God is Great! or Not!

How we talk God (by whatever words) is important because it influences how we live with one another.  David Korten indicated (see an earlier blog) that how people understand Wealth, God, and Human Nature makes a big difference in the lives people lead and the policies they advocate.

Elsewhere I defined the stages of faith: from naive, to critical, to wise faith, and beyond. Sometimes we get stuck in an earlier stage. While I think that the study of human development explains God-talk to a large extent, I also think with Korten that different kinds of God-talk show different stances to one's self, others, and the world.

Let me contrast two kinds of God-talk--using "God" to mean any symbol for "ultimate concern" (Tillich) or "higher power" (AA). Some of these symbols are "Jesus" as in "Jesus saves", "Allah" as in "Allah is great," "Yahweh" who gave the law, "Divinity," "Great Spirit," "Creator," "Transcendent One," "Universal Force," and so on.

The first makes an entity of or personifies transcendence, which critical and wise faith would recognize as metaphorical and often capable of interpretation into the contemporary worldview and language. God (Jesus, Spirit) loves us, calls me, bless America, leads me, punishes evil and rewards good, hears our prayers, creates the world, rules nature, infuses souls, inspires leaders, dictates truths, keeps his promises, saves, helps, is Father, Mother, Brother, Savior, lives in me, tests me (but not beyond my capacity), and so on.

But besides being a leftover of or hang up in an earlier stage of faith, this mode of God-talk shows a different way of dealing with ourselves, each other, and our world. It puts meaning outside us and nature. It supports a hierarchy with a Dominant One holding the strings, directing the process and progress, choosing what is right and wrong, providing standards that are absolute, unchanging, fixed.

It is primarily this notion of transcendence that both new and old atheists are denying and that makes atheism possible and desirable at all.

Now the more reformist, contemplative, and I suppose heretical way of imagining transcendence is as a center point in space and time that is in-tending beyond the here and now to the determining past and the in-shaping future, to the interiorizing self and the expanding community and universe, to wonder filled reality and the projecting ideal.

Here God does not love us but is the love we have for one another. God is not pulling strings but is the attracting beginning and end of the universe. God is not creating but becoming in our interacting with each other and our worlds. God is neither a punishing father nor nourishing mother, but the destructive and creative energy in us all. Here God has no priests, ministers, mediators, and answers no prayers. Contemplation is its own reward as is faith and good works. No name, blame, or shame here. Just life and love.

In our congregation we use the language of "Spirit of Love" and "Spirit of Life" rather than God, Jesus, Creator, or Parent. Still perhaps a bit metaphysical, I can live with that language and the image of the divine spark of original blessing in each of us which we join to light up our world in social justice.

These competing imaginations of transcendence, I think, shape our political choices and future. (See last blog.)

The Choice

The candidates of this election have professed that there is a clear choice for the electorate.  I'm not sure how clear the choice is as they articulate it; but I agree that there is definitely a choice which I hereby hope to make clear.

I think the choice is based on a philosophy or world-view, on an ethic or understanding of the good life and human values and ends, on a politics or understanding of the nature of political action, and on an economics or understanding of wealth and the necessities of life.  The first choice is more individualistic, the second more communitarian and both have important places in American history.

The choice consists of many sub-choices.  I list each of them as "positives" or as choices among goods though I do think that for some of them their values are relative to particular situations and specific judgments as to where we as a people are at this time and place. Over all I would argue that based on the fundamental principle of integrity as I have explained elsewhere, one choice is better and in fact the opposite choice sets us back as a people.

CHOICE ONE                                  CHOICE TWO
Personal charity Social Justice
Sympathy for Empathy with
Economic growth Political happiness
Incentivize individual Incentivize social development
Religion as beliefs, values Religion as beliefs, values,
  behavior of individuals                 behavior of society
Close, strengthen boundaries Open, broaden boundaries
Corporate/CEO leadership Community, servant leadership
Power as strong force Power as acting together
Government: remove barriers Vehicle for collective action
Liberty from Freedom for
Tradition as guide Openness to new
Restoring institutions Creating institutions
Small town America ideal Sustainable urban ideal
Equity in process Equity in substance
Wealth as money, increase in Wealth as human, natural
  individual property/consumption     social well-being
Restore old economy Bring in new economy
Jobs as source of income Jobs as creative activity
Energy: unlimited force to produce Energy as renewable source
Absolute values through tradition Relative values through science
Private over public Public over private
 Public=sum of private                     Public good over private profit

In many cases, the sub-choice is not either/or but both/and. Yet I think the difference between choice one and choice two is profound and issues into specific policies regarding climate change, poverty and wealth creation, energy, health care, military strength. I think that the overall choice says a lot about us as individuals and as a nation. Therefore the choice is important.

