Sun 21 Sep 2008
Palin’s Shadow
Posted by Michael McAlister under Chapter 2 - Grasping, Fundamentalism, Politics, Writing
Deepak Chopra compares Sarah Palin to the shadow of Barak Obama in a recent commentary:
Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.
She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind.
His essay is worth a read since doing so reminds us of how sticky politics can be for any of us. Then again, anyone on the Path can let the attachments, both gross and trivial, point them in the direction of Awakening. Watching our clinging, in other words, offers us disidentification from whatever our attachments might be.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Light and shadow, forward and reverse, higher and lower selves, love and fear, good and evil… it looks like there is some attachment and judging going on.
How about some Yin and Yang? To appreciate “The real difference between liberals and conservatives” I would recommend this TED talk by moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt.