Meditation for Life: The Spirit of Grieving
Adam Elenbaas
In a recent scientific study conducted at the University of California Los Angeles, researchers examined the neurological processes surrounding short and long term grieving. The results, although partially speculative, provide an excellent backdrop for a conversation regarding meditation and its age old role in coping with sadness, depression and personal loss.
The study at UCLA examined 23 women who had lost a loved one within five years, eleven of whom still suffered from what psychologists call "CG" or "complicated grief": prolonged grieving resulting in depression, stress, fatigue, and lowered immune efficiency. While monitoring brain activity, researchers showed each woman pictures of her deceased loved one or words and phrases strongly associated with her deceased loved one. The results, as expected, showed that each woman in the study had social pain and grieving effects related to the images and words. But the interesting result was the commonality that all of the "complicated grievers" showed during the brain monitoring.
Each of the complicated grievers demonstrated high reward, pleasure, and addiction activity responses in the brain, in addition to the social grieving response. This finding suggests that brain interference could be responsible for "complicated grieving," and its fallout symptoms: fatigue, depression, stress, lowered immune efficiency and an inability to let go of the past. Some puzzling results, right?
Well, science is a funny thing. After all, it was the human mind that created the scientific method and rationalism, not the scientific method that created the rational mind. In other words, it's important to remember that human experience, in its full palette, inspired this kind of study in the first place. Therefore, interpreting the results of scientific data in a healthy conversation is the fertile ground where we might determine which seeds of cultural evolution are worth planting next. So what might this study imply about depression and how might it relate to meditation?
Let's make a few assumptions. Let's assume that being healthy and strong and "selfcentered" means that you are independently happy. In other words, you have established a healthy balance between the outside world (food, shelter, nature, clothing, jobs, people) and your inside world (emotions, thoughts, words, and actions). Now let's assume that people are thrown out of balance when they place too much emphasis on their internal world or the external world to create that sense of harmony and well being. In the case of the UCLA study, how would these assumptions about health filter out?
Let's say that your internal world feels terrible. You don't like who you are. You don't like your emotions, or they are too much to handle. Your mind moves too fast. You don't enjoy life. And you're always questioning what you say or why you said it. The immediate answer is often to look for another human or something outside to fix what is going on inside. It's not a terrible impulse. Sometimes it works. Sometimes when I'm feeling sad inside I will call a friend for a reminder that I am strong and special. Then something inside of me clicks over and I say, "Oh yeah, that's right. I am doing just fine." And in most of my friendships there is an equal balance of giving and taking from one another. We call each other for help about the same amount, or else we would start resenting each other.
But sometimes we get into relationships that are based around a constant and habitual need for something that we simply do not know how to do inside yet. It's as if we each have a muscle inside of us that must learn, as we grow up, to lift ourselves up when we need help and happiness. When this muscle has atrophied (because our parents didn't do a good job or because we got into a bad habit, or you believe in Karma, or sin, etc,) we often look for all of our strength in someone else, a relationship of some kind. It's human to need love, right?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Meditation for Life: The Spirit of Grieving
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama
Has McCain forgotten that he "distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars"? Is he senile? Are his "people" really this desperate?
McCain Funded Work Of Palestinian His Campaign Hopes To Tie To Obama
The latest guilt-by-association target that the McCain campaign is using to hit Barack Obama could carry some collateral damage for its own candidate.As Politico's Ben Smith reported on Tuesday, the McCain campaign is demanding that the Los Angeles Times release video in its possession of a party attended by Barack Obama and Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi.
"A major news organization is intentionally suppressing information that could provide a clearer link between Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi," said McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb, citing Obama's friendship with Khalidi, who is now a professor at Columbia University.The McCain camp gambit comes after conservative writers have repeatedly pressed for media outlets to write about the rather tenuous connections between Obama and Khalidi, an outspoken advocate for Palestinian rights.
Specifically, National Review writers want much more attention paid to the association, given that the LA Times has reported that Khalidi lavished praise on Obama at a farewell party in Chicago at which Bill Ayers was also present. (Other writers have accused Khalidi of being an aide to Yasser Arafat, a claim which Marc Ambinder and Ari Berman have suggested is not credible.)
In regards to Khalidi, however, the guilt-by-association game burns John McCain as well.
During the 1990s, while he served as chairman of the International Republican Institute (IRI), McCain distributed several grants to the Palestinian research center co-founded by Khalidi, including one worth half a million dollars.
A 1998 tax filing for the McCain-led group shows a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank. (See grant number 5180, "West Bank: CPRS" on page 14 of this PDF.)
The relationship extends back as far as 1993, when John McCain joined IRI as chairman in January. Foreign Affairs noted in September of that year that IRI had helped fund several extensive studies in Palestine run by Khalidi's group, including over 30 public opinion polls and a study of "sociopolitical attitudes."
Of course, there's seemingly nothing objectionable with McCain's organization helping a Palestinian group conduct research in the West Bank or Gaza. But it does suggest that McCain could have some of his own explaining to do as he tries to make hay out of Khalidi's ties to Obama.
Daughter of a Slave Casts Historic Vote at Age 109
Daughter of a Slave Casts Historic Vote at Age 109
- Posted by: Nikhil Swaminathan
- on October 29, 2008 at 12:50 pm
A sweet story, regardless of your political affiliation: About a month short of her 110th birthday, Amanda Jones–whose father spent some of his childhood as a slave–mailed in a ballot for the man who could be the first black president of the U.S. A life-long Democrat, Jones, who lives outside of Austin, first voted for president more than 60 years ago (for F.D.R.). Her father encouraged her to exercise her right, despite barriers preventing black people from voting–such as poll taxes and other means of voter suppression. Even though Barack Obama will likely not win her historically Republican district, Jones told the Austin American-Statesman, “I feel good about voting for him.”