I think that for those of us who are more oriented to a communitarian approach (choice two), it was a disservice to frame the election as about the economy and jobs, rather than politics and community. And I think that the Obama Campaign makes a fundamental error in allowing the Romney Campaign to set the terms for the primacy and meaning of wealth, economy, and jobs. What we need is a fundamental shift in worldview, ethic, economy, and politics which comes down to a different American religion than the one now embodied in the traditional Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jew, Muslim, and New Age religions that make individual salvation and affluence the means and end of human action.

Polispeak

Words spoken and written are what make ideas public.  And as some linguists have suggested, they are what make ideas at all. And ideas make mind. And mind makes homo sapiens sapiens.

Words make public space possible and public space makes human speech and action possible and effective. So it is important to listen to the words in public discourse that move to the public policy that will shape our future.

So tonight let's listen to the words of the candidates for political office and especially those who would occupy the bully pulpit. Yet the creators of dictionaries know that, depending on context and intentionality, the same word can take on far different meanings, express far different ideas, shape far different mentalities and policies.

Korten identified three words whose meanings may be vital to our future: Wealth, God, Humanity. (See my earlier blog.)

Let's look at some others.


Liberty often means freedom-from oppression, regulation, government, land owners, corporations, parents, kids. But there is also freedom-to engage, speak and act, participate.  The latter is political freedom which is not unlimited, but requires boundaries in order to exist, the boundaries of public space, freed from oppression and violence and necessity, but not from law, regulation, government which are the walls of the polis or the space of freedom that shapes, extends, and decorates the walls but does not remove them. So liberty is a condition of freedom but should not be equated with it. That is the fallacy of libertarians and free market fundamentalists. 

Power can mean power over, e.g. control or force, which Weber meant when he defined the State as a monopoly of the means of violence. Power-over can also be authority which invested in leaders through law or custom that may or may not be enforced. Or power can mean power-with.  This is the "ability to act in concert" and is identified with political freedom as defined above. Power-with is ultimately the basis of power over whether for good or evil. Power-with can even allow for the destruction of political space and freedom through force and authority as we see in oppressive societies and their governments. The only way of restoring power in these societies is by uniting with others on their own initiative and authority and developing new spaces of freedom. 

Justice often is seen as a system of reciprocity or quid pro quo where good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished or where if someone loses by another person's action, the perpetrator must lose proportionately. Justice gets back from or at the person. Laws (whether from authority or from consensus) determine what is good and bad for a society. Crime is breaking the law which is enforced through punishment. But the purpose of criminal justice is social order--the social order that citizens determine is right. So a more fundamental meaning of justice is the character of the social order. When Joaquim de Fiori was burnt at the stake, when the founders of the US were charged with treason, when Ghandi and Martin Luther King went to jail, the justness of the social order is called in question. In that sense there is a higher sense of justice, whether from god or human nature, than criminal justice.

Democracy in the root sense is rule by the demos, which Greeks considered the "mob" and this is commonly equated today with populism of the right or left. Such democracy can be an aristocracy under the sway of those who are "well-born" or a plutocracy under the sway of the rich or even a dictatorship under the sway of a forceful leader. Democracy can also be equated with republicanism where a republic is considered a public or many interacting publics where free persons (no longer under the sway of necessity or force or household concerns, i.e. economy) shape the public sphere. 

Capitalism (or simply economy) is often identified with commerce and financial wealth accumulation through a market under the control of the major economic players. But capitalism can also be seen to mean as including other types of capital--social, educational, spiritual, ecological. This is in tune with Korten's two definitions of wealth and two criteria of national preeminence: Gross National Product vs Gross National Happiness.

Leadership takes on different meanings in different systems of political order, justice, freedom. One type of leadership is forceful, showing the strength of power over others, other factions, other nations and has to demonstrate its exceptional quality and it usually called "True Leadership." Another type of leadership promotes others as leaders, power with others including factions and nations, and is sometimes called "Servant Leadership." Leadership in economy (e.g. corporations and household) is more top down and forceful. Leadership in politics (e.g. in republics) is collaborative and persuasive.

