K. Cronick
I have been
criticizing R.F. Kennedy Jr. for his anti-scientific posture, and his
egocentric desire to impose it on all the rest of us. But lately I have been
asking: how did this happen in the famous Kennedy family with its inclusive,
academic and socially generous leanings?
RFK is 71 years
old. He was born on January 17, 1954. His uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was
assassinated on the 22 of November, 1963 when he was nine years old. The family
trauma was massive and public. Then, when he was 14 years old his father was
similarly assassinated, again in the public eye. He was one of eleven children,
all of whom needed intensive compassion. There was no place for the family to
hide. When he was 16 his cousin, John Jr. died in a plane crash.
The Kennedy
family was open, believed in science, and racial equality. Although President
Kennedy found himself enmeshed in several crises that endangered world peace,
he was able to resolve them (with the obvious exception of the war in Vietnam).
He and his brother were symbols of inclusion, culture, and a generally open
search for pacific and compassionate solutions.
Little RFK
Jr. must have been emotionally abandoned. He must have closed his heart to
everything his family represented. Now, he believes in irrational solutions,
violence and exclusion. It is a classic case of “reaction-formation”.
In psychoanalytic
theory, reaction formation is a defense mechanism. When certain experiences,
beliefs or behaviors produce high anxiety, people may react by exaggerating the
opposite attachments or belief systems. In this case, a little boy, overcome by
his family´s grief, abandoned the values he grew up with and assumed opposing
ones.
Thinking this
way, my disgust with Secretary RFK Jr. has turned into a desire to console him.
I know it’s too late. And I hope the damage he will cause is not catastrophic.
But what lesson can se gather from this?
We need to
identify, console, help, and accompany emotionally -and physically- abandoned children.
Even if they come from highly privileged families. And this is especiallly true for inner-city,
immigrant, and war victims. It is urgent.
