Trust vs Suspicion

Yesterday, I saw this quote from the Dalai Lama.

Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence, reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind.

It's an empathy thing and I think it's true that if you can empathize with someone you can see more clearly where they're coming from and are less prone to mistrust them. Since there are some people that I am very suspicious of and do not trust, I must not be able to empathize with others as well as I need to.

So I started thinking about people that I mistrust - mostly people with great wealth and power who are seeking more of the same for themselves - in other words politicians who seek to give more tax cuts to the wealthy (themselves), donate tons of money to superPACs to influence elections, pay for lobbyists to get congress to vote in their favor (thus the money they have gets them more power to get more money, etc) and reduce or eliminate funding for programs that could actually help the people who are struggling.

Since this is election season, I decided to give this a try in earnest while focusing on the 2 presidential candidates - both men of great wealth and power.

First the President - Barack Obama. When I try to step into his shoes, I feel something. I see a man who is trying hard to fix the problems the country is facing. I see a man trying really hard to compromise with a Congress that doesn't want him to succeed. I also see a man who's trying so hard to bridge that gap that he is more militaristic than I would like. But I also see a man who's trying to help the people in this country who are struggling. He wants to ensure that as many people as possible are able to get health care. He seems to genuinely care about those on the lower end of the financial spectrum and wants them to have - not the same pay as some would have you believe - but the same opportunity. I also sense a personal struggle in him as he sorts out how best to proceed while keeping the needs of everyone in mind.

Now for Mitt Romney. I tried really hard to empathize with this man, but I cannot. Maybe it's my own failing, but when I try to step into his shoes, I feel empty and cold. I get the sense that this man cannot see the plight of those on the lower end of the financial spectrum. The people he thinks are hurting are the people who have lost on investments on Wall St. Those are the only people he can identify with. This is why he thinks tax cuts for investors (i.e. the wealthy) are the way to fix things. He doesn't even see the people who lost their jobs or those who can no longer afford health care. He doesn't see the people who lost their homes. Taking care of everyday needs is easy for him, so he thinks it's equally easy for everyone else. He thinks they just need to try harder. I think that attempting to empathize with Romney leaves me with that cold, empty feeling because he is unable to empathize with ordinary people. I feel nothing coming back from him - not even a sense of personal struggle with the issues. He is an empty shell.


I tend to trust Obama more than Romney because of this. I started wondering what I needed to do to gain a better understanding of Romney and perhaps be less suspicious of his motives. Actually, I don't really question his motives anymore after this exercise. He genuinely thinks his agenda is the right way to proceed based on his world view. I just think his world view doesn't include the vast majority of the American people.

Through all this pondering, I finally had a revelation about myself. I don't WANT to trust people with great wealth and power. I SHOULD be suspicious of them. Wealth and power breed corruption. When we make it easy for a small number of people with great wealth and power the ability to gain more, they then have the ability to do great damage to our country and the average person will have been robbed of the power to prevent them from doing so.

The Flag

The U.S. flag is a powerful symbol. Since the birth of this nation, it has represented the American ideals of freedom and justice as it says in the pledge "liberty and justice for all".

The flag has also been a source of comfort and solidarity. In the days immediately after 9/11, flying the flag was a way to so say "hey, we're all in this together". I attended a vigil on the local town common where some uplifting words were spoken and comforting songs were sung. The flag was flying. And then someone in the crowd shouted "USA!" with a vengeful tone. My heart sank. It had started. The drumbeat of war. The flag started to take on a new meaning that day. One that made me cringe.

First Afghanistan, but that was understandable. The person responsible for the 9/11 attacks was taking refuge there and our government needed to bring him and his followers to justice. As someone who has stood steadfastly against war, I didn't like it, but I understood it. So did the rest of the world.

But for the Bush administration, that wasn't enough. The drumbeat grew louder and the flag was used not as a source of comfort and brotherhood, but as a weapon. It was flown, not just with the vengeance used when chasing Bin Laden into Afghanistan, but now with unbridled aggression as our country invaded Iraq on false pretenses. Our president uttered those words "If you're not with us you're against us". Anyone who disagreed with the administration's decision to go to war - a war of his choosing, not one of necessity - on a second front was then considered "them". Not "us". Someone to be feared. Someone to be hated. The chants started - "Love it or leave it" - aimed at those of us who thought invading Iraq was wrong. It was an attempt by our government to squash dissent and they had the full collaboration of media outlets like Fox News. They attempted to paint anyone who disagreed with a brush of  "anti-American". You were unpatriotic if you didn't agree with everything the Bush administration did. For those of you who read my post on "Us and Them", this should sound somewhat familiar. These are the tactics used by tyrants to gain and maintain power. They whip the populace into a patriotic frenzy. The flag becomes a virtual pitchfork wielded by an angry, fearful mob.

