What Is the Episodic Man?
“What is the Episodic Man and can he convince us that he is good for America?”
The sources of the following post are a piece by Don P. McAdams in the LATIMES and also his piece that appeared in THE ATLANTIC in 2016. Don P. McAdams is a Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University and author of “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning.”
McAdams writes that Trump is an “episodic man” — a man who lives every day as a new episode. Trump doesn’t care that today’s lies completely contradict yesterday’s lies. Yesterday is irrelevant. He only cares about today’s “win.” Chilling.
PSYCHOGENIC AMNESIA
Also known as functional amnesia or dissociative amnesia, Psychogenic amnesia, is a disorder characterized by abnormal memory functioning. That’s one definition. But maybe for Trump he has learned to make it purposeful.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” To be a good liar you have to keep track of all the lies you’ve told, and to whom, in order to keep the truth hidden. But Honest Abe never knew President Trump, or perhaps anybody like him.
Donald Trump is a successful liar because he refuses to remember. Not only that: he refuses to anticipate that he will remember the current moment in the future. If you live mainly in the current moment, then the future consequences of your lies will not matter to you. And if you have lived your entire life this way, and to great acclaim and success, why would you ever want to change?
LYING AND COVID19
The president was recently annoyed when Dr. Anthony Fauci stole the spotlight by throwing out the first pitch for Major League Baseball’s opening game. In response, Trump falsely claimed that the Yankees invited him to throw out the first pitch for Aug. 15. His assertion was denied and refuted a short time later. The incident recalls Trump’s false boast that the crowd attending his 2017 inaugural address was the largest in history. Objective photographic evidence decisively refuted that claim.
Yet Trump never pulls back on blatantly false statements — lies that are so obvious that they often defy the laws of physics, chemistry and common sense. Defying biology, even in the face of soaring coronavirus cases and mounting deaths, Trump recently claimed that the virus at some point was just going to disappear. Of the economic crisis that has thrown tens of millions of Americans out of work, he said in March, “This is just a temporary moment of time.”
THE EPISODIC MAN
The key to Donald Trump’s psychology is that he moves through life as what Don P. McAdams calls “the episodic man.” For Trump, each day is indeed “a temporary moment of time.” Psychological research shows that nearly all adults develop stories in their minds about their own lives. These stories reconstruct the past and imagine the future to give people a sense that their lives have meaning and coherence over time. As you make daily decisions, you implicitly remember how you have come to be who you are, and you anticipate where your life may be going. You live within narrative time.
NOT THE CASE FOR DONALD TRUMP
But the episodic man does not live that way. Instead, he immerses himself in the angry, combative moment, striving desperately to win the moment. Like a boxer in the ring, he brings everything he has to the immediate episode, fighting furiously to come out on top.
But the episodes do not add up. They do not form a narrative arc. In Trump’s case, it is as if he wakes each morning nearly oblivious to what happened the day before. What he said and did yesterday, in order to win yesterday, no longer matters to him. And what he will do today, in order to win today, will not matter for tomorrow.
“Sometimes what you see is DONALD TRUMP PLAYING DONALD TRUMP,” said Tom Griffin when trying to negotiate some deal with Trump in Scotland. And then there was writer Mark Singler, trying to get an idea of Trump’s thinking for a New Yorker article. So he finally asked: “O.K., I guess I’m asking, do you consider yourself ideal company?”
“You really want to know what I consider ideal company?,” Trump replied. “A total piece of ass.”
THAT TRUMP TRUTH PROBLEM…
What is truth for the episodic man? Truth is whatever works to win the moment. The boxer faces an imminent threat to his survival. If he takes his eyes off the immediate aim of winning, he may get knocked out. Boxing his way through life, moment by moment, Trump does not have the psychological luxury to consider whether his tactics comport with the conventional criteria for truth — such as consistency over time or concordance with the objective reality of the outside world. Every day is a war. All is fair.
Nearly 40 years ago, Donald Trump conveyed his philosophy of life to an interviewer: “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” Before he was sworn into office, Trump told his advisors to think about each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.
The show is not, however, a long-running drama that builds over time to a conclusion. Each day, instead, is like an episode… And then we start all over again tomorrow.
WHAT TO TAKE FROM ALL OF THIS
Research shows that people low in agreeableness are typically viewed as untrustworthy. Dishonesty and deceit brought down Nixon and damaged the institution of the presidency. It is generally believed today that all politicians lie, or at least dissemble, but Trump appears extreme in this regard.
As the social psychologist Jesse Graham has noted, Trump appeals to an ancient fear of contagion, which analogizes out-groups to parasites, poisons, and other impurities. In this regard, it is perhaps no psychological accident that Trump displays a phobia of germs, and seems repulsed by bodily fluids, especially women’s. He famously remarked that Megyn Kelly of Fox News had “blood coming out of her wherever,” and he repeatedly characterized Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break during a Democratic debate as “disgusting.” Disgust is a primal response to impurity. On a daily basis, Trump seems to experience more disgust, or at least to say he does, than most people do.
SOME CONCLUSIONS
For most people, and every other president in the history of the United States, an episodic life would be unsustainable in the long run. But for Trump, it has always been a winning life strategy. His admirers appreciate his total engagement of the moment. He brings it all to the battle today. There is a primal authenticity in Trump. He tells you exactly what he feels in the moment. He lies straight to your face, without shame, without any concern for future consequences. It is the stark audacity of untruth.
Mark Singer concluded that Trump over time had achieved something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.” If we read Dan P. McAdams book when it comes out, he might conclude the same thing. I certainly have–Trump has no soul–or if there is a glimmer of one, something whispering to him, he ignores it.
Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University and author of “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning.”
Mark Singer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1974. He has contributed hundreds of Talk of the Town stories and scores of Profiles and reporting pieces. In the fall of 2000, he revived the U.S. Journal column in the magazine, a monthly feature that was written by Calvin Trillin from 1967 to 1982.
Cartoon: Daryl Cagle
