While PsychePolitics uncovers the unconscious difference between the major U.S. parties as gender identification and gender values, Scott Brown has had a chance to deal quite consciously with gender differences.

The matter occurred several weeks ago. Brown was told his likely Democratic opponent, Elizabeth Warren, had made a comment about him, something like, “Well, at least I didn’t take my clothes off to get through college.” This referred to  Brown, whose good looks gained him some college tuition, when he posed nude in a magazine.

Brown’s response was a very male, “Thank God.” It’s male, because males respond to aggression with aggression. They are comfortable with it, and learn at a young age how to deal with it. His quick retort is a male hit, a homer, a winner. He puts down a clearly aggressive bean ball comment, unrelated to what it takes to be a Senator, with a homer.

Unfortunately for Brown, not all listeners or voters are men. Women also heard the retort, and so did the Democrats, who unconsciously portray the role of Mom of 50 years ago (see an upcoming post on this). Anyway, women and Democrats alike jumped on him for his aggression, especially aggression to a woman.

Men learned this as boys, of course. You don’t hit a girl, even if she hits you first. After all, she really can’t hurt you.

Of course, girls learn to deal with aggression, too. They do it with words, not fists. So, why were words something Brown got slammed for, at least slammed by the Democrats and women? Remember, if there is anything a politician does not want to do is leave himself or herself open to criticism, especially slamming.

Well, certainly one’s opponents will jump on anything they can, turn a response to aggression into pure aggression, whatever. That’s part of politics and done by all parties.

However, there is an additional component here. The Democrats, with unconscious female identities and values, find aggression distasteful, even anxiety provoking. Remember, women were girls, told by Moms that boys play rough. Boys are bigger, stronger, etc. There is appropriate fear instilled in girls about male  aggression that is carried into adulthood, womanhood.

So, Brown’s come-back did not just counter aggression leveled at him. It created fear, anxiety, some uncomfortableness in the Democrats and women. It challenged the female value of non-aggression. Of course, not all females share that value, not in the least, especially in modern Western culture. But that’s the reality. We’re talking here about the unconscious, where reality is defined differently, more like the reality of a two or three year old, when lots of what is in our unconscious minds began.

So, what is a guy to do? What is a boy to do? What is a male or non-Democratic candidate to do? Basically, what’s the solution?

Here it is: Instead of answering aggression with aggression, one must answer aggression with nothing more and nothing less than pointing out the aggression. An example might be, “Now, that’s an aggressive statement.” Or, “You’re being aggressive there.” Of course one could twist the dagger with something like, “You wouldn’t like it, if someone tried to make an aggressive, unflattering comment about you, would you?”

Now, for a man, or a Republican woman, this sounds like complaining, something inconsistent with their values. Even more, a man complaining about a woman’s aggression sounds even coward-like. However, what pointing out aggression to a woman or a Democratic male does is confront them with something they devalue: aggression. It says: You are bad. You are not true to your own values, of political correctness/civility/world peacefulness. In this way, Brown could drive a dagger into Warren’s heart, or at least get her to stop making political hay out of his irrelevant past.

While Brown might lose some esteem in the male/Republican arena, at least he’ll have struck fear into his opponent’s heart, fear she’ll be called uncaring/impolite/politically incorrect, etc. She and those who would do this in the future would be on notice of the repercussions.

By the way, the same goes for the embedded attacks Barack Obama made so successfully in 2008, though there are additional ways to confront them. More  to come.

The Communists are out of the closet. With the coming of the Obama administration and the ascent of the liberals, people who had hidden their Communist leanings for years are now open about them.

And the question is not why they are open, for it is easy to understand they now feel their values are  accepted and acceptable. The question is why are there still so many of them, in influential positions, and why various Communist values persist even in those who do not consider themselves Communists, despite the failures of Communist governments in the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, wherever.

One answer is that these people, or their parents, became aligned with Communist ideals because their parents were either Communists or shared many Communist ideals. This is a partial answer, but a compelling one. We all continue to believe things we learned when we were young, and we all tend to identify with our parents. Thus, if Communists’ parents believed in Communist ideology years ago, before Communism’s failures were evident, their children would still hold them. Even in the face of reality? Sure. We all hold values contrary to reality.

