> But about 60% or more of the U.S. electorate finds the cretins repellent,
> and their attacks on Clinton may paradoxically have had the effect of
> boosting his support. I thought of this as I was reading Zizek's Sublime
> Object of Ideology last night. This passage on political identification is
> pretty damned profound, in my ever-humble opinion:
>
> <quote>
> Our predominant, spontaneous idea of identification is that of imitating
> models, ideals, image-makers: it is noted (usually from the condescending
> 'mature' perspective) how young people identify with popular heroes, pop
> singers, film stars, sportsmen.... This spontaneous notion is doubly
> misleading. First, the feature, the trait on the basis of which we identify
> with someone, is usually hidden - it is by no means necessarily a glamorous
> feature.
This is profound? Here I thought this was rule #1. At least the 'not necessarily glamorous' part. It's only hidden from those who don't know what to look for. Parents never understand what kids see in their pop stars, no?
It does need saying, however, since left politicos seem to be among the most folks who walk the earth in this regard.
> Neglecting this paradox can lead to serious political miscalculations; let
> us mention only the 1986 Austrian presidential campaign, with the
> controversial figure of Waldheim at its centre. Starting from the
> assumption that Waldheim was attracting voters because of his
> great-statesman image, leftists put the emphasis of their campaign on
> proving to the public that not only is Waldheim. a man with a dubious past
> (probably involved in war crimes) but also a man who is not prepared to
> confront his past, a man who evades crucial questions concerning it - in
> short, a man whose basic feature is a refusal to 'work through' the
> traumatic past. What they overlooked was that it was precisely this feature
> with which the majority of centrist voters identified. Post-war Austria is
> a country whose very existence is based on a refusal to 'work through' its
> traumatic Nazi past - proving that Waldheim was evading confrontation with
> his past emphasized the exact trait-of-identification of the majority of
> voters.
This seems entirely straight-forward to me. It can only pass as subtle (much less prfound) compared to the complete absence of psychological intuition on the part of hyper-rationalists.
> The theoretical lesson to be learned from this is that the
> trait-of-identification can also be a certain failure, weakness, guilt of
> the other, so that by pointing out the failure we can unwittingly reinforce
> the identification.
The middle class admires in the rich precisely the same things it despises in the poor.
> Rightist ideology in particular is very adroit at
> offering, people weakness or guilt as an identifying trait: we find traces
> of this even with Hitler. In his public appearances, people specifically
> identified themselves with what were hysterical outbursts of impotent rage
> that is, they 'recognized' themselves in this hysterical acting out.
> </quote>
>
> Extrapolating to Clinton, I think the American masses like his evasiveness,
> his feel-goodism, even his cynical ability to bomb Iraqis from afar. How
> nice it would be to launch 450 cruises against your personal enemies and
> not have to worry about getting shot back at!
Precisely. The Washington insiders just hate Clinton because they feel he hasn't earned the right to do these things (unlike Reagan). Clinton hasn't been Washington-socialized. This only makes him more appealing to the American masses. Huey Long postmodernized.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
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