I expect you’re as excited and keyed up as I am about the US presidential election. It’s only been going on for what seems like forever but it is actually only 18 months. What fun. Are you, like me, wondering how a nation of 500 million people is being asked to choose between two people who you wouldn’t necessarily invite to dinner? And have you noticed how polarized everything seems to be without any actual policies being discussed…apart from building walls and expecting the neighbours to pay for it? It’s not hugely dissimilar to our own politics these days…except we haven’t quite sunk as far as a competition between a pantomime dame and villain (you choose which is which).
Politics seems to have been boiled down to digital choices – Republican/Democrat, Brexit/Remain, hard left/hard right. It’s as if the politicians have to suppress their more moderating thoughts, select their preferred stance and ‘sell’ a black and white version of it either because they don’t trust the electorate to think through the issues or they’ve been conditioned to find a message and stick to it. It’s ironic: in this age of really spectacular communications you would think that we would be able to base decisions on subtleties, but we’ve gone the other way.
As an aside have you noticed how politicians with quite strong opposing views often get on very well with each other personally? It suggests that they’re not that diametrically opposed in their views: they’re just having to sell the Janet and John version for the great unwashed.
What about you? Do you ever notice yourself holding strong opinions one way or the other when there’s actually merit in the opposing view? If you can see how much it’s tearing politics apart and making it look just a bit silly, what is ‘black and white’ thinking doing to you?
Dr Steve Peters’ analogy of the chimp brain is rearing its head. So many psychotherapy and coaching interventions are to do with ‘treating’ black and white thinking: ‘if I don’t pass this exam my life is over’, ‘he didn’t smile this morning, he must hate me’, ‘I can’t do that, I might make a fool of myself’ etc. Black and white thinking is ugly. But our inner chimp is prone to it because it likes things that provide simple choices.
Interestingly I heard a senior military officer defer to his inner chimp the other day. Asked to champion performance coaching to higher echelons, he said that he would only do it if we could ‘prove it (conclusively)’. The inner chimp doesn’t understand coaching. Little did his realize that if something could be irrefutably proven there would be no need for him to be there: he will claim he is paid to use judgement and intellect. Sad to say the inner digital chimp plays a big part right across politics and bureaucracies: to please their superiors or the electorate, people get very good at ignoring any subtleties in their thinking and promote the black and white view.
This isn’t hugely efficient. Some of the old laser guided bombs had ‘bam bam’ guidance: the directing fins went to full deflection one way or the only. This bleeds off all the energy and the bombs don’t fly so far. The same happens when organizations and governments apply digital thinking.
So back to you. Do you only listen to your own inner concerns and ‘trump-et’ the digital version of that thinking? Or do you pause and listen to the other thoughts: that person who is upsetting you might not be doing it on purpose, having a ‘go’ at something might not end in disaster, that initiative might be worth supporting even though it’s not guaranteed.
Here’s to politicians listening to their inner human brain.
Jace