Day 216 of 365 - Psychology & Politics

Today, I listened to an interview about the recent decision in the U.S. about the 'Russiagate' investigation outcome.  The fascinating aspect of it was, that the doctor being interviewed, Gabor Maté, whose work I have quoted in previous posts, was talking about the psychological perspective.

Some of the main points he made, were about the entire scenario being a reflection of how U.S. (and also Canadian, to be honest) society operates.

Many of us were invested in a certain outcome of the investigation because of our own expectation of the truth looking a certain way.  (Maté says this has more to do with our own emotional needs than we may be aware of.)

North American society, despite it's level of power and influence in the world, tends to operate from a victim mentality, always looking for an outside villain to demonize.  To be living like this, there needs to be a denial of what is going on internally, and a projection of blame on others, even though the U.S. has done much worse itself to so many countries around the world.

There is something comforting about being the victim, as it allows us to avoid looking at ourselves and what we are responsible for on the home front.  Then we expect a savior or rescuer to come along.  Hence, the kind of political cycles from liberal to conservative, that we find ourselves repeating.

The provincial government where I live, is currently operating in a similar style as the U.S. Trump administration, dismantling a lot of the social safety network and foundations, in favor of profits for big business.  I am as guilty as the next person of vilifying our leader for his practices.

But Maté says what we need to be doing is, asking what it says about our society that such a person could ever be elected.  We need to look critically and objectively at what made this happen, and how our behaviors and beliefs may have contributed.  Another valuable point he also makes is, about how easily we forget history (which repeats itself) and allow the media to convince us of what is later found to be false.  Our disillusionment is an opportunity to face the truth.

Although I don't follow politics or the news in detail, nor am I really interested in getting into political debates, the content of this interview resonated with me.

I believe it is true for me, that I was raised to watch out for bad guys and villains lurking, waiting for an opportunity to take away my happiness.  As a Baby Boomer, born post-WWII, it was still in the forefront of our parents and society's minds that we needed to be vigilant and defend ourselves against enemies.  Despite the cultural revolution of the 1960's, proclaiming peace and love, we still blamed our parents, the media, governments and other countries for our hardships.

Gabor Maté challenges us to look at our beliefs with a perspective of curiosity and to be willing to objectively analyze our history.  We cannot expect it to change otherwise.  It's also important to own our personal feelings of trauma and shock about the way our history is unfolding, rather than just pointing fingers elsewhere.

This kind of awakening is perhaps part of the necessary dismantling of the societal structures and systems which no longer really serve us.  Maybe the days of magical thinking, that yet someone else is going to save us, are coming to an end.