(Photo by:Larry Kolvoord/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
What Would the Buddha do? Practical Buddhism for Modern Times
What would the Buddha do? Practical Buddhism for modern times
by Kurt Barstow
The Bodhi Tree Grows in L.A.: Tales of a Buddhist Monk in America (Shambhala, 2008) by Bhante Walpola Piyananda is a testimony to the simplicity and therefore applicability of Buddhist teachings. In twenty short, easily digestible chapters, Bhante (a Pali word that can be translated as "Venerable" or also "teacher") Piyananda, the founder-president and abbot of Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara, a temple on Crenshaw Boulevard, interacts with and advises members of his community. As a Theravadan Buddhist monk he is a representative of the oldest of the three Buddhist traditions, which is practiced mainly in Sri Lanka (where he is from originally), Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Cambodia. This tradition uses texts in Pali, a language that coexisted with Sanskrit in the Buddha's time. He refers to these texts throughout the book as he helps people in need with problems including anger, gambling addiction, jealousy, racism, dead pets, and the interpretation of monastic rules. What shines through in all these stories is not only his compassion but also his deep knowledge of the Buddha's history and thought as well as an ability to always find concepts, teaching stories, or practices appropriate to a given situation.
In the first story, for example, a man whose supervisor has been tormenting him and passing him up for promotion (a situation with which all too many of us can probably identify) wants to buy a gun but is convinced by a friend to first see Bhante Piyananda. He first reminds the man of the Eight Worldly Conditions, four pairs of desirable and undesirable conditions that every human being must face: gain and loss; fame and infamy; praise and blame; and happiness (sukha) and unhappiness (dukkha). The good news (and the bad news as well) is that none of these conditions is permanent. Bhante Piyananda then goes on, citing the Maharahulavada Sutta: "Tom, the Buddha taught us, 'We have to be like the five elements—earth, water, fire, wind, and space. The earth does not get upset by the various things thrown upon it. Nor does water get upset by the various things that it is used to wash. Nor fire, which burns things clean and dirty without complaint. Nor air which blows on clean and dirty things equally. Nor space, which is not established anywhere. We need to develop our minds so that like these elements, things that arise that are either agreeable or disagreeable do not invade our minds and remain there. If we conduct ourselves like these five elements, we, too, can remain calm and peaceful, not bothered by whatever happens.'" He also advises Tom to practice as an antidote to his anger Metta (loving-kindness), in which one extends that emotion first to oneself, then to beloved people in one's life, then to neutral people, then to difficult people, and eventually to all sentient beings. In the end, Tom doesn't buy the gun, things get better with the supervisor, and he eventually gets promoted.
In another story, Bhante Piyananda's temple gets involved in fundraising efforts for victims of the 2004 Tsunami that most affected Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Here some mistaken and limiting views about karma come into play. It is suggested that the disaster occurred because of bad karma accrued by the people. One leader in the group suggests that by helping the fishermen, who kill things for a living, the temple members will themselves accrue bad karma. After a moving talk on the spaciousness and generosity of compassion Bhante Piyananda tries to correct the man's narrow view of Karma by putting it in the context of the Buddha's discourse on the five laws (niyama) that govern all things. The first is utu niyama, the law of energy, which governs changes in the body and things like climate. The second is bija niyama, the law of germs and seeds, which states that each one produces a different kind of plant or animal. Importantly, this law also states that there is only one kind of human seed, meaning that all are the same despite differences in race, class, gender, and so forth. The third law is kamma niyama, which states that whatever one does, good or bad, one reaps the consequences. The fourth is dhamma niyama, the law of nature. This governs all of physical manifestation and includes things like the earth's plates moving and causing tsunamis. The fifth is citta niyama, the law of mind that governs manifestation and says, in effect, "we create our world with our thinking." As Bhante Piyananda explains, "Kamma (the Pali word) is only one of the five laws in play at all times, each one exerting its influence as it may. Therefore, we must realize that our life experiences are not only due to the law of kamma." The conversation leaves the objector more knowledgeable about the complexity of these interacting laws and more sympathetic to the Tsunami victims.
In a final example, a woman's treasured pet--a dog named Buster--is hit by a car and killed. In an initial visit to her home, Bhante Piyananda cites the Buddha in the Salla Sutta: " Here in this world life is not predictable nor is it certain. Here, life is short with difficulties and suffering. Being born one then dies, without exception,..." A ceremony for the animal is held at the temple, but she is so bereaved that she cannot place the picture of the dog on the altar, instead clutching it with all her might as she cries. At this point Bhante Piyananda tells the story of Kisa Gotami, a woman whose firstborn child died and who could not accept it, running from house to house with the dead baby searching for medicine to revive it. She is eventually directed to the Buddha and, laying the baby at his feet, begs him to work a miracle and revive it. The Buddha speaks to her with love and compassion, telling her he will do that on the condition that she bring him some mustard seeds from a house in which there has not been death. Of course, she is not able to carry out this task since, as she eventually comes to understand, every household experiences death. As Bhante Piyananda concludes. "Death does leave a scar that cannot be erased when we are very close to the departed one. I'm not telling you to forget Buster, but you must get on with your life. Keep the happy memories of your pet, but also remember that nothing in physical form is forever." She is then able to place the picture on the altar and the memorial service goes on.
Other subjects of the book include the Taliban's destruction of the huge Buddha statues in Bamiyan, alcoholism, marriage ceremonies, meditation, spiritual friendship, and reincarnation, among others. These are real, contemporary issues viewed within both the context of modern, multicultural Los Angeles and the context of Buddhist tradition. Bhante Piyananda's love and concern for the people he counsels is as evident as his love of his spiritual tradition, making that tradition a contemporary, living thing and a relevant resource in the lives of many Angelenos. Bhante Piyananda's teaching in this book is filled with humility, grace, and wisdom that can be of benefit to all.
