[Peace-discuss] Psychoanalysis instead of politics

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Having just posted a glancing comment about MCain's psychology, I'm in 
danger of neglecting Nick's appropriate warning about "personalizing 
political eras and particular administrations" by posting the following 
article from the Guardian about Bush's favorite painting (attached), 
with comments from four psychoanalysts. (The shrinks' comments 
incidentally seem to me to cry out for shrinkage in return.)  What they 
seem to me to miss is the significance of Bush's seeing the painting to 
be of a lone leader on an arduous path, when Bush has spent his life -- 
education, business, election, governing -- having his jobs done for him 
by others, usually associates of his father; add the punishing mother to 
the unreachable hero father, literally far above him (in an airplane), 
and it's no surprise that he self-medicated so long, and maybe still. 
As Kissinger once said of Bill Clinton, "He does not have the strength 
of character to be a war criminal." (Kissinger denies the comment, and 
the evidence surely supports him.)  --CGE]

	A painting fit for a president
	This is George Bush's favourite work of art.
	He says it's heroic and inspirational.
	But what does it say about him?
	Jonathan Jones considers its artistic merits,
	while four other experts give their view
	Jonathan Jones
	Friday February 1, 2008
	Guardian

Everyone has a picture on the wall with some personal meaning. When the 
art lover in question is George Bush, however, and he can't stop telling 
us all his eccentric views about it, our interest is naturally piqued.

Bush, it seems, has a great passion for a 1916 cowboy scene by WHD 
Koerner that hangs in his office. He loves telling people about its 
significance to him. According to The Bush Tragedy by Jacob Weisberg, 
published next month, when governor of Texas, Bush told staff the 
painting was called A Charge To Keep, a quote from his favourite 
Methodist hymn by Charles Wesley. He urged them to absorb the moral 
lesson of this "beautiful painting of a horseman determinedly charging 
up what appears to be a steep and rough trail. This is us," he said.

Yet a little digging by Weisberg has revealed that the picture in 
question originally portrayed a bad man, not a good man. It was first 
used in the Saturday Evening Post in 1916 to illustrate a story about a 
horse thief, and captioned as a picture of his flight from the law. Only 
later did it illustrate a story about Methodism.

There are a lot of funny things about this story: the art itself isn't 
one of them. Bush's favourite painting comes from a tradition of 19th- 
and early-20th-century art that inspired the later film westerns of John 
Ford. Koerner's painting is a minor but decent example of the genre.

If you think it's kitsch, look again at those sensitively suggested 
smoky mountains, that powerful observation of a horse's motion. It is 
not in itself a shameful thing to love.

Bush's fantastical interpretation of it is another matter. Of course, 
it's unfair to laugh at someone for doing what everyone does when we 
look at art - seeing it his way. You bring the art history books, I'll 
fetch the rope.

Lynne Segal, professor of gender studies
This is such an exhausted cliche of masculinity: the loner on his horse, 
the heroic, old-fashioned western archetype. It is symptomatic of the 
fact that Bush lives in a fantasy world, as many American men do, where 
you can invent a story and place yourself at the centre. You are a hero, 
not just of your own life, but leading others, too.

Yet this solipsistic vision seems so at odds with the knowledge - a 
knowledge that you would expect most of us to have today - that others 
create and shape our world. Instead, this kind of American masculine 
imagery suggests that you have to be not just the first among equals but 
heading the pack, leading the way forward.

Darian Leader, psychoanalyst
The painting itself is fairly dull. What is interesting is that Bush has 
invested a great deal in it, and seems to use it as a symbol of what he 
sees as his own mission. He interprets it as the story of missionaries 
spreading the word of truth and freedom, an impulse that informed the 
invasion of Iraq, when in fact it is a depiction of thieves on the run 
from the law. It's a good example of repression: when we want to avoid 
an unpleasant truth, it has a habit of returning. There is a wonderful 
complement to this in a speech Tony Blair gave to troops in Iraq, during 
which he referred to "weapons of mass distraction". This painting is 
Bush's Freudian slip.

It also seems to illustrate a legacy being passed from father to son. It 
is almost impossible to understand Bush's aspirations without thinking 
of what he saw as the unfinished business of his father. This painting 
suggests that if you want to understand Bush, you need to understand his 
father, and that's a psychological truth that has an impact on world 
politics.

Joanna Bourke, military historian
There is a military feel to this painting. The men are armed and 
obviously fleeing, but the enemy is invisible, hidden in a huge expanse 
of rough, tough landscape. Bush clearly identifies with the main 
character in the painting: he is the leader of men, tough and masculine, 
travelling light with a magnificent animal between his thighs.

The war depicted here is partly against nature. It represents the taming 
of the great frontier. But there's also a clear link to the American 
civil war, and to the battle against the wild Indians: the traditional 
American goodies and baddies. For Bush, the foreign baddies are 
terrorists, both abroad and within. Of course, the irony is that, in the 
painting, the men on horseback are the bandits. Bush is interpreting 
this as a utopian scene, as bandits often do, when in fact what is 
depicted is simple masculine criminality.

Derek Draper, psychotherapist and ex-Labour spin doctor
Bush's mistaken enthusiasm suggests several psychological 
interpretations. The first will most readily appeal to committed 
Bush-haters: it is evidence of his tendency to misread situations and 
confuse right with wrong. A more subtle insight might involve imagining 
Bush's inner world: for so long inhabited by the demons of drink, drugs 
and failure. His mind might resist a too-close-to-home image of a 
troubled man fleeing for his life and have to see instead the strong, 
heroic adventurer he has convinced himself he has become.

Most revealing, though, is the simple fact that a healthy mind would 
look at this image and not be certain what it depicted. Bush, though, as 
he once told Senator Joe Biden, doesn't "do nuance". Instead he 
invariably replaces "not-knowing" with prejudiced certainty. A foolish 
psychological mindset when it comes to art or life; a catastrophic one 
in politics.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

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