The Cousin of Fear

Anger is a useful tool. It motivates us to change something that's not serving its intended purpose. Sometimes this is a good thing. If someone threatens a child, we rely on our anger to move us to rescue that child. If policies affect us badly, we summon anger en masse to protest and communicate our opinion and our intentions. These are fine and healthy responses to anger. Anger that leads to violence, though, in word or action, is not useful. It just isn't helpful. It causes more anger. And more violence. And it becomes a cycle that only breaks when all sides have reached a breaking point - a point that never had to be reached if human beings had remembered one thing: we are all the same. And we all hurt when one of us does.

Anger is the cousin of fear. It is the flip side of flight: fight. It's an understandable and explainable reaction to events out of control. Events might be physical: flood, famine, war, or any of their smaller-scale relatives. But the real events are always internal. It is our reaction to physical events - including inflammatory speech - that require the real attention.

A man who carries a gun into a hotel and uses it to mow down hundreds of people he doesn't even know, for no discernible reason (not that there could ever be a reason), makes us angry because it offends our sense of goodness and justice. It disturbs our perception of safety and violates our right to be secure in body and mind. It disrupts our peace.

A woman who barges in front of you in traffic or in line at the grocery, who gives you a smug look, who gives you the finger, and laughs because she's gotten the better of you - she has "won" - boils our blood (unless we are fairly enlightened and can say "well, if that's what makes her day" - some days I am better at this than others). Why? Because we also believe she got the better of us. How dare she. And here I thought I was in control of what happens to me. Here I thought everyone would stream around me like rocks in a creek.

A man stands on a box and waves his hands around and yells things that appeal to the simmering anger of crowds of people who feel they've been wronged - that the things they deserve have been taken from them or are about to be - although the things he is yelling (you have been injured, you deserve better, you are victims, you are better than "those others") are merely PR, not necessarily truly-held beliefs. This man spews hatred, vitriol, and ugly battle cries. And people who have been holding back their hatred and vitriol hew to the cries. They are finally "allowed" to express their feelings - of hate and vitriol. Which exist because they feel hard done by. Their "rights" have been trodden upon. Things have been "taken" from them. They would not be nearly so satisfied by a candidate who said "reality bites. You have lost your jobs because technology has overtaken manufacturing and because coal is dirty and unsafe and is being replaced by solar and wind, which is better for everyone, but you have not been swept up in the tides of progress. You are having to share power and place and status and rights with those you have historically used to make yourselves feel superior - those of different color, of different religion, of different culture or lifestyle than you. I want you to have retraining in new fields so you can be part of the new economy. And I want you to accept people into your lives who are different from you, because that will make your lives richer and our country and our economy more vibrant."
No.
Our man on the box instead opened his arms to their anger. He fed it, seemed to share in it, reflected it, and told them they were right. And that he would save them. Which he never intended to do, but it didn't matter. He nurtured and harvested their anger, the least common denominator of experience, the basest, most easily-accessed instinct which overtakes compassion, tolerance, and desire for peace. As an aspect of fight-or-flight, it is the first stepping stone on the path to problem-solving when people are at the end of their rope. A rope that wouldn't even exist if they had not been "stripped" of what they felt were their god-given rights: to be superior to someone, and to be secure in a familiar economy. The man on the box tapped into the thing that they had actually lost, as opposed to the things they imagined they had: the right to always be right. They had never been taught that there are not some people who are more valuable than others. Critical thinking having not been an essential requirement for their education, they had lost the opportunity to learn that might does not make right, or that ideas are worth more than money, or that opinions are not knowledge. They had never been given a reason to look outside their small circle of experience to see that other ways are not fearful. Instead, they were taught that what they had always known and always done was forever the only right way.

Those of us who don't live in that circle? The ones the man on the box has now largely dismissed as irrelevant because we do not follow or believe his rantings, because we don't view him as savior? What has happened to us?

We are angry.

We are angry that these people, his followers, have been left behind and minimized historically, yes. But we are angry that the conditions that allowed that minimization ever occurred. We are, perhaps justifiably, angry at ourselves for not having noticed earlier, before the product of their simmering ire became so painfully apparent. We are angry that we didn't see this coming, because, well, we were mostly fine, and they were not our people, so we didn't know.

All that can amount to an excuse of a sort. But what makes us even angrier is that their man on his box continues to stoke their anger. He continues to feed off it, as if their anger is a drug and he is addicted to it. He infuses himself with it. And he grows angrier. Why? Because even his followers are getting tired. Anger is exhausting. We aren't built for it. It isn't our natural state. Most of us want the same thing: a peaceful world where people generally get along. Even his followers who have spent a couple of years riding that wave and envisioning the glory of destruction and the satisfaction of vengeance are becoming tired. It takes a lot of energy to keep up that level of hate. And it isn't really working. Partly because the man never intended to keep any of those promises of destruction and revenge. But partly because destruction and revenge are like violence: they only breed more of the same. No problems get solved. We just keep seeing red. And eventually we remember all the lovely colors we haven't seen in a while.

So we over here are left with our anger, because we still have a higher standard than simply "not hurting each other." We actually believe that citizens and government have a duty to build. To protect. To support. To show compassion. We haven't even reached "live and let live" at this point. So still we fume.

Why? Because we are afraid it won't end. We are afraid that the seed that was planted by the man on the box is still being watered and fertilized. And we are afraid that those of us who want nothing to do with the hate and the divisions and the blaming and the vitriol will not be stronger than the divisions and the vitriol.

And because our anger is as much if not more concerned with the fortunes of others than ourselves, we are not tired yet.

Anger that is born out of desperation and anxiety for oneself dies sooner than anger that spurs demands for justice for everyone. Funny how that works. It's as if the former has less shelf-life. Maybe because it has no rationale. Because it's not true that someone with a different skin color is worth less than you. It's false that someone else's religion, if it's not yours, is wrong. It's not true that lifestyles and preferences and norms that you never knew about are scary. It's not true that people have taken your coal jobs because they hate you. And it's not true that you are bad. So you don't need to make others small so that you can be big. You can stand up and say "I have lost my way of living and I need help to find a new way." But it's not okay to say "I lost my way of living so I have a right to tear down the people I have decided to blame." Your elected representatives have a duty to respond to the former. But there is no rational response to the latter - the box the man is standing on. And so the anger based on the latter begins to fizzle. All that's left are the die-hards. The ones who refuse to see another way. Which leaves us with white supremacy and cruel immigration policies and walls that "keep those people out." It leaves us with people who solve their internal issues with guns. It leaves us with politicians who don't think their fat bank accounts are enough. They want more. So they rationalize taking from the people who don't have anything to take. You know, the people who supported that man.

There's nothing wrong with a little anger.  It gets stuff done. But when it starts to eat you up and it becomes the theme for your life (looking at you, box-man), that's when it becomes dangerous. By this time, there is no counterbalance. And it's still all within. Anger only survives if you allow it. But it will take you down.

What is there to be done? Anger today is a curse on the countryside, a pox running rampant in the cities. We are so used to its bubbling presence inside us that we don't even notice it anymore; it is just background noise.  If we don't soon turn away from it and find another common theme we are done for. We may not literally be dead but we might as well be. Anger is meant to be a tool, not a way of life. This virus must be stopped before it becomes a plague. After a certain point, we cannot survive it.

There is a solution, but you're not going to like it. Brace yourself for the next installment.

Look Where You're Going

In the past few months I've had so much to say I haven't known what to say. I haven't been perfectly happy and satisfied to let others speak and hope that they speak for me, at least partly, but so many people have been saying so much it's been all I can do to listen to it all, much less coalesce all those swirling ideas into a cohesive point.

