Real Clear
Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst addresses relevant political and social issues of our times in a straightforward and honest manner. Taking on anti-logic factions that are growing in society. News and opinions that you can rely on for integrity and depth!
Real Clear
Fostering Meaningful Connection: Mentalization, Social Media, and Rational Public Discourse
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Is the way we engage on social media eroding our ability to connect meaningfully with others? Learn about Mentalization, the process through which we understand and interpret mental states, and learn how its deficiencies are linked to conditions like borderline personality disorder and autism spectrum disorders. We explore how social media platforms, driven by algorithms, can erode interpersonal maturity and foster hostility. Join us as we propose a mentalization-based approach for healthier and more civil discussions across political divides, especially in the context of the upcoming Vice Presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz, where presentation and public perception are crucial.
As we look at the contrasting personas of Vance and Walz , we unravel the public's skepticism towards both candidates in the 2024 election. Reflecting on societal fatigue from constant political discord, we emphasize the need to seek verifiable truths and engage with a diverse range of perspectives. By focusing on the rational middle ground in American public discourse, we can move beyond peak discord and foster reasoned debate and common ground. We encourage listeners to share their feedback at www.realclearpodcast.com to help build a more productive political environment.
Good morning everybody. It is Monday, september 30th, 2024, and I'm coming to you today to address a number of things. Obviously, there's some news to get through I haven't had a Sunday release in a few weeks but the psychological concept of the day is called mentalization. And what is this? It's the ability to understand and interpret one's own mental states and those of others, such as beliefs, desires, feelings and intentions, based on their behavior. It's essentially the ability to think about thinking, or to understand that people's actions are driven by internal mental states. This ability is truly vital for an effective social interaction, and it allows people to empathize with others, which is not sympathy. It's a cognitive understanding to anticipate their own reactions and to regulate their emotions. Where do we see a reduced ability to mentalize? We see it often in borderline personality disorder, as well as in autism spectrum disorders, and these patients are in particular need of mentalization therapies to help them interpersonalize better in the world. I'm bringing this concept up this morning because it's something analysts always talk about. There's a particular kind of mentalization-based therapy, and it seems to me that society needs that now.
Speaker 1:We have such aggression, such anger in our politics. It's as though we each feel threatened by the other side. Whichever side you stand on, I don't think it needs to be that way. Maybe in some ways, you really are threatened your way of life by a policy or two by the other side. For instance, if you're a stock trader at high levels and you think about the Harris plan to tax unrealized capital gains, that's quite literally a threat to your livelihood. It's actually a threat to the entire economy. But on a moment-by-moment, person-by-person basis, do we all really need to engage with one another as though we're threats?
Speaker 1:And social media here is a huge problem because its algorithms actually formulate the opposite of mentalization. Social media is formulaic for primitive, aggressive interactions. Everything on an Instagram post or Facebook is designed to make you angry, to make you view whoever it is that they're popping up in an image with a slogan like that person is the idiot and you're here to laugh at them because you're so special and you're on the right side of things. It delivers that to all of us. It makes us feel from the start of our day that we're engaging in a world where our neighbors are basically morons and we are this enlightened few. That's what social media is designed to do, whether it's X, formerly known as Twitter, whether it's Instagram or Facebook, they are really parasitic toward your capacity to be interpersonally mature.
Speaker 1:I have so many people who have different political views than me, who I truly love, and yet I'm saddened to talk with people increasingly who say that they cannot be connected, they cannot stand, will not tolerate talking with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum. My question for those people would be how is it that society is to grow, how is it that we are supposed to mature as a society if we are now going to quarantine ourselves, sequester ourselves away from one another? Does this not chip away at and seriously erode our capacity to work through matters? If you can't think through something out loud and discuss difficulties and disagreements, how can there be any ability to bring your mind to bear on the subject matter? And this is actually bringing up a direction that I'd like to head in with real clear. I'd like to somehow find a way to bring people together here to argue in a civil manner. I'd like to bring people on who don't share my views necessarily, maybe share some, but not others and create a meeting space for people to do what people used to do in my family around the holiday dinner table, and that's talk about things in a spirited fashion. Nobody needs to hate one another, and if that happens, well, I guess I'll deal with that. But couldn't there be a way that we start to open up a bit more toward one another without feeling so vulnerable about losing our positions?
Speaker 1:I think that's a lot of where the failure in mentalizing comes from, as well as the avoidance of one another it represents. It reveals a kind of paranoia that you're going to lose your own mindset, your own positions on things. If you're concerned about losing your own position on things, why is that? Do you generally have a sort of skeptical, paranoid position? Most of you probably don't. We all do. To some extent it's evolutionarily embedded in us to be skeptical, but in general probably not. So why?
Speaker 1:On politics, I think most people don't actually look into the deeper levels of data for their positions and we just all go out in our day hoping no one calls us on anything or presents a bit of a problem for the positions that we hold. A lot of people these days have basic news headlines, but if you ask them to fill in the column with details, they can't do it, and this also is in some way caused by social media, where now people are getting their positions, their talking points from memes just basic memes. So people are turning into borderlines. This is not very good, because if you're turning into a borderline, other people have to be all good or all bad, especially when you're exacerbated or anxious. So I would like us to find a way as a society to return to a civil discourse that is deserving of a decent society. Okay, moving on from there, tomorrow we do have a vice presidential debate. Usually these things don't matter. This year they might.
Speaker 1:This is a political season, unlike the past, where people are actually tuning in and they deeply care about what's about to unfold. Now, you know me at this point I like to focus on the process as much as, or more than, the content. And what we're likely to see with process, with the presentation of it all, is JD Vance will try to come across in a bit more of a warm fashion. He has not done that so far and he's had some PR challenges. You remember his childless cat lady comment from years ago. That was dug up, and he's just.
