The Psychology of Anger

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The Media Zone
How the media make sense and nonsense of the world

by Stuart Fischoff, Ph.D.

June 3, 2010
The Gulf Coast Nightmare: Technological Hubris and the Anger of Impotence

James Carville is a Democratic Party spokesman, media scourge of the GOP, and former White House Advisor under President Clinton. As he was after Hurricane Katrina, Carville is everywhere on TV news programs, lambasting the White House for what he contends is a failure to act.

Yadda, yadda... But here's the switch. It is Barack Obama not Geotge W. Bush he is inveighing against for not doing enough to staunch the destructive flow of oil into the Gulf and onto the banks, wetlands, breeding grounds, estuaries and beaches of coastal Louisiana and points east of that, all the way onto Florida's Gulf coast.

Louisiana born Carville is beside himself with grief and anger over what is happening to his home town and state and its people, culture and economy , , Much of the damage is being viewed as likely irreversible.

This "ragin' Cajun,"is a passionate, volatile pundit whose political sense is always off beat yet rarely off the mark. But a few nights ago on Anderson Cooper 360°, he was beside himself in his grief, lashing out at anything that moved or, more accurately, didn't move to stop further destruction in the Gulf culture and ecology.

High on his list was the Obama Administration for coming late to the site and leaving too early. From his President he wanted more than a photo op.

On 360, Carville was pleaded for Obama not to return home to Illinois over the Memorial Day holiday, to stay longer than the few days he was already there; to spend more time talking to the people of New Orleans. He wanted Obama and his West Wing posse, people like David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel, to show America that it's safe to eat the shrimp and walk Bourbon Street; to hear the people's stories; to use more heart than brain. In effect, he was entreating the President to be less cool, more symbolic but less abstract.

It also was that he wanted Obama to do something more than he was doing to try and stop the leak; to somehow contain the already horrific magnitude and boggling ramifications of what is now being called the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. He wanted magic.

During this moving and very dramatic sequence at the nation's latest ground zero, Cooper was constantly nodding in agreement with the words and sentiments of Carville, who would vent, look away from the camera, look off into the night, fold his arms and then return to his raging train of thought and to the TV camera.
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Both Cooper and Carville appealed several times to viewers to "come on down," letting them know that New Orleans is still open for business. The seafood is still plentiful and delicious, the restaurants still serving, the night life ongoing. 'Don't cancel your reservations', they implored. 'Keep your date with New Orleans', they implied. 'We need you now more than ever,' was the subtext of all the remonstration.

Clearly, James Carville was disappointed in his President and his administration's handling of this ecological catastrophe. Just as clearly there were comparisons with the failures of the Bush administration's handling of an earlier New Orleans nightmare, Hurricane Katrina.

But with Katrina, it was primarily nature, pure and simple and secondarily with the Army Corps of Engineers' construction of levees and sea walls, and bureaucratic crisis-bumbling at all levels of government.

With the current ecological nightmare the villainy is seen largely in human hubris, human error, compromises on safety procedures and fail-safe mechanisms and outright lies and underestimations of the magnitude of damage and oil gushing by BP, Halliburton, and the rig company, Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling company,

The media expose inceassant sounds and sights of all sides of the equation, everyone pointing fingers of responsibility in order to minimize crushing financial culpability and political damage, with an eye toward November elections.

Thus everyone wants to blame somebody. For Americans, President Obama may be the piñata of choice-after the oil companies and oil riggers. The question is: What can he do that he is not now doing?

Further, what can the government, with all of its resources do that it is not now doing?

Still further, what can anyone do that they're not now doing to stop the oil gushing well over a million gallions a day?

One thing Obama is doing is opening criminal investigation into the oil spill. But can Obama personally stop the oil gushing into the Gulf and continue to threaten all the Gulf Coast states many of which, like Florida, are highly dependent on clean beaches, fishing and tourism. But from what I read on diverse blogs on diverse, non-partisan sites, they believe he can and must do more to staunch the oil flow -- and why is he holding back?

Yet, how does Obama undo the effects of hubris, arrogance, and presumption?

The worst hubris was the belief, delusion or outright lie by BP that it had the skill, knowledge and personnel to handle virtually any magnitude of mishap like the one that we're experiencing--even though they had never before encountered such an underwater, mile-deep into the ocean floor catastrophe.

Secondly, we are now at the mercy of humanity's religious delusion that technology has the answer to all problems, from the sky above to the mud below, The list is endless yet the answers few.

We are frustrated over the failure of our technologies. The experts in government or in the oil industry seem to have no answer to who'll stop the rain; no clear sense of what the long and short term consequences of the oil calamity will be; no control over the added nightmare that the start of the Gulf hurricane season could make attempts to ultimately stop or contain the oil flow incalculably more difficult. That's really frightening.

So, people search for an answer to their anxiety.

After 9/11, George Bush told Americans to go shopping. Like an even more deluded, retreaded Howard Beale, Bush warned Americans that, in effect, if we don't rise from our chairs, leave our psychological bunkers and go shopping, the enemy has won; it will have maimed the capitalist spirit. By the miracle of shopping we stop the enemy in his subversive tracks.

Really, he said that, as it were. He also assured us that it was medically safe to move back into the area of the Twin Towers site (although scientists from the EPA and OSHA said quite otherwise). That would keep the economy of NYC from foundering on the heels of the 9/11attack.

Isn't that what James Carville is asking fellow Americans to do? Come down to New Orleans, spend money, support the economy. It's still a terrific place to visit.

Really, he said that.

But why would someone do that when the smell of oil and dispersant is pervasive as is the smell of dead animals and birds and rotting plant material. The prospect is that the tragic devastation of a once beautiful ecology will only worsen in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Curiously, and as it was for lower Manhattan, even months after 9/11, you can see the disaster, while you can see the growing Gulf Coast devastation around the clock on cable news. You can see it but you can't smell it.

What you can't smell through the TV, though, you most certainly can smell in most Gulf coastal areas as the oil's reach inland through waterways expands and will likely even accelerates should the hurricane season commence in earnest.

So yeah, like Carville said, come on down.

Not really. Not unless you're coming down to help save animal and marine life.

James Carville is just one despairing man. But he speaks for hundreds of thousands of Louisianans. He speaks for their luckless, seeming never-ending misery and outrage. We understand that his invitation is from his heart, not his mind.

Like Carville, at this moment, we are captive helpless, frightened, IMPOTENT bystanders.

The increasing face and embodiment of this impotency-inducing disaster is Barack Obama. The buck stops in the oval office, as it has for so many presidents. Unlike Bush, though, Obama has no evil Dr. Evil Cheney to distract and divert the fury and revenge lust, no Karl Rove to play Iago to Obama's President Othello. Ironically, in the game of blame, Obama's image as smart against Bush's dull, will work against him as well. If he's so smart, why can't he fix things? Those from whom we expect the most fall the farthest in disappointment or failure.

President Obama is only a man, not a Superman. Unlike Bush, though, Obama has no evil Dr Evil Cheney to distract and divert the fury and revenge lust, no Carl Rove to play Iago to Obama's Othello. Ironically, in the game of blame, Obama's image as smart against Bush's dull, will work against him as well. If he's so smart, why can't he fix things? Those from whom we expect the most fall the farthest in disappointment or failure.He cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound, he cannot run faster than a speeding bullet cannot close a crack in the ocean's earth.

For that, he will most certainly be punished. Sadly, so will America in the next election.