Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Bumper Sticker Rorschach Test

Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli are said to have used “ambiguous designs” to test the creativity of art students by asking the student to describe what they saw. Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach used symmetric ink blots to reveal subjects’ unguarded thoughts.

We have a bumper sticker on the Lincoln that seems to be a Rorschach test, also.
What I mean is that each person's reaction to the bumper sticker actually reveals more about that person than anything else.

Last night, the LMM went to the grocery. Came home, and we found this tucked under the windshield wiper. Now, we appreciate the sentiment. And it's nice it's written in purple crayon, on the back of fast food restaurant "color me" sheet; clearly the writer is a mom, with a young child. Thanks, ma'am. We are glad we are not alone!

But.... It should be noted that the bumper sticker was put on that car in 2004, and the bumper sticker refers to the Patriot Act, the federalized War on Drugs, the War in Iraq, and so on. It is quite true that the bumper sticker applies equally to the Obama administration. But I'm not sure we would get the "great american" moniker if our fan knew the actual origins of the sentiment expressed.

Dr. Rohrschach would be proud.

2 comments:

mjh said...

It strikes me that the note is itself sufficiently vague as to serve as a Rohrschach test for what you think about the note writer.

Anonymous said...

I think this also applies to the common, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention" sticker.
Folks from all over the political spectrum could identify with that.
-zimaroll