. on the "two-movies-one-screen" phenomenon regarding the current Minneapolis situation:
"When you talk to the people there, they are not even aware that the other 'movie' exists."
For those who don't know, the "two-movies-one-screen" phenomenon means that two people (or two groups of people) are observing the same data, but processing the information so differently that they reach entirely different conclusions about reality.
From the psychoanalytic point of view, I think there is something deeper here. What Jack says about the people who are "not even aware that the other 'movie' exists" is very interesting - this is not even cognitive dissonance ("I see the other movie, but it makes me uncomfortable"), but rather dissociation ("I don't even see the other movie, it isn't even playing").
Cognitive dissonance may involve more mature, neurotic-level defense mechanisms such as rationalization or reaction formation (I see the other movie, but I counter-react to it by twisting it), while dissociation is itself a more primitive, near-psychotic mechanism that cuts off the unbearable part of reality ("I don't even see the other movie at all").
In dissociation (negative hallucination), their mind is deleting the data before it can even be processed and there's a failure in reality testing which makes it a near-psychotic experience.
Although there may not be a total psychotic breakdown and complete lack of reality testing in this case: these people may function quite well in their casual work environment and they can be perfectly rational when talking about the weather. They can be successful lawyers or doctors while remaining crazy about political reality - some psychoanalysts call it "encapsulated psychosis."
Over Christmas an extended family member watched as I was cleaning up the kitchen a little.
She gasped as I put a bit of cardboard in the garbage instead of recycling. Starting digging through the trash frantically. Very bizarre behavior.
I couldn’t resist so I said “have you seen those guys that put air tags to track where their garbage and recycling go? And it all ends up in the same place?”
She then literally plugged her ears and said “I don’t hear this I don’t hear this!!”
It was fascinating to watch in real time.
This is great.
Jack is right.
Perfect example of the Jungian shadow.
Things get unconsciously placed into the shadow when the integration into the personality has so much dissonance that it would literally unravel the persona.
They then project these behaviors onto others.
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