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A Differential Poison
Index from the Gallup
Poll

  by: CASPER SCHMIDT
The Journal of Psychohistory, 10(4). Spring 1983

In a previous communication, I devised a quantifiable index for fantasies of poison contained in the leader of a contemporary group, the United States of America.[1] This index was derived from the Gallup Poll by plotting the percentage of the population who expressed disapproval of the way in which the leader was handling his work as president, as opposed to his role as individual. This permitted an interpretation of (a) the roots of the compulsive need of the group to rid itself of a leader from time to time (through regicide, the ritual sacrifice of the king), and how this affected the general feeling of well-being within the group; (b) the unconscious mechanisms of irrational gains in popularity and its inverse (irrational decreases in the amount of poison contained in the leader) which accompany assassinations, military maneuvers, and such; and (c) how group members rid themselves of unresolved unconscious tensions through these ritual events. Earlier anthropologists called these events "rites ofintensification," since they create the feeling that the whole population is unified and acting with a single goal, thus creating a strong sense of purpose for the group members.

Lately the Gallup Poll has become more particularistic, and has started asking questions about 'specific pans of the leadership in a more extensive way than before. In the August 1982 issue of The Gallup Report, for instance, results of this more detailed approach are reported for the Reagan administration so far.[2] In addition to the usual question of "Do you approve or disapprove of the way Ronald Reagan is handling his job as President?" the following question was asked: "Now, let me ask you about specific foreign and domestic problems. As I read off each problem, one at a time, would you tell me whether you approve or disapprove of the way President Reagan is handling that problem.... Economic conditions in this country?"... Inflation?"... Unemployment?"... National defense?"... Foreign policy?"... Relations with the Soviet Union?"... The energy situation?"... Environmental issues?"

This new, detailed assessment of popular feelings seems to me to permit more specific interpretations of the build-up and distribution of poisonous feelings within the body politic and office of the leader than could be achieved in the earlier paper, and I wish to present those here. Unfortunately, further polls beyond August 1982 were not available. Fortunately that presents one with a natural experiment in which predictions can be made, which can then be proven or disproven with the passage of time.

Of these eight questions, two could immediately be excluded from further consideration since they were, in my interpretation, carry-overs from the Carter era ("energy" and "environment"). Even the pollsters could not work up enough enthusiasm about them to ask about them more than twice a year, whereas the others were regularly asked at one or two month intervals (pollsters as part of group process). Evidence that this is so comes from the fact that during 1981 the question about "energy" (which formed such an important part of the fantasy baggage of the Carter era) was asked five times; after that its frequency fell to the same level as ''environment,'' at twice per year. Another one, ''inflation," I excluded since the results of that poll so closely paralleled the ratings for that of" economy." The other five seemed significant, so that I charted them in the same way as the poison indices in the previous article, and reproduce it here (figure 1).

This graph spans 18 months, from the beginning of the Reagan administration until August 1982. The global disapproval rating is shown with a thick, solid line with an arrowhead, whereas the other ratings are shown in various types of discontinuous line or a thin, solid line. Along the ordinal, the percentage of disapproval is shown. Time is plotted at the bottom, along the abscissa. At the top, the phases of the group-fantasy cycle are indicated, as culled from fantasy analysis of the media and presidential language. The cracking stage started in June of 1981, and the collapse stage in May of 1982, around the start of the Falklands War. The end of the collapse stage and the beginning of the upheaval stage can only be predicted within broad parameters and, based on numerous indicators, should occur between the middle and end of 1983; its uncertain position is indicated with dashes.[3]

Figure 1
Differential Posison Index (Reagan Era)

Three events which seem to correlate with changes of direction in the graph have been indicated with arrows: the assassination attempt on Reagan in March, 1981; the Falklands War between England and Argentina in May, 1982; and the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon, followed by the sending of US Marines to Lebanon as part of the peace-keeping force. The internal situation in the US during this period included: the assassination attempt on Reagan; Reaganomics, which had caused widespread misery and masochistic, sacrificial joy within the population ("Voodoo economics'); continuous, unconscious preparation for the possibility of war in Central America, with El Salvador (a convenient pars pro toto) slipping into and out of the media like a shuttlecock; several run-ins with Qaddafi in phallic brags (dogfights over the Mediterranean) and a fantasied invasion by Libyan "death squads" out to kill the president (read: outward displacement of death wishes of the US people towards Reagan); and, with calls for ending the internal sacrifice (Reaganomics and the recession caused by it), several indicators started to show a strong upturn in the economy by the first months of 1983.