But, as for so many of us, yesterday was a last straw. I don't say "the" last straw, because it seems as if our capacity for straws has grown ever more capacious since January. Every time we say, "I don't know how much more I can take" or "how much worse can it get?" it turns out we actually can endure more and it can, indeed, get worse. In fact, I don't know anyone who really has an idea of what the bottom looks like. We seem to continue to learn that we have not yet reached it, whatever it is.

The thought that continues to bother my mind is the idea that there are sides -- good guy, bad guy; left, right; pro-Trump, anti-Trump; protesters, anti-protesters. While this helps in terms of discussion of facts, it does not help us come together. If what we want is to find fault and place blame, then this premise - that there is Us and there is Them - is very useful. But if what we want is to heal, and love, and come to peace - and I guess we do need to ask ourselves if that truly is what we want - then there needs to be a way to equate us to each other. 

The reason that sounds, right off the bat, impossible, is because at a gut level we want to find nothing in common with someone who  - and let me just stay in the context of the last few days - claims that Jews are trying to erase white Christianist men (I can't call them Christian, because they're definitively not), or that African Americans are less than human, or that the only value a woman has is in her uterus. We find it abhorrent to view ourselves as like them, or of the same family, because ideas, rhetoric, and outward actions are what lead us to judge people as bad or as good, as admirable or as despicable. This makes it easier to define our tribe, and once we do that, we can define ourselves. We can describe ourselves when we know to which group we belong. And, above all, we can claim our moral rectitude. Our righteousness. Our value.

Of course it is disgusting to state and to act as if other human beings are lesser beings because of their skin color or religion or orientation. And it is a small man who feels he must take up arms (or torches or pitchforks) to be heard. It is a small man who tries to make others small so he can feel big. It is a small man who believes he is entitled to society's spoils because he was born with white skin and a penis and into a family that occasionally or more went to church, and that others are trying to take those spoils from him. Others who don't deserve it because they are not male, not white, not straight, and not Christianist. This is a small man who thinks he is angry, and that causing fear in others makes him strong. A small man places blame for his inadequacies and perceived misfortunes everywhere outside of himself and never on himself. Maybe we all do this, a little. But most of us do not act on this blame to the extent that we make other human beings, in our minds, less than human. 

This tiny, sniveling, cowardly man is, though, still a man. He is, still, a human being. It would make us just like him to claim that he is less valuable just because we find him vile and disgusting. He is, at the very center, where he lives, terrified. He is terrified that we are right, and that he is less valuable. So he claims that others are. He is terrified that he will lose what he has - and he is right to be, if we have anything to say about it. Right in his prison cell, he will lose it. He is terrified that someone who is not like him will take what he has - a society that bends itself largely to his benefit. And he may be right about this too - someone might. Someone smarter, stronger, kinder, and less entitled. Because he is losing. He is losing his white-straight-male-based world where he is king. Why? Because the world is realizing that that world is not a great place for most of us. He is, thus, a despot kicking and screaming as he gets dragged from his throne by a world whose goal is to be a good one for more people. People other than just him.

As hard as it is, it is imperative, if we are not to be like him and wish simply for his demise, to view him as a sick, fearful human being who has so little innate self-respect that he must  manufacture it by being a terrorist (which is just a great big scary word that means bully). We don't have to like him. No. I'm not that good. And if he commits a crime, he belongs in jail. But we only add to the hate if we hate him. We do nothing to bring about the world that we want - and that he wants, too, in his true heart, the one he hasn't acknowledged since maybe forever- if we hate. If we make some people good and others bad. That's just what he has done. 

So. What do we do? We can levy practical consequences for his behavior, for sure. But we must not make him, in our minds, less than human. He is pitiful and pathetic. But once he was a newborn and and infant and a toddler who learned how to walk and talk and blow his nose. He has deserved love his whole life just like the people we like. He is just a man, if a small, offensive one withered by primeval fear. If what we want, in our dark hearts, is to find a way to be better than him, then let's be smug about the fact that we can keep hate out of our hearts and just land at pity. Take out wishing for his misfortune and replace it with satisfaction that his attempts have been thwarted. Stop wasting time being upset by his racism, sexism, and homophobia and start listening to how alienated, disconnected, and profoundly bereft he feels, even if it's because he has relied on lies as a premise. This is a man who is almost impossible, by earthly standards, to love. And, at some level, way down in the pit of his soul, he knows this. Thus the blaming of forces outside himself for his circumstances. He can't even look at himself, so self-despising,  at true-self level, is he. What must it be like to feel, in the end, that you are unworthy of love.

