his campaign, as do most demagogues. To say that we fall in love with our favored leaders is not far off the mark: when we are moved by a lover, we often adopt their own wishes and desires as our own. Or in a more Lacanian fashion, desire is the desire of the Other.

When a political leader succeeds, however temporarily, in usurping the role of the superego for a group, previously impermissible behaviors become permissible. Inciting a "riot" is a good example: people become violent when they normally would not. It's even possible, Freud suggested, for a group to fashion its own superegoic agency---but this will be short-lived. Freud argued that most "crowd" behavior will eventually peter-out without a figure to focus its energy. In other words, the "swarm" will dissipate. It needs a leader to focus its codes, or the individual superegos of individuals will return to censure the id.

Whatever you think of Freud, he gives us a vocabulary to talk about the current political atmosphere: when we have racist violence breaking out, when we have death threats leveled at lawmakers, previously impermissible behaviors are felt to be permissible, at least "in the moment."

It seems to me the recent verbal (and in some cases, physical) violence around the "Don't Tread on Me" flags is a good example of the formation of a collective superego. So, too, of course, is the Teabagger movement, and these two groups seem to bleed into one another. It's already been noted that the focal point of this ebbing formation is the (symbolic) body of Obama---many papers at the recent Obama conference at Texas A&M were about precisely this ("race" is certainly code for a body).

It is in this Freudian context that we should understand Palin's recent appeals: " Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!' Pls see my Facebook page." Most journalists reporting on the Palin "crosshairs" sense what she is doing, as does just about anyone with a pulse. As with most politicians, she is inserting herself into this superegoic embodiment. The troubling difference is precisely that she is "rogue": she is no longer constrained by the norms of political office---norms that would condemn any recourse to weaponry metaphor. Incitement? Not quite. It's called transference. And it's scary.

I get the sense that MSM journalists believe the increasingly visible don’t-tread-on-me formation (larger than the Teabagger group, IMHO) is a fringe (counter)public. Many of us in the academy are a bit more worried, and I think for good reason. If this sentiment continues to build, the affect will focus on a figure. I'm not convinced Palin is strong or smart enough to embody it---but deity forbid someone steps forward who is.