more anger does not equal a vision

Mediation, Musings, , ,   2 comments  
“Sometimes being angry is easier than facing the truth.” – AppleTV+ Foundation S2E6

“Enraged & engaged.” Is it all just about anger and money (power)?

This year (2024) I’ve already got unsolicited (and somewhat puzzling) emails from novice political candidates in other, far away states. Likely cranked out by the tens of thousands from compiled, commercial mailing lists. The contents always have a dire tone.

The latest one used the political trope of “I’m a fighter,” as if any other advocacy is a cop-out. As if everything’s a smackdown. As if political worthiness is only gauged as a warrior (in a righteous cause).

Such appeals often evoke the righteous mind, as aligned with “God’s” army.

While driving in the morning on January 20, I was stopped behind a box truck which had a sign on the back which read “God’s Army – United Services …” That military-like term – does “God” need armies? As if based on fealty to an ancient god. (And, of course, there’s the Salvation Army, eh.)

So, why not “God’s mediators” or diplomats or caregivers? Broad-based inclusiveness, rather than the narrowness of “us” vs. “them.”

• A tone much discussed in this book (noted on 9-12-2023):

Particularly, as used in some countries, the phrase “¡Que se vayan todos!” [Let them all go! … Out with them all! … All of them must go!] – Naím, Moisés. The Revenge of Power (2022). St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The grievances 3P [populism, polarization, and post-truth] autocrats address are of a particular nature. They are not the broad-based grievances of an oppressed class in the way the left-wing politics of old conceived them, nor are they the grievances against an overgrown, overweening government that the conservative right had vented for so long. Those old gripes had the ambition to unify large sections of society under a common cause: the economic betterment of wage workers or the increasing freedom of every citizen. They gave rise to identities that had aspirations to being universal – though of course those aspirations were never achieved.

The grievances 3P autocrats exploit are different. Rather than serving as the basis for broad and broadly inclusive identities, they configure tribes – groups of intensely loyal followers who band together under the logic of the politics of fandom. Rather than broadly inclusive distinctions, these grievances configure narrow identities that empower the logic of polarization. After all, polarization is always about us versus them, and drawing sharp boundaries between the “us” and the “them” …

• And witnessed in a 2023 GOP debate:

> MSNBC > 3′ Video > 2024 GOP Debate Analysis > “Alex Wagner: Even in a Trump-less debate, the shroud of anger and grievance colors everything” (Aug 23, 2023) – MSNBC’s Alex Wagner and Ari Melber discuss the first 2024 debate.

[Excerpt]

… the shroud of anger and grievance colors everything. I mean, when you talk about people’s good moments, it’s not because they’re offering some brilliant vision or showing humor or humanity or charisma, …

But even the crowd, … having to scold the crowd. There was a time in American politics when winning wasn’t just about who was the angriest, who was the meanest, who landed the punch most directly. And it is so clear to me that one of the myriad ways in which Trump has transformed the GOP is by making it a party that is driven by rage, and is powered by a sense of grievance, and injustice, and there is no offering of a vision for the country.

• And contrasted with:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” (Proverbs 29:18)

2 comments on “more anger does not equal a vision”

  1. Angry icon

    On today’s political stage, is it a zero-sum game? Or is that what conflict entrepreneurs cultivate – a polarizing recipe? Fan T-shirts and banners for combative tribes. Totem identification. A collapse of coalitions. Geographic clustering.

    • Washington Post > “Science is revealing why American politics are so intensely polarized” by Joel Achenbach (January 20, 2024) – Anger is a mobilization emotion.

    Social scientists have taken note of these hardening political divisions, pumping out academic articles and books that add data to what appears to be a steady rise in tribalism.

    One theme emerges in much of the research: Our politics tend be more emotional now. Policy preferences are increasingly likely to be entangled with a visceral dislike of the opposition. The newly embraced academic term for this is “affective polarization.”

    “It’s feelings based,” said Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity.” “It’s polarization that’s based on our feelings for each other, not based on extremely divergent policy preferences.”

    What’s most striking is that in the process of defining who is in and who is out of a group, enmity and derision can arise independently of any rational reason for it.

  2. Exhausted and tuned-out

    Using fear to grab our attention and amplify tribal dividing lines is an old political tactic. Politically we’ve been a “50-50” country for some time. But, as this article notes, the extremes of the last 20 years or so have been exhausting [1].

    • The Conversation > “A nation exhausted: The neuroscience of why Americans are tuning out politics” by Arash Javanbakht, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University (December 19, 2024) – Watching cable news hours a day risks feeling helpless and terrified.

    I am a psychiatrist who studies and treats fear and anxiety. Over the past couple of years, … I have noticed a change: Many of my patients say they either have tuned out or are too exhausted to do more than a brief read of political news or watch one hour of their favorite political show.

    In my view, three major factors have led Americans to exhaustion and burnout with U.S politics.

    1. The politics of fear [“us vs. them” and personal / group vilification]

    Fear as a deeply ingrained survival mechanism takes priority over other brain functions [e.g., cognition, rationality, foresight].

    Fear guides your memories, feelings, attention and thoughts, and can cause you to keep watching, scrolling and reading to monitor this perceived threat. Positive or neutral news could then become uninteresting because it is not important in your survival response. That has been the key to a person’s deep engagement with the fear-based political news.

    But too much fear does not keep someone engaged forever. That is because of another survival mechanism – what’s called “learned helplessness.”

    When people feel they cannot control the painful or scary situation, they just give up. During such experiences, the brain’s fear region – called the amygdala – is hyperactive. Meanwhile, emotion-regulating brain areas like the prefrontal cortex decrease in activity under these circumstances.

    Learned helplessness also means the brain mechanisms commonly involved in regulating anxiety and depression don’t function as well.

    2. People live in information bubbles [information silos, Earth 1 and Earth 2]

    Many people are part of social media communities that are closed to the world outside their homes and familiar social circles. Based on people’s political views and what they search for or watch and read, social media algorithms feed them content where everybody talks and thinks alike. If you hear about the other side, it is only about their worst attributes and behavior.

    The disconnect is so wide that people are not even able to comprehend the thinking of those from other perspectives and find their logic or political beliefs unfathomable.

    3. People’s political opinions have become their identities

    There was a time in American politics where two politicians or two neighbors could disagree, but still believe that the other person was fundamentally good.

    Over time, and more so since the early 2000s, this ability to connect despite political beliefs has decreased.

    This 2022 Pew survey also shows that partisan animosity extends to judgments about character: 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats said they believe members of the opposing party are more “immoral” than other Americans.

    Notes

    [1] For a historical perspective on our times, I found this book helpful. It’s about Louisiana’s 1872 gubernatorial election.

    Bash, Dana (2024). America’s Deadliest Election: The Cautionary Tale of the Most Violent Election in American History. Hanover Square Press. Kindle Edition.

    And, personally, I think that infusing religious extremism into politics makes for an even more toxic mix.

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