Pompous and trite... apt adjectives for that perpetual bore, Al Gore.
Posted on 11/18/2007 11:22:08 AM PST by shrinkermd
This is a review of Al Gore’s recent book. I could put a “barf” after the title. Or, I could make a point by changing it to “The Assault on George Bush.” Neither of these approaches advances understanding.
This book mirrors the views of Al Gore and the Democratic Party. If we are to prevail we must know what these views are and how they are justified.
I will try to understand the thinking of our political adversaries. I will not give a point-by-point rebuttal of all issues.
Rush Limbaugh often refers to liberalism “as a mental disorder.” Some parts of this book affirm that view. I will review these parts to determine whether they are indicative of psychopathology.
Others have suggested liberalism is just another faith-based belief system that does not use the word God or religion. This approach has merit but I will leave this discussion to others.
Reviews exist aplenty. They fall into two groups—supporters and detractors. I have excerpted two reviews for Supporters and two reviews for Detractors.
Book Reviews By Supporters:
And also, “… Much the way that the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” showed a more accessible Al Gore — at ease with himself and passionate about the dangers of global warming — this book shows a fiery, throw-caution-to-the winds Al Gore, who, whether or not he runs for the White House again, has decided to lay it all on the line with a blistering assessment of the Bush administration and the state of public discourse in America at this “fateful juncture” in history…”
”The first five chapters outline what Gore calls “the enemies of reason” that serve to manipulate public dialogue: the use of fear, the use of religion and faith, the use of wealth, the use of propaganda, and the use of limits on civil liberties. Throughout these chapters, he calls on historical parallels (from ancient Greece to the American Civil War) and scientific breakthroughs in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to shed light on how human beings make decisions, form opinions and take action. The final three chapters summarize evidence of damage to our nation inflicted by the Bush administration in three major areas: national security, ecology (with emphasis on the climate crisis) and the checks and balances that are at the foundation of our form of government.”
Book Reviews By Detractors:
Also, a further opinion was: ”…Al Gore gives us 320 pages on his fears about the demise of American democracy. Relentlessly, Mr. Gore uses the word “democracy” to identify our polity, the term democracy cropping up again and again…Because we are not a democracy. We are a republic. We need only one fundamental diction to be clear in this distinction. “ ... and to the republic for which it stands ... Incessantly hammering away at this term democracy, as if he were Pavlov and we but dogs, Al Gore reveals both his heart and his mind…
”…He is not American. His every utterance and every persuasion is European socialist with considerable training in propaganda. Particularly the technique of the Big Lie. But his pointed lament about democracy also telegraphs that winds of change are upon us which must be the most fragile of zephyrs. He apparently knows something we do not yet see, as animals moan before an earthquake humans cannot detect in advance…”
”Developing a dangerous theme that the left has been toying with for years, Gore says that reason is being suffocated by “media Machiavellis”—that’s a veiled reference to Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and Bush political advisor Karl Rove, the twin hobgoblins of the left. According to Gore, these puppet-masters take advantage of “the clever use of electronic mass media” to “manipulate the outcome of elections.”
”Now here’s the really ominous part. This “manipulation” is rendering our representative government “illegitimate” because it only has the public’s “consent”—he repeatedly puts “consent” in scare quotes, just to emphasize the point that this consent is not, in Al Gore’s superior judgment, genuine or legitimate. As he puts it, “the ‘consent of the governed’ [has become] a commodity to be purchased by the highest bidder.”
”His new argument doesn’t do anything to reverse that impression. His basic theme seems to be: if the left isn’t winning in the marketplace of ideas, there can’t possibly be anything wrong with their ideas. It must be the marketplace itself that is “broken,” and the left needs to use the power of government to fix it—in both senses of the word “fix.”
Bill Moyers describes Al Gore’s efforts as, “A powerful summons of life and hope.” The book jacket ascribes Al Gore’s efforts as, “A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism and blind faith has combined with degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason.” Many see him as a classic example of the public intellectual.
How has Al Gore achieved this status?
His intellectual credentials cannot be traced back to his formative years. Actually, his academic record is dismal.
”Gore arrived at Harvard with an impressive 1355 SAT score, 625 verbal and 730 math, compared with Bush’s 1206 total from 566 verbal and 640 math. In his sophomore year at Harvard, Gore’s grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush’s transcript from Yale. That was the year Gore’s classmates remember him spending a notable amount of time in the Dunster House basement lounge shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers and occasionally smoking marijuana.”
