Suffering, the other, and a Vote for Trump

As the current political environment in the United States swings towards a totalitarian orientation (Arendt, 1948/2004; Ellenberger, 1970; Sullivan, 2016; Z. Williams, 2017; R. Williams, 2016), it is important to critically examine the dialectic between politics and psychoanalysis. Goggin and Goggin (2001) were correct to point out that the relevant question is not only how political should psychoanalysis be in practice, if at all, but also, “What conditions in a society or political system nurture and support the profession and practice of psychoanalysis, and what conditions hinder it?” They and others, such as Danto (2005), demonstrate that psychoanalysis thrived in liberal to socialist-leaning environments, where it was free to offer its services to all, regardless of race, religion, and economic status; where academic environments were inclusive and accessible; and where healthcare, including mental healthcare, was widely available. On the flip side, it suffered in fascist and authoritarian regimes (Goggin & Goggin, 2001; Kuriloff, 2013). Regardless of the challenges psychoanalysis might face in coming years, the unconscious mind cannot now be un-thought. The idea of internal motivational forces contained within but beyond the control of the body, whether an individual body or a societal body, will persist into an uncertain future.

Regarding what effect the discovery of the unconscious mind would have upon human nature and politics, early psychoanalysts were quite hopeful. They imagined a world in which drives were recognized and provided with appropriate outlets, allowing creativity and harmony to flourish (Goggin & Goggin, 2001; Danto, 2005), in addition to simply creating a political body capable of loving and working without neurotic misery. Curiously, in the 1932 correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud titled “Why War?” (Einstein, Freud, & Gilbert, 1939), Freud seemed to sell his own theories short. He seemed to forge