Fortunately, the aggression and vengeance that the flag had come to represent for me had started to recede with Bush's departure from the White House. I did not see the flag wielded in that way quite as much.

Until recently.

Some friends and family have posted a picture on Facebook of a flag sticker on the rear window of a car that read "If this offends you, I'll help you pack.". And there it was. The theme was repeated. I have been told to leave the country and to "delete yourself" when I expressed antiwar sentiments or suggested that protest was a valid expression of freedom of speech. I was told I had that right in one sentence and in the very next sentence I was told to leave the country if I didn't like  the way things were done here. And I'm seeing more and more of it. the drumbeat is growing louder once again.

Well, you know what? It's not the flag itself that offends me. It's the toxic way in which it has been used. While we like to believe that our country is the "shining city upon the hill" and all is perfection with the promise of "liberty and justice for all", I think we need to face an uncomfortable truth if we are ever going to achieve that lofty goal.

The reality of conditions in this country has not been "liberty and justice for all". Until the Civil War ended, slavery was accepted and legal. Not much liberty and justice for those who were held as slaves. Even after slavery ended, they were considered less than a whole person and struggled until the1960's when the Civil Rights movement to gain some equality. Women and other minorities have also had to fight for their rights. Women couldn't vote in all regions of the country until the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920. Even today, groups of people - homosexual couples who want the same legal benefits applied to their relationships that heterosexuals have, Muslims who want to build a house of worship in New York City - are struggling to find equality. We are getting closer but our country is still not quite living up to that ideal of "liberty and justice for all".

So I see the flag, not so much as a symbol of freedom, but a symbol of hope. Hope that one day that pledge we were taught to recite when we were kids will be true. That we really will have liberty and justice for all and not just for some.

So, no, the flag itself does not offend me. But when the flag is used as a symbol of exclusion as it was in that sticker I saw posted on Facebook - when it's used in a way that is toxic to the very freedom that it is supposed to represent - yeah, I take offense at that.

Chick-Fil-A

The CEO of Chick-Fil-A started a controversy when he declared that his company was against same-sex marriage. The Mayor of Boston and the mayors of several other cities throughout the country told him that a corporation with those views are not welcome in their communities, while others sided the Mr. Cathy in his condemnation of the rights of gays to marry.

If Mr. Cathy had kept those views as his own personal views and if his donations to anti-gay organizations were his own personal donations and not from his company, I don't think there would have been as much of a controversy. His individual opinion would not have reflected upon his company - at least not to the degree that it has.

An individual holds much less power and influence than a company does. An individual's statement is not going to raise the suspicion of discriminatory practice the same way that a corporate donation does. For example, an individual is not going to deprive his married same-sex employees of benefits that are afforded to heterosexual couples. Will Chick-Fil-A only hire people who agree with the CEO about same-sex marriage? Will they refuse to hire gay employees? Will they refuse to serve a gay couple?

I'm not saying that Chick-Fil-A is discriminatory in their practices. I have no proof of such an allegation. What I am saying is that by stating his own personal view is also that of his company, it raises the questions. A company consists of more than just the CEO. Do his employees all share his views? Do the franchise owners and regional managers share his views? Do they have to in order to be a part of this chain? Would they fire someone who disagreed or "worse" turned out to be gay?

While I think free speech is incredibly important for individuals, I don't think corporations should share that same right. A corporation is not a homogeneous whole with all of its parts sharing the same viewpoints as its CEO. If the CEO wants to voice an individual opinion, he has that right, as much as I might disagree with him. When the CEO claims that his company as a whole holds those same viewpoints, he has crossed a line. He is depriving his employees of their free speech by speaking for them without regard to what their opinions are. The power and influence of that corporate opinion overwhelms the voices of the individuals. Employees may be afraid to voice a dissenting opinion for fear of losing their jobs. A gay employee may feel persecuted by his employer and fear that he will lose his job.

Also a corporation has more resources than individuals have. An individual's viewpoint that differs will have less influence because an individual has less money to donate. The way our system is currently set up - especially with the Citizens United decision to allow corporations to donate as much as they wish - is lopsided in favor of those with the most money.

