On the night of December 2-3, 1984, Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal India exploded. Approximately 3800 people were immediately killed. At least another 8000 died in the days and weeks following. It was and remains one of the worst industrial disasters on record.Union Carbide bore the brunt of the blame since it owned 50.9% of the plant. The remainder was owned by an Indian subsidiary.The causes of Bhopal have been well documented. Basically, the efforts to stem a financial crisis led to an even worse one.In order to stop the plant from losing money, the decision was made to cut costs. Unfortunately, this resulted in letting go some of the most experienced operators. Other experienced operators who were demoralized left of their own accord. As a result, mainly inexperienced personnel were left to operate the plant. Furthermore, those who remained suffered from increased job pressures. This further lowered morale that was already dangerously low to begin with.In addition, the plant was initially poorly designed. It was also poorly maintained. All of these factors combined to produce a gas explosion when an inexperienced operator opened the wrong valve allowing water into a tank. The resulting chemical reaction produced a dangerous gas, methyl isocynate, which spewed into the surrounding slums that had been allowed by the Indian government to crowd up next to the plant.The surrounding community had not been prepared in any way for a disaster of this kind. All they knew was that the plant produced a kind of fertilizer. If they had been warned of the potential danger, they would have known that since methyl isocynate is heavier than air, the best thing to do was to lie down on the ground with a wet rag covering one’s eyes, nose, and mouth.The explosion that occurred last week in the town of West, Texas does not even begin to approach the enormity of Bhopal. Nonetheless, while the numbers of people ...

 On Thursday April 11, 2013, The Nation of Change published my blog, “The Banality of Evil Arguments.”  In effect, I argued that evil arguments against reasonable laws for gun control are the last refuge of the scoundrel. Unfortunately, one is never finished in beating back evil arguments. Immediately after the parents of the children who were killed in Newtown met with President Obama and Senators in Washington DC in an attempt to win support for new gun control legislation, the Right-wing began its scurrilous attacks. In the most despicable manner possible, the parents were roundly accused of “politicizing a tragedy.” Listening to the sickening “arguments”—if they can be called that--the following question immediately crossed my mind, “How should the Newtown parents have responded such that they would have satisfied the Right?” The “answers” I came up with constitutes in effect an evil argument. First of all, according to the Right, the parents should have suffered in complete silence! They should not have in any way made a public spectacle of their tragedy. Second, they should have totally accepted the premises and the arguments of the NRA. Thus, Newtown was the act of a single, isolated, deranged individual. In short, there are no such things as “systems effects.” One can have a nation with an average of one gun per a population of 315,000,000 and there will be no spill over effects on violence and public safety in general. In other words, a highly armed society poses no threats. Indeed, it’s safer than one that is not highly armed. The argument continues: background checks and limits on the types of ...

In April 17,1775, Boswell recorded one of Samuel Johnson’s most famous lines, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” If he were alive today, I believe that Johnson might well say, “Evil arguments are the first and last refuge of scoundrels.” On the April 9, 2013 edition of the PBS NewsHour, there was a mild debate of sorts between Jim Johnson, Police Chief of Baltimore County, and Lawrence Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The topic was of course background checks for gun owners. Predictably, Johnson was for checks and Keane was against them. Although I’ve heard it many times before, I was particularly shocked by Keane’s use of a particularly insidious argument against background checks. Given that painful interviews with some of the family members who lost loved ones in the tragic Newtown shootings had aired recently on the CBS program 60 Minutes and were thus still fresh, the more I listened to Keane, the more that the phrase “the banality of evil arguments” flashed through my mind. Time and again, Keane argued that if background checks were required before someone could purchase a gun, then it would place an inordinate burden on “small mom and pop gun dealers.” The particular word that Keane used repeatedly to signify the burden that small dealers would face was “inconvenience.” That is, they would be “greatly inconvenienced” by having to fill out all the forms that background checks would require. After all, why should they be required to do the work of the government? If this is not a prime example of an argument that is both evil and banal, then I don’t know what is! As a parent, spouse, relative, or friend of someone that ...