But that still begs the question, which is why were the parents drawn to Communism?

First, let’s go back to Marx’s basics. The Communist credo is, “From those with the ability, to those with the need.” Sounds so OK, that in a survey of American high schoolers a few years back, many thought that came from the American Constitution, not the Communist Manifesto.

Many people are fine with that credo, until they are told the consequences of having it put into law. For one, all the Communist states have been totalitarian, not democratic. People do not want to be forced to share what they have worked for and accomplished for their offspring or their charities or whatever. People want choice.

The second thing that such high schoolers and political newbies are disturbed about is the economic consequence of that ideology: scarcity. Instead of abundance, as Marx predicted would occur, the result was scarcity. Scarcity of food, scarcity of cars, scarcity of creativity , scarcity of innovation, scarcity of freedom of expression.

So, again, why the allure in so many people in the first place?

Let’s start as we almost always do in PsychePolitics, with the human fundamentals. Humans are born with two fundamental behaviors: to survive and to reproduce. Without these, our species would die out, as would all species without the capacity to carry out these functions. We are born with genes that lead to these behaviors.

Once born, the human baby, born with the two fundamental behaviors programmed into it, is flexible, more so than newborns of any other species. It is social, influenced by others around it, most of all its primary caretaker, Mother, and its secondary caretaker, Father. Grandparents and other enter in and are sometimes primary. In any case, there is nearly always a primary caretaker, the one who takes care of the newborn most.

Fueling these behaviors is pleasure. We feel good when we do what it takes to survive and to reproduce. To survive, we must, among other things, achieve autonomy. It feels good; thus it fuels survival or reproduction or both.

In addition, the newborn, as it grows to the toddler stage, starts to identify with its caretakers. This also feels good and thus is consistent with survival or reproduction–or both.

Now we are getting close.

What do parents do, and what are they like? They are all powerful to the two year old, all knowing, etc. They have, from the toddler’s perspective, an infinity of ability. And one of the things they do is give to their children. Right?

There you have it! From those with the ability, to those with the need. The Communist credo right in the middle of the family. And the child/adolescent/adult who unconsciously continues to identifies with its parents in that way finds the Communist credo perfectly natural.

It is perfectly natural, of course–in the family. Parents must give to their children to make reproduction complete,to raise their children to be able to survive and reproduce,  to carry their genes on and on. From the parents to the children. From those with the ability (all powerful, all knowing, etc.) to those with the need (children, dependent, lacking enough autonomy and ability to survive on their own, the needy).

The problem is that this is all unconscious. It is not that identifying with parents is the most powerful force that drives us. It is because we are unaware of it that we cannot change. We cannot fight an enemy we cannot see. That is how Freud described it, and there is nil opposition to this concept.

That’s it, then. Many people find Communism’s basic doctrine alluring because they are identified with their parents, and they, too, are driven to give the needy, if they have the ability, and to receive from those with the ability, if they don’t. And while forcing this on an entire population doesn’t work, some people still strive to do so. Even though it fails, over and over.

There is not much doubt that Greece, Italy, and Spain, i.e. the Southern European countries, are vulnerable economically. When I was a young man, these same countries were unstable. It’s nothing new.

People give surface and obvious reasons all the time. Why? Because they spent too much. But that just begs the question.

OK. So let’s get a bit deeper.

It’s because their governments give money to organizations who will vote for them. Who? Well, the unions, government workers, you know the story. Still surface and obvious, but not begging the question so much.

But don’t the politicians in Germany, the UK, and France want to be elected just as much as those in the Southern three? Of course. So, why don’t they act just as irresponsibly?

Now the question starts to get at what is at hand. Harder to beg it, too.

Psychepolitics looks beneath the surface, where others are not looking. So, what is under the surface? For one, in order for a government to adopt a policy, that policy must be consistent with the values and beliefs of a large segment of that society. The Southern three adopt irresponsible policies, because they are accepted by the populace. The beneficiaries of government handouts there don’t have to work hard, as much as they have to vote for their benefactors–the government leaders, who then give them more benefits and demand less productivity. What a vicious spiral! But, that’s not that inconsistent with societal values in those countries.