So when Mayor Mennino wrote his letter to the CEO of Chick-Fil-A saying that his company was not welcome in Boston because of its stance on gay marriage, I was a little conflicted. The part of me that believes in free speech felt that the Mayor had no right to attempt to deter someone from speaking his mind. But at the same time, same-sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, and a corporation (more so than an individual) with a policy against what is legal is suspect of discrimination for all of the reasons I cited above. The mayor was not attempting to thwart an individual's right to free speech. He was attempting to inform the CEO of a company that his company's stance against gay marriage was not welcome in a state where gay marriage is legal.

Us and Them

I wanted to write about the shootings in Colorado that happened this week and how senseless it is. And how senseless violence in general is. But I found it difficult to write about violence in general without exploring a more complex theme of "Us and Them".

I saw an episode of "Through the Wormhole" on the Science Channel the other day that discussed evil, what makes people do evil things and how can that be prevented.

The researchers in the show say that psychopaths have a neurological condition that deprives them of the capability of feeling empathy. That part of their brain just doesn't "light up" when their brains are scanned. The lack of empathy is what enables these people to do horrific things without any thought about the pain they're causing to another person.

But they also have cases where people who have this condition do not have violent tendencies. There is another factor involved - a gene that has been linked with aggressive tendencies. People who lack empathy but do not have violent tendencies have gone on to be quite successful - some of them become business leaders as shown in other studies.

I find it interesting that the shooter in the incident in Colorado was in a PhD program studying neuroscience until last month when he quit the program. It makes me wonder if he found out that he had the markers for violent psychopathy and it became somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We will probably never know what his motivations were.

The part of me that has an insatiable desire to understand things wants to know what drives a person to do this sort of thing. If we know what drives it, maybe there's a hope of preventing it - without stepping on the rights of the majority of people who will never even consider doing such a thing. But then again, at some level, I don't really want to know. I think in order to truly understand, I would have to think like they do. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to. I imagine that being inside a psychopath's mind is a very scary place to be.

This recent act of senseless violence brought back memories of the Columbine shootings a few years ago. At some level, I could understand the motivations of the shooters in that case. (Please continue reading before you pass judgment on me for this) I think many of us have experience cliques in high school, have either experienced or at least witnessed bullies in action. There is a distinct mentality of "Us" vs "Them". If you are not one of "Us" - a part of our clique - then you are one of "Them" - fair game for taunting. The outsider is dehumanized a bit. Empathy doesn't extend beyond the small group to someone who is outside of it.

The writings of the shooters at Columbine indicate that they felt that they were the outsiders and therefore fair game for taunting. This is something I can empathize with. I'm sure if we all think back to our school experiences, we can find a time when we all felt that way. Or had a friend - or classmate- who did.

Unfortunately for the classmates of these tortured souls, the shooters were unable to process their experiences and deal with them in a healthy way. Instead, they dehumanized people that they perceived to be the "enemy". They saw the other students not as classmates with human feelings of their own, but as monsters deserving of the fate that was about to befall them. The two who did the shooting declared themselves to be "Us" and their now dehumanized classmates as "Them".

As disturbing as it is, I can understand - and even relate to - the emotions behind the motives for the Columbine shooting. But such an act of violence solves nothing. All it does is cause more suffering. Even when the emotions behind an act of violence can be understood, the act itself is utterly senseless.

Then there are the more common acts of violence like that which occurs with gang warfare or organized crime. More cases of "Us" vs "Them". If you are in "our gang" you're part of "Us". If not, you're "Them". The same thing goes on with organized crime. Depending on which organization you belong to and which organization you are confronted with, it all comes down to a sense of "Us" and "Them".

The same thing happens on a larger scale during warfare. One country or group of countries is considered to be "Us" and the enemy is "Them". We as a society do not empathize with anyone living in the countries labeled as "Them". We don't see them as fully human. We see them as part of the enemy. If they are killed in the crossfire of war, we minimize their deaths by calling them "collateral damage". The only lives that seem to matter during war are those that are "on our side".

None of these examples (except for the shooting in Aurora) are examples of psychopathy in action. The people involved are capable of empathy. But that empathy extends only to the group considered to be "Us".

In extreme cases, as we've seen with Hitler's Germany, a psychopath is able to play on the theme of "Us" vs "Them" to gain power and support for heinous acts. By making a large group  of people fearful of another group of people, the walls get erected. These walls are much less visible than the well-known Berlin wall that was erected after the outward hostilities of WWII ended. But I think they were more toxic. These walls separated groups of humanity from each other with fear. It's horrifying to see what happened as a result. One group of people labeled themselves "Us" and demonized another group - declared to be "Them". The Jewish people living in Germany were scapegoated - blamed as the source of all the suffering that everyone was experiencing. In order to keep people in line, those who voiced dissent were considered "traitors" and imprisoned or killed. They, too, were "other" - "them". "If you're not with us you're against us".