Speaker 1:Initially it was not clear why the Trump campaign chose this person, except maybe to garner some votes in Ohio, but I think they could have done a lot better with other choices, as I'd mentioned in the past. So he's going to try to come across a bit warmer and inviting. I don't know if it's going to work. He's very articulate and he's very intelligent, so he'll do well in terms of the content and responsiveness. He's also quick on his feet and he's actually he's been doing so well regarding interviews in recent months that I think that major network news and cable news stations have tried to avoid interviewing him as frequently. Now, when I say he did well, he did well rhetorically in the actual exchange, but I'm not sure if you're coming from a libertarian perspective or a liberal perspective that he did very well on content.
Speaker 1:There's been some pretty strange things that have been happening in Trump camp with respect to limited versus expansive government, and that's a topic for another time. So let's turn our attention to Tim Walz. I don't know a tremendous amount about. I don't know a tremendous amount about Tim Walz. When I've seen him in his speaking events, he's appeared to me to be hypomanic, meaning kind of an underlying, unbridled, strange energy. It's not an energy that you necessarily are comforted by. You don't think this is a vigorous person. You think this is a kind of weird stage energy.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking of Chris Farley when he used to do that motivational speaker bit on SNL. It was like Matt Farley or something, matt, whatever. I'm thinking when he gave that epic performance. At this point, Just look up Chris Farley motivational speaker and you'll find it, and I think you'll think of Tim Walls. So he comes across like that, and I think that the DNC is hoping that this will be another moment between Biden and Paul Ryan back in 2012. And and just having a style that made Ryan look like a square and it worked. Now, again, the VP debates really don't have much impact historically on elections, but this year's different. I don't think that JD Vance is necessarily a Paul Ryan. I think he has a bit more stage presence than Ryan and he comes from a pretty difficult past where he's had to fight and be very conscientious about his presentation, and so this is not a man who's oblivious or comes from any kind of dyed-in-the-wool Rhode Island Republicans club. This is a man who's on his feet, and I assume we'll see that tomorrow. He may be so on his feet that he comes across as manufactured. We'll see, I don't know. So we have a matchup where two men from the Midwest are both vying to somehow enhance their tickets.
Speaker 1:The Harris campaign has been going uphill against the problem that americans are are increasingly feeling about her, which is they don't really know who she is. She could be anything. She has said that she's for gun rights, that she owns guns. This is news to everyone. Just a few years ago, she was caught on camera saying that she supports a mandatory federal buyback on guns. Now she's saying that if anyone broke into her house they'd be shot. I think this kind of ping-pong is calling people to question what her true beliefs are, whether she has any.
Speaker 1:Trump obviously has some difficulties of his own. They're widespread and they're well-known. Trump and Harris have some difficulties together. Actually, one of them is stampeding over the Constitution. Harris has been quoted as saying that the First Amendment is a privilege and not a right. So as I speak to you now, I am wielding my privilege. She's also been on tape saying that she's also been recorded. Saying that it's unacceptable that people can put their ideas directly out there to the public via social media and other sources without moderation and that that has to stop. Okay, trampling on the First Amendment.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, trump has said things like he's going to investigate his enemies basically Investigate news agencies who have done him wrong, in his view when he's president Sound like a third world dictatorial position, much so. Americans have a lot of reasons to be skeptical of both of these candidates. In one camp, we don't know who the person is. In the other camp, we know who he is and he has rhetoric that he doesn't actually act on. It's a very difficult position that Trump asks the American public to be in. He asks you to believe that he doesn't actually do, to remember, that is, he doesn't actually tend to do the things that he threatens to do. But that places Americans in a really tough position. You're saying I'm going to do this despotic thing and then, trust me, though, I'm just being blustery now. I'm going to do this despotic thing and then, trust me, though I'm just being blustery now, I won't do it. I think they may want to walk some of those positions back, insofar as they're trying to court independent voters.
Speaker 1:And lastly, in other news, I traveled down to San Antonio, texas, last week to speak to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and I will render my speech anew to you in a recording this week, so that, well, so that you have it. I think it's important. I've been making some speaking rounds. I spoke to a psychoanalytic group on the East Coast this past week about the same topic and I think society is starting to show signs of having moved past what we might call peak woke or just peak discord. Again, I'm trying not to divide people and push them away here unnecessarily, but most people tend to agree we really came apart as a society following 2020, and we had a lot going on. We had George Floyd and we had all the chaos ensuing after that. We had the Capitol riots, we had COVID, the country went through hell and right now, it feels to me like we're going through a national exhaustion and we've been through a recession exhaustion and we've been through a recession. People are tired, both economically and socially, of the discord and difficulties that have been transpiring, and this has come out, in my view, as a sort of moving past peak discord. I hope that's the case. I hope people are more willing to stop the saber rattling and start thinking about what's true in the world Now.
Speaker 1:It's also true that the camps that won't do that you can't talk to. It's not going to work. People who claim, for instance, that even the idea of trying to pursue universal truth or verifiable truth as a tool of oppression. What are you going to do with those people? Truth as a tool of oppression what are you going to do with those people?
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, the people who claim that they just know what's right without having to examine evidence on both sides of the political aisle what on earth are you going to do with those people? They're telling you I'm right. You better believe me or you're a jerk. Okay, so there's a certain. There's a couple camps in the United States that you're not going to make much headway with, but I think that there is probably a rational middle that actually determines the nature and direction of the country. I suggest we gather together as a rational middle and see if there's a way that we can shed these unnecessary lightning rod positions that tend to define the public discourse. If you want to let me know what you think on this matter and others, you can comment at realclearpodcastcom. Take good care, talk to you soon.