But here's the hard thing: God loves him. Yep. I went there. There is an eternal, changeless love in the universe, and this pathetic, sick man is beloved in it. And it prevails on us to love him too. Not in an earthly, sentimental, sweet way. But in a way that calls on his humanity and reminds him that he is, in his truest essence, good. That he has value, and that it is only up to him to squander it. We may never be able to convince him that his happiness lies in giving, not taking, and in finding reasons to love and not reasons to hate.  But we can die trying. Why? Because that is who we truly are, too. 

I'm not saying you need to be super sweet to this guy or give him presents or cover him with kisses. Ew. No. I am just saying that compassion is the wisest thing we can do. It gives him a fighting chance to be redeemed, if not in the world, then in his own heart. But it makes us better, too. It delivers us further from the hole of hate that we have so condemned him for living in. 

I'm not sure this is possible for most of us, or many of us, or even for some of us. If I ran across this guy I'm not sure I'd be any good at it. But let's try wanting to. Baby steps, people. Vitriol gets us nowhere. And since we haven't really yet given love, on the whole, a try, let's. I doubt it can hurt. I didn't say it will feel satisfactory the way landing a right hook would. But it might help. Continuing the violence - of hand or of heart - never will.

We Got Here By Not Talking

I watched a man in the Trump Administration speak on tv the other day. He, like many of the people surrounding President Trump, has taken on the role of apologist for his boss. The isn't so uncommon; most people wouldn't be part of an administration if they didn't basically believe in the policies and philosophy of that administration. Part of their jobs - even of those who are not named spokespeople - is to be cheerleaders for the President. That's why and how they are where they are.
This man, however, was not sitting well in his mold. He was strident, insistent, and seemed like someone who was trying to convince himself. His reaction to a reporter asking him if the new travel order was a bad idea was so rehearsed, so angry, that I swear to you, I couldn't tell if he really believed what he was saying. All he had to do was follow the script. I don't mean a verbatim response that's been memorized. I mean this script:

- repeat it over and over. They'll eventually believe you.
-appeal to the base. Call the base "the majority." Someone may believe that, especially the base, but as a whole, we are getting smarter.
- don't answer factual questions with facts. Answer with opinions, references to the election (because having won, we must be right), and accusations toward a) the previous administration and b) anyone who disagrees. Use the words "sore losers" and "bad policy" and many people will agree with you. Not because they agree with you. But because it is a reflexive reaction to those terms. Sore losers and bad policy are indeed terrible things. We have gut reactions to the labels even before we know if they've been meritoriously applied.

The fundamental rule: don't engage. Deflect. And no one will notice, so accustomed have we become to deflection as a form of discourse.

In this new era, deflection has taken on a new polish, a novel blinding sheen. The poor people who have been roped into the inner circle, whether because they have aspirations of their own or because they really believe the things the President and his cronies proclaim, now have in Ms. Conway a stellar example of How To Do It. Truly. Watch a video of an airplane and call it a pick up truck. If you do it with enough conviction, enough invective, and enough times, you will probably accrue some believers. My hope is that the Emperor will soon start to appear to be naked (ew) to those of us who aren't already grimacing.

I don't mean to say some of these tactics are original to the new administration. But I think any thinking person can agree new heights are being reached.

Forever, politicians have attempted to answer questions without answering them. They have rare records of assuming blame, of apologizing, or disagreeing diplomatically. I am not going to argue that left and right, Dem and GOP, statesman or spokesman, we have become used to it; we expect it. OK. But my argument here is not about politicians. They are just a handy example because they do things like go on tv.

