The American psychiatrist Justin A. Frank, M.D., works with Melanie Klein's conceptual framework in his psycho-biographies about former Presidents George W. Bush (2007) and Barack Obama (2011). Taking hints from Dr. Frank's two books, I propose to discuss the 2016 presidential election, especially Trump and the Trump voters.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 23, 2017: My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit cultural historian and theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955) of Saint Louis University, the Jesuit university in St. Louis, Missouri.

Thomas M. Walsh has compiled a complete bibliography of Ong's 400 or so publications, including information about reprinted and translated items, in "Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A Bibliography 1929-2006" in the book Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Walsh (New York: Hampton Press, 2011, pp. 185-245). Ong published 109 book reviews and review essays.

In a review essay in 1952, Ong discusses the thought of the French Jesuit paleontologist and religious thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) regarding three spheres: (1) the cosmosphere, (2) the biosphere, and (3) the noosphere (Greek, nous, noos, mind). Today, our news media greatly expand our sense of the scope of the noosphere, including reports of events and developments that we may feel threatened by.

Now, among other things, Ong alerted us to the emergence of secondary orality (oral culture 2.0) engendered by communications media that accentuate sound, which he differentiated from pre-literate primary orality (oral culture 1.0) and residual forms of oral culture 1.0.

With the emergence of the Gutenberg printing press in the 1450s, residual forms of oral culture 1.0 waned as print culture 1.0 emerged in Western culture. Under the influence of our contemporary oral culture 2.0, print culture 2.0 has emerged in Western culture over the last half century or so.

It appears to me that oral culture 2.0 is here to stay -- for better or worse.

Oral culture 2.0, like oral culture 1.0, and like residual forms of oral culture 1.0, resonates deep in the human psyche. In the terminology of the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961), oral culture 2.0 resonates with the feminine dimension of the human psyche, including the archetypal feminine dimension and the personal feminine dimension of ego-consciousness associated with the infant's experience of his or her mother, or mother-figure.

Concerning Jung's thought, see my essay "Understanding Jung's Thought":

http://hdl.handle.net/10792/2576

Now, the British Freudian analyst and psychological theorist Melanie Klein (1882-1960) closely studied infants' experience of their mothers. From her observations of infants and their mothers, she posited two basic positions: (1) the paranoid-schizoid position and (2) the depressive position.

In effect, Richard Hofstadter alerted us about the paranoid-schizoid position in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (New York: Knopf, 1965). In light of Hofstadter's classic essay about the paranoid style in American politics, it is obvious that Donald J. Trump used the paranoid style in his 2016 presidential campaign to appeal to his most fervent supporters.

Now, the American psychiatrist Justin A. Frank, M.D., works with Kleinian theory in two books:

(1) Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper, 2007);

(2) Obama on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President (New York: Free Press, 2011).

In his 2011 book about former President Barack Obama, Dr. Frank provides a useful glossary of terminology (pp. 233-42).

However, I do not expect the Kleinian terminology about the posited paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position experienced by infants that Dr. Frank uses to catch on, even though he carefully explains this terminology in his 2011 glossary (pp. 239-40).

For this reason, I prefer to start with something Dr. Frank says in his 2007 book about former President George W. Bush. In it, Dr. Frank says, "Simple mania involves love and the need to deny [either] dependency or loss of a loved person; [but] megalomania involves hate and a need to triumph over paranoid fears" (p. 202).

Basically, the paranoid-schizoid position activated in infants' experience of their mothers, or mother-figures, "involves hate and a need to triumph over paranoid fears" of abandonment by the mother, or mother-figure.

No doubt Trump voters in the 2016 presidential election tended to be motivated by "hate and a need to triumph over paranoid fears" of abandonment by the mother, or mother-figure. No doubt abandonment feelings are powerful.

Now, in his 2011 book on Obama, Dr. Frank operationally defines containment as the antidote of abandonment (p. 235). So Trump voters should explore ways in which they can cultivate containment of their abandonment feelings. No doubt this is easier said than done.

In the 2008 presidential campaign before the news of the economic crisis broke, then-Senator Obama excelled in delivering speeches expressing the manic tendency involving love.

Now, when we turn our attention to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's most fervent supporters in the 2016 presidential election, we should not be surprised that they tended to be characterized as gravitating toward simple mania involving love, as distinct from hate, as Dr. Frank describes this. (Disclosure: I voted for Hillary. But I could not be described as one of her most fervent supporters.)

At first blush, because the manic tendency involves love, not hate, we might tend to see it as preferable to hate.

But in his 2007 book on Bush, Dr. Frank says, "Both megalomania and [simple] mania exhibit three overtly defensive characteristics: [1] control, [2] contempt, and [3] triumph" (p. 202).

Therefore, in the final analysis, manic tendencies involving love also call for containment. In his 2011 book on Obama, Dr. Frank discusses containment extensively (pp. 94-96, 98, and 235-36).

Concerning working through acute abandonment feelings, see Susan Anderson's self-help book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing, 2nd ed. (New York: Berkley Books, 2014).

Susan Anderson delineates a fourfold sense of personal identity that strikes me as virtually a formula for self-containment: (1) Face, accept, and celebrate your separateness as a person (i.e., as a person separate from the person lost through abandonment, including your experience of abandonment as an infant). (2) Celebrate the importance of your own existence. (3) Face and accept your reality (i.e., the reality of the loss due to abandonment). (4) Enhance your capacity to love.

In summary, oral culture 2.0 appears to be here to stay, stirring the feminine dimension in the depths of the human psyche. On the surface level, the news media are likely to continue animating the noosphere with reports of events and developments that may prompt us to feel threatened. Under the circumstances, the paranoid style in American politics that Trump exploited in his 2016 presidential campaign will probably continue to be exploited in American politics, because it resonates with the paranoid-schizoid experience of abandonment in the depths of the human psyche.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview