Don’t Think of An Elephant: When Gollum Sells Sneakers

This is going to be a very different type of tale, a different type of blog, a different type of creation. It’s going to be about love and hate, finding answers and humor, protecting democracy and freedom⎼ and saving everyone’s lives, even those, maybe, who have no idea their way of thinking about others is driving all of us to a cliff edge.

 

It’s about wonder. Creativity theory can be applied to create art and wonder. We all know that. It can be used to help us make decisions, discover possibilities. I wrote a book about how it can help us educate ourselves and others and think critically about anything. Maybe it can help us defeat a person who thinks being a white nationalist, a fascist concerned only with himself, is the only way to be. Maybe it could help us discover how to turn the variety of threats we face into the energy for constructive action.

 

A neighbor and friend shared on FB that we shouldn’t post even unbeautiful images of the American Voldemort. It would just reinforce his likeness in our mind, make him stronger. We should just ignore him. Let him die in oblivion. And there’s truth in that. But then I think of the saying, don’t think of an elephant. If we try to not think of an elephant, we think of an elephant. It’s a hypnotic technique. Tell ourselves don’t think of a jellyfish, don’t think of someone trying to buy the very air we breathe, and we’ll think of it.

 

George Lakoff, a linguist, and cognitive psychologist wrote two beautiful books using that quote in their titles. One of them is The ALL NEW Don’t Think of An Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. We can’t not think of what we’re thinking about, not think of the public leader of those trying to own the planet, own all of us, without thinking of him. Think of a beautiful sunrise instead.

 

Imagine someone turning on a switch inside us to all our worst qualities, or all our resentments, grievances; turning on all the lies we tell ourselves, while subverting all truths. Or even worse, turning off our ability to discern the truth in ourselves, or others. Which means our very ability to feel our own bodies. A lie just feels wrong in our gut. Turning off our ability to feel the wrong in our gut destroys our ability to know what to think or eat. It makes us sick. And we project that wrongness in the wrong place, onto others.

 

Once people don’t allow themselves to feel the hurt and pain they cause, how could they ever hear the truth? How could they ever allow someone else to tell the truth? It would hurt them too much; it would shatter them.

 

But this is what might be happening with DJT. Just imagine the pain he might be feeling, and isolation. The only ways he knows to deal with his feelings involve denial and inflicting them on others. Soon he’ll be telling people the Democrats are aliens from Jupiter who have taken over the government, and President Biden is an alien tyrant. Alien to DJT because he can’t believe anyone really cares about others. Oh, maybe tyrant is too big a word for him. DJT does struggle so much with big words. Or not just big words. It’s thinking that he struggles with. Stereotypes are his forte. Lies. Hate.

 

And sales. He successfully blinds millions of the willing by selling hate and grievance. But recently, he desperately tried to sell sneakers at a sneaker convention and was loudly and repeatedly booed. Is his effort laughable⎼ or terrifying?

 

He constantly mouths untruths because his mind is a lollipop land created by Gollum. DJT wants to be the Lord of the Rings, but all he can manage is Gollum….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

An Experiment the Universe is Conducting Right Now: Our Theories About Who We Are Shape How We Feel and How We Act ⎼ Revised

When I was teaching high school, students often asked: If it’s true that humans are (or can be) compassionate, why is there so much human-caused suffering and hurt in the world?

 

One scientific experiment greatly influenced, for decades, how many people thought about this question. This is the “obedience experiment” carried out by Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s, just after the beginning of the Eichmann trial. In that experiment, a volunteer was asked to play a teacher to help another person, the “student,” learn word pairs. Each time the “student” replied with the wrong word, the “teacher” would seemingly give them an electric shock. The voltage of the shock was increased with each wrong answer.

 

The “teacher” sat in one room before an electronic control panel and could see through a window into the room where the “student” sat hooked up to wires. A white-coated experimenter stood in the room with the “teacher” encouraging and instructing with comments like, ”Continue using the 450 volt switch for each wrong answer.” The experimenter repeated these instructions even as the “student” began to scream⎼ and later drop over, silent. The “teacher” raised objections at times; but as the instructions continued, the “teacher” continued the shocks. The student was, in fact, an actor; the shocks to the “student” were not real. However, the emotional effect on the “teacher” was real.

 

It was initially reported by Milgram that 65% of the “teachers” continued to shock their students even to a lethal level. But, according to author and researcher Gina Perry, that statistic was only true with one of the 24 versions of the experiment. There were over 700 people involved in the experiments, and the 65% represented only 26 people. There were some variations of the experiment where no one obeyed the authority. If she is correct, this drastically changes how we might understand the experiment.

