Tag Archives: Life

A bit of simple framing and communication for forward thinking activists and candidates: A Long Title

In the interests of transparency, I have chosen to refer to those folks commonly known as conservatives as Backwards, which is a noun. Conversely, I refer to those who have been called progressives or liberals as Forwards. I do this because both the words liberal and progressive, and the word conservative, have been co-opted by any number of people claiming to be one or the other. Forwards are forward-looking thinkers who frame looking forward. Backwards are those whose framing moves backward or simply treads water.

I have no interest in merging these categories with political parties, although that would be tempting. I know Republicans who are forward thinkers and Democrats who are hopelessly looking backward. That is not the issue. For me, the idea is to live in the present moment, where we can reflect on and learn from the past and plan for and look to the future, together. This is, or should be, the goal of Forwards’ framing. They should start by talking about values before issues. This might seem unusual. Bear with me.

Framing requires we stay in the moment. The past has already happened and the future has not. We stay in the present because it is the only place that allows us to move someone’s consciousness from the past into the future. It is the anchor that lets us move from the dead values of the past to the possibilities of the future. As Richard Alpert once said “Be Here Now”. Only if we are in the moment can we really be with the people (or person) we are persuading. You have to be with them. They won’t go by themselves.

Staying in the moment means that we don’t talk about values we don’t share, neither partially or at all. We understand, respect and learn from the past but we don’t need to go and go and keep going there. We connect with people in the present to move them to a future you know will improve their lives. This means we must do a better job of respecting and appreciating all people and their values, regardless of who they are and what those values are. That’s a given. However, when speaking to anyone, either in person or through other media, we should really only talk about values we are certain we share with everybody, plus those we might share with each other. It is those universal, shared values that will move people.

Although we should respect Backwards’ values there is no reason to mention the values we do not share. Backwards already know their values. There is no need to remind them, as they will remind themselves quite easily and efficiently. It is also true that Forwards sometimes, actually often, well, to be honest, always, need to be reminded of their own values, as they tend to think their issues are values and they need to keep on topic. We must talk about our values as well as our shared values. The values we do not share, that is, if they are only Backwards’ values, should not be mentioned, except perhaps to acknowledge they exist.  Forwards’ values should always be mentioned if only to remind us of what they are.

Once again, please don’t start with values we don’t share, neither partially or at all. I cannot emphasize this enough, although I am trying. Of course, we should do a better job of respecting and appreciating all people and their values, regardless of who they are and what those values are. However, when speaking to people, either in person or through other media, we should really only talk about values we are certain we share with everybody, plus those we share with each other. Sometimes we need to persuade people to look deep enough inside themselves to realize that yes, verily we share those values. People won’t realize they share your values if you don’t tell them what your values are.

We need to articulate our values. This can be tricky for Forwards. Forwards often confuse issues with values. They assume their values are universal. Their issues reflect those ‘universal’ values, which they think everyone does or should accept as universal. This is part of the reason many Forwards cannot fathom how Backwards can disagree with their issues. They don’t understand the first thing about how Backwards values, how they think, and speak. They often don’t even understand how they think and speak themselves.

What are values? Values are the reasons why we promote issues. They are why we care about the issues. The issues themselves are not the reasons. They are not the why. Issues illuminate and identify problems. They lay the groundwork for how to solve them. They are the how. Policies are the proposed solutions to the problems. We only talk about policy at the very end of the conversation. Policies are the what. To reiterate, values are the why, issues are the how, and policy is the what. Never start with the what. Start with the why followed by the how. We are not talking about policy here. Policy is flexible, malleable. We start with the concrete, the firm., our values. Above all, don’t confuse the why. Issues are not the why.

So how do we distinguish values from issues? And what are some Forwards’ values? Consider the reason we care about an issue. Consider the why. Why is this issue important to us? For example, many Forwards have issue with the wide and widening income gap in America. Why? Because they feel all work is valuable and every worker should be able to support a family and have the stability of owning a home and the ability to do more than just survive. Notice that the only one of those things that could be considered a moral issue (and all issues are moral in nature) is the income gap. That is a thing, a problem to be addressed. Saying all work is valuable is not a thing. It is a concept, an idea, It is a reason for being concerned about the issue.

