Tonight there was a tape of presidential candidate, Donald Trump, talking about how his power gave him access to woman in a sexual way. Most people are reacting to this tape in a way they have not reacted to many of the other things he has said, including “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”. What is going on here?
The political system gives us evidence, but not insight, into the way individuals are manipulated by messages and by authority figures. The social group is attracted to specific kinds of emotional postures. The group responds often based on threats and or the allure of future rewards.
Social pressure goes on in your family too. Family pressure is just not so dramatic and perhaps that how social pressure has worked for millions of years in all kinds of life forms. Of course it is one thing when we see animals line up to give or receive favors, or cells pressuring each other than when we see humans abusing or killing one another.
Historically, we have Mao, responsible for killing 45 million in four years. Hitler and others have supposedly offered us education as to our being aware of how blaming and killing different groups are simply repeating and intensifying a scapegoating process.
Today’s paper shows us this repeating process of creating hatred in a familiar and chilling way. We see the president of the Philippines (the third largest Catholic countries in the world) encouraging police to kill drug dealers. So far in six months 3,500 have died because they were said to be drug dealers.
Ordinary citizens are participating in this killing spree. They perceive the drug dealers as “evil” and are encouraged by a powerful authority to burn their homes. All you need is a rule of gossip system, fear of the “OTHER” and a willingness to blame them and harm them.
Out of this kind of unthinking togetherness, the majority feels better by punishing the scapegoated ones. The inability to disregard authorities emotional messages, demonstrates that basic principles, due process and human life are all expendable when fear rises and there is someone to blame.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently admitted what has been plain since he took office and the killings started: He’s committing genocide. “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews,” he said. (The actual number is 6 million). “Now … there’s 3 million drug addicts … I’d be happy to slaughter them,” to “finish the problem of my country and save the next generation from perdition.”
Nearly 3,000 people have already been gunned down, either by police or vigilante death squads, encouraged by Duterte, who has promised immunity. About 600,000 have also turned themselves in, many now caged in hideously crowded prisons that already look like concentration camps. But most of the world has remained silent. President Obama has not publicly condemned these actions, and the United States actually pledged $32 million in aid to support Philippine law enforcement — and not only for the usual political reasons. Instead, this genocide is being ignored because, for too long, the dehumanization of people who use drugs and calls for their death have been an acceptable part of the “drug war.
Murray Bowen called the tendency to act as others act, and the inability to separate from others and to stand alone – togetherness. He noted that there was variation in human behavior and some are more willing to develop and live a principled life. This included the ability and to define self to important other in one’s family.
Without some idea of what it takes to define a self to others it is easy to scapegoat the ones who are not like us, to hate, and to fear the others. Scapegoating requires fear and emotional polarization. An unintended byproduct of democracy is that under threat, we resort to joining with the “group think” of our in-group.
When emotionality rules we find that the real issues (could be drugs not drug dealers) are forgotten. Often there is little to no agreement on the nature of the problems we face, little ability to work with others who are different, and little ability to think for self and cooperate in order to solve big problems.
Social research shows us how long we have known and investigated the impact of the authority figure and the rules of the social group on our thinking and behavior.
Stanley Milgram Milgram Obedience Study – YouTube
Psychology: The Stanford Prison Experiment – BBC … – YouTube
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb4Q20z0T1Q
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If one can learn to observe and recognize when we are becoming reactive, then perhaps one can resist the allure of togetherness.
But be aware there is a strong and righteous feeling to be with the right group, to be right and to dislike others who are not like us.
All of us can be led by intense emotion to agree with some and to dislike others. But each of us can also learn to manage emotions, self-regulate and to return to a more rational and logical way of thinking.
One of Bowen’s main insights was that people can become better at defining self, based on principles, by getting to know: 1) one’s deep beliefs and where they came from 2) understanding one emotional self and integrating one’s feelings with one’s deeper thinking self and by
3) getting to know the living people in one’ extended family.
Relationship maturity can be tested out your family relationships.
Do you think you are able to be a more independent self with people in your family?
Do you relate to people based on what you have heard about them?
Who did you get to know as you were growing up in your family?
Do you not have to do with people because of what they did or what was said about them?
Can you go visit the more distant people in your extended family without people reacting to you in a negative way?
In observing how the emotional system in your family works, (to be distant from one and to be close to another) gives us a road map to work on being a bit freer of the many ways that the system influences all of us.
Understanding your family relationships can help us consider the way that politicians try to influence us.
There is always pressure to go along with family group think and political group think. Where does one start?
How do I maintain emotional clarity about myself in relationships to others?
How so I know where I stand on any subject?
What part of me wants to believe others because they are authority figures?
Do I want to go along with those I am dependent on?
What does it take to be more separate from others?
A few things to remember:
1. One has to be seen as a member of the “group” to be listened to.
2. The messenger is more important than the message.
3. Family observations show that if there is one individual who can manage to be different within the group and not react to threats, that person can slowly alter the behavior of the group.
4. Those who strive to be more autonomous are altering the belief that we all must be alike, believe and act in the same way in order for us all to be safe.
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