The Normal, The Cray-Cray...
... or sometimes a fine madness, the ineffable kind?
Greetings, this newShrink week with title themes seldom so vividly demonstrated.
President Joe Biden delivered his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night before a packed Joint Session of Congress and guests. The first such capacity crowd in the Hall of the House at the U.S. Capitol since the Covid pandemic began, it was clearly the affable veteran legislator’s favorite, perhaps finest, arena.
He’d barely made his handshaking way out through the crowd when political America from Washington to Little Rock was sounding downright… psychological. Or, let’s say at least suddenly quite concerned with diagnosing our collective mental health.
In her widely parodied Republican rebuttal to the President’s address, former Trump aide and new Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders spelled it out succinctly — though perhaps with opposite effect from what she intended:
“The dividing line in America is no longer between right or left. The choice is between normal or crazy.”
The Huckabee Sanders moment has been comedy gold all week. Rising quickly to such bait — and to Biden’s martial arts-style outmaneuvering of raucous Republican hecklers at the address — also have been headline writers and pundits from major news outlets to lawyer-activist Robert Hubbell and political historian Heather Cox Richardson.
Before some headlines and examples, a few thoughts from newShrink perspectives:
🌀Parody and glib-slangy language aside, it is painfully interesting and unfortunate that the serious issues and complexities of the mental health crisis in this country are quotable talking points at moments of political theatre… yet largely ignored, avoided, even undermined at the level of public policy discussion and action.
🌀Keeping in mind the depth-psychology dimension of soul, the unconscious psyche is messy and complex. Both the terms normal and crazy wrongly suggest a dichotomy that’s simplistic and false. The illustration’s quotes from Newton, Nietzsche and Aristotle are a few expressions of this idea.
🌀The last time this fine madness title phrase came to mind for newShrink nearly a year ago, it was in the very different context for passionate NCAA basketball fans... and not until March championship time.
🌀A Fine Madness was a popular ‘60s play and Sean Connery film, a comedic spoof of psychiatry for a romantically irresistible poet with writer’s block. But long before that the term, largely British, referred to leading a creative life, even as genius for some. It was a holding of what Jung might call the transcendent line between madness and brilliance.
🌀Here’s a kind of wonky 1996 paper I found on this that I liked, especially as it’s presented apparently by a mechanical engineer, to the Health Care and the Arts Lecture Series at the University of Texas, Houston. The Lecture series is titled: “The Creative Response to Pain and Suffering.”
A Fine Madness: Sanity and Creativity. (John H. Lienhard, Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Houston)
🌀The emphasis here is and will continue to be on Joe Biden, not only with the 2024 presidential election process now clearly under way for both parties. As longtime readers may recall, Biden’s mission and theme of restoring what he considers the soul of America — and attempting to define for us all what that means — has been a parallel and defining core theme of newShrink.
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Now, news…
state of our union
State of the Union: Biden Hails Economic Gains and Challenges the G.O.P. (The New York Times. Links to Highlights, Fact Checking, Full Transcripts, and Video are embedded.)
The president’s speech unveiled no big new proposals, but he offered to work with Republicans even as he parried hecklers and sought to allay Democratic concerns about his vigor heading into 2024.
(The Washington Post, NPR and others provided similar comprehensive coverage.)
After Shouts of ‘Liar’ and Worse, Biden Takes on His Detractors in Real Time (NYT)
Here are a few of my comments in a real-time discussion with a couple of friends and readers:
🌀What a remarkable SOTU evening. President clearly in his element and having the time of his life. The ranting hecklers (especially Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA) in the room played right into Bien’s best political skill & experience. Especially on Social Security he turned it into his own moment with [extracting from R opponents] a public pledge not to cut Social Security & Medicare.
🌀Implicit though I didn’t state it then, my entire sense of Biden Tuesday night from the time he entered the Hall — and not the first time he’s surprised me over the past few recent years: He somehow personified that ineffable something. It transcended everything, embuing him with something bigger-than-sum-of-parts, maybe some archetypal possession such as Leader. It was a particularly apparent spark when that slyly deft joy came over him in the jujitsu-like sparring with the hecklers. Doing political theatre as verb, its best and most effective form
(To curiosity and puzzlement over House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s mostly not standing up, even for statements in the speech that he and most Americans, even Republicans, clearly support):
🌀My take, for what it’s worth, McCarthy doesn’t have control of his whole caucus, could only afford politically to clap for a lot while seated (with the R moderates) while not inflaming the ranters. And he was visibly & apopoplectically trying to “shush” MTG and hecklers, those from his own party who effectively lost a major round of budget debate in real time on national TV.
🌀Another, amusing, exchange with a friend and reader (who’s also a longtime therapist) brought to mind some commentary that would have tickled and delighted my late maternal grandmother. Very Southern and well-mannered, she was a well-read-and-informed New Deal-Democrat who followed news almost religiously. She would have laughed aloud at hearing this week’s serious national political commentators and analysts, mostly male ones, using one of her favorite aphorisms to describe unseemly behavior in the Hall of the House Tuesday night: “Unfortunately, they were just being trashy.” (To politely indicate disparagement Nana also had a certain shift of tone in the word common — and a more British shift of the accent to the first syllable in the word ORD-nary.)
