Wrestling with ambiguities in gender relations

Two recent pieces, in this space, have been rattling around in my head, provoking some more reflection.

The first focused on “shades of emasculation” and the second, “reflections on male self-sabotage”.

The first image that comes to mind is that these two ‘conditions’ (emasculation and self-sabotage) could be considered opposite ends of a single continuum especially since the self-sabotage that was being considered was the result of “over-reach, or excessive emotion or aggression”. Another picture that emerges is that both ends of  the continuum might be different components of the same, just different, ways to sabotage our relationships. If we believe we are being “trashed” (emasculated) is our perception contributing to that outcome? If we believe we need to be more aggressive, is that starting place tilting the outcome in that direction?

Men are hard wired to ‘fix’ things, and this hard wiring puts men in situations where engines are refusing to operate, or organizational systems  are dysfunctional, or health conditions crying out for amelioration, or leaky faucets, or lawns that need mowing and driveways that need snow shovelling. Doing, action, remediation….these are the guide words for an active male life. And there are centuries of documentation demonstrating considerable success but in envisioning the world from this perspective (male, action-oriented, and “fixing”) putting the object of the fixing “outside” the individual man. Extrinsics, then are at the core of this world view, and the man is the potential agent of the needed change. When we look in the “dictionary” under the word “human doing” the face of an ordinary male jumps out.

Each of these “objects” of the physical, mental and to some extent emotional energy that men deploy in their pursuit of “fixing” whatever is not operating optimally, are outside the individual man, and subject to the preferred intervention of the male engaged. The degree of learning, experience, skill, imagination and basic competency of each individual male “fixer varies significantly, and the results of each individual “fix” vary just as widely.

Learning the various conditions of dysfunctional manifolds, or crank sensors, or massive air flow sensors is much more interesting and captivating for most men, for example, that the intimate and emotional exchanges that cross the conscious and the unconscious minds of the partners in any human relationship. Similarly, the rhyme and rhythm, the harmonies and the figures of speech of a piece of poetry are so uninteresting and boring to most men, when the alternative available for our curiosity and our personal time and attention might be a desired hunting trip, fishing trip, or a work bench design and construction for our garage.

Robert Fritz, a composer and corporate consultant/trainer, has written and taught a way of viewing organizational “stuckness” as oscillation between two mutually exclusive end results. The failure of the organization to achieve a stated end result is ascribed to the existence of a mutually exclusive and contradictory end result. In order to move from oscillation to ‘resolution’ of the tension implicit in the oscillation one has to first perceive of the two conflicting end results, and then to unpack which of these is to be considered as “primary” and the other as “secondary.” Such clarification is then regarded as facilitating a resolution of the time and resource depletion that accompanies the oscillation.

In an action-oriented, empirically measureable, and goal-driven universe, the construct of resolving tensions that compound the pursuit of shared end results makes good sense. No leader wants to participate in organizational muddles that cost money, energy, commitment while engendering confusion and demoralization among the workers in that organization.

In the arena of human relationships between men and women, the Fritz “technologies for creating” might well be considered a working model that is built on a “male” understanding of the universe. That is a universe, like a medical model, that seems to work well for a period and then develop “vagaries” in symptoms that seem to change the “rules” and generate conflicts, including various expressions of falling interest, commitment, wandering attentions, and perhaps even dissolution itself. If both parties can and do agree with a set of mutually acceptable end results for the relationship, perhaps both male and female partners in a relationsip can commit to a process of monitoring the progress of the relationship toward realizing those end results, and to diagnosing the mutually exclusive end result that could be blocking “progress” toward those end results.

As a starting point, however, for many women, however, this “resolving tension” model could well be considered “imposed” by the male partner, and not as representative of the female world view as some other model of resolving the prevailing tensions.

The model is premised on the concept that all ambiguities, contractions and mutually exclusive end results are categorized as secondary to the “primary” end results. And for the purpose of creating a desired cluster of end results, not only in an organization, but also in a family or even in a relationship, the model depends on the full assimilation of its various components and their potential value to “resolve” prevailing tensions in the situation.

It is the issue of deciding which of the end results is more important than others, in an intimate relationship that comes into question when attempting to apply the Fritz model.

For the sake of this piece, let’s work with the proposition that the woman wants to redecorate the home, and the man prefers a vacation, as two of the desired end results for a specific year. Both have value; both require considerable funding; both can make a considerable contribution to the “life” of the relationship. And there is no apparent reason that through a workable compromise, the two end results could not be scheduled to fit the budget, and the schedules of both.

It is in the area of beliefs, attitudes, values (all of them highly complex, and potentially ambiguous) that the model seems wanting. And furthermore, these values are not expressly stated as part of a plan to accomplish a goal or task. They are evolving truths which comprise an integral and essential part of the personhood of every person, and not a “thing to be fixed” or to be “changed” or more dangerously, “removed”.

Neither party’s world view can or should be considered dominant, nor can it easily be categorized as primary or secondary. In fact, the rubbing up against another person’s belief system, value system, attitude cluster, in and of itself, is a worthy experience. And the bumping itself is potentially life-giving for both parties. First, one has to become consciously aware, no matter how troubling that process is, of the various values of another in any intimate partnership. That statement makes the condition of such ‘sharing’ contingent on both parties, the one to share and the other to learn, mutually and reciprocally.

Learning and digesting and coming to terms with the values of another person, in and of itself, is a pathway to enhanced intimacy that too many couples either avoid unconsciously or reject as too problematic. And it is in this part of the potential conversation that the question of the male’s engagement pertains especially.

Demanding such a conversation will clearly sabotage the desired result of even beginning. Walking away from the potential of such a conversation, too, will render its potential mute, as well as the feeling of relevance and need on the part of one of the participants.

And there is a dramatic difference between “housekeeping” details, plans, end results and how to plan and execute the budget, and the meeting and greeting and welcoming the world view of the other. The former is so relatively easy and uncomplicated that it frequently substitutes for deepening the relationship. It is not for the purpose of a rejection of the world view of the other, but rather how each can learn and grow from such an exchange, that such a proposition is offered.

