Politics are crazy. Crazymaking. A democracy, by definition, requires the participation of its citizens, but I’m torn between a desire to engage and a need to run away fast. Whether it’s local or international politics, I attempt to understand the endless elaborate dramedies, but suspect they may be beyond human comprehension. One can understand the allure of a simple authoritarian dictatorship, yet the quickest glance at history reveals the failings of that solution. So our democracies stumble along, their warmest endorsement being “It’s better than the alternative”.
At a highpoint of craziness, election night, USA, 2020, a sense of equanimity came over me. In the larger scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter, does it? If Greenland melts, if humankind regresses back to the Middle Ages – this too shall pass. This wasn’t a descent into nihilism, but more along the lines of the serenity prayer. I personally would have preferred a different movie, but it wasn’t my call.
A key cause of this craziness may be found in the way politics, particularly in the US, are treated as a sport. People can be insanely passionate about team sports – they tap in to a powerful part of our psyche, apparently, inspiring us to root for the home team no matter how many times they lose. When politics is reduced to a blue team and a red team, not much else seems to matter. Somehow, someway, people need to stop viewing politics as a sport.
I cringe to even use the words liberal or conservative, the labels seem so meaningless. They reduce our personalities to stoplights – with the yellow light missing – and nothing in the real world is that simple. I’m liberal about some things, conservative about others. I use my gas pedal, I use my brakes, and the two pedals don’t consider themselves enemies.
Fast-forward a few years from that surreal election, and it’s as if our team enmity has devolved into a soccer game riot – it scarcely seems to matter where or what the goal boxes are, or who’s pursuing which. If a primary function of democracy is to resolve differences without violence, its foundational requirement is a people who don’t relish violence.
A root cause of this slugfest mentality is surely the toxic symbiotic relationship between media producers and consumers: conflict is inherently exciting, and therefore entertaining, and therefore profitable. Media conglomerates are locked into an ever-escalating race to cater to our appetite for conflict and drama; and though people frequently decry this toxic spiral, no one has found a way to stop it – because stopping it will require a complete rewiring of our relationship with conflict. We may need to accept that adrenaline, like sugar, shouldn’t be the mainstay of our diet.
There are, of course, some who don’t approach politics as a game at all – and there are plenty of “public servants” who are just that. Perhaps the unsung heroes of politics are those who identify as Independents, who refuse to be drawn into the mindless adversarialism – joining those heroes of journalism whose primary loyalty is to facts.
This team/contest mentality, and the resulting damage, of course extends to international relations. We can continue to labor in this reality, battling foes both real and imagined, but the world will never really be a happy place as long as we do.
Am I suggesting this world could be a happy place? Well heck, yeah – or at least a lot happier. And I mean for everyone. It’s hard to party when someone nearby is suffering – and in this shrinking world, everybody is nearby. When the other team loses, you lose; and vice versa.
When we ditch the zero-sum contest mentality, endless possibility presents itself. Humans are often at their best when collaborating, which doesn’t happen between adversaries. All this requires trust, which makes trust a precious commodity indeed.
A shared reality seems to be a prerequisite for trust. Folks lately seem to have a hard time separating different spheres of their lives – fact and fantasy, authenticity and acting, sports, politics and religion all getting smeared together in an endless stream of entertainment. It might be helpful if we could be more aware of which “channel” we’re watching; they all have their place, but they’re not all the same.
And in the larger picture, it might be helpful to remember that we, individually and collectively, are making a movie with the working title “The Humans”. We’re the writers, producers, directors, and actors. If we want it to be a drama, or a comedy, or a military saga, or a horror story, so be it – it’s our movie. My vote? How about a feel-good rags-to-riches story, full of clever heroism, passionate romance, and laugh-out-loud humor. No villain required.
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