Against this backdrop, here given in only the barest bones, we have to interpret this index. (For a complete and penetrating analysis of this period in terms of group psychohistory, I refer the reader elsewhere.[4])

Several features of this differential poison index struck me as significant and worthy of comment, and I present in each case the datum followed by my interpretation and the theoretical propositions from which they derive:

{1} An attempted regicide took place soon after Reagan assumed office. The extremely rapid build-up of poisonous feelings, depicted above in the global index, made a sudden and pronounced downturn immediately after the shooting. The fantasy messages oferacking and psychotic rage which were widespread during the early months puzzled us: it is highly unusual to find such fantasies during what we presumed to be the strong phase. These disappeared immediately afterwards, to be displaced by images of real, even fantastical strength: the New York Post --a paper very much in touch with our unconscious feelings-- ran the

Figure 2 New York Post March 3l, 1981

banner headline depicted here; images of phallic missiles, airplanes and bombers proliferated, and Reagan was eventually made Man of the Year. There is no logical reason why an assassination attempt should improve the public's perception of presidential functioning, it is only when we remember the importance of unconscious fantasy and the large irrational component of the president's task that this sudden drop (in disapproval or poison) and rise in approval (or deification) makes sense. I interpret this as an attempt at working off unrelieved tensions that had overflowed from the Carter era and the aborted Iranian Crisis (which did not culminate in war as we had unconsciously wished). These tensions moulded and contaminated our perception of Reagan (carry-over of fantasies of impotent leader). Only after he survived our near-sacrifice, and was actually made to lose poison by bleeding (thus purging his image in the most concrete and literal way of dangerous feelings with which it had been injected) could we experience him as strong enough for our fantasy needs.

{2} With minor exceptions, the five indices, other than the global, all fall into two very clear groups vis-a'-vis the global index. These positions on the graph can be designated as the hypovenomous and the hyperve-nomous positions. The indices for "foreign policy," "national defense" and "relations with the Soviet Union" are found within the hypovenomous position, with "unemployment" and economy" in the hypervenomous position. This reflects the relative amounts of bad or poisonous feelings with which they are invested in our minds, as mea-sured against the amount invested in the global index. My postulate is that those issues appearing in the hypervenomous position will be the fantasy uppermost in our awareness at that time and the complex through which we will act out most of the group actions of a sadistic kind. Over time it is highly probable that fantasies relating to issues outside of the body politic will replace the internal ones, if recent political events are taken as typical. Thus, with Carter, an internal fantasy (energy) and its sacrificial equivalents (standing in long gas lines, turning down thermostats due to oil shortages of questionable actuality) gave way to an external one (Iranian hostage crisis and the wish for war). Similarly it is my prediction that over time the need to enact our self-directed sadism through Reaganomics will be supplanted by the wish for foreign loci of action (failure of sacrifice to solve fantasy problems leads to regression and outward displacement). At such a time the internal issue within the hypervenomous position may be supplanted by an external one (in this case, most probably the Central American War). In the graph there are signs that this may well be the outcome. Towards the end, the unemployment index turns downwards, while a tendency upwards becomes noticeable in the lower three indices. This suggests a cross-over effect, and it seems most likely that a cross-over would occur at the time we displace vast amounts of poison feelings within our unconscious from the one fantasy system to another. It is my assumption that the most common mechanism of sadistic action by groups involves a fantasy of poison being inside something or someone, against which it is then perfectly reasonable to perform sadistic acts. Due to the fluidity of cathexes, such shifts in poison feelings take place with great ease in the unconscious.

The time of such an occurrence can be estimated in the following way. According to deMause, the moment when an enemy is identified and becomes incorporated into a group delusion marks the beginning of the upheaval phase of the group-fantasy cycle. I predict that-should my suppositions be correct and the switch take place between the hyper- and hypovenomous positions-it should coincide with the moment of group-psychotic insight when the decision is made as to who the enemy is that we need to go to war with. At that point internal sacrifice will be supplanted by external sacrifice, indicating that the group has now regressed from the depressive position (danger perceived as coming from inside the body) to the paranoid-schizoid position (danger comes from outside), under the influence of the group trance. These two basic positions for the perception of anxiety and its source were first described by Melanie Klein in relation to the earliest subjective mental states.[5] They are, I think, particularly suitable for use in analysis of group process where the earliest phases of individual development are writ large, often to the exclusion of later phases of psychic functioning.

{3} There is one example in the index of a cross-over during the earlier phases. The index for "foreign policy" (indicated with a dotted line) starts out in the hypovenomous position, rapidly rises towards the same location as the indices for "economy" and "unemployment," thus entering the hypervenomous position, after which it once again sinks below the global index. The only significant event that took place during this time and which may have led to such movement of the graph, is of course the assassination attempt on Reagan (since there was no noticea-ble change in his foreign policy). How this event could so significantly influence the public's perception of foreign policy, and create such a change in poison content, I cannot at present explain.

[4] A final application of this differential index in understanding group process would be its usefulness in unravelling true unconscious motiva-tions from the defensive distortions with which they are disguised by the ego. An example of this can be found in the graph, specifically concern-ing attitudes towards the Falklands and Lebanon Wars, and how these relate to the machinations of the US population regarding the solution of their current group-fantasy cycle. The official opinion and attitude of the people is presented in the same issue of The Gallup Report:6

U.S. Involvement in Falkiand Islands

(Asked of informed respondents:) "Do you feel the U.S. should help Argentina more, help Great Britain more, or should not take sides in this situation?"

