Sarah
2003-09-22 15:31:07 UTC
Stage Zero -
The Moral Development Of George W. Bush
By Carol Norris
CounterPunch.org
9-21-3
"...people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their bases for
ethical behavior) through a series of levels... The first is "the
Preconventional Level," where one usually finds oneself in elementary
school. The first stage of this level is where George, I believe,
makes his home. It's called: Stage Zero."
If George wasn't driving the world down the road to extinction with
his wars, his environmentally disastrous choices and world alienating
policies--"Look at me, ma, no hands" he says while sitting behind the
wheel of our children's future--I'd think he was almost fascinating.
Fascinating the way one who is steeped in myriad psychological issues
is.
I'm a psychotherapist. And, having never seen George in therapy,
despite my open invitation, it would be unethical for me to make an
official diagnosis of him. So, I won't. But, I can kick some thoughts
around.
Remember Tom Hanks' movie, "Big," when the kid, by an accident of
fate, finds himself turned into an adult, playing grown-up roles he is
not developmentally ready for? This is George. I don't mean this
maliciously or satirically; I really mean it. I think developmentally
speaking George is a big kid. Lots of people are. The difference is
they don't have the means to bomb human beings into "pink mist,"
obliterate the infrastructures of countries, and poison the world with
coal and pesticides and carbon dioxide and depleted uranium and
napalm, as they play grown up.
Nowhere was George playing grown-up more conspicuous than his staged
re-election photo op on the USS Lincoln. When I saw him all dressed up
pretending to be a naval aviator, I kept waiting for him to pull out
his GI Joe doll with karate action, sit down and start playing: "Bring
'em on. We can take 'em. Huh, Joe? Take that--heeeyah," while making
Joe do a big karate chop as the real soldiers look on, saluting their
Commander in Chief.
And now KB Toys has come out with an Elite Force Naval Aviator Action
Figure to immortalize George's "historic" day of pretend play. And
with that, in a moment of unintentional, yet brilliant psychological
mindedness, they have placed George, the pretend combat-ready naval
aviator, exactly where he belongs--in the make believe world of the 10
and under set.
In short, George is stuck.
Without getting into too much psychobabble, in human development terms
this means he had some significant issue or trauma at one stage in his
development that precluded him from advancing to higher stages. Again,
theorists would argue that we all have developmental issues to one
degree or another. And we do. But, again, most of us are playing out
our intrapsychic havoc in the battlefields of our minds, not the
battlefields of the world. Our casualties, disastrously enough, are
often our relationships, not the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilian
mothers and children bombed out of their homes in far away
neighborhoods.
There are many ways to think about human development. One could
explore cognitive, psychosexual or psychosocial development. I suspect
George is developmentally stuck in many ways, so we could look at any
of these.
But perhaps more than any other president I can think of, George
evokes pure morality as a rationale for his policy decisions. This, as
opposed to choices based on reason and facts and evidence informed by
morality. [Example: George's rationale for going to war were WMD's
that were an imminent threat to the U.S. Oops. No WMD's. Now George
says in essence, "Yeah, well, so? Saddam is bad. Really bad. And we're
good. So, us being good and Saddam being bad justifies all the lying
and misleading about this illegal war."]
So, while I don't psychologically assess people from a moral
perspective, it makes sense for George. You have to meet people where
they are.
A preeminent theorist on moral development is Lawrence Kohlberg, a
famous Harvard professor, who demonstrated through his scientific
studies that people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their
bases for ethical behavior) through a series of levels. He delineated
three levels, further broken down into six stages.
The first is "the Preconventional Level," where one usually finds
oneself in elementary school. The first stage of this level is where
George, I believe, makes his home. It's called: Stage Zero.
Kohlberg writes: "Stage Zero: Egocentric judgment. The child makes
judgments of good on the basis of what he likes and wants or what
helps him, and bad on the basis of what he does not like or what hurts
him. He has no concept of rules or of obligations to obey or conform
to independent of his wish."
I know! It's uncanny.
We saw George's egocentric judgment during his college years as he
publicly argued for the right of his fraternity, DKE, to use cruel
hazing rituals, such as branding, on its pledges. After all, George
said, "the resulting wound is 'only a cigarette burn.'" (New York
Times, November 8, 1967).
