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It
is impossible to build a movement without having a shared understanding of the
problem we are trying to solve. The
difficulty in doing this is that all of us view the world from different
perspectives, often radically divergent ones. To build a movement of sufficient
influence to change the dangerous trajectory the world is currently on, we need
to be able to get the broadest coalition of individuals of differing
philosophies possible.
We are up against a powerful coalition of wealthy and influential individuals
with the simple goal of consolidating their control over the nations of the
world and their resources. Our objective has to be as simple and must appeal to
people across the spectrum of political ideologies. In this third in a series
of articles about how to dismantle the New World Order, I consider how opinions
are formed and use my experience as a psychotherapist to explain how even
deeply held beliefs can be challenged and changed.
Listening to self-identified “liberals” and “conservatives” debate, it almost
seems like you are listening to people who live in different worlds. In a very
real sense, they do. That is because each of us exists within a mental reality
we construct based on concepts we acquire early in life and that far too often,
we do not challenge. The more divergent our most fundamental beliefs are, the
more it seems that we are speaking in different languages when we try to
discuss politics. The solution is not to avoid the subject, but to recognize
the source of these differences and try to find a common language with which to
discuss possible solutions to problems that affect us all.
It helps to understand that we are fundamentally more alike than we are
different and that it is our commonalities that make us human. Thinking of
ourselves as humans first and members of any other group second helps us keep
in mind that we all share important basic values and concerns. We must use the
awareness of our common interests to stay focused on the task of building a
future in which all can thrive. Rather than fighting each other, we must
remember that our differences are a source of strength if we are willing to
listen to each other with respect, learn from each other and integrate diverse
points of view into a formulation of a problem that we can agree on. If we then
put ideology aside and develop common strategies based on shared goals and values,
it is possible to change the world. We have to try, because the alternative is
almost certainly the self-destruction of human civilization.
We are all born into a world that is an undifferentiated confusion of
sense
impressions. We only gradually come to make sense of it by forming
concepts
that approximate what we perceive and experience. When a young enough
child
sees something round, it sees “a ball.” It doesn’t matter if the round
thing is
a baseball or a basketball. The concept serves the purpose well enough
until
the child is old enough to understand that various balls are used in
different
sports for specific reasons. But what if a child looks at the sun and
sees only
a ball? It certainly looks round. The child has to learn to develop more
sophisticated concepts about round things to understand how an
apparently round object
that they cannot touch is fundamentally different from the “ball” it
resembles. Understanding such differences is essential to building a
personal model of reality that corresponds to "objective" reality as
defined by logical conclusions based on observations and the
applications of internally consistent theories about the world.
So it is with all simple concepts. As we grow and acquire more
information, we
have to modify and refine the concepts by which we construct our views
of
reality. Failing to do so in a changing world leads to increasing
divergence
between our personal world and objective reality. When people who
disagree start to rely on ideological arguments that conflict with
observable fact, the collective consciousness becomes literally
"schizophrenic" in the sense that it is a "split mind." That is the key
to
understanding why those who think themselves liberals and conservatives
really
do live in different universes. Only when they find a common language to
share
their world views can they come to a common understanding of how the
world
works and how we can change it together.
The fundamental obstacle to people uniting around common values and goals is
the nearly universal conservative impulse. Far from being unique to those who
identify as conservatives, it is based on a fear of change that most of us have
whether we are conscious of the prejudice or not. Any psychotherapist knows
this from experience. Many if not most of the people we work with come to us
with problems so painful that they are willing to ask for help, yet seem to
reject any suggestion that solving the problem requires sometimes painful
questioning of basic philosophical beliefs that form the core of their
identities.
This tendency is of course even more pronounced in those who blind themselves
to the fact that they are in pain. It is even harder to address this pain when the
individual insists that he must solve all his problems on his own. At least
those who seek help in psychotherapy have taken the first steps of admitting
that they have a problem they cannot solve on their own and are willing to seek
help thinking through the problem from another person’s perspective. When
therapists encounter what they call “resistance” from those who find it
difficult, they may throw up their hands and place the blame on the patient.
However, the effective ones try to find ways to help motivate patients to
change. That is the essential task we face in awakening our fellow citizens to
what they have to do to change the political reality that is the ultimate
source of our pain.
The first step in establishing dialogue between people of different political
philosophies is to abandon the notion of “conservative” and “liberal.” As soon
as you label yourself, you start to see people who see things differently as
“the other.” You attribute beliefs to them that they may not hold, at least
when their beliefs are held up to close questioning. When we try to talk to
each other in a friendly and nonjudgmental manner about our differences, we are
showing that we are not engaged in a contest of wills but seeking genuine
understanding. If we manage to communicate our desire to work together toward
common goals based on common values, we have the basis for healing the
artificial left-right split.
