Riven with palpable emotions and stricken with tremors, an actor falls to his knees on the high school stage. “Why, WHY, did you have to destroy the world!?!” he wails, in tones at once plaintive, anguished and horrified. The backdrop, an expansive city skyline painted by the art students and loomed over by an ominous mushroom cloud, sets the scene. As the actor claws and grasps at the calves and knees of the silent Queen of Destruction, herself notably stoic in the face of imminent death, a giggle goes up from backstage. Shortly it is met by a ripple in the audience and soon the whole theatre is laughing and the moment descends into comedy. Society is full of performances where everyone has to stay in character, with their given motivations—cultural uproars often take this form of performance. Academic critical thinking often begins with a peek behind the curtains at how issues and controversies are framed by dominant narrative performances by the powers that be.
Powerful though diffused in our tech era, the media remains the mouthpiece by which events are portrayed and digested onstage, as it were. In Ancient Greek theatre, actors were accompanied in the background by a chorus who would, often in song, repeat themes of the script to keep the audience on board—not unlike editorial pieces claiming to sum up a news story. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Ancient Greek chorus as a “group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.” One thinks of backup singers harmonizing to the soulful crooning of a star performer. And in today’s cyberworld we might well consider the rattle and hiss of online podcast punditry as a form of the chorus at the back of the stage presentation of current events. Things don’t just happen, on the news or online, they are framed and narrated by expert voices and, in the last instance, by each of us within our own personal echo chamber of favoured views, augmented online by algorithms that give us what we seem to want.
Such repetition of themes and meanings comes particularly into focus when a rupture in the, er, space time continuum of acceptable norms and values occurs. Elon Musk’s infamous salute incited the cultural chorus into studious clarity so as to claim that Musk was showing reverence for Hitler’s Third Reich. Now, Musk should have known how he would be interpreted—not unlike a child, who, when asked how many vegetables he would like on his plate, begins by briefly extending his middle finger before the others. There’s a coyness to public displays of virtue signalling not limited to the more sanctimonious layers of society.
As thinkers and academics, it behooves us to dig deeper to understand the full breadth of meaning behind Musk’s act—remembering that, unlike in pop culture, historical awareness provides a more nuanced explanation than can an automatic dismissal and a been there, done that attitude. Expressions have a plurality of meanings depending upon one’s audience and, as with stories of all stripe, often a polysemy of meanings exist. It is with an eye to diversity that critical thinking opens new avenues of inquiry.
Two Streams Among the River of Discourse
In the Musk’s salute case, voices within the chorus of popular opinion fall often into two camps, which we shall now explicate—a worthwhile exercise given that a key Jewish activist mouthpiece group for Holocaust and anti-semitism awareness, arguably the arbiter of such topics, the Anti-Defamation League stated that “it seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute” and “in this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning.” This new beginning, to remind we whose chorus foxhole has been rife with criticism of Israel’s response to the brazen terrorist attack of October 7th and an increase in pro-Hamas narratives on campuses, is one of a US administration that, as it were, claims to harbour no Quislings who sympathize for terrorist violence of the anti-Israel sort. Quisling was a pro-Hitler Norwegian leader who, like an apologist for Hamas, found ways to aid and abet the NAZIs – ironically, some say Musk is similar in his support for right wing European political parties, but what speaks loudest is louder White House support for Israel.
Now is a timely moment to embrace the big picture in terms of living in history, given that Monday January 27th marks 80 years since the liberation of death camps at Birkenau and Auschwitz. By contrast, the chorus of online pundits tends to live in the eternal present, judging acts in a vacuum far removed from historical awareness or a pragmatic embrace of the fact that an arm gesture means less than does steadfast policy support for Jewish people by the US administration. In our times the updated official line, the one that matters, embraces the narrative that remembers that the state of Israel is the symbolic survivor of a planned extermination of the Jewish people by the Third Reich. Whereas Hitler, and his erstwhile Arabic Allies, including in a meeting famously 1941 depicted in Time magazine and revisited by columnist David Kaiser in 2015, stands as the clear anti-semitic essence of evil. Musk’s involvement in the pro-Israel current White House seems unlikely to combine those two poles of good and evil – in terms of policy, if not his personal psychology with which we shall shortly engage.
So Nevermind Polysci, Here’ s the Mental Health Perspective
A parallel interpretive direction as regards Musk’s faux pas emits from the autism awareness chorus. Experts agree that Musk’s salute is a teachable moment, a shot at explaining and disentangling the mysteries of body-self awareness that those on the Autism spectrum encounter – and their human ability to admit when they’ve offended someone. While thrashing spasms and loss of bodily control and awareness may be common in infants as they seek to navigate their newfound arms and legs, trauma-informed therapist Amelia Kelley reminds us that “these movements in autistic individuals are a natural part of how their brains process sensory input and social interactions”. Kelley also is quick to remind us that audience awareness is not lost to people on the spectrum, like Musk. Indeed, as surely as if there were an infinity of cloned Musks parading onstage and cavorting in an infinite number of physically-bizarre manners what are the chances that our Earthly Musk would make what to some seems like a NAZI salute? He would have known how he might be interpreted by right wing extremists.
