When I heard the news yesterday about Elliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, being caught in a “sex ring” scandal I thought he was more deeply involved: running it, pimping women, making large sums of money, etc. Then when I heard he was just a customer I thought, oh so what…isn’t this the oldest profession known to man? Do we all need to know about this man’s intimate life, let alone persecute him for these offenses?
But then it dawned on me: this was Eliot Spitzer, the same New York attorney general that was busting prostitution rings and running a campaign about what's "right and wrong" not too long ago. Why is it that we can now bet on these politicians, the ones that “dost protest too much” to break the rules they so adamantly defend?
To quote Nora Ephron from her article in the Huffington Post Eliot Spitzer: The Short Goodbye:
“This is the problem these guys get into: they're so morally rigid and puritanical in real life (and on some level, so responsible for this priggish world we now live in) that when they get caught committing victimless crimes, everyone thinks they should be punished for sheer hypocrisy.”
After the likes of Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Pastor Ted Haggard et al, the next time we hear a politician, or anyone for that matter, going on a little too emphatically about “immoral” behaviour, we should look a little more closely at who's doing the talking.
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"Reaction formation" is a recognized personality distortion most often found in masochistic and psychopathic character structures. It is a defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable emotions are replaced by their direct opposites.
This mechanism is often characteristic of obsessional neuroses. When this mechanism is overused, especially during the formation of the ego, it can become a permanent character trait. This is often seen in those with obsessional character and obsessive personality disorders. This does not imply that its periodic usage is always obsessional, but that it can lead to obsessional behavior.
An example of Freud's theory is when a "heterosexual" individual supports and maintains strong "homophobic" beliefs as a way to cover-up their deep-seated and often untouched homosexual desires.
The case of prominent Congressman Mark Foley (R-Florida), in 2006, might also be considered an example of reaction formation. As chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, Foley had introduced legislation to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect. His resignation followed the revelation that he exchanged sexually explicit electronic messages with a teenage boy, a former congressional page, and that he had engaged in potentially inappropriate contact with pages for a number of years.
See Peter's Blog for more on this subject http://www.fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/
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