The Northern three adopt more responsible policies, because irresponsibly ones would be unacceptable by the populace. We’ll get to why in a moment. Basically, these countries value discipline, the ability to delay gratification, and hard work. The world is harsh. There is no low hanging fruit. Money does not grow on trees. The populace would be less inclined to support handouts for less or no work. Unions and government workers would be less demanding for handouts, would not expect them.

Let’s go even deeper and ask why. Why are these countries different in these ways?

One obvious difference between the Northern and Southern European countries is climate. The Southern countries are warmer. There are variations. The Southern three have temperate northern areas. Nonetheless, by and large, these Southern countries are warmer than the three northern ones.

Deeper. What happens when you grow up in a warm climate? Well, when a little child runs outside, his mother doesn’t remind him to put on his parka. When you grow up in a warm climate, there is not so much preparation for the winter. It is less important to get the house prepared, painted, whatever, because winter is coming. No “Hurry Up.” No “We can’t go to the park, because we have to do (whatever) before winter comes.”

At the same time, in the Northern countries, what does a child hear when he gets to the door to go outside and play? “Wait. Put your jacket on, Fritz.” What does a Northern youngster hear when he wants to go to the park? Again, he hears the importance of delay (of gratification), of preparation (for winter), of anticipation (of harder times), Each time the parents do this, they create a value in the child. The child grows up valuing delaying gratification. It is good to delay gratification. It is cool to delay gratification. The same goes for hard work, for anticipation of problems, and for preparation for harder times.

Now the question starts to be answered. Why do the Southern European countries indulge themselves and then get in trouble? Well, they don’t have values that say delay, and anticipation, and preparation are good, so they don’t delay gratification, anticipate disaster, or prepare for it.

It all starts in childhood, where parents’ values are transferred to them. They will carry it inside them, deep in their minds in their unconscious, for the rest of their lives.

While Ireland seems to be an exception, it likely has reasons other than climate for its problems. It does not negate the role of climate in psychological development and value systems. Take a look at the Americas. Mexico has a poor economy, while Canada’s is strong. Of course, when you look too far north, where there is not even a summer, there are numerous reasons for undeveloped economies.

Whatever the case, climate influences economic prosperity not just due to the availability of resources, but also the personal values climate embeds in its people.

Much is made about confidence in regard to the economy. When consumers have confidence their economic world will stay stable or improve, they are more likely to spend resources–money.

People speak of confidence with regard to the business community as well. If the business community is confident, it will make more products. To do so, each business man or woman will buy more raw materials and hire more workers to make them into finished products. It will be a wonderful thing. The unemployed will work, the suppliers of raw materials will hire more people, too, and in so many other ways, the spiral of economic growth will turn from down to up.

From a psychological perspective, confidence is just a term for an aspect of autonomy. The genetic drive for autonomy relates to the ability to do things, to function as an independent human being. To be…autonomous. Each of us experienced this at a very early age, perhaps when we were 1 or 2 years old. We learned to do things by ourselves, to walk, for example.

Competence is part of autonomy, a necessary part. That is, we actually have to be able to walk. There are others aspects of autonomy, too. Confidence is one of them. It Is the mental sense we can engage in the autonomous function, walking in this example. If the infant is not confidence he can walk, he won’t take a step. If he is overconfident, he might take steps before he is ready. Confidence says, “I think I can do it. I think I have the competence to do it. It will work out.”

In government, political leaders try to instill confidence that buying raw materials and hiring more employees will work out. That is, that people will buy those products, that the businessman’s ability to function by producing goods and services that people will buy will actually occur. Governments try to instill this confidence indirectly, by stimulants or other policy changes. Sometimes it works well, sometimes not so well. The presumption is that if employers become  confident their hiring will pay off, they will hire.

However, it is not so simple. To understand, let’s again look back at our first encounters with autonomy. We took a step. We had the confidence we could take another. It worked out, so we took another and another. Finally, we could walk. It was fun. It was pleasurable. It was no different in that way from all that we do to survive and to reproduce.

