This week at the coffee shop, social psychologist Lucius Flatley discussed similarities in the personality characteristics of small children and of tea partiers (TPs). According to him, both groups suffer from a special mix of trepidation and anxiety. In the case of children, it is fear that they will lose their toys. In the case of TPs, it is fear that their taxes will be used for the common good. There is no question that the gut reaction of TPs and of small children fits the same pattern. When sharing is suggested to either group, the response is firm rejection – often anger.

The pediatric version is easy to understand. To a child who has not yet formed a concept of time, a toy put away may mean the end of the toy. Consequently, when another child wants to take his toy, he may fear losing it. The TP background is a bit more abstract. Although it’s difficult to identify a specific experience during which TPs are confronted with an “end-of-the-toy” experience, they do seem to have suffered a defining fear early in their lives. Harry Grant suggested abrupt weaning as a possible cause. Jack Files considered the loss of hair, and Roy Rines suggested it was the election of Barack Obama. But whatever the root cause, TPs are no more cooperative than small children.

Childhood memories are of great importance to all adults. For example, farm children routinely see sex in animals. As a result, later in life they are accustomed to the shenanigans of congressmen with pages and staffers. City children, on the other hand, learn most of the facts of life from the Internet; the only animals with whom they are familiar are dogs and cats, which are forbidden by condo rules to have sex. Oddly enough, TPs, who commonly have rural backgrounds and should therefore be at ease with public hanky-panky, replace sex with guns and pickup trucks, while city children, once they become adults, patronize gay bars and Broadway nudity.

Perhaps an early experience is responsible for attitude. When an emotion such as fear or amazement is involved in an early experience, the hippocampus area of the brain is more likely to retain the memory. Did the child see mamma slug papa with a kitchen pot during a family debate? Did junior espy a parental romantic interlude? Either of these scenes would very likely be retained for years. Many TPs must have witnessed similar emotional activities during childhood, and since these scenes had to do with the family, this might help explain TP refusal to vote funds for family planning.

Then there is the problem of something Freud called “infantile amnesia” – childhood memory that is suppressed due to the beginnings of sexual feeling. While recent research casts doubt on Freud, TPs do seem to be suppressing something when they wave signs, block public ways, scream and heckle speakers. Are repressed sexual urges being displayed?

Small children will normally mature out of their fear. TPs, however, will never shed their hang-ups without therapy. Fortunately, the Flatley Psychological Institute of Flaggy Meadow Road in Scarborough offers a program that seems to help.

For one year, TPs must abstain from: A., Rush Limbaugh; B., Fox News; and C., large creatures with wings that go boo in the night. Once literate, TPs must read and memorize the Sermon on the Mount, the Emancipation Proclamation and John Kennedy’s inauguration address, and also contribute $1 a week to the United Negro College Fund.

And try a little consensual sex – paid or donated.

Thought for the week:

Researchers estimate that the saropods (vegetarian dinosaurs that weighed up to 22 tons each) produced hundreds of millions of tons of methane – enough to have warmed the earth by 18 degrees during the Mesozoic period. Contemporary political observers estimate the U.S. Congress will match that total gas output by 2020.

Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Westbrook. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.

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