"It was one of those moments when you wished you could hit pause & ask everyone watching, well, what would you do?
A. Do you stay calm, keep smiling, and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space?
B. Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly back up you creep, get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can't intimidate me, so back up.
I chose option A. I kept my cool aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off. I did however grip the microphone extra hard. I wonder though, whether I should have chosen option B. It certainly would have been better TV. Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while, determined to present a composed face to the world."
The first thing that struck me was her use of the term chose.
Saying she "chose option A." seems to underplay the almost programmatic way in which even everyday people, those who haven't undergone PR training and public image consultations, act as though they are "determined to present a composed face to the world", and actually do seem to succeed a large part of the time. Furthermore, is this not an almost exact parallel of the distinction between small talk & authentic communication in everyday life? When asked how we are today by a smiling shop assistant don't we all tend to choose an equivalent to Mrs Clinton's A. regardless of how we may actually feel?
Herein lie some of the unwritten rules of communication in our society. Although the question "how are you?" implies a personability & conveys a sense of friendly interest, it is frequently deployed by absolute strangers, often in situations precluding a thorough or honest answer. Even among closest siblings this question how are you, has become a phrase of greeting, perhaps through habit more than choice, the depth of the question, (implying the respondent actually has a clue how they are, or spends any time thinking about that) lends itself to being flippantly dispatched. There's kind of an unspoken agreement that our emotional state can stay locked up, at least perhaps until the weekend, when we are both sufficiently inebriated to be unable to recall, any of what may escape our mouths while drinking.
Mrs Clinton describes this aversion to open & honest expression literally as a rule or "lesson", usually learnt in childhood, the repression of our impulsivity, creativity, curiosity etc,. She resorts to an almost Catholic self mortification, "digging her nails into a clenched fist", enacting the violence of her impulse upon herself, when in reality she would wish to project it upon Trump. To me it's striking how far she doesn't go in her description of B. Politically she seems like a realist, I expect she has authorized, cheered, and helped to achieve various executions of people considered enemies of America, I imagine she understands the reality of warfare & that we must fight for all that is good in the world.
If we take her at her word, that she did consciously make the choice of A. over B. the only explanation for this would be the influence of a consciousness that seeks to give what it thinks, or has through opinion polling, focus groups, consumer surveys, etc,. determined, the other person wants to hear.
So when describing B. later, her apparent methodology would suggest she is bound not to say what she thinks, but rather to reinforce an image of responsible, assertive, strong leadership, something favourable in her quest for political popularity.
Perhaps she didn't say in private to Bill: "I wanted to leap at him and start liberating his brains from his head with the microphone" at all, perhaps she never once even thought of subjecting her opponent to this level of violence, or of declaring him an enemy of the state, a curr & an abomination, of his colleagues as being a den of vipers, a virus that has plagued humanity for too long that she will stamp out for the good of Humanity if given the chance, but to me that merely suggests that this tendency towards "presenting a composed face to the world", but also a polite, well behaved, refined, virtuous persona, is a lot more deeply ingrained.
From the super-Ego of Hillary Clinton we proceed to the social antagonism that was her undoing, and will be the undoing of Liberal forms of Capitalism, if centrist candidates continue to appear less relatable, than a coalition of Religious fundamentalists & free market millionaires. The prevalence of advertising & susceptibility of people to it's numerous techniques is a worrying development in the societies governed by 'Centrists' for decades, which keep failing to raise the consciousness of large numbers of their population, enabling religious/free schools; 'freedom (to lie) of the press'; cult literature; unchecked proselytizing of religion etc,. through their esteem of compromise, tolerance & their hollow, egoistic concept of 'freedom'.
Trump in his ways and mannerisms, as well as his words did actually demonstrate a knowledge of the rules & customs of social etiquette surrounding public discourse, but only it seems in order to flagrantly flaunt them, & the media (representing the same social class as Hillary) in their outrage flocked to oppose him, publicizing & in effect popularizing his divisive message, to an audience already suspicious of the media, which was now in effect openly 'supporting' thus defining Hillary, as the establishment candidate.
He really channeled a degree of Id energy which set him apart from his opponents in the Republican primaries & eventually Hillary. By his frequent acts of transgression, of skirting around, touching upon, indulging that which should not be indulged, by being un-PC, or at least hinting towards harbouring politically incorrect views, Trump came to embody a spirit of rebellion that has been stoked for decades by one of his loudest supporters, Alex Jones & has existed for generations among descendants of Confederate soldiers, White Supremacists, & Cold Warriors.
Everything about his term in office so far, suggests he will continue to exploit the Id energies. His enemies are still struggling in a world based on neatly ordered definitions & classifications, to adequately deal with him; by the time the media makes a case against one of his many faux-pas', he just creates another, even worse one via Twitter, serving to distract from the media's narrative, to render inconsequential their concerns, & to divert the focus of their coverage away from his policies. The media's relation to Trump is akin to man's relation to Women described by Nietzsche in Twighlight of the Idols...
"Women are considered profound. Why?
Because we never fathom their depths.
But women aren't even shallow."
The association of the Id in Liberal capitalist societies with humour & the ridiculous, confines his most vocal critics to the role of public entertainers, while powerful opponents are constrained in dealing with him by the very rules & customs they are bound to uphold, though these in no way impede Trump. The implications of guilt in firing FBI staff investigating him, were less of a concern than the sheer egoic gratification of exercising power in that totally self absorbed way, the pleasure he derived in mocking a disabled reporter to obtain laughs from his audience, was more of a motivating factor than any hurt he may have caused, the latter likely not figuring too often in the psychic world of a powerful sociopath. Many of his behaviours, & particularly his statements come across as pre-rational, counter-intuitive, impulsive, chaotic, confusing, in the mold of all 'anti-establishment' Truth Fetishists. He says what everyone is thinking, or more accurately reflects some of the impulses that exist in everyone at a pre-cognitive level, abstract fears, instincts, insecurities etc,.________________
"Their origin in unconscious id processes is what gives Trump's remarks their undeniable sense of authenticity-- their truth-effect. It also explains their unpredictability, their forcefulness, and the way they disrupt and outrage common sense and decency. Trump's critics argue that he seems thoughtless and unreflective but that is precisely the source of his power."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eli-zaretsky/american-id-freud-on-trum_b_10105596.html
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