Body and Soul: On the Condition of Being Human
Body and soul: on the condition of being human
by Kurt Barstow
What makes us most human? This was a recent question posted on the website Gaia Community (http//www.gaia.com/). There are so many ways to answer that question. Our character flaws and tender vulnerabilities are the first things that come to mind. Without these we are certainly not human and this is the reason we can have such empathy for others. The second thing that comes to mind is our self-consciousness, the fact that we are embodied beings who can sense our original nature as spirit and who therefore have this upward, expansive sense of self, which is another reason, recognizing this in all others, we can care for each other so deeply. The great fifteenth-century humanist and teacher Guarino of Verona was thinking precisely of this dual nature when he said in his speech welcoming Giovanni Tavelli as the new bishop of Ferrara:
Alex Grey, Wonder"In these matters, there is nobody who does not know that man consists of such elements that the creator of things, source of a better world, when he placed holy and heavenly man in the world as an animal, made him erect while he made all the other animals inclined toward the earth; to man he gave a sublime face, and fashioned him to see the heavens and raise his uplifted face to the stars.
For because there was no expectation of immortality remaining in those animals, he designed them to be stretched out on the earth and slaves to their stomachs and to food. But man he made erect and tall, so that when all "fallen things" have been trampled, he would take up the virtue to which he was born, he would know his origin and contemplate God himself; and since the other animals are animals of man, man would understand that he is the animal of God."
Perhaps what makes us most human is to be located in soul, for by its very nature it seems to bridge these two worlds of the corruptible and the incorruptible, the mortal and immortal, the earthly and the heavenly. This tension even seems to come out in the two primary models of soul that seem to be active in psychology today. On one hand, there is the neo-Jungian, Imaginal soul as articulated especially by James Hillman and Thomas Moore. This is a kind of downward force (Hillman calls the process of the soul descending into embodied form and living its life “growing down”) that is behind our biographies, our fate, our uniqueness. And in this version of soul we have to sometimes honor rather than cure or wash away our symptoms, our perceived weaknesses or flaws, in order for soul-making to occur. We sometimes need to embrace and work through the messiness of our lives rather than to sanitize it or narrow it down to some standardized norm. As Moore says, "Care of the soul means respecting its emotions and fantasies, however objectionable," and, "We do not care for the soul by shrinking it down to reasonable size." In this version of soul it is our idiosyncrasies that need to be tended to by the faculty of our imagination, the soul’s greatest means of communication.
On the other hand, there is the evolutionary soul of Sri Aurobindo, the great twentieth-century Indian sage, that is set forth in Brant Cortright's book on Integral Psychology. (And one might say that this is also probably pretty much the way in which Ken Wilber thinks of soul along integral developmental lines, although soul seems to me to be less clearly in focus than spirit in his work.) This soul is immortal and passes from body to body during successive lifetimes. In Aurobindo it is the secret heart (the hrdaye guhayam), the psychic center located behind the heart. It's importance is developmental and it acquires new powers and capacities in each lifetime as it matures. As Cortright says, "The psychic center is spirit in manifestation, ever alive, ever whole, ever pure, yet also progressing as it evolves new abilities out of itself." The cultivation of this soul leads to authenticity, to greater depth of living, but the direction it takes is clear; it is part of the movement upward toward Spirit. As Cortright further says, "The psychic center moves always toward harmony, truth, beauty, goodness, and tenderness. Its intrinsic nature is spiritual, and to these higher spiritual values it is irresistibly attracted. But at first its voice is overshadowed by the clamor of body, heart, and mind." Rather than the quirky, imaginative, highly individualistic soul outlined in Moore and Hillman, this version of soul-making is about purification and its movement is toward a series of values that define a norm.
These two views of soul would at first seem irreconcilable. One explanation might be that the neo-Jungian soul as I have characterized it is not really soul but something soul-like that operates at the level of heart and mind rather than a stop on the way toward Spirit. It may also be, however, that a developmental model of souI is too sanitized and normative because it only looks at movement in one direction--soul as a goal--and doesn’t account for the development of soul in the vagaries of an embodied being’s life. I think, however, that it is notable that these two visions of soul together seem to comprise the poles of precisely what makes us human--the mutable and immutable. Taken together they seem to provide a more complete picture of soul than either do separately. Perhaps this is simply a matter of immanence and transcendence. In the first version of soul what is being described is primarily soul in its downward manifestation, taking care of earthly, perhaps unfinished business. In the second version of soul, soul is a vehicle in the evolution of consciousness, the ultimate journey of each soul, which is the same and involves purification on some level, as it ascends toward Spirit. In any event, I think we can say that it is this thing, which is also a kind of faculty or capacity at the same time it is an essence, that makes us human. It’s natural home is between the body and mind, on one hand, and Spirit, on the other hand.
Daniel Kahneman - Two Big Things Happening in Psychology Today
Interesting stuff, that I don't really fully believe, but it is a piece of the puzzle. In other words, true but partial.
A SHORT COURSE IN BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICSGo to the Edge site to see the video and to read the rest of the discussion.
Edge Master Class 2008
Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan, Daniel Kahneman
Sonoma, CA, July 25-27, 2008
AN EDGE SPECIAL PROJECT
THE REALITY CLUB: W. Daniel Hillis, Daniel Kahneman, Nathan Myhrvold, Richard ThalerThere's new technology emerging from behavioral economics and we are just starting to make use of that. I thought the input of psychology into economics was finished but clearly it's not! —Daniel Kahneman
TWO BIG THINGS HAPPENING IN PSYCHOLOGY TODAYDANIEL KAHNEMAN: I want to tell you a bit of straight psychology that I find very exciting, that I found more exciting this year than I had before, and that in some ways is changing my view about a lot of things in psychology.
There are two big things happening in psychology today. One, of course, is everything that's got to do with the brain, and that's dominating psychology. But there is something else that is happening, which started out from a methodological innovation as a way to study memory, and we've always known, that's the idea of the notion of association of ideas, which has been around for 350 years at least.
We know about how associations work because we have one thought, and when it leads to another‚windows and doors and things like that, or white and black‚and we have our ideas of associations, and it's always been recognized as important and interesting. But our view of how associations work has been changed in a profound way by a technical innovation, which is something that happens a great deal in psychology and I suppose in all sciences.
This innovation is the following: If, for example, you hear the word "sick", there are few associations that come to mind. But there are a number of other things that you can do, that are little more refined. You can present words, and measure the amount of time that it takes people to read the words. Or you can measure words and non-words, and the task is to decide whether they're a set of letters, or a word, or a non-word, and it's the ease with which words are recognized as words as against non-words. I'll begin by focusing on reaction time, because that's the simplest one.