 One of the reasons why the NRA and rabid gun “enthusiasts” are so effective in getting their ideas across is that they’ve perfected the art of writing bumper stickers. They’ve taken extremely complex ideas and reduced them to half-truths and pithy, easy-to-remember slogans.Why shouldn’t liberals and progressives fight back? Or are we “too pure to sink to the level of communicating effectively with a wider public?”I think the attitude that liberals and progressives are somehow “above” such forms of expression is not only wrong, but “dead wrong!” Pun intended!We do ourselves a great disservice by not communicating our ideas as simply and as forcefully as we can. To do so is not necessarily to debase them. It is to sharpen them.Sadly, I have been unable to find any sites on the Internet that have “bumper stickers for gun control advocates.” They may well be there, but I haven’t found them.In the spirit of countering the NRA and other organizations, I offer the following as merely one attempt to come up with bumper stickers for those like myself who want tougher gun control laws. Since they merely represent a first attempt, they are a work in progress. This also accounts for the fact that there is a considerable overlap and repetition between the items.One last thought. If you have to explain it, then it isn’t working. Baseball Bats and Cars Can Kill, But They’re Not Made for Killing. Guns Are! We Don’t Abandon Laws Against Murder Because Murderers Don’tObey Them! Why Are Gun Laws Any Different?How Many Mass Drive-by Knifings Have You Heard Of?Automatic Weapons Kill More People Faster Than All ...

 There is something seriously wrong with a society that even has to debate whether it needs to control the most lethal types of weapons in the hands of civilians.I want to propose what is to my knowledge a novel way of thinking about and thereby treating gun violence. If as I believe that an obsessive need for guns is akin to an addiction and therefore cannot be dealt with by means of conventional arguments (after all, many alcoholics know “rationally” that alcohol is killing them but they are still unable to resist its near total control over their lives), then I believe that we need to stop beating around the bush and treat the obsessive need for guns as a major form of addiction. Accordingly, I have taken the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and reworded them to apply to our society’s deadly obsession with guns. In proposing this, I have no illusion whatsoever that in and of itself this will help us to better manage what I believe is our society’s completely out-of-control proliferation of guns. What I do hope is this it will encourage us to explore new ways of thinking about guns.I strongly urge the reader to note that in the second paragraph above I have deliberately stressed the word “obsessive” for I don’t believe that everyone who possesses guns or has the desire to have them is therefore suffering from a major form of addiction. Quite to the contrary. I also don’t believe that all guns ought to be banned. I believe that only those guns that are extremely lethal ought to be strictly controlled. That is, contrary to the NRA, some guns are more lethal than others. All guns are not equal. As a result, I believe that there is no place whatsoever for military-assault type weapons in the hands of civilians. Apparently, neither do many responsible and sensible gun owners.Here then is my version of a twelve-step program for rabid ...

 There are at least two widely differing positions in treating gun violence that surface every time there is a horrendous tragedy like that which happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Indeed, they are always just beneath the surface of any argument pertaining to gun control.The first is represented by the movie/TV and video game industries; the second, by cardiologists of all people. The first position argues that there is no firm causal relationship between (1) the prolonged exposure of children and young adults to violent movies/TV/video games and (2) their engagement in actual violent behavior. Correlations are all there are, and correlations are not hard definitive proof of causality. Therefore, lacking such proof, there is no valid reason for the producers/writers of violent movies/TV/video games to tone down their creations. Besides, aren’t they protected by the First Amendment? The second position argues that no cardiologist would ever say that because a certain set of factors are low in their overall contribution to heart disease that one should therefore ignore them. Instead, no matter what their level of contribution, one should treat any and all factors as aggressively as one can. To draw out the differences between these two positions even more starkly, let me put them in the form of two opposing ethical principles because that’s what they really are. The first says in effect that, “Whenever the correlation between what we do/produce as an industry and some important problem in society is low or beneath a certain ‘threshold,’ then we are warranted ethically in not doing anything; we are absolved as it were.” The question of course is, “How high would the correlation have to be before one accepted ‘ethical responsibility’?”

