Voting at the Bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Voting for Our Bodies. …. And Our Souls
We used to have the luxury of voting for candidates based on a variety of issues like foreign policy, healthcare, immigration, education, economic policy, (“It’s the economy, Stupid!), and values. Many simply vote a straight party ticket without feeling a need to scrutinize. That has changed for many in this past election with cross-party voting driven by bodily concerns that trump lifelong held values. [1]
Many Republicans voted Democratic to keep government out of reproductive decisions after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Many Democrats left the party and/or voted Republican to oppose mandates, masks, lockdowns, school policies Covid spikeshots, surveillance, and social control under the guise of “vaccine” passports. (See The Vaccine Passport and the Dynamics of Domination). Many also moved to Texas and Florida in order to live more freely.
We are being forced into a terrible choice of whether to vote for the cells of our bodies and health of our grandchildren or for our party, values and other policy positions. Many of us have been driven to the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, prioritizing our immediate physiological survival and physical safety over other enduring principles.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maybe you don’t have to be a Baby Boomer to know Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which emerged at the dawn of humanistic psychology and the human potential movement. Maslow theorized that humans are motivated towards self-actualization, but that basic needs must first be satisfied.
The first four levels are considered deficiency needs (D-needs). Deprivation of deficiency needs motivates people to fulfill these needs. When satisfied, D needs go away and people can focus on higher needs. The highest level is referred to as growth or being needs (B-needs) motivated by a desire to grow and self-actualize.
It is not absolute that every need must be 100% satisfied in order to focus on higher needs. We can fluctuate between the levels through crises and growth.
For our purposes here, voting for physiological needs includes protection of our bodies from being injected with mRNA, lipid nanoparticles and undisclosed toxic ingredients, protecting every organ, and every cell of our bodies, and specifically reproductive organs and future generations from alteration, illness, impairment and destruction.
Safety needs include a degree of predictability, trust in public institutions, and basic needs, including financial security, freedom of movement, a stable school system, social networks and a social life we can count on. The lockdown completely stripped away the entire social fabric of our lives.
For many of us, having reached adulthood, hopefully some maturity and personal growth before this crisis, as opposed to children requiring basic needs to build a foundation for their health, social, psychological and cognitive development, this challenge to our survival needs can provide opportunities that stimulate our self-actualization.
While confronting terrifying threats to our very survival, we are challenged to accelerate our development to evolve psychologically, socially and spiritually, to develop new capacities, to form new kinds of allinaces in order to secure our most basic needs for bodily autonomy, cellular integrity, harmony with nature and the survival of our species.
Strange Political Bedfellows -
Covid was deliberately, artificially and falsely politicized as a Republican/Democrat issue by design. Pitting us against each other creates a distraction from the true causes and hidden power players that allows the powers that be to exploit us. We expend physical and psychic energy and resources fighting the wrong enemy and preventing us from making vital alliances. See Let’s You and Him Fight: Can We Overcome a Manipulated Conflict?
"I knew I couldn’t kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But if I could get them to kill each other …". — Colonel Helmut Zemo, Captain America: Civil War
Sadly, there is no shortage of infighting in the health freedom movement that undermines, sabotages and sets back our ability to collaborate to overcome and transcend the actual forces of darkness.
Every Democrat, Green, Independent or Libertarian who questioned the official narrative and/or refused the injections was called some version of a selfish, dangerous, crazy, right wing, Republican, Trump supporter, seduced by propaganda. Many of us progressives found ourselves rejected, disrespected and demonized by lifelong friends, family and colleagues who used to love and even admire us. We all became simultaneously stupid overnight.
We found ourselves newly aligned with strange, formerly abhorred bedfellows who are allies on health freedom while adversaries on other issues. It can feel psychologically disruptive, in a good way, to disturb simplistic categories that have been so neat and easy. They didn’t require us to think deeply.
This is not exactly cognitive dissonance, an inner contradiction between one’s own behavior and beliefs, ideals, modes of thought. Maybe it’s social, political dissonance as we are challenged with holding strong positive and negative views of people.
It is more complicated since people’s beliefs may not reflect their true character at the core of their being, but are successfully manipulated by lies, fear and the most sophisticated $10 billion propaganda campaign designed by social scientists with another billion to unify all media messaging and censor alternative views. .
