Ambivalence Toward Change

The vexing questions raised and explored by Paul Elovitz on how people and societies change are very much on the minds of psychohistorians. It is especially germane to us because our approach to problems is both multi-disciplinary in its span and in-depth in its probing. No wonder our studies end up multi-layered.

Dr. Elovitz mentions at the outset several factors bearing on the subject: empathy, ideas that become ideals, improvements in childcare, generational rebellion, and technology. He concentrates mainly on two large-scale movements geared to expanding democratic freedoms: the abolition of slavery and the rise of feminism. These causes had their to-and-fro swings, but I also noticed, along with the splitting-off of opponents, more personal levels of ambivalence among the proponents, and probably reflected in the country at large.

As Elovitz points out, our founding fathers dallied over their own slaves; while in the other cause, besides feminist backlash, women have continued to grapple with having-it-all dilemmas. Lincoln overcame external opposition to abolition by military force on the national level, yet underlying issues festered. We are finding that a century and a half later the rosy prospect of a post-racial society under Obama is proving illusory. We seem almost back to square one, with Black Lives Matter protests against police violence, and with some public schools in the South reverting to segregation without provoking a chorus of outrage. Evidently, much of the post-bellum opposition (witness the KKK, chain gangs, and “Sundown Laws”) as well as the subtler ambivalence were too entrenched to be resolved. Yet progressive change in the South is visible, for example, among various elected officials of color. Change would then be occurring—or not—on several levels.

In this light, a recent major change, the ostensible acceptance of Marriage Equality, looks counterintuitive. All of a sudden, same-sex unions appear to be settled law. Yet under Clinton in the 1990s, a Defense of Marriage Act passed without noticeable uproar. None of the terrible things traditional marriage exponents warned us about have so far been realized, while the real-life threats undermining marriage—adultery, divorce, domestic violence—continue to thrive despite a more inclusive ceremony. Af-

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fecting change, Elovitz cites the rapid pace of our technological world, including TV and the media. It seems likely that such appealing and omnipresent figures as Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey have achieved much in detoxifying and normalizing difference.

Also favoring change in this area is a major psychocultural shift, actually a regression from high-powered Oedipal conflicts fueled by strong father-images to a less contentious culture of narcissism, i.e. from triadic emotional life and conflict to the self/other issues of the maternal dyad. With nuclear families slipping from their privileged status and being replaced by single-parent households or reconfigured by two working parents, and with adult children rounding back to the family nest, the strength of patriarchal authority has weakened appreciatively. Who owns marriage? No longer the fathers. So why arbitrarily discriminate against the people one works and socializes with? Let them do their thing, if that’s what they want. Post it on Facebook. Whatever. Even the Pope voices the zeitgeist with his “Who am I to judge?” and his “Be welcoming” advice to pastors. There seem to be moments in history timed for change; in this instance the Supreme Court is the unlikely enabler.

Paul Elovitz has opened up a problem of some urgency and initiated a conversation. It’s now up to us to carry it on in our fashion.

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