Politicians spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do about issues. And Forward politicians don’t often talk about why they try to solve problems. They assume their audience knows why. The audience usually does know why but they would like to know the politician knows why too. Otherwise they tune out. They have heard politicians say they are going to do something many times but it rarely ever gets done. Other politicians answer a question by asking another question. People want to hear what you think. They already know what they think.

When a politician answers that ‘this is important and here’s why’ the audience might be inclined to think this person actually cares about my issue. They will listen. They will listen to how the candidate thinks the issue should be approached. When they say what they are doing or will do to solve the problem the audience is likely to think that if anyone can get this done maybe this person can. They might actually get something done.

To summarize, the values we do not share, if they are only Backwards’ values, should not be mentioned.  Forwards’ values should always be mentioned if only to remind us of what they are. To persuade start with the why to pique people’s interest and keep their attention. Modern people have been watching too many music videos. They have short attention spans. Then, address how the issue is should be dealt with. Is it feasible, does it have support, how can we can get it done? Only then should you say what you think we should do about it. People might think that you might actually care about them, that you aren’t just looking for their vote. They might even want to support you in some way, even if they don’t agree with everything you say. Why? Because you had the courage to say it.

Is that confusing enough?

Genetic Political Tendencies

I have heard it said that facts and evidence mean nothing to one third of all Americans. I’m not so certain that is true. I think that facts mean something to everyone. It’s just that one third of us accept different facts and evidence than perhaps you or I do. Or our neighbor. They accept the facts and evidence that support their world view. I believe world view has a genetic component but not in the same way the researchers do. I feel the way a brain processes information about how the world works has two variables and three genetic markers. Three markers using two variables give us four separate categories of person rather than a simple, dualist, two or a slightly more blended three.

Using X and Y to indicate the variables, a person spreading those variables over three markers could be XXX, XXY, XYY, or YYY. In this instance the percentages would breakdown to @ 25% per result. The two sets featuring three of the same would be at the opposite ends of the perception continuum and the other two would make up the middle 50%. The middle segment with 2 XXs would be inclined @ 33% to always agree with the triple X side, likewise with the two Y dominant segments. The remaining parts of the two ‘mixed’ segments would both be able to perceive the world in a combination of both X and Y. This gives us 3 segments of the population, one third of whom see the world predominantly one way, one third another, and one third a combination of both.

One might say that to divide the population genetically into three such segments one would only need two variables and two markers. This would play out as XX, XY, and YY. That would not take into consideration that politically there are those who lean left or lean right while in the middle segment. Three markers imply that there are leaners both toward the X and the Y even while considering only two variables. Our two party system is what constantly wants to push the four into two. At best it can only compress the demographics into three significant political teams

This, of course, is a crude approximation of how things really are but it does take into consideration that genetic traits are not distributed in a black/white, 50/50 manner. Certain genes are dominant, certain are recessive. Two parents, both with blue eyes, can have a brown eyed baby or a hazel eyed child. Two genetically conservative parents can have a liberal child or perhaps even an apolitical one.

The two opposing ways the brain perceives the world indicate a genetic predilection to accept informations and stimuli that support one worldview over the other and reject that which does not support it, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But not everyone is so black and white in how they interpret stimuli. If we are to accept that the brain has anything to do with how we see the world politically we must accept that none of our brains are exactly alike. We can, however, approximate how the proclivities breakdown. The one third, one third, one third breakdown can clearly be seen in virtually any political poll. Regardless of how radical an idea is there will be somewhere between one quarter and one third of the people who support it. Approximately one third of those polled with be against supporting it and the other one third won’t be sure.

The Cognitive Linguist George Lakoff refers to those people called political centrists or moderates as bi-conceptuals. Two conceptual variables spread over three demographic segments. That middle third of the continuum, the ones who can see the world somewhat from both sides of the spectrum comprise this category of moderates or centrists, Lakoff’s bi-conceptuals. It is here where the almighty swing voter lives and it is there where politicians invest most of their energy. It is this emphasis on courting the swing voter that causes those on the edges of issues and the fringes of demographics to complain that politicians don’t listen to them and only come to see them when they need their vote. 

