Question Three

Ted Reads Question Three

0:00

From my perspective, a three-ring circus rolled into Washington in January and a bunch of things that the carnies, clowns, barkers, grafters, and the crowds rolled out as part of their show, made no sense to me. One way to describe something that we experience but can’t understand is that we are having an existential crisis. I was having one.

Then I recalled something that one of my favorite college professors once told me when I told him that the author of an article I was reading was saying two different things that made what he was saying contradictory, inconsistent and thus invalid.

He said, “There is no such thing inconsistency.  When it seems that way, it’s all about you. Your perspective is too small.”  In other words, he was suggesting that if it is confusing and makes no sense, it’s on me. I am the one who needs to expand my perspective. My point of view is too small. Human beings can’t be anything except human beings.

I’ve never forgotten that. In order to stay sane in situations that make no sense to me (like what started happening several years ago) and the crazy movie that started playing out in non-stop IMAX proportions this last January, I’ve learned that it’s time for me to do some research to expand my perspective.

So, rather than conclude that the clowns and their adoring fans were just plain nutso, off to the library I went to find out what I didn’t know about human beings to help me make sense of the behaviors I was witnessing, behaviors that were so distressing and confounding to me. There were three things in particular that bothered me.

Number One:  How can people who claim to be Christians (I spent the better part of my first 25 years of life about as deeply embedded in Christianity as one can get) vote for someone and his cohorts who couldn’t model anti-Christian principles (all the while proclaiming to be ‘followers’) anymore if they tried.

The answer I discovered was that their behavior has nothing to do with “modeling Christian principles,” it is all about the BUSINESS and promulgation of a particular brand of religion. A business plan based on promotion, power, political influence, and subjugation, not attraction.

Where did I get that information? From them. A good place to start, if you want to understand more about this, is a series on Netflix called “The Family.”  This series is based on the book Jeff Sharlett authored, of the same name. He was, for a while, a member of the organization. That will lead you more deeply into this subject. I talked in greater detail about all this a couple of months ago, in a blog.

Number Two: How could so many of us human beings (many with great joy and celebratory energy) be so cruel and heartless to so many of our fellow human being travelers, not caring all that much if people ended up dead. How could so many intelligent good people I know not see what was happening in front of their eyes and ears? How could they possibly be blind and deaf? The answer? Pro-Sociality. 60% of us human beings are wired to naturally care and are moved to help other human beings in need, often at our own expense; 30% are neutral to human beings being in need (they just don’t see it), and 10% (“Never let a good crisis go to waste”) see it very clearly and seek ways to take personal advantage of the suffering and needs of others.

I discovered that there are genetic factors. Some just don’t have a give a s=*t gene. Then there are environmental factors. Once we moved from the hunter-gatherer mode 12,000 years ago, there has been significantly less and less motivation for the 40% who are not inclined to act pro-socially to act pro-socially. It’s like if I know the police aren’t around, I will probably speed, just a little. Absence of governmental balance of power, anyone?

A great place to start if you are interested in understanding this concept is a book called The Good Book of Human Nature. In addition, if you Google or use ChatGPT and search for “Pro-Social Research.”  You’ll find an enormous number of references to explore. I talked in greater detail about this last month. This has helped me give more grace to those people who can walk past the carnage and not bat an eye or take advantage of someone down and out by taking away their coat.

That brings me to Number Three: Why don’t facts and reason seem to be an effective means of influencing change in another person’s perspective? The answer is simple, and I already knew it, but I easily forget it. Emotions.

First of all, it is essential if we are to stay sane and not kill ourselves (and maybe take some others out with us) to have viable belief systems. More than anything else, that knowledge has helped me accept what I am hearing from someone else that, to me, is unbelievably crazy, rather than challenge it. “Everyone has to believe in something,” I silently say to myself, “or they will go crazy.”  “Why would I want to take their sanity away from them?”   