Is the posing of such a complicated end result, the open, disclosive and vulnerable sharing of attitudes, beliefs, fears, dreams and expectations, in all their ambiguities, by each partner in an intimate relationship by itself a proposition unworthy of consideration in the contemporary culture of male-female relationships?

Is the question of male “inclusivity” appropriately considered within the context of such a proposition? Is the potential for male self-sabotage increased by the proposition? Would the female confronted with such a proposition automatically consider it offensive, and determinative of a close to any possibility of a relationship with such a male? Is this another of the many unanswered and complex questions that overhang the issues of gender relationships?

Is the masculine world view, as expressed in such a proposition, so anathema to the authentic world view of women that it belongs only to the male demographic?

So often, men look at the situation facing a group, a family, an organization from a “gestalt” or macro-perspective, and find ourselves engaged in a conversation about the immediate impact of such a ‘ridiculous’ proposition (because it is so impractical, costly, and complicated and wholistic) that we feel redundant, and irrelevant, if not actually irresponsible.

One of the leadership texts entitled, “The Learning Organization,” coming out of M.I.T., recommends to leaders facing an organizational conundrum to ask the question “Why?” a minimum of five times in order to better understand the root of the problem(s). Such a recommendation would be generally considered to have originated in a “male” culture. It refuses to accept the superficial cause-effect equation that both pervades many cultures, and that reduces many complex issues to facile, glib and thereby ineffectual interventions. Similarly, such a premise of asking “why” five times provokes a kind of wholistic view of the situation, one that could demand more time and more imagination and more resources to remove than a simple trial and error approach would entail.

It is the simplistic “trial-and-error” approach that pervades much of contemporary medical practice, much of the “fix-it” trades and most of the hires a household makes to keep the home functioning….fixing the leaky faucet, repairing the leaky roof, even a treatment plan for a torn tendon in a wrist….and too often passes as the “best we can do.”

Maybe, just maybe, this piece is facing a more universal reductionism than the question of male emasculation or self-sabotage. Are we all prepared to participate in a culture in which short-term, simplistic, reductionistic and budget-fitting interventions into our personal, familial, organizational and national/international complexities are the best we can expect of ourselves?

Are we prepared to reduce highly complex issues, including intimate gender relationship issues, to a band-aid solution, without expecting or requiring those in our circles to expand their receptivity to a wider and more diverse world view than the one that commands the conventional respect in our respective associations?

Is there a real potential that our continuum “emasculation….self-sabotage” is itself a kind of simplification of issues so complex and so compelling that our deepest imaginations and most profound creativity are and always will be required to address them respectfully, effectively and also intimately?

 Could men, without worrying about their potential emasculation or aggressive over-compensation actually welcome a more inclusive, more complex and more demanding perspective of the emotional, poetic, spiritual and relational aspects of all issues, including the housekeeping requirements and expectations of minimalism that pervades most of the conversations and the attitudes and the beliefs that attempt to inculcate ambiguous and often incomprehensible realities facing each of us daily?

Reflections on male self-sabotage

"Guys have a level of insecurity and vulnerability that’s exponentially bigger than you think. With the primal urge to be alpha comes extreme heartbreak. The harder we fight, the harder we fall." (John Krasinski, film maker, actor in The Office)

Masks of various kinds camouflage our male vulnerability and our softness:

·      a studied taciturn quality that refuses to engage in intensive conversations especially about how we feel;

·      a deliberate burying of our hands and our minds in our latest fix-it challenge

·      an early and profound resistance to physical touch

·      an even earlier distaste for all girls and anything associated with the feminine

·      an impatience with micromanaging, whether expected of us, or practiced by others

·      resistance to romantic movies, novels, television shows

·      refusal even to consider attending fashion shows

·      resistance to formal attire unless dictated by our accomplishment like a graduation, or a formal passage into another professional realm

·      any admission or acknowledgement of our vulnerability, softness, tendency to cry, or any specific fear

Clear exceptions to these “hard-assed” and “hard-nosed” preferences include:

·      all new dads are literally “putty” in their sons’ and daughters’ hands, and somewhat ironically, softer putty with our daughters;

·      a deep and profound expression of compassion at a tragic event that injures, maims or kills even a single person;

·      a profound and protracted silence and period of solitude when we have been deeply hurt by the death of a family member, a divorce, a firing, a termination even through “downsizing” where no demonstrated “fault” is evident;

·      any evidence of injustice, clearly a wrong judgement of anyone close to us, when while we deeply want to set the world right, we bite our lips, often so hard we make them bleed;

·      the moment when we are rejected especially by someone we believe we have fallen in love with, or even one with whom we have envisaged spending the rest of our life;

·      the moment we see someone in distress….

Over the last couple of decades, we have often heard the phrase “an evolved man” as an expression, often by females, to indicate a man who has begun to emerge from his “hard-assed” cocoon, and has shown signs of his “butterfly” wings. Almost without exception, such a man is more attractive to many women, especially those who have been suffocating in a relationship with the macho stereotype.

And how did that stereotype come about?

It started very early in our lives. Our mothers, for starters spent much less time holding us and looking into our eyes than they spent with their daughters. Our mothers, you see were also conditioned not to raise boys who would be considered “wimps” or more gutterally “fags” …..that would be the most offensive result of a mother’s parenting, at least for much of the last century in North America. Hockey equipment was on the Christmas wish list for many young boys, at least in Canada where hockey is considered the ‘national sport’. Learning to skate, on “hockey skates” was an imperative for all parents to foster, encourage and fund. Piano lessons on the other hand, were for their daughters, as were dance lessons, dolls, make-up, tea parties, and finely embroidered dresses. The roots of these stereotypes spilled over into the family’s choice of movies and television shows.

I recall  months if not years of Friday evenings when I escaped to the grocery store for the week’s supplies, while three daughters and their mother sat glued to the television and the soap, Dallas. I did not approve then and, being outnumbered and preferring not to cause another scene, chose to let the issue go. Was I being impotent, emasculated or merely realistic? My real issue was that one of those daughters was a mere fir or six years old, while her  sisters were pre-teen and adolescent respectively.

