Abstract
This paper explores the contemporary trend towards relativization and perversion of truth increasingly prominent in American culture, which, in Bion’s terminology (1970), has become an ever more hospitable “home to the lie.” The anti-COVID vaccine movement emerging in the United States in 2021, and its related network of conspiracy theories, is presented as an example. To make sense of these phenomena the author presents clinical vignettes illustrating (1) Bion’s (1970) notions of catastrophic change, the lie/thinker relation, and the messianic idea; (2) Freud’s (1921) thinking on group leaders; and (3) Matte-Blanco’s (1975) bi-logical theory of mind. According to Bion, the lie is mobilized to avoid the psychological upheaval associated with catastrophic change. The author suggests that developments in American life experienced as threatening catastrophic change provide a hospitable environment for the lie, making the recognition of truth more elusive. In line with Matte-Blanco’s bi-logical theory, the author suggests that creation of opportunities for dialogue giving weight to both conscious and unconscious ways of thinking is necessary for re-establishing a culture of truth.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Associated Press. (2022). Buffalo shooting suspect says his motive was to prevent ‘eliminating the white race.’ NPR.org. June 16. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105776617/buffalo-shooting-suspect-says-his-motive-was-to-prevent-eliminating-the-white-ra
BBC. (2022). Vladimir Putin hits back at G7 leaders’ topless photo jibes. BBC.com. June 30. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-61993157
Bion, W. R. (1961). Experiences in groups: Change from learning to growth. In The complete works of W. R. Bion. Vol 4. C. Mawson (Ed.). (pp. 95–245). London: Karnac. 2014.
Bion, W. R. (1963). Elements of psychoanalysis. In The complete works of W. R. Bion. Vol 6. C. Mawson (Ed.). (pp. 1–86). London: Karnac. 2014.
Bion, W. R. (1970). Attention and interpretation. In The complete works of W. R. Bion. Vol 6. C. Mawson (Ed.). (pp. 211–330). London: Karnac. 2014.
Bion, W. R. (1975). A memoir of the future. Book 1. In The complete works of W. R. Bion. Vol 12. C. Mawson (Ed.). (pp. 1–201). London: Karnac. 2014.
Bion, W. R. (1992). Cogitations. In The complete works of W. R. Bion. Vol 11. C. Mawson (Ed.). (pp. 1–364). London: Karnac. 2014.
Bradner, E. (2017). Conway: Trump White House offered ‘alternative facts’ on crowd size. CNN.com. January 23. https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/politics/kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts/index.html
Burnett, J. (2022). The number of Americans who say they won’t get a shot hasn’t budged in a year. NPR.org. May 10. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/05/10/1091053850/the-number-of-americans-who-say-they-wont-get-a-covid-shot-hasnt-budged-in-a-year
Carpiano, R. M., Callaghan, T., DiResta, R., Brewer, N. T., Clinton, C., Galvani, A. P., Lakshmanan, R., Parmet, W. E., Omer, S. B., Buttenheim, A. M., Benjamin, R. M., Caplan, A., Elharake, J. A., Flowers, L. C., Maldonado, Y. A., Mello, M. M., Opel, D. J., Salmon, D. A., Schwartz, J. L., Sharfstein, J. M., & Hotez, P. J. (2023). Confronting the evolution and expansion of anti-vaccine activism in the USA in the COVID-19 era. Lancet, 401(10380), 967–970. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00136-8
Choma, R. (2021). Did Trump’s media company really just trademark the term “truthing”? Motherjones.com. October 21. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/trump-social-media-truthsocial-trademark-truth/
Eisold, K. (1985). Recovering Bion’s contributions to group analysis. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 45(4), 327–340.
Freud, S. (1915). The unconscious. Standard Edition, Vol. 14, (pp. 159–216). London: Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1921). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. Standard Edition, Vol. 18, (pp. 65–144). London: Hogarth.
Gargiulo, G. J. (2013). Some thoughts about consciousness: From a quantum mechanics perspective. Psychoanalytic Review, 100(4), 543–558.
Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2015). Psychological repair: The intersubjective dialogue of remorse and forgiveness in the aftermath of gross human rights violations. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 63, 1085–1123.
