My Movie on the American Psyche after the Bush Administration

My interviewees' answers tended to be about the Bush administration so I developed my topic to be centered around that. So here it is in all its glory: 

My project will be set up as follows:

(not in order as of yet, although it seems to make sense as it is)

American Psyche after 9/11

1. Domestic affairs (anti-terrorism propaganda)
2. Foreign affairs
3. Financially
4. General mindset

• Psychoanalysis of the "average American"
• Hopes for the future.
  

Unlike Mr. Paul van den Boom's documentary I will stray away from asking general questions and focus more on one subject per answer/question.

I found this pretty interesting. Its interesting to think how the collective psyche is healthy but upon further thought I can see how it is. We are questioning our decisions (too late I think) and starting to come up with solutions. Good stuff.

Final Project- The American Psyche after 9/11

I have narrowed my topic down once more to the American Psyche after 9/11. I feel like setting a time period on my topic will help me narrow not only resources but research as well. I will still be focusing on multiple topics within that time range (as opposed to how 9/11 has affected us). I intend to interview faculty as well as students on the subject. I intend to make the questions specific rather than general, opposed to Mr. Boom's approach (but we will see). I will make sure to check and see if Dr. Hamilton will answer a few questions and who knows who else. This project may take up a life of its own. I might try to focus on the subject kind of "us compared to them:" The interviewees thoughts on our foreign relationships. The main question will probably be something like, "Do you think that Americans misinterpret the world?" a follow up may be "Do you think the world misinterprets America?" Maybe a "how? here and there, then I might ask "Why do you think that is?" I am very pleased with how this can work. I do need a camera though, that could be a problem (my teacher has one, I hope I can use. We'll see).

Analysis of Paul van dem Boom's American Psyche

It's hard to find a single solitary message in American Psyche. There are many; some are obvious while others are more tacitly expressed. Some are expressed by the interviewee while others are expressed through Mr. Paul van dem Boom's directing. The film is rather eye-opening, at least for me. It showed me that the views I hold are not just my own as I always thought they were. It actually makes them seem a near majority of views. This just makes me wonder though, that if so many people think the things that I do about the war, capitalism, terrorism, and etc. then why isn't anything being changed? This seems to go far beyond a psychological error or any psychological terms. It seems that we are afraid of change, yet we want it... (?) It would change our country fundamentally, as it may have (we will see about Obama). It would change the relationship between citizen and government. One thing I have learned in my 11th grade American History class is that to reform something, the first thing one must do is educate people that something is wrong. The problem with that though, is that it seems we may have started too late. Something to think about, maybe Obama won't be able to fix what is already so broken, maybe no one can. The one thing he has done so far is created hope that we can, which can be very powerful in creating reform. 

This may not have much to do with the topic at hand, just came to me after I watched the film. It is a great film that should be taken seriously. 

Keeping on par with me topic though, it seems as though the thoughts of American's about America actually mirror many thoughts of other nations about us. We agree that we have taken capitalism too far, the war needs to end well, and the less fortunate need helping. Let me put it this way, in the case of the fundamental attribution error, other countries think we are greedy and egocentric. Do you agree or disagree with them?

Richard Lloyd's Podcast on the Psychology of the Economic crisis

The recent podcast of Thinking With Someone Else's Head is on the economy. In the most recent show he talks about entitlement. Our society, rather the people in it feel as if they are entitled to the money they have had (or still do). For instance the companies that went under or were on the brink proposed the very expensive bailout bill to congress, and it passed. These CEOs believe that the money they lost should be given back to them. 'They stabilize our economy,' which is true, but are the people who lost money in the stock market being reimbursed? If one person is entitled to something, and then that something is squandered, it leaves everyone else wondering why they were entitled to that thing in the first place. Now is a great example, these people with bad credit thought that they were entitled to the house they wanted, and the banks thought they were entitled to sell these mortgage loans to other banks. The biggest problem isn't that "no one should be entitled to anything," because people are already entitled to things (the bailout bill), now it is why are they and why aren't we? Please tell me if this makes sense, it is a pretty abstract idea that is hard to grasp, at least for me it is.

 

After listening to Richard Lloyd's Podcast, which I highly recommend only because it is simply interesting, I have come up with some very interesting conclusions. For one, as I already assumed, American's rely on profits too much and drive to attain profits rather than morally good things that don't fuel the individualist mindset. Another thing that they discuss in the podcast is that the worst societal inversion is speculation. This is very interesting. Not only do I agree but they also are speculating! So I'd say it is even more true. The last thing I learned is that the fundamental attribution error is more prevalent than I thought. These psychoanalysts in the podcast are attributing personal characteristic flaws to society and people hurting the society. In the podcast the woman on it talks about how profits are a societal inversion, but mid podcast she says "Profits aren't bad! We like profits." Well she likes profits because it 'gets her by,' but when she observes someone who likes profits she considers that person greedy. I consider that part of the error and her a hypocrite. Lots of interesting ideas in the podcast, I will continue to follow it and ask that you do too.