[FRIAM] Republicans need to renew themselves (was: self-care)

Sat Jul 2 19:00:05 EDT 2022

Very helpful, Frank, thank you.

I knew of the book (title is by now almost a meme), but hadn’t read it.  Now as an adult, I know that when psychologists go to visit elementary schools, all that happens in some wider context.  At the time, of course, I didn’t know anything about anything.  I am quite sure, given the timing, that these were the materials the psychologist was drawing on, and that somebody had decided it would be helpful to kids (even in bland and backward Kansas City) to go visit and talk to them sometimes.  Though I think we only ever had one such visit, so they must have let it drop quickly.

Eric

> On Jul 3, 2022, at 7:51 AM, Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> You probably know this but psychiatrist Eric Berne published a book in 1964 called Games People Play.  "Ain't it awful" is one of the games, among dozens of others, that he describes and explains.
> 
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, 
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
> 
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
> 
> On Sat, Jul 2, 2022, 4:43 PM David Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu <mailto:desmith at santafe.edu>> wrote:
> There is a thing my father used to do, which bothered me even as a very young boy, but for which I didn’t have an analysis until I was a lot older and doing such things.
> 
> For any difficult decision, he liked to make bitter scornful faces and say “They’re all bad!”, a kind of game that a psychologist who visited our elementary school once told us has a name, and is called “Isn’t it awful.”  I could have gone up and hugged her for letting me know I wasn’t along in being stuck in a homelife where that was played and hating it.
> 
> My analysis years later was that, since my father wasn’t a very smart man (though he was a very good, giving, and loyal man), and the problems that frustrated him are hard (hence we still live under them all), it was easier to spit on it all, turn his back, and slam the door, than sit with the mess and continue to try to make distinctions. But whether he liked it or not, a bacterium in its tiny world can’t chemotax unless some direction is different from some other. 
> 
> So, against the backdrop of a note with which I agree with quite a lot: 
> 
>> To a person they are cynical amoralists who care nothing about acquiring power and winning the next election.
> 
> How about specific people, like Katie Porter or Stacey Abrams?  Sheldon Whitehouse?  In the system where they work, they seem like people trying to solve concrete problems in good faith.
> 
> And yes, I do acknowledge your statement that you know you are being over-the-top, and that is plenty disclaimer for me to live and let live.
> 
> Still, coming out of the discussion, I think being able to make distinctions is valuable.  
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
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