Through Trapdoors and Glass Ceilings: A Presidential Pathway to Greatness

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PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em,” - Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene V

Before the academic emergence of psychology and psychiatry, the experts on human nature seemed to be the authors of the books that have stood the test of time. These are the basic religious texts and Shakespeare, among others.

That conclusion was part of why my wife and I once again this summer went to Stratford and Niagara-on-the-Lake festivals in Canada, featuring a focus on the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, respectively. One of the plays at the Shaw on the detective work of Sherlock Holmes was featured on Monday. Today we will turn to one from Stratford.

On the surface, Twelfth Night is a play about mistaken gender identity, as well as finding and recovering love. That might be enough for relevance to our times as we in psychiatry have been learning about gender fluidity and finding the means to try to support and help those coming to know who they are gender-wise. However, today my focus is on a secondary, but important character, Malvolio, who mistakes his newly assumed identity.

Malvolio is first presented as a pompous member of one of the households. To trick him, he receives a letter about his likely greatness, which he then plays up. However, he is mocked and humiliated publicly as he does so, vowing revenge in the future. His greatness is far from being assured.

In the Democratic Party, as President Biden was faltering, the change in presidential candidates seemed to fit the presumed Chinese definition of crisis, being both a danger and opportunity as Kamala Harris has replaced him.

In one respect, identity has taken center stage as she is a woman attempting to break the glass ceiling of President of the US and of Black plus Asian ethnic heritage, married to a White Jewish man, and now a running mate to a potential vice president of the solid White Midwest middle class. Hence, she represents most of what the United States is clearly evolving towards: a multicultural society rather than a melting together of cultures, a potential potluck of the best cultural nourishment of our diversity. Just take the recent introjection of joy into the process, which we will return to in a future column or video.

On the other hand, some of those social identifications can be social psychopathological trapdoors used by the opposition. If she and her team can steer the party and country successfully with compassion and concern for all, one of more unity than divisiveness, of more joy than oy, I would define that as potential greatness. Would you?

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.