We saw it in AWOL George, who didn't see the need to fulfill his
obligations, his promised duties in the National Guard because it
didn't align with his wishes.
And we have seen unprecedented self-serving judgment time and time and
time again during Bush's tenure as president.
One example among thousands: The current administration is seeking to
create legislation that will make some 18 year old kid who wrongly
downloads a song off the Internet without permission a felon. A felon.
Such a label will dog her and impede her for the rest of her life.
This, as Kenneth Lay, who robbed countless families of their life
savings is not held accountable, but is running free, living not off
his wife as he pretends, but off the fruits of his manipulation. So,
what's the moral here? Rob a corporate buddy of George's of a buck
fifty and, because it's technically illegal, you're forever bad. Run a
corporation, be a buddy of George's, rob your employees of thousands
upon thousands of dollars and, although it's illegal, you're still
good.
A summation of George's egocentric philosophy might very well be his
words to Bob Woodward: "I am the commander, see. I do not need to
explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the
president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say
something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
What a profoundly childlike thing to say (not to be confused with
childish). It sounds to me like a kid trying desperately, yet
transparently, to convince people he is fit for a role he secretly is
unsure he can fulfill and discuss.
An appropriate response by Woodward to George's subtext might've been,
"Such a big boy, Georgie! Yes you are!!"
I'm not a big Clinton fan, believe me, but can you imagine those words
coming out of his mouth during the absurd Lewinsky debacle?
An interviewer asks: "But didn't you say you did not have sexual
relations with that woman?"
"I am the commander, see. I do not need to explain why I say things.
That's the interesting thing about being the president...I don't feel
I owe anybody any explanation."
Now, we all know many a president has lied and distorted the truth in
office. But, the difference is they kept in mind the concept of rules
and obligations that they had to at least pretend to obey and conform
to. Not just George, but this entire administration has completely
flouted what every other administration previously has not--the need
to pretend to play by the rules. The rules are forever changed, they
tell us. Remember 911!
Speak brashly and carry a big photo of Ground Zero is their new
philosophy. And Remember 911! is the battle cry that drowns out any
dissenting skirmish this administration finds itself in. Remember 911!
Is the catch-all response that replaces any obligation to account for
their actions. It is the cozy, protective cloak that has made the Bush
administration all but impervious to questioning and doubt.
And not can they be heard crying, Remember 911!, but Beware The
Terrorist Hiding in Your Underwear Drawer! Code Orange. Code Orange.
Duct tape at the ready! Of course, a terrorist attack could absolutely
happen again. We'd be foolish to think otherwise. But, this in no way
negates the fact that the Bush administration has brilliantly and
unabashedly exploited our post-911 apprehension. There is no greater
fuel for righteous indignation and the resulting lack of critical
thinking than fear. And the Bush administration is fanning the flames
of fear every chance it gets.
So, through our post-9.11 eyes, many of us have very understandably
come to see the radical (yes, the Bush administration is not
conservative, it is radical) egocentric judgment of the Bush
administration as truth. And in many cases, it has become law. The
Patriot Act is the radical, egocentric judgment of a few, turned law.
And it is from the same Stage Zero mindset that a plethora of alarming
legislation is being passed as hard fought civil liberties are being
overturned. It is from Stage Zero that John Ashcroft and the proposed
"Patriot Act II" will be enforced. Ashcroft's egocentric judgment--the
same judgment that spent $8,000 of tax payers' money to cover a stone
breast apparently too titillating for John's libido--is going to
determine who is a terrorist and who isn't, who can be expatriated and
who can't. It will be Ashcroft, the same man who reportedly thinks
Calico cats are signs of the devil, who is the final arbiter of right
and wrong, good and bad. And let's not forget that Rumsfeld was
reportedly all too recently considered so way out there his colleagues
didn't take him seriously.
While the causes of all this egocentric morality are beyond the scope
of this article, it is worth saying that, in George's case, it is
surely informed by his particularly privileged background that has
left him without a realistic sense of how the vast majority of us live
and struggle. As he said in a moment of uncharacteristic truth telling
to Reverend Jim Wallis, "I don't understand how poor people think."
