Electing to Make American Sane Again: And the Winner is...

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

We are just a few days away from our national election choices and some wonder who I would pick or recommend. As I first wrote the title of this column, I had a slip of the keyboard by writing “sinner” instead of “winner.” The 2 words can be descriptions of the same person, a sinner and a winner, or the winner not be a major sinner, right?

If I directly answered, the answer might be viewed as a violation of the psychiatric Goldwater Rule, but choosing principles would not. Actually, the principles seem to have already been listed in the August 23, 2020, Marginalia posting by Maria Popover: “Octavia Butler on How (Not) to Choose Our Leaders.”

Butler, a Black American writer, was the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant.” She wrote about the timeless and prophetic. She has been featured not as a Halloween witch, but as one of the literary witches who have enchanted and transformed the world.¹

Although I have written about ethical leaders,² Butler poetically presented the criteria for leaders that I would look for too, or not look for, as this excerpt that opens the eleventh chapter of her second Earthseed book conveys³:

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.

To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

Just in case, Butler simply says:

“Kindness eases Change.”

Be kind to those who disagree with you in this election or most anywhere.

Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.

References

1. Kitaiskaia T, Horan K. Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers. Seal Press; 2017.

2. Moffic HS, Sabin J. Ethical leadership for psychiatry. In: Sadler J, Van Staten W, Fulford KWM, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics, Vol. 2. Oxford University Press; 2015.

3. Butler O. Parable of the Talents. Grand Central Publishing; 2019.