opinion

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Jackson, The "yes" campaign plays junior shrink

Playing junior shrink

by Eric Jackson

One of the most juvenile and common of all political errors is the presumption that those whom one opposes take the other side because they are stupid or crazy. Closely allied with this type of thinking is the stereotyping of adversaries’ motives with facile assumptions instead of solid investigation.

Those who explicitly claim the power to read minds are usually charlatans and when this is not the case they are invariably fools. But judges and juries come to conclusions about criminals’ intentions all the time, based upon maxims like the one that holds that a person intends the natural result of his or her actions, and upon evidence of the circumstances surrounding a crime and the perpetrator’s related statements or actions.

Courts also sometimes use the testimony of experts, generally psychiatrists or psychologists, in their attempt to determine the state of mind of one accused of a crime. A good judge, however, will not allow an expert, no matter how well qualified, to testify about the mental state of a person whom he or she has not examined.

Since long before the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan was unveiled on April 24, the “yes” campaign has been characterizing skeptics’ state of mind on a regular basis, and as the October 22 vote approaches it has been doing so with increasing frequency.

An early example took place during the Moscoso administration. The Panama Canal Authority’s (ACP) was at that time vilifying farmers who objected to being displaced as the original canal expansion law contemplated. The ACP said that the farmers were being manipulated by “Zapatistas.” Aside from propagating a paranoid fantasy, the ACP managers and PR flacks were playing “junior shrink” by presuming themselves experts on the human mind and by ruling out the farmers’ ability to think for themselves.

More recently a couple of friends who are on the “yes” side, one a public spokesperson for that campaign, gave fresher examples of the junior shrink game. One opined that former canal administrator Fernando Manfredo’s “problem” lies not in his stated objections to the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan but in the fact that he’s an old man seeking to prove something by “kicking ass” one last time in his life. The other branded the hours I spent reading ACP commissioned studies as “an obsession.” Neither of these people is educated as a psychologist or psychiatrist, nor had the former examined Mr. Manfredo nor had the latter examined me.

The other day in La Prensa we had a medical doctor, one Xavier Sáez Llorens, opine on the mental states of a large part of the growing band of “no” supporters. It’s most instructive to read the epithets the doctor complains are being thrown at himself and other “yes” supporters, his attempted psychoanalysis of a huge part of the Panamanian population whom he has not examined, and some of the underlying assumptions he states. I’m not saying that the man is crazy or stupid, or even entirely wrong --- but his attack on the “no” campaign reveals a political pathology in the “yes” campaign.

Dr. Sáez Llorens complains that “my free decision to give support to the expansion project has awoken shocking rancor among the belligerent 'no' partisans, who euphemistically call me ignorant, stupid, lacking in solidarity, aristocratic, arrogant and a sell-out.” His stand, he assures the readers, is not motivated by “political partisanship, friendships, bribes, adulation, being a protagonist or anxiety to grab a piece of the pie.”

If people on the “no” side have called him the names he lists, that’s unfortunate because it’s no way to win anyone over and because in most instances it would be an exercise in playing junior shrink. I take the doctor at his word about the things that he says have not influenced him.

After allowing that people like former President Jorge Illueca advocate a “rational No” based upon specific concerns, Sáez Llorens goes on to paint most critics of the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan as “irrational” in one of five different ways.

“The political No,” he alleges, comes from people who don’t like the PRD and wouldn’t want to see it benefit from any success, but who would do the same thing that the PRD’s doing now were they rather than the PRD in power.

“The chronic No” is allegedly a defect of individuals who are perennially bitter or incredulous, and oppose everything.

“The pessimistic No” is a matter of “persons who habitually see as half-empty every facet of their lives and are frightened when faced with whatever situation that has risks.”

“The advantageous No,” the doctor assures us, “is typical of labor leaders or some journalists, lawyers or politicians who take advantage of negative discourse to negotiate appointments, obtain bribes or sinecures or obtain governmental privileges.”

And then there’s the “ideological No,” which Sáez Llorens describes as:

… that which opposes any initiative that smells of the free market or economic Darwinism. Its representatives promote a change of the country’s economic system to another that favors state paternalism or the installation of failed models that are out of step with contemporary commercial reality.

And there you have it. According to the junior shrink if you don’t believe in a perversion of the teachings of Charles Darwin that holds Mohandas K. Gandhi to be a pendejo because all of the material possessions he left behind are contained in a little glass case in his old ashram in Ahmadabad; and conversely that people surnamed Motta or Arias or Alemán, or those who happened to be the dictator’s son, are genetically superior both to the Mahatma and to yourself; then something’s wrong with you.

Well, I reject the pseudo-scientific economic Darwinist bigotry that Dr. Sáez Llorens champions and I have no sympathy for him if people call him arrogant or aristocratic for promoting such ideas. I think that the Bible was right about not coveting the things that more fortunate people have, but I also support the class struggle of working people against those who have the temerity to promote themselves into a supposed higher species on the basis of their wealth.

I, too, want a different economic system from the so-called “free market” that has failed the majority of Panamanians and Latin Americans. I’m not for a Soviet-style bureaucracy but I do like MERCOSUR better than NAFTA. I run a micro-business and don’t look to the government for salvation, but I still don’t like the way that Torrijos canceled the rights of tens of thousands of Panamanians to a Seguro Social pension.

And yes, I am part of a relatively small band of Panamanian journalists who haven’t been fired, threatened, sweet-talked, blue-penciled, browbeaten or bought into submission by the “yes” side. I don’t know what planet the doctor is talking about when he supposes that the bread gets buttered on the “no” side.

These things, however, wouldn’t decide my vote on a canal expansion proposal. After all, if it’s a worthy investment for the nation, just because I’m unimpressed by the people in charge now wouldn’t be a good reason to block something that would be of great value come the time when Panama and its canal authority get better leaders. I generally dislike this country’s political and economic elites, but I really wanted to see the president unveil a plan that I could support on its merits.

It turns out, however, that the Torrijos - Alemán Zubieta Plan is a turkey. When the true costs of its construction and the most likely usage trends are taken into account, it becomes a money-losing financial investment. Add the costs of financing that the “yes” campaign omits from the bill and we face the prospect of less money for schools, roads, police and all other public services. The water saving basins would make Gatun Lake brackish. The chosen method to limit this problem, flushing the locks with fresh water from the lake, would defeat the basins’ water saving purpose and get us back to the dilemmas inherent in building new dams to catch the water needed to run an expanded canal.

The plan’s defects are in its financial and technical details, questions about which its proponents refuse to seriously answer. The pretense that the “real” problem is a psychological defect in critics’ minds is just one more evasion of the honest debate that Panamanian voters deserve.

So you want to play junior shrink and psychoanalyze and pigeonhole me, Dr. Sáez Llorens? In that case, we need to talk about medical malpractice. That’s the proper term when a physician comes up with a diagnosis without benefit of a proper examination.