Falling In Love vs. Falling In Line | Monkeys in a Barrell

I had a fascinating conversation the other day with a DUer in New York who gave me a detailed layman's explanation of the phenomenon of Group Dymanics. He did so with DU specifically in line. The crux of the explanation led me to decide that trying to keep people in this forum from 'bashing' each other or 'bashing' a candidate is a complete waste of time.

Group dynamics when everyone can see each other is chaotic, and leads to the kind of chaos we see here. Group dynamics in a situation where everyone is anonymous and emboldened by the ability to hide behind a fake name, a keyboard and a screen makes the group dynamics phenomenon even more insane.

So the hell with it. Go bash each other. Shred every candidate. Nothing I nor anyone else here can say or do anything to stop it. We're a bunch of monkeys in a barrell, and we're going to bite each other's asses and sling shit until the barrel is full of blood, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

I do, however, have a pretty good explanation for why we seem so compelled to destroy our candidates, to lop our noses off to spite our faces even as we stare down the shotgun barrell that is another four years of Bush. It was the Biggins himself, former President William Jefferson Clinton, who laid it out in that perfect way he has of phrasing the obvious.

At Harkin's Steak Fry last week he said, "The biggest difference between Republicans and Democrats is this: Democrats want to fall in love, and Republicans want to fall in line."

Woop. There it is.

We all want to fall in love, and we do. We fall passionately in love with our candidates. Love is, itself, the most incredibly irrational phenomenon in the universe. When we see, or percieve that we see, someone 'attack' the one we love, when we feel that the one we love is threatened, we freak out completely. This is as true here as it is in your bedrooms.

That's why this forum is so nuts. Many of us have fallen in love. We don't like to hear that we're getting fucked without even getting kissed, and we want to part of hearing bad things about the ones we love. There isn't a single thing we can do about it. The phenomenon of group dynamics, coupled with the fact that this is a house full of insane love-struck monkeys, means there is no cure.

I would say this, however. I must credit this simple stripe of logic to Al Franken, who laid this out in his new book. He was talking about the question of patriotism, and the difference between liberals and conservatives on that important question.

Franken said that conservatives love this country the way young children love Mommy - Mommy is good and we love Mommy and Mommy can do no wrong and anyone who says bad things about Mommy is automatically evil.

Franken said liberals love this country with an adult kind of love - a love that sees all the good and all the bad together, and works towards fostering the good while working to change the bad. You can't change the bad without talking about it. That's not "We hate America." That's "WE LOVE AMERICA" with the kind of adult love that sees the bad and the good as a coherent whole, and works towards creating that more perfect union with all the data in hand.

It won't make any difference whatsoever, but it might be helpful here on DU if people approached their own candidate, and the others, and the love that is there beyond rational consideration, to work towards that adult kind of love which accepts and copes with the good and the bad simultaneously. Right now we have a lot of baby love, Mommy love, stupid love that is as conservative as supply side economics, and it is bullshit and juvenile, and it sucks.

So that's that. We can cross the "Get in line" bridge, and probably burn it, later on.

"..this is a house full of insane love-struck monkeys..."

Yeah, you could put it like that! Glad to be of service! ;-)

Another good link that leads to more resources in regard to group dynamics:

www.psychohistory.com

Enjoy!

Just kidding. Good post and interesting points. I, for one, am glad that I don't have blinders on. Unquestioning adoration is for the idiots. I think discussion, even if that means some bashing, is healthy for the group. Most of us (mods notwithstanding) can make a conscious choice NOT to read threads whose titles are obviously incendiary. Yes, there are disruptors in our midst, but they eventually show their cards.

i just LOVE (insert candidate's name here), i cringe. love is not rational. above all, we need to be rational if we wanna demp bushco.

the fact that we all feel so desperatly threatened by the current administration and you have a real cluster fuck. A messy group. It will be interesting to see what happens after the primaries.

How can you misspell barrel so many times, Will? Quick, fix it. And yes, LOL.

I always do that. One of my auromaticallt misspelled words. :(

No bashing of the nominee is allowed. So to anyone who gets red-faced and white-knuckled over their candidate being trashed: perhaps it is a good idea to check out until after the Democratic nominee is chosen.

A qestion has bounced around in my head for some days now. That being: "Do you love George Walker Bush so much that you would destroy any viable Democratic challenger?"

