Kritisches

Populism - Psychological Aspects

 
Politics - Populism
 
The good clinicians in med school are riding that:
There are findings/symptoms, diagnoses and finally therapies. And possibly also the prognosis. Everything can be separated neatly! But you will see: due to the interplay of symptoms and different effects the separation is not so easy.
(Unfortunately many doctors get confused when they are unleashed on mankind).
 
Symptomatology/Diagnosis
For the physician, everything is clear: populism is not a disease, but a symptom. The actual disease is called "disorientation", a disease not in the narrower sense, but rather in the broader sense, and then it can be well accommodated by the neuroses, or rather the neurosense doctrine.
A neurosis always has to do with fear. The term fear is not necessarily as generally understandable as one might think. In my psychodynamic understanding, fear means: being opposed to a drive and this in the most different contexts and with very different intensity. From: "I will not be able to run away from this wild animal" to "nobody means well with me and it will probably stay that way" to "well, quite a difficult task, there is a certain probability that I will not be able to solve it".
 
With regard to the neuroses, this fear must of course have a certain extent and thus overwhelm the individual, i.e. have a pathogenic effect. The individual then undertakes self-healing attempts (which may turn out to be bizarre). Sometimes correct strategies are used (perhaps after good advice), sometimes dead ends are reached, e.g. mental and social isolation and so on.
 
In any case, fear is involved in neuroses and especially for our case there is the term social fear.
 
Our neurosis "disorientation" consists of the fear of not being able to cope with numerous (stimulus satiation) influences or rather directives.Statements are perceived as incomprehensible or contradictory, the person capitulates to the mental work he or she would actually have to do to solve the problems.
 
This is nothing new, phenomena of this kind can be observed very well, for example in young people in puberty. With young people, one can regularly observe that there are phases in which they want to be left alone. A completely normal mechanism. It can be impressively observed here how the person seeking orientation sets up his "thinking spaces". This is what I call topics with more or less numerous associations, which are not occupied by fear, but rather the occupation with them leads to social success (...friendships, so to speak the opposite of social fear). In the psychoanalytical sense: conducive to the removal of instincts.
For example, the following should be mentioned here: talking to friends, socializing, recognition.
 
(If a certain practice (frequent practice) is given here, something positive can also be felt, to be called a feeling of home. - S. Freud would describe these positive things as "libidinously occupied".
Or in other words: if, for example, a politician frequently presents his theses (possibly also with confirmation from his audience), something like a sense of home develops in him - I would claim that he cannot possibly escape this mechanism.
To mention here as well: if you have enough "thinking spaces" available on an emotionally deeper level - i.e. acquired in early childhood - this also means "resilience" )
 
But: these "thinking spaces" do have doors to other areas, but also boundaries, walls. These are the boundaries where the individual mentally fails and which are filled with fear. The "thinking ahead" is painful here and is usually avoided. One can imagine an avoidance strategy here, i.e. keeping away from the walls or escaping through the door into the next room. Of course, the smaller the rooms, the more complex the strategy is.
 
This strategy is now important, also to explain populism. Strategies imposed by humans themselves would be, for example, "prohibitions to think", "demarcation".
 
Therapy
But if the individual does more to keep fear away, one could already speak of self-healing attempts. Such an attempt would be, for example, if one decides that one basically does not want to have anything more to do with certain frightening circumstances - especially if these are of course other people. And this is exactly what demarcation means.
 
With demarcation in the narrower sense, however, one also means a kind of self-determination, the attempt to define oneself. To know oneself. In other words: assigning oneself to certain social norms. This is where exclusion comes into play. It is much easier to define oneself negatively, to describe what one is not. The most common phrase here is: "I am against..." Why easier? Because there are the most catchy and simplest formulations, e.g. in political discussions.
 
The important point: of course, the smaller the thinking spaces and the more massive the walls are, the more necessary and vehement the demarcation is for a person. One could also say the less free association is possible.
In this process of demarcation, when it is urgent, outside help will be welcome. Basically, any kind of education offers this help. These aids are, of course, of various kinds, ranging from emotionless to emotionally charged, from liberating and expanding to restricting, moral, immoral, directive or recommending.
 