Not the usual record for one of America’s outstanding public intellectuals!
In spite of his early disinterest, Al Gore is now seen as a champion of science, reason and, more recently, of the antiwar movement. In a soon to be published article Alexander Cockburn in The Nation writes the following:
After describing the net effect the Kyoto Accords championed by Al Gore as resulting in imperceptible improvement since 99.72% of the gases are naturally caused, Cockburn states:
As to Al Gore’s claims as a peacemaker extraordinaire, Cockburn notes:
Gore also said (1993) that we could never have normal relations with Iraq as long as Sadaam was in power. In May of 2000 Gore spoke at West Point where he offered up a recipe for military intervention not different from President George Bush’s preventative intervention policy.
Okay, so while Al Gore has an IQ of 133-134, it is hard to make him out as an academic intellectual in any sense of the word. Ditto, for being in the front ranks of the antiwar movement.
So what personal attributes has resulted in his outstanding success?
The answer is simple. Al Gore is an extraordinarily successful professional politician. His style is that of a professional pastor who base their arguments on an assumption that requires a leap to faith. He may not have succeeded as a pastor but he surely has succeeded as a politician.
If you doubt this, just go to the end of the book and the Acknowledgements section. Here, Al Gore counting his wife but not his children lists 52 people who helped him with this book.
While he does not list his ghost writer (Natalie Duning?) he does note that in respect to constitutional law he had Lisa Brown and Chris Schroeder to assist him.
For the neuroscience and psychological aspects of the book he had Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Dr. Lynn DeList, Dr. Joe LeDoux, Dr. Sue Smalley, Anne Perez and DR. Martin Erickson.
For the global warming discussion he had three helpers—Katie McGinty, Jeannie Nelson and Will Martin.
For the historical aspects and citations he had Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Graham Allison, Steve Ozment, Frank Turner, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Richard Goodwin and political scientist Steve Teles.
For offering suggestions Al Gore cites 16 prominent people not the least of which is Steve Jobs.
All told, Al Gore elicited the help of the better minds in a number of fields. He did this by being a a political leader. The very quality of the people he was able to mobilize makes the individual points he argues from that much harder to rebut. These people, no matter how competent and respected, joined and supported Al Gore in this effort.
As we shall see, this book assumes that its opponents are not Republicans but right-wing ideologues. But books don’t assume anything, people do. If this book is based on a paranoid premise, then Al Gore must either believe or argue similarly. But before I can answer whether Al Gore is paranoid or just voicing these views for political purposes, I need document what a psychiatric diagnosis is and its implications.
There are five problems and two purposes of a psychiatric diagnosis.
The first problem is there is not a single, specific cause for most psychiatric diagnoses. This means what is diagnosed is a syndrome or disorder based on a collection of symptoms, behaviors and feelings. A disorder also must be a valid and predictable.
The second problem is that abnormal mental conditions fall on a continuum. Any single symptom or behavior can be found in normal individuals. In order to correct for this, a psychiatric diagnosis must result in impairment of social functioning expressed in dysfunction at work, in personal relationships or in social living. Alternatively, but more rarely a diagnosis is justified on the basis of personal unhappiness.
The third problem is you can mistakenly use a diagnosis as a pejorative (sh*t) label. Rather than express your disdain by calling someone a S.O.B. you can call him a paranoid or a psychopath.
The fourth problem is it is possible to over- identify a person with his affliction: a person with an alcoholic disorder becomes an “alcoholic” or a person with schizophrenia becomes a “schizophrenic.” Labeling a person according to a disorder washes out individuality.
The fifth problem is a valid psychiatric diagnosis requires both a history and an examination. It is difficult to impossible to make a diagnosis without examining the person in question.
The classic example of the misuse of a diagnosis occurred in an American Psychiatric Meeting held in 1964. By a voice vote the members labeled Senator Barry Goldwater as a “paranoid.” It is readily apparent they did not have the data for a paranoid disorder, did not establish social dysfunction, did label with a diagnosis a politician they disagreed with and, obviously, had no member that had actually examined the Senator
There are two general purposes of a diagnosis. First, it permits communication between diagnosticians and others. Second, it permits prediction—both as to the likely historical course of the disorder and the potential treatments. Both of these purposes permit both an understanding and helpful approach to the problem.