So listening to the debates tonight, let's consider the meanings of these terms that the candidates are using. They will talk about freedom, power, justice, democracy, capitalism (or economy), and leadership. Let's reflect on their words in their context and see if we like what we hear.

Towards Civil Discourse

Towards Civil Discourse:  A Political Myers-Briggs?

Words matter.  Our language has become brutal.  And our body politic is suffering.

Anger can be a great motivator if it leads to taking responsibility and collective action.  But when it just blames and calls names, it reverts to cynicism that is the loss of collective power and an invitation to nihilism and even violence.

It divides the “99%” and leaves the “1%” calling all the shots.  I saw this working in Chicago in the 60s when upwardly mobile working black families and white families were blaming each other and themselves for deteriorating neighborhoods while financial institutions, fronted by realty agents and backed by federal housing policy, were making great economic gains through scare and hate tactics that drove white families out of established neighborhoods into newly developed housing tracts in suburbs and then took recently disinvested and devastated center city land for new high priced condos by the lake. 

Today, beyond race being used to disempower, silence, and fragment the majority, it is life style—so-called liberal vs. conservative values.  In other words, culture again masks economic domination and political control.

So now we have Tea Partiers angered at government which they think is in the hands of the liberal gay-loving, free-thinking, atheistic abortionists.  And we have an Occupy Wall Streeters angered at corporations which they think are in the hands of the fascistic, ideological, bible-toting true believers.

As an old organizer, who accepts that people are motivated by 1) economic self-interest, 2) cultural values, 3) community recognition or affiliation, and 4) spiritual meaning (and the anger that arises when these are frustrated), I am searching for a tool that might contribute to the reestablishing of our commons, our citizenship, and our country.  I realize that for people to unite they have to recognize and understand where they come from, how different their stories are, and why they see the world the way they do.  Then they need to find the interests, values, affiliations, and meanings they share and to act together to strengthen their common space.  They need to transition from consumers of things and thoughts to citizens producing and thinking in concert.  This will only happen in association.  And I am looking for a tool that might help foster citizen association

I have found that a great tool for fostering teamwork in a family or work setting is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI)[1] especially when facilitated by a competent third party specialist.   It helps all members of the family or worksite understand their own and each other's acquired preferences in seeing and judging the world without any negativity and in fact with lots of affirmation for how differences contribute to the whole team, company, or project.

The tool starts with a self-test with which the participants answer and then score, a series of questions that ascertain whether they 1) process more interiorly or exteriorly (Introvert/Extravert), 2) focus more on facts or on vision (Sensing/Intuiting), 3) value more feelings or intellectual coherence (Feeling/Thinking), 4) are quick to make a decision or are more prone to keep looking at the evidence (Perceiving/Judging).  The participant considers the results and the description of the personality to which these results point to see if the shoe fits.  Then the participant shares the results with others to discuss what this means for the team or the family or the company.

There are no right or wrong answers.  Nor are there any pure types.  All of us find ourselves somewhere along the continuum of these four polarities.  This is not in any sense a "fix" of a personality type--again just an understanding of oneself and others in this here and now.

For example I found that I tend to process things out loud (high E) even well before any decision.  I learned that when I was the director of an organization, I needed to warn colleagues of my tendency so that they would not take what I was saying as what I really thought or wanted.  Also when I was director of a small planning organization, I realized that I had surrounded myself with big-picture visionaries (NTs), and I needed to value and add to the concrete, data based SPs to make our organization more effective.  The MBTI is merely a tool, but a good one for fostering relationships in the private sphere. 

Now can we devise a similar tool for our body politic—the public sphere?

The MBTI is based on a psychologist’s (Karl Jung) theory of personality.  I would like to suggest a tool based on a sociologist political thinker theory of sociality.  Here are the four polarities I propose. They relate to the four motivators of human behavior I mentioned above.

1.  Related to economic interests:  Free market/Social responsibility  (F-S)[2]

Are you more interested in an unrestricted marketplace where you need not look over your shoulder or consider implications or in how your producing and consuming is affecting yourself and others and society as a whole?

2.  Related to cultural values:  Relational/Traditional (R-T)[3]

Do you have fixed values that come from human nature and tradition or are your values more relative to the time, the situation, the persons, and the consequences.

