Houston, errr, no, America, we have a problem!
The concept of the “cult of personality” has become well-known in the general public in recent years, having become a part of the “ordinary knowledge” of the average person, which means that when such cults are mentioned most people have at least a vague idea of what is being talked about. This is probably because such cults, whether positive or negative, have emerged in every walk of life—politics, economics, religion, music, culture, science, and even in industry—for decades or even centuries.
Some cults emerge from society without outside manipulation. Others are manufactured top-down for ‘branding’ purposes by those who want to be at the center of a cult. Doubtless, psychologists have published books exposing this or that theory on such cults of personality. Sadly, I am ignorant of those writings, though my lifetime has been awash with media references to this or that personality cult. Examples abound.
China’s Mao Tse-Tung was the center of a personality cult as was Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe. Kim Jong Il of North Korea was, too. Elvis Presley also had a cult of personality—though dead for almost thirty-five years, his cult still lives on! Ross Perot was the center of a political cult and movement in the 1990s, and today Sarah Palin, too, is a cult figure to at least a small segment of American society.
As cult figures, their followers unquestioningly follow them, suggesting a “follow the leader” mentality among the members of such cults and, because of their dynamics, most likely a lemming-like attitude of “my leader, right or wrong.”
The term ‘cult’ can be seen in either a negative or a positive light, though most often it is used negatively by those who oppose such cult personalities. Cult suggests something secretive, isolated, and even nefarious.
Newton’s Third Law of Motion (1687) states that “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” I believe that there is a social equivalent to this law. By this, I mean that for each cult of personality there is likely to be an opposing “cult of anti-personality,” at least this is what seems to have happened in contemporary US politics in the last few decades. Such an equivalent cult-type may have always existed.
Recent US presidential elections, especially since 1980, illustrate what I mean by such negative cults. Anti-personality cults are driven now more by ad hominem dislike or excessive incredulity than by reasoned disagreement. And they have grown in number and intensity in the past two decades, having become increasingly more vociferous, unbending, and intransigent in their opposition to the cult of the political personality.
One example is the personal attacks of a cult of anti-personality (and anti-greens) against former US Vice President Al Gore. Today, anything Gore says, regardless of content, is immediately attacked by this virtual cult. Scientific facts noted by Gore, for example, are continuously challenged, and his reasoning and even his facts being distorted even though those cult member(s) responsible for such distortion know what Gore’s message meant and knew as well the validity of the “science” behind his statements.
George W. Bush was both a cult and an anti-cult figure.
Obama is now the focal point of a significant cult of anti-personality. Attacks on him have been steady in flow and increasingly angry and hostile in content. Radio talk show hosts on the extreme right of the political spectrum are among the worst perpetrators of the anti-personality cult, whether for alleged entertainment value or for other psychological reasons (Obama is the first black president… and then there are the “birthers” who in all futility continue to question his citizenship status, even though the national media have produced the legal documents). They continue to foster unreasonable hatred for the sitting president as well as for the presidency itself.
When I was a kid, it was an honor to listen to a President telling us to study and to work hard to become good citizens. Now, to hear a talk by Obama, various schools require permission slips from parents to let their kids listen to the President telling them to study hard and to stay in school. This current situation is unreasonable.
And radio “personalities” like Glen Beck, Mike Savage, and Rush Limbaugh have continued to raise the intensity of their derogatory comments about the president and the presidency, angry distorted interpretations that I have not heard before. I don’t know if these millionaire radio personalities can see that their hatred of the sitting president is undermining the faith of their listeners in the American political system that they claim so vehemently to defend.
Such anti-personality cult figures, from both the political right and the left, prompt strong negative (more correctly, hostile) reactions from those who, for whatever the reason, just don’t like them … and never will like them. Nothing, and especially not “facts” contrary to what they already believe, will ever alter the negative opinions of these people, especially in these times of modern media when the effects of group polarization push people to only pay attention to news outlets and sites that uphold the correctness of their own unreasonable opinions, encouraging them to become even more extreme in their positions. There is nothing positive to be found in a “cult of the anti-personality” because objectively innovative ideas are automatically ridiculed and rejected.
I am not immune from feeling this way toward the current politicians in the US Congress who failed to challenge many of President Bush’s controversial policies, including deadly and costly wars on two fronts.
