I’m
always amazed at the capacity of humans to learn at any age. All it takes is a little curiosity and
humility – admitting there might still be something out there we don’t
know. Granted, this goes against some of
what we’ve learned. We could look foolish
if we open ourselves to learning something new.
We could make ourselves vulnerable, subject to ridicule, or even danger,
but hey, that’s how it works.
Of
course I’m talking about myself, and something that just occurred to me
recently as I try to remain a knowledgeable citizen of the world.
Here
it is: When people say they don’t trust
the government is it because in their own narrow-mindedness they assume
everyone (public servants and otherwise) is as greedy and self-centered as they
are? If so, I finally get it. No wonder
they don’t trust government, or anyone else!
Now
before you get your conservative panties bunched up, hear me out. Let me start with “narrow-mindedness.” What I
mean by this is an inability to acknowledge or understand the validity of any
perspective beyond one’s own experience.
A good example might be Ohio Senator Rob Portman’s once anti-gay
stance. Because he wasn’t gay, and
didn’t know anyone close to him who was gay, he couldn’t believe that someone
else might be, that his God made someone that way, unless there was something
wrong with them. It was beyond the realm
of his personal experience and so he was convinced that it was just wrong. (either that or he was flat out lying in
order to boost his VP chances)
Then
his son came out.
Suddenly
Senator Portman’s worldview was expanded. Now that he had some up close and
personal experience with an actual gay person he was able to see that being gay
isn’t some character flaw or choice any more than being born into a Republican
household might (or might not) be! …or being born with different colored hair,
or skin, or height, or weight, or gender or any other genetic result. Why
couldn’t he see this before it was personal to him? Because he was narrow-minded. My assumption is that he still is, but he’s
learning!
We’re
all subject to such prejudices, and to a degree, they help keep us alive and
safe, but we also have to constantly question them as we proceed through life
or we risk being limited in our contributions and our own personal achievement
and happiness. Senator Portman was
unwilling to question his former ideas about homosexuality until it became
personal. That’s what I mean by
narrow-minded – the inability to see other’s beliefs, traits, characteristics,
ideas, etc. as valid when they differ from our own personal experiences. Again, we all face this kind of
thinking. It’s a survival instinct, but
at some point, as adults, as we develop the ability to think rationally, we
have to overcome them and challenge them in order to develop beyond a level of
basic, caveman-like survival, and grow to fit into the modern world that exists
around us today - where cavemen no longer exist, and where we move beyond basic
survival in order to advance socially, technologically, financially,
culturally, or in all ways that matter.
If you can’t get beyond the limitations of your own personal experience,
you are doomed to never being any better (by any measurement) than you are
right now. THAT is the definition of a
miserable life!
OK,
so that’s the narrow-mindedness. It’s
important to start with that because, while it is inextricably associated with
self-centeredness, particularly in the form of greed, it is a separate
characteristic. Greed, as a specific
form of self-centeredness, is a whole other ballgame. Greed has to do with getting mine, often at
the expense of others. Sure, there’s a
lot lacking in that definition, but I’m trying to keep this explanation
simple. I could add that greed requires
a lot of false zero-sum mythological economic thinking, probably resulting in
the related lack of curiosity, and thus being satisfied with the simplest
economic theory one has ever read and then misapplying it to far more complex
real life situations simply because one cannot be bothered to apply rational
thought to the more complex situation and thus sticks with what one knows –
kind of like looking for the keys one dropped in the driveway in the living
room because the light is better in there – but that won’t help keep it simple. (here’s an example of that kind of ridiculous
oversimplification: )
In
the meantime, dig into “Economics in One Lesson,” by Henry Hazlitt. It sounds
like a snooze but it really is a page turner, and you can download it for
free. http://mikerowe.com/2016/08/otw-economicsinonelesson/
(note: it’s NOT a page turner, and it contains fatal
oversimplification errors almost from the very start, which is what makes it such a great example here)
Back
to the point: greed sneaks into one’s world view like poison and then clouds
one’s thinking at every turn thereafter.
