Deepak Chopra has written a very interesting column on Sarah Palin and the role that the "shadow" side of our national psyche plays in politics today.
When I was enrolled in graduate studies in politics, psychological studies of politics were still referred to. Today, as Chopra notes, the psychological is neglected, much to our loss.
I think Chopra is dead right in noting that Obama is appealing to our "higher" or better selves, what Lincoln in his First Inaugural called the "better angels of our nature" and we tend to resist it.
Obama wants our democracy and our citizen-souls to expand and to turn away from parochialism, chauvanism, and hatred and fear of difference. But in our cynical and cowering age, we resist and in doing so, we turn away not just from others and a larger democratic life together, but also from honoring life itself as a common life that undergirds all of our politics.