Hitler, A. (1925). Mein kampf. J. Murphy (Trans.). Hurst and Blackett Ltd. 1939.
Huyn, A. (2023). Kennedy’s penchant for misinformation stretches back years. New York Times, July 7, Section A, p. 12.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.
Kamisher, E., Reyes, M. & Carson, B. (2023). It’s not just State Farm. Allstate no longer sells new home insurance policies in California. Los Angeles Times. June 2. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-06-02/allstate-state-farm-stop-selling-new-home-insurance-in-california
Karp, M. (2022). Masha Karp on ‘the system of organized lying.’ The Orwell Foundation. July 29. https://orwellfoundation.substack.com/p/the-system-of-organised-lying
Karp, M. (2023). George Orwell and Russia. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Klein, M. (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 16, 145–174.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on some schizoid mechanisms. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 27, 99–110.
Koritar, E. (2022). The leader’s hypnotic influence and the creation of alternate reality. American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 82(3), 349–363.
Li, W. & Lartey, J. (2023). New FBI data shows more hate crimes. These groups saw the sharpest rise. Themarshallproject.org. March 25. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/03/25/asian-hate-crime-fbi-black-lgbtq. Retrieved 6/3/2023.
Maruf, R. (2021). Marcus Lamb’s death highlights Christian media’s vaccine problem. CNN.com. December 5. https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/05/business/christian-media-vaccine-skepticism-reliable-sources/index.html
Matte-Blanco, I. (1975). The unconscious as infinite sets: An essay in bi-logic. New York & London: Routledge. 2018.
Matte-Blanco, I. (1981). Reflecting with Bion. Rivista di Psicoanalisi, 27, 480–492.
Matte-Blanco, I. (1988a). A perspective on Melanie Klein’s contributions. In Thinking, feeling, and being: Clinical reflections on the fundamental antinomy of human beings and world. The New Library of Psychoanalysis, 5, 138–165.
Matte-Blanco, I. (1988b). The fundamental antinomy of human beings and world. In Thinking, feeling and being: Clinical reflections on the fundamental antinomy of human beings and world. The New Library of Psychoanalysis, 5, 70–99.
Niburski, K. & Niburski, O. (2020). Impact of Trump’s promotion of unproven covid-19 treatments and subsequent internet trends: Observational study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(11), e20044. https://doi.org/10.2196/20044
Orwell, G. (1946). The prevention of literature. In The complete works of George Orwell. Vol 17. P. Davison (Ed.). (p. 374). London: Secker & Warburg. 1993.
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Secker and Warburg.
Rayner, T. & Tuckett, D. (1988). An introduction to Matte-Blanco’s reformulation of the Freudian unconscious and his conceptualization of the internal world. In Thinking, feeling, and being: Clinical reflections on the fundamental antinomy of human beings and world. I. Matte-Blanco (Ed.). The New Library of Psychoanalysis, 5, 1–42.
Roose, K. (2020). Rabbit hole. Podcast. Newyorktimes.com. April 22–June 4. https://www.nytimes.com/column/rabbit-hole
Ryerson, A. B., Lang, D., et al. (2022). Wastewater testing and detection of poliovirus type 2 genetically linked to virus isolated from a paralytic polio case—New York, March 9–October 11, 2022. Center for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 71(44), 1418–1424. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7144e2.htm
Tausk, V. (1933). On the origin of the “influencing machine” in schizophrenia. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 2, 519–556.
Velasquez-Manoff, M. (2022). The anti-vaccine movement’s new frontier. New York Times Magazine. May 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/magazine/anti-vaccine-movement.html
Yang, M. (2023). Compare the election fraud claims Fox News aired with what its stars knew. NPR.org. February 18. https://www.npr.org/2023/02/18/1157972219/fox-news-election-fraud-claims-vs-what-they-knew
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
A version of this paper was presented Online at the Thirteenth International Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) Conference: “Truth and Lies” (October 8 -9 and 15 -16, 2022), sponsored by Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.
Address correspondence to Nancy C. Winters, MD, 2250 NW Flanders Street, Ste 212A, Portland, OR 97210, USA.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Winters, N.C. ‘A Home to the Lie’: The Contemporary (Per)version of Truth. Am J Psychoanal 83, 566–585 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-023-09426-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s11231-023-09426-6