Much like narrow-mindedness, there’s some value in limited doses of
greed. It too can be a survival instinct. Charity begins at home. You’re no good to anyone else if you don’t
first take care of yourself, etc. and so on, but when one allows greed to taint
all other decision making, that’s where the trouble starts.
Like
any other unquestioned dogma (yes, that’s redundant, but people misuse language
so much in these “post-fact, post-knowledge” times I figured this post is a
good place for otherwise unnecessary emphasis) greed prevents us from thinking
rationally in other areas of thinking as well.
Once greed becomes one’s primary motivator, it can block out all
possibility of win-win situations. It
actually fools us into thinking that if someone else wins, I must have
lost. We know this isn’t true, but
that’s what too much greed does to our thought process. (We’ve seen this with our president-elect on
several occasions. Those who seem to be
able to have real discussions with him must first acknowledge that he is a
“winner”…by a landslide…bigly, and only then will he listen to them regardless
of their expertise, experience, education or value of their ideas.)
Greed
corrupts our thinking to the point that we assume everyone else is just as
greedy as we are. This false (in many
cases, but not always) assumption thus creates competition with others where no
competition actually exists. Instead of
being able to work together, greedy people automatically assume they are always
competing for something. Instead of
considering the possibility of better results as a synthesis of combined
thinking, cooperation, broad experiences and training coming together, greedy
folks see only that they might not get all there is to have. This is the zero-sum myth, especially when it
comes to ideas. (but also when it comes
to wealth in most cases)
Like
any other pattern of thinking, when you do it long enough it not only becomes
habit forming, it becomes who you are.
What’s worse is that it combines with that narrow-mindedness and
convinces you that everyone else is the same way. You assume no one can be trusted because
everyone thinks exactly like you do – everyone else, like you, is out to get
theirs, and probably at your expense.
When you’re already susceptible to projecting ONLY your experiences onto
others, you naturally assume everyone thinks the way you think.
As
I mentioned, this just dawned on me. How
it took me half a decade on the planet to realize it seems rather baffling, but
now it all makes sense. Before this
realization, I could never understand how anyone could be so suspicious and
pessimistic about his fellow man. My
experience on this planet tells me otherwise. (“Trust, but verify,” a wise
fellow one said) Sure, I’ve been burned before, (most often as a result of my
own lazy thinking or actions) but for the most part, I’ve found common ground
with just about everyone I’ve met in just about every corner of the
planet. It’s been my experience that we
have more in common than contrast when it comes to other humans. We all need
oxygen …and a nice, clean, private, preferably flushable toilet once in a while
is really nice too! It’s been my
experience that two heads are better than one, not something to be feared. I guess I have been guilty of assuming
everyone would want the benefit of that, and so I have projected my thoughts
too – that better solutions generally arise when you have as many perspectives
and as much information as you can before making up your mind – is what it
means to be a grown up. It still seems like a better way of doing anything, but
now I understand why greedy, narrow-minded people think otherwise.
So
now I understand what people mean when they say they are distrustful of
government, or other humans in general.
It’s not that they don’t grasp the concept that in America, WE ARE “the
government,” it’s that they simply assume the worst in anyone else, precisely
because that’s how they see themselves, and thus they project their own misery,
greed, narrow-mindedness onto others. It
also just occurred to me as I write this that the only solution for people who
think like this is some sort of authoritarian dictatorship, but each one of
them would have to be a dictator, so it would have to be anarchy, with each
individual a sovereign entity, but that brings up issues of property rights,
which would severely dampen the gathering of wealth, and that’s kind of at odds
with the whole selfishness thing. (if there were no government, then how would
we establish and record deeds? The real estate market would never work like
that!) I suppose the only way we can
make them happy is if they find some surrogate whom they believe can represent
their narrow-minded greed. I guess we’ll
see how that works out.
Luth
Out
