Waves, Snorkeling, and Political Behaviors

Have you ever had the experience, as I have, of snorkeling in relatively shallow waters near a reef, such that you and the fish and coral, etc are subject to the up and down and back and forth action of the waves as they interact with the reef?

I recall the first time I experienced this realizing that I, and the creatures who called this environment their home, were both subject to a larger context, that neither of us took great notice to, were not particularly alarmed by, and were clearly very much affected by.

I recall being in close to a school of damsels, maybe only a couple feet in front of my mask. A wave swept in and pushed both myself and those damsels, maybe three or four feet to my right and then back again to where we had been before the wave came by. I remember thinking that both myself and these creatures were inside a powerful "collective conversation", both clearly impacted by that context, and both comfortable, maybe even unaware of, the impact it was having, or not having, upon us.

Lately I've been listening to the currents of our public discourse, so loudly dramatized by our political theater, and by the shooting events that assault us daily - the embedded conversational themes that give us our collective identity, our way of being as a culture and country. It's a nosy permeating conversation coursing between us all, defining the possibilities and commitments that unfold as our future and impact us all, much as those waves moved myself and those damsels.

Throughout my cognitive years I have lived, as we all do, within this "public" conversation. It not only defines us as a country, but also lately, as a world, as it becomes increasingly more obvious and apparent through the unfolding impact of internet and social media technologies, .

Like the conversations that distinguish us as separate individuals within our communities, so do these larger, seemingly more complex and maybe noisier, more confusing conversations argue for, define, and occasionally change, our collective identity. I say change as distinct from transform, for in my lifetime, I believe I have only lived through three truly transformative conversational shifts: WWII, the formation of the EU, and 9/11.

The conversational milieu that engulfs the collective us, seems to have characteristically opposing themes that swirl about, louder and softer, depending upon the events and, the dramas, and the public narratives of the moment - themes like fear, danger, righteousness, divisiveness and individualism, sadness, and tragedy, contrasted against such themes as safety, well being, happiness, celebration, hope, inclusiveness, belonging, love, etc.

It seems to me that when there are what appear to be shared and dangerous external threats, we tend to shift our country's conversation toward internal inclusiveness and cooperation, simultaneously subsiding our individualistic narratives. When external threats are less threatening, as is the current psyche, then our divisive/separate/individualistic conversations dominate our discourse.

Some will say threats like ISIS are a common external threat that should be uniting the country. But I submit we are more threatened by technology and automation and the impacts they are having on taking our jobs away from us, than we are about ISIS being a threat either to the country or to us as individuals. True there is a risk of being gunned down by an ISIS "radical", but it's recently been calculated that risk is lower than being struck by lightening, so it's not so much something were are afraid may happen to us individually, as is the prospect of being laid off from our jobs.

As a nation we have ebbed and flowed back and forth between these themes, focusing upon and elevating one set of arguments or another, swaying our collective identity toward one set of interpretations or another, and passionately certain of the rightness of our momentary identity.

And make no mistake, although we believe ourselves to be individually volitional, we are each and all, individually given by these collective conversations ebbing and flowing with the waves that break against our reefs and shores each day. And so we typically swim, unconsciously, within these larger conversations, living within their constraints, their freedoms, their arguments, their encouragements and their impactfulness.

As the country ebbs toward divisiveness/independence even those who argue for inclusiveness/cooperation (sometimes we hear pleas for love) are swept into either a louder more intense resistance to the prevailing discourse, or alternatively, we modify our inclusive strategies to fit into a senior "divisive" theme. Either way, we are automatically acting within these shifting contexts and are as assuredly given by their possibilities and constraints as those we believe are driving the conversations (we call them "they").

Let's look at a specific example, intensely on public loud speaker right now: Donald Trump.

Notice your immediate thoughts and reactions. There is some set of feelings, internal thoughts, body sensations triggered within each reader just by virtue of reading his name. And we cannot escape them. They are automatic. Notice I haven't said anything about whether or not I like and support Trump or not. Yet each reader  already has an interpretation - they've already put me in one camp or the other - for or against Trump, and therefore automatically positioning the reader for or against me, depending upon which camp they have placed me in.

However I'm not herein engaged in arguments for or against Donald Trump as a candidate for President. I have my preferences and opinions and they are not what this is about. For I am as trapped in my own reactions, as everyone else - everyone else including of course, each reader. In case you missed that, I mean you.

If you are a supporter of Trump, you have a certain available universe of arguments in his behave and in favor of his election come November, none of which are unique or original to you, all of which are given by the conversations swirling around in the public discourse, emotionalized, analysed, and dramatized by the media and our social media circles.

And before you go off threatening my life for saying so, I add, so are those who are against him. In other words each of us, pro or con in this drama, is given by the larger public discourse swirling around us. Everything we think, everything we say, our political contribution choices, affiliations, and actions, are all defined by, given by, and limited by these larger external conversations.

So if you write something on Facebook that favors Trump, you'll notice, an instant set of responses that are automatically identifiable, from a set of friends from whom you already know what for or against comments to expect. I'm not here to argue the merits of their responses but to ask you to consider that neither you, in your position(s), nor they in their position(s), have any choice. You are both on rails.

Then there's the emotional seas in which we are all swimming - the seas which at the moment, maybe even argue for and defend the righteousness of high anger, rage, assault, invective, dramatization, reactions, attacks, killing, righteous indignation, and suspended individual principles. Some of you will rail against that assertion. But of course you will! You must!

And of course then there's the political opposition, the same phenomena but wrapped in a conversation for and against Hillary Clinton. It's essential to the drama that we have both forces at play. We need camps to which we belong, larger external identities to give us location and reasons to exist. For without those touch stones, without this theater, who would you/me be? By the way this includes those who claim they are so disgusted by what's happening that they won't vote for either candidate - that being just another available form of against.

So the next time you write some attack, for or against someone, for or against something they said or some position they took, stop and look at how instantly, how automatically, and how assuredly right your position occurs to you. It's simply the way the waves are acting on you. It's all that's available to you.

Maybe someone like Werner can invent a new discourse inside this theater. The rest of are pretty much stuck in it. It will be interesting to see, in the current US (and so global) political debate, where the waves push us, and which opinions finally sway the largest community of damsels.