 

The philosopher Jacob Needleman studied the visual recordings of the experiment and commented on the facial expression and speech of one of the “teachers.” When questioned just after the experiment was over, the “teacher” said, “I don’t like that one bit. I mean, he [the “student”] wanted to get out and we just keep throwing 450 volts…” The teacher was dazed, and under further questioning couldn’t let themself comprehend what they had done. They couldn’t comprehend their own feelings let alone allow themselves to feel what the “student” might have felt.

 

A startling parallel to Milgram was a series of experiments by Doctor of Psychology, Daniel Batson, who tested whether people would act compassionately to save others from suffering. In one experiment, volunteer subjects, like Milgram’s teachers, watched people receive shocks when they incorrectly answered a memory task. The volunteer was told the person they were watching had suffered trauma as a child. They were then given the choice to leave the experiment or receive the shock intended for the supposed trauma victim. Many subjects felt such compassion for the other person they actually volunteered to take on their pain.

 

What is the message of these experiments? Milgram’s experiment is often considered a cautionary tale revealing the potential for evil in all of us⎼ and the “evil” demonstrated by Milgram arises from our propensity to obey authority despite clear evidence of the wrongness of the act. But why do we hear so much more about this experiment than Batson’s, whose work demonstrates the capacity for compassion?…

 

Happy New Year, and may 2024 be an even better year for all of us than we imagine.

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

 

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Original post:

https://irarabois.com/who-are-we-humans-the-milgram-experiments/

 

Do We Love Ourselves Enough, and Love the World Enough to Save It? When We Feel a Hole in the Center of Our Lives, Loving Action Can Heal It

We know this. So much climate suffering. Droughts. Then rains. Then dangerous smog from fires. Then heat, heat domes so large and deep people are not just sweltering but burning. Dying. And it’s increasing. We are burning our earth around us. The earth itself is crying out to us. The city of Phoenix had over 19 days straight days of 110 degrees or more. Residents of south Florida might be tempted to swim in the ocean to cool off from the extreme heat, but the ocean temperature itself is about 100 degrees. We can, we need to do all we can to stop the policies, the ways of thinking and behaving that contribute to global warming.

 

And our leaders? I don’t agree with all that President Biden has done, or not done. But he has given us and our earth a chance. He has pushed helpful legislation for the environment, and  accomplished a great deal that benefits most of us⎼ for the economy and international situation, but so much more is needed. And he’s managed to do this despite a political opposition not seen since possibly the Civil War, and so virulent that many denied that he fairly and legally won the presidency. Several GOP lawmakers even supported a violent insurrection against him. Many news outlets severely under-report his accomplishments.

 

The GOP in general have no shame, or care about the state of the world; don’t care about our rights, health, children, or the democracy they are sworn to serve. One of their favored governors stated some blacks benefitted from being slaves. They let free their own hate, lusts, and other unethical behavior, while they act to restrict the right to vote to young, black, brown people. To take away a woman’s right to control her own health. They lie about who they are, and so much else, including the science of climate change.

 

Their leader is a 2-time, and soon, possibly, a 4-time indicted criminal, liar, and sexual abuser who in public conspired to stop an election and end democracy. He continually  threatens violence against anyone who opposes him. He uses hate to serve his own personal aims, uses misogyny or hate against women, hate of black, brown, Asian, Jewish, Muslim and LGBTQ+ people. Maybe all those not white, Christian, patriarchal.

 

DJT even told us what he would do if he regained the White House. Historian Michael Beschloss described his goal as a “presidential dictatorship.” Others have labeled his goal as White Nationalism or Fascism/Nazism. The New York Times reports he and the GOP plan to expand the power of the President so deeply that his authority would cover every part of government.  They want the power to regulate the economy, control the Department of Justice, the courts, and dictate to Congress. All members of government agencies and bureaucracies would be chosen according to one principle—their allegiance to him, not to competence, not ethics. If we want a passport, loan, building permit, etc. we’d first have to pass a loyalty test.

 

This would convert the mission of the government to one goal⎼ to exert DJT’s narcissism, to free his lust for power and sense of entitlement so it covers the whole earth. And all of us, all creatures, would serve him. His followers think he would bring them freedom. But the only freedom they’d have is to serve him while expressing their grievances at the wrong people. This is almost unbelievable; but if we can stomach listening to him we can judge this for ourselves….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.