3.  Related to affiliation in governance:  Authoritarian/Consensual (A-C)[4]

Are you more inclined to have a strong leader within institutions of authority or to have broad emerging leadership among changing institutions?

4.  Related to philosophy of life: Pragmatic materialist/Idealistic believer (P-I)[5]

Do you find meaning in day-to-day concrete process of living and acting or do you find meaning in a more idealized past or yet-to-come time and place?

As in the MBTI, I state the polarities without any negative judgment as ranges of political personality or, better, public character.  None of them are either-or.  Yes, pushed to extremes or "pure types" there might be some negativity inferred--again depending on your perspective and your own relative place along the continuum.

I think they can be applied to public officials, candidates for public office, to parties, to citizens, to advocacy or special interest groups, to political commentators, to lobbyists, to polls and pollsters, to communities and maybe even nations.  But again this is not a "fix." People and publics do change.

I am developing self and a group administered tests that could be used to ascertain the style or type or public character of a participant, group, or community.  As in the MBTI, I can identify sixteen political character types that we can use for self-knowledge and for working together.  I want to propose this instrument as a way to diminish accusation, blame, and name calling and inform citizens as to the style of themselves and of candidates so they can make a more informed decision based on what they judge to be best for the community or nation or public at this time and place. 

But perhaps that wishful thinking exposes my own preferences and public character.[6]

And certainly our body politic needs a balance-in-tension without going to the extremes of free-for-all marketeering or top-down controlled economy, libertine or state imposed culture, dictatorial or anarchic governance, one-dimensional or fantasy philosophy.  Perhaps a public character indicator instrument (PCI) could be a tool to promote this balance-in-tension.

I am hoping that with such a Public Character Indicator instrument, we can foster a better public space and return power ("the ability to act in concert") to all of us.

Such an instrument could be used in focus groups and relational interviews to tell our stories and express our preferences, our way of seeing and singing our social world.  I have no illusion that it could be used in situations where people are at the extremes and have no desire for dialogue or learning.  I doubt that politicians, including congressional committees and political action committees, could use it because they are already committed to their positions.  I seriously doubt that Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or James Carville and their dittoheads could ever use it. 

But I do think that interfaith groups, neighborhood groups, and community organizations might use it in order to get past likes and dislikes to what is essential.  It could even be a tool for the compromise and consensus that a republic needs.

My next steps are to get some feedback on this from colleagues, try out the instrument (including the questionnaire and the description of types) on a group, change the instrument based on the feedback and trial.

I welcome any help. 

Next steps:

Sixteen Political Character Types

FRAP	FRCP	FTAI	FTAP
SRAP	SRCP	STAI	STAP
FRAI	FRCI	FTCI	FTCP
SRAI	SRCI	STCI	STCP

Description of types.

Examples of public figures alive and dead who might represent these types.

Questionnaire for determining predominant political character type.

---

[1] See the Myers-Briggs Foundation at www.myersbriggs.org.

[2] Here I am using the theory of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and classical economics.

[3] Reinhold Neibuhr and Paul Tillich are my teachers here.

[4] I accept the political thought of Hannah Arendt for this polarity.  George Lakoff’s work on the difference between Republican and Democratic framing is useful here.  My problem with Lakoff (“authoritarian father” and “nourishing parent”) is that he neglected the other tensions and thus oversimplified.

[5] John Dewey, his disciple, Richard Rorty, French thinker Merleau-Ponty and those who followed steered for me the path between idealism and realism.

[6] So let me come to terms with that so that I can reduce the influence of my biases in developing the tool.

Without yet taking my undeveloped test, I would guess that I am an SRCP; i.e. I usually and habitually stress social responsibility over free market, values relative to the situation over values from human nature or tradition, community consensus over hierarchical organization, and pragmatic materialism over spiritual ideals.  I know I tend to be a social democrat ("socialist") economically, culturally a "libertarian" relegating sexual orientation, methods of birth control, free sex, and religious principles to the private realm without public significance, politically a "republican" promoting interdependent publics rather than a populist ruled by a strong executive, and a progressive "pragmatist" eschewing religious or philosophical doctrines that claim the truth or any absolute considered ideal.

But that's me.  In a republic, it is important that I recognize that my qualities are also limitations and I need around me others who are less like me.  I do need people who listen and respect my preferences but also who challenge them.  At times and places we need to accept deregulation of the market and less government sponsored social welfare.  At times and places, we should be less tolerant of certain behaviors like pornography or circumcision that are often not really victimless.  At times and places, our community needs a stronger executive less prone to compromise, polls, and interest groups. At times and places, I do admire those who are intending an ideal future or take their ideals from tradition.

