As I write this blog, my mind is left reeling from a quite unscripted twist of fate that has reset the direction of the nation, perhaps our globe, and launched us headlong into— who knows what. It would be easy to become apocalyptic and I can’t say it would feel entirely unwarranted at some level. However, such a response would only further occlude our capacity to exact a more hopeful outcome for ourselves and our nation in the end. Besides, the shelf-life on apocalyptic theories is relatively short and the collateral of history demands that we take a longview on things.
Before getting into the psycho-mechanics of our current predicament, a couple broader points remain worthy to highlight. The first realization is that nothing is certain. This is important to recall as it remains the fly in the ointment of our attempts to ordain an order to things that simply does not exist. Systems do have staying power and real-world influence on things, but their impact is never absolute. This truth is relieving when we find ourselves at odds with the establishment, but scary as hell when we have worked hard to establish a system which we feel has operated in service to our rights and needs and the rights and needs of others. Establishments can be usurped, and when they are, the potential for change is very real.
A related insight is that our nation remains dynamic and a generally moving target. We shape and are shaped by our shared experience, with actions taken within and between groups exacting an influence on the private thoughts and perceptions in ways that are too complicated to fully discern. Particularly when rhetoric taps into a broader sentiment rather than pertaining to a specific principle or policy, waves of the populous can be influenced towards the same ends for very different motives. The pundits and pollsters who have made it their business to predict the tide of action and discern some level of order in national movement, are left to grope with the exact manner in which a populous may be influenced by any number of variables, and how best to understand true sentiment and intention of voters.
There is a third big picture insight that seems evident today, which unites the two prior perspectives and that strike an ironic tone in the aftermath of an “upset” election. Namely, that the system is not “rigged”. Although we will no doubt be reminded of the faults that are inherent in the system, it would not be fair to suggest the outcomes are preordained. “Upset” elections do not come out of rigged systems. The recently referenced base sentiment that somehow the media, government, powers that be have “chosen” a candidate is not supported by the outcomes of this election. Whether issued in “honest” disillusionment or as a cheap and calculated defense over an anticipated loss, the idea that the system is somehow rigged needs to be challenged and abandoned. The question of whether or not we have a truly “representative” government will be considered in upcoming months. That the popular vote can be usurped by electoral vote is a fact of history, and reneges contentions of “tyranny of democracy”. In the United States, state rights may play a deciding factor in any national outcome, offering yet another system of “checks and balances” over a certain manner of imbalance of power represented by candidate popularity alone. That our system identifies governance at the level of the state and the district provides a framework for decision making that goes beyond the popular vote. It is possible to win the nation but lose to the people. When this happens, it heightens the need for cooperation and social rectification in winning over the support of a displaced majority.
However, a more profound reality has also revealed itself in recent years and in particular with regards to my observations on this election season. That is the reality of an America of the 49%. Again, I will turn to the theory of Individual Psychology for understanding this all to apparent phenomena.
Increasingly in my interactions with others who have assumed a participatory role in the outcome of our nation (i.e. people who have taken more active interest in our political reality), I am struck by a persisting sentiment amongst members of either party, that it is the other party that plays the deciding role in things. That somehow, the other party is “the establishment”. We remain active and engaged in the process to the extent that we view ourselves as representing “the other 49%”, being just slightly displaced in power by our perceived opponent. On a national scale American identity on both sides of the political divide therefore find themselves forever in the position of the proverbial David, needing to oust the larger Goliath. This is precisely where we get it wrong and when our faulty perceptions and actions first take rise. There can’t be two Davids and two Goliaths! To me, this is a fault of our basic perception as humans, and a damning underestimate of our initiate capacities, for good or ill.
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| Immigration card of Alfred Adler |
To be vulnerable is to feel on one's own. Alone. Targeted. At risk. So we desperately, sometimes irrationally, seek inclusion and social value. In a healthy manner, this comes through developing a sense of individual agency and with it a means to secure belonging through and invested and affiliative contributory attitude toward the world and others. To a pathological end, we may also seek superiority over others and evidence of our own innate rightness. Regardless, the unique circumstances that we face and our biological as well as willful responses to those in life result in the formation of a private and under-considered perspective, which organizes and to some extent determine our forthcoming responses and social interactions. Assuming their influence upon our experience at the very level of our apperception, this framework for thinking and experiencing becomes deeply engrained and recurring.
In any social order, our private logic comes to be shaped not only by our earliest life experiences, but by broader influences of culture, community, and a known and unknown social history that imposes relative value and significance upon our lives, independent of our will or action. Our private perceptions cannot ever be entirely eradicated, but growth can occur through self awareness and via the very mechanism of outward social interest and expanding our affiliative capacity. From this standpoint, the idea that we are “stronger together” is true, to the extent that the broader group in which we find membership has a likewise capacity to expand its viewpoints to include the salient and distinctive view of still others, so as to actualize a fuller and more complete view of reality and our common experience as we continue on. This individual and cooperate social growth is thereby viewed through Individual Psychology as being of evolutionary merit, serving to orchestrate a manner of social enhancement and human betterment through our expanding and shared framework for human engagement and development.