“The harder we fight, the harder we fall”.

Fighting, once we have graduated from the school yard, and even the high school gym and football field, takes on a different complexion. Rather than our fists, or our shoulders, or the speed of our feet and the dexterity of our hands, our latter fights are frequently focused on winning a competition for a chosen female partner, winning a competition for a coveted job, winning a competition for class president, or perhaps taking on the local council about some perceived injustice. We are, it seems, more willing and able to take a rational, measured and detached approach in matters that do not impact our personal relationships, matters that we have some training, modelling and experience in pursuing.

It is in the arena of personal relationships, where we believe everything we are, everything we believe, everything we hope and dream for, everything we have ever imagined for our future that is encapsulated in our pursuit of a life partner. This is also the area of our lives in which we have the least formal education and the least full and frank discussion with our fathers, who themselves burdened with having to have made their own mistakes (of which they are not proud). “Every guy has to find his own way and to make his own mistakes” is a mantra that hangs in the unconscious of most North American men. Not interfering in the life choices of another is another prominent, if reprehensible, trait of our “individualistic” culture.

 Even if the culture wishes to think it is offering a blank slate to its young men, there is nothing counter-intuitive, or even contradictory between that goal and the concept of some detailed and interesting biographies of men, to male classes in health and physical education, dedicated specifically to the subject of forming healthy relationships with women. I learned, for example, from my aunts, that their brother, my father, was quite impressed with his future mother-in-law prior to his marriage to my mother. And from their perspective, his was a mis-directed affection and appreciation, because as his life unfolded, he had clearly not married his mother-in-law. On the other hand, our family history abounds with stories about my father’s mother, a kindergarten teacher who, apparently, never discarded her classroom in the rest of her highly controlling attitudes throughout her life.

And herein lies one of the most dangerous patterns in male pursuit of life partners: the unconscious “marrying your mother” phenomenon. After all, mother is the primary model of WOMAN the young boy experiences, and those experiences are deeply imprinted on his mind, his heart and his spirit. Consequently, it is not surprising that, while transitioning into adulthood, without his even being aware of the roots of his picture of the ideal partner, his mother will play a significant, if silent and absent, role in his choices. The other side of this coin is the modelling of his father, for better or worse.

If his father struggled with a dominant and oppressive wife, without either knowing now to confront such behaviour and attitudes, or perhaps making the choice of “peaceful detachment” (to avoid the hated and despised confrontations) which can and often does morph into the even more detested “passive aggressive” approach.

This passive aggressive approach by the father, faced with a dominatrix, conveys several messages. One is a message of peace-keeping as the role and responsibility of the male adult in the home. Another message is that when confronted with turbulent emotions, the male is clearly well advised to calm the waters so that the family can hold together. Another message is the evident disappointment of the wife/mother in her choice of life partner for his “lack of spine” in his withdrawal from all confrontations, challenges and quarrels, as push-back and as further evidence of his “engagement” with the real emotions and expressed principles that operate in his marriage. Missed for its cogency and relevance when going through adolescence is the concept of “projection” by which at least parent unconsciously projects either or both their worst fears and highest dreams on their child. That dynamic, by itself, is so confounding for an adolescent as to be crazy-making. These are just a few of the potential currents that might shape a young male. In all families, there is a cauldron of emotional currents churning depending on the pattern of dominant and recessive adult and the available escape routes for the child, depending also on whether the child is male or female.

And regardless of the choice of issues, the roles of each respective parent and the outcomes of the “power struggles,” we all know that “power” and how it is worked out, shared, compromised, mediated, moderated, and finally executed is at the heart of the family dynamics. And power is often substituted for “respect” and for “equality” and even for “kindness and love”. I feel more loved if my thoughts, feelings, words, attitudes and beliefs are honoured, engaged with, discussed, reflected upon, and embraced, whether or not those expressions of my being are actually ones with which the other can agree. The same is true for most men and women.

And yet, it is the women who have, for most of history, engaged with other women in processes that develop the skills and the openness to exploring such personal (and for males emotional) issues. They have hours of engagement with other women, from very early years, in the very processes on which human lives develop, grow and survive. Men, on the other hand, have spent many more hours on their bikes, hunting or fishing, on the athletic practice fields or gymnasia, physically developing a very different set of “muscles” and life patterns. This fundamental difference is not, however, designed by either gender to “better” the other. It is merely a part of the hard wiring of each. And to demean or to ridicule the early patterns of either gender by the other is one of the cultural mis-steps that ripples through the lives of many male-female relationships. For women to disdain the pursuits and the interests of their male counterparts, (unless and until those interests become obsessions) is just as counter-intuitive as for men to turn their noses up at the invitation to a ‘chick flick” from their female friends, lovers or life partners. Competition on these issues between males and females is so destructive to the  “real politic” of gender relationships.

So, let’s look at the glaring gap in our culture that leaves men gasping for guidance and mentoring and leadership and seasoning that could only come from formal and informal structures that make it comfortable and convenient for young men to have access to the wisdom of men of their father’s and their grandfather’s ages. This is such a glaring and deliberate omission from our cultural, political and social structures as to be an indictment on the culture itself.

We are failing our young men in so many ways and we are paying a very high price for our sins of omission. And we are all implicated in the failure. Just to start with the notion that “men do not need mentoring, coaching, leadership and seasoning from other men” is a denial of reality, in which we are all complicit. And although there have been some penetrating initiatives over the last couple of decades to provide young men with senior mentors, primarily through athletic pursuits, young men still face a dry and vacant desert especially when they attempt to “fight” for more than they can achieve.

How would they ever know they were over-reaching? Let’s not forget the over-arching archetype of the “hero” that still hangs from the clouds, both the one’s hanging in the sky “for the poet’s eye” (thanks to Neil Diamond), and the more recent digital storage bin. History is filled with stories of men who fought for decades, if not their whole lives to nurture, sustain and maintain their marriage, without really knowing either their part in its potential crash, or the skills needed for them to play a constructive role in getting it back on track, once it has slipped off. Therapy, while more available and free of the kind of social embarrassment it once evoked, is only as effective as the participants let it be.