Here's how it works: after the presentation of the word "sick", the number of words that are affected to which you react differently than you reacted before is enormous. You will be faster, obviously, to "ill", and to "death", and so on, but it will be "hospital", and it will be "nurse", and it will be "doctor", and all of a sudden you've got a huge range of things to which the response is influenced by just presenting that one thing. We find that associative networks that we have in our minds appear to be a lot richer than it did before.
But that's not the only thing that happens. It turns out that the kinds of associations that are built in are a lot richer than we thought. When I want to make an impression while giving a talk, I put the word "vomit" on the screen. Just imagine the word "vomit" on the screen. I point out we know from experiments what happens to people within the first second or two that the word "vomit" is present. In the first place there is that enormous range of changes in the associative structure, and the readiness as well.
But there is more that happens. You have a facial reaction. When people see the word "vomit" or hear the word "vomit", and you can take pictures of their face, you will see that the reaction is that they're disgusted. It's more than that. Nobody noticed that this was happening to you, but you recoiled; you recoil when you are presented the word like "vomit".
I'll give you an example of the kind of experiments that demonstrate it. I find them very elegant. You put people in front of the computer screen, you give them a lever. You tell them that things are going to appear on the screen. It doesn't matter what appears on the screen. Mostly there will be words, but it doesn't matter. What you're supposed to do is as soon as anything happens on the screen is to move the lever and make it go off. It's completely independent of content. You present words. The experimental manipulation is that for half of the subjects the lever moves this way; and for half of the subjects, it moves that way, towards me or away from me.
You present words that are either good or bad‚"peace" and "love" versus "crime" and "death" and "sickness" and "vomit", and what have you. It turns out that the speed with which people respond to the lever, to the words, although the word is irrelevant to the content and they don't have time to become conscious of it, the speed with which they respond depends on the lever. They are faster, much faster‚all of this is measured in tenths of milliseconds, the effects‚ but they're robustly faster pulling the lever towards themselves when the word is good, and pushing the lever away from themselves when the word is bad.
It's not the real thing, it is a symbolic representation of the real thing, and people are responding to the symbolic representation, in a way as if it were the real thing. It goes on from there. I'll now give you a few more examples. That's called a priming paradigm. But the word "priming" in this context is like priming a pump, and you'll see it the most clearly in the case of recognizing a word that is presented. You are primed, you are ready, to recognize that word; more ready than you are to recognize other words.
The thing that happens is you can present a smiley face so fast that people absolutely do not see it, and it influences their responses to other things. They tend to like everything better if the smiley face has been presented, which they're not aware of. Consciousness is not necessary for the effects. What began this whole thing‚and it's one of the most important contributions of psychology in the last decade or so‚is a study in 1996 associated mainly with the name of John Bargh who is at Yale.
Since then, there has been an explosion of research. Bargh was at NY at the time, and in the study that kicked off this line of research, people were brought to participate in an experiment and were given one of the tasks that psychologists use to make you think of words. You might have a set of five words, or you have to take four of them and make a sentence out of them, or to memorize lists of words. Different groups of subjects are exposed to different lists of words that will be used as primers. And one of the lists contains words like "wrinkles", "Florida".
The word "old" is not mentioned. Then they're dismissed from that experiment, the experiment is over, and they're sent over to participate in another experiment, which is at the other end of the corridor. The dependent variable is the speed at which they walk, and you have a substantial effect on the speed. You haven't mentioned the word "old", and you made those people act as if they were old. You've primed "old", and you've primed the behavior of an old person.
It works the other way, too. That's an experiment done in Germany. You take people and with a metronome you make them walk, and you make them walk slowly. The metronome just beats slowly, so they walk slowly. They're faster to recognize any word that has to do with old age. You haven't gotten anything, they're just walking more slowly than usual.
What you get is the point I'm trying to make; we speak a lot about logical coherence, that's what the rational agent was supposed to be, the rational agent is supposed to be coherent. There is remarkable coherence in those results. What you end up with as a result of the presentation of a single word like "vomit", you get a lot of changes that reinforce each other. You get an emotional response, and you get a facial response, but the facial response primes emotions.
I'll give you an example of the kinds of experiments that people are doing now. You give people a pencil, and have them watch cartoons. First, they watch with a pencil in their mouths horizontally, and then with a pencil in their mouths sticking straight out. And they are rating how funny the cartoons are. Cartoons are a lot funnier if you have a pencil in your mouth horizontally, than if you have the pencil sticking straight out. Nothing has been mentioned about mood or anything else. You are creating a facial shape that is the shape of a smile, or more of a frowning shape. That influences emotions.
A famous experiment being done is, you give people an earphone. This is supposed to be an experiment on the evaluation of the technical quality of earphones‚ and you say, "We want to know how those earphones respond to different movements", and you have people listen to messages, persuasive messages of various kinds, while either they're told either to nod their heads, or they're told to shake their heads. Big effect. You nod, the message looks more believable. You shake your head, the message is less believable.
What you get is, it seems as if everything is interconnected, and is interconnected in a very coherent way so that you should see what the biological significance of this must be. The biological significance is that you are prepared, and you're prepared in a funny sort of way. Why would the word "vomit" make you prepared for emergencies? But the word "vomit" triggers a readiness to flee or fight. It's a threat, and you're responding to it as a threat, and you're responding pretty specifically, which is you are prepared for certain kinds of bad things that are related to that threat more than you are prepared to react to threats in general. It's specific, and it's internally coherent.
You get those strangers when it could go any differently, because there have been hundreds of those experiments, and some of those are pretty huge. You mention the library, and you measure that‚which you should have done last night, if you were complaining about your too loud neighbors‚you mentioned the library, and it softens people's voices.
What you get from this is a sense of where the control of behavior is, and the control of behavior isn't where we think it is. All behavior turns out to be a lot more controlled by the environment.
