>Yes, but what about her other points about the men in Bill Clinton's life?
>Any comment about loss or neglect there?
>Daphne

It is well known that Clinton stepfather was a violent alcoholic. What my
posting, however, pointed out with a few quotes was that his relationship
with Monika had elements of filling the feelings of loss in him for the
absence of his mother. His grandmother, who was in fact his primary
caretaker for his early years, had her own troubles as a morphine addict
(the whole family were addicts of one sort or another, as was his brother,
so his sex addiction is quite predictable).

But when Kriste complained that "it is his own fault" and that you cannot
"blame" early figures in his life, this brings up an important theoretical
point for the history of childhood and the family. The point isn't to
"blame." Of course Clinton was to blame. He did it, he was responsible for
it. But "it, " the sex addiction, has causes, precursors, which a century
of clinical research has identified. I realize historians are not
comfortable with psychological concepts. They must become so, however.
Addiction, in this case sex addiction, is a mental disability, an attempt
in Clinton's case to fill a deep hole of maternal loss, which is why I
cited his plaint asking "Why did they take her away from me?" If you ever
ask "Why?" in history (though I was taught at Columbia University never to
ask why, only to narrate), you are forced to look for developmental causes
of adult behavior, including adult social behavior.

The entire Clinton scandle is, in fact, an instance of a recurring
historical group-fantasy, which I have termed a "Purity Crusade." After
periods of peace and prosperity, nations become anxious about their growth
and begin looking for scapegoats to blame for their wishes, particularly
their sexual wishes. I describe this in full in my article "The Phallic
Presidency" which you can read at <www.psychohistory.com> and which states
in part:

"All American wars have been preceded by Purity Crusades like the current
American
 fascination with presidential affairs, most of them conducted against "too much
 sexual freedom," with various designated sacrificial scapegoats.15 Purity
Crusades
 are conducted after long periods of peace and prosperity. The most famous took
 place prior to WWI, with a hysterical Vice Commission closing down brothels and
 regulating dance halls. Before the Civil War, reacting to the feminism and new
 sexual freedom of the 1850s, purity reformers suddenly decided to "protect the
 sexual purity of America" by starting a civil war to clean up the "one
vast brothel" in
 the South. Before the Vietnam War, following the first legal publishing of
Henry
 Miller's books, Citizens for Decent Literature conducted nationwide
letter-writing
 campaigns and harassed drug store chains to stop the distribution of "obscene"
 literature. Time even ran a cover story in January 1964 on "Sex in the
U.S.," full of
 shocked prose on how America had become "one big Orgone box of Freudian"
 pornography and promiscuity. Our current Purity Crusade focuses on the
President,
 who has volunteered to be a scapegoat with his apparent reckless behavior. "

Lloyd deMause




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