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The latest Al Gore flap concerns the extravagant
electricity and natural gas consumption at the former vice president's
mansion in Nashville. Last year, electricity consumption there--one of
several homes owned by Gore--was more than 20 times that of the average
American household.
As many pundits have noted, this appears to be yet another example of
hypocrisy on the part of Gore, who has plenty to say to everyone else about
energy conservation.
Recall, for example, his impassioned address to the Democratic National
Convention in 1996 when he vowed to fight the tobacco industry to his last
breath because 12 years earlier his sister had died from lung cancer. In
1988, however, while campaigning for the nomination for president, Mr. Gore
had been telling tobacco farmers (in a Southern accent much thicker than was
ever heard from him in Washington) that he was practically one of them, that
he had tenderly held the young plants in his own two hands, had their
interests at heart, and so on.
Perhaps I can offer a medical explanation for why Al Gore simply doesn't
feel that he should be judged by standards of behavior applicable to
everyone else. On the basis of his actions and writings over many years my
guess is that Mr. Gore suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The criteria for this diagnosis, as described in the psychiatrist's bible,
the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," include a
"pervasive pattern of grandiosity [in fantasy or behavior], need for
admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in
a variety of contexts," as indicated by the following:
"A grandiose sense of self-importance [e.g., exaggerates achievements and
talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate
achievements]."
Mr. Gore regularly demonstrates his grandiosity. Who can forget his
notorious claim that he had been instrumental in creating the Internet? But
far more serious and complex are his delusions about issues of technology
and environmentalism, such as his repeated endorsement of anti-technology
tracts and criticism of technological advances while a congressman, senator
and vice president. His writings generally place science and technology at
odds with "the natural world" and, by inference, with the well-being and
progress of mankind. More on this below.
- "Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance,
beauty or ideal love; believes that he or she is `special' and unique and
can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or
high-status people [or institutions]."
These sorts of fantasies run riot in Mr. Gore's book "Earth in the Balance,"
in which he assumes that he, alone, has divined the solutions to the world's
problems and the bold and dramatic measures that await the education and
enlightenment of the public. When he was vice president, Mr. Gore and his
staff of true believers attempted to purge the federal government of any
dissension or challenge to his view of policy, in a way reminiscent of the
worst paranoid excesses of the Nixon administration. Vexed by people who
weren't sufficiently "special," Gore simply got rid of them.
- "Requires excessive admiration."
With the exception of the past six years, a politician for virtually his
entire adult life who surrounded himself with sycophants--need one say more?
- "Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings
and needs of others ... shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."
While a senator, Mr. Gore was notorious for his rudeness and insolence
during hearings. A favorite trick--which I experienced first-hand--was to
pose a question and as the witness began to answer, Gore would begin a
whispered conversation with another committee member or a staffer. If the
witness paused in order that the senator not miss the response, Mr. Gore
would instruct him to continue, then resume his private conversation,
leaving no ambiguity: Not only is your testimony unimportant, I won't even
pay you the courtesy of pretending to listen to it. Gore's patronizing,
apocalyptic and overwrought "Earth in the Balance" provides numerous
illustrations of many of these diagnostic criteria, and thereby offers
disturbing insights into its disturbed author. In it, Gore trashes the
empirical nature of science for disconnecting man from nature. "But for the
separation of science and religion," he laments, "we might not be pumping so
much gaseous chemical waste into the atmosphere and threatening the
destruction of the Earth's climate balance." But for the separation of
science and religion, we would still be burdened with the notion that the
sun and the planets revolve around the Earth. It is with good reason
historians call the last epoch when religion dominated science the Dark
Ages.
It gets worse. Throughout the book, Gore employs the metaphor that those who
believe in technological advances are as sinister, and polluters are as
evil, as the perpetrators of the World War II Holocaust. He accuses
Americans of being dysfunctional because we've developed "an apparent
obsession with inauthentic substitutes for direct experience with real
life," such as "Astroturf, air conditioning and fluorescent lights ...
Walkman and Watchman, entertainment cocoons, frozen food for the microwave
oven," and so on. Makes you wonder why he bothered to create the Internet.
People who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder are tough to be
around. They make terrible bosses, unbearable in-laws and insufferable
neighbors. That's why I don't want Al Gore to be president--or to live next
door to me.
Henry I. Miller, a physician and fellow
at the Hoover Institution, was a U.S. government official from 1977 to 1994.
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