Beyond Polarization in America: A Trans-Partisan Perspective on the 2008 Presidential Election - An Interview with Dr. Don E. Beck
Go read the rest of the interview.Beyond Polarization in America: A Trans-Partisan Perspective on the 2008 Presidential Election--An Interview with Dr. Don E. Beck
by Jessica Roemischer
Introduction
As I’ve watched the presidential campaign unfold in my living room, I’ve become increasingly unsettled by the cultural schism it’s revealing. Robo-calls from John McCain, caustic opinion pieces on Sarah Palin (often by women), FOX news, MSNBC, negative campaigning—Left and Right. In this highly charged atmosphere, it’s been difficult to make sense of things. I’ve even questioned my longstanding allegiance to the Democratic Party, which has made it challenging to find common ground with friends I’ve known for years. In search of a different perspective on the election, I was compelled to seek out global activist, Dr. Don E. Beck, whom I interviewed in 2002 for What is Enlightenment? Magazine.For over forty years, Don Beck has worked to facilitate social change in some of the world’s most polarized environments—notably apartheid South Africa during the 1980’s and ‘90’s, and currently in Israel/Palestine. Don Beck really gets human beings and our widely varying habitats and worldviews. With striking clarity and a disarming optimism, he illuminates the rich and complex mosaic of cultures, as he presents practical solutions to seemingly intractable problems—terrorism, the Iraq War, the AIDS epidemic. Beck’s unique perspective—the basis of the evolutionary theory called Spiral Dynamics—allows him to craft effective protocols where others fail.
Don Beck is a social scientist of a different order. For that reason he has advised world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and F.W. deKlerk; he has met with Tony Blair’s cabinet and with the Mexican government, among many others. I knew we needed his view in America at this critical juncture. In response to my request, Don graciously granted the following interview. True to form, he goes to the heart of the matter—and our divided nation—as he reveals how our next president can emerge as the truly new kind of leader we so urgently need.
Jessica Roemischer: The 2008 United States presidential campaign is turning out to be among the most polarized in recent memory. Could you please begin by speaking about the cultural schism we’re seeing in this country?
Don Beck: I began my study of political campaigns many years ago. My doctoral dissertationwas on the United States presidential campaign of 1860. That election, which also occurred during a time of tremendous dividedness in this country, put Lincoln in office and subsequently led to the Civil War. So I’m very suspect of the polarity that occurs during the election process. Today, the fragmentation in America is equally as extreme. It’s reflected in the “hot issues” that polarize people, such as abortion or the Iraq War, issues that are looked upon by the two political parties in ways that are seemingly irreconcilable. And with our 24/7 news cycle and talk radio and so forth, I believe the schism is even deeper and wider than it was in 1860.
JR: Can you speak further about this election and the societal rift that’s being revealed?
DB: Campaigns of this nature confirm the cultural change that’s already happened beneath the surface, but which we haven’t been able to perceive clearly. The analogy I like to use is this: imagine it’s a dark, rainy night and a sudden bolt of lightning illuminates for a nanosecond the structural forms of the landscape. Then the darkness creeps in again. This election is illuminating the cultural landscape of this country, giving us insight into who we have become.
What we’re seeing is that we’re not the same country we once were. Today, there are multiple sub-cultures in the United States. We’ve become sort of a “Rubik’s Cube” society. Accumulated wealth and the increasing economic disparities have augmented differences in worldviews, orientations and political/religious experiences. Immigration patterns are also having an effect. There’s a book called The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. His basic thesis is that we have re-organized ourselves into think-alike, look-alike enclaves within which people can move freely. This has fragmented our society into little pockets of interest, sometimes living side-by-side. As a result, it’s becoming harder and harder to identify a core of Americanism. I’m not sure there’s a clear definition of what binds us together.
In contrast, when I’m in Europe I feel a much greater sense of national identity. For example, I still get a strong sense of “Germany” when I’m in that country. And the Danish value systems are clearly coming to the surface again. But here in the United States, even the Republican/Democrat, conservative/liberal categories are being challenged. The Blue State/Red State categories are not holding up anymore. That’s the kind of fragmentation that is going to bedisplayed in the results of the election. When the vote is analyzed precinct by precinct, we’re going to get a much better image of this country than we would have had otherwise. I think the social complexities we’re about to see in the results of the campaign will force us to seriously look at the way we resolve our difficult issues.
JR: I come from a long line of democrats and never questioned my affiliation with the left wing. However, because of the highly polarized nature of this election, I’ve found it difficult to side wholeheartedly with Obama. I am far more hesitant to put myself on one side of a deeply divided situation.
DB: The behavior from both the extreme left and right wings is very troublesome. The rumor mongering and personal attacks—and both wings have done it—are very dangerous because they can lead to serious polarization following the election.
JR: How can we address this extreme cultural divide?
DB: I hope we maintain some good sense after the election regardless of who becomes president, because if the election turns out to be very close, it could produce tremendous tension. For example, if McCain wins, there will be serious disturbances in many of the African American communities, with charges that the election was stolen. And if the right wing senses that it has been disenfranchised in some way, it may begin to show isolationist tendencies.
I don’t think there’s been serious talk about what’s next, about what kind of government we need to move us beyond the adversarial situation that’s become such a problem. All the conversations about what McCain’s going to do to the existing government, or what Obama is going to do, miss the point. We need a whole new style of thinking about government itself.
In order to accomplish this, the president elect should invite various elements in our society to meet in conventions to redesign the American system. Rather than assume a partisan position, I hope he’ll hold a series of trans-partisan, not just bi-partisan, events—meetings and summits—on how to heal America and rebuild our confidence, and our financial and political structures. That’s critical for us.
So I hope that whoever wins will start a major conversation on many of these matters. Instead of each party shouting at the other, we need a calm kind of inquiry—more than just dialogue—to look at problems in a whole different way so that we restore the essence of Americanism. I imagine a series of White House conferences, where experts are brought in to discuss a variety of topics under the kind of leadership that will look for integral solutions. To accomplish that, we have to learn how to manage the spectrum from extreme left to extreme right. All the positions or viewpoints must be exercised and publicized for us to experience any kind of transformation. It’s important for everybody to be at the table. In that sense, Sarah Palin’s contribution has been positive. She has helped bring elements to the vote who heretofore wouldn’t have participated in it.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Poems for Halloween
The Academy of American Poets put together a nice list of Halloween poems to get us in the mood. Enjoy!