Many of us progressives are astonished at the Democratic party’s abandonment of values and their new groupthink, mindless acceptance of convincing nonstop existential fear propaganda, vulnerability to manipulation and automatic refusal to question anything.
Senator Ron Johnson’s Hearings
Republican Senator Ron Johnson is the only congressmember, R or D, willing to hold roundtables with leading doctors, scientists, lawyers, Covid spikeshot “vaccine” injured or killed victims and their families.
Johnson’s stellar 3-hour December 7, 2022 hearing featured many of the best people in the world. Their collective interdisciplinary knowledge, experience and investigations paint an irrefutable, coherent picture of what is going on.
3-hour roundtable
COVID-19 Vaccines: What They Are, How They Work and Possible Causes of Injuries
42-minute highlights
https://rumble.com/embed/v1xvbmg/?pub=px9ck
10 minutes of excerpts
https://thehighwire.com/videos/inside-the-capitol-hill-covid-forum/
Here are summaries by Josh Mitteldorf, an old and new friend and ally.
An all-star panel describes the opposition's view of the pandemic
Vaccine mechanisms, vaccine injuries, and implications for our future
Many former Democrats raised money for Ron Johnson’s senate campaign even though he supports policies against their other values. See THE RADICALIZATION OF DEMOCRATS by my new Substack friend and colleague, Michelle Rabin.
Is there something inherent in the psychology of Democrats that prevents every congressmember from even watching Ron Johnson’s roundtables, let alone holding one of their own? (To be fair, I don’t know whether any Republican congressmembers watched it or showed up either). Is there some reason why in previous Senate hearings only Republicans dared ask the Covid Committee questions about natural immunity or lab origins of the virus? What is wrong with the Dems that they can’t even ask about natural immunity which has been understood since the Peloponnesian wars? They mindlessly accept the new party line and conform to their colleagues despite contradictory evidence coming out of the woodwork.
A Fluke of History
I can imagine different accidents of history in which party positions on Covid policies could have been flipped. Political hysteria and election trauma has been escalating for a long time with backlashes after each presidential election. Clinton’s defeat of Papa Bush, helped by Ross Perot’s spoiler effect, was humiliating and fueled the Project for a New American Century. That fueled energy that led to the stolen election of W, by a 5 – 4 Supreme Court vote and the invasion of Iraq. Obama’s victory triggered humiliation and the Tea Party movement to “take our country back.” Trump’s presidency for a variety of political and personality reasons polarized the country further and heightened extreme emotions.
What the Democrats’ experience as “Trump Anxiety Syndrome,” is viewed by Republicans as “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” While Democrats had legitimate worries about Trump’s policies, like withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA) and the INF Treaty, appointing Supreme Court justices, putting children in cages, etc., they seem compelled to mindlessly reject 100% of everything Trump advocates with zero thought or discernment.
I also thought it was a good thing Trump met with Kim Jung Un to diffuse “fire and fury,” although it did not ultimately succeed, possibly influenced Democratic pressure to remain punitive which undermined diplomacy.
Most Democrats felt compelled to disparage everything Trump did, even if positive, not the least of which was the original plan to involve RFK, Jr on a vaccine safety commission.
Then Trump became conveniently identified with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a safe early treatment for Covid. We know that Ivermectin and other early treatments were suppressed in order to pass Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and to promote the Covid spikeshots, but HCQ, promoted by Trump acquired special status, becoming a new target for ridicule and a butt of jokes on late night comedy. It would take anyone 5 minutes to look up HCQ and see that is has been around for 80 years, is on a list of safe drugs and is used effectively around the world. But that’s also true for IVM. (See my first Substack article, censored on Medium, Open Letter and Challenge for Rachel Maddow IVERMECTIN: Truth or Consequences)
Compulsory Mutual Disparagement
Both parties engage in thoughtless disidentification, or identification in opposition, like a two-year old. Both parties, epitomized by FOX News and MSNBC, participate in a relentless dynamic I call “compulsory mutual disparagement™.” Every show, which I stopped watching, is infused with a constant tone of moral superiority, contempt, and disdain for the other in every detail. Rationales and warped logic are employed to justify rejection of ideas that may actually be sound and mutually beneficial.
