Other essays on this theme

Essay: "Mind Games"

by Michael Chavis

M]edaille College's Honor Roll status was earned in 1989, and my Psychology 310 midterm exam intellectualized an aspect of the current theme. The psychology midterm's protagonist was Mike Mentalist. A succinct clinical definition of 'mind games' could be summed up as, a sequence of amusement or consternation estimated to control psychologically. Mike Mentalist nomenclatured 'a self-handicapping strategy as a mind game, in the aforementioned composition.

Theoretical models of the scenarios wherein you may observe mind games are: 1. the governmental arena, 2. the contrivances of Coney men, 3. game plans, used to reach an objective, within a courtship. Although a variety of mind games can be elucidated, I think of practical importance should be conveyed. To didactically exemplify classic psychological manipulation, my essay emphasizes the lip service of corruptionists and political nominees.

Disenfranchisement of convicts makes them political targets. Let the following maxim pervade our analysis. 'Politiae legibus, non leges politis adaptandae' translated means, 'politics should be adapted to the laws, not the laws to politics' Corruptionists exploit convicts' standing at nearly every election term. Mind games unfold.

Campaign speeches are formulated for demographically targeted voters. Convicts aren't voting yet, so their station and circumstance dictate they become the hot issues. The candidates' parties solicit contributions for their war chests. Party headquarters receive donations for the touted causes. The disfranchising appears clearly calculated. Convicts grow apolitical.

Yellow journalists are called in, and their mudslinging begins. Crime is over-exaggerated. Actual unconstitutionalities are guised ostensibly. The MMPI is used in psychology today, culturally sensitive tests and therapies coexist; consequently, the congressional investigation's structuralism is most effective in revealing mind sets and pre-existing mind sets.

Psychologically, voters see the candidates as a harbinger to improve the times. Today's office seeker's creed is, 'the masses are jacka_ses'. Voters are to be led wherever the elected office-holder leads them. Honest politicians are a rare breed considering today's wave of mysologists. New York has suffered over a decade, as a result of the 'Law of Variable Party Members.'

Voters aren't educated to any plausible ways to create a stable economy and responsible government. The misquotes never mention, 'convicts on work release are susceptible to rehabilitation via the work ethic.' Officeholder's jawboning doesn't reveal, 'revenue is generated through state tax withheld via convicts working.' And standards of living are raised for New Yorkers residing here. Large portions of the convict class emerge into a new class of commercialists.

I reiterate the translated maxim, 'politics should be adapted to the laws, not the laws to politics'. The maxim is prescriptive. Mike Mentalist's unerring atticism is legislative, executive, and judiciary politicos engage in political mind games. You behold two contrasting personality idiosyncrasies of governmental officials, so distinguishing the 'persona' and the 'shadow' is important.

An officeholder's visible 'persona' is the ethical façade that society trusts, and an officeholder's living in the 'shadow' is catering to unethical impulses and behaviors. My Medaille College fourth year psychology course textbook, Feshbach & Weiner, Personality, (Lexington, Massachusetts, D.C. Heath and Company, 1986) enunciated a similar definition.

The legislature has currently enacted an ex post facto law that needs repealing. Executive branch lame ducks occasionally influence the legislature's ethical lawmaking, and judge play politics on interpretation to avert political party disfavor. The politicos' visible persona is the enactment of flawless. Cornell's think tank could advocate resolving the parallelism of unethical acts. The psychological manipulation is New York's zeitgeist becomes the systematically vitiated. Readers benefit learning procedures to repeal laws.