In addition, his morality and subsequent choices are surely informed
and perhaps superceded by his addiction issues and by his deep-seated
shame and desperate need for validation.
George's egocentric judgment is also given credibility under the
auspices of his religious conviction. I do believe George is a
religious man. But, he has in many ways prostituted his religion to
serve his true dogma--the advancement of the corporation.
So, for all his touting of religious and moral imperatives, George's
policy decisions constitute nothing less than a moral failure. They
have nothing to do with God, despite George's fantasy of divine rule,
they have nothing to do with compassion, and they have nothing to do
with helping you and me in any real way. Intrapsychically, they have
everything to do with George's wish to finally be more than what he
fears he is--a moral/business/personal failure. And interpersonally,
they have to do with paybacks and power jockeying.
I believe George's handlers exploit his insecurities, posing him as an
Air Force Naval Aviator here and a Friend of the Poor there, feeding
into his need to play those rolls. At the same time, it fills their
need to have an affable, malleable front man, willing to please and
needy enough to believe the rolls in which he is cast. Karl and Dick
and Co., I believe, are to a certain extent manipulating George just
as they are trying to manipulate us.
So, why don't we all see through this and call them on it? Because
George's handlers and speechwriters and the rest of the gang are very
adept at pretending to be at a stage where they aren't: Stage 5.
Kohlberg writes: "Stage 5: The social-contract legalistic orientation.
Right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights
and standards that have been critically examined and agreed upon by
the whole society... The result is an emphasis upon the "legal point
of view," but with an additional emphasis upon the possibility of
changing the law in terms of rational considerations of social
utility...The "official" morality of the American government and
Constitution is at this stage."
This is where most of us Americans believe we are, or at least we used
to. Because this is much of what our country was founded on. And the
Bush administration knows this and they exploit it. They talk the talk
of Stage 5 as they walk the walk of Stage Zero.
But such incongruity is crazy making. It's like a mother who beats her
child as she tells him she loves him and would never hurt him.
Like the abused kid, many of us want to believe George is telling the
truth and is looking after our best interest. He seems like a nice
enough guy. We try to contort our sense of morality and reality to fit
his, questioning our own. But, while we hear George tell us the
economy is recovering, we see thousands upon thousands in our
communities laid off with no future job prospects. And we can only
contort and deny so long until finally something gives. So now, the
facade is cracking and many people are starting to see the real, ugly,
self-serving picture behind George's wall of pretty words. And it is
through this crack that activists, progressive politicians and those
of us concerned about the once unimaginable state of our country must
thoughtfully, respectfully and gently enter and begin to mobilize and
organize.
The final of Kohlberg's stages is Stage 6. Again, Kohlberg writes:
"Stage 6. The universal ethical-principle orientation. Right is
defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen
ethical principles that appeal to logical comprehensiveness,
universality, and consistency... At heart, these are universal
principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of the human
rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual
persons."
Kohlberg believed many people never truly reach Stage 6. But, I think
it is not unreasonable to hope that the man who is running our country
and our world should aspire to this stage. Having a Stage Zeroling
behind the wheel is a sure sign our world will be driven into an
enormous ditch before you can say Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
To help clients move through the stages, Kohlberg believed a therapist
should present him or her with moral dilemmas to discuss. Never have I
considered, nor do I plan on doing therapy with clients this way. But,
I think it is my patriotic duty to help our morality-touting Commander
in Chief rise out of Stage Zerohood and step into a stage more fitting
of his position.
So, again, I invite you, George, to come see me in therapy and work
out some of your moral development issues, just as I invited you to
work out some of your shame issues a while back.
In the meantime, here is a moral dilemma for you to chew on to help
you work your way up the moral ladder. Hope it helps.
Moral Dilemma: You are an exceptionally privileged man who has a long
history of personal and business failures. Despite yourself, you find
you are appointed to the most powerful position in the land through
the help of friends and family in high places.
You say you are compassionate (burning the flesh of others aside). Yet
in your short tenure in office, you have instituted public policies
and norms that have irretrievably pockmarked the face of the world
such as walking away from international treaties, years in the making:
The Kyoto Treaty, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the
International Criminal Court Treaty, and the Land Mines Ban Treaty,
making our world infinitely more dangerous.