For us, the group of "salvation teachings" is interesting in terms of help. It is irrelevant how they are objectively grouped, what is important is that their "internalization" leads to a reduction of the individual's feeling of insecurity.
All varieties of populist offers can easily be classified here. Namely into those offers of help which - within a certain temporal and social framework - bring about relief for the individual.
 
The mechanism: to lead the thoughts back again and again to known areas, to the usual thinking spaces. Deviations are not allowed.
A guideline of thinking, which is laid in a circle so that it never touches the walls. The cord can also lead into another room by the shortest route (which I like to call short-circuited thinking). It is very simple: the shorter the cord, the easier the therapy. Ideally, it connects, in a short way, exactly those rooms that are sufficient for everyday needs. If a certain completeness for life is achieved, one can speak of a self-contained teaching.
 
In terms of political and social behaviour, these conditions are largely met by populism. Populism: populist offers are accepted and internalized.
 
Problems of therapy
However, these mechanisms are not completely rigid. The range of guidelines is large and it changes daily, so to speak. And this is where the role of the new media comes into play. A dependent person will choose short guidelines, or simple explanations, presented with authority (I like to call them "masterminds"). This is the entry point of populism.
 
Negative effects: Narrowing worldviews. The transition from delimitation to exclusion. Demarcation is rather passive, exclusion already has an active aggressive component. Moral concepts in particular contribute to exclusion ("showing a clear edge against...", "lie press").
The shorter the guideline of thinking is, the more difficult communication becomes, because the intersection of experienced similarities is almost zero. Then misunderstandings are also likely. (Example: The misunderstanding about the song by Heinz Rudolf Kunze, "Welcome dear murderers").
 
What is new: new is the "stimulus satiation" by the new media and thus not necessarily an increased flood of questions, but rather an abundance of explanations! On the side of questions there is of course also something new: globalisation (there are no longer the "non-humans" in the unknown or even exotic colonies, there are no longer the "non-religions" that one has never dealt with before. And there is - new - the environmental problem.
 
In view of these circumstances - for many people many questions and too many answers - it is basically quite normal that the spectrum of human reactions becomes broader and more extreme. It is also normal that short-circuited explanations and promises of salvation are used on a larger scale. (Obviously, the most short-circuited type of explanation is also currently on the rise in our country, namely disqualifying the opponent of the discussion as a liar; harsher social climate, post-factual age).
 
Of course all this is banal, but nevertheless an important circumstance in my opinion is not yet recognized in its explosiveness. Explosiveness because here - mutually - self-reinforcing effects occur, which lead to the destruction of solidarity!
 
It is important: If a person finds answers to new questions, this is (medically) to be seen as a self-healing attempt. And attempts at healing are first of all important and correct. In such attempts people have to be supported by people who are first of all able to find common ground in a discussion (culture of argument).
 
I would like to claim that a sensitive discussion partner can achieve a lot here if he is aware of the fear of the other person!
 
I would also argue that only with a few people is this support meaningless (incurably ill), only with a few "radicals". As far as politics is concerned, I would say that on the electoral side only a few cases are "hopeless". - These people would never - even with a given capacity for introspection - say of themselves that they are disorientated.
Among the politically active people, the percentage is of course high (see the above mechanism), but the overall percentage of the population is rather low here.
"We" ourselves do not assume that we are afflicted with the disease "disorientation". We discover gaps in knowledge and uncertainty in others. The basis for a "therapy interview" naturally looks different. Here it is first of all a matter of discovering together existing humanity and then - starting from this - to work through experiences and current influences. Here, the one with a multitude of large thinking spaces has something to offer.
 
Prognosis
The development of populism: Experience shows that social developments in the USA precede those in Western Europe, which is why the observation here is particularly fascinating.
 
Of course, it has to be said that this criticism of the development of populism in Western countries is a lament on a high level. Of course, the "still functioning" democracies react particularly sensitively to populism. In non-democratic countries the division of the population may be much more serious, but here it cannot be detected through political elections.
 
Nevertheless, the tendencies towards division in the Western-oriented democracies are worrying. And it hurts, just as "well-meaning" people cannot be dissuaded from making the situation worse by demonising radical dissenters.
 
Gereon Walther
 
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