Ethics in Politics: Questions to the Candidates

Today in the Post there were two excellent sets of questions that should be topics for the Big Debates, one set by Fact Checker Glenn Kessler and the other by Conservative Columnist George Will. I have some other questions that won't be asked and probably shouldn't be because they would be answered with general platitudes. Nevertheless I will be listening to the candidates carefully to understand how they do in deed answer these.  Are there questions you would add or subtract or change?

What is your notion of wealth, image of God, definition of human nature? (see previous blog).

What is the most important issue of your presidency?

What is your religion (or spirituality) and how might it affect your presidency?

What do you consider the highest goal for the nation?

Some say we are ready to move into a New Economy. What would be your preferred economy?

What is the role of government?

What is America's role in the world? Has America always acted in accord with the ideals you set for America?

Everybody advocates freedom.  What do you mean by freedom?

Everybody advocates justice. What do you mean by justice?

Everybody advocates democracy. What do you mean by democracy? What inhibits democracy in America and around the world today?

Everybody advocates a "free market." What does this mean to you? Are there limits?

What is your understanding of the right to bear arms? Are there any limits?

What is your understanding of right of free speech? Are there any limits?

How much do you value science? Do you consult science and its general consensus when making decisions? Do you support scientific exploration? Are there any limits?

How would you take big money out of the influence of government policy?

Do you hold for the separation of church and state? If so, what does this mean to you?

What is the "safety net" for you and government's role in ensuring a safety net?

Does everyone have a right to and responsibility for a job? If so or not, why? 

Would you consider a national service?  Why or why not? If so, what kind?

What are the most important public policies for a sustainable world and humanity?

Which immigrants should be allowed into the nation? Which should not? What will be your immigration policy?

Where should the lines against cruel and unusual punishment be drawn today? Death penalty? Torture?

What are the purposes and limits on military action? Use of drones? Intervention?

America has more people in the criminal justice system than any other nation?  Does this concern you? If so what do you advocate we do?

Despite some gains and some very successful people, African Americans as a group, still affected by years of slavery, Jim Crow, and northern urban segregation, are behind in many quality of life metrics? What do you propose we do about this?

Are there other people that are being excluded from full exercise of their citizenship because they belong to a certain group?  If so, what should be done?

Does it concern you that in the US and throughout the world in so-called free market or capitalist societies, the division between the rich and the poor is getting greater? Is this something you would work on? What ideas do you have?

Can America achieve world piece on its own? What role should we have? What should we do to eliminate the root causes of war?

What are the main values/goals that should drive all our public policy? What are the values that are threatening humankind?

The Ethics of Politics (again)

The Campaign is getting to its end. Finally! Next week the debates.

At the beginning of all this I proposed using the campaign to critique the American religion--the values of our culture especially as they pertain to our public life. I reflected on Morris Berman's book Why America Failed and used Robert Bellah's notion of the civil religion. Then I examined the websites of Romney and Obama to see if there was a difference in values or at least priorities.  I also tried to recruit some colleagues to help by listening to the candidate speeches, campaign ads, the convention platforms and speeches. No takers here. Guess I should go back to teaching. It would have been a great class assignment.

Good friend Bob Toth just introduced me to David Korten. I ordered his book; but while waiting, I listened to his talk on "Radical Abundance: A Theology of Sustainability." Here he contrasts two notions of wealth, two images of God, two senses of human nature. I think they are instructive for the campaign and American politics.

Wealth:
Consumability, the capacity to control and use up resources, measured in money.
Or
Natural, including human, resources for life, action, meaning, measured in happiness.

God:
Patriarch outside and dominating nature (including humanity) and requiring obedience.
Or
Emerging and becoming Spirit of life and love in everyone and every thing.

Human Nature:
Individual acquisition stimulated by the fear of loss and the flight from want or harm.
Or
Social collaboration stimulated by the desire for connectedness and universal meaning.

The Empire mentality which now activates our collective discourse and behavior measures national wealth as the sum of everyone's value as measured in money, speaks of God as a rewarding and punishing Superman in the Sky, and human purpose as fulfillment of want and avoidance of loss including death. Acquisition and consumption drive us collectively as images of God to control the earth for the good of our kind. And it leads us on a way to non-sustainability economically, politically, culturally as a nation and as a species. It is that gnawing realization that is behind the grief we feel, the anger that we misdirect, the loss of hope in our government and ourselves.