The proposition is not so outrageous. The Republican had a no-Repub bashing rule for decades. ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican.") Apparently, that rule died with the demise of its author: Richard M. Nixon. It is not so funny to observe how that rule has worked to the Republican's great affect for decades in achieving electoral successes by allowing Democrats with long knives to do their gutting for them. You wanna beat your opponent? Listen to what your opposition says about him.

A moron like George Bush....maybe they do need more debate about their candidates or you end up with this kind of candidate. Of course, that rule makes the kingmakers job that much easier.

Anyway, I'm playing the field....way too soon to get "married" to any one candidate yet, I think.

Maybe there's a little of deSade and Sacher-Masoch in them...

Please, no flames from the sado-masochists in the audience.... }(

Cheers.

This was the campaign strength of GW Bush. He was an unknown quantity for many reasons. Cheney was a known quantity and served as something of a "minder" component on the ticket.

In any case, the typical Republican dynamic applied. There was no question if any Republican would support Bush. It was more of a question of how any Republican would support him. Bush was an empty suit, malleable to any ideal that an uninformed electorate would impress upon him.

I agree that anonymity permits one to be more candid because the threat of social sanction upon the real person is removed. However, I also agree that it leads to a feeling of license and thoughtlessness.

one more thing:
"Nothing I nor anyone else here can say or do anything to stop it."
If you really believed that, then you would not make the effort to write persuasively about it.

why isn't your info and locale in your profile?
Anonymously speaking.

At least it was originally. I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads-up.

I don't have my personal information in my profile either, but reading your question makes me think for some of us anonymity is not just in the personal details.

I've come to discover that, with very few exceptions, people I know strictly through online connections have a better grasp of who I am than most of the people I know IRL. They may not know my real name, but they know ME better than many people who do know my real name.

In that respect, I don't consider myself truly "anonymous" either, despite not giving out my personal information to anyone who cares to read my profile.

Slap that Donkey!

:kick:

Good post, Will.

There's nothing wrong with aggressively promoting/defending your candidate, and, politics being the contact sport that it is, of attacking the opponents.

We just need to remember that we will need EVERY candidates' supporters in '04. This is going to be a very CLOSE election again - theories to the contrary are based more on wishful thinking than on practical politics.

Fight hard, but don't burn bridges.

feel probed often....

:hi:

nt

to the top

Great post Will! :toast:

I don't even read the others, but it makes me sad to read threads that start out with thoughtful questions (questions that need to be asked BTW) or comments, and then deteriorate into argument, name-calling, and "you're wrong--no you're wrong!" commentary. It makes me wonder if this party really is going to self-destruct--again.

OTOH, the "love-crazed monkeys" line is too good to be true. Thanks Will, for injecting some humor as well as common sense.

Onward!


-ph :hi:

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quite refreshing to find one without the word "clark" or "dean" in the title. i have found that unless i am in the mood to get either pissed or discouraged (which would be never) i need to stay away from those idiotic schoolyard brawls. which does not leave much else to choose from in g.d.

i am ready for the primaries to be over with and know who it is that i am going to fight for come next fall. this back biting right here on du is wearing me down and i hope it stops soon. yep, mommy love. you sure hit that one right between the eyes!

:pals:

I was just telling my husband yesterday that many DUers these days remind me of a woman who falls blindly and passionately in love with a man without really knowing him, simply because she is so desperate and needy for love that she deludes herself into thinking, "He's the One!"

It's quite understandable why we are so desperate for someone to rescue us from this mess. But we need to be clear-eyed and see the candidates for who they really are.

I have chosen not to "fall in love" with a candidate because my eye on the prize is ousting Bush in 2004. I want to be able to be clear and objective when assessing our candidates. I do have two or three favorites but will be perfectly content (except with Liebermann) to get behind any of them.

Everytime I read a candidate bashing thread or certain posters who harp and bash certain candidates, I seriously wonder will they or can they get behind the nominee when the time comes?

whatever they want now?

Time for you to wake up from your own droning on. People are going to say what they want to about whomever so if you don't like it, tough shit.

Thanks!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :)

You work so hard to do so without even realizing it.

Thank you.

:)

You are such a good writer. And I have yet to read anything you wrote that I disagree with. And in some ways that kind of scares me. (it makes me wonder if you are real)

:o

*

I was worried about him on your couch!

I have refrained from bashing the candidates because, well, I despise Bush more than all the flaws of all Dem candidates put together. Or is it because I never got my mommy's love? :7

P.S. it's "barrel". I think.

...and check the second sentence for a minor mistake.

pardon me

but I'm not telling.