Introduction to Clio’s Psyche Symposium The Elián González Obsession

The eight-month long focus on Elián González has included incredibly little in-depth analysis. The constant spotlight on the plight of a six-year-old raises many questions. We need to have some analysis that takes us beyond the photojournalism, news headlines, talk show rantings, and general hyperbole that dominate the issue.

As I drove to a psychohistorical meeting on April 25, I listened to “All Things Considered” discuss the issue on National Public Radio (NPR). I had a moment of optimism when I heard the Elián affair referred to as “a collective bi-polar disorder” and a societal “psychotic incident.” I waited to hear if the next step would be taken: a call for an explicit psychohistorical exploration of society’s passion for one little boy. Not surprisingly, none was forthcoming.

That day’s psychohistorical meeting was on men’s envy of women’s ability to have babies and male efforts to subjugate women. Our societal focus was on a custody fight for a child whose mother drowned escaping from a Communist country. The tone of our New York City meeting was introspective, thoughtful, and cooperative. Participants struggled for understanding. The tenor of our societal debate was threatening, “in your face,” and rhetorical. One exchange brought people together, the other separated them.

As David Beisel is fond of saying, prime psychohistorical questions are: Why now? Why here? What are the unconscious reasons for the Elián fixation? In a world of millions of “throw away” children, child soldiers, child labor, child slavery, child prostitution, etc., why select one little boy to care about? Does society see him as a symbolic savior in this new millennium as some have speculated on the two psychohistory electronic discussion groups?

A question I always ask is, What isn’t the country paying attention to when it becomes fixated on a subject like Elián González, Princess Diana’s death, Presidential impeachment, or the

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 O.J. Simpson trial? At a time when everyone knows Elián González, when asked who the current Vice President of the United States is, only about half the population names Al Gore. The country was bored by the primary elections, except when Senator John McCain briefly had Governor George W. Bush on the political ropes, but it did not let go of one little boy so long as the picture of the six-year-old appeared before us. The country’s attention to the normalization of trade relations with China and the increase in the interest rate by the Federal Reserve Bank has been slight compared to its focus on Elián González.

The fantasies about Elián were intense as the country delighted in seeing him at McDonald’s and playing with our latest made-in-China American toys. It watched with excitement and trepidation as a human wall of Cuban-Americans formed around Elián’s great uncle’s home in Miami.

We called for papers which would cast some light on the national obsession, asking questions such as: Why this incredible focus on one little boy here at this time? In what ways is Elián seen as a child savior? How does Elián embody survivorship? How does this custody fight correspond to Castro’s successful custody fight for his son? What do psychobiographical explorations (but not assassination) reveal about the main individuals involved in the struggle? To what extent is this a continuation of the Cold War after the collapse of European Communism? What is the psychology of the unspoken alliance of Castro, the Republican rightwing, and the Miami Cubans? How does the narcissism of groups impact on this situation? What are the real emotional needs of a six-year-old and how are these affected by Elián’s last eight months?

We received little of what we requested and our referees also rejected some articles that were submitted. The papers below have not come from well-known psychohistorians. In the middle of a feeding frenzy of national interest there is much interest but little psychological insight. Yet it is precisely during such national obsessions that we most need such analysis. We see the following papers as beginning the process.

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