 There are at least two widely differing positions in treating gun violence that surface every time there is a horrendous tragedy like that which happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Indeed, they are always just beneath the surface of any argument pertaining to gun control.The first is represented by the movie/TV and video game industries; the second, by cardiologists of all people. The first position argues that there is no firm causal relationship between (1) the prolonged exposure of children and young adults to violent movies/TV/video games and (2) their engagement in actual violent behavior. Correlations are all there are, and correlations are not hard definitive proof of causality. Therefore, lacking such proof, there is no valid reason for the producers/writers of violent movies/TV/video games to tone down their creations. Besides, aren’t they protected by the First Amendment? The second position argues that no cardiologist would ever say that because a certain set of factors are low in their overall contribution to heart disease that one should therefore ignore them. Instead, no matter what their level of contribution, one should treat any and all factors as aggressively as one can. To draw out the differences between these two positions even more starkly, let me put them in the form of two opposing ethical principles because that’s what they really are. The first says in effect that, “Whenever the correlation between what we do/produce as an industry and some important problem in society is low or beneath a certain ‘threshold,’ then we are warranted ethically in not doing anything; we are absolved as it were.” The question of course is, “How high would the correlation have to be before one accepted ‘ethical responsibility’?”

In a previous op-ed, “When Liberals Deny Reality: Demonizing Conservatives While Idealizing Liberals.” (Nation of Change, Saturday, September 22, 2012), I praised a recent book by Chris Mooney (The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, Wiley, 2012). In spite of this, I was nonetheless highly critical of it.There is no question whatsoever that I basically agreed with Mooney’s characterization of conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are generally fearful of and highly resistant to change, have an obsessive need for order and predictability, prize individual differences (money, status, etc.), and believe in hierarchy over community and egalitarianism. In short, they are closed-minded and don’t believe in science, especially if it conflicts with their deep-seated religious and social beliefs.In sharp contrast, liberals generally believe strongly in reasoned argument, logic, and science. They are not only extremely open to change, but to learning from their own errors, and from the views of others.Nonetheless, as much as I agreed with Mooney on the key differences between conservatives and liberals, I parted sharp company with him with regard to his overly simplistic and highly idealized characterizations of academics and scientists. While academics and scientists may be liberals politically, they are not necessarily when it comes to their day-to-day work. Indeed, they are generally very conservative. Having been a university professor for over 45 years, I know this for a fact!In short, Mooney was seriously wrong if he thought that academics and scientists were “the shinning model for liberal thought.”None of this meant that I didn’t regard science as one of the best ways of ferreting out error that humankind has ever invented. Science is! Indeed, I have no regard whatsoever for those who ...

Chris Mooney has written a very important book on the enormous differences between Republicans and Democrats, or more generally, between conservatives and liberals (The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, Wiley, 2012). Despite its critical flaws, it deserves to be read widely, especially by everyone who is disturbed by the current breakdown of political discourse.Mooney has done nothing less than a masterful job in assembling, summarizing, and integrating the vast amount of studies from psychology and neuroscience on the differences between the minds of conservatives and liberals. The same, consistent portrait between the two emerges repeatedly. We really do inhabit different realities.In brief, conservatives are generally fearful of and highly resistant to change. They have an obsessive need for order and predictability. They prize individual differences (money, status, etc.) and believe in hierarchy over community and egalitarianism. In short, they are closed-minded and don’t believe in science, especially if it conflicts with their deep-seated religious and social beliefs.On the positive side, conservatives are loyal, decisive, and generally show “spine.”In sharp contrast, liberals generally believe strongly in reasoned argument, logic, and science. They are not only extremely open to change, but to learning from their own errors, and from the views of others.On the negative side, liberals are often divided by petty differences that they obsess over and literally talk to death. For this reason, they are often accurately viewed as indecisive and lacking in  “spine.”As much as I agree with Mooney on the key differences between conservatives and liberals—he hits the mark brilliantly--I part company with him with regard to his overly simplistic characterizations of academics and ...

