Political slogans are not meant to enlighten but to motivate (and perhaps polarize, intentionally or not), whatever part of the political spectrum from which they originate. In fact, they are often more obfuscatory than revelatory with regard to meaning and reference, serving largely as political signals and markers of political identity that drawn hard and fast lines between “us” and “them.” Arguably, political slogans on the Right exemplify these few salient facts better than those originating from the Left. To take one example, consider the “pro-life” rhetoric of right-wing evangelical opponents of abortion (and sometimes euthanasia) and their fellow travelers (many Catholics and putative conservatives). How is it that people who are, generally speaking (hence we can find exceptions to the rule), fanatic activists for “gun-rights,” perfervid militaristic patriots (they can be counted on to support all manner of militaristic adventurism and war), religious (and often ethnic) nationalists (ethno- and religious nationalism being the most dangerous and violent species of contemporary nationalism), against the Welfare State (whatever form it takes, the liberal version in the U.S. the weakest and stingiest of the available forms), against COVID vaccinations and preventative public health measures (the wearing of masks the most conspicuous and effective example of same), for the death penalty, and so forth and so on (when it comes to foreign policy, they prefer ‘dirty hands’ to clean ones). In brief, the slogan “pro-life” encompasses very little of what we might naturally or intuitively (and often should) think constitutes pro-life and thus not its converse, which it conceals and which in fact better symbolizes or represents a political worldview orientation that is relentlessly regressive and anti-democratic.
Thus pro-life rhetoric might be considered to incarnate and exemplify ideology ridden with contradictions and debilitating psychological phenomena for individuals and groups along a spectrum exhibiting episodic denial and self-deception, to chronic illusions and delusions (or simply pathological phantasies), some of these emblematic of psychosis. Without going into Freud’s controversial argument for a “death drive,” which is more suggestive and provocative than it is precise and explanatory (be it for mental repetition or human aggression), it does seem to be the case that what is ostensibly “pro-life” is, all things considered, “pro-death,” or exemplifying something akin to a death-drive (Trieb), be it analogically or metaphorically rendered. Loosely, the following mental states, emotions, and activities are said in one way or another to be suggestive of the death drive: a fear of falling apart or fragmentation or disintegration; destructiveness, including self-destructiveness (e.g., self-harming and suicide), intransigent hostility to the outside world or “reality;” envy; sadism; and strong, especially or peculiarly aggressive libidinal desires. Thus this death drive can be directed inward and/or outward, separately or simultaneously. This may amount, in the end, to a universal (unconscious or subconscious) wish or desire for the “the solace of dissolution” (Stephen Frosh). The death drive cannot be reduced, however, to a “lust for destruction and hate” if only because it enables if not moves us to think more about “those things cannot easily be wished away, but keep returning to plague us until we find ways of [satisfactorily] dealing with them—sadness and loss, failure and trauma, war and unbearable suffering,” as well as less dramatic cognitive and psychological phenomena from cognitive dissonance to dispositional vices (or ‘deadly sins’) and “the passions.” In Freudian terms, “pro-life” should mean what Freud conceptualized as the life drive or Eros,* having to do with the force of love, that is, the “libidinal energy that elaborates life and fuels the capacity of humans to come together to create and procreate,” and which “can be harnessed in opposition to destructiveness.”
I should add that one should not attempt to infer my views about abortion from this post, as these are shaped by Buddhism and do not line up with either of the typical expressions of “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” while acknowledging the law is not always appropriate for the enforcement of morality or ethics, despite conceding that abortion involves the taking of a life (and thus often but not invariably is an immoral or ‘evil’ act, one that includes mitigating factors) and thus has karmic consequences. I hope to post more on this later but should one be curious, please see Peter Harvey’s discussion in the chapter on “abortion and contraception” in his book, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2000): 311-352.
* See, for example, Jonathan Lear’s Love and Its Place in Nature: A Philosophical Interpretation of Freudian Psychoanalysis (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1990) as well as a slightly different take on “love” in Freudian psychoanalysis proffered by Ernest Wallwork’s Psychoanalysis and Ethics (Yale University Press, 1991).
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