Commentary

OPINION: The Mind of a Child

For every complex problem, there is a simple solution. And it’s always wrong. H L Mencken

Two things that are characteristic of the mind of a child are 1) categorical, black-and-white thinking; meaning everything fits into one of two boxes (good/bad, right/wrong, either/or) and 2) an inability to see the potential consequences of behavior – the inability to connect cause and effect. Categorical thinking is the most primitive kind of discrimination in the perception of what our senses tell us. It takes some maturity before children begin to see that categories have gradations and truths are partial with nuances. It’s what children are capable of when they’re very young. Children also act on impulse and instinct, only gradually learning that actions have consequences that can be anticipated by considering what the results might be. These two traits of cognitive function sometimes persist into the teens and with some people even into adulthood for those uncomfortable with uncertainty, becoming habitual – especially when a child has been traumatized. Children are also highly self-centered, as they should be. Getting their needs met is a requirement of survival since they are dependent on others for their needs.

These traits seem to be characteristic of the thinking of Donald Trump. The self-centeredness and categorical thinking combine as he divides people into one of two categories – those who agree with and support him and those who don’t. He values the first and seems to hate the second. I doubt if Trump has any idea of what a friend is. He values people to the extent that he can use them, and as soon as they disagree with or fail to support him, he discards them as of no use anymore – “You’re fired!”. The praise of people he likes is not a sign of respect and value but only his way of manipulating them to get what he wants from them.

His inability to foresee the consequences of his actions is dramatically evident in his ill-considered war on Iran. He apparently didn’t foresee that Iran could close the Straits of Hormuz or fire its large stockpile of missiles at American airbases and targets in Gulf states who align with the US, as well as Israel, though I’d guess he had a few people quietly raise those possibilities. They probably didn’t continue to voice those concerns very long. It also apparently never occurred to him after six bankruptcies that borrowing large sums of money for grandiose projects wasn’t working very well for him, or that history has repeatedly shown that raising tariffs doesn’t lead to growth in American industry and prosperity.

It’s hard to gauge how much real thinking Trump actually does. He often seems to have no connection to reality, as if truth to him is whatever he wishes it were. Some of what he says is so incoherent and scattered that it almost sounds like the rambling loose associations of a schizophrenic or symptoms of dementia, which many have speculated he suffers from. His grandiose and silly claims of high intelligence with nothing to back them up are statements no president in history would have been egotistical enough to voice, including Rhodes scholar Clinton or Harvard Law Review president Obama. It’s often hard to discern any train of coherent thinking in Trump’s ramblings. Most of his speech is an expression of emotion-based attitudes, insults of those who criticize him, blatant lies with no basis in documentable evidence, and simpleminded comments praising those obsequious souls who heap exaggerated flattery at his feet in order to gain favor with him.

So how in the world did it happen that we elected someone so ill-equipped to be president? Never in history has a democratic nation elected someone as remotely incompetent and simpleminded as Trump. There is a psychiatric diagnosis not accepted in the DSM 5 but labeled in Europe as folie a deux or shared psychotic disorder with two people, called “mass hysteria” when shared by a substantial number of people. Some psychologists here have suggested the validity of such a phenomenon as something that a large number of people can succumb to.

The most obvious example would be the mass hysteria of so much of the German people under Hitler in the 1930s in the delusion that the Jewish people were the cause of Germany’s woes and must be eliminated to restore Germany to power and prosperity. Another example would be mobs of Southern whites gathering for lynchings of black men spurred by unfounded rumors that the victims had assaulted white women. It’s very common to have mass hysterias fueled by the identification of a scapegoat that is identified as the source of a people’s woes. Certainly in Germany not all Germans bought into the mass psychosis, as some Germans helped Jews escape and many Germans may have not voiced their doubt and disbelief out of fear of reprisal.

The dramatic recent example with Trump was the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, fueled by an apparent mass delusion of his political base and the audience he addressed that day that the election was stolen by Biden and the Democrats through fraudulent vote counts, disproved by sixty failed lawsuits trying to find evidence for it. It’s a delusion that persists even now among a core group of his followers. While some may know better but pretend otherwise, it seems clear that a very large number of them share the belief that Trump really won the 2020 election. Does Trump still believe that? He certainly seems to. There are examples of mass hysteria throughout history that include mass persecutions of “heretic” Christian sects, the Spanish Inquisition, and the European and Salem witch trials of women who were simply herbal healers and midwives.