Korten points out an irony. Most people personally have preference for a happiness that is not measured by acquisition and consumption of people, nature, land, and things. Most persons rather see the divine in the relationships in oneself, others, the world as a Spirit of Life and Love. Most opt for an empathic view of themselves and others. Yet this Earth Community mentality does not transfer into our public discourse and policy or our collective action.

So individually we are preferring the way of connectivity.  But collectively we are choosing the policies of separation. Our policies are rooted in fear and distrust of aliens and each other, owning and controlling natural resources, increasing our individual ability to consume. We see government more as a threat to us than a tool of us collectively and maybe because we make it so with our heavily financed party system.

If our Empire mind, policies, and behavior are destroying the conditions for life, freedom, and happiness, should we not choose collectively a different path? I have argued that this path will probably NOT come through politics as it is structured through the party system today, but must come through thoughtful community organizing. Isn't this where the Tea Party went wrong? Certainly many Tea Partiers, like Cousin Vinnie, have legitimate concerns and justifiable anger. But then they wind up misdirecting it with fear of Mexicans, African Americans, homosexuals, feminists, socialists and with the Republican Party (directed by Karl Rove).

In the meantime, let's look at the candidates, their rhetoric and policies and see which path they most represent? Let's examine their websites, their speeches, their debates.

They are both personally good men. Both I personally find likable. (Despite their stupid negative ads!) Both with compelling biographies. Good personal values, good families, good education, patriotic good Americans, contribute to charity.  Both have given generously to help friends and others who need help.

But what is their sense of wealth, image of God, sense of human nature? What do they consider the highest goal for Americans and the nation? Who are they attracting us to be as Americans and as humans? What kind of a collective or public ethic are they promoting? What is their path to sustaining our species and our world?

Let's come back to this after the first debate.

This Little Light of Mine

Rev Rob last Sunday talked about getting lost and finding our way. He said that Quakers, like Unitarians, use the language of the "divine spark" that is in everyone.  It is by that internal light that we find our way when we are lost. Amazing grace!

The light metaphor was used by Plato and picked up by Augustine and then Heidegger for explaining human knowing. The limits of this metaphor were pointed out by Thomists following Aristotle. Neo-Thomist and Kantian Bernard Lonergan especially criticized the "look theory" of knowledge which pretends that everything is just "out there" ready to be found.  Look theory diminishes the creative aspect of knowing by which we craft a model or theory and then verify it through experimentation. When we use language or other symbols to deal with our environment, we are using forms to cut things out of matter and put them into groups.

But acknowledging those limits, the interior light that shines in the darkness to illumine things and especially the way is still a useful metaphor.

Yesterday I read a piece by Howard Gardner on "Reinventing Ethics." I agree with the professor that the old bromides, the moral statutes of past sages, simply don't work anymore. The Ten Commandments and the Analogues don't settle questions of extending life to virtual immortality, using drones against terrorists, planning sustainable cities, and dealing with climate change.  I very much like his solution of gathering the people of professions to consider possible actions, their intended and unintended consequences, what they know and have yet to learn, and the tradeoffs in alternative courses of action. They could reinvent medical ethics, the ethics on uses of biotechnology, limits of technology in defense and foreign affairs, environmental ethics, political ethics, legal ethics, etc. Granting that we can always learn from great ideas of history, Gardner's approach is much better than trying to apply some principles of religion or philosophy that were developed with such a radically different mentality in radically different situations.

However, the philosopher in me won't quite give up.

As I have said often in these meditations, there is a constant principle and guide in all the professionals' discussions and those of us ordinary citizens. It is the "light" of cognitive and moral reason in us all. There is a "humanity" to which we can appeal in our ethical discussions. It is the human way to truth and good, the universal structure of cognitive and moral knowing and doing. Karl Popper, among many others, has articulated the human way of knowing things in the world--reality, truth. John Dewey, among many others, has articulated the human way of doing right or good in the world. Recently neuroscientists and evolutionary psychologists have shown how that singular human trait evolved and is administered in the brain.

