Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Palin Envy

One could criticize Sarah Palin without hating her. She is inexperienced, sarcastic, unintelligent, corrupt, ambitious etc... one could say. I would disagree but that is not the point of this post.

But for many, their feelings for Sarah Palin go far beyond rational criticism. There is a palpable hatred of her that often exceeds that directed at world's most hated man, George Bush. What is this about?

Is this hate transfer? It might be tough to get too worked up over our lame duck president, so is it time to find another hate outlet? It took years to develop Bush hatred and arguably it could be tied to his policy decisions. But Sarah Palin, new on the scene? What has she done to generate this kind of hatred?

And from what I have observed, this hatred is most intense coming from women. Now before anyone gets their undies in a bunch, I am by no means talking about all women or even most women. What I am saying is that the hatred intensity appears to me to be greater coming from women, generally.

My theory: Envy is the source of this hatred. An insecure woman especially could secretly resent a beautiful, powerful, accomplished, popular, seemingly content woman. Envy is not an emotion that many are readily willing to admit to, so it is instead expressed as the irrational unwarranted hatred that it is.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Trolling today Denis?

Denis Navratil said...

Yes, for morons.

Anonymous said...

I found 2 morons in here!

Michael Gibson said...

I think that a lot of the anger toward Sarah Palin comes from women not because they are jealous, but because they don't believe that she is going to be a good representation of them.

Denis Navratil said...

Michael, thank you for your comment. However, my point is that the anger/hatred is not rational. If one does not think Palin would represent them well, they could vote for Obama without the anger towards Palin. The anger/hatred toward Palin leads me to think there is more to this than you suggest.

Anonymous said...

Dennis, Psychologists call your post "projection."

Caledonication said...

Hmmm, maybe some would call it reaction formation?

Anonymous said...

Denis, what's your take on the anger/hate towards Obama?

Denis Navratil said...

anon 4:43, I don't see a lot of hatred of Obama. I see, and share, a high degree of concern should he be elected president. That said, hatred of Obama would also be irrational in my view.

Anonymous said...

i think collectively as a nation, their is more concern for McCain as president than Obama, and i share this concern as well.

I'm an independent and it's clear, particularly in the 3 debates, that Obama was more specific in his plans, made a better choice for running mate than his opponent and overall has the interest of more US citizens at heart than McCain would.