Delusional states are not just mistakes or erroneous beliefs. If someone believes Barack Obama was born in Kenya because he heard a rumor, or that JFK was assassinated on orders from LBJ even without evidence of that, it’s a mistaken belief. But if someone believes the CIA is directing x-rays into his head to read his thoughts, that he was abducted by aliens four times and taken to the planet Xenon, or that “I am the Second Son of God and the reincarnation of Jesus Christ sent here to save humanity from their sinfulness, which I will accomplish by the end of the century”, that’s delusional and probably a symptom of schizophrenia. The shared belief that Joe Biden and the Democrats stole the 2020 election by voter fraud in spite of sixty failed lawsuits trying to find evidence of that, plus evidence that it was perhaps the cleanest election in history is a delusional state that has the feel of a psychotic state to me. That may not fit the definition of a psychosis because it’s socially reinforced by a large segment of the population. Perhaps mass hysteria or mass shared delusional state are better terms. Certainly mass hysteria is an apt description of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 precipitated by Trump’s inflammation of his audience.

When you have large numbers of people who feel their needs aren’t being addressed by their government, you have the potential for someone to exploit their grievances. In 2016 a large rural population of mid-American farmers, residents of small towns and laid off factory workers felt they were being left behind and no one was listening to them while a liberal government fostered high tech industries and alternative energy development with a need for well-educated workers that wasn't likely to reach them. Trump exploited their grievances and frustrations with a polarized Congress that couldn’t pass legislation, as well as corporate concerns about lack of support for fossil fuel industries and heavy regulation of businesses producing everything from food products to automobiles.

So the vulnerability of a democracy to a populist demagogue was laid bare. Few people dreamed that such a person could get elected in the United States because of the separation of powers and the checks and balances erected by the Constitutional Convention in 1789 to prevent that very thing, especially someone with such rudimentary intellectual powers as Donald Trump. But demagogues never base their appeal on intelligent, reasoned argument, only on the inflamed emotion of mob psychology that has nothing to do with critical thinking. Mobs are like young children that act out of emotion without reflective thinking or thought of the possible consequences. A demagogue doesn’t need critical thinking with reasoned argument backed by evidence. Donald Trump, for whatever reason, seems to have never developed cognitively beyond the thinking characteristic of young children, despite all his transparently bogus claims of high intelligence. Especially with his possible dementia symptoms and his current age, he still exhibits a childlike mind, and his simplistic rants appeal to masses of people with deep resentments and fantasies unconcerned with factual evidence.

Brett Nelson

Fourth of July

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life,

Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are

instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the

Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them to

seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

United States Declaration of Independence (italics mine)

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” – Samuel Johnson

I saw a man today, the Fourth of July,

wearing a red, white and blue “USA” cap

as he climbed into a recent model pickup

with two flag decals on the bumper

and a sticker reading “POWERED BY SMITH AND WESSON.”

In a small town somewhere in the Midwest

a short balding man with a soft body

wearing a red, white, and blue tie

will praise the soldiers “in harm’s way”

from a podium where he’s flanked by men in uniform

sitting stoically in uncomfortable chairs behind him,

many of whom carry the scars of battle on their bodies,

and in their hearts and their minds.

He will offer the usual platitudes

and scorn those who criticize the government

as betrayers of the country.

After the speeches and ceremonies he will

eat fried chicken and strawberry shortcake

and drink beer and maybe some bourbon

with people who take great pains to agree with each other

so no one is accused of thinking for themselves.

The mayors and governors and the president

will all come out and make the required speeches

that all sound about like they did last year.

The Fourth of July is a good holiday.

It’s good to celebrate the country’s independence

and honor the ideals it tried to encode in our charter,

ideals that were and are a worthy aspiration.

But no, it’s not patriotism that spouts unconsidered praise

hiding truth from honest and fair judgment.

It’s not patriotism that showers unearned admiration on politicians

who rubber stamp every military and corporate request,

who lie and deceive and fill their deep pockets

with contributions from Daddy Warbucks defense industries

while they claim to love America.

While we pretend they mean what they say.

While we mouth the standard platitudes

out of fear we’ll be called un-American if we don’t assent.

They’re pseudo-patriots in sheep’s clothing,

wearing “love of country” as a disguise.

I would wave the flag high myself

and maybe even wear a red, white, and blue “USA” cap

if it weren’t for so many flag-wavers who puff up

as if patriotic buzzwords made them pure

and erased the words and deeds they hide in the shadows.

But I see well enough into those shadows, and I’m not alone.