Whether we are looking at that structure or not, it is operating in all our human actions, including discussing the ethics of our professions or of our everyday world. I think it helps to point this out from time to time; so might I encourage Professor Gardner to include a philosopher in those professional discussions, one who will help them reflect on what they are doing and with what tools so that they see that, despite the diversity of language and outlooks, there is always something which unites us all and makes possible a common space and action--at least for now.

When we all put our little lights together, there is an illumination far greater than that which comes from outside or down from high.  So let them shine.

Why is Cousin Vinnie So Angry? (Part4)

So how can I get to Cousin Vinnie? Getting him not to reduce his anger, but to use it positively.

Not by argument, nor studies, nor debates, nor evidence that attack his conclusions, his judgment, his religion, his party or group or country. Nor would my assurances that in all my experience in poor and minority communities I never knew anyone with the stereotypes I portrayed in Part 1. (Though I am still unhappy with my neighbors shouting.)

Evolutionary psychologists and neuroscientists have affirmed that reason has little to do with it.  Don't get me wrong. I think rational inquiry has an important place, but not at this stage of our politics. What is important is what Cousin Vinnie is feeling, his fears, his sense of loss, the challenge to everything he has held dear.

And I have to understand this if we are to work together to make the changes that meet the values that are important to both of us. I have to acknowledge his grief and mine and redirect it beyond the apparent to the real sources of his grief.

"Rub raw the sores of discontent," counseled a former mentor, one totally misunderstood by that great historian Newt Gingrich. Saul Alinsky was a conservative republican in the most traditional sense of that term. His core principle was "a free and open society." He taught people of all races and religions how to use their own institutions to strengthen them and their communities and fight the big institutions, including government, that were threatening theirs. He taught how to form what Hamilton called "factions" in order to have power, not dominating "power over," but collaborating "power with." He counseled that in the process you will have opponents with different interests. But "no permanent enemies! Yesterday's enemy is today's ally."

He taught both the limits and uses of government and how to keep it accountable. For him it was not a question of lesser or bigger government, but to whom it was accountable, who it was working for, whether or not it fostered power and responsibility or took it away from local families and communities. He was certainly not a friend of welfare or charity when it reduced people's power; and he bated the "liberal" mentality for doing that.

Alinsky was especially concerned with the Cousin Vinnies and pushed the churches and community groups to help them organize before right-wing or lefty populists using messages of fear and hate could. He urged that they organize themselves on positive visions for their communities on education, access to health, city services, local business retention. In Chicago he showed that those neighborhoods that organized on fear or hate of "aliens" were the first to dissipate. He indicated that this was so for nations as well.

To find the Cousin Vinnies I go through their churches, their sports groups, their cultural centers, their unions, their neighborhoods, their affiliations. I have to spend time with the Cousin Vinnies. Not talking politics, but their economic interests, their cultural values, their social affiliations--in other words, their stories. I have to connect them with people who have similar interests, values, affiliations--but questioning their solutions, their beliefs, the "bullshit" that they picked up from politicos, advertising, media, and the hidden persuaders. I have to connect them in a way in which they can really deal with their grief through collective action. And so that they can experience the joy of being in community and in action, even when there are losses and setbacks, and the joy of being connectors on their own.

Some of issues that relate to the institutions (economic, cultural, political) that are giving us all grief are:

1) Tax Reform. We all want it simpler, fairer, more progressive, closing the loopholes that take jobs from ordinary people. Tax policy provides incentives and disincentives for certain people and activities. I bet Cousin Vinnie and I could decide what and who we want to provide incentives to--if we just forget our party affiliations.

2) Financial Institutions. We all want to make sure that banks don't take the risks which put us all in jeopardy. Never again.

3) Poverty. We all know that the growing disparity in wealth is dangerous. Instead of blaming greedy rich people or lazy poor people, let's identify the ways to make our "free market" system really free and accessible to all. Public good jobs (infrastructure,

4) Educational opportunity. Reinstate the draft but with options for national service. Expand GI Bill to all national service participants.

5) Language. Press all internet news outlets to edit out all ad hominem and hate comments. Make hate and ad hominem comments taboo, a sign of imbecility. Push standards for political discourse.

6) Campaign finance. Back to (or even a stronger) McCain-Feingold even if it takes a constitutional amendment. Buying elections is what maintains party disfunction.

7) Local development. City building using sustainable standards including considering long term costs of sprawl.

8) Public health and safety. Clean water, air. Community policing.