Transient psychiatric symptoms occur in normal people. The discrimination between normal and abnormal depends on whether the symptoms interfere with functioning. What we label as “paranoid” is a good example. Paranoid, an adjective, is derived from paranoia, a noun.
Dictionary.com defines paranoia in one of two ways:
2.Everyday: baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.1. Psychiatry: a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.
Thus far I have discussed paranoia from an individual perspective. Individual dynamics differ from crowd dynamics even though we use the terms interchangeably. Fortunately, we have an excellent source for discussing the dynamics of crowd paranoia.
In 1964 Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for the presidency. With this as a spur, historian Richard J. Hofstadter published the essay The Paranoid Style In American Politics.” Some believe this was the most important essay ever published in Harpers Magazine. Part of the essay can be found: HERE. If you are subscriber to Harpers you can obtain the total essay from the archives.
As background, Hofstadter had been a member of the Communist Party up until about 1940. He never changed his view that capitalism should be abolished.
No one was surprised then when Hofstadter wrote this as an argument against Barry Goldwater. Surely, no one now believes Senator Goldwater was a paranoid. This in spite of the fact that The American Psychiatric Association did opine Senator Goldwater was a paranoid. I was at that meeting. It was utterly shocking to see so many rational people believe and act so irrationally. This vote is now seen as a mistake by all concerned.
Regardless of Senator Goldwater, Hofstadter made some observations that have lasted. He began his essay with the following:
”American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
Then he goes on to discuss three facets of the paranoid style: The paranoid style defined; The enemy reified; And, emulating the enemy.
The paranoid style is defined thusly:
”…The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization... he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated — if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”
A description of the enemy reified is:
”The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires and his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction.”
Emulating the enemy is seen as:
”It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.”
I excerpted the original Hofstadter article to give you the tenor of the times. Note, that the his observations have an enduring quality and are not restricted to just the right. Unfortunately, then and now, academics and liberal others see the paranoid style as only being found on the right. Hofstadter never made that claim.
Dr. Kenneth A. Rahn inThe Academic JFK Assassination Site provides a simple table outlining the differences between rational and paranoid thought. You can find this table: HERE. This table is worth reading since it is both a comprehensive and easily understood outline of paranoid thinking. Dr. Rahn’s education was as a Ph.D. in Meteorology. He is now retired.
Paranoid thinking is characterized by:
To understand this book, you need only to look at the index. Under the word “Republican” there are three entries: dissatisfaction with Bush for two entries and then ”See also Right-wing ideology.”
The dissatisfied Republicans are William Buckley (page 82) and former Minnesota Governor Elmer Anderson (page 113); both opposed the Iraq War.
After these two brief entries the reader is then lead to assume Al Gore’s opponents are supporters of a “Right-wing ideology.” Under this category, there are at least 37 pages.
The opposition is not seen as a political party but, rather, a right wing menace. For example see the following:
”…President Bush has caused for this country stem from the marriage of these resources to his belief in the infallibility of this right-wing Republican ideology that often puts the highest priority on the interests of the wealthy and of large corporations.”(page 64) ”…This coalition gains access to the public through a cabal of pundits, commentators, and “reporters”—call it the Limbaugh-Hannity-Drudge Axis. This fifth column in the fourth estate is made up of propagandists pretending to be journalists. Through multiple overlapping outlets covering radio, television, and the Internet, they relentlessly force-feed the American people right-wing talking points and ultraconservative dogma disguised as news and infotainment—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 265 days a year. It is quite a spectacle.”(page 66) ”…They seek nothing less than absolute power. Their grand design is an all-powerful executive using a weakened legislature to fashion a compliant judiciary in its own image. They endeavor to break down the separation of powers. And in the place of the current system, they seek to establish a system in which power is unified in the service of a narrow ideology serving a narrow set of interests.” (page 71)”…I’ve alluded to James Madison’s warning, over two centuries old, that a ‘religious sect may degenerate into a political faction.’ Now with the radical right, we have a political faction disguised as a religious sect and the President of the United States is heading it. The obvious irony is that Bush uses a religious blind faith to hide what is actually an extremist political philosophy with a disdain for social justice that is anything but pious by the standards of any respected faith tradition I know.”(page 61)
There are many other examples. President Bush, of course, receives similar treatment. Al Gore sometimes makes political arguments; nonetheless, he assumes the central problem is right-wing ideology rather than political differences.