This is the Great Divide that keeps us fightingeach other instead of the common enemy: the economic elite who would have us
become their slaves in a permanent fascist New World Order.
Thanks to a corporate media and the politicians whose interests it serves, the
concepts of “conservative” and “liberal” have been turned on their heads.
Traditionally, the intellectual defense of conservatism was the belief that
radical change can lead to chaos and the loss of all the gains that have been made
in creating governments more responsible to the needs of the people who form
them. It is based in part on the idea that everyone is inherently corruptible,
or at least those who seek the power to determine the destiny of nations and
the world.
There is a logical basis for this fear, given lessons of history. However,
thanks to the politics of division and corporate media and politicians that
frame political debate to serve the interests of their wealthy patrons, most
people who consider themselves conservatives today have supported the most
radical turn away from representative democracy to date. Those most
dissatisfied with the results not only blame “liberal” politicians and their
supporters but fault the party most have supported for years because they do
not think they favor change that is radical
enough.
Modern liberalism has been as drastically perverted. With the Democratic
Party moving ever closer to outright support of fascist policies in an attempt
to appeal to what the corporate media defines as the political center, it is
gradually moving that illusory center away from the ideal of representative
democracy and toward an ever more powerful plutocracy. The effect is to have turned traditional
liberalism into its antithesis. Instead of realizing that radical change has
become imperative, they seen content with the incremental efforts of a corrupt
party that claims to challenge the economic elite while voting to support it on
nearly every issue where the corporate interest conflicts with that of We the
People.
This can only end when partisan Democrats learn to question their deeply held
belief that if and only if they can elect more Democrats can the country be
saved from the depredations of a wealthy and powerful aristocracy that has in
fact gained control over both parties. As with the Tea party movement, liberals
most angry at the direction the country has taken have taken to actively
opposing the Democratic Party. They blame the stubborn refusal of the rank and
file to hold their leaders accountable for the miserable state of what passes
for liberalism in America. In their ridicule of all Democrats, they fail to
acknowledge the legitimacy of trying to work within the system for those who
choose to do so. Instead, they are abandoning the political process altogether
or forming an ever-expanding array of third parties that further divide their cause
because they cannot seem to work together.
Fortunately, psychotherapy offers a way to resolve the conflicts between political
reality and the way most people perceive it, whether they consider themselves
liberal, conservative or neither. The trick to dealing with the patient who
resists examining their own role in creating their problems is first establish
rapport, then help them explore their beliefs. If those which are healthy and
life-affirming can be shown to be incompatible with those more deeply held, one
of the beliefs must change. If the
person is capable of honest self-reflection, the healthy belief will be
retained and beliefs based on cognitive distortions will be rejected. As a
result, the belief system itself changes.
The alternative is to distort information that reveals the contradiction so
that one can resist that change. Either way, being aware of two contradictory
beliefs simultaneously creates a form of anxiety known as
cognitive dissonance. It is the reason
Albert Ellis' rational emotive therapy technique works. In RET, the
therapist’s job is to help the patients look at their lives objectively so that
they may choose to change rather than resist it at a cost to not only their
psychological integrity but their happiness. When the therapist succeeds at
helping the patient see the connection between the simplistic beliefs that made
the world make sense to the child and the problems they experience when they
try to hold onto these beliefs as adults, it is possible to help them find more
nuanced ways to view the world that are consistent with their core values.
I will not go into the basic differences in the modern conservative and modern
liberal mind sets. I have little to add to George Lakoff’s description of the
one as favoring a stern, paternal view of government that encourages individuals
to succeed on their own in a rigged system and the other as favoring a
nurturing, cooperative society with a prominent role for government. I suggest
that those interested in exploring these ideas read his excellent treatise
Don’t Think of an Elephant. What is more important is what he
doesn’t say, which is how to reconcile
these different world views. That requires focusing not on the differences in
the beliefs we are raised with, but the ideals we were all taught to regard as
sacred. Among these are the principles of representative democracy and liberty
and justice for all. While concepts of
these ideals differ, there is nearly unanimous agreement that they are thwarted
by a system that is deeply corrupted by special interests.
By framing our common interest as ending the corruption that is threatening
America and the world, we can find a way to talk to each other about how to
create a united national and international front against fascism, even if we
choose not to put it in those terms. How we might best have that discussion
will be the topic of a future essay on tactics for conducting a nonviolent,
democratic revolution.
Previous essays in this series are here:
Part I:
Toward
a strategy for dismantling the New World Order
Part II:
Setting
goals for real global revolution
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