by Robert Williscroft

Created on: February 23, 2008

Carl Jung, the influential psychologist from the mid-20th century, called it the "Aha Experience."

It's happened to you several times in your life: that defining moment when you look up from a difficult problem and discover the solution that indescribable feeling of "Aha I've got it!"

Young scientists often describe that the first time they develop a significant insight, there is an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction, almost a feeling of power that accompanies the discovery. Often they spend the remainder of their lives trying to re-experience this intellectual high. It becomes addictive like a runner's adrenaline rush or a heroin user's drug-induced ecstasy.

This experience, of course, is not limited to science. In one way or another we all experience the high of "getting it," of solving a problem or gaining an insight that carries us forward.

There is a curious aspect to this experience, however, that is not at all obvious at first blush. In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election in the United States, we see a country that appears to be divided. These are people who speak a common language (for the most part), who have a common heritage (for the most part), who share a culture that is homogeneous beyond anything in our previous human experience. Our all-pervading media - television, movies, magazines, music, the World Wide Web - and our profit-driven big business mindset, have given us a cultural baseline that is virtually identical everywhere.

Drive across the country, and listen to local radio stations. You will discover no discernible difference between what you hear in San Diego and Cape Cod, or Seattle and Miami. Stop at shopping malls during your trip. They will all have a familiar "look and feel." You will discover several basic themes, and several persistent groupings of the same shops and stores. Subway serves Pepsi, and McDonald serves Coke - after a while you'll see the pattern.

Homogeneity rules.

And yet, despite this nearly universal sameness, half the people see in President Bush the man of the hour, while the other half see in him evil personified. Half see him as an honest man without guile, while the other half believes he is a disingenuous liar.

These points of view obviously are mutually exclusive - they cannot both be correct. It's even possible, of course, that neither is correct, that President Bush - while fundamentally an honest guy - does sometimes stretch the truth or even tell a lie. Or even, although fundamentally evil, that

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