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe |
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti |
Third Charm from Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson |
Three Witches from Macbeth by William Shakespeare |
Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe |
Bats by Paisley Rekdal |
Sonnet 100 by Lord Brooke Fulke Greville |
The Hag by Robert Herrick |
Darkness by George Gordon Byron |
Halloween by Robert Burns |
Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
Shadwell Stair by Wilfred Owen |
Raising the Devil: A Legend of Cornelius Agrippa by Richard Harris Barham |
The Hand of Glory: The Nurse's Story by Richard Harris Barham |
The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe |
Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allan Poe |
From The Lady of the Manor by George Crabbe |
Dirge by Thomas Lovell Beddoes |
Tags:
This Is How Democracy Ends . . .
Video proof:
Touch screen voting machines -- all of them, as far as I know -- are made by companies loyally contributing big piles of money to the GOP and its candidates.
More info:
AND, still more:Voting Rights Watch: One company's machine behind vote-switching reported in early balloting across the South
With early voting underway across the country, there have been reports of glitches with one company's electronic voting machines in states across the South:
* In Beaufort County, S.C., voters discovered that some races were missing on the final review screen of the touch-screen voting machines. When they tried to re-cast their ballots, it didn't work again, so they had to cast paper ballots. Affected voter Nancy Roe told the Hilton Head Island Packet:"I'm real political, so I checked the ballot," she said. "If I had only given it a quick glance and punched 'vote,' I never would've known."* In Davidson County, Tenn., a woman reported having her vote for Obama flipped to Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney, according to a post to the Black Box Voting website:"A poll worker directed me to a touch screen voting machine & instructed me how to use it. I touched "Obama" for president & nothing lit up. I touched 2 or 3 more times & still nothing lit up. I called the poll worker back over to tell him I was having a problem. He said I just needed to touch it more lightly. I tried it 2 or 3 more times more lightly with the poll worker watching & still nothing lit up. The poll worker then touched it for me twice — nothing lit up. The third time he touched the Obama button, the Cynthia McKinney space lit up! The McKinney button was located five rows below the Obama button. The poll worker just kind of laughed and cancelled the vote. He hit the Obama button again & it finally lit up.Coincidentally, the woman who had her vote flipped is the wife of David Earnhardt, the producer and director of "Uncounted" -- a documentary film about problem voting machines.
* In Palo Pinto County, Texas, at least two voters say touch-screen machines kept switching their straight-party votes from Democrat to Republican, the Mineral Wells Index newspaper reported:"When I cast an early vote [Wednesday] at Palo Pinto County Courthouse, my vote was switched from Democrat to Republican right in front of my face -- twice!" reported Lona Jones, a Precinct 1 county resident.An elections judge helped her cancel her vote and switched her to another machine. Precinct workers told her that the machines give them problems.
* In West Virginia's Jackson County, voters report that touch-screen machines in the county clerk's office in Ripley kept switching their votes from Democratic to Republican candidates. The Charleston Gazette reported on the experiences of 81-year-old Calvin Thomas:"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again.Deputy Secretary of State Sarah Bailey said her office instructed the county to recalibrate the machines so the finger-touch areas line up with ballot. They sometimes become miscalibrated when they are moved from storage facilities, she explained.
"The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican," Thomas said.
* In West Virginia's Putnam County, voters also say e-voting machines switched their votes from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to Republican John McCain, and from incumbent Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller to GOP opponent Jay Wolfe, according to the Gazette:Shelba Ketchum, a 69-year-old nurse retired from Thomas Memorial Hospital, described what happened Friday at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.* Similar vote-switching problems have also been reported in recent weeks in West Virginia's Berkeley, Ohio, Monongalia and Greenbrier counties, according to the paper.
"I pushed buttons and they all came up Republican," she said. "I hit Obama and it switched to McCain. I am really concerned about that. If McCain wins, there was something wrong with the machines.
"I asked them for a printout of my votes," Ketchum said. "But they said it was in the machine and I could not get it. I did not feel right when I left the courthouse. My son felt the same way."
Something that all these locales have in common is the machine involved: the iVotronic (pictured above) manufactured by Election Systems & Software, a Nebraska firm founded by Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel. ES&S is now the world's largest election equipment firm, with more than 170,000 systems installed worldwide -- including about half of the electronic systems used in the United States.
As we reported earlier this year, an in-depth report by an elections watchdog group faulted the ES&S iVotronic for the suspiciously high undervote rate in Sarasota County, Fla. in the Congressional race that Republican Vern Buchanan narrowly won over Democrat Christine Jennings.
There have been other serious problems with ES&S equipment in previous elections. Wharton County, Texas did away with iVotronic machines after the equipment switched votes on state propositions last year. And during the January Republican primary in Horry County, S.C., iVotronic equipment malfunctioned in 80 percent of precincts due to programming problems.
The watchdogs at Black Box Voting encourage people who will be voting on iVotronics and other direct-recording electronic machines to use a cell phone video or video camera to videotape the screen during the whole voting process [please read the important update on this below!]:It is crucial to capture this on video; it happens often enough that if many people videotape BEFORE spotting vote-flipping, some are likely to catch it. Be discreet, or you may not be allowed to do this.To find out what kind of voting system your county uses, click here.
UPDATE: It turns out that Black Box Voting's suggestion to videotape the balloting process via DRE equipment could put you on the wrong side of the law in some states, including North Carolina. As the New York Times reported in yesterday's story about what may well be the most recorded election in history, N.C. law says that no one "shall photograph, videotape, or otherwise record the image of a voted official ballot for any purpose not otherwise permitted under law," since the practice could encourage the sale of votes. So before hitting the record button, you might check with elections officials in your state.
ES&S Touch-Screen Votes Now Flipping in TX Too! Obama/DNC Attorneys Still AWOL!
State After State, ES&S iVotronics Are Flipping Democratic Votes to Republican!What You Can Do About It, And Where the Hell Are Those 'Thousands' of Obama/DNC Attorneys?...