No. My argument...premise...is that we all do it. In fact, disagreeing, arguing, and poking holes is common conversation. It's as if we fear that if we do not assert some points we will lose points. Think about it. Unless you are speaking with someone whose every word you find resonance with, while they are speaking, do you not find yourself noting all the points with which you disagree? And if you can't put together, on the fly, a cogent dispute, do you find yourself thinking things like "well, no surprise, she is conservative," or "huh, he clearly isn't well-educated," or "hm, he sure thinks he knows a lot when he doesn't." Maybe you say something out loud, I don't know. I usually try to satisfy myself with a barely-concealed all-knowing smirk. I'm just that non-confrontational, wink.

It seems as if you can say "no it isn't" or "no he didn't" or "I never said that" or tell someone they are whining, overreacting, or delusional, then your work is done. But how ugly. Why do we want this to be how we talk to each other?

How about if, from now on, Democrats admit they were not always transparent. That sometimes they were wrong (we've seen a little bit of this - this is why we lost, etc. - but we still witness finger-pointing). That they made mistakes. That they misjudged. That they twisted the rules sometimes. How about it? And then, how about they make these things habits. Then they can argue their own cases from a stronger foundation. Dems, SAY you are standing in the way of a confirmation because it's what the Republicans did. You will get blowback. You will be accused of being foolish. Then you can point to what they did and ask how it's different. They will come up with reasons that aren't reasons. Here's how it will go:

R: You are being obstructionist. Because you don't like having lost. The President has a constitutional right to nominate a justice and have him confirmed.
D: Yep, we are being obstructionist. Just like you were when you blocked everything Obama wanted to do and just like when you blocked Garland's nomination.
R: (ignoring the comment about Obama) That's totally different. The people deserved a chance to choose a justice through their president.
D: How is it different? Did you not block every effort of Obama? Did you not claim your main goal was that he be a one-term president? Was that accepting the result? And yes, the people deserve that. They voted for Obama, so they voted for his choosing a justice. He had a year left in office. A full quarter of his term.
R: The people deserved to be represented.
D: What about the majority of the public that did not vote for him? Do they deserve it?
R: The people deserve to be represented.
D: They weren't, were they, when Obama's choice was blocked?
R: The people deserve to be represented.


Truly. If you repeat it enough times, you will sound strong. Sure. And right. And then what have you accomplished? Guess what? You have not achieved a more peaceful dialogue. You have not converted thoughtful opponents. You have not elevated discourse in any way. You may be convincing people enough to keep your job. You might not totally lose face. But you have not done anything meaningful other than get through that interview.

But I said this wasn't supposed to be about politicians. We accept their way of talking, though. Which is to say, we accept that they don't really talk. And because they are right in front of us all the time, we have adopted this manner of not talking to some extent.

What would happen if your friend said," I think I'd like to put the sofa over there." And you said,"Great, that has a nice view of the whole room," instead of,"Won't that block the light from the window?"

What if your friend said," I love guacamole!" and you said,"you do? You can have mine" instead of "Ew, I don't know how you can eat it. Disgusting." Even with a funny laugh, it's not funny.

What if your FB acquaintance said,"Like what I'm seeing so far. He's doing everything he said he would do." I know. You want to say," What? You mean promote racism, religious discrimination, and proclaim executive orders that are illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional?" I know you want to say that. Or you want to say,"He sure is. Exactly what I was afraid of."
Either of these responses will get you an argument. Great, if that's what you want (if you do, let's think about that...). But what about this:
"It always feels good to get what you want, huh." Or, if you can't say it without a sneer, just "That must feel good."
Or say nothing. That is one thing FB has given us: an opportunity to learn when to say nothing.

I wonder if, while reading this, you have thought to yourself: "I don't do that. I don't contradict people when they talk. I don't redirect. I don't do that."

Hm.

