The Myths That Rule Us
A Deeper Look at What Divides America
by Dr. Joseph Abrahams
America’s great divide appeared on the run-up to the 2000 election, and remains
significant, even though the overt issues have changed markedly. Something deeper must
be at play. The sides of the divide are increasingly at odds, and while not violently so,
their issues are of significance to the future shape of America comparable to the
developmental crisis it traversed in the Great Civil War.
In the current crisis both sides appear to live in and value different worlds, while
inhabiting the same America. Their minds are set and they cannot understand why the
other thinks the way it does, and ignores or is blind to facts that are to them, obvious.
Looking somewhat deeper, we encounter passion. Both are increasingly passionate about
their visions for America’s future and to a great extent its past. Both are alarmed about
the present.
We can attain some perspective on the larger structure of the divide, on the set of
peoples’ minds, by a look at the crisis of 1860. History itself then seemed to take charge,
and North and South floundered towards an exhausted end. Lincoln did intervene,
enlisting the fighting capacity of the black man, and then his emancipation. In doing so,
he helped set America on the path of emancipation from the myth of Anglo-Saxon
superiority.
If somehow war had been averted, would slavery have become a spent force? Perhaps so,
as many have held. On the other hand, its defenders passionately held that they were
propounding it, not as reactionary, but as a modern extension of the myth of the glory and
integrity of ancient Athens. The South envisioned a bright future and a culture far
superior to that of a corrupt North.
But America survived that great divide, and though it settled the issue of the legitimacy
of slavery and the split itself, it still had to resolve political, economic, residual ethnic and
gender equity, and religious issues. America has since worked its relatively successful
way through a series of developmental crises, involving those issues, becoming the icon
of the world and a gathering place of its peoples. It has eschewed open rebellion (as with
Shay’s Rebellion), settling into contests at the ballot box, in legislature, court, and in civil
life. Let us briefly cite hard fought democratizing changes: extension of the popular vote
up to the highest offices; extension of economic mobility to the general populace;
recognition of the economic rights of workers; reining in of buccaneer capitalists and
beginning regulation of industry from within and without; recognition of gender and
ethnic rights, and recognition of the patrimony of the environment.
The Global Crisis: America Goes both Forward and Backward
These multilayered crises have now come to a head with the emergence of a global
community marked by high communicative technology. In its complexity it is bringing
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the peoples of the world together, down to its families. Before our collective eyes, we are
becoming one extended human family. While we are at the beginning of that globalizing
process, it proceeds with increasing speed, and is experienced as both promise and threat.
The greatest threat is offered, by that communality and modernity, to deeply held belief
systems of family, clan, and culture.
America, built by the peoples of the world, is the chief propagator of universal
democracy and technological revolution. Yet with its still potent frontier individualism, it
fights working problems through with other nations. Heroes of that frontier, following a
mythology of manifest destiny, fought through to the Pacific, to attain America’s
hegemony on this continent. There were initiatives, still following a mythology of
manifest destiny (Aaron Burr, Henry Clay, William Randolph Hearst) to extend
hegemony to parts of Canada, South America, and certainly to the Philippines, before we
settled down to our current status. Our current neoconservatives continue that “proud”
tradition.
Let us take a closer look at the underlying mythology. As a psychiatrist and sometimes
politician who has devoted a lifetime to resolution of human crises, group and individual,
I offer this essay as key to the motivations on both sides of America’s divide.
Understanding that mythology is no esoteric pursuit. When Karl Rove referred to himself
as the “Rasputin Rove” he was pointing out the role of underlying mythic motivation. In
his truth-telling, he might have gone on to his unerring sense of the myths that rule the
small town people of America.
The Renegotiation of Myths
Once we bring those myths to light, we have a chance to assess their relevance to today.
Ancient Athens was an advanced society for its day, but in retrospect we can see the folly
of Southern idealism that looked that far backwards for the shape of its future. It would
be understandable to psychologically regress in search for one’s roots, as one confronted
the challenge of progress into one’s future. In psychoanalysis, this is termed regression in
the service of the ego. In mythic terms, in the course of that regression, or soul-searching,
one would develop a world view or mythology that would reconcile both situations, past
and future. In the course of that reconciliation would come the birth of new and death of
old verities.
That creative process is termed mythopoesis. The new myth governs the life of the group,
and its values, and enables it to change. When, in the course of the soul-searching, there
is authoritarian fixation on prior myths, individual and society undergo destructive
regression, as occurred in Germany in its bid for the “1000 year Reich,” under the Nazis.
With this model of mythic renegotiation, let us pursue the inquiry into our current
situation. Let us first look at mythic aspects of the political gridlock of the Fall of 2000.