The tone itself is psychologically harmful to our culture. Both parties have become like cartoons, simplistic and lacking in depth, complexity and connection with reality. The two party, winner-take-all system promotes dualistic thinking and cognitive short cuts.
Beyond All-or-Nothing
There are many brilliant leaders in the health freedom movement whose scientific or analytical work has value, but as soon as they bash the other party, political figures or “isms”, either way, they lose me and others they might otherwise reach. I stop listening to them and shift my attention to many leaders who are vibrating at a higher frequency.
Even if the criticism is valid and deserved, politicization is neither necessary nor helpful. It lowers the tone of discourse, drives people away. There may be a different place for that but it interferes with reaching our goal.
On the other hand, I have to deal with appreciating Tucker Carlson’s and Laura Ingraham’s coverage of health freedom although I can’t stand their attitudes, tone and disdain on almost every other topic. I can “like” them one moment and have a negative visceral reaction to the next story.
Progressive Democrats like Naomi Wolf, and doctors like Malone, McCullough and everyone else would love to appear on CNN or MSNBC who won’t have them so they have no choice but to appear on FOX, with Steve Bannon and Alex Jones, which increases guilt by association. I hope it also helps to humanize Democrats for FOX’s audience – a good thing.
Likewise, it is beneficial for Democrats like Bobby Kennedy and progressives like Meryl Nass and exhibit a warm, respectful relationship with brilliant people like James Corbett. I hope it softens their rigidity and caricatures of Democrats and progressives. Previously, Corbett lost me in an otherwise excellent video when he said “feminists hate men” and called Democrats communists, if I recall correctly. I hope he has transcended that. We need his mind and body of work, uncontaminated by partisanship.
Getting beyond concrete black-and-white, us/them, all-or-nothing thinking is a good thing, whatever it takes. This dilemma containis opportunities humanize each other, and ourselves, and to find new common ground.
Getting past our dualism is a key to our survival. It can be awkward and disconcerting to be aligned with people on some issues whom we oppose on others. Mixing things up here and there, bit by bit can soften the rigid boundaries, open space for reflection and allow us to recognize the primary sources and driving forces of our division.
Psychological Maturity and the Capacity to Tolerate Ambiguity
Tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity and situations that are not clear cut and have different interpretations is a sign of psychological maturity, health and well-being. It allows for flexibility, creative problem-solving and the ability to function optimally amidst uncertainty.
Outside the Boxes: Political Mindfulness
I dislike both cartoonish, simplistic, mindless parties and the two-party system which has a huge impact on the American psyche’s destructive, dualistic mindset. Although a lifelong Democrat with sympathies for the Green Party and DC Statehood, I consider myself independent and post partisan. I recommended that we all live outside the boxes in Declaration of Independents!
We have a “psychodemic™” of mindlessness. I pick a box to live in, R or D. The box I chose, or that I was born into defines my attitudes and beliefs and my feelings towards people in the other box. I automatically believe in all the elements inside my box (small government, law taxes, anti- choice, pro-military spending, etc.) or its opposites. Each box is a model with internally consistent beliefs about what it means to be a good or strong human, attitudes, and policies. George Lakoff studied the relationship of these policies to worldview in Moral Politics.
Collective Self-Actualization
While voting for our bodies, our cells, and future generations, we are challenged to evolve and self-actualize together. We are simultaneously at the bottom and the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Breaking up the black-and-white, all-or-nothing, simplistic worldview is a beginning. Recognizing that we are being pitted against each other is necessary for us to form alliances we need to survive. Mixing things up can begin to break up the rigidity that imprisons us and will lead to further, irreversible enslavement. There is much hard work ahead, but let’s stop digging ourselves deeper into the hole. Let’s give some breathing space beyond mutual provocation that can allow for new energy to emerge.
Let’s begin with intentionally, deliberately, consciously tolerating ambiguity and transcending limiting thought forms so we can better work our way out of this trap.
Transcending Duality, Creating a Third Thing: Jung’s Theory of the Transcendent Function[1]
Carl Jung’s theory of the Transcendent Function is considered the most significant factor which mediates the opposites. “It is a natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites.” We can extend this concept from individual psychology to collective psychology and our challenge for collective self-actualization.