9) Dry up jobs for illegal immigrants by making those jobs more attractive to citizens, by sanctioning employers, by economic development in Mexico. But of course a path to citizenship for those who have been here contributing to this nation just as we did for the Irish and Poles before them.

All these transcend parties. All these require community building without party affiliation through organizing through churches, neighborhoods, unions, and other voluntary networks to hold all government and industry accountable. This is basic politics which transcends liberal and conservative, Republican and Democratic, capitalist and socialist labels. This is the politics of "speak with," rather than "talk at."

Cousin Vinnie, I challenge you. No matter which party "wins" the title in November, can you commit yourself to at least dropping the hate talk, the bumper sticker labels, the stereotypes and start working on these issues for the common good? Or are you just going to keep making yourself miserable by reading and repeating internet bullshit?

Why is Cousin Vinnie So Angry? (Part3)

Anger.

From Middle English anger (“grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, wrath”), from Old Norse angr, ǫngr (“affliction, sorrow”), from ang, ǫng (“troubled”), from Proto-Germanic *anguz, *angwuz (“narrow, strait”), from Proto-Indo-European*amǵʰ- (“narrow, tied together”). Cognate with Danish anger (“regret, remorse”), Swedish ånger (“regret”), Icelandic angur (“trouble”), Old English ange, enge (“narrow, close, straitened, constrained, confined, vexed, troubled, sorrowful, anxious, oppressive, severe, painful, cruel”), German Angst (“anxiety, anguish, fear”).

Grief, sorrow, anguish!  Justified.

But misdirected.

Yes, there are bad people, exploiters, who have suppressed or dismissed their conscience in order to advance themselves financially or politically. Populist polarizers and partisans using slogans that incite fear and clan mentality instead of thought. (I put Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachmann, and Sarah Palen at the top of my list here.)

But most, like Cousin Vinnie, are true believers who have little ground experience in minority or poverty communities and are hoodwinked into thoughtless opinions. I do not expect Cousin Vinnie to change. He is too old, too set in ways that are constantly reenforced by what he chooses to hear on the radio, by the barrage of hateful emails and internet sites he has signed up for, perhaps by what he hears at church, and by his desire for absolutes--a right versus wrong, a white versus black, America love it or leave it.

Angry men, white or black, native or immigrant, often do not acknowledge complexities and ambiguity because they are not thinking. (Perhaps some women too, though I do not know any with this kind of anger, except for the exploiters mentioned above.)

Psychologists like Jonathan Haidt and Linguists like George Lakoff demonstrate the roots of polarization and partisanship in the brain and advance new ways of "framing" (not just what you say, but how you say it) and across-group, human relationships to understand the moral foundations that have evolved in all of us. I find such research and discussion helpful, even necessary, but not sufficient.

When John McCain (R) and Russ Feingold (D) worked across parties with Common Cause and other reform minded NGOs to change election procedures that favored big money, they took on an institution that enshrines and promotes polarization in both parties. The plutocrats who run the parties and most of the economy, culture, and politics of the country could not have that and had the reform declared unconstitutional. (Which perhaps it is since the country was founded by slave-owning plutocrats.)

When Nixon (R) and Moynahan (D) and Republican successors worked with Poverty groups to initiate and support the Family Assistance Program which evolved to SSI and the EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit), they demonstrated an institutional way to attack poverty and increase assets (and buying power) of working people.

When Fair Housing reformed FHA and the Community Reinvestment Act, supported by numerous community organizations under National People's Action, pushed financial and governmental organizations to greenline instead of redline vulnerable neighborhoods, these were cross sector, cross party groups focusing on institutional, rather than psychological changes. Hopefully the same will be said for the health Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank Finance Reform Act both of which in earlier days would have been bi-partisan.

Yes, attitudes matter. Fear and prejudice are used by the wealthy and their politicians to sway masses in a plutocratic democracy. Language, empathy, reflective inquiry can make a big difference. But my Chicago Lawndale experience taught me that the very structures within which we are working (including our cultural, economic, and political forms) are what need to be changed more than attitudes. And that takes organizing--the kind that is often nameless, unappreciated, and without fanfare and whose successes are usually attributed to celebrities. And the kind that can even involve Cousin Vinnie.

What are those institutions and how do we involve the Cousin Vinnies who don't consider themselves part of the 47% freeloaders, but also don't consider themselves part of the 1% and who are genuinely concerned about the state of the "middle class" and "working poor"? How do we redirect their justifiable anger?