Me 'n GWB

This is from an October 2004 MoonLetter...

The U.S. presidential election is on Tuesday (as if you didn't know!), so applying two principles of naturalistic psychology* to George W. Bush is timely... and fun! :)

The principle of differentiation basically says that a 'healthy' person recognizes "both the personhood of others and [her or himself mirrored in them", helping her or him to achieve "a wider and more generous world view." So while we do "open up some distance between ourselves and others", we don't lose "a sense of shared being or interconnection." (Can you tell where I'm headed with this yet??)

Now. The principle of "one flesh" says "all phenomena interweave as a single cloth or 'common tissue' and are mutually informative in their commingling with one another." Given this, "the highest order of maturity is achieved when one is able to relate to, find likeness in, what on the surface seems most unlike oneself."

So... given that my knee jerk reaction to GWB is that he is very, very different from me, he'll serve nicely as an illustration for this exercise.

How is GWB a person? (No, really, he's not a demon.)
How do I see myself in him?

If I can do this, I'll be demonstrating a higher level of maturity than I am currently. (fingers crossed)

1. We are both human.
2. We have both been shaped by Western culture.
3. We are both U.S. citizens.
4. We have both lived in the Northeast and the Southwest.
5. We both went to college.
6. We both have partners interested in/working in the field of education.
7. We both like baseball to some degree.
8. We both have had our communication skills questioned.
9. We are both insecure and like to surround ourselves with things that make us feel more secure.
10. We both like mindless distractions to some degree.
11. We both have helped raise baby twins to some degree.
12. We each have really, really strong beliefs.
13. We sometimes find it difficult to defend our opinions and beliefs.

See: I have a lot in common with GWB. We share backgrounds and attitudes and behaviors to a certain extent...

Of course, that said, our beliefs themselves are fairly divergent and I would say I am more like John Kerry in this regard, and that is why I'm voting for Kerry and not Bush. In fact, I believe Bush's beliefs and actions are actually threatening to my own and so, while I'd rather be voting for someone like Dennis Kucinich, it's vitally important to me that Bush is not re-elected. But the voting is another matter: to read more about this, please see a collaborative blog entry I've helped create: There Is a Choice: http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/thoughts/2004/10/there_is_a_choi.html

*according to Andy Fisher, Radical Ecopsychology (http://www.superaje.com/~afisher/)