You have created the largest federal budget deficit in American
history, as you blithely accept the highest unemployment rate in
decades, (the upturn of the last economic quarter was mostly due to
payments to the coffers of a few defense contractors. So only a few of
your friends have seen the benefits of the slight upturn. And the
small unemployment decrease was due to people so frustrated they just
dropped out of the job market).
And as the US now boasts the highest proportion of children born into
poverty in the "developed" world (22%) and 43 million Americans have
no health insurance, your administration is slowly but surely gutting
all our country's safety nets, which will ultimately add fuel to your
privatization frenzy and create a truly vicious cycle.
Through this same privatization, you are pilfering the jobs and
futures of millions of federal employees in the name of national
security, effectively gutting the Civil Service Act of 1883, dragging
federal employment practices back to the good old days of nepotism and
cronyism while you do your best to pass a law to cut the overtime pay
of hard working citizens.
Your administration reportedly instructed the EPA to lie to the people
of New York City about the toxic air they have been breathing since
9.11, which has caused very serious respiratory illnesses. You ask
soldiers to continue to die, to expose themselves to higher and higher
levels of toxic depleted uranium that promise years of subsequent
health problems, as you show a uniquely George-esque brand of
"supporting our troops"--ignoring the demands of the family members of
active troops who are clamoring for some answers and accountability
for this war; trying to block the pay raises of those on active duty;
and pledging to veto a bill that would overturn an old law that, in
effect, makes veterans pay for their own benefits.
Do you have Laura look up what the word compassionate means in the
dictionary and pick a new, more appropriate word like, say,
self-interested? Do you have a moral reckoning and become the man you
pretend to be? Or, do you forever remain "...a white Republican guy
who doesn't get it..." as you said to Reverend Jim Wallis and, true to
your pervasive pattern, continue to pull an Orwell and tell us War is
Peace, Occupation is Liberation, and Self-Interest is Compassion?
Discuss.
- Carol Norris is a psychotherapist, freelance writer and member of
CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She can be contacted at
***@planet-save.com.
The Moral Development Of George W. Bush
By Carol Norris
CounterPunch.org
9-21-3
"...people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their bases for
ethical behavior) through a series of levels... The first is "the
Preconventional Level," where one usually finds oneself in elementary
school. The first stage of this level is where George, I believe,
makes his home. It's called: Stage Zero."
If George wasn't driving the world down the road to extinction with
his wars, his environmentally disastrous choices and world alienating
policies--"Look at me, ma, no hands" he says while sitting behind the
wheel of our children's future--I'd think he was almost fascinating.
Fascinating the way one who is steeped in myriad psychological issues
is.
I'm a psychotherapist. And, having never seen George in therapy,
despite my open invitation, it would be unethical for me to make an
official diagnosis of him. So, I won't. But, I can kick some thoughts
around.
Remember Tom Hanks' movie, "Big," when the kid, by an accident of
fate, finds himself turned into an adult, playing grown-up roles he is
not developmentally ready for? This is George. I don't mean this
maliciously or satirically; I really mean it. I think developmentally
speaking George is a big kid. Lots of people are. The difference is
they don't have the means to bomb human beings into "pink mist,"
obliterate the infrastructures of countries, and poison the world with
coal and pesticides and carbon dioxide and depleted uranium and
napalm, as they play grown up.
Nowhere was George playing grown-up more conspicuous than his staged
re-election photo op on the USS Lincoln. When I saw him all dressed up
pretending to be a naval aviator, I kept waiting for him to pull out
his GI Joe doll with karate action, sit down and start playing: "Bring
'em on. We can take 'em. Huh, Joe? Take that--heeeyah," while making
Joe do a big karate chop as the real soldiers look on, saluting their
Commander in Chief.
And now KB Toys has come out with an Elite Force Naval Aviator Action
Figure to immortalize George's "historic" day of pretend play. And
with that, in a moment of unintentional, yet brilliant psychological
mindedness, they have placed George, the pretend combat-ready naval
aviator, exactly where he belongs--in the make believe world of the 10
and under set.
In short, George is stuck.