We say we want to get along better. That we want to understand each other. That we want to be United States, not Divided States. But we are in the habit of dividing ourselves from each other - even from people we like. Let's try not to do that anymore. Let's give the politicians some lessons about how to talk. Just be respectful and listen. Reflect back to people their strongly held views. Then say what you think, whether you are agreeing or not.

Rapprochement

With millions of thought bubbles having to do with it already crowding the metaphysical airspace out there, I feel there would be no point in adding to the cacophony. Everything has already been said at least a hundred times. Adding my thoughts about the election or what led to it or its aftermath would not actually add much of anything. Clearly I wished for a different outcome - not that the offered alternative would have necessarily been the outcome of my dreams - and I am in mourning for our culture and the lost dreams of an entire swath of our fellow citizens who have felt neglected and sidelined for a generation, and rightly so. Simultaneously I grieve for the people that many members of this swath feel entitled to blame and abuse - people these members would rather hold at arms length or further because they feel threatened by them for any number of social or economic reasons. I am appalled, also, at the now-apparent righteous blindness of the educated, analytical, intellectual class to which I belong by birth and by choice. And I marvel at the ever-expanding wont of Americans to label, box, and package themselves into comfortable, familiar paddocks so that they do not have to look at the "other" as no different from them. If we divide ourselves from each other, we think it will keep us safe. We think we will win. Because, you know, winning is everything.

I wonder if we will learn the lessons we need to learn from this experience - from having our wishes and needs ignored, from having our motives judged, from having our assumptions about the world challenged and squashed, or, worse, affirmed. I wonder if we know what the lessons are. I wonder, whatever each one of us needs to learn, if we will assuage our guilt, or shame, or disappointment, or anger by not thinking we have anything to learn but thinking it's someone else who needs a lesson. 

What if what we need to learn is humility? I wonder if it isn't just that simple. We are not always right, we have been wrong, we have looked at the world around us from a place of self-assured privilege. Or victimhood. Or cynicism. Or despair. It doesn't matter. It's all arrogance. If the first thing I do when someone else does anything is judge, then I am arrogant. I think I know better. And I am indignant if anyone does that to me. That is arrogance. To not look inward, to not question my own motives, to assume I am correct in my first reaction - this is arrogance. To point a finger at another before asking what it is in myself that allows me to see another's faults and judge them as such -- arrogance.

And I think that is how we got here. We assumed we were right. 

It isn't about victory. Anyone who says those of us who are unhappy are so because we lost is still living in a world of dualities. Good- bad, right-wrong, smart-stupid, left-right. We like to simplify things this way because we can arrive more easily at the one we choose if we don't have many among which to choose. Surely I am correct, because I have always thought so. It's just less threatening.

The truth is that although we "lost," that is not why we are unhappy. We are miserable because we have seen the error of our ways, and it was arrogance. It was assumption. It was thinking that surely Americans are smart and compassionate enough that they would not fall for propaganda; they would not acquiesce to hatred; they would recognize a lie; they would not dismiss ugliness. 

About this, we were mistaken. And that is why we grieve. Because we mind that there are among our families and neighbors and countrymen people who soothe their fear with loathing. Who assuage their guilt with blame. Who laugh at -isms and phobiae so that they won't be accused of them (this doesn't work). Who look anywhere but inward so that they can feel safe and decent. These people are so afraid of losing their "rightful" place, or their money, or their status, or their "power" that they become people they might not admit to being. How terrible it must be to live in fear of falling every moment because you have climbed so high. And how dumb some of us feel for not perceiving this soon enough.

I don't advocate beating ourselves up. That would do nothing helpful. But I do advocate a new culture of self-examination. Not toward guilt but toward humility. Find the things we each do that hold ourselves separate from others, and ask ourselves why. Begin a program of building rather than tearing down. Of finding similarities rather than differences. Of celebrating and rejoicing in a difference that someone else holds dear.

Let the duality-lovers  revel in their victories. The victories will be hollow long-term. And when they come to those of us who have moved forward in love and compassion and community-building and ask to be let in? We will let them in. Because no one is beyond reproach. In reality, though, because love is love, everyone is.