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Robert Hubbell’s two post-SOTU Today’s Edition newsletters were particularly quotable and packed with a cross-section of commentary on Biden, the speech, opposition stances and the political landscape. (He’s at www.roberthubbell.substack.com.) Headlines are:
“Wow!! Biden’s best speech ever!” (Wednesday February 8) and “Normal or Crazy?” (Thursday, February 9).
Also great as usual, HCR’s Letters from an American, especially the late Tuesday February 7 post immediately after the address. (She’s at www.heathercoxrichardson.substack.com.)
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Now a call-out to readers: Have you been thinking/talking/hearing about Joe Biden’s age, capacities/stamina and his running for a second term — and if so, what things are you weighing and considering? I’d love to hear from you, individually or for sharing.
Here are a couple of takes just this week on the question I think is important, with which I’m also uncomfortable for a lot of reasons — starting with downside risks of alternatives.
OPINION fron Frank Bruni/We’re Not Being Cruel, President Biden. Just Careful. (NYT newsletter. The “caution” illustration above at top center is by Ben Wiseman of the Times.)
The risk of running for re-election at the age of 80 can’t be ignored
OPINION from Michelle Goldberg/Biden’s a Great President. He Should Not Run Again. (NYT)
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Now a selection from cartoon fare. In my view The Charlotte Observer’s Kevin Siers has the most spot-on capture of “the rebuttal-moment”
Below that is a laugh-pause regarding Chinese balloon encroachment(s), with continued monitoring of this issue as the U.S. and Canada collaborate in shooting down other unclaimed flying objects. These at the very least threaten safe aircraft flight routes.
The cartoons at bottom left and right also touch on so-called “parental rights in education” and “don’t say gay” legislative efforts under way in states including Florida, NC, Virginia and many others. These will get more scrutiny next week and as presidential and other 2024 election campaigns unfold.
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other news and a look ahead…
Starting with the Super Bowl, not surprisingly main stories of interest for newShrink are primarily from psychological and cultural perspectives. The first-ever Kelce brothers from Ohio vying against each other on opposing Super Bowl teams — and inerviews with their mom — have brought welcome inspiration this week.
With Black History Month under way there’s a natural emphasis on racial equity concerns that are a thorny, escalating issue at all levels of NFL leadership from ownership, management and coaching to the fields of play.
No matter who wins, the first Super Bowl with 2 Black quarterbacks will make history (Interview on NPR’s All Things Considered.)
(The Eagles’ Jalen Hurts and Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes pictured at top left. Photos by Patrick Smith and Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)
A couple Sundays ago, Doug Williams was watching football.
He wasn't rooting for any of the teams, exactly, in the NFL's two conference championship games, the winners of which would advance to the Super Bowl.
Instead, he said, he was rooting for two players: Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes, the starting quarterbacks of the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, respectively — both of whom, like Williams, are Black… (The Philadelphia Eagles will face the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl)
"When that ball went through the uprights, I can tell you this — cold chills went through my body, and I got a little emotion. There wasn't no tears running, but I had eyes full of water."
The emotion he felt was decades in the making — 35 long years since Williams became the first Black quarterback to start in, and win, a Super Bowl when he was under center for the Washington football team in their 1988 championship run…
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Multiple other stories and dimensions of Black History Month are the theme for next week’s edition, with a working title something like: Black History, White Privilege… and the long-long road to Living in Colour. (The spelling of colour here is intentional, in a way I’ll explain.) I’m aiming for a deeper dive with us white people, with particular concern and focus on the effects of exclusions of things like even discussion of intersectionality under way by state legislative efforts in Florida, NC and elsewhere.
This is another topic on which I’d particularly value hearing from you with your thoughts, experiences and concerns, either individually or for shared discussion here.
The following stories and others will be revisited more thoroughly next week.
Alma Adams: Sound the alarm. Black history is under attack (The Charlotte Observer. Official photo at bottom right.)
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Florida Officials Had Repeated Contact With College Board Over African American Studies (NYT. Photo at center.)
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Here is an example of major changes proposed following a pivotal incident that shut down and spurred re-visioning of a historic landmark.
How Mecklenburg wants to reimagine the old Latta Plantation to tell the full history (Charlotte Axios. Illustration at top right.)
Mecklenburg County officials plan to reopen the former Latta Plantation with a focus on telling the truth about slavery. But first they want the public to weigh in.
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Here is more self-inflicted, unforced-error damage to both curriculum and reputation at the long-venerated UNC School of Journalism (where my late dad and I both earned degrees.)
Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism Leaves UNC Journalism School (unc.edu/news)
This is the latest fallout from a series of disastrous 2021 UNC J-school decisions that led Pulitzer Prizer-winning journalist, educator and alum Nikole Hannah-Jones to effectively move the Knight Foundation’s prestigious Knight Race and Reporting Chair position from UNC to Howard University. (Jones is pictured at bottom left.) Jones continues teaching in the program there.
