Gambling and the Alienated Man
Psychoanalysts, for the most part - of whatever persuasion - have not been given to prescriptive social and political messages.
This, however, social critics have long warned against the totalitarian implications of widespread alienation.
People whose inner emptiness and lack of relatedness have forced them into a position outside of society can find sanctuary only in the spurious utterances of false prophets.
One important qualification not to be found in the totally disenfranchised who have never entered the social mobility sweepstakes, but is recruited from those whose expectations have been aroused and unfulfilled.
The alienated man is quite literally a loser.
When the absence of identity blends with open defiance of societal conventions to form the psychopathic
syndrome, the potential for political exploitation has been noted by more than one writer.
'This is the menace of psychopathy: the psychopath is not only a criminal; he is embryonic Strom trooper; he is the disinherited, betrayed antagonist whose aggressions can be mobilized on the instant at which the properly-aimed and frustration-evoking formula is communicated by that Leader under whose tinseled aegis license becomes law, secret and primitive desires become virtuous ambitions readily attained, and compulsive behavior formerly deemed punishable becomes the order of the day.'
A statement from Lindner - upon looking closely at the fate of his type of monolithic generalization suggests an inaccuracy in prediction and one wonders - about its applicability to the American scene.
Bell, for example, asserts that the important fact of Americans as joiners is being overlooked. The groups that people join may be full of absurd rituals, but the satisfactions obtained from them are genuine nevertheless.
Yet, the kinds of groups that according to Bell would represent a bulwark against totalitarian ideology are ordinarily associated with middle class status.
These group memberships are generally a sign of successful social mobility rather than the reverse; certainly Rotarians are not among the disinherited.
Of course, there are explanations of the current radical right, particularly those of Lipset and Hofstadter, which stress the status anxiety of some middle-class groups, afraid of either losing their position or, in the case of upwardly whole mobile ethnic minorities, insecure about their claims to Americanism.
The concern here, however, is with those people who have always been distinctly marginal (and for that reason have been viewed as prospective adherents of extremist movements) but are still apolitical.
Within Gamblers Anonymous, there are some concrete evidence concerning the members' lack of political interest.
In a period when Dr. Fred Schwarz and narcissistically projected preoccupation with good and bad apostate Jews - specifically Christ and Marx - inundated the San Francisco Bay Area with the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, it was tried diligently to elicit the attitudes of Gamblers Anonymous toward this campaign.
At the time, the Schwartz campaign was given reams of publicity in the local press and had preempted conversation, both pro and con, in many circles.
The hypothesis presented is that the alienated, the losers, the mass men are becoming immune to blandishments based on irrational and thaumaturgic appeals because they are learning to utilize each other to achieve identity.
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