This is just getting worse and worse. Now it's happening in Texas. (And in MO, if you read to the end of the article). And the vaunted "thousands of attorneys" from the Obama campaign and the DNC are still nowhere to be found.
With every incident so far reported of touch-screen vote-flipping during early voting in this year's general election --- from county to county in WV and in Nashville, TN) --- it's been the ES&S iVotronic touch-screen machine that has failed, flipping votes from one candidate to another not chosen by the voter. In every instance [see update below], it's been an attempted Democratic vote, flipped to a Republican, or another party.These are the same machines that lost 18,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Sarasota County in the 2006 U.S. House Race for Katherine Harris' old seat. The Democrat, Christine Jennings, was declared the loser to Republican Vern Buchanan (whose own wife had trouble voting for him that day), by just 369 votes. Several academic studies, and even the GAO, have been unable to rule out either tampering or hardware/software error for the disappeared 18,000 votes.
As we wrote earlier this week, after there was finally one report of a vote flipping from Democratic to Republican in TN (a very rare instance, btw), these machines need to be taken out of service now, impounded and quarantined immediately, and every voter needs to be given a paper ballot where these machines are currently being used. Voters who have such problems need to inform other voters waiting in line which machine should not be used (and we offer other tips below, as well).
[Update: The rare vote-flip from Republican to Democratic now seems to have been a hoax carried out by local Republicans, according to a TN election integrity activist who did some digging and reporting. Details here...]
The latest reports today of ES&S vote-flipping come from Palo Pinto County, TX, where two voters --- one of them an alternate election judge and office manager of the Palo Pinto County Democratic Headquarters --- saw straight-ticket Democratic votes flipped to straight-ticket Republican votes. Two times for the first person, and three times for the alternate election judge!
The report is a doozy...
At least two Palo Pinto County residents say they experienced early voting problems when the touch-screen voting machines they used kept switching their straight-party vote from Democratic to Republican.
"When I cast an early vote [Wednesday] at Palo Pinto County Courthouse, my vote was switched from Democrat to Republican right in front of my face - twice!" reported Lona Jones, a Precinct 1 county resident.
Intending to vote straight party on the Democratic ticket, Jones said she was surprised Wednesday when the electronic voting machine "on the left as you face the machines" in the courthouse basement asked her if she wanted to cast her vote for a straight Republican ticket.
Thinking she had pushed the wrong button the first time the machine "came up Republican," Jones said she repeated her intended straight-party vote.
"The second time I was sure to just touch the Democratic button," she said, further reporting that the machine responded to her selection, "'Do you want to change your Republican straight ticket vote to a Democratic vote?' I pressed, 'Yes,' then it came back up and it was a total Republican ticket again."
We've cautioned many times here at The BRAD BLOG, of the dangers of voting straight-party tickets, particularly in TX, where election officials have ">reportedly been giving disinformation to voters, but everywhere else that they allow it as well. Vote for each candidate, NOT straight-party!
But whether it's a straight-party vote or not, no voter should ever cast a vote on a touch-screen machine unless they are forced to. There is absolutely no way that any vote ever cast on a touch-screen machine --- with or without a so-called paper trail --- can ever be shown as having been recorded accurately.
None. Zero. Scientifically impossible. Or if it isn't a scientific impossibility, our many months of asking for evidence, from anyone, of such a vote having been accurately recorded by a touch-screen/DRE has yielded precisely no such evidence. And we've asked voting machine companies, election officials, and so-called "election experts" time and again, and none have been able to offer anysuch evidence. Ever.
So what do you do about it when your vote flips? Other than demanding a paper ballot, and demanding these machines be confiscated and quarantined immediately?
The article goes on to notes a very good point...
"One of the ladies told me, 'These machines don't work well' and, 'These machines give us problems.' I told her I not only didn't want to use that machine, [indicating the problematic first machine], I didn't want anyone using that machine."
Yesterday, election integrity experts Emily Levy from VelvetRevolution.us' and Kevin Zeese from TrueVote.us suggested that when this problem occurs, voters should first tell officials, and ask them to remove the machine from service.
Then...Alert everyone else in line waiting to vote which machine caused the problem, and warn everyone else not to use it!
These are among the steps recommended, with which I strongly concur:
• Call poll supervisors to observe the problem
• Fill out a problem report
• Refuse to vote on that machine
• Request that the machine be taken out of service
• Get a serial number of the machine if possible (may be unlikely in many cases)
• Tell other voters not to vote on that machine
• Call county/town election office
• Call local reporters
• Call voter problem hotlines (eg. 866-MYVOTE1 and 866-OUR-VOTE)
• Contact bloggers and Election Integrity websites.
• Raise holy hell.VR has more details here on what to do if you see your vote flip. [Disclosure: The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us.]
Also, before you go to vote, bring a video camera (a cell phone video camera will do), to document the vote-flipping when you vote, and then upload it to VideoTheVote.org and YouTube, etc.!
Unfortunately, Lona Jones --- who did contact our associates at VotersUnite.org with the problem earlier this morning (they instructed her to contact the media, which she did, leading to the report we're quoting here) --- was not the only one to have the same problem, with the same failed ES&S iVotronic touch-screens, in Palo Pinto:
Teresa Crosier, an alternate election judge and office manager of the Palo Pinto County Democratic Headquarters, called Jones to remind her to vote early.
"She told me she had already voted and had problems," said Crosier. "She told me her story and I told her I had the same problem Wednesday morning."
Like Jones, Crosier tried to cast a straight party Democratic vote at the courthouse annex, "and it came up straight party, Republican party."
Crosier recognized her election trainer, who was helping to monitor the polls, and called him over. "We went back through the process and it did it again," she said of the third time the touch-screen machine suggested she vote Republican.
This has got to stop. Paging Barack Obama, the DNC and the "thousands of attorneys" we've been told for months that they "have on the ground, ready to move in as soon as any problems are reported."
Are your pagers not on yet?! What are you waiting for? Concession Day on November 5th?