And here is the real “rub”….fighting with everything we have for the most important “project” or relationship of our life, however, raises the potential that such intensity is the seed of its own ironic failure.

It is masculine intensity, for my seven-plus decades, that takes the greatest toll on human relationships….especially in circles of education, theology, social service, community building and political parties…..at least in this country. Told elsewhere in this space is a story I recount probably too often: A supervisor when I was a ministry intern once commented, “You are far too intense for me!” to which I blurted, “I am also too bald so deal with it!”

There is a kind of biochemistry for some men, including this scribe, that bursts through the haze and the fog of social normalcy and decorum when we are inspired, surprised, welcomed and embraced. We have experienced so few such moments that, when one erupts, we simply and unconsciously let “fly” with our emotions. Similarly, when we witness an injustice, even if we are in a “new” situation, we are “undisciplined” enough to express our perceptions, often to the shock and chagrin of those in the room. Unschooled in the easy use of diplomatic discourse, having witnessed it mostly from the television screen, or in lectures at college, and not from our family of origin, we are “rough-hewn like the pine that forms the structure for valued and beautiful furniture. However, unlike the pine, we are not regarded as either valued or beautiful, but rather uncouth, ill-bred and “too intense”.

This kind of “over-shooting” our target, is a kind of hubristic blindness, given our total commitment to the cause and our intimate complicity in the absolute opposite result to our initial intent, purpose and dream. 

There is a kind of kernel of insight here, that pertains to so many situations faced by men: self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-belief and a firmness in our ability to do the thing that needs to be done as it can only be done by us at this moment, would see more strike-outs by baseball pitchers, more goals by rookies in the NHL, more contracts from salesmen, more judicial victories in the courtroom, and fewer lost instruments in the O.R. It is the lack of these traits that invariably pushes men too far, and subverts their authentic and legitimate and worthy ambition. And it happens on every street in every town and city every day….and the more we work to reduce its impact, the more relationships we will preserve and protect.

Could we have learned the language and the timing and the discernment needed to know when and how to use them when the relationships went “south”? We will never know, for our lives.

Nevertheless, we can and do hope that those young boys and young men who follow us will be equipped with the perceptions, attitudes, self-images and the skills to search for and to find, and then to nurture relationships of mutual respect, mutual adoration and mutual vulnerability.

That kind of shared vulnerability holds much promise for a healthy collaborative resolution to most if not all conflicts. And it is qualitatively different from the kind of vulnerability that is exposed when we “fight for all we’re worth” and fall flat on our face, invariably and inevitably.

As Red Green reminds us, “We all in this together, and we’re pulling for you!” (to all the men who participated in their own sabotage!)

Reflections on FRIENDSHIP

In a culture of accomplishments, achievements, and especially of transactions, one of the most expensive prices we all pay is the real and potential loss, by-pass, ignoring, discarding or even rejection of FRIENDSHIP. Many are so fixated on developing our resume, complete with multiple references, while dealing with the daily duties of career, parenting, networking and perhaps even recreation that the time actually required for friendship to develop, unless one is in a restricted space for a long time with others equally confined, is unavailable. Another way of saying this is to say that we make the choices that make friendship unlikely.

Nevertheless, friendship is not only a sine qua non of each of our lives; it is also essential for each other person of our acquaintance. And yet, friendship is not “another business contract”. How often have we heard the phrase, from business and professional careerists, “I have to deal with that person but I do not have to become a friend with that person.”

Friendship expects many of the same responses we initially offer. Of course, checking in to find out how we are (really) doing is a good beginning. And after that…..well what kind of time is available to really explore mutual interests, or even to discover if there are any? And if we find an interest that another explores, how might it be possible to find a connection point to have a real conversation about more that the weather, the Trumpocalypse, the rising or falling price of gas, or the latest sports score?

Canadians are renowned for our determined and deliberate avoidance of topics that might arouse conflict, especially politics or religion. We are so acculturated into a mind-set that anyone who invades our private space by presuming to ask our real opinions about something we have not already “been public” about is considered invasive, presumptuous, aggressive, impolitic, and a “shit disturber”. This dynamic is especially noticeable in a culture born and raised on a diet of parental and pedagogical control. Frightened parents are especially focused on the control of their offspring’s vocabulary as well as their attitudes, not to mention their choices of friends. Those frightened parents are also quite unsettled if their children come home from school with tales about conversations in their class about topics their parents consider “out of bounds”…especially if the conversation in the classroom breaches a parent’s belief system, political ideology or socially compatible attitude.

“Eros has naked bodies; friendship has naked personalities.” (C.S. Lewis)

Here is a perspective that many would believe does not apply to the adolescent classroom. Nevertheless, growing up is a process through which each of us search for and find those attitudes, perspectives and even individuals with whom we seem to feel comfortable and those who make us less than comfortable. Both are potentially part of our pool of friends, depending on how we respond to their words, actions and beliefs. Literature, the compendium of the imaginations of those courageous enough to submit their lives to paper for the centuries, is filled with all of the range of topics, issues, personalities and perspectives we inherit as part of our unique culture. And while exploring the pages of literature we are not only invited to explore our own responses to those topics, personalities and perspectives, especially to compare our views with those of the writer but also compelled to conduct such an intimate exploration.

It is the “naked personalities” that are available through the novels, the plays and the poems that invite us into an albeit somewhat detached and distant “relationship” with those writers. And in that encounter, facilitated by a skillful teacher, adolescents are offered opportunities for both growth and guidance from within their own imaginations. While exploring the characters in the stories, students can speculate, postulate and imagine how they might respond if they were in a similar situation, with similar people.

Befriending authors and/or their characters is another window on friendship, not available on similar terms in real life…Movies too provide similar opportunities, with a much smaller time commitment usually.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like  art…it has no survival value, rather it is one of those things that give value to survival”……(C.S. Lewis)

Giving value to survival….that is the gift of both the encounter with literature and also with people courageous enough to disclose their vulnerability, in a sacred space of trust, a space in which both parties commit to privacy ad confidentiality.