Without getting into too much psychobabble, in human development terms
this means he had some significant issue or trauma at one stage in his
development that precluded him from advancing to higher stages. Again,
theorists would argue that we all have developmental issues to one
degree or another. And we do. But, again, most of us are playing out
our intrapsychic havoc in the battlefields of our minds, not the
battlefields of the world. Our casualties, disastrously enough, are
often our relationships, not the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilian
mothers and children bombed out of their homes in far away
neighborhoods.
There are many ways to think about human development. One could
explore cognitive, psychosexual or psychosocial development. I suspect
George is developmentally stuck in many ways, so we could look at any
of these.
But perhaps more than any other president I can think of, George
evokes pure morality as a rationale for his policy decisions. This, as
opposed to choices based on reason and facts and evidence informed by
morality. [Example: George's rationale for going to war were WMD's
that were an imminent threat to the U.S. Oops. No WMD's. Now George
says in essence, "Yeah, well, so? Saddam is bad. Really bad. And we're
good. So, us being good and Saddam being bad justifies all the lying
and misleading about this illegal war."]
So, while I don't psychologically assess people from a moral
perspective, it makes sense for George. You have to meet people where
they are.
A preeminent theorist on moral development is Lawrence Kohlberg, a
famous Harvard professor, who demonstrated through his scientific
studies that people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their
bases for ethical behavior) through a series of levels. He delineated
three levels, further broken down into six stages.
The first is "the Preconventional Level," where one usually finds
oneself in elementary school. The first stage of this level is where
George, I believe, makes his home. It's called: Stage Zero.
Kohlberg writes: "Stage Zero: Egocentric judgment. The child makes
judgments of good on the basis of what he likes and wants or what
helps him, and bad on the basis of what he does not like or what hurts
him. He has no concept of rules or of obligations to obey or conform
to independent of his wish."
I know! It's uncanny.
We saw George's egocentric judgment during his college years as he
publicly argued for the right of his fraternity, DKE, to use cruel
hazing rituals, such as branding, on its pledges. After all, George
said, "the resulting wound is 'only a cigarette burn.'" (New York
Times, November 8, 1967).
We saw it in AWOL George, who didn't see the need to fulfill his
obligations, his promised duties in the National Guard because it
didn't align with his wishes.
And we have seen unprecedented self-serving judgment time and time and
time again during Bush's tenure as president.
One example among thousands: The current administration is seeking to
create legislation that will make some 18 year old kid who wrongly
downloads a song off the Internet without permission a felon. A felon.
Such a label will dog her and impede her for the rest of her life.
This, as Kenneth Lay, who robbed countless families of their life
savings is not held accountable, but is running free, living not off
his wife as he pretends, but off the fruits of his manipulation. So,
what's the moral here? Rob a corporate buddy of George's of a buck
fifty and, because it's technically illegal, you're forever bad. Run a
corporation, be a buddy of George's, rob your employees of thousands
upon thousands of dollars and, although it's illegal, you're still
good.
A summation of George's egocentric philosophy might very well be his
words to Bob Woodward: "I am the commander, see. I do not need to
explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the
president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say
something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
What a profoundly childlike thing to say (not to be confused with
childish). It sounds to me like a kid trying desperately, yet
transparently, to convince people he is fit for a role he secretly is
unsure he can fulfill and discuss.
An appropriate response by Woodward to George's subtext might've been,
"Such a big boy, Georgie! Yes you are!!"
I'm not a big Clinton fan, believe me, but can you imagine those words
coming out of his mouth during the absurd Lewinsky debacle?
An interviewer asks: "But didn't you say you did not have sexual
relations with that woman?"
"I am the commander, see. I do not need to explain why I say things.
That's the interesting thing about being the president...I don't feel
I owe anybody any explanation."
Now, we all know many a president has lied and distorted the truth in
office. But, the difference is they kept in mind the concept of rules
and obligations that they had to at least pretend to obey and conform
to. Not just George, but this entire administration has completely
flouted what every other administration previously has not--the need
to pretend to play by the rules. The rules are forever changed, they
tell us. Remember 911!
Speak brashly and carry a big photo of Ground Zero is their new
philosophy. And Remember 911! is the battle cry that drowns out any
dissenting skirmish this administration finds itself in. Remember 911!
