Llywelyn Nys/Unsplash.com

Llywelyn Nys/Unsplash.com

In common parlance “ambivalence” tends to have a pejorative connotation—as if it is a problem if you feel ambivalent. President Bush told the world: “You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." President Bush’s stance allows no room for ambiguity or ambivalence. Similarly, Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary told Americans: “We can be afraid, or we can be ready.” Can’t we be both afraid and ready? President Reagan also had a penchant for reducing complexities to simple images of good and bad. Ambivalence isn’t American; America is the land of moral polarization. Cowboys wear white hats and black hats so that we know the good guys from the bad. And Americans love professional wrestling in which the good guy waves at the crowd and the bad guy usually has a grotesque appearance and makes threatening gestures to the crowd to elicit their booing. Yet, from a psychological point of view ambivalence is a healthy state and not being able to tolerate it is a problem.