THE RIGHT WING ATTACK ON HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

From the Daily Kos, a quick essay on how the conservative vision for America is attacking the most basic foundations of Maslow's famous Hierarchy of Needs, which is making Americans quite literally crazy:

Here's my point. The farther down the pyramid we can be driven, by insecurity, illness, lack of expression, etc, the less human we become. We will do ANYTHING to feed ourselves and our families. After that, we will do anything to keep that resource safe.

To me, this explains why people vote against their self interest at one level of the pyramid to protect the next layer.

It explains to me why the abortion rate goes up under the Republican administrations. The feeling of security and having social needs met are much more supportive to a woman who is pondering whether to take the pregnancy to term; she is more likely to have the child if she feels financially and medically secure.

By piling debt on the class of society with fewer resources, the Republicans actually drive the needs to a lower and lower level where people will do whatever it takes (fill in the blanks here) to feed themselves and feel secure. Even vote for a Republican. Who can vote for a Democrat that wants to take you to the higher level of needs when you haven't got the basic levels secure?

Click here for the rest.

The essay's writer then turns to some good practical suggestions for how the Democrats ought to tailor their policy agenda to meet Americans' basic needs, an assertion with which I greatly agree. However, the essay, agonizingly, doesn't take the final step in reasoning that it ought to: by adopting every-man-for-himself policies, and by projecting a culture which values such a concept, the right wing is essentially, as Noam Chomsky has repeatedly observed, dismantling the civil society in America. That is, because so many people are afraid, of losing their jobs, ending up on the street, and going hungry, or of getting sick but not being able to go to the doctor, or of not being able to make mortgage payments and losing their homes, you name it, it is extraordinarily difficult for Americans to be collectively concerned with problems that don't affect them personally. The guy next door is having a heart attack? Not my problem. Thousands of people stranded in New Orleans after the hurricane? They were stupid for not leaving. Homeless people on the street? They should get jobs. Conservative philosophy and policy have made this country forget one of the most fundamental aspects of tribal survival: we're all in this together. Instead, we now live in some crazy nightmare dystopia where people seem to have no choice but to look out for themselves only, and damn everybody else. Consequently, America is going to hell in a hand basket. Everything really is falling apart, and there appears to be no end in sight: this is how people think now. I have no idea how to reverse the damage.

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