Anyway, it was so much fun, we tried to walk everywhere, for example down stairs, and we fell. We soon learned the other side of pleasure, or how to curtail what is pleasurable for reality. If we do not, i.e. if we do everything that is pleasurable, we will ultimately feel displeasure, or pain. So, we get real. That is, we apply the reality principle. We slow down and even stop when we get to the stairs. As we learn to apply the reality principle, we actually gain more autonomy. This is because we are able to do things without falling. So, to achieve autonomy, one must also apply the reality principle.

Unfortunately, or fortunately from another perspective, there is yet another step. A step beyond the reality principle. I call it the social reality principle. Sure, we are autonomous enough to walk, but our social world also puts a limit on where and when we can walk. The first social contacts we have are with our parents. When they give us permission to do something, even walk, we are allowed to do it. When they tell us not to do it or simply ignore it, it is called bad. We feel we are bad if we do it anyway. We take a chance on losing our parents’ love and support when we do what they forbid. So, there is permission, and there is prohibition. All of us know this.

We also know about something else. Sometimes, parents actually praise us for doing something. They can also praise someone else for doing it. In either case,  it becomes praiseworthy to do it. We feel it is good to do it. Our value is that it is good to do it, and when we do it, we feel pleasure. That sense of pleasure drives us to do that behavior even more.

For many of us, doing well in school is one of those allowed and praised behaviors, in most families, at least. When we excel in school, our parents praise us, we feel good.

But what about those unpraised or unvalued things we have the confidence  and competence to do, i.e. things we are autonomous in. Hmmm. We probably don’t do them. If we do, it is with a bit of guilty anxiety, so we likely won’t do them very well.

For many Americans, there is a positive value on having a business. It is valued enough, that people with the confidence they can do most things try to develop competence in. They mortgage their homes, they work nights, whatever, because if they do succeed in reaching competence/autonomy in a business, they will be worthy of praise. Making a lot of money in other ways is also praised, but business is certainly one of them.

Now, what happens when businessmen are singled out for not sharing, for not wanting to pay more taxes, for being, in effect, bad? Do you think the businessman or woman proceeds with business activities with as much drive? It is not just the money, for there are many businessmen and women who come to realize that working for someone else for less hours and less financial risk can yield about as much money. But those businessmen and women are then not in a position to hire, and unemployment suffers for all.

This is the risk not of just taxing the rich, but of implying they are not doing their part, not pulling their load, are bad. Instead of keeping the fruit of their labor and choosing with whom to share it, usually their families and their charities, they are told whom someone else says they should share it with.

In sum, it is not just confidence that must be instilled in the business men and women. There is something beyond confidence that drives them on to expand and hire. It is the sense within them that they are doing the right thing, the praiseworthy thing, the cool thing, the good thing, that also drives them. Making them feel like they are bad makes them do less, not more.

The Herman Cain train is chugging along just fine. How could we at PsychePolitics.com not analyze it–to see just why it is doing so well and to see where it might get off track?

First, Cain came to people’s attention in a big way in the Florida Republican debate. He started off with a simple, identification-without-hardhat statement when asked a question by a small businessman. His response began with, “I’ve been in your shoes.” Message? I’m just like you, I an identified with your issues, with you as a person, for your identity is that of a small businessman.

Good, but the cigar is yet to come. . .

He did something Pete McCloskey did during the Vietnam War and few other unknown politicians have been able to do. Namely, he took advantage of duality–the way our brains tend to view things, especially complicated things.

According to duality, we humans–the press included–tend to view complex problems by breaking them down into pairs. McCloskey took a position on the war different from the other 4 Congressmen on that fact finding tour of Vietnam. What did the press do? It covered McCloskey and only one of the other four. So, instead of being 20% of the group (1 in 5), he got the attention of 50% of it.

In that debate Cain was the only one with a simple economic/tax policy. It was so simple, the press could grasp it without going to their consultants. It was the 9-9-9 plan. So, what happened? It was Cain and the other 8. Instead of one ninth of the attention, he got one half, or 50%.

Now that’s a cigar! Not bad. Not bad at all.