John Powell, S.J. scholar and double doctorate, once wrote a little book entitled. “Why I don’t tell you who I am” in which he explained that telling another “who I am” is all I have, and if you reject that I have nothing left. Naked personalities, shared in confidence, consequently is a very rare and special experience, one often forfeited by those fearing rejection. Having been on both sides of this equation, the one fearing rejection and also the one who felt like a ghost for never been fully encountered, neither experience is without pain, and a pain that lasts for decades, if not as long as one breathes.

On the other hand, once having fully experienced the kind of friendship of which Lewis would be respectful, a naked sharing of personalities, there is really no other experience so memorable and so rewarding and so life-giving. Sadly, such a relationship is not often available between children and their parents, nor between children and their grandparents. It is not available as a norm between teachers and their students, although that might be more likely, given the intermittent occasions of the encounter. It is clearly not available to most workers with their colleagues, nor with their employers. In the church too, such naked personality sharing is so often encumbered with the encrustation of “perfectionism” being substituted for a legitimate spiritual pilgrimage.

And yet, one’s spiritual life, at least as understood from here, is the most intimate and most vibrant aspect of one’s life: topping one’s intellect, one’s profession, one’s travel, one’s athletic prowess, one’s artistic talents (although one’s imagination is inextricably entwined with one’s spirit). Surely, in order to remain vibrant, one’s spirit has to be engaged in a kind of interactive tension with others, or at least one other, in a mutually committed and mutually “naked” sharing of one’s biography complete with the high’s and low’s, the successes, failures along with the fears, anxieties, aspirations and dreams.

Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat….these are not the instruments, necessarily, of a growing and deepening friendship. They each have limited opportunities to share, and at root area based on a concentration span of perhaps three nanoseconds. “Like” clicked on a photo is like the fickle applause at a rock concert, not the kind of evidence on which a developing friendship depends.

Is there anyone out there who shares a deep scepticism about the kinds of human interactions our culture fosters? Is there anyone else who shares an acknowledged and too often unfed appetite for friendship that gives real value to survival?

Of course there are likely millions who are quietly nurturing friendships which elevate their very survival to one worthy of considerable energy, commitment and passion.

That dynamic is like a beacon in an otherwise dark night of political, economic, academic and religious ambition. Let’s hope and envision the beacon’s light growing brighter, not fading, at a time when “what have you done for me lately?” is the test too many human encounters function upon. 

Refusing to "normalize" Trump's election

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, made a statement on Charlie Rose (Bloomberg, Television) last night that bears not only repeating, but underlining.

Remnick stated as forcefully as he could, “The election of Donald Trump cannot and must not be normalized!”

 So disturbed was Remnick, and so disturbed should the rest of the world be, that he listed some of the deeply negative characteristics of Trump: racism, misogyny, authoritarianism, along with the endorsements he has received: the KKK, the Alt-Right, the American Fascist party. Cozying up to Putin, scrapping the Iran deal on nuclear development, scrapping TPP, renegotiating NAFTA, withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, and then the complex gordion knot of Trump’s business interests enmeshed with the official business of the United States are some of the other difficulties with the potential impact of the election.

This morning’s Trump tweet telling the British government his choice for UK Ambassador to the United States is another verboten diplomatic move, not only raising eyebrows among diplomats, but also embarrassing the country whose highest leadership position he is about to assume is and will be seen to be easily forgotten after he is finished wreaking his havoc.

As the black comedienne, Whoopie Goldberg put it on “The View” today, “Lady Liberty is Green” and ‘I have never known these values to be acceptable in America”…..

Having his children manage his business interests is not, cannot be and will not be the “blind trust” the legal requirements demand. Let’s be clear, no elected official is outside of or above the law on all issues. Just as important is Trump’s contempt for the public and private media, that compulsive-obsessive sponge and megaphone of every utterance made by the president-elect.

Deviance, unorthodoxy, unconventional, surprise, unexpected…..these words will look pale when the new administration accomplishes even some of its stated goals

Infrastructure, for example, poses a significant threat to the body politic. Trump’s offer of initial funding opportunities for the private sector, plus a share of revenue from those proposed project will witness a rush of investment cash on steroids, for the profit the “deals” will generate, while simultaneously robbing the nation of both the responsibility and the ownership and the stewardship of the public good.

Making the opportunity available for business, for ambulances and law enforcement to operate, by generating public facilities of which the public can be proud is a long-standing tradition in both the United States and Canada, where Trudeau is also giving hints that his government too will permit private ownership of public facilities, in order to fund the long-overdue infrastructure projects the country desperately needs. Toll roads, toll bridges….will these lead to toll runways and toll moving sidewalks in U.S. airports?

At root, however, for Remnick, and for Goldberg, the for American Civil Liberties Union, and hopefully for millions of others on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel, white racist supremacy is one of, if not the most heinous prospect that many believe Trump foreshadows, if not actually incarnates. Mein Kampf and all of the memories and fears it evokes, when espoused and championed by a generation of angry white men, (tragically,Trump won the large majority of evangelical Christians too!), must be confronted by surges of hope, cash raised in new and surprising amounts by those seeking to push back against everything Trump stands for. So while hate crimes have surged so too has the flow of cash to oppose, volunteers to become activists in opposition.

Not incidentally, the stock market is reaching higher numbers than ever in history. Is this a signal that the markets are enjoying and even luxuriating in the Trump win?

 Each person can ask him or herself what the deep meanings of this historic electoral result are and how each can take the also historic opportunity to come out of the proverbial closet of apathy, and indifference. Editors in national news outlets, along with editors in small-town weeklies, and local television outlets can examine their negligence throughout the campaign, with a view to rededicating their organizations to a much more critical judgement of the ways by which voter rights are being repressed, by which health care is being gutted, by which ordinary people will be impacted by the privatization of public facilities, by which the long-term values and interests of the nation are being eroded or even trashed.