For years, I have taught courses in Interpersonal Dynamics to undergraduate and graduate business school students alike. The prime purpose of the courses has been to help people better understand themselves and others. To accomplish this, I have had people take countless personality tests to show them how and why they literally “see highly disparate realities,” experience and handle conflict very differently, have diverse learning styles, varied aims and aspirations, etc.One of most powerful ways of helping people learn about themselves and others is to put people into different groups based on their personalities. Thus, all the people with the same personality type are put into a common group. In this way, there are as many different groups as there are different types.Next, all of the groups are then given the same assignment to see how they respond. For instance, each group is given the same issue of a popular magazine. Each group is then asked to cut out images from the magazine that best represents their group’s idea of their “ideal organization.” Making a collage, giving it a name, and listing as many characteristics as they can of their ideal organization allows people to literally “see” and compare an internal disposition such as personality.A key component of the course is dealing with difficult people, whether at work, play, home, with family members, etc. One of the most powerful ways of doing this is not just to have people merely read about different kinds of difficult people and proven strategies for dealing with them, but to engage in actual role-plays. Thus, people take turns role-playing a certain type of difficult person while another person role-plays how best to cope effectively with that type.Without a doubt, one of the most stressful types of difficult people to role-play and with whom to cope effectively is the “Sherman ...

Make no mistake about it. This election is about the choice between two worldviews that are as psychologically different and far apart as any two could possibly be. The choice is difficult not just because so much is riding on it—this much is obvious--but like most crucial things in life, much of it rests on factors that are largely unconscious. The later is far from obvious.On the one side is the Republican view of the world (the Dark Side) that is as mean and repressive as anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. On the other hand is the Democratic (the Light Side), which while far from perfect, shows real signs of humanity and maturity. With no apologies whatsoever for my clear bias and partisanship, let me explore the psychological differences between these two worldviews. Hopefully, this helps to illuminate the unconscious factors that play a major role in what people vote for and why. To do this, let me discuss very briefly: 1. Jungian psychological types; 2. ego psychology; and 3. American mythology. All three interact in powerful ways to produce the enormous, and unfortunately, unbridgeable differences between the current versions of Republicans and Democrats.As long ago as 1921, Jung identified, among many others, the psychological differences between: 1. Sensing and Intuitive, and 2. Thinking and Feeling personality types. Sensing types instinctively break all problems down into separate and independent parts for which they then proceed to gather “hard data” or “facts” that “measure precisely” the “exact status or performance” of each of the parts. In addition, they are anchored firmly in the “here-and-now.” In short, if you can’t see, feel, hear, smell, taste, or measure something in the here-and-now, then it’s not real, let alone important.In contrast, Intuitive types instinctively look at the ...

This is a rant. I make no apologies for it because sometimes that’s the only thing that can help cleanse one’s soul.Norman Mailer was once asked why no good literature ever came out of the Third Reich in WWII. He responded--I paraphrase--“The whole philosophy was so garbled such that if you tried to write it down, all you got was complete nonsense.”Mailer’s perceptive remark captures perfectly the essence of the whole Todd Akin fiasco. Even more, it captures the complete idiocy, if not deeply psychotic nature, of the current Republican belief system. Yes, I said “psychotic.”To view, as Akin would like us to do, his crazy remarks merely as a “poor choice of words,” is only to compound the original crime. Words don’t come out of thin air. They are always reflective of an underlying philosophy or world-view, in this case, a deeply distorted and sick one. This is also why we must not take Akin’s outburst as an “isolated aberration” as the Republican leadership would like us to do.Getting rid of Akin will not cause the basic illness to go away. Indeed, it only prolongs and makes it worse. To believe otherwise is merely to commit the latest form of what I call The Hazelwood Defense, the label I associate with Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the ill-fated Exxon Valdez that went aground and spilled thousands of gallons of oil in the Bay of Valdez many years ago. Exxon wanted us to believe that it was just the fault of “one bad apple,” i.e., Hazelwood, when it was a whole “bad system run amuck.”In a way, Akin has done us a public service—I wouldn’t dare call it “great” by any means--but not in the usual ways that Liberals and Progressives are calling it, i.e., his staying in the race almost ensures that Republicans will not take back the Senate.Not that we really need ...