Like the dialectic “thesis, antithesis, synthesis” Jung posited that mediating the tension between opposites, rather than splitting apart, “the confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing ….. a movement out of the suspension between the opposites, a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation.” P 90 The Transcendent Function Jung's Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious, by Jeffrey C. Miller
Quotes from Vehicle of Psychic Change Emilija Kiehl
“The transcendent function enables a transition from one psychological attitude to another through a dialectical process of integrating the psyche’s conscious and unconscious contents into a third position, which constitutes a new step in the evolution of personality.”
Our consciousness and the unconscious are in a relationship of dynamic opposition, which can be conflictual or creative. When creative, the resulting psychic tension sets in motion “the remarkable capacity for change of the human soul” (Jung, Collected Works 7, par. 360), which fosters the unfolding of the self and its differentiation from the collective. In other words, the transcendent function provides the individual line of development by facilitating creative solutions to the tension between the collective and personal conscious and the collective and personal unconscious contents.
As the engine of psychic change, the transcendent function does not operate only in the realm of tension of the opposites but also in the very yearning within the self’s drive towards wholeness, where conscious and unconscious elements of the psyche are in a relationship of complementarity and compensation. Here the transcendent function mediates and facilitates a fusion between the inner and outer experiences, their real and imaginary, and rational and irrational aspects so that they can be assimilated into the personality. 1
1 For the “mechanics” of the transcendent function, see Miller, J. (2004), p. 47.
The archetypal root of the transcendent function stems from our primary instinct for connection and relatedness. The disparate objects of our internal and external worlds and the different levels of our experience of abiding in both these worlds are connected, bridged by the transcendent function.
Here are some quotes from the book The Transcendent Function Jung's Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious, by Jeffrey C. Miller
“ ..the Transcendent Function is crucial to the central mission of depth psychology, which is to access, explore, and integrate the unconscious and thereby apprehend the deeper meanings of soul.”
“A psychic function that arises from the tension between consciousness and the unconscious and supports their union.
DP – the ego here is the aspect of consciousness that instead of keeping the opposites apart by collapsing to one side of the duality or the other, can mediate between the opposites and make the unconscious conscious, thereby expanding ego consciousness,
“From the activity of the unconscious there now emerges a new content, constellated by thesis and antithesis in equal measure and standing in a compensatory relation to both. It thus forms the middle ground on which the opposites can be united. … The ego, however, torn between thesis and antithesis, finds in the middle ground its own counterpart, its sole and unique means of expression, and it eagerly seizes on this in order to be delivered from its division. [“Definitions,” Jung’s Collected Works 6, par. 825.]
If the mediatory product remains intact, it forms the raw material for a process not of dissolution but of construction, in which thesis and antithesis both play their part. In this way it becomes a new content that governs the whole attitude, putting an end to the division and forcing the energy of the opposites into a common channel. The standstill is overcome and life can flow on with renewed power towards new goals. [Jung’s Collected Works 6 par. 827.]
Conclusion
I am just adding the Transcendent Function an hour after posting. When I began writing this, I did not know where it would end up. The opposites of physiological survival and safety and self-actualization, individual and collective transformation turn out to be one and the same.
We have been collapsing too much to one side or the other of the right/left opposite. We cannot get there from here. We need to transcend the opposites and create a new energy, content, consciousness. We need to all vibrate at a higher frequency.
I hope this provides a bit of a roadmap to guide us on ways to emerge from the powerful forces of division.
[1] Samuels, Andrew, Shorter, Bani, Plaut, Fred, A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 198
Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
— Coleman Barks’ translation of Rumi
And from Einstein
“The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done thus far creates problems we cannot solve at the same level we created them.”
"There's been a quantum leap technologically in our age, but unless there's another quantum leap in human relations, unless we learn to live in a new way towards one another, there will be a catastrophe."
[1] For better and for worse, I live in Washington, DC so I do not have to face the challenge of voting for a congressmember with conflicting values.
Thank you Diane! very important to be aware of the dualistic trap being set for us continually in various forms to deter us from rejecting, individually and collectively, the greed-driven tyranny that hinders our ability to take that quantum leap in human relations.
Wise words. Thank you.