Last week I argued that the core of the ultra-conservative philosophy currently on display on our national political scene is a pessimistic view of what motivates people and a belief in ‘fear of punishment' as a means of inducing conformity to the rules of a civilized society. This conviction leads to the obsession with guns and the threats of violence that have accompanied disagreements over issues such as health care reform.
     Now comes a front-page story in the Washington Post headlined, "Texas city revives paddling as it takes a swat at misbehavior." It turns out that corporal punishment in schools is legal in 20 states, mostly in the south. The citizens of Temple, Texas brought back the practice to its 14 schools last May. Said John Hancock, the perfectly named assistant school superintendent, "We're rural central Texas. We're very well educated, but still there are those core values. Churches are full on Sundays. This is a tool we'd like in the toolbox for responding to discipline issues." A parent added, "It's like speeding. Are they going to give you a speeding ticket or...a warning? I'd speed all day if I knew it was going to be a warning."
     These are very revealing opinions. What is being taught when we engage in the corporal punishment of children? Can this possibly be a healthy learning experience? A partial answer is provided in a recent study of 2461 children published in the journal Pediatrics: "Frequent use of corporal punishment (i.e., mother's use of spanking more than twice in the previous month) when the child was 3 years of age was associated with increased risk for higher levels of aggression when the child was 5 years of age." Should we be surprised by this or does it make sense that violence begets violence? Not surprisingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents refrain from spanking entirely.
     If one believes, however, that tight control and fear of punishment are all that is standing between us and social chaos, then it makes sense to arm ourselves, fill our jails to overflowing, and threaten those who disagree with us. This is an example of theparadox that we are all familiar with, namely that an obsessive need for control
leads to loss of control. Because of my practice location I treat a lot of engineers, accountants, and employees of the super-secret National Security Agency. I hear a lot of stories about professional success that can be traced to the obsessive personality traits necessary to perform in these occupations. One reason they are talking to me, of course,is their discovery that the adaptive qualities of this behavior diminish in the context of their lives apart from work. They are hard people to live with and their wives and children are less accepting of their controlling personalities than their subordinates at work. Not incidentally, they tend to be conservative in their political outlooks.
     When an obsessive need for control collides with the reality that much of our world and the people in it refuse to be controlled the result is frequently some
combination of anger and anxiety. The imperfections all around us are rebukes to our desire for order and we long for a simpler time (as if one ever existed). The process of aging with its reminders of our mortality is especially burdensome.
     Played out on a broader canvas we are confronted with the spectacle of mostly older, nearly all-white political movement that is fearful of change, of diversity, of a perceived loss of privilege. The anger that these fears evoke is triggered by a sense of loss that is primitive and unattached to issues such as healthcare or financial reform. The fear and anger will not be assuaged by rational argument (e.g., that taxes for most people have gone down under the current administration). Instead those who think themselves and their way of life under siege by "socialist elites" cling to a nostalgic, largely imaginary, vision of the antebellum south or the 1950's or some other time when they were safe, children were more respectful, where blacks and women knew their place. It is a seductive illusion for a few but it leads nowhere that the rest of us want to live.