On this peaceful Sunday morning New York City, here\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u00a0 About 50 dead and another 40 hospitalized after a mass shooting in New Zealand.\u00a0 The act was committed by a white supremacist, someone anxious and infuriated by the encroaching brown people into his life\/turf.\u00a0 All the data show that terrorist acts are mostly committed by such white people, but many people who know of this data insist that terrorism by non-whites is the greater threat.<\/p>\n
The college admissions scandal: \u00a0An unfortunate reaction to the deep anxiety that seems inherent in us, exacerbated\u2013 in both the poor and the rich, according to research \u2013 by income inequality.\u00a0 A fascinating social science experiment with capucin monkeys demonstrated that monkeys previously content with treats they were receiving became angry, rejecting, and physiologically stressed when they saw another monkey receiving a better treat; suddenly the one they were receiving and previously enjoyed felt inadequate, and they reacted with self-destructive hostility and agita.\u00a0 Physiological measures showed that the monkey receiving the nicer treat also became stressed.\u00a0 We see here that monkeys perceiving income inequality became dissatisfied with their previously satisfactory lot and reacted with competition, self-destructive rage (self-destructive in that they were throwing away food), in short with the same ugly feelings and behaviors we humans show when we get scared.\u00a0 We, too, fall into a silly and defensive anxiety and rage about what the Joneses have.<\/p>\n
In a related piece of data, it turns out that helicopter parenting, all the unhappiness and ills such a childhood and family environment causes, is also greater in countries with more income inequality.\u00a0 Again the problem seems to be fear which makes us pull in, shore up defenses, hoard our resources, and view others through the lens of tribalism \u2013 \u201care you one of me or one of them? and if you\u2019ve got more stuff I\u2019m in danger\u201d<\/p>\n
Jared Cohen, CEO of Jigsaw \u2013 a Google offshoot that studies cyberthreats \u2013 described on a morning news program the threats to our elections by Russia in the form of \u201cdisinformation\u201d disseminated through hacking of websites, personal accounts, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 From our end of it \u2013 as the laymen, consumers, and recipients of the fake news \u2013 we could take some responsibility for what we choose to believe, for vetting the sources of the news (the feeds, the emails, the websites, etc.), for seeking out confirmation from other data sources, regardless of how comforting that news may be.\u00a0 I\u2019m reminded of the cheers that went up in the room I was in while Bush Sr. was debating Dukakis for the presidency in 1988.\u00a0 Bush said dramatically, with great masculine authority, and soothingly, \u201cread my lips; no new taxes\u201d.\u00a0 No-one in the room was listening when less than a minute later Dukakis was pointing out that Bush\u2019s words were \u201ca lovely thought but where are you going to get the money?\u201d\u00a0 We voters, we silly humans, took the easy path, didn\u2019t question the soothing fake news of \u201cno new taxes\u201d, elected Bush, and he raised taxes.<\/p>\n
What if we all took some more responsibility?\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean the government or Google or Facebook or whoever shouldn\u2019t also do that.\u00a0 But rather than scream at the universe for not feeding us well, how about taking some ownership of what we ingest \u2013 literally and figuratively.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to waste too much time with television or the Internet, you have to turn them off.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to be a victim of fake news, you can consider the sources of your information.\u00a0 If you want a government to responsibly serve your interests, you have to ferret out the truth through the self-serving lies people tell.\u00a0 And to do all that you have to acknowledge your anxieties rather than let them control you.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s an example.\u00a0 My mother was descending into Alzheimer\u2019s, my father was one day trying to tell her something and get her usual support, but she couldn\u2019t focus as she used to and his words fell on deaf ears.\u00a0 He walked sadly away from her across our back yard while she continued to set the outdoor table for supper.\u00a0 His sorrow, hurt, and awareness of the meaning of her lack of response were palpable and painful to see.\u00a0 My nieces, about 8 and 10 at the time, were standing with me watching the scene from a distance.\u00a0 The older one said \u201cpoor Irv\u201d, and I suggested she give him a hug.\u00a0 She crossed the yard to do so, my father turned to accept the hug from his granddaughter, and now that he was facing me I saw what was coming.\u00a0 I remember thinking to myself \u201c3, 2, 1, and here we go.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 My father caught my eye and said in a booming voice something like \u201chave you gotten your taxes ready for this year kiddo?\u201d\u00a0 He was a self-employed accountant and at the time I think was still doing my annual returns.\u00a0 I started to answer, got about three words out, and he began shaking his head with a slightly exaggerated and weary sense of being smarter than all of us laymen, and he began a short speech:\u00a0 \u201cKiddo, you gotta be sure that\u2026..\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The result of course was that all I could do for him was nod and thank him with a warm smile.\u00a0 At worst \u2013 if I were a different person or in a different mood \u2013 I would also have gotten myself out of the conversation and away from him as fast as I could.<\/p>\n
So here we see someone facing the end of a four decade marriage, facing by association the impending end of his own life, and who knows what else was triggered by that painful moment with my mother \u2013 we know something strong was going on in him by his sad walk across the lawn.\u00a0 \u00a0And at that moment, instead of reaching out he retreats into a self-protective display \u2013 most soothingly and urgently to himself \u2013 of competence and self-assurance, independence even.\u00a0 In the process he inadvertently pushes away exactly the support that he most needs and yearns for, the support that might actually help him feel and function better.\u00a0 I tell this story because of course my father\u2019s counterproductive reaction to his feelings and situation is not unusual.\u00a0 You can see it all the time around you and I believe it explains most of the tribalism we see in the world today \u2013 the terrorism, the rage, the anti-global movement, Brexit, the rich folk cheating on their children\u2019s college entrance exams and applications, radicalism, fundamentalism, and almost everyone who talks too loud in restaurants.<\/p>\n
Such a shame because of course it isn\u2019t always thus.\u00a0 We humans are capable of so much more.\u00a0 Yes we are anxious \u201cpack animals”, as a friend of mine argued, but that is far from all we are.\u00a0 We are capable of such depth, such compassion, such insight, such farsight, such numinous.\u00a0\u00a0 Carl Sagan got NASA to turn the Voyager probe around when it was at the edge of our solar system to take a picture of the earth as seen from out there.\u00a0 He pointed out that this tiny tiny dot, almost undetectable in a vast field of mostly empty space peppered with other dots, \u201ccontains everyone you\u2019ve ever met, everything you\u2019ve ever known\u201d.\u00a0 Maybe it touched a few of us.\u00a0 But so often we retreat at the moment of fear.\u00a0 Like my father in the story above, we fail to react honestly with \u201cI\u2019m scared; wanna share a beer?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On this peaceful Sunday morning New York City, here\u2019s what\u2019s happening.\u00a0 About 50 dead and another 40 hospitalized after a mass shooting in New Zealand.\u00a0 The act was committed by a white supremacist, someone anxious and infuriated by the encroaching … Continue reading