Projection
A thief thinks that everyone is a thief
I'm a bit agog at how Republicans are projecting their own motive onto their opponents. Recent examples include claims of voter fraud or of Biden 'weaponizing' the DOJ against a political opponent.
The psychology of this does not seem complicated to me. We tend to think that the people we interact with are like us. So if your moral compass lets you be a thief then it's natural to assume that everyone else has a similar moral compass.
Most people are pretty good and have what I'd call a normal moral compass. Our capacity for projection means that I can trust most people to not rob me, for instance, though I still lock my door.
I can remember a time when it wasn't common for people to lock their doors. It was a great convenience. Then one day I came home and found a strange kid prowling the house. Right away we started locking the doors all the time.
What we learned was that not everyone had the same sort of moral compass that we and our friends did.
The sort of projections somebody makes can act as a kind of window into their soul.
When Trump accuses Biden of weaponizing government he's giving a clear indication of what he plans to do. "Why not?" he thinks "Everybody does it."
When I first came to Second Life I was struck by the appearance of avatars and pondered what that appearance said about the paratar (the person controlling the avatar) The topic of my very first SL discussion was "The Symbolism of Avatars". Dr Freud would have been in his element.
For a long time my avatar was a dorky looking newbie thing. One day Elaine took me to a store and said "Get that body" and then to another store and said "get that hair" I made my shirt and pants as symbols in themselves and - hey presto - here I am ?
Projection can be a 2 way street - I can project an image consciously - but it's most illuminating when somebody projects unconsciously.
Perhaps projection is an unintended consequence of a habit of blunt talking in the public sphere. Once people started speaking about liars then everything became a lie. Once we encountered disinformation then everything was fake news.
But still - I think that reality will intrude in the long run. It really is bad to weaponize the government for instance. Right now that might be a mere projection. Let's hope we don't have to live through an actual trial of weaponizing government to check.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.