Any time one of our basic belief systems fails us we are in a potentially fatal existential crisis. Santa Claus, fidelity of a partner, collapse of a religious orientation, etc. Check out Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death if you are interested in learning more about this.

Any belief system that we have, about anything, is like a piece of Swiss Cheese, stuck to our head. We have lots of belief systems, about a lot of different things, so our head is totally covered with pieces of Swiss cheese.

 Why Swiss cheese and not American? Like any belief system, Swiss cheese, has substance (the white part), and each piece has gaps and holes. If we have little to no emotional energy attached to a belief system (should we eat Kale raw or steam it?) we can be pretty easily convinced to peel off the “eat it raw” piece of cheese and accept someone else’s “steam it”.

Changing a belief system is like slapping on another slice of Swiss cheese from a different package. Some belief systems are easily replaced by new ones, even if the new one is contradictory and different than the old one; information that we thought was right. If we have had lots of experience with Kale consumption, however, and we have an opinion, a strong opinion (emotional attachment) then the differing opinion is more difficult to accept. Another word for strong is emotional.

What makes it so difficult for most of us to talk about politics, religion, sex, and money is the piece of cheese is glued to our heads by our emotions. We are not objective or open. Any attempt by anyone of get us to replace this piece of cheese by using facts, figures, pictures, logic, etc. actually increases the sticking power of the glue. So does hanging with the people whose cheese came out of the same package as ours did. Which means they share the same belief system.

For the most part we are not aware that our cheese is glued to our head by our emotional energy, and would deny it, even if we were to be shown evidence that our heart rate increased, our blood pressure went up, and our respiration rate changed. (Never let concrete evidence get in the way of a strong belief system superglued to our head.) For the most part we are not aware that we have approximately 150 different feeling states on an average day. We are not aware that our emotions are the primary energy driving belief systems. Sometimes we drop clues though.

“I feel really strongly about this.”  “This is really important to me.”  “I just can’t let go of….”  Or we reveal our emotional attachment to our belief by our tone of voice, our rigidity, resistance, or stridency. If confronted directly, most of us would sincerely deny our emotions are fueling the belief system. We aren’t lying, we are just not aware. It would be rare for us to say, “Look, I understand my point of view is full of holes; my fear, not logic or reason, is the primary source of what I am about to say.”    

Emotions always upstage logic. Emotions are the elephant. Logic is the rider. If the elephant is raging, logic will only p-#s it off more. I have an ex-wife because I didn’t know this.

Without the right tools, most of us have found it easier just to say nothing, when we experience someone who is obviously very invested in their piece of cheese not being tampered with.

If we want to try to engage, the secret sauce is to honor their emotional glue. Emotions have the developmental age maturity of about eight. In other words, when a person is “enthusiastic” about their belief system or point of view, the part of their brain that is dominate and activated is about eight years old.

The recommended strategy would be the same as if we were talking to an eight-year-old kid. (This is impossible, if MY eight-year- old kid part of my brain is activated, which is frequently the case.)

“This seems especially important to you, tell me more about….” “You said you feel really strongly bout this, tell me more.”

DON’T SAY SOMETHING like “I can tell you are really angry, (or sad, or afraid, or happy) about this. Remember we don’t like and are at war with our emotions, for the most part, and we certainly don’t want them to be called out by someone before we are ready (if ever) to admit it to ourselves.

I’ve managed to do this a couple of times; the results are impressive. My Hans story I have told, is one example. I haven’t done it as often as I wish I would have.  MY emotions get in the way.

And there is a risk. I might be reminded that my piece of cheese has holes in it too, and you have a valid point or two.

One of my favorite teachers, Quantum Physicist Werner Heisenberg’s principle #56 suggests that his experiments conclude that none of us know anything, for sure. He goes on to tell us that what we end up seeing, in any situation, is based on what we expect to see.

This is not news to some of us older geezers. We have noticed the older we get, the less we know, and the less certain we are of what we think we know. I don’t believe that it is a fault, I believe that is the beginning of wisdom and reason.