And yet, for the persona psychological context we must note Musk’s effusive love of science fiction technology and rocket ship deployments.
Why, you might ask?
You see, in an imagined century far, far, away, but filmed as usual in Southern California, the Star Trek universe (replete with amazing futuristic spaceship abilities and digital brain technologies like Musk’s brain implant project), other alien cultures the protagonists encountered had greetings and signs of deference all their own. It was a way that Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, brought humanity to other beings in the cosmos – a far cry from later Sigourney Weavers battling incomprehensible insect beasts and the like. Other worlds were possible, and in one episode Captain Kirk abides in two places in an exploration of the plural universe hypothesis known to physics junkies the world over. In an alternative, parallel, realm, Earthlings adopt a distinctive Terran Salute rather than our familiar hand-over-the eyebrow show of deference: “During the 2150s it began with the right fist pressed against the left side of the chest, and then extended straight out parallel to the ground”. With increased efficacy and militarism this alternate humanity gained traction and their salute (with directorial assistance by the creators of the show) followed fashion: “By the 2260s the right arm was used, and the palm was opened as the arm was extended, giving it the appearance of a more traditional NAZI salute. It also resembled the salute purportedly used by the Roman Empire in Earth’s ancient history. The salute was occasionally accompanied with the phrase “Long live the Empire!“. Musk, known for his sci fi life’s work, likely was aware of that episode—he’d even featured as an actor in a recent Star Trek release. And, substitute Make America Great Again and you have the circle squared and a nervous giggle of relief can overcome the audience. “He was just being his techie nerd trekkie self after all!” they may claim. Then again, the chorus in their respective wells had made up their mind about who to like and who to abhor regardless of the details—that’s how themes and narratives function and cohere, in life as in the performative drama of society.
Peek a Boo, Behind the Shield of Labels It’s Still You!
Now, as sure as any of us with one or many mental health diagnoses can seek shelter in them when our behaviour contravenes norms and values, or when we miss a class of a shift at work, the psychological history of how folks justify and explain their actions may be a reflection of our development all the way back to childhood as we achieve awareness and identity. Remember the infant flailing and thrashing in search of cohesion? In Sigmund Freud’s intergenerational family home, he spent much time in the companies of children and babies and noted the symbolic, ego-forming, outcome of their minutest play behaviour.
Fort and da, here and there or hide and seek, is a game played by children and even pets to this day.
“Fort and da was Sigmund Freud’s name for a game played by his 18-month-old grandson involving a cotton reel which the boy would repeatedly throw out of his cot, exclaiming ‘Oo’ as he did so, forcing his mother to retrieve it for him, at which he would utter an appreciative ‘Ah’. Freud interpreted these noises as babyish approximations of ‘fort’, meaning ‘gone’, and ‘da’, meaning ‘there’. The significance of the game, which Freud discusses in ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle’ (1920), is that it shows the child transforming an unhappy situation, one in which they have no control over the presence of their parents, into a happy one in which the parents are at the beck and call of the child. Freud also interpreted it as a kind of revenge on the parents, a way of saying to them that they aren’t so important.”
In terms of playing audience mind games, we might consider Musk on a spectrum with assorted Hollywood and pop culture icons who thrive on being “misunderstood.” In any case, as adults, we should know better than to hide behind mental health diagnoses but how often do people shield their critical thinking behind their political beliefs to justify their opinions of others—especially when an audience is involved? Assertion of power and control over one’s peers or minders, and with public figures this means the audience at large and especially those pesky know-it-all pundits, comes to appear as a constant game of hide and seek. Unconsciously, or pre-consciously in the case of infants, some folks seek attention and to string others along to our benefit. The more people wonder about intentions and meaning, rather than actual policies, the easier it is for the dependent little babies to have their diapers changed. The adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity long precedes our present epoch.
So next time we feel like assessing a social faux pas with easy recourse to a psychological diagnoses (imagined or real), let’s remember that for every hide and seek game there can be an infinite regress of justifications. What matters most is the big picture, the nuts and bolts of a person’s behavior, rather than the shield of this or that diagnosis or malady. Anyone can be “hangry”, for instance, but it takes an adult to just admit that he was being unpleasant. After all, with a wink and a nudge, we who have conquered university psychology courses know the inside joke that the DSM (the psychiatric diagnostic manual) lists 297 possible conditions. If need be, there just might be something for everyone if that’s the unprofessional route we choose to go!
What matters more, of course is to take seriously those who are truly disabled by their conditions. And to hold ourselves and others to account when they emit noxious words, tones, and gestures that they know are offensive. “There is a stark difference between uncoordinated movement and making the same gesture twice, without hesitation and as a fast movement” adds Lauren Dawson, a neurodiversity coach. So, too, lest we be accused of protesting too much by blaming a diagnosis or our childhood unconscious seeking power and attention from others, sometimes the best thing to do is to apologize when we have offended people…not a forte of the current Masters of the Universe, but certainly a life skill lost in practice to too many educated people!