If only this tabulation is read, it is obvious that most Americans felt that neutrality is the preferred involvement in the Falklands War. However, that leaves unanswered the question as to why we felt so good when it happened. The predominant response in the media was one of exhilara-tion. The Newsweek cover depicted here shows a phallic bomber (note the typical configuration, as subliminal message, of "long straight object" plus "two small, round objects," which forms the visual sign language for "male genitals") with the message "The War Is On." This specific way of putting it, apart from announcing that a war has broken out, also carries a subliminal message: "The war which we had wanted

Figure 3 Newsweek, May 10, 1982

to stage, and about which we were uncertain as to whether to proceed -it's on!" Through Mars, the God of War, we are saying in the cartoon from US News & World Report, "What a cute little war..." Later on, when people's faith in our sacrificial ritual wavered and doubts about whether war was going to be the best form for the ritual, a Herbiock cartoon from The Washington Post showed unequivocally that such thoughts will not be tolerated and people who express them will be threatened with death. All these messages, taken together, show massive unconscious approval for this type of war-like action.

Figure 4 US News & World Report May 17, 1982: 25

Figure 5 The Washington Post May 26, 1982: A22

If only the global poison index is observed the Falklands War does not have any noticeable effect. In contrast, all three indices in the hypovenomous position dive downwards during and after the Falklands War ("national defense" does so after a slight lag), denoting approval and its inverse, a lessening of poison feelings. These changes would not have been apparent without the differential index. This shows how seemingly unrelated international events can trigger changes in national fantasy life. Since, at the time of the Falklands War, several other wars were going on in the world without directly affecting our perception of the leader's functioning, one has to assume that this particular conflict was cathected with unconscious significance for Americans.

This deduction can be made from our knowledge of the unconscious-On deep levels there are symbolic parallels which follow the Von Domarus principle.[7] According to this principle things may be equated in the unconscious (or primary process) if they share even only one attribute. In rational, conscious thinking (or secondary process) things are only equated if they share a majority or all attributes. If the language spoken by the antagonists are taken as such a single, shared attribute, it can be seen that both situations read as one equation in the unconscious, and are on that level interchangeable (figure 6). In a very literal way the Falklands War may thus stand for the Central American War in our minds, the former a fantasy rehearsal for the latter, and approval for one may simultaneously denote approval for the other.

Figure 6
Venn diagram of unconscious significance
of Faikiands War for America

Quite the opposite is true of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, where the index reveals an increase in poison feelings and decrease in approval, sending the message to the leader to stay away from this conflict. In this case there is no discrepancy between the polled results (where 49% of the nation disapproved of the invasion) and the unconscious feelings as revealed in the differential index. The general rule that can be formulated from these examples, must therefore read as follows: where there is a discrepancy between overt and covert attitudes, one must accept no statement at face value, read beyond defenses to the deepest level of wishes, and draw conclusions after taking all factors into consideration, and mostly based on context. It seems that in group behavior the wishes that are deepest in the unconscious or layered under the fluffiest eiderdown of defenses are often the ones to triumph in the long run.

Casper G. Schmidt, MD is a Child Psychiatrist in private practice at 98 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10024. He is a research associate of the Institute for Psychohistory, and a member of the New York Council on Child Psychiatry and the World Association for Infant Psychiatry.

(Refrances below)

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Refrences for this article

1. Casper G. Schmidt, "The Use of the Gallup Poll as a Psychohistorical Tool," J of Psychohistory, l0(2):141-162, 1982.

2. The Gallup Report, Report No.203 (August 1982): l4-l9.

3. For the technique of analyzing these stages of the group fantasy cycle, see: Lloyd deMause, Foundations of Psychohistory, Creative Roots, New York, 1982. See especially "Jimmy Caner and American Fantasy," I 50158, and "Historical Group Fantasies," 193-209.

4. Lloyd deMause, Reagan's America (in preparation). [99' ed. now on-line]

5. Melanie Klein, "Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms." In Envy and Gratitude & Other Works 19461963, Delta, New York, 1977:1-24.

6. The Gallup Report, Report No.203 (August 1982): 11.

7. Ellhard von Domarus, "The specific laws of logic in schizophrenia." In Language and Thought in Schizophrenia, 1.5. Kasanin, editor, 104. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1946. The mechanism is not restricted to schizophrenia, since primary process thinking is found in everyone; for a demonstration that this type of thinking is found in normal college students during fatigue, see L. Gottesman and L.J. Chapman, "Syllogistic reasoning errors in schizophrenia." J. Consult. Psychol, 24: 250, 1960. It is my thesis that this type of thinking is continuously operative in group process, to a far greater degree than is found in individuals.

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