Just as Henry Kissinger reminded viewers while appearing as a guest on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, a business deal is very different from a diplomatic “deal”….the former involves only two parties and they may never see each other again, while a diplomatic ‘deal’ involves many players and depends on long-term relationships.

The same is true, when the history, tradition and values of equality, freedom, authentic justice, and the respect of every individual and each ethnicity, religion, language and culture. This is about long-term relationships with ordinary people. The presidency cannot and must not be reduced to the simplistic, reductionistic terms of a for-profit business deal, the modus operandi Trump claims as his signature accomplishment. Even the promise of  jobs and infrastructure must not depend on a single, short-term business deal that make the signatories look good today, if the long-term impact of such deals erode and decimate the tradition and values of the country, for which many lives have been lost, at home and abroad.

Today, November 22, is the anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and all of us recall precisely where we were and what we were doing the moment we learned of that tragedy. It is an historic watershed in all of our memories and makes us even more energized to protect the values, traditions and aspirations not only for justice and equality but for a peaceful world, that have impelled the nation. And this energy cannot be exclusive only to American citizens. The whole world has a stake in this new and very different historic moment.

Xenophobia in America does not originate with Trump...it has a long history

Contempt for those who are different, in its latest iteration, may have been triggered by the rise in immigrants and refugees from many Islamic countries where war and poverty, disease and hopelessness abound.

However, contempt for the outsider, someone who is different, named “alien” has been a long-standing attitude in the United States. Alien, for the Americans, is a person who was not born in that country. And having worked in their country for nearly four years, while wearing the epithet “alien,” I never felt welcome, often experienced a different look or even a sarcastic comment about my accent, and deliberately refused to do things that would more fully “embed” me in a culture that exhibits fear and contempt even for those of their own country who are not like them.

Let’s start with the shocking question from one white person who felt she had to inquire if a black relative from a large city, in state, would be welcome at an event we were both looking forward to attending and celebrating. Of course, the black person was also an American, and I was incredulous that such a question was asked. And then, let’s recall some of the other comparisons, subtle racist attitudes that emerged when I was confronted by the phrase, “you are too eastern for us”….meaning too “Ivy League” and “too sophisticated” and too “citified” illustrated even comparisons within their own country provided all the examples they needed to exclude this “alien.”

For a country that brags to the world about being the “best” country with the most powerful military, and the best universities, and the most advanced discoveries in science and medicine, in space and digital technology, this is still a country masking her fears. Recall one of Trump’s earliest lessons from his father, that the world is not a nice place and enemies abound, presumably from a motive of parenting a “strong” offspring who could face the world and successfully compete. Forged in revolution against the monarchy in Great Britain, and nurtured in their own civil war, adding on a list of smaller and larger world conflicts, animosity, and “shaking hands with their elbows” something I experienced daily in my stint working in the United States, Americans simply love a really down and dirty fight, whether that fight involves principles worthy of the engagement or not. Like a dysfunctional family raised in crisis, that (crisis) is what they know best, and what they seek to replicate in their political rhetoric, in their political competitions, in their street gangs, in their corporate take-overs, and in their athletic prowess.

Crisis is, after all, the epitome of exaggerated drama, out of which some kind of hero must emerge, and out of which some “loser” must also emerge. When the entertainment industry, and the marketing industry and the education sector, and the political demographic is fully immersed, engaged and motivated by the effort to win, at all costs, whether it be the scholarship, or the emission test for new cars, or the best “ratings” for its service or product, all components of the culture are reduced to just another transaction.

And when the tools and the instructions and the culture are all dedicated to winning, and thereby eliminating losers, mostly by creating them in their own minds, the country verges on the culture of the elementary and middle school play-yard. Power, often in the form of the biggest, the loudest, the most handsome, the best figure (for the females), and certainly the most popular (stereotypically the football quarterback and the head cheerleader), as the goal of individual lives, is reproduced in extrinsic examples.

All of the examples of power in the school yard are visible, audible, and measureable. Intrinsics like insight, creativity, compassion, faith, collegiality, and even ethics all give way to the expressions of physical/sexual/popular power.

And herein lies a significant danger, not only for those in the playground, but also for their parents and their children, decades later. Failing, losing, being cast out (from the inner circle) is never considered as a significant component in the engine that drives the culture.  Not only is their a two-pole kind of dichotomy about this reductionistic kind of culture, there is also a kind of split in the kind of attention dedicated to the winners and the losers.

The former are lauded, in all of the many venues available in the community; the latter are quite literally ignored, spurned, spat upon, and even kicked and punched by the bullies who find their own path to power, dependent on their own kind of neurosis.

And when the hard times come, as they inevitably will and have, there will be no cultural resource on which to rely, other than turning winners into losers (or the enemy) and seeking the “revenge of the deplorables” a phrase tailor-made for the millions who voted for the president elect. Combat, then, once again based on the collusion of the compliant who are just like us, another variation of the conformity/exclusion of the school yard, and the exclusion of those who are not like us.

It may well be that Obama’s entry onto the national stage championed not blue and red states, but the UNITED States of America. And for political rhetoric delivered by a young black state senator from Illinois, it brought the Democratic National Convention to their feet, and eventually elevated Obama to the White House.

At the same time, over the eight years of his presidency, it is not incidental to note that white supremacy hate groups have increased in both numbers and in size. The Republican members of Congress, in both Houses, conspired to block Obama’s every move, and whether or not the “moral license”* concept articulated by Malcolm Gladwell has been operating will be the subject of many doctoral theses over the coming decades. It is not accidental, nor incidental, too that the KKK is alive and well and living both physically and inspirationally among the racists who supported the president elect, without his ever rejecting the support from that quarter.

Those who are not like me must be by enemies, would be both expected and addressed directly by school teachers and administrators who would be doing their jobs. In the “adult” world, there are no teachers and administrators to carry on the kind of education, enhancing horizons of both perception and attitude, from exclusion to welcome inclusion. And, in a culture that has placed law enforcement, along with the military at the top of its “icon pole” this education and transformational process is unfortunately left to the police, and to the social service agencies, most of which are underfunded and unprepared to spend the time, and dedicate the resources in “prevention” and prefer to build their case load of crises.

