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Obama's Ancient Leadership Style (Psycho-analysis from a parallel universe)
Psychology Today ^ | November 21, 2008 | Christopher Ryan

Posted on 09/14/2009 8:41:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

In an earlier post, we wrote a bit about the differences between modern politics and the approach taken by our pre-agricultural ancestors. When thinking about these issues (modern vs. pre-ag), it's important to understand that while our experience of the modern is (obviously) more immediate, the experience of those who lived in that long dawn before agriculture was far more lasting, and thus is more likely to find reflection in our deepest patterns of thought and feeling. If we agree that our species, modern Homo sapiens came into being around 200,000 years ago, and the earliest evidence of agriculture is from around 10,000 years ago, our species has spent 95% of our time on this planet living as hunter-gatherers. If you add in all the generations of pre-modern humans, the numbers go even higher.

So, while the experiences of a hunter-gatherer no doubt seem remote to you, understand that you carry the accumulated effects of those experiences in the deepest recesses of your mind, body, and spirit.

In our earlier post, we quoted an anthropologist who had lived with and studied the !Kung San people of the Kalahari desert, in Africa. He's talking about the qualifications of a leader:

"None is arrogant, overbearing, boastful, or aloof. In !Kung terms these traits absolutely disqualify a person as a leader and may engender even stronger forms of ostracism. Another trait emphatically not found among traditional camp leaders is a desire for wealth or acquisitiveness. Their accumulation of material goods is never more, and is often much less, than the average accumulation of the other households in their camp."

When you look at leadership among h/g societies, what you find is that nobody can "sieze power." How can you control people who each have free access to everything they need? Food, water, shelter, companionship -- all are there for the taking in h/g existence. The result of this is that coercive power -- a form of power so ubiquitous in modern societies that we often forget it is merely one type of power -- is impractical. Nobody becomes a leader because they demand the position; someone becomes a leader when the others decide that he or she is someone they want to follow. In these societies, leadership is based on a bond of trust, humility, and sincerity -- not to mention the intellectual superiority to make wise decisions.

Watching the Obamas being interviewed on 60 Minutes the other night, we had the unmistakable sensation that we were in the presence of real people. Not made-for-TV political products, but honest, sincere, open, loving people. If you've spent time analyzing marriages at all, you see immediately that these two people love and respect each other deeply. It's not an act.

Look at how much pleasure they take in their shared history, laughing about the old car he drove when they first met, or the dismal apartment he had, full of last night's pizza and empty beer bottles. Notice the respectful-but-unimpressed immediacy with which Michelle laughingly challenges Barack when he says he washes dishes ("Like when?") -- too quick to be faked, too organic to be coached in or out of their presentation of self.

I (CPR) grew up in a culture poisoned by assassinated and persecuted heroes, senseless slaughter in Vietnam, the lies of Watergate, the polyester idiocy of disco. It was a culture that ridiculed Jimmy Carter for wearing a sweater and daring to suggest that America should rethink our approach to energy consumption and maybe adopt the metric system while we're at it.

Well, we taught that stupid peanut farmer (with a PhD in nuclear physics, but still...) a lesson by electing a real hero in a landslide. Our hero told us that we didn't have to change. We're America! Let the world change.

But the real hero turned out to be a fake cowboy who was nothing but a front man for a corporate/political machine that had finally consummated the marriage of politics and marketing. The powers behind Reagan understood that at least 51% of the American people would buy even the emptiest, ugliest crap if you had the right spokesman and the right pitch. So they had their avuncular "cowboy" out there selling trickle-down economics, Star Wars defense systems, tax cuts and budget deficits, secret arms sales to declared enemies (Iran), and shameless, illegal war against peasants who dared to overthrow a dictator and try to govern themselves (Nicaragua).

As long as the fake cowboy kept chuckling and clearing brush, it kept working.

It worked so well, in fact, that they did it all over again with GWB. But Fake Cowboy 2.0 and his controllers have been such an unmitigated disaster that even that 51% who stay up late at night ordering commemorative coins and sending money to Nigerian princes aren't fooled any more.

