#blame #solutions #politics #DifferencesOfOpinion #CultureWar
“Most Americans could … be considered pragmatic moderates on the majority of political issues. While research (shows) some polarization has increases, it appears to have been exaggerated.”
So writes Gail Sahar, professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass. An article, adapted from her book “Blame and Political Attitudes:The Psychology of America’s Culture War,” was published June 21, 2023, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Sahar believes that the basis for democracy assumes people can reason. When we underestimate the American public’s ability to rationally consider issues, we undermine our nation’s foundation, she writes.
“The current focus on blame has emerged as the missing link connecting ideology to attitude across a range of issues,” she writes.
In current political discourse, people not only want everyone to follow what THEY believe in, but also want to blame someone else when things go wrong.
To paraphrase the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. Congress would get more done if they cared less about who gets the credit. The converse is also true. If nothing gets done, the other guy is to blame.
This culture of blame, as Sahar calls it, may arouse strong feelings on both sides of an issue. But, we always find an excuse to blame the other guy. Therefore, nothing of consequence gets done.
What if we all, regardless of core beliefs, focused on what we can accomplish, instead of what points we can score against the other guy?
The result would be incremental action toward the common good. Incremental actions, when added up, can yield real accomplishments.
What would help this process is everyone agreeing on facts. When one side doesn’t get its way, it can tend to say the other side was wrong, or fraudulent, and can tend to invent its own set of facts.
Then, to emphasize the point, they keep spouting this set of “facts” as if it were true, thinking enough people will believe them.
In most instances, there is one truth. Anything to the contrary is, at best, “spin,” or, at worst, false. Once the actual truth is discerned, we can come closer to agreement on what to do, or not do.
Facts can certainly get in the way of a good narrative, or a good conspiracy theory. Although some in power fit the category of wanting to screw, or blame, the other guy, most people want to know the truth, find ways to apply that truth to the problems at hand and find solutions.
Complete solutions may be elusive on first pass. Therefore, incremental solutions tend to produce more agreement.
Most successful people believe in the phrase, “Go big, or go home.”
In today’s discourse, that may be a pipe dream. We will get more done amid differences of opinions and worldviews if we start small. Then, after a time, we can go on to the next small thing. The toe-in-the-water approach may seem pointless to some. But, it may be the best way to arbitrate differences and get to real solutions.
There are big differences of opinion in as diverse a country as ours. It’s difficult to celebrate differences. It may be better to acknowledge them, find points of agreement – or, at least, compromise – and move toward solutions.
The journey toward solutions may be long. But, those who are successful in whatever they do usually find the journey more worthwhile than the destination.
Peter
Tag Archives: solutions
TURNING YOUR THINKING AROUND; PROBLEMS BECOME SOLUTIONS
#problems #solutions #PinkBat
Has a problem arisen for you? If so, do you just acknowledge it as a problem, and try to adjust accordingly?
Or, do you try to turn the problem, or problems, into a solution? It may require some creativity and imagination, but it will definitely require an open mind.
Michael McMillan discusses this concept in his book, “Pink Bat: Turning Problems Into Solutions.”
The Pink Bat has become McMillan’s metaphor for a solution from a perceived problem. As a boy, he and his friends were looking for a way to play backyard baseball without breaking windows of their houses. They replaced a hard ball with a rubber ball. Then, McMillan remembered a gift he got as a child – a pink bat, designed to help toddlers learn baseball.
To condense a longer story, the pink bat broke from use, and the boys, with the help of one neighbor boy who didn’t usually play ball with the rest, came up with a new baseball-related game, using the broken pink bat.
“We’ve all heard the expression, ‘one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.’ If (the neighbor boy) could take a discarded bat (perceived problem) and turn it into an exciting new game (solution), then what’s stopping you from doing the same?” McMillan writes.
He goes on to write that subconsciously, our brain chooses what we believe is possible, plausible and “real,” while ignoring or blocking everything else. He gives the example of a person listening to others’ conversation, when he hears his name mentioned. His brain filters automatically tell him that his name is important, thus he listens more intently.
He cites a bunch of examples of “problems” turned into “Pink Bat” solutions. They include turning waste vegetable oil from restaurants into motor fuel, and turning the methane gas from cattle waste into fuel gas.
His point is that problems become solutions by different thinking. It’s been said by many experts that we become what we think about. If you see your life as a series of problems to endure, rather than solutions to help you thrive, you will be less happy and less prosperous.
Pity pots can be comfy, but they get us nowhere. Sometimes, we have to delve into what’s not comfortable to change our lives.
McMillan says every problem is a solution, waiting for the right person to find it. If you become a person willing to look, eventually you’ll turn a problem into a solution – for you and perhaps many others.
If you’re situation is not where you want it to be, and you see yourself as a solution finder looking for something good to check out, message me.
“You can live each day in a world filled with ‘problems,’ or rise each morning and embrace a world filled with unseen solutions … eager for you to find them,” McMillan writes.
So get up. Swing your Pink Bat. Rather than see the world as a group of unsolvable problems, look at ways YOU can create solutions from those problems. Be willing to look at things you never would have thought you would look at. You might be amazed at what you find.
“For every problem, there exists a solution … or at the very least … an opportunity. But it takes an open mind to see it … and intelligence and imagination to create it,” McMillan writes.
Perhaps it’s the outsider who sees something others have missed, he continues. Perhaps being an outsider, or going outside your comfort zone, may help you see what YOU might have missed had you not looked.
Peter