Battle of the Wilderness

…Belief in white supremacy provided a rationale for slavery. As the French political theorist Montesquieu observed wryly in 1748: "It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures [enslaved Africans] to be men; because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christians."

~ James W. Loewen, Five Myths about why the South seceded 

This year we mark the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War.  I have been reminded of the last major round of observances fifty years ago.  In 1961, the civil rights movement was still fairly new in the national psyche.  As a child in the North, I did not yet connect the events I witnessed on the evening news with those hallowed battles of long ago.  In school, as part of the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, we studied Presidents and strategies and generals.  We did not discuss the causes of the war as in any way related to what was happening in our country now.    

Perhaps this is the proper approach for initiating children to this complex time in our history.  Perhaps it was a recognition that the Detroit suburbs were heavily populated with families who had migrated from the South in search of jobs -- as if silence was the best way to let the children of opposing sides get along in the classroom.

However, I think that something important was missing from our education.  We didn't learn to face the dark realities behind either of the historic struggles – the civil war of long ago or the fight for human rights happening in our streets and neighborhoods.  We were not encouraged to look into our own souls to find the fears and anxieties we might still carry with us. 

Now we are the adults and I look around and see the angry faces of Little Rock and Selma again.  This time they carry posters with distorted images of our first African-American president and argue for states' rights and secession and nullification.  I wonder if these adults had the same edited education I had.  And I wonder how many of those who find joy in these images and these slogans consider themselves good Christians.

Image Information:  Battle of the Wilderness | Desperate fight on the Orange C.H. Plank Road, near Todd's Tavern, May 6th, 1864 (Kurz & Allison, Art Publishers, Chicago, U.S.A, 1887)

On-going Loss

From a colleague on the ground in Japan. 

Failing to acknowledge loss of heritage can mean survival is the start of crisis

Brent Duncan

A humpbacked old woman with a walker was teetering along a busy coastal highway that cut through the debris that had been a coastal neighborhood of nearly 400 homes in Noda Village. The old woman showed me the spot where her home had been before tsunamis blendered it into shreds, then mixed those shreds with the ruins of an entire community. As tragic as that seemed, the old woman said that she did not care about her house and rice field. She motioned toward the vast wasteland of debris that had been her village, and said her only concern was to find in that mess the box that contained her ancestors.

I felt like a boy scout as I helped her across the highway to the area in which 85 volunteer airmen, sailors, and civilians from Misawa Air Base were clearing debris. The old woman joined us, wandering in the debris with the aid of her walker. Eyes to the ground, she looked for her ancestors. We helped her to seek, but we did not find.

This is not an isolated case. The media focus almost entirely on the loss of life and property. Although these are tragic beyond imagination, focusing on only these aspects of disaster means that we miss the destruction of livelihood, culture, heritage, history, and religion—core elements of identity that give humans purpose and hope.

A mental health professional who is administering to survivors in a remote fishing village told me that the main challenge now is preventing survivors from killing themselves. This seems dreadfully ironic: struggling to survive, only to commit suicide. During times like these, we need to look beyond immediate survival needs and engage in administering to the psychological, emotional, cultural, and spiritual needs of survivors. We must do this within the cultural context of those who are suffering, not according to our desires to impose our reality on them. Otherwise, survival only means the beginning of crisis.

Brent Duncan, Professor | University of Phoenix | Gakushuu.org

Image Information:  A destroyed landscape is pictured in Otsuchi village, Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami struck the area. Image date, March 14, 2011. (Credit: Reuters/Kyodo)

Considering Scapegoats

It has been fascinating to watch the transference of anger going from Wall Street and investors to corporations in 2007 or so, which Barack Obama blocked, told the banks I'm the guy standing between you and the pitch forks…

Without a villain, without Barack Obama letting people have the villain they want, the Republican Party stepped in and said you know, it is government and public employee unions that are the cause of your problems.

–  Ezra Klein, The Last Word, MSNBC, February 21, 2011 (at the 00:22:30 mark)

Last night I was listening to Lawrence O'Donnell and Ezra Klein discuss the situation brewing in Wisconsin.  It was a pretty generic progressive conversation about the politics of our national and state economic and budget issues – until Klein raised the issue of "blame."  He got my full attention when he talked briefly (above) about the anger people feel and how they needed to channel it toward something.