We have seen similar themes right here in the US, though to a much lesser degree. During WWII, Japanese people were imprisoned and during the 1950's, when McCarthyism was in full effect, there was a "Red scare". People became fearful of anything and anyone thought to be connected with Communism whether or not there was any proof of such a connection. Those accused became "other" and were considered a threat to "us" and therefore were somehow less than human. And more recently after 9/11, Muslims have been awarded the dubious honor of being the enemy - even though it was a small group of extremists who happened to be Muslim that were responsible for the attack.

And now it seems immigrants are being labeled as "them". Undocumented immigrants are blamed for our economic woes and anyone with a different skin color or speaks a different language becomes suspect. We are told by some politicians that they are to be feared, that they are taking our resources. They are labeled "illegal aliens" and dehumanized. They are not "us" and therefore their well-being doesn't matter. This type of thing results in racial profiling and even those who are here legally get mistreated because they resemble those we have been told don't belong here.

In the episode of "Through the Wormhole" that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, a researcher by the name of Steve Pinker said statistics show that the world is gradually becoming a less violent place. He mentioned the "us" vs "them" attitude that allows people to empathize with "us" and dehumanize "them". He said that based on his research, the best way to decrease the amount of violence and number of wars in the world is for people to expand the concept of who "their tribe" is to include all of humanity. If everyone on earth is "one of us", there is no "them". We become capable of having empathy for everyone.  As a result, violence and warfare will diminish and ultimately cease.

This is the central theme of many religions. Jesus taught us to love one another. The Dalai Lama has said "Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference.”

I think it's time we took that to heart.

Conflicted

I've been having a little trouble getting started with this whole blog thing. I'll have stuff in my head that I want to write down but when I sit down to write it, I get stuck and I'm unable to write down a cohesive thought. I thought I'd start with something non-controversial (at least I think it is - I've been surprised by controversy before). I was going to talk about my favorite question -"Why?". but when I read back my ramblings it made no sense even to me.

I finally realized why I couldn't focus on it. It's because my mind is consumed with other things - things that are more controversial and more likely to raise some ire in people or even hurt them. Things I write may inadvertently touch a raw nerve. And some of the people I hurt may just be people that I care a great deal about. And there's the conflict.

You see, I really like the First Amendment. I think freedom of speech is what lies at the root of a democracy. So I see it as not just my right as accorded to me by the First Amendment to speak out about things. I see it as my responsibility. In a country that has declared its government to be "of the people, for the people and by the people", the democratic system is a participatory one. So speaking out, to me, is my civic duty. (I intend to discuss this in greater detail in a later post)

But if by speaking out, I hurt someone, it would haunt me. I have a strong desire not to bring harm to people (and this desire also fuels some of my other thoughts and opinions). I admit that I am not as successful at that as I would like to be.

Speaking out, though, is more than a civic duty to me. It's also an essential part of my nature. I have been known by many to be "the outspoken one". If I were to deny that part of my being, I would die inside a little bit each day that I stayed silent.

So I have come to a decision. I cannot deny the nature of who I am, my Dharma, what God made me to be. I will continue to speak out.

To reiterate what I said in the Introduction, if I do touch a raw nerve with something I say, I hope you will tell me that I hurt you and why. I want to know what experiences in your life you are bringing to the discussion and how those experiences have colored your views. That will help me to understand a point of view that I may not have considered because my experiences were different.

Introduction

I started this blog because sometimes I have thoughts that are just screaming to get out. Sometimes I obsess about them and they distract me from other things I want to do. I figure if I get them out of my head and into the blogosphere, it will accomplish two things.

1. It will free my mind so it can focus on other things.
2. It will give me a chance to put my ideas out there in the open where they can be discussed (hopefully in a calm and rational manner)

I don't intend to focus on any one topic - I'm simply not that disciplined. My thoughts wander over many topics - sometimes randomly - sometimes sparked by a news story or a post somewhere on the internet.

No topic is off-limits. I will discuss some controversial things. My opinions on politics and religion will undoubtedly conflict with the opinions of others. Our beliefs are colored by our experiences in life. Our experiences and the way we handle them differ, so it's no surprise that our beliefs will also differ.

All I ask is that if you disagree with anything I say and want to leave a comment, be thoughtful in your response. Give me logical reasons why you disagree. I just might learn something in the exchange. While it's not likely that I will change your mind or you mine, I hope that we can at least come to an understanding of why we have each arrived at our opinions and respect each other in the process.