As a national modus operandi, crisis management is completely at odds with a healthy anything (family, school, hospital, corporation, government). Paradoxically, however, crisis attitudes, and crisis rhetoric and polar opposite epithets (including character assassinating name calling fit for the school yard) that garner public attention for their shock value have essentially drugged a ratings-driven media, thereby promulgating a kind of violent campaign of hollow and crisis-conceived and delivered rhetoric that has become the latest political kool-aid for the nationalist, populist, jingoist, xenophobic “movement” that is best compared with a bowel movement. (However, this “movement” is unlikely to remove the waste products from the political intestines that have been blocked for the past eight years.)

All of the evidence suggests that the president elect is conducting a hubristic parade of ring-kissing sycophants (like a newly elected pope) while deliberately holding his cards very close to his vest, as if the archetype of “enemy” now includes both the “people” and the “media”….when his job is to “serve” the people and in order to accomplish that responsibility, he needs the media.

However, if the insularity, and the xenophobia and the jingoism of the president-elect are so concrete that only those permitted inside the inner circle matter (leaving the people and the media deliberately outside, begging for crumbs of irrelevant information) then democracy itself is under threat, not from outside the country, but from the very heart of the republic, the White House itself.

And this threat to democracy did not start with the recent presidential campaign. It goes all the way back to the revolution. There is an old saying, “we become what we hate”….suggesting that hate itself is a kind of imprisonment that so captures its bearer it transforms that hate-monger into the very object of the hate. Americans quite literally hated the “oppression” they believed they experienced under the monarchy. And their hate, contempt and rejection was so strong they fought their revolutionary war to escape. It may have taken well over two hundred years; however they may have come to the point where they are now ensnared in the trap of their own xenophobic hatred, not of the British this time, but of the “aliens” in their midst and the “aliens” who have “robbed” them of their jobs, and the potential “flood” of aliens from other countries. All of these “aliens”  have an implicit “mark” of a danger and a threat to America simply because that “mark” has been projected onto their foreheads by the frightened, yet heavily armed, and heavily sedated populace by the drug of xenophobia.

I was once one of those aliens, and I once felt that I bore such a mark, in a community in which the alien was so denigrated and so despised and so abhorrent that those in charge were compelled to accept, however superficially, such an “alien” because a native American would not accept the post, after two years of national advertising. (That significant piece of information was denied to me by those ‘filling the hole’ on their roster, once again, as another example of the contempt for the alien ingrained in the hierarchy.)

*“Moral License” is the permission that accompanies, for example, the election of a black president, for one to declare “I am not racist” and then proceed to demonstrate the very racism previously denied, with impunity. The vote for the black president gives “license” for the ensuing racism that was always present, and may now be even exaggerated in its newly licensed stage.

A brief look at oscillation

Let’s have a look at the notion of oscillation* as it applies to human behaviour.

A fluctuation between to outside points around a central position offers a kind of “energy” that could be useful, or perhaps counter-productive.

Robert Fritz, author of “technologies for creating” speaks about the oscillation that occurs between two mutually exclusive goals, operating simultaneously. For example, if one seeks to lose weight, then one often becomes excessively hungry and eats more…oscillating between the two mutually exclusive goals.

Fritz posits that, in order to reduce, if not eliminate the oscillation, one has to decide which goal is primary, and which is secondary to help the individual to move more effectively toward the preferred goal, even if it takes a little longer than anticipated. Even the awareness that one seems to be oscillating, from Fritz’s perspective, can help to curb the tendency and shift to a more effective achievement of the desired “creation”.

In music, the notion of resolving tensions, between an unsettled sound to one of finality creates a “cadence” leaving the listener aware that the phrase or the piece of music has come to an end. It was the tension itself, however, that was playing out through the manuscript, as the phrases rose and fell in speed, or pitch or volume, depending on the composer’s intent.

For much of our lives, we are mostly unconscious of the playing out of those “phrases” of activity, varying between quick, slow, loud, soft, high pitched or low pitched….each of them signalling a different emotion, mood and comfort level. And most of our consciousness focuses on how “others” are impacting the music of our lives. A phone call, an email, a text….they each can and often do send a ripple of emotional energy depending on the nature of the message, the relationship to the sender, the timing of the message and the anticipated next step. Managing these micro-impulses, however, can often render us blind or unconscious to the larger patterns of the way things seem to be “flowing” or not in our lives.

One example of a kind of oscillation that appears in some lives is that between the victim and the bully. A victim is usually the receiver of negative messages, perhaps abusive messages, from others who project their insecurities onto him/her generating the inevitable feelings of insecurity, resentment, anger and revenge. If the abuse of negative messages is protracted, the negative emotions only grow generating a compelling need to release the pent-up negative emotions, generating a new “self” as a bully…one that gives out, rather than receives, similar negative messages. Of course, much has been written about being “OK” or “ NOT OK” (See Eric Berne’s Games People Play, Transactional Analysis). And, from a cliché perspective, we all want to be OK, rather than “NOT OK”.

However, being “OK” is not cast in granite, for most people, depending on the culture in which the early and highly impressive early messages were positive and negative. The culture, itself, can and often does oscillate between a historic period of “positive” messages and “negative” messages. An example of this oscillation can be seen in the American education culture in which positive messages to every student have generated kids who believe they can accomplish anything and everything, while many of their scores on demanding tests demonstrate a lack of learning the basics needed to pass those tests. There is a profound gap between “feeling good” and accomplishing one’s required goals.

How both the culture and the individuals perceive any oscillation, and their place in the oscillation, can offer some clues both to personal identity and to a larger picture of the nature of the world we live in. Recently, an election in the United States illustrated one dramatic oscillation: following a period of calm, rational, predictable and even smiling leadership under Obama, the country swung wildly in favour of an irrational, impulsive, unpredictable and mostly angry candidate, believing that the former was a “weak” leader and the latter much more “strong” and unable or unwilling to be “pushed around”. It is not incidental to note that Obama (the rational and predictable and moderate) followed immediately on the heels of another “war monger” in George W. Bush, whose over-reaction to 9/11, with the full compliance of the American people set the stage for the election of Obama.