However, during periods of threat and uncertainty and when confronted with discord that come with hardships and unwanted change, we revert to our earlier, more deeply engrained private response patterns. These are all the more reinforcing as we find ourselves aligned with others who share and uphold our biases, sometimes to the detriment our ourselves and others. In these circumstances we seek belonging though exclusivity, not inclusivity, and meaning in a private logic, not common sense.
After a particularly long grueling political season, and following a prolonged economic plight involving a depleting middle class and shifting national demographics, we have found ourselves in a long drawn out battle of victory through blame. For the past 18 months many of us have vested ourselves in a daily preoccupation of seeking always a larger rock to lob at the nemesis contender. The damage inflicted upon all of us and our shared existence after this particular election is difficult to calculate. Always our individual and personal role in things seems muted by the sheer magnitude of the perceived threat against which we rally. This is because it always seems to us that OUR values that are being under attack, OUR rights which are at stake. As we position ourselves perpetually to ensure a foothold on victory, it becomes difficult to see our foot descending upon another’s rights and values in the moment.
Although the aftermath of any election is painful for the loosing party, a particular fear floats above this current election which is quite distinct from past elections. Lacking a clear understanding as we do about the dynamic and shifting sentiment of this current upset, it is disconcerting to consider exactly what dormant thing that we may have conjured up in our nation, with its history of displaced fears and scapegoatism.
A decided lack of common sense and a particular courting of private logic have currently earmarked a campaign that has variably called for the registration of all Muslims, the building of a wall barrier with another nation’s money, and some manner of punishment enacted against any woman who has an abortion. That such strange and polarizing statements in an election by a rogue candidate carry a different tone when spoken by the elected commander-in-chief is being felt today and going forward everywhere across the land. If we take these seriously, what might they mean for the future of our democracy and diplomatic integrity? If we do not take these seriously, what can we take seriously from the newly elected head of our executive branch?
Although each of us will now need some time to orient ourselves to yet another, generally unanticipated, period of social transition, the only option any of us have for a desirable outcome is to move forward with the reality that we have inherited. We do need to be open minded and open to experience. We will need to take confidence in and develop our own level of private agency, as well as our capacity individually and collectively to strive towards a common good and to look out for one another. Along the way, we also will be provided further opportunity for empathic inquiry, to be truly open to and curious about what this election means to others, and to remain open to the experience that others have encountered.
Personally, I will need to take time and effort to explore the significance of this unprecedented time period through the eyes of others that have been lit up with elation and a sense of possibility that previously felt more distant to them. However, my daily toil as a community psychotherapist to urban families and refugees will place me in closer proximity to another reality.
Today, as I debated remaining at home to orient myself to this sudden shift in reality (having cast my ballot with my 8 year old daughter only a day before, anticipating that she was observing a history changing moment with her father) I realized that now more than any other day, my role was necessary.
My first client this morning was an Iraqi woman who we had worked tirelessly with to get her through her fog of depression and psychosis, as her family has worked relentlessly over the past few years to bring her into the shared realty of her family. Her fragile mental health now remains dependent upon the support of her brother, who had rearranged his life to take in his sister as the force of war and family dysfunction demanded her to flee to her family in America two years back. This morning a cloud seemed to hang over the family, which was only formally acknowledged nearing the end of the session when the sister’s brother shared the fear that he has been experiencing regarding the fate of his family following the change of office. Similar themes were repeated throughout the day. Everywhere I went, families, fellow providers and clients all acknowledged the anxiety and the disappointment that had kept them the night before. My final client was young boy, ever fearful of peer targeting at school, who had expressed hostility to his classmates that morning and confided in his parents about the fear of bullying that would come out of this election.
Wherever I went today, I saw the ramifications of David's throwing stones. Stones that were aimed at some invisible system, some existing leader or opposing candidate, but that found their point of contact upon the homes and lives of my struggling caseload. At moments, when I permitted myself a greater perspective and some levity, I could also envision similar stones in the homes and lives of Ohio steel workers, evangelical Christians fearful of changing laws and social morays and unemployed whites in Michigan. On the other hand, I hate to admit that there were moments today and in recent history, when I even believed that some of the stones were directed at me. That I too, was a member of the 49% and a David mistaken for a Goliath.
Regardless, a terrifying and inevitable hope continues. A promise to some and a threat to others that was issued from the mouth of a president yesterday who won't be in that role much longer, that the sun will still rise tomorrow. Let us all see to it that it can shine upon all of us. If this nation is divided still, let each of us have the character, integrity and courage to least give our full 50%.
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| Blogger Ben Rader with daughter Olive |
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