"I Want My Country Back"

A reader writes:

I'm not surprised that few of your readers respect Carl Jung's model for why we believe what we believe, but it is interesting that you posted a view that says reality is actually simpler than that. As someone who spent my career in neuroscience, I suspect Jung is too simple, not too complicated.

All of our beliefs have many associations, to ego, to shadow, to practical benefits, to lessen our cognitive dissonance, more aspects than I've ever seen in a list. One would have to analyze each belief someone has against each of those dimensions to fully answer why we believe something. It isn't even all about us. That belief might be an undeniable truth! So a complete model is very complicated.

Yet it is natural for human beings to oversimplify, just as we naturally overgeneralize or reduce a spectrum of phenomena to just two extremes, like good or evil, hot or cold, precious or discardable. It is natural to pretend, "I want my country back," is a handle that explains everything. No, it's a handle that lets one start exploring the phenomenon. It doesn't explain why or how Obama is vilified. Your reader didn't go that far. He or she was satisfied that it was simple enough to stop. No, it isn't.

If I could change one thing about political commentary, it would be to have people feel compelled to explore a subject until they have at least two hypotheses for the truth. One answer is never enough, especially a simple answer.

Now, the educated are most likely to understand the truth of that. Yet everyone's a sucker for something. I'm stuck being a sucker for beautiful women and comfort food. Fortunately I can keep my distance from the former and ration the latter. I pity those who can't do something like that with politics, but I'm angry with them, too.

They're voting with their shadow, and that causes so much grief. Why I feel that, what it is to which I'm reacting, and what to do about that is quite complicated. Anyone who says it's simple hasn't thought it through or doesn't know much to begin with. You see, that's at least two reasons. I bet there are more. Unfortunately they don't take bets like that in Las Vegas. If they did an educattion would be even more valuable.