Many people are beginning to suffer from political stress syndrome, uncertainty, apathy towards politicians and their messages, tiredness of internal conflicts, and above all, the weight of corruption, are increasingly undermining everyone’s confidence in the political class. these situations that, after all, generate many negative emotions such as disgust, disappointment, anger, sadness?
With the genius that characterized him, Jorge Luis Borges said that politicians should not be public figures, this phrase encloses a reality that many question.
- There are politicians who.
- Because of their inappropriate behavior.
- Personality or decisions.
- Should not be public figures.
- Give no example.
- Are not a source of inspiration and.
- Moreover.
- Cannot be in a position of power.
Today, the chessboard of world politics is the scene of the most complex movements, are we up to extremist sovereignty, independence movements, the dramatic issue of immigration, many cases of corruption, increasingly less socially oriented policies?
For example, studies such as the one published in Cambridge University Press describe this situation as a spiral of mistrust.
Added to this mistrust is another factor: “infoxication”, that is, poisoning by contaminated information. All these dynamics, information, opinions and news bombard us every day, whether they are true or not, by all the media.
Television, radio, social media, newspapers? Nothing escapes and all this leads us to reach two different states: outrage or apathy.
The former can lead us to participate in mobilizations, to assume an active role, to desire change; the latter brings discontent and, very often, the absolute loss of trust in any party or political option.
However, all these experiences are based on a specific reality: political stress syndrome.
“A good politician is one who, after being elected, remains accessible. “Winston Churchill.
Political stress syndrome does not appear in any clinical diagnostic manual, a popular term that has been used in recent months, as an example this article on the Psychology Today website, in which the author discusses the impact this fact can have on the child. Mind.
Is it not known whether, soon, this condition will be described in the next DSM?The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but what we already know clearly is that this reality is already a source of analysis for social psychologists and policy students.
In addition, in some ways, we can already describe the symptoms of political stress syndrome. Let’s take a closer look below.
The anatomy of political stress syndrome is influenced by many different factors that, on the other hand, will have a greater impact depending on the personality and needs of each individual.
However, we are not mistaken in pointing out that some pillars are in an almost constant state and that they are very common in our day to day:
Today we all go to bed without knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow We wake up every day with different information about corruption, wiretaps and wiretaps, threats, allegations and around the world, terrorist attacks and immigrants losing their lives?
In addition, there are other issues that very often concern citizens and are linked to social policies, such as rising taxes or changing social security, and that current policy places the person in a context of near-absolute unpredictability.
This factor is very interesting from a psychological point of view, with all the scandal, corruption in the open and a legislative decision that harms the population, it is common that, at first, we all feel outraged.
But little by little comes the day when nothing surprises us, no new facts are discovered, no new scandals or damage to public coffers are discovered.
Almost not knowing how, a part of the population falls into impotence. It’s the thought of “You have nothing to do, things are like that. “Our reaction today to many statements is simply to laugh and remember all the nonsense that has already been done. jokingly said.
We tolerate inconceivable situations of public characters because it simply seems that there is no solution, that it is impossible to be represented with dignity.
This is not a new issue. It is understandable that such phenomena are common at certain times in political life, have occurred several times throughout history, and will likely continue to be repeated.
Today, however, we have an additional element that until then was not so present and reinforces the impact. So we ended up getting to the extreme of political stress syndrome.
We talk about the media and the myriad of information, viral news, fake news, turn on TV and always look at exactly the same repeated topics millions of times, what can we do with this phenomenon that affects us so much on a daily basis??
Feeling unhappy with the current political situation is fair, respectable and understandable, yet if we fall into helplessness and passivity, we will let the situation become chronic.
Activism, participation in public affairs, is perhaps one of the most precious rights of a citizen, although this value is due to all that has cost so many to secure it. Politicians are our representatives only to the extent that we choose them.
The problem arises when the politician wants to take advantage of his post to deceive the society that has placed him in this privileged place, on the other hand, the problem can disappear when society learns to act to banish those who have betrayed it.