“Type A” And The Gang Ruining America

If you did a psychosociological analysis of what’s wrong with the Bush Administration, some factors that would come up would include rigid obsessiveness, a corporate (versus democratic) approach to governance, and a primitive male ideal of dominance and physical force.

Another way to look at the Bush team, both the men and the women, is that they tend to be mostly “Type A.” According to psychologists, Type A personalities are particularly characterized by the presence of impatience or easily induced hostility, as well as constant apprehension of future disasters. (There is also a high correlation with heart attacks and heart disease. See: Dick Cheney.)

Recently, I came upon the existence of an artist team called “Type A,” a collaboration between Adam Ames and Andrew Bordwin. According to their website, Type A “explores the way in which men compete, challenge, and play.” As they note, “the demand put upon men to be competitive can be particularly severe.”

In a video piece entitled Outstanding, Type A seems to capture the inanity and the obliviousness of the group that has taken over our government. As you see above, the piece (which I found hilarious) features two guys in business suits in Mid-town Manhattan. As the Type A website describes it, it “takes an extremely ordinary gesture and turns it into an absurd task of Sisyphusian proportion.”