Sadly, there is a third war underway and it is in the USA between political ideologies. This domestic guerrilla war has fostered a polarization of political parties that have fallen into voting as blocks (to support the other political party is viewed as disloyal to party principles and, to those on the right end of the political spectrum, as even being unpatriotic). At present we seem to have a party of proposers of legislation and a party of “opposers,” people who oppose willy-nilly anything proposed by President Obama. Some opposing congresspersons have proudly admitted to the public that they hadady opposed Obama’s programs that they never even read.
This behavior reminds me of an adage from the Revolutionary War era, taught to us as school kids: “United we stand. Divided we fall.” It seems that the three branches of government as well as the 50 States have forgotten this guiding American polity’s rule of thumb. In my view the cult of the anti-personality—here I am referring specifically to ideology-based block opposition to anything proposed by President Obama—is destroying the country, turning people against each other in very hostile and potentially violent ways. There is a third-front war going on—and it is inside America.
Comments
7 responses to “The Cult of the Anti-Personality”
Part of the root cause is that politicians are no longer permitted to think. Instead, they are subservient to the money that brought them to power–money not just from private behind-the-scenes interests but also from the media moguls who can make or break a political career (and do). Where the media reveal inappropriate behavior, that is needed and appropriate (as long as the media apply the same standards to themselves). But where the media end careers due to political differences, or lie, the situation is anti-democratic. The ongoing revelations in the UK are hardly surprising, but finally bring out into the open how politicians must cosy up to powerful media interests in order to get elected and to get their policies through. Overall, therefore, a tiny minority of society–the superrich–have purchased democracy for themselves. Even if a politician personally dislikes the rhetoric, the polarization, and the lack of functioning government, they have little choice but to be a puppet for the interests that gave them their job.
Welcome to the real Word!! Polarization of politics has ever exist. Governments and powerful people are deeply interested in promote into the society this risky behaivor because in this way, peoples vote the color of the party and not social or economical programs. Everything could be forgiven in name of an ideology. Spain is a good example of this. Personally I think that Obama has a significative part of responsabilty in the polarization in the US. HIs emphaty with the extreme left wing of the American society during the campaing of the “Yes we can” and mistakes in some of his first advisers and collaborator, make sense for the “gost of the socialism” that republican are using .
I am agree that the only way to survive is remaining united, but, at what cost?
thanks for your thoughtful comment. this was a difficult editorial to write and i let is sit for quite a while thinking how to shorten it. there are many examples in the USA and in history of the world. democracies are based on compromise, not too much and not to little but some compromise is needed in a democracy. i voted for Obama because the alternative (Bush-like republicans undermining the US Constitution in the name of defending it [ sort of like ‘we have to destroy the constitution in order to save it!!]. my feeling is that compromise must come from both sides in a political confrontation. to date ONLY OBAMA HAS COMPROMISED, while the “young newbie congresspeople in the house of representatives” dig in to protectthe super rich individuals and corporations from paying any tax at all! i, like most americans in the middle and lower classes, paid more taxes last year than corporations like general electric or EXXON. it makes no sense at all. with one side compromising and the other not it is like trying to make a sound by ‘clapping with only one hand’. no sound. can’t work. not effective.
i have not seen such intransigence rule the political scene in my lifetime! personally a lot of anti-cult (anti obama, in this instance) is race-based. has hillary clinton won, it would have been an anti-cult against her but gender based. American politicians want a white christian male as president, but i think that is changing. so be it. the debate is really lacking a desire on the part of the haves in society to give up anything it has.
The problem with the cults of anti-personality (and especially with the anti-Obama cult, in my opinion) is that they, as you mentioned, have expanded their rhetoric to the point where facts are no longer facts, but instead are totally expendable “talking points”. Science is no longer accepted even when there is massive concurrence, such as with climate change. It is shocking and frightening to me, since there can be no *useful* debate or action without both sides accepting certain facts and using them to make decisions. There’s a strong animus to almost any kind of intellectualism among many of these people. We have to find a way to bring reason and logic back to our political discourse. I don’t feel too hopeful about the prospects, though.
hi beth, your comments are at the heart of the problem. our democratic system is based on compromise among the political factions with changing coalitions dependng on the issues. today however, we have reinforced cleavages (divisions) instead of overlapping ones. i am guilty of being opposed to most things related to Bush or to Cheney, because their values are opposite most of mine. how can we get back to civility in politics? not so easy when you have extreme right wing people (right now, the Tea Party) opposed to any compromise at all. thanks for your concern. let’s hope politics in the country will improve and very soon. mickey
Will a time ever come when ordinarry scientific research regarding human population dynamics will be examined? Three cheers for scientific integrity! In the name of scientific integrity will someone with appropriate expertise, please, pray tell us, what scientists and other professional researchers with appropriate expertise have known, based upon the best availabile scientific evidence, about the population dynamics of the human species? During my lifetime, what did so-called experts know and when did you know it? Why the worldwide conspiracy of silence concerning human overpopulation issues in the past 66 years?
