The Global Inkblot Test
As the old joke goes, a
psychiatrist was administering the Rorschach Inkblot Test to a patient. You remember that’s the test where the
patient is asked to look at swirls of ink on a set of cards and tell the doctor
what he sees in each swirl. This particular patient keeps seeing an obscene
picture on each card, until the doctor bursts out, “Don’t you see anything but
obscenities on those cards?” The patient responds, “I can’t help it, doctor.
You’re the one who gave me the pornographic cards.” The joke of course is that
the Rorschach cards are totally without any meaning except that which the
patient puts into them in interpreting them.
I can’t help but think
of that as I read and hear about all the troubles going on around the world. I’ve
been reading and hearing a lot about Ukraine lately, from news articles,
magazines, talking heads on TV and from a talk I attended recently by one of
our former ambassadors there. The West is, depending on one’s point of view,
either steadily eroding Russia’s sphere of influence, which it regards as a
necessary buffer against a Europe that has launched two invasions its way, or
it is struggling to contain an expansionist NovoRussia seeking to regain status
as a superpower. Looked at one way, Putin is being an old-fashioned slavophilic
Tsar, just seeking to consolidate his borders and maintain access to the sea against
what he sees as a northward march by NATO and a “Westernization” of Russia. Another view is of an adventuresome former
KGB agent seeking to re-instigate the Cold War. Another interpretation is of a
valiant new democracy in Ukraine going through its Valley Forge winter,
striving to survive the continual pressure of “King George” Putin. Another is
of a bunch of rascals on both sides milking the situation for their own
individual benefit. One claim is that the recent cease fire is a cynically begotten
failure from the start, another that it is reasonable progress toward a
resolution. Yet another view is that it’s all just a necessary shaking down of
northern Europe after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which will probably
take a quarter-century before each party is reconciled to their situation. Meanwhile,
of course, it’s the common citizen who will suffer through all of whatever it
is.
A similar ambiguity
pervades the Middle East. Each nation there, and its leaders, is a villain, a
hero, or a hopeless dupe, depending on your point of view. The mutual
executions and bombings going on, the continual exchange of threats and insults
between parties too numerous to count , etc., lend an air of unending chaos to
the whole area. And a similar debate goes on about the financial situation in
the EU. Each of the world’s areas these days is a card depicting either
obscenities or angels, depending on your point of view.
One of the insights of
social psychology is that we each construct our own “history” of events and
facts in our lives which leads us to label ourselves as victims, survivors,
successes, failures, etc., and that self-labeling directs our future actions to
perpetuate itself. Victims remain victims, survivors somehow manage to survive.
The psychologist Eric Bern used to say that some people without money are “poor”
while others are “temporarily without funds”; poorness and richness are states
of mind, not factual conditions. So, often, is hostility. An analogous, though obviously not exact,
interpretation can be applied to our views of the various messes around the
world. John McCain seems to sense every
situation as an opportunity for a good fight, John Kerry as an opportunity for
a negotiation. Over time negotiations
may lead to more problem resolutions than do fights, though on occasion fights
are necessary. Viewing yourself, as
Netanyahu seems to, as a permanent target of a permanently hostile Iran does
not lead to resolution other than by total destruction of at least one of the
opponents. Both Israel and Persia have been around a very long time, living
along side each other sometimes amicably – after all, it was Persia which
returned the Hebrews to Israel after their exile by Babylon, and it was Islam
which provided refuge for Jews persecuted in Europe during the Middle Ages; it’s
quite unlikely that either party will disappear. Current hostilities will pass;
it’s a matter of how best to make that happen. The new Finance Minister of Greece
has been described as a highly skilled professional making inroads into a
disastrous European financial mess, or as an idiot on a fools errand, depending
on which school of economics claims your allegiance. The same can be said for Angela Merkel.
In short, we the
people, whose views will shape the preferences of the decision makers, are
being administered a kind of global Rorschach Test. What we see says as much or
more about who we are as it does about what is actually going on. The lives of
millions, and of our grandchildren, will be shaped by the images we see in
highly ambiguous situations and events. Look closely, and don't be distracted by the shouting. This is a test we don’t want to flunk.
