Politics and Symbolism

Ever since I got some exposure to Jung and Campbell in college, I have been what I have called a 'goobery Campbell fangirl'. ('Goobery' being a technical term.) I've read a lot of their writings, as well as the writings of others who touch on this field – I read the entire Golden Bough, and anyone who's taken a look at that monster knows that takes dedication. My reading has led me to become fascinated with the myths and symbols that permeate our society, spread unconsciously through the words we choose, the stories that we tell, the way that we see ourselves and choose to present ourselves. We don't realize it, but everything about the way that we see the world is controlled and guided by a symbolic language that stretches back hundreds, sometimes thousands of years.

Once I became aware of this symbolic language, I started to see it everywhere. I also realized the way that myth and symbolism could be used by someone who understood it to manipulate people; by wielding symbols in a precise manner, it would be possible, even easy, to control how the public sees the world. What's more, I started identifying who these people are, and how they are doing it.

Of course, the manipulation of symbols is everywhere; it's not as though I'm the first person to discover their power to control others. Advertisers are geniuses at it; if you know what to look for, you can watch commercials and break them down neatly into the symbols they use and the memes they count on to reinforce their message. Politicians are good at it, too.

Dangerous Symbolism

Symbols aren't necessarily a bad thing. They provide a filter through which we can make sense of an increasingly complex world that might otherwise overwhelm us. But the problem that they pose is that not all of them are helpful – some lead us to take unwise actions, to believe lies told to us by people who do not have our best interests in mind, to stereotype people, to hurt ourselves or those around us. Those symbols need to be exposed for what they are, because once we recognize them, their power over us becomes greatly diminished.

I'm going to talk about one of those dangerous symbols today.

Recently, Hillary Clinton has been manipulating symbolism in her standard attack mode against Barack Obama by claiming that while he is an incredible orator, he lacks substance. This plays on a meme that we have in our society that people have a certain number of "points" that they get to distribute – or have distributed for them – so that people who get to look good and have a strong, charismatic presence don't have enough "points" left over to also be intelligent or effective, whereas people who lack charisma have more "points" free to give them the qualities necessary to be hard-hitting politicians who Get Things Done.

Examples of this meme in action pervade in the stories that we tell. Bookworms are portrayed in books and film as socially awkward, plain, or even ugly. (The exception being the sexy librarian – but mankind has found a way to sexualize everything. If you doubt me, the internet will disabuse you of your charming innocence.) Models and strippers are generally considered to be stupid and/or uneducated. Would you be surprised to learn that a supermodel had a masters degree in economics?

For the most part, the democrats have swallowed this meme hook, line, and sinker, which is a shame, because it's dangerous for a political party that wants to get its candidates elected to positions of power in this country. Our belief in this falsehood is why we keep losing. We assume that the less charismatic, droning candidates are more substantive, and therefore the only responsible choice, and so we end up with "winners" like John Kerry. And then we wonder why they lose, when their ideas are so good, their positions so well thought out and substantial. What we refuse to see is that if their droning voices put Americans to sleep, no one gets to hear about their ten point plans to rebuild the country.

Hillary Clinton is trying to cast herself in the role of the kind of policy wonk that the party loves by claiming that Obama's charisma is an empty facade that obfuscates a lack of real ideas or strong policy. And because of the dangerous meme of points allocation, she's succeeding. I've heard a lot of people who clearly don't know what they're talking about parroting her words.

It isn't true. Here is the transcript of a speech that Obama gave recently at a GM assembly plant in Janesville, Wisconsin. (I tried to find a link to a video of the entire speech, but no dice.) It opens up with the usual Obama-esque soaring rhetoric – Washington is corrupt, people are hurting, politicians are sold out, he comes on a golden wave of hope to bring change and prosperity and unity, blah blah blah. But then he gets into the second part of his speech and directly addresses hard economic realities one by one, and talks about the solutions that he proposes, and those that he has already proposed. Agree with him or don't on his policy, but he lays out in-depth ideas. It would be hard not to call what he has to say in that speech substance.

You want the truth that transcends the symbols that have chained our minds to strategies that don't work? Here it is: Once in a generation, someone comes along who can talk economic policy and make it sound riveting. Barack Obama is that man.