Is the catch-all response that replaces any obligation to account for
their actions. It is the cozy, protective cloak that has made the Bush
administration all but impervious to questioning and doubt.
And not can they be heard crying, Remember 911!, but Beware The
Terrorist Hiding in Your Underwear Drawer! Code Orange. Code Orange.
Duct tape at the ready! Of course, a terrorist attack could absolutely
happen again. We'd be foolish to think otherwise. But, this in no way
negates the fact that the Bush administration has brilliantly and
unabashedly exploited our post-911 apprehension. There is no greater
fuel for righteous indignation and the resulting lack of critical
thinking than fear. And the Bush administration is fanning the flames
of fear every chance it gets.
So, through our post-9.11 eyes, many of us have very understandably
come to see the radical (yes, the Bush administration is not
conservative, it is radical) egocentric judgment of the Bush
administration as truth. And in many cases, it has become law. The
Patriot Act is the radical, egocentric judgment of a few, turned law.
And it is from the same Stage Zero mindset that a plethora of alarming
legislation is being passed as hard fought civil liberties are being
overturned. It is from Stage Zero that John Ashcroft and the proposed
"Patriot Act II" will be enforced. Ashcroft's egocentric judgment--the
same judgment that spent $8,000 of tax payers' money to cover a stone
breast apparently too titillating for John's libido--is going to
determine who is a terrorist and who isn't, who can be expatriated and
who can't. It will be Ashcroft, the same man who reportedly thinks
Calico cats are signs of the devil, who is the final arbiter of right
and wrong, good and bad. And let's not forget that Rumsfeld was
reportedly all too recently considered so way out there his colleagues
didn't take him seriously.
While the causes of all this egocentric morality are beyond the scope
of this article, it is worth saying that, in George's case, it is
surely informed by his particularly privileged background that has
left him without a realistic sense of how the vast majority of us live
and struggle. As he said in a moment of uncharacteristic truth telling
to Reverend Jim Wallis, "I don't understand how poor people think."
In addition, his morality and subsequent choices are surely informed
and perhaps superceded by his addiction issues and by his deep-seated
shame and desperate need for validation.
George's egocentric judgment is also given credibility under the
auspices of his religious conviction. I do believe George is a
religious man. But, he has in many ways prostituted his religion to
serve his true dogma--the advancement of the corporation.
So, for all his touting of religious and moral imperatives, George's
policy decisions constitute nothing less than a moral failure. They
have nothing to do with God, despite George's fantasy of divine rule,
they have nothing to do with compassion, and they have nothing to do
with helping you and me in any real way. Intrapsychically, they have
everything to do with George's wish to finally be more than what he
fears he is--a moral/business/personal failure. And interpersonally,
they have to do with paybacks and power jockeying.
I believe George's handlers exploit his insecurities, posing him as an
Air Force Naval Aviator here and a Friend of the Poor there, feeding
into his need to play those rolls. At the same time, it fills their
need to have an affable, malleable front man, willing to please and
needy enough to believe the rolls in which he is cast. Karl and Dick
and Co., I believe, are to a certain extent manipulating George just
as they are trying to manipulate us.
So, why don't we all see through this and call them on it? Because
George's handlers and speechwriters and the rest of the gang are very
adept at pretending to be at a stage where they aren't: Stage 5.
Kohlberg writes: "Stage 5: The social-contract legalistic orientation.
Right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights
and standards that have been critically examined and agreed upon by
the whole society... The result is an emphasis upon the "legal point
of view," but with an additional emphasis upon the possibility of
changing the law in terms of rational considerations of social
utility...The "official" morality of the American government and
Constitution is at this stage."
This is where most of us Americans believe we are, or at least we used
to. Because this is much of what our country was founded on. And the
Bush administration knows this and they exploit it. They talk the talk
of Stage 5 as they walk the walk of Stage Zero.
But such incongruity is crazy making. It's like a mother who beats her
child as she tells him she loves him and would never hurt him.