Authors usually assign writing the index to others; however, these individuals know the author and highlight the author’s views.
Sometimes, the book comes close to fitting the criteria for a psychiatric diagnosis of paranoia since some assertions come close to being delusions.
Projecting one’s shortcomings onto others is a common in paranoid finding. The book states sometimes the right-wing ideologues use reason; however, the book then goes onto explaining why this is not real reason. What the book misses is this could as easily be used as an example of the book’s thinking. A cogent excerpt is:
”…The Enlightenment, for all of its liberating qualities—especially its empowerment of individuals with the ability to use reason as a source of influence and power—has also had a dark side that thoughtful people worried about from the beginning. Abstract thought, when organized into clever, self-contained, logical formulations, can sometimes have its own quasi-hypnotic effect and so completely capture the human mind as to shut out the leavening influence of everyday experience.” (page 251)
Drew Westen in his book, The Political Brain,criticized Al Gore’s arguments based solely on reason. Westen stated a truth seldom spoken:
”…However, the more sophisticated people are politically (e.g., the more they know about an issue), the more able they are to develop complex rationalizations for dismissing data they don’t want to believe. Politically knowledgeable citizens also tend to be partisans, which gives them the strongest reasons for distorted reasoning” (page 100 Westen’s book and Taber, Charles S., and Milton Lodge. 2006. Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs. American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 755-769. A review of Westen’s book can be found: HERE.
Incidentally, the index mentions “Democrat” only once. The reference is to President Bush’s statement that, “If the Democrats win, the terrorists win. What Al Gore does is to conflate “Democrat” with “democracy.” There are many references to democracy and what results is an unspoken assumption that democracy equals Democrat and fear mongering equals the right-wing ideologues.
Finally, besides seeing Republicans in terms of right-wing ideologues, the book sees President Bush thusly:
”…There are many people in both political parties who worry that there is something deeply troubling about President Bush’s relationship to reason, his disdain for facts, and his lack of curiosity about any new information that might produce a deeper understanding of the problems and policies that he is supposed to wrestle with on behalf of this country.” (page 55
There is no way to disprove the paranoid thesis of this book—that right-wing ideologues are striving to take over the government. The problem is that logically you cannot disprove a negative. If you assume this paranoid belief to be a fact, then everything used as proof makes sense, but remember real proof does not exist
In conclusion , the book demonstrates the everyday definition of “paranoid”—excessive suspicions of others and their motives. It also demonstrates almost all of the qualities found in “The paranoid style in American Politics.” Finally, the book’s demonstrates many of the characteristics of paranoid as opposed to rational thinking.
Al Gore was born into advantage. In spite of an IQ of 130+, he was a mediocre student. He flunked out of divinity school. He did not complete Vanderbilt Law School. His brief foray as a journalist sputtered to an end.
He failed at most things but not politics. Except for the Electoral College and SCOTUS he would have been POTUS. No question about it, Al Gore is a master politician. I pointed out in the discussion of the Acknowledgements section how he marshaled many astute and able people to assist him in writing the book.
He now is seen as a leader of the global warming, antiwar and anti right-wing believers in the Democrat Party.
He seems, like many contemporary successful politicians, to have the ability to march to the head of the parades started by others.
But calculated political maneuvers using the paranoia of others does not mean Al Gore is a paranoid. He does take political advantage of the underlying paranoid beliefs of others. He voices their fears and hatreds. But he does so for a purpose—political power. In his heart of hearts Al Gore is a political chameleon and these are just political issues he chooses to use.
One requirement for a psychiatric diagnosis is disturbance or deterioration of functioning. This cannot be applied to Al Gore. Al Gore is surely successful; recently he received an Academy Award and the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition, since 2000 he is reported to have had an increase in his net worth of 50 million dollars. And, presently, he is in the process of organizing and investing in a “green” corporation He cannot be dismissed as a has been, shut in malcontent
Al Gore’s thinking seems paranoid only when discussing his follower’s positions on global warming, the Iraq war, the right-wing threat and so forth. The thrust of these advocacies is not carried over into his everyday life and actions.
In conclusion, Al Gore is not a paranoid or suffering from paranoia. He is an exceptionally successful politician who has positioned himself according to the wishes and beliefs of others.
This book does not advocate one political view over another. It assumes the opponents are evil. This basic assumption cannot be disproved since it is impossible to disprove a negative. If you think someone is a SOB, there is no way for them to prove otherwise.