Last year the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications dropped the UNC Hussman School’s accreditation to “provisional,” citing its midhandling of Hannah-Jones’ appointment as one of its failures to meet council standards for diversity, equity and inclusion.
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Meanwhile, this week there has, as always, been other news of tremendous impact across the nation and world — most notably the catastrophic earthquakes and rescue efforts under way in Turkey and Syria. By posting time, climbing death tolls had reached a staggering 28,000.
Among the most poignantly humanized stories I have yet seen is shared here, in case you can access The New Yorker. For now I’m holding it, along with its very raw photography, to be part of discussions at a later time more appropriate for reflections at this safely privileged distance from catastrophe.
A Life Begun Amid the Ruins of a Syrian City
A baby rescued from the earthquake’s rubble was named Aya, meaning “a sign of God’s existence.” But what is the life ahead of her?
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Toward closing notes today,
some lighter seasonal touches
First, at top center, a perennial favorite Valentine-or-anytime image.
Valentine hearts at left, by Cole Wilson with prop stylist Kounthear Kuch, illustrate:
What Do Candy Hearts Tell Us? Be Clever. Be Current. Be Mine. (NYT)
Beyond the fun illustration and a few examples, this turned out to be more a candy-industry-business than changing-cultural-behavioral trends story (meh…)
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Which made me want to pull a favorite image, and perhaps-juicier, myth of Eros and Psyche from last year’s Valentine’s Day edition: Strange Valentines, Soul-Stealth... and On the Far Side of the Dark 2.13.22. (Pictured here at right is the marble statue of Eros/Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.) Some of the myth’s soul and psychological dimensions in the link are under the Soul Stealth subhead.
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As for the bottom-center illustration, while waiting at Walgreen’s for a pneumonia booster this final piece had me laughing aloud. Which was kind of odd, perhaps more nervous anticipation of a routine shot than I realized… For it’s no secret that I have a real aversion to artificially and heavily scented candles, dryer sheets — or really much of anything — particularly indoors interfering with food and other desirable aromas.
That said, this combo with what writing process can feel like makes me giggle. I wound up liking her coffee and old-fashioned typewriter ribbon ideas best.
Humor/What does writing smell like? (The New Yorker, Melissa Brandt)
I was on my way to Everything Mason Jars one day when I saw a fancy-candle store. I’ve been wanting a fancy candle for some time, so I popped in.
Sandra (not her real name): Hi, welcome to Everything Candles! We have a hundred different fragrances. I’m Sandra. Can I help you?
Me: Do you have a candle that smells like writing?
Sandra: What does writing smell like?
Me: Ozone, maybe? With top notes of burning, or metal, or burning metal. Or an electrical fire. Live wires sparking and smoking. Solder? Something that blends the flash of an idea and the slow burn of wrestling it into something real. Something that will get me fat stacks or fame. Do you have anything that smells like that?
(etc….)
Here I should probably mention, and perhaps expand more sometime in future, the powerful ways that scent and sense of smell, as with dreams and synchronicities, can animate and intensify our awareness and connection with how the unconscious psyche or soul shows up. So for the sake of being in deeper touch with ourselves, it just makes sense to limit olfactory overload, overlap and especially manufactured scents so overpowering they drown-out our capacity to discern and appreciate the real stuff. (I won’t even touch here on allergies, which I’m fortunate not to have beyond just displeasure/discomfort.)
🌀As you may already be noticing, smells can be like mainlining access to memory and thus serve the coherent narrative of our lives and ourselves in them.
🌀Like all of the senses, in Jungian terms smell is part of our unconscious psyche’s embodied instinctual pole, with the capacity to connect powerfully with the images of the personal and collective archetypal (as with memories, or images in dreams, for example.)
🌀Finally, it can be fun and/or inspiring to ponder and perhaps journal about or collect lists of favorite or otherwise highly evocative scents along with what they bring up for us. I just enjoyed a very quick list, in no particular order, all real stuff or made with extracts, and positive: Vanilla, coffee, rosemary, all things citrus, patchouli (yeah, yeah, hippie-dippy), ironing, toast, roasted garlic, clove/cinnamon, dill weed, mint… And for the most tenderly nostalgic, all related to my late maternal grandfather — who died when I was 11 (see what I mean abot memory?): Shoe polish, original Ben Gay, Tums, and tiny-tiny hints of classic Old Spice.
🌀Among those who appreciate Chinese and other Eastern medicine and practices, smell is associated with the highly intuititve functions of the 6th Chakra.
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Today I’ll leave you with some welcome hints of spring (peeking around the shadows of a recent walk/run…) With special kudos and thanks to book club friend, reader and running-expert PT Heidi Smith (of HBS Physical Therapy in Cornelius) for getting my runner’s knee just about fully healed. Plus she’s teaching me other non-running stuff to add to keep it that way, and keep me happily out of the dumps and on the move.
And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.
🦋💙 tish
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… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”
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