The gridlock was breached the following Fall by a fanatic segment of Islam, itself in
incipient conflict with the rest of Islam worldwide, It assaulted our democracy in the
name of myths of its distant warrior past. Alarmed, a centrist segment of our population
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let go of its myth of impregnability and isolation, and moved to the political and social
right. Resurrecting the latent hegemonic, warrior myths of America’s place in the world,
it became interventionist, to make the world safe again, by democratizing it, and through
American power. Not only that, but that assault mobilized an even deeper mythos or
passion of the religious extreme right concerning an anticipated event in the Middle East,
the Armageddon and Second Coming of Christ, to take place in Israel. All this is fantastic
and unbelievable, but very real.
America’s myths and those of the Middle East intersected. In the Armageddon myth,
based on the New Testament Book of Revelations, earthly history is to end, an End of
Days, in a grand spiritual war in Israel. Only true believers would be saved.
However, first the Jews would have to reestablish the ancient land of Israel. Then for
admission to Heaven, they would have to seek conversion to Christ on His Second
Coming. . Evangelical Americans, including their leader Pat Robertson, have been
journeying to Israel to attend to that historical issue. They have been urging its settler
movement along, to continue this divinely ordained process. The Israeli settlers
themselves are passionate about their version of this messianic outcome, of ultimate
spiritual concordance with the Jehovah Godhead. Sharon, who formerly adhered to the
Greater Israel thesis has described them as suffering from messianism, and heading
contemporaneous Israel to disaster.
George W. Bush has used the language of messianism, combined paradoxically with that
of democracy. He has edged towards stating that he has been called by God on a mission
to liberate Afghanistan, Iraq, then the Mid-East. In a mythic good versus evil campaign,
he will endow peoples with the god-given gift of democracy and freedom. This language
is indicative of residence psychologically and spiritually in other worlds, related to, but
separate from common reality. We have posited that earlier Americans have lived in
those regressive, hegemonic worlds, contemplating expansion in all directions on the
globe, bringing “freedom” to the world. It is ironic that the current-day version looks
forward to freedom via the rapture, in which they leave their mortal coil, as an advance
guard of the End of Days.
“Freedom for Islam” is the mythic battle cry of Osama bin Laden in his latest video.
Islam has its own eschatology, or ultimate outcomes, with a Heaven and End of Days.
The imperatives of both do not permit of the ecumenicism of democracy, in which all
religions live in harmony in a life to continue on earth. It is important to note that the
Deity of the Founding Fathers was not supernatural and though conceivably creative, did
not intervene in the affairs of man.
The passion of evangelical Christianity is deeply and categorically messianic, even more
than the religious sentiment of the rest of the Republican Party. But the extremity of its
passion points to what are underlying currents. In America we advance the thesis that the
Islamic extremists are driven by a fear of the reality of modern democracy, based on the
vision of our Founding Fathers, in which they contemplated secularism, through
separation of church and state. This secularism threatens Islamic tribal, family and
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governmental structures and their law or sharia. It calls on Islam to accept ecumenical
status with the other religions of the world.
Both fanatical Islam and evangelical Christianity in their bones feel oncoming spiritual
death in our modern world and are erupting with immense devotion to their verities. But
the religious spirit need not die, rather having returned to its roots, and reinvigorated, go
forward in the modern world. Bishop Spong has shown a way for Christianity, in his
book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die. There he advocates search by Christians for
the original Christ, separating it from the encrustation of history and evident follies of the
church. There are similar voices arising in Islam, separating latter day myth from the
original inspiration of Muhammed.
What are the religious belief systems of rest of the red populations on America’s electoral
map? Certainly the Republican battle cry is messianic, of wrathful soldiers of the Lord
who see nothing but the Truth of the Lord. That truth encompasses the old verities, and to
the projection into the future of that which was cherished in the past.
In Freudian thought this carryover from the past is called transference. There, we as
individual and society see through the eyes of the past, and resist the reality of the
present. Rooted in certainty of the God of the past, we suspect the ambiguity of change,
of evolution of self, state, and god, as a threat, and malign, even the work of Satan.
The Myth of Man’s Incapacity for Self-Governance
Ascending from the mythic roots of reality, we come to the myths of self, region, and
state. There was a great deal of doubt in early America about whether democracy could
work, whether people could govern themselves without divine guidance and divinely
appointed and motivated leaders. Man was considered by the doubters to be naturally
depraved, versus good and capable of enlightenment.
Fundamentalist preachers in early America thundered from the pulpit at that lack and
depravity. A practical result was decades-long delay in the popular election of senators
and presidents. There was a corollary doubt that persists to this day, regarding
government in a democracy. Despite imperfections, we have learned to be relatively
responsible in electing responsible rulers. And they have become increasingly
accountable and able, despite propagation of the myth that “government is the problem.”
Myths in Industry, Human Relations, and Education
Similar concerns pertain in industry, human relations, and education. The economic myth
of caveat emptor, “let the buyer beware” is waning in its hold. Somehow, the Horatio
Alger and Johnny Appleseed legends still hold sway, adapted vigorously to corporations
and entrepreneurship. Regulation, the marketplace, and education have made production
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and distribution of goods and services relatively reliable. Also, the buccaneer myth, “It’s
my business, and I’ll run it anyway I like” has evolved greatly. In America, we are slow
in the generation of new myths, reflective and supportive of a state of economic
democracy where capital, labor, and consumer transact in equity and responsibility.