The family of humanity as well as much of life as we know it are now here inhabitants of a finite planet with a frangible environment that is failing fast. What really matters is being inadvertently ruined on our watch by the human population, but is not being openly discussed. My ‘blood boils’ in the truth that we have possessed knowledge of so much about ourselves as human beings with feet of clay and acknowledged so little about what has been known for so long about our distinctly human creatureliness, based upon extensive empirical research and unchallenged scientific evidence. Elective mutism and silent consent in the face of the reckless degradation, relentless dissipation and willful sell-off of what everyone knows to be sacred looks to me like the worst of all precipitants of the colossal ecological wreckage that appears in the offing.
Inside and outside the community of top rank scientists, as well as among first class professionals in demography and economics who claim appropriate expertise in issues concerning human overpopulation, one issue is not being discussed by anyone. A worldwide conspiracy of silence continues to prevail about the population dynamics of the human species. The last of the last taboos is the open discussion of extant scientific research of human population dynamics. The implications of this astounding denial of what could somehow be real are potentially profound for the future of life on Earth, I suppose.
Within the human community a tiny minority of self-proclaimed masters of the universe hold the ‘destiny’ of all in their hands. This elite group is operating behind the scenes these days and “growing” the global economy to such a colossal scale that it could soon become patently unsustainable on a planet with the size, composition and ecology of Earth because our planetary home is not, definitely not “too big to fail.”
Hurry up, please, it is time for speaking out loudly, clearly and often before it is too late for human action to matter. Like it or not, ready or not, intellectually honest and morally courageous scientists have unassumed responsibilities to science…. and unfulfilled duties to humanity that must be performed.
I find that the cult figure-model described as “follow the leader” is one of the fruits of years and years of paternalistic societies. We are used to ‘someone’ being in charge while the rest following, without even having to think. It is so much easier this way, there is a sense of familiarity, this is what people are use to.
Let us say that times are changing, and that what we have now is the “coming of age of mankind!”, yet we still find that people want to be led by the hand – how strange it is! They are knowingly able to read the signs and take steps on their own, but they are too ‘comfy’ in their set in ways.
Where I come from, these models are easily driven by illiteracy and ignorance and by other fed in insecurities. Keeping education level low, gives others sufficient power to manipulate masses of people. We still continue to encounter a culture of ‘dame’, Spanish for ‘give me some’, and this is often matched with ‘hazmelo tu’, i.e. ‘you solve it for me’… in other words lets live effortless, and when someone makes a mistake, we can blame them for it too.
Although I had hoped that we would have turned a page unto ‘adulthood’ by now, the ‘unreasoned’ hatred in reference to the sitting president, be it for whatever reason, resonates more like the phase of a ‘volatile teenager’ that never concedes and is too proud to admit that he or she is wrong.
Blindsided by this adolescence we see more people ‘react’ and less people ‘act’, and at the same time we see a lot of good science ignored or veiled by others interests/agendas.
The war inside is real… and we may ask ‘for what purpose?’
Sadly, I have to agree with Ilan, those carrying the lead will only get their piece of cake if they ‘don’t think’ and simply ‘follow the leader’ because money and power can make the ‘crooked’ ‘straight’…
But, I still believe that the power rests with the people. And that at the individual level, our own ‘personality’ driven initiatives serve a higher purpose! In this respect we can be the anti “anti-personality”.
In response to Lino’s paragraph: Remaining united is essential in critical moments, but the principle that promotes such unity has to be lofty and sincere and not driven by the interests that so characterize our societies. Hence a new paradigm is needed.
As time progresses, the ‘haves in Society’ will learn that just as a tree that reap s a great harvest has to shed its foliage and give it back to the earth, they too will need to pause and figure out how to come full circle.
To add to the trial: the role of science in decision making is undermined in our lingering ‘paternalistic’ model. But let’s remain hopeful that we are making progress, and perhaps we are standing to close to our ‘TIME’ to fully appreciate the significance of the processes taking place.