It is not only from the perspective of the nature of the nation’s leadership that this oscillation can be considered. It is also an oscillation in the unfolding of the search for masculine identity that is playing out, both in the oscillation from Bush to Obama, and from Obama to Trump. Identity is one obvious stage on which both individual and cultural oscillations develop. Who is this person? And what is the country’s identity? These are critical questions is the evolution of personal and national identity. And they emerge from the existential search for meaning and purpose….following the inevitable “existential moment” in which the person/organization/nation recognizes its own meaninglessness. And for many, there is not a single “existential moment” in the course of history.

The identity of feminism is another curve that demonstrates a kind of oscillation from the “victim” archetype to the “dominant” or “warrior” archetype. This oscillation can be witnessed in the many upheavals in domestic relationships, where, for example, the female begins as completely compliant with the male interests and over time, emerges (sometimes seamlessly, sometimes more turbulently) into a much more assertive individual. And parallel to this evolution is the shift from a male archetype of “warrior” to the “compliant” or “passive aggressive” model, neither of which effectively provides an authentic and responsive partner for the evolving female.

Gender identity as one of the primary cultural, sociological curves of our time, oscillates between images of “strength” and images of “weakness”….just another of the many reductionisms that plague much of contemporary public consciousness and discourse. What seems to be missing from this discussion is the concept of androgyny, the notion (offered by Carl Jung) that in both men and women, in our unconscious, there are indications of the opposite gender. It is a resistance to the reality of androgyny, especially among men, that is often at the centre of the extremes in oscillation in the gender identity drama. “Bush” attempted to project an image of “macho masculinity” in response to the 9/11 attack supported by most Americans. Obama, on the other hand, adopted a much more evolved and more moderate leadership approach, in part because it is consistent with his own personality, and also because he believed it was essential for the country’s long-term interests geopolitically.

The recent push back against Obama’s weakness, (at least as perceived by those men who have been emasculated by their many serious losses of jobs, income, status and even respect, as well as those who feel “second class” in their relationships, rightly or not) has catapulted Trump to the most powerful office in the world. Is the vote an over-reach demonstrating a risky oscillation? Of course.

And it is the over-reach of most of our personal, organizational, and national oscillations away from whatever it is we perceive to be the “force” we are saying “No” to that comprises much of the drama of our histories. If things feel “stuck” we will oscillate into dramatic “action” just to demonstrate that we are capable of “action”….and vice versa, if we perceive our lives as strung-out, overwhelmed, and out of control, we will seek either to escape such turbulence, or perhaps some “medicative” escape, whether that escape is within limits or not.

When we observe and discuss the dynamics of a group, we can easily perceive the modus operandi, in terms of, on one hand, clear decision-making, or conversely, murky and indecisive co-dependence with much “niceness” and almost obsessive feel-good messaging of all members by the others.

Here is a typical illustration of one of the primary oscillations, between action and being. In seminaries, we hear many times the expression, “I am a human BEING not a human DOING,” as if to underline the difference between justification only from accomplishment, achievement, extrinsic rewards and appreciation as compared to “the who” of our being. Our culture is much more interested in rewarding, recognizing and perpetuating the “doing” of individual lives, and not their “being”. The latter is considered peripheral to how much of our work and home lives are structured.

It is the race to the bottom line, the cutting of costs, that is the current culture of most organizations, especially those whose leaders are rewarded by such accomplishments. Do more with less, accomplish more with fewer people….these are the mantras of many in middle and upper management….If they only recognized and accepted how counter-productive is their approach.

Neurotic organizations come in many varieties and colours. One obvious example pervading much of our work culture is “do more with less” so that targets of decreasing losses, or increasing profits can be met. And of course linked to that “corporate philosophy” is the acceptance of the fact that full disclosure of the real “figures” and the authentic fiscal picture will never be released. Once launched on the path of “cutting costs” these gigantic corporate ‘ships’ cannot be easily and quickly turned around to move in a direction of respect and dignity and honouring the workers and their already proven ways of accomplishing their tasks.

And so, ironically, the deficit of respect from supervisors to workers only grows, thereby completely defeating the stated goal of reducing costs, a goal designed to be implemented by all managers in training, so easily trained and measured is the skill.

Worshipping the bottom line, just like turning every relationship into another transaction demonstrating “profit” or “loss” to the participants, is so demonstrably counter-intuitive and counter-productive that a concerted oscillation back toward honouring personal dignity, personal feelings and personal respect for all, while much like pushing water uphill is more than worth the effort.

And this energy dedicated to real human encounters, ones that are not dependent on classical conditioning, the tool of the control management operatives, includes a recognition of and respect for androgyny, for discussing our own oscillations, for perceiving and naming the oscillations of the organizations in which we are involved, in helping our children to moderate their vacillating and oscillating intensities so that they too can and will escape the ensnaring trap of the many oscillations, and learn to fly their own unique flight path, neither too high (like Icarus) nor too low (like too many Canadians who have been told “we are not that kind of people” by their parents when they wanted to go to med school).

It is true that through oscillations, we find our limits, and our boundaries. However, when the culture marches to the drum beat of the one percent, it is only the interests and the values of the one percent that become the dogma of the new religion. And we all need to put our thumbs on the scales to balance the inordinate power and influence of that one percent, the same one percent that will be moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on January 21.

Surely, the church of the plutocrats is no authentic religion, but rather a machine perpetuated by the powerful, of the powerful, and for (only) the powerful. And the refuse it generates every day in the losses of human potential will soon suffocate the very edifice in which it worships.

*Oscillation:

(physics, statistics) regular fluctuation in value, position, or state about a mean value, such as the variation in an alternating current or the regular swinging of a pendulum. a single cycle of such a fluctuation. (from dictionary.com)