The press attention, both at the debate and afterward, helped Cain gain some traction. He was first or second in the next few Republican polls, and he’s remained there–unlike other second runners like Perry and Bachmann. He also was succinct, simple, direct, and assured. In short, he was parental, an essential quality for any leader. He even did it in a humorous, Reagan-esque way, for example, when he said, “That dog won’t hunt!” Succinct, and different enough to be witty and humorous. He’s got likability, charisma.

So I took a look at Cain’s background. The Internet, you know. Early on, he was in a debate with President Clinton. He confused Clinton so much with his numbers, that Clinton stopped debating him and just asked him to forward his calculations.

He was entertaining, humorous. His use of the Beatles’ song, paraphrased to, “Imagine there’s no pizza. . .” shows him in preacher’s robes, playing it straight, doing a take-off on the Beatles’ song. Remember, he’s the pizza company CEO. It was a great gag, and the audience loved it.

Endearing? Humorous? Likeable? Is that it? Is that his magic, his charisma? Only part of it, my friends, only part. What he is is an entertainer. He has crossed the line from substance into sizzle, yet is comfortable going back and forth. And having crossed that line and valuing sizzle and image and humor is what Mc-Cain had no awareness of. Nor has any of the other Rebublican candidates. They don’t get it, and they don’t value it. They are all good, upstanding, forthright, competent people, but they are not ripe for prime time.

As Jonah Goldberg said in The National Review shortly after Obama’s victory, and I paraphrase, “Remember, the most successful Republican politician of the latter half of the 20th century was an actor.”

Soon, Cain’s task will be to leave his 9-9-9 plan, let it drift into the woodwork, for reasons I’ll cover in an upcoming post.

In 1994, businessman and longtime presidential aspirant Mitt Romney ran for Senate against incumbent  Ted Kennedy. As the debate season approached, Kennedy grew nervous. At least that was what was reported in the press. After all, Mitt Romney was a very bright, lawyer businessman, and Ted Kennedy was a college throw out and scene of a motor vehicle accident leaver. Even more, not long before this election, he was out drinking with his nephews close to the time one of them was tried for rape. Not exactly a stellar resume. In fact, his only claim to fame was being, well, a Kennedy.

When the debate began, Kennedy was visibly nervous. He was tremulous, shaking. He started the debate on the ropes, with two strikes against him, on three of all fours. You get the picture.

As the debate went on, however, Romney never delivered a knock out punch. He never threw the third strike. Rather, he was gentlemanly. When Kennedy interrupted him with school yard barbs, he did not strike back. Time and again, Romney allowed Kennedy to get punches in.

About half way through the debate, Kennedy’s shaking stopped. His anxiety was resolved, and his courage grew. By the end, the race had been won. The rest of the debates were meaningless. The advertising was meaningless. Kennedy got up off the canvas and won.

Fast forward to last week’s Republican debate in Florida. About eight hats were in still in the ring, but Romney and Perry were the two main event contenders for the crown. In the post event commentaries, bright young political analyst Frank Luntz showed the responses of thirty Republicans he brought together in a focus group. While Luntz’s approach is very, very powerful, I’d like to add a bit to it.

Luntz has been quoted as saying politics or decision making is 80% emotional. I’d like to say it’s more, but that’s not the point. The point is that an important part of that 80% is unconscious or at least pre-conscious.

To define terms a bit, conscious is what’s in our minds that we are aware of. Unconscious is what is buried in our minds so deeply that we are unaware of it  and would have to devote lots of energy and time to in order to render even parts of it conscious. Pre-conscious refers to what is in our minds that we can reach awareness of without all that much effort.

So, what is in the unconscious minds of the focus group members plays a role in their decision making, but they would not be able to see it. However, what is pre-conscious is where the action is. That is, information perceived by us pre-consciously drives our more current lives, emotionally and otherwise.

Now, when the panel members commented on why they felt (notice I use the word felt, not thought) Romney won and shifted their allegiance from Perry to Romney, they offered only standard, stock reasons. That is all they would be expected to do. “Perry was not specific.” “Romney was direct.” OK. Some even gave examples. Of course, many were influenced by their peers, sitting right next to them.