What does the behavior of British children in WWII possibly have to do with today’s fractious politics? More than one would ever imagine! Indeed, it explains the unconscious roots of much of the current dysfunctional behavior on both the Left and the Right.In WWII, by being placed or lodged either in hospitals or massive care facilities, an overwhelming number of children were separated from their parents for weeks, months, and even years on end. Worst of all were those who were permanently housed in orphanages.When they first arrived, the children cried for hours and days on end. When they eventually stopped, they became zombie-like in that they showed virtually no emotion whatsoever from that time on.To help understand the horrific damage done to children that he witnessed daily, the British psychiatrist John Bowlby created Attachment Theory. Bowlby and his colleagues found that two key dimensions were key to explaining the emotional state of a child: Avoidance and Anxiety. Both were directly traceable to and the direct result of the emotional state of a child’s primary caretakers. During Bowlby’s time, the primary caretaker was of course the mother, if not throughout most of history. Whether the primary caretaker was either high or low on Avoidance and Anxiety had a tremendous effect on the child’s emotional development.By means of the mother’s intense and frequent interactions—how she held, looked at, and attended to her child’s cries and general discomfort--the mother subtly and not so subtly communicated her emotional state to her child. In short, she communicated how comfortable versus how anxious she was in fulfilling her role as a caretaker.Since the interactions took place from the moment of birth, they were largely preverbal and hence unconscious. In this way, the mother not only passed on, but influenced significantly the child’s subsequent ...

Make no mistake about it. America is in an extreme state of mind. It is gripped by forces that can only be described as psychotic.The great poets and playwrights understood implicitly that to understand politics—indeed, to truly understand anything human—one not only had to understand the intricacies of the human mind, but extreme states such as psychosis.Much of what motivates humans is buried deep in the unconscious. As a result, most people are not unaware of some of the most powerful determinants of human behavior. This is why drama is so important. It is the art form par excellence that digs far below the surface of everyday life to bring up to the light and thus examine the “dark forces” that govern so much of human conduct.This was brought home recently when my wife and I had the opportunity to attend the play Medea, Macbeth, and Cinderella in Ashland. Despite its critical shortcomings—too often it seemed that three of the most disparate characters imaginable were merely thrown together as in a disjointed nightmare—it nevertheless managed to illuminate the dark side of politics even though this was not the prime intention of the play.Medea, Macbeth, Cinderella brings together three of the major forms of drama: Greek, Elizabethan, and the modern American Musical Comedy in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Broadway production of Cinderella. But most of all, it serves as a prime vehicle to compare and examine the role of women at three critical stages of life: middle, Medea; late, Lady Macbeth; and early, Cinderella.One of the key interpretations of Medea is that she is driven to murder her children because of the uncontrollable rage she feels towards her husband who has deserted her for a younger woman. Lady Macbeth is complicit in her husband’s murder of the king as well as subsequent murders because of their ruthless ambition. And, Cinderella ...

 What do the following possibly have in common?One, Woolrich, the venerable 182-year-old clothing company, recently brought out a new line of chinos with a second pocket that has been especially designed for carrying a concealed handgun. The clincher is that the pocket has been designed so that it wouldn’t destroy the “stylish look of the pants.”Two, Levi Johnston, former fiancé of Bristol Palin and father of their child, not only has another baby on the way, but he plans to name her "Breeze Beretta" after his favorite Italian-made pistol.Three, over the stringent objections of Tampa’s Mayor Bob Buckhorn, Florida Governor Rick Scott upheld the decision to ban water guns during the Republican National Convention, but not concealed handguns.If you said that these three items have nothing in common, you’re wrong! Dead wrong!Viewing each of them in isolation not only misses a key point, but a key pattern. Taken together, they show that controlling, if not eliminating altogether, handguns is more difficult than we ever imagined. Guns have insinuated themselves so deeply into our culture that they have literally taken over our minds. The outrage that I feel towards each of these “items” individually is dwarfed by the feelings I experience when I consider their combined effect and what they say about us as a culture.In an earlier op-ed, “Confronting Shame-Based Politics: The Biggest Challenge of All,” The Huffington Post, April 24, 2012, I made the point that shame underlies most, if not virtually all, of our major political issues and societal problems. If in addition, fear, a deep sense of powerlessness, and a growing contempt for public institutions are combined with shame, then we have a potent mixture indeed that not only underlies, but perpetuates an out-of-control gun culture.If we are to have any hope of breaking its ...