In human relations we have but to look at painfully arrived at changes in gender and
racial status. It was not so long ago that people adhered to the myth that both women and
African Americans were constitutionally inferior, to be kept in their place. Both, plus the
lower classes, were held to be uneducable.
Lifting the Mythic Thrall, from the Grassroots
As we outgrow them, we can see the folly of those myths and beliefs. We started this
essay noting how the parties on each side of the divide could not see it the other’s way.
At this point in the inquiry, it should be evident that the myths that hold them in thrall are
at root.
Can that thrall be lifted by efforts at education of self and other, or must we go through
further war and travail? We recognize the current crisis to be as profound as those
manifested in the Great Depression and the Great World Wars. We may work our way
through this crisis “naturally,” and go on in the development of our democracy. But we
may not, and regress, as we saw Europe do towards fascism and degradation, saved at
great cost by America.
What would be an enlightened approach? Our Deist ancestors would counsel us to first
look to ourselves, since they had done so in their Enlightenment. They had emancipated
themselves from superstition and the expectation of Divine Intervention. They employed
grassroots modes of scrutiny and deliberation. In New England, they held town hall
meetings, a method found useful in the current campaign. They later developed the
Chautauqua approach, which had religious beginnings. Our group dynamics movement
has developed modern ways of consultation and production, through group therapy,
group workshops, and quality circles in industry. We have mass communication via the
Internet.
Central to the enlightened inquiry is the fact that we are all made of the same clay. We
have resident within our individual and social psyche the same myths, in different
combination and stage of evolution. Perhaps the soul searching that will save the world
would best start with those most willing to engage in that introspective act, then public
exchange, aimed to bridge the great divide.
A Look at One’s Myths
Let me contribute to the process of self inquiry. I have long been a registered Democrat,
but find much of Republicanism within myself. I am fiercely independent,
entrepreneurial, deeply religious in my own way, averse to domination by groups, yet
hierarchical, and at times find myself suspicious of strangers. I also revere America as the
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light of the world, and have been willing to sacrifice my life in furtherance of its ideals,
of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life there would be the right to one’s life, a
very deep subject. Liberty would be responsible freedom of choice. And pursuit of
happiness would be self fulfillment, rather than hedonic satisfaction. All Enlightenment
myths.
What do I find in myself and my fellow Democrats that I would call essentially
Democratic, or democratic with a small d? In a search for my roots, I liked it when I
found out that my native Texas, meant techas in Mexican, which in English meant friend,
an inclusive friend to strangers. The way of that friend was egalitarian and simple, yet
one where in my Army days, strangers and I simply sought to comprehend complexities
and profundities. I felt a great sense of gain when my medical detachment, in the
democracy of the trenches to come, grew in competency and comprehension of our tasks
in combat. And a greater one when the psychopaths in my treatment groups yielded up
their alienation, to become GI’s on the way to Europe and the Battle of the Bulge.
I have had a similar experience in my political groups, when we joined ideals, and
developed our ranks towards an envisioned America. I would infer that my satisfaction
stemmed from a contribution to the welfare and weal of others. All that has not stopped
me from vexation with others and myself when we did not do it the authoritarian
Republican way, the other side of my nature. Life was so much simpler then, with those
verities, without that “bleeding heart” and all that psychology.
The Challenge Ahead
So the divide has to do with verities that go as deep as the human soul, and the battle is
over whether the old myths will undergo development on an essentially human basis. If
there were no Democratic and Republican parties, they would have to be invented to
represent those myths. At issue is whether they can collaborate towards that change, for
America’s ultimate good. Can the age-old model of the family with its inherent fidelity
and responsibility be transmuted in simply human terms by a homosexual couple in the
soulful way they relate to one another and raise their children? Can both of our political
parties yield their bossism and dependence on special interests and develop
democratically and autonomously to serve the public good? Can our economy follow a
similar path towards economic democracy? All that awaits the development of a
responsible electorate that directs its agencies towards truly democratic ends and guides
their development.
Our vaunted marketplace has come a long way, through regulation and a growth of social
conscience, since the day of the outright buccaneer capitalist. Can we develop a new
myth in which Horatio Alger works for both self and the common good? We in effect
quarantine the antisocial lunatic fringe in our midst who advocate terrorism. But do we
search out the mythic truth in their delusion as we are beginning to do with the myths of
fanatical Islam? Will the American people draw on the glorious myths that moved early
America, and at last call our political parties themselves to accountability as
representative institutions? And when will a democratic John Bunyan, Blue Ox and all,
wake early and work late to call for a thorough democratization of the Democratic Party?
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The Republican Party, responding to what Clinton called its “better angels,” might very
well follow. Those angels might perhaps steal another march at the grassroots, this time
forward, in contrast to that of the last election.
Let us inquire into the myths that enthrall but also move us, and in what direction.
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