Scientists are finding that virtually all human activity originates in and is mostly controlled by the brain. Our brains are subject to genetic coding like any other part of our physicality. Genetics shows us that the differentiation between two variables is not split fifty/fifty but is spread over a spectrum of possibilities. The fact their are only two major parties fits cleanly with the two genetic variables in how the brain perceives politics. But the diverse dispersion of political views across the continuum always creates situations where it is difficult for the major parties to present a united front to the voter. In the long term, when push comes to shove in the voting booth the two variable choice lead to a nearly even split of the vote, every time.

I have found it fascinating that genetics appears to best explain the apparent contradiction of a populace with a wide variety of political views, when asked to choose between two choices, will split nearly even over a large sample. It may seem odd to talk about political viewpoints in terms of biology but politics is not the only field of social interaction where the biology of the brain must be considered an integral part of the dynamic. Scientists have now mapped the final parts of the human genome and slowly we will begin to see even more and more definitive connections between our genetics and our day to day lives.

As we slowly unlock God’s secrets we must also hand over our own secrets lest they yet divide us.

Culturally accepted norms and the value of work.

To my mind there is an underlying issue that is not being addressed in the issue of class warfare or economic inequity. There are several major goals of the average American that are not only tolerated but respected and nearly universally desired. People are considered smart and are looked up to for success in attaining these goals. In America they are socially accepted concepts, often supported by media and familial education.

These goals are to make money without working, get things without paying for them and to use whatever means you can to avoid paying taxes. You know it’s true. Culturally accepted and praised norms based on dubious values are responsible for plenty of our problems as a society. These false premises are primarily upheld by the passing down of those concepts from parent to child and have thus become cycles that are extremely difficult to break.

One example is our basic acceptance of violence as the preferred method of conflict resolution in America. Fathers tell their sons to ‘be a man’ and hit the other guy if he hits you. While this appears to be an effective way of resolving conflict the result is often an adult for whom violence is normalized. A young person need not be told to use violence to normalize it. They often see it on a daily basis in their own homes.

So much of the economic disparity in this country stems from a distorted view of the value of work. Why is the worth of a football player’s work or a professional corporate meeting attendee so much more than that of the woman who empty the trash at the office? Because we allow it to. As long as we acquiesce to the insistence that some work is more valuable than others we will have philosophical economic inequalities.

The wealthy are so often portrayed as hard working.

What about the wealthy who hardly work?