It reminded me that President Obama has not chosen to scapegoat any particular groups or organizations for our current difficulties.  In response, I can hear someone say, "Well he did say the Bush Administration's lack of regulatory enforcement was a cause" or "Obama said the greed of the financial institutions contributed to the bad deals," etc.  At which point I need to remind myself that laying blame per se is not the same as scapegoating.  To create a scapegoat, one must attempt to place the blame on a party who bears no actual responsibility for a problem – that is, try to frame an innocent for the transgressions of others.  No one who understands our current economic crisis can say the Bush Administration and the bankers are entirely without culpability in this situation. Frankly, there is plenty of blame to go around as we try to conduct a root-cause-analysis to unearth the decades-long processes that led to this point in time.

While the Left blames bankers and lobbyists and Republicans, the Right blames government employees and taxes and Democrats.  To me, Obama seems to rise above all this as he talks about the forces at work that we must accept (such as the global economy and the speed of technological changes) and those we can control (especially how government and business respond to these forces.) Earlier this month, he spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about both innovation and economic accountability: "the mutual responsibilities we have – to secure the future that we all share."

In a world where short-term political advantage is everything – and governance is illusory – Obama makes many mistakes.  This is the world of Dualism, the childish belief that good things will happen if you find the right people to blame.

However, if one accepts the Complexity of our world and truly wants to govern in a manner that creates win-win progress for all parties, then scapegoating is a waste of time. It alienates many of those with whom one must partner if one is to truly create a new conversation in this country.   To work toward this end, one must "put an end to childish ways" – stop speaking as a child, thinking as a child, reasoning as a child – and become an adult.

Maybe that's why Obama often feels like the only grown-up in the room.

Photo Information:

President Barack Obama listens during a briefing on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, aboard Air Force One en route to New Orleans, La., Sunday, May 2, 2010.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Name-Calling

MR. GREGORY [on the subject of "birthers"]:  As the speaker of the House, as a leader, do you not think it's your responsibility to stand up to that kind of ignorance?

SPEAKER BOEHNER:  David, it's not my job to tell the American people what to think.  Our job in Washington is to listen to the American people.

– "Meet the Press", February 13, 2011

An Editorial writer at the New York Times (and David Gregory) took issue with this response, seeing it as disingenuous.  Let's consider another possibility. 

Assume there are basically two ways of thinking:

Type1 – Dualism: black-white, wrong-right, evil-good; apocalyptic –
Child-like

The thinking goes something like this:

     My side is right and good.

     The other side is wrong and therefore Evil.

     Things I don't understand are scary to me and therefore Bad.

     I will stick with my side because they're good and I'm good.

Dualistic thinking can lead to a straight-forward, consistent message and solid group cohesion.

Type 2 – Complexity, tones of gray – Grown-up

     Sometimes I'm right, sometimes you're right.

     By sharing differing perspectives, we can find solutions to our problems.

     My side is not always right or good; sometimes I don't have a "side" at all.

     Things I don't understand make me curious to learn more.

     I will challenge my side when I believe they're wrong.

     I will approach the other side as if they think the same way I do, even if their perspective is different.

What is the opposite of cohesion ? Confusion – that is, the message is complicated and may seem confused. [Most of us have heard the line, attributed to Will Rogers, "I belong to no organized party, I'm a Democrat."]  The consistency is in the process, how one thinks about problems, not in the "answers."

So, if I'm a Type 1 person I might think about the president this way:

I am right and good; I disagree with Obama, therefore he is wrong and evil.

Other things that are bad:

     Anyone who's not American born

     Muslims (who honor something called "Sharia Law")

     Street-wise men of color

     People who want to take my guns, and so forth.

Therefore, Obama is not American-born, is a Muslim, wants to impose Sharia Law, a thug who wants to take my guns away, etc. etc.

So perhaps it's not disingenuous for a leader who's constituency holds many Type 1 voters to say, "The American people have the right to think what they think."  Conceivably the Speaker is just reflecting an understanding of the community his party represents.

Is it possible this is about epithets, not "facts"?  If so, there's no wonder Democrats are frustrated; facts as they understand them are irrelevant to a significant number of American voters.  Perhaps it's time to come up with a whole different understanding of "facts."

NOTE:  I have simplified some important concepts to help get me to my point more directly. Much good work has been done in the area of conflict and communications. Excellent examples can be found in the  works of W. Barnett Pearce, such as his books Communication and the Human Condition and Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (the latter with Stephen W. Littlejohn.) All Barnett's work is informed and intriguing.

[Image Credit:

Obama as a pimp, from TeaParty.Org email, January 2010

Reported at Talking Points Memo, January 28, 2010]