Like the abused kid, many of us want to believe George is telling the
truth and is looking after our best interest. He seems like a nice
enough guy. We try to contort our sense of morality and reality to fit
his, questioning our own. But, while we hear George tell us the
economy is recovering, we see thousands upon thousands in our
communities laid off with no future job prospects. And we can only
contort and deny so long until finally something gives. So now, the
facade is cracking and many people are starting to see the real, ugly,
self-serving picture behind George's wall of pretty words. And it is
through this crack that activists, progressive politicians and those
of us concerned about the once unimaginable state of our country must
thoughtfully, respectfully and gently enter and begin to mobilize and
organize.
The final of Kohlberg's stages is Stage 6. Again, Kohlberg writes:
"Stage 6. The universal ethical-principle orientation. Right is
defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen
ethical principles that appeal to logical comprehensiveness,
universality, and consistency... At heart, these are universal
principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of the human
rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual
persons."
Kohlberg believed many people never truly reach Stage 6. But, I think
it is not unreasonable to hope that the man who is running our country
and our world should aspire to this stage. Having a Stage Zeroling
behind the wheel is a sure sign our world will be driven into an
enormous ditch before you can say Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
To help clients move through the stages, Kohlberg believed a therapist
should present him or her with moral dilemmas to discuss. Never have I
considered, nor do I plan on doing therapy with clients this way. But,
I think it is my patriotic duty to help our morality-touting Commander
in Chief rise out of Stage Zerohood and step into a stage more fitting
of his position.
So, again, I invite you, George, to come see me in therapy and work
out some of your moral development issues, just as I invited you to
work out some of your shame issues a while back.
In the meantime, here is a moral dilemma for you to chew on to help
you work your way up the moral ladder. Hope it helps.
Moral Dilemma: You are an exceptionally privileged man who has a long
history of personal and business failures. Despite yourself, you find
you are appointed to the most powerful position in the land through
the help of friends and family in high places.
You say you are compassionate (burning the flesh of others aside). Yet
in your short tenure in office, you have instituted public policies
and norms that have irretrievably pockmarked the face of the world
such as walking away from international treaties, years in the making:
The Kyoto Treaty, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the
International Criminal Court Treaty, and the Land Mines Ban Treaty,
making our world infinitely more dangerous.
You have created the largest federal budget deficit in American
history, as you blithely accept the highest unemployment rate in
decades, (the upturn of the last economic quarter was mostly due to
payments to the coffers of a few defense contractors. So only a few of
your friends have seen the benefits of the slight upturn. And the
small unemployment decrease was due to people so frustrated they just
dropped out of the job market).
And as the US now boasts the highest proportion of children born into
poverty in the "developed" world (22%) and 43 million Americans have
no health insurance, your administration is slowly but surely gutting
all our country's safety nets, which will ultimately add fuel to your
privatization frenzy and create a truly vicious cycle.
Through this same privatization, you are pilfering the jobs and
futures of millions of federal employees in the name of national
security, effectively gutting the Civil Service Act of 1883, dragging
federal employment practices back to the good old days of nepotism and
cronyism while you do your best to pass a law to cut the overtime pay
of hard working citizens.
Your administration reportedly instructed the EPA to lie to the people
of New York City about the toxic air they have been breathing since
9.11, which has caused very serious respiratory illnesses. You ask
soldiers to continue to die, to expose themselves to higher and higher
levels of toxic depleted uranium that promise years of subsequent
health problems, as you show a uniquely George-esque brand of
"supporting our troops"--ignoring the demands of the family members of
active troops who are clamoring for some answers and accountability
for this war; trying to block the pay raises of those on active duty;
and pledging to veto a bill that would overturn an old law that, in
effect, makes veterans pay for their own benefits.
Do you have Laura look up what the word compassionate means in the
dictionary and pick a new, more appropriate word like, say,
self-interested? Do you have a moral reckoning and become the man you
pretend to be? Or, do you forever remain "...a white Republican guy
who doesn't get it..." as you said to Reverend Jim Wallis and, true to
your pervasive pattern, continue to pull an Orwell and tell us War is
Peace, Occupation is Liberation, and Self-Interest is Compassion?
Discuss.
- Carol Norris is a psychotherapist, freelance writer and member of
CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She can be contacted at
***@planet-save.com.
--
"When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding.
When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding." ---Dennis
Kucinich
"When our children fail competency tests the schools lose funding.
When our missiles fail tests, we increase funding." ---Dennis
Kucinich