But they'll keep trying. Sarah Palin: Fake Cowgirl 1.0.

The point (you've gotta be wondering by now) is this: Obama was elected not because of clever marketing and web-based fund raising (though these were certainly crucial), but because he embodies the most basic, ancient requirements of a true leader. He inspires admiration, trust, and the desire to be led by him. He's clearly a superior human being without a superior attitude. He's the kind of guy who could outrun you by far but slows down so he won't make you look bad (ask Joe Lieberman).

I admit it. I'm 46 years old and Barack Obama is the first American leader I've seen who makes me want to follow.

****

Christopher Ryan, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher, and author. Together with Cacilda Jethá, M.D., he is a co-author of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (to be published by HarperCollins in 2010). They live together in Barcelona, Spain.


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: anthropology; barackobama; bho44; bush; elitism; michelleobama; obama; palin
Stunningly delusional, paragraph after paragraph.

Oh, President Carter does not have a Ph.D. in anything. He has a bachelors degree from the U.S. Naval Academy.

1 posted on 09/14/2009 8:41:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Speaking as a grizzled veteran psychologist, I promise you that "Psychology Today" has as much to do with psychology as the People's Democratic Republic of Korea has to do with democracy.

They publish on a par with grocery store checkout women's magazines and drugstore self-help paperbacks. If you want to read this drivel be assured it is for entertainment purposes only, like astrology, and not to be taken seriously.

2 posted on 09/14/2009 8:47:32 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (truth--the liberal's kryptonite.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
So, while the experiences of a hunter-gatherer no doubt seem remote to you, understand that you carry the accumulated effects of those experiences in the deepest recesses of your mind, body, and spirit.

What is this Jungian drivel?
3 posted on 09/14/2009 8:48:11 PM PDT by Rodebrecht (Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The author must click when he speaks.


4 posted on 09/14/2009 9:15:25 PM PDT by ModelBreaker
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To: Rodebrecht
Well, he's sort of right:

"Obama was elected not because of clever marketing and web-based fund raising (though these were certainly crucial), but because he embodies the most basic, ancient requirements of a true leader. He inspires admiration, trust, and the desire to be led by him."

Obama is a demagogue.

I'm breathlessly awaiting Dr. Ryan, PHD's (did I mention he had a PHD?) upcoming book. No mere PHD,he:
"co-author of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality" Imagine that, parallels between cavemen and modern metro-sexuals:

"let me see, was thirsty, got something to drink.
was hungry, found some food.
Needed a place and here's a cave.
What's next? I still don't feel fulfilled. Hmmmmmmmm...

Oh yeah! I'm horny!!!

5 posted on 09/14/2009 9:23:34 PM PDT by tsomer
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Notice the respectful-but-unimpressed immediacy with which Michelle laughingly challenges Barack when he says he washes dishes ("Like when?")

Even Michelle Obama says You Lie!

In a loving way.
6 posted on 09/14/2009 9:33:02 PM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Barry’s male identity was molded by his radical Muslim step-father, Lolo Soetoro. Lolo ruled his household with an authoritarian fist. Barry learned from his father the rule of the jungle: “Men take advantage of weakness in other men.”


7 posted on 09/14/2009 9:35:27 PM PDT by jonrick46 (The Obama Administration is a blueprint for Fabian Socialism.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I admit it. I'm 46 years old and Barack Obama is the first American leader I've seen who makes me want to follow.

Er Christopher, it's spelled "fellatio"

8 posted on 09/14/2009 9:41:28 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy ("Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's ACORN" - pace Auric Goldfinger)
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide

I added the same comment to the article. Let’s see how long it stays there.


9 posted on 09/14/2009 9:44:14 PM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And people wonder why psychologists and psychiatrists are crazy?


10 posted on 09/14/2009 10:23:50 PM PDT by Nosterrex
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; All
"Born in Arizona,
moved to Patagonia,
funky...

Photobucket

11 posted on 09/15/2009 2:50:12 AM PDT by backhoe (All across America, the Lights are going out...)
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