This is a post about why people are acting so crazy now. About why our politics are so bitterly divided and why nobody seems to be able to agree on anything. The first 5 letters of the title stand for "Global theory why things are" and the rest you can look up if you don't know it.
I'm going to make a generalization here, for which I have no particular evidence. But this is an opinion piece, so I can say whatever I want without any evidence. OK, call me a Republican.
Here's what I think is happening: As a rule, people don't like change. This should not be surprising, because I'm not aware of any animals like change, and we are more or less animals. And at the risk of sounding ridiculous, change changes everything. It makes it difficult to know what to do when or how or where or whatever. It doesn't make it impossible, it just makes it more difficult, and people don't like things being more difficult.
And yet we live in a time where everything around us is changing rapidly. I would suggest that to many it feels as if things are constantly changing, that the world beneath their feet is not stable, making it scary and unpredictable. For year, people said "Everyone talks abut the weather, but nobody does anything about it." And now we have changed the weather, and do we like that?
I lived through the time when microwave ovens were introduced and I remember how wonderful and terrifying they were. "They cook with radiation? Like nuclear weapons radiation?" Imagine how those people, who are for the most part still alive, feel about what's going on today. It's gotta feel like the foundations on which their life is built are crumbling.
I've gotta admit, I like this stuff. For me, I was born at the perfect time. But I love new technology, and I've spent enough time with people other than myself to know that I shouldn't expect anyone else to react in even remotely fashion as I do.
Too much change makes people fearful and cranky, and fearful cranky people don't make thoughtful choices, because they're constantly in some state of fight or flight. They react from their amygdala, aka lizard brain. The part of your brain that does fight or flight really well and pretty much everything else really badly. It's purely reactive, and it leaves people ripe for the picking by demagogues and on a less extreme basis, by public figures who frame things in simplistic ways. Good versus bad, us versus them. Flee or defend yourself.
There's really no rational reason to fear change, but nothing about this is rational. If you react to change in an emotional way then you are at the mercy of people telling you to be fearful or angry about it, especially if there's nothing else to cling to. And so these upset, vulnerable, largely poor and not highly educated people are being rallied to recapture the past. To preserve what they already have and not give anything they have to anyone else, worthy or not.
Amazingly but not surprisingly, this self-preservation response even includes things that are not in their self-interest, because understanding self-interest requires a nuanced level of thought that the lizard brain does not do. A perfect example was Kentucky, where a population that is highly dependent on Medicaid expansion and the ACA voted for a governor who promised to take that all away. Because Obama. And because his opponent was a lousy candidate.
More than anything, what upsets me is the pessimism than underlies this behavior. I know that we're not living in the golden age or anything, but my goodness, life in the US is pretty good and I wish there was some collective will to make it better and not say, "we can't." Pay a few more dollars in taxes. Fix the roads and the schools, have a good public transportation system. Provide a safety net for those who need it. These are not lofty goals. They're basic.
I hope we can get past this stage, and I wish I was more hopeful about it.
I lived through the time when microwave ovens were introduced and I remember how wonderful and terrifying they were. "They cook with radiation? Like nuclear weapons radiation?" Imagine how those people, who are for the most part still alive, feel about what's going on today. It's gotta feel like the foundations on which their life is built are crumbling.
I've gotta admit, I like this stuff. For me, I was born at the perfect time. But I love new technology, and I've spent enough time with people other than myself to know that I shouldn't expect anyone else to react in even remotely fashion as I do.
Too much change makes people fearful and cranky, and fearful cranky people don't make thoughtful choices, because they're constantly in some state of fight or flight. They react from their amygdala, aka lizard brain. The part of your brain that does fight or flight really well and pretty much everything else really badly. It's purely reactive, and it leaves people ripe for the picking by demagogues and on a less extreme basis, by public figures who frame things in simplistic ways. Good versus bad, us versus them. Flee or defend yourself.
There's really no rational reason to fear change, but nothing about this is rational. If you react to change in an emotional way then you are at the mercy of people telling you to be fearful or angry about it, especially if there's nothing else to cling to. And so these upset, vulnerable, largely poor and not highly educated people are being rallied to recapture the past. To preserve what they already have and not give anything they have to anyone else, worthy or not.
Amazingly but not surprisingly, this self-preservation response even includes things that are not in their self-interest, because understanding self-interest requires a nuanced level of thought that the lizard brain does not do. A perfect example was Kentucky, where a population that is highly dependent on Medicaid expansion and the ACA voted for a governor who promised to take that all away. Because Obama. And because his opponent was a lousy candidate.
More than anything, what upsets me is the pessimism than underlies this behavior. I know that we're not living in the golden age or anything, but my goodness, life in the US is pretty good and I wish there was some collective will to make it better and not say, "we can't." Pay a few more dollars in taxes. Fix the roads and the schools, have a good public transportation system. Provide a safety net for those who need it. These are not lofty goals. They're basic.
I hope we can get past this stage, and I wish I was more hopeful about it.
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