Freedoms and Liberty

Let’s have a chat about freedom and liberty. Are they the same thing? No, they aren’t.
A freedom is a right that everybody has, something that everybody wants. For example, we all want to be able to speak our minds, and in America we have enshrined in the Bill of Rights freedom of speech. We can say what we want, free from persecution, unless our speech directly and imminently threatens someone, like in the common example of shouting fire in a crowded theater.
Liberty, on the other hand, is a right everyone has, only it’s about what an individual wants. Each of us has their own wants and desires. For example, I might want to rob your house but you probably don’t want your house to be robbed. Liberty creates conflicts of desire.
Where freedoms and liberty come from and what we can legally do about them is somewhat counterintuitive.
The Declaration of Independence states clearly that we all have the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. These rights are considered to be given, by God, at birth, to everyone. Most people take this to mean that these are rights that can never be taken away, which is true. These rights cannot be legally taken away. But, because they cannot be taken away they must be regulated by law. This is because one person’s liberty may conflict with another person’s liberty. It is one reason that we have laws. Disputes about people’s liberty happen all the time and limits to our behavior are established by law. The rights to life and the pursuit of happiness also lead to conflicts between citizens, and also must be limited by laws.
Freedoms, on the other hand, are not inalienable. They are granted, by government, in their governing documents, through laws, or by the courts. For example, the Bill of Rights was added to the constitution, after the fact, because people realized there were freedoms all Americans should have that, unlike liberty, were not God-given and had to be granted by government.
Freedoms cannot be limited except by strict judicial examination and interpretation of the Constitution or through other governmental means. Our constitutional rights and freedoms have limitations that are written into the constitution, or are limited by law, or through judicial rule. And, because they are granted by government and not given by God, they can be taken away by government. Granted, it is difficult to take away a constitutional freedom. It can only be done by amending the constitution or by the edict of a dictator. But it can be done.
The constitution has been amended only 27 times with the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, having been ratified in 1791. That there have only been 17 amendments since then shows how hard it is to amend the constitution. The United States has never had a dictator, elected or otherwise. Our rights have yet to be taken away by force.
The ninth amendment in the Bill of Rights states that there are other rights not specifically mentioned in the constitution. Those rights are determined through legislation and ultimately by the courts. Because of their non-constitutional status, these rights can be much easier to take away.
A common misconception about both freedoms and liberty is that they confer upon the individual carte blanche to do anything they want and be protected by the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. This is not true. Both our freedoms and our liberty can, have, and will be limited and regulated by law and through the courts. It is often overlooked that along with each right we have a corresponding responsibility. It is an important part of being a citizen that we not only know our rights but also our responsibilities. All too often I hear angry citizens complaining that their rights are being trampled on without understanding that limitations on those rights are in force. They had not considered, consciously or otherwise, that they had responsibilities associated with those rights.
This is a significant issue in today’s America. There are individuals and organizations that present very serious threats to the survival of our democracy, based on false and/or skewed interpretations of our founding documents. Many Americans misinterpret the intentions of our founding fathers, through ignorance, by succumbing to propaganda, or on purpose. There is an assumption that they have rights that cannot be limited by anyone, especially government. The threats these forces present to the nation, to our unique philosophy of governance, both from outside and inside the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, are tangible and powerful. We are right to fear them. We are also right to believe in our power as citizens.
Some tell us that the power and strength of the American way of life lie in our capitalist, free-market economy, which has accumulated the vast wealth required to bend the world’s nations to our will. This is not true. America’s strength resides in her people, now and always. Perhaps our most important right, the right to vote, is still ours. We can use it to guide the path of American life, economically, socially, politically, and with equity of race, sex, gender, religion, ethnicity, class, etc. To do so we must be mindful of our differences and develop the skills of listening and humility. We must remember that our freedoms, which include the right to vote, can be taken away, if not through the vote, through the whim of a tyrant.
We can no longer take it for granted in America that we are free from evil in our government, that we are still protected by the checks and balances built into our constitution. We are no longer safe from military action against our citizens or false imprisonment or any of the other horrors of totalitarian rule. Think long and hard before you assume that those who promise prosperity and glory are saviors. Make certain they are not leading us off the cliff and into the abyss of total subservience. This audit of America takes time and active discernment. We have need to start right now. It is by no means easy. It takes eyes and ears and tongues, hearts and souls, and brains. We will not survive if we remain frogs in the slowly heating pot. I can see the steam rising. I don’t pray often, but I pray we can save our democracy.
We have precious little time.

Contradictions. Or Contradictions.

There are a limited number of basic and meaningful things that happen in a human being’s life. There is nothing in this world that we can name that is infinite. Excepting perhaps infinity. The only thing that makes life limitless is the fact that it is limited. A relationship can be concurrently both absolute and relative. Herein we will be discussing contradictions, seeming and otherwise, and what they mean to us.

As we mature we find that life is not so complicated as we may imagine it. We are all prone to experience any or all of existence’s aspects, regardless of our particular viewpoint or place in life. These experiences can be felt as individually unique and separate from other people’s perceptions and consciousness. Or they can be known to be individualized, but related, experiences of those finite and essential human flavors. These states of being have infinite permutations. Our first contradiction.

Although not so complicated, life is never totally clear, cut, and dried. In the words of Winston Churchill, people’s and nation’s intentions are often “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Life is full of these irreconcilable contradictions. What may be assumed to be an individual experience can subconsciously be informed by a group narrative and what may be thought of as mutual can in reality be simply an imagined commonality. Both of those points of view originate in obvious flaws, of thought, perceived reality, or ignorance. They can also come from the skewed views of normal unique to one’s family of origin.

