Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Rush Limbaugh And Pat Robertson Both

Juan Cole 10/12/2003

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson

Both far rightwing commentators Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson have been in the news this weekend. Limbaugh, of course, is going into rehab to try to kick his addiction to prescription painkillers. Robertson agreed with the sentiment that the US State Department should be “nuked.”

I think Limbaugh’s addiction problems are symptomatic of the far Right. It depends on feeling and spreading hatred, especially for those who are not sufficiently “self”, and are too much involved in or like the “Other.” Limbaugh’s racist comments about an African-American quarterback being “given a pass,” his jibes against “femi-Nazis,” and other male chauvinist sentiments, and his xenophobia or hatred of foreigners, all characterize him as an American Nationalist if we understand that latently such American Nationalism is coded as “white” and “male.” Hating the “Other” is always a sign of an inferiority complex. It is often forgotten that Adler’s concept of an inferiority complex did not concern wimpy nerds; it was an explanation for bullying behavior. Limbaugh’s inferiority complex drives his addictive personality at the same time it impels him to feel insecure about others who differ from him, racially, gender-wise, or ideologically. Only by gaining a secure and healthy sense of his own self, only by coming to see that he does not need to depend on numbing his insecurities with drugs, could he hope to attain the interior peace and self-confidence that would allow him to embrace and love the French, African-Americans, and lesbians.

Likewise, Robertson’s hatred of the State Department derives from his perception that it is dedicated to making compromises with the Other. His deep internal insecurity makes him see such compromises as threatening to the integrity of his own fragile Self. His desire to see a mushroom cloud blossom over Foggy Bottom, a desire which joins him ideologically to al-Qaeda, is a way for him to forestall any temptations he has to compromise with others, since he fears compromise will humiliate him and cause his ego to collapse. Again, the only real cure to this neurosis, which is apparently taking on apocalyptic proportions, would be for him to feel good about himself. This may require that he abandon Calvinist theology, which typically glories in self-denigration, and adopt a more positive, humanist outlook. It is also possible that studying with a well-grounded and mature personality like the Dalai Lama would allow him to forsake his explosive fury toward the pin-striped, which is rooted in self-hatred.

For a less tongue in cheek use of the same concepts see

http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:4fww5bz1whsJ:

home.iprolink.co.nz/~felicity/Racism-L-Jo-Moore.pdf+

Inferiority+Complex+Psychiatry+racism&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....