But the thing I ask is why and how did Romney get their allegiance. Remember, they would explain it only in the stock reasons I just cited. But why? What nerve (emotion) did Romney touch, what persona did he present, that led the focus group to feel they should follow him, leading to their seemingly rational comments.

This is an important question, for it gets to the bottom, or at least deeper, than even Frank Luntz does, and much more deeply than almost all the other political commentators do.

Here’s what Romney did. First, he used a technique honed to perfection by Barack Obama, when he would politely demean his opponents. He’d say things like, “That’s silly,” or “Don’t be ridiculous.” Used properly, these expression are a piercing as a sabre. They mean, “You are silly,” or “You are ridiculous, so stop it.” They are embedded criticisms.

Embedded criticisms are difficult to defend, for they are not easily recognized as such by opponents on a stage, trying to remember all their talking points. However, the viewers get it. They see an attack with no response, a punch without a counter-punch. One who uses an embedded criticism/sabre gets away with it. It’s an unparried thrust and makes the person using it seem superior, even, even, parental.

I talk about the importance of appearing parental at great length in other posts, so let’s just say that parents use this kind of criticism when children, each of us in our early lives, were silly or ridiculous. It pierced us then, and it pierces us now–though we’d never say, “Well, I think Romney will make a good leader because he used an embedded criticism, as my parents used them openly when I did something wrong.” This is because we are unaware of them. They are perceived in our pre-conscious minds, and they move us–because we are unaware of them and their similarity to our parents.

That’s why the focus group members would never use them as reasons. First, if they did, they would be seen as bizarre, not have well thought out politically accepted phrases and reasons for their decisions.  Moreover, if the embedded criticisms were mentioned, they would move from the pre-conscious to the conscious mind. Then, the focus group members would be aware of them, and they could evaluate them as reasons for our votes with our adult, mature, logical minds.

What Romney did was to say, in response to positions of his opponents, “That doesn’t make any sense!” Whoa. Let’s think about that. Sorry, can’t. The debate’s moving ahead. We are just left with the pre-conscious perception that Romney just acted like a parent. He demeaned his opponent, as our parents demeaned us, and we didn’t even notice it–consciously.

That, and, second, his body language, were his knock out punch. Yes, Mitt Romney finally took off his gloves, and moved one more step closer to the crown!

A few thousand years ago, budding psychiatrist Joseph interpreted a dream of Pharaoh. You remember the Bible story, right? Pharaoh had a dream about seven fat cows and seven lean ones. Joseph found that. . .very interesting. He interpreted it as a premonition of Pharaoh’s that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.

Pharaoh knew just what to do about it. He put a good amount of the excess grain production from the years of plenty into silos. Later, when the years of famine came, there were resources to feed his people.

Sounds simple, and it is simple. So, why are we, full of sophisticated economists, suffering so much in our years of famine? Well, what do we do in times of plenty? Do we fill up the silos? Of course not. Do we save? Nah. Do we pay down our national debt, so our taxes can pay for what we need instead of interest? Are you kidding?

No, what we do is create dependency on plenty. We stop taxes on the poor, we give subsidies to favored groups, we sign lucrative contracts with government workers and unions.

Then, when famine hits, in the form of a recession, our recourse is to take back. We could take it from those to whom we gave it, but their lifestyles have been built around their increased salaries and benefits. We could take it from the general citizenry in terms of taxes, but the citizenry has built its lifestyle around keeping most of their earnings. People really care when they have to alter their lifestyles, especially when our supposed leaders were thinking only of how to get re-elected. People really care. Silos don’t, but people do!

So, we are stuck. We struggle. Those who received the excesses of plenty, the Democrats in America, don’t want to give it back. Those who got used to keeping most of what they earned, the Republicans, don’t want it taken away. Stuck.

Why are we different from Pharaoh? Well, Pharaoh did not have to deal with an opposing party. He didn’t have to deal with citizens who could vote him out of office, like leaders in democracies do.

While no one I know wants to return to anything like the system of ancient Egypt, what can we do in future times of plenty, i.e. when the economy is going strong? Well, we can pay off our debt instead of paying off our supporters.

And just what might make us do that? Not professional politicians, that’s for sure. Get it?