A primary subconscious influence that distorts our perceived reality is the concept of privilege. Privilege is nearly always invisible to its owner. Its contradictory nature stems from the fact that it is a reality that distorts their perception of reality. The distortion, oblivious to the owner, all too often leads to the oppression of the unprivileged by the unaware, privileged soul.

People feel their privilege is normal because its subconscious nature is hidden. Its stark dividing of people from what should be shared humanity creates chasms unseen by the oppressor but painfully obvious to the oppressed. Sadly, there is nothing one can do to escape their privilege. And there are numerous kinds of privilege one carries, white, male, cisgender, and others, too many to name here.

Privilege is defined by what we are and not who we are. One cannot talk away or take away what someone is. But through love and education the privileged person can change who they are. There are many different types of ‘who’ that we can be, from artist to attorney, from republican to recluse, from self-conscious to self-aware. And there are many ‘whats’ as well, from British to blind to black to a baby. Anyone can be a ‘who’. An artist or CEO or homeowner can be black, Catholic, rich, poor, Danish. But only a white person can be white. That is a ‘what’. In essence ‘what’ is exclusive, and ‘who’ is inclusive.

Now, one might object, saying that an artist is a ‘what’, and thus exclusive. The taste test here is if others can profess to be artists. If there is the opportunity for inclusion, that is a ‘who’. If there is no opportunity for inclusion, that is a ‘what’. Only people with blue eyes can have blue eyes. It is an exclusive club. Regardless of who we are or profess to be the only ‘what’ that we all share is being human. Our only universally shared privilege is human privilege. We would do well to understand that human privilege does not guarantee that we will remain at the top of the food chain forever. We are not the end-all and be-all of existence.

As humans we all share many qualities. All humans are born with umbilical cords. Now that I think of it, all humans were born. All humans want to love and be loved. All humans want to be happy and have meaning in their lives. We all think and make decisions and worry and laugh. There are so many things we have in common. They are so basic as to be taken for granted and not considered as things that bind us together, small creatures on a small planet in a small galaxy in a vast multiverse. To awaken to these facts and embrace them is a step in the direction of successful human interaction.

Our differences color our world and allow for the precious contradiction of life itself. Christians tell us all humans are in the body of Christ, many into one. Hindus say that God multiplies himself infinitely, and every individual human is a part of God. We recognize the various colors on a TV screen as being different. But if the screen is entirely red we do not see any differences even though there are thousands of individual pixels. It’s easy to see differences and often difficult to see similarities. One thing for certain, when we are being born we are all the same and as we die we are all the same. What makes us think we are completely separate creatures while we are in between the two? We are all the same yet all different. A most sublime divine paradox. It is this contradiction that is the engine of a life that can contain both mystery and misery, both freedom and boredom. 

Life is not static. It moves. For life to move there must be different places. For there to be different places there must be different spaces and for each individual to exist they must occupy their own particular space. Two of us cannot occupy one physical space at once but any of us can occupy the same mental or spiritual space at any given time. Different and the same. How we can be one and many at the same time is a powerful contradiction, a mystical puzzle we can never solve. It is this paradox of time/space that we strive to answer all our lives, whether we know it or not. 

We all seek out differences to legitimize our own individuality but we also know in our deepest hearts that the things in life that truly matter are the things we all share, like family, and, hunger, and desire. I love being just like you. And I love being just me. Remember, there is a balance to life. If you won’t recognize me, I don’t have to recognize you. If you don’t respect me I won’t have to respect you. I grow weary of spending so much energy disliking people. I already love everybody, but if we are to like each other we must work together. We must love each other.

Love is the Alpha and Omega. If we can recognize and respect the love in each other it will go a long way toward making it acceptable to not like each other. And when it is acceptable to not like each other, because of the presence of divine contradiction, it is much easier to actually discover we do like each other. Regardless of what and who you are, when you occupy space in this world you create the boundaries for a place I can occupy. But it is all one space. And it is ours to enjoy.  

For this I am grateful.