Oh...and this just in from an Election Integrity advocate in swing state MO:
Hi Brad,Just wanted to let you know that Missourians for Honest Elections is in the process of confirming five separate reports of vote flipping --- from Democrat to Republican --- on the iVotronic machines that are the only means the Board of Elections is providing for in-person absentee voting at its headquarters in Maplewood [St. Louis County, MO].
--Cynthia RichardsWe'll try to offer more details on the problems in MO when we get them. No doubt, thousands of Obama/DNC attorneys are on their way...
More Good Links
I gave up speedlinking a while back, but there is much more to read that never makes it into the blog here, all of which can be found at FriendFeed, the one-stop-shop for all things internet (or as ~C4Chaos calls it, hyperstreaming).
Big Think - The Tenuous Progress Towards a Post-Racial America
Here is Newark mayor Cory Booker on whether Barack Obama represents a post-racial age.
There are a few video responses at the site (Big Think), including Howard Zinn on Race in America:
Metamorphosis by Glenn Marshall
Metamorphosis is programmed entirely in Processing, it’s the follow up to my Music is Math video. I developed my ‘zeno’ animation system a bit more to allow for nebulous additive blending as well as a few other things. The music is by Boards of Canada again - the track ‘Corsair’ from the Geogaddi album. Further info on this video at butterfly.ie
Metamorphosis from Glenn Marshall on Vimeo.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu - The Problem of Egolessness
Thanissaro Bhikkhu - The Problem of Egolessness - offers some wisdom for Westerners practicing the Dharma. In his view, many Westerners have misunderstood the idea of egolessness.
In this article the author clarifies the idea in a meaningful way. [Note: It's a PDF, which accounts for any funky lay-out in the portion I am presenting here.] He contends that Buddhism does not need any help from Western Psychology in developing a healthy ego, that the Buddha's teachings cover that fully.
I have to admit that I have long been an advocate of combing psychology and Buddhism, so the Bhikkhu is talking directly to me in this piece.
The Problem of EgolessnessRead the whole article.
THANISSARO BHIKKHU
Years back, many Buddhist teachers in the West began using the term “egolessness” to explain the Buddha’s teaching on not‐self. Since then, egolessness has come to mean many things to many people. Sometimes egolessness is used to mean a lack of conceit or self‐importance; sometimes, a pure mode of acting without thought of personal reward. In its most extended form, though, the teaching on egolessness posits a fundamental error of perception: that despite our sense of a lasting, separate self, no such self really exists. By trying to provide for the happiness of this illusory self, we not only place our hopes on an impossible goal but also harm ourselves and everyone around us. If we could only see the fallacy of the ego and understand its harmful effects, we would let it go and find true happiness in the interconnectedness that is our true nature.
At least that’s what we’re told, and often with a fair amount of vehemence. Buddhist writers, often so gentle and nonjudgmental, can quickly turn vicious when treating the ego. Some portray it as a tyrannical bureaucracy deserving violent overthrow; others, as a ratlike creature—nervous, scheming, and devious—that deserves to be squashed. Whatever the portrait, the message is always that the ego is so pernicious and tenacious that any mental or verbal abuse directed against it is fair play in getting it to loosen its foul grip on the mind.
But when people trained in classical Western psychotherapy read these attacks the ego, they shake their heads in disbelief. For them the ego is not something evil. It’s not even a singular thing you can attack. It’s a cluster of activities, a set of functions in the mind—and necessary functions at that. Any mental act by which you mediate between your raw desires for immediate pleasure and your superego—the oughts and shoulds you’ve learned from family and society—is an ego function. Ego functions are our mental strategies for gaining lasting happiness in the midst of the conflicting demands whispering and shouting in the mind. They enable you to say No to the desire to have sex with your neighbor’s spouse, in the interest of a happiness that would have less disastrous consequences for the things you truly value in life. They also enable you to say No to the demands of your parents, your teachers, or government when those demands would jeopardize your own best interest.
But ego functions don’t just say No. They also have a mediator’s sense of when to say Yes. If they’re skillful, they negotiate among your desires and your superego so that you can gain the pleasure you want in a way that causes no harm and can actually do a great deal of good. If your ego functions are healthy and well coordinated, they give you a consistent sense of priorities as to which forms of happiness are more worthwhile than others; a clear sense of where your responsibilities do and don’t lie; a strong sense of your ability to judge right and wrong for yourself; and an honest sense of how to learn from your past mistakes for the sake of greater happiness in the future.
From this perspective, egolessness would be a disaster. A person devoid of ego functions would be self‐destructive: either a beast with uncontrolled impulses, or a neurotic, repressed automaton with no mind of his or her own, or an infantile monster thrashing erratically between these two extremes. Anyone who tried to abandon ego functioning would arrest his psychological growth and lose all hope of becoming a mature, responsible, trustworthy adult. And as we know, selfdestructive people don’t destroy only themselves. They can pull down many of the people and places around them.
This is not only the view of trained Western psychologists. Buddhist communities in the West have also begun to recognize this problem and have coined the term “spiritual bypassing” to describe it: the way people try to avoid dealing with the problems of an unintegrated personality by spending all their time in meditation retreats, using the mantra of egolessness to short‐circuit the hard work of mastering healthy ego functioning in the daily give and take of their lives.
Then there’s the problem of self‐hatred. The Dalai Lama isn’t the only Asian Buddhist teacher surprised at the amount of self‐hatred found in the West. Unfortunately, a lot of people with toxic super‐egos have embraced the teaching on egolessness as the Buddha’s stamp of approval on the hatred they feel toward themselves.
These problems have inspired many Western psychologists to assume a major gap in the Buddha’s teachings: that in promoting egolessness, the Buddha overlooked the importance of healthy ego functioning in finding true happiness. This assumption has led to a corollary: that Buddhism needs the insights of Western psychotherapy to fill the gap; that to be truly effective, a healthy spiritual path needs to give equal weight to both traditions. Otherwise you come out lopsided and warped, an idiot savant who can thrive in the seclusion of a three year, three‐month, three‐day retreat, but can’t handle three hours caught in heavy traffic with three whining children.