We might instead place the mantle of patriot

on those who can carry it honestly,

who care enough about the country

to gently but resolutely shine a light into the darkness

so we can see the holes in the fabric that need mending

while they also celebrate what we can rightly take pride in.

Those who care the way the framers of the constitution did

to protect this fragile structure from the abuses

their foresight allowed them to see the danger of

that are now shredding the fabric of the country they built..

It’s sometimes said that a true friend is the one

who lovingly and gently tells you the truth,

be it dark or light.

The Stock Market Is Not the Economy

At the end of the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, after investigative reporter Mikael Blomqvist publishes his book The Mafia Banker to expose the corrupt financier Hans-Erik Wennerstrom, the Swedish stock Exchange is ”in freefall”. In a TV interview Blomkvist is asked if he feels any responsibility for the Swedish economy “heading for a crash”. His response:

“The idea that the Swedish economy is headed for a crash is nonsense. . . The Swedish economy is the sum of all the goods and services that are produced in this country every day. . . The Stock Exchange is something different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this company or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn’t have a thing to do with reality or with the Swedish economy”.

The same thing is true during a stock market boom in the US. It has nothing to do with the American economy. It’s only evidence that a few major investors started buying more stocks, and people watching the market started following suit, increasing the prices of stocks. So people around the country as well as banks and other businesses see stocks increasing in value and think whatever they buy will continue increasing in value and make them a lot of money – on paper.

But when a couple major investors think stocks have risen enough to realize a large enough gain and decide to take their profits by selling significant amounts of stock, others look on and think they should sell, too. The more people jump on the bandwagon and follow suit, the more stock prices drop and the more smaller investors play copycat, which makes stock prices fall even further, which exacerbates the trend. It’s nothing more than people playing copycat according to their fantasies about what stock prices will do, which makes stock prices do what people think they’re going to do, either rise or fall.

The NY Stock Exchange is the biggest gambling casino in the world, and a stock’s price has nothing to do with the economy unless a lot of companies’ stock prices fall enough that they have to reduce production because of significant reduction in available cash from stock sales. But solid companies have enough cash reserves to weather those fluctuations, and the effects on the economy of ups and downs in the stock market are minimal. A stock market slump doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the economy. A stock market boom doesn’t mean the economy is great, regardless of what a president claims. The stock market has been on a boom ever since the second term of Barack Obama, regardless of the dramatic changes in who occupies the White House.

Brett Nelson

Borders

We do have problems at the border with Mexico,

but borders between states are problematic also.

In New Mexico (a state in the United States, just to be clear)

six or seven counties in the southeast corner

should probably be in Texas.

Oil and gas and cattle ranching are the main pursuits,

making them joined in soul with west Texas.

Lots of Anglos down there.

And maybe some of northwest New Mexico

ought to be part of Colorado –

ranching but no oil and gas except a bit in the very corner of it.

The rest of New Mexico relies on chile, pecans, art,

tourists, nuclear and defense-related industries,

plus federal government outposts of

the BIA, Department of the Interior, the BLM and others.

New Mexico was overwhelmingly Hispanic and Native American,

two cultures that mostly tolerated each other,

sort of like tacos and fry bread, cattle and sheep,

until Anglos invaded the power structure after 1846.

But southeast New Mexico just doesn’t fit.

And what about that long gun barrel of Oklahoma

sticking out over the Texas panhandle?

How come that’s not part of Texas?

Of course a good chunk of east Texas,

being humid cotton country, belongs in Louisiana,

and possibly a stretch along the Gulf Coast for the shrimpers.

And maybe New York City and Chicago

should secede from their home states, being largely foreign to them.

What about Kansas City, not to mention LA and San Francisco?

And coastal Washington and Oregon are their own liberal thing

not much related to the other side of the Cascades.

Phoenix and Las Vegas should maybe be their own countries.

Mormons have spread into several states around them

to an extent that Utah’s borders seem a bit cramped now.

Parts of southern Indiana and Illinois should have seceded

with the Confederacy – in my senior year at Indiana University

I found a KKK business card tucked under my wiper blade that read:

“The only reason you are white is because your

ancestors practiced segregation.”

Racism got too personal that night.

We’re a mixed-up country.

But then if states were remade to be

homogenous territories we might have little wars

between neighboring states all over the country.

So maybe we’d best leave them where they are.

But for heaven’s sake make DC a state!

It’s the home of our government

with no vote in Congress.

And then there’s Puerto Rico . . .

Brett Nelson