Al Gore does not meet the psychiatric criteria for paranoia. His far left followers surely do approximate “A Paranoid Style of Politics” as described by Richard Hofstadter. Al Gore uses that paranoid style to secure power, recognition and fame. In this he has succeeded.
One of the salient features of psychopathology is how it persists and that this persistence can be predicted. Psychiatrists and psychologists are no better than anyone else at predicting normal behavior but they can predict abnormal behavior because it is rigid and repetitive. With this in mind, conservatives can expect little change in the attitudes and paranoia of the left. Indeed, if experience is any guide then they will re-double such efforts around election time.
I think Gore missed the irony in giving his book that title. He forgot that his name would be underneath it, so it reads “The assault on reason by Al Gore.”
Which leads us to the fundamental assault on reason in American Political discourse. The habit of the political Left of projecting their intellectual flaws onto anyone who disagrees with them.
Every one of the above statements is a primary tool of how the Democrat Party has continued since the 1960s it manipulation of minorities, women, and other activist groups to dogmatically follow the Democrat Leadership every whim.
Thus we have seen self proclaimed "Feminists" rabidly defending the sexual predator Bill Clinton, you have "civil rights" leaders rabidly defending the virtual enslavement of African Americans to political exploitation by the white liberals who run the Democrat party, Labor Unions manipulated to support their own political exploitations by Clinton's "Free trade" policies etc etc etc.
In each case Democrats have been emotionally demagogues into supporting "the party" even at the expense of their own political interests.
Al Gore's book is a case of the Left projecting it fundamental flaws onto everyone around them. Since the 1960s the Left has totally given up on making any sort of rational argument for their viewpoints in order to run the worst sort of gutter slime personal attack emotion based political machine.
If Al Gore and his sort of baby boomer generation "progressive" want to see who is the primary cause for the "Assault on Reason" they can look in the mirror. Since the 1960s politics for these people has always been more about their feelings then reason.
“Paranoid thinking is characterized by:
- Grabbing onto a few pieces of evidence and inflexibly defending them.
- Seiz[ing] onto something regardless of facts to the contrary.
- Seiz[ing] on single pieces of evidence and blow[ing] them out of proportion.
- Ha[ving] victim like tendencies when confronted with evidence to the contrary.”
Don’t you run into that all the time on FR?
I know I do.
Four word summation.
Algore is f’n nuts.
LOL!
1) What is the appropriate temperature for the earth? It has been much warmer and much colder at various times in the earth's history so what temperature should it be?
2)There once was a mile and a half of ice on what is now Central Park in NYC. Was the warming that melted it a good thing or a bad thing and why?
3) The earth is warming, so is the moon, Mars and other celestial bodies. If man is responsible for the earth's temperature, who or what is responsible for the temperature change elsewhere?
Answer those questions, Al and then we'll talk.
The words “Al Gore” are bafr alert.
After Al Gore” nothing more needs to be said.
Nope. But you say you do? Well, how about that...
..And a f'n liar too...
He repeatedly made public claims that TWO BILLION participated in "Live Earth"
The subsequent tabulation from TV ratings and network statistics account for less than 40 million worldwide.
that's a 50 TIMES exaggeration by Gore
Or in other words he actually got only TWO PERCENT of the attendance he claimed..
That shows you the magnitude of the lies he tells.
The phrase “Liberalism is a mental disorder” belongs to Michael Savage.
Pompous and trite... apt adjectives for that perpetual bore, Al Gore.
Gore admits OK to LIE and frighten people to get what you want...............
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/gore_it_is_ok_to_lie_if_you_
“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.....”
Assault on reason indeed, Mr. Gore.
ping
Check out Draconearthsavers.org the only place conservatives can go to save the earth from ALGore. I also need some ideas. So check it out and send them along.
>>Al Gore’s book is a case of the Left projecting it fundamental flaws onto everyone around them.
The man-made global warming flaw is one of the best examples because Gore has succeeded in projecting that specific assault on reason to global consequences.
Has any other hoax ever mobilized so many true believers and self-serving hucksters so quickly for the purpose of picking the pockets of the rest of the world?
In the future the name Gore could become a synonym for hoax. More importantly, how he succeeded in fooling some of the people for so long a time will be studied by those of us who seek to prevent it and by those who want to apply it for their own Brave New 1984 scams.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
NOT TO MENTION
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1927324/posts
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