When I look around this world, I now live in on August 1, 2020 it hardly looks recognizable to what I once knew. The other day I decided to Google the following, “who can Americans trust in the wake of the pandemic, racial strife, and political polarity?” There were many old articles that Google presented but I was looking for something current. What I found was an interview with a social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt a Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU and a columnist David Brooks from The New York Times. The conclusion in the interview was that it has become more and more difficult to find the truth due to the world of polarization that is being promoted by social media. According to Dr. Haidt the world has become increasingly more polarized since 2008. I would agree with Dr. Haidt. In fact, I believe it has become worse over the past 4 years. It turns out that he and I see eye to eye about our country in terms of what he has identified as “affective polarization” which I have already discussed in previous blogs, which is an increased mutual dislike and hatred of one political side against the other i.e. Democrat vs Republican. Dr. Haidt states, “when there’s so much hatred, a democracy can’t work right. You can’t get a compromise. You get exactly the situation the Founders feared such as what James Madison wrote about in ‘Federalist 10’, which is faction, which is people care more about defeating the other side than they do about the common good.” In the here and now that would look like the American People that support the Democratic or the Republican party care more about furthering their candidate than they do about the state of our country or the issues that we are facing regarding the pandemic, social injustice, poverty and our environment. They are all promoting one side against the other but both sides are making this a very contentious and dangerous situation for all Americans. Why because we do not know what to believe or who to trust.  A Course In Miracles would agree with this it will always be one against the other one is the victim and the other the victimizer. However, what humanity does not seem to understand is that we both lose!

My belief overlaps with Dr. Haidt, I think this country is at an impasse and we are either going to come together for the greater good or we are going to fall apart into the abyss. Although he points out the obvious which I know as well nothing ever lasts forever because there is no permanence here in the world, we live in there are no guarantees on how all of this will unfold.

Where do we go for solace and safety?

In a country where there is no trust because the truth changes every second of our day due to social media and the news networks. I personally have made my life experience very small. I watch very little media news and I shut down social media all together. I personally prefer to listen to scholars and read books that support some evidence-based research. I believe this is a time that we all have to go within instead of mindlessly accepting whatever social media decides to censure or not.  Social media is polarizing, and is distributed by Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and media networks, who have their own agendas and disseminate the information they want us to hear to sway our decisions. The media is fueling the fears of the pandemic, presenting a racial war as a peaceful sit in and promoting political polarity and dissension. We as the American people are caught in a war that we cannot fight against a virus we cannot see and that no one agrees on! On top of that we are caught in a civil war that is politically driven by factions that could care less about Black Lives Matter. Furthermore, we are caught in a political war between political parties neither of which is innocent of political barbs and disrespect. Moreover, it is a war among politicians for power and control over the people of the United States of America that is pulling our country apart not joining us together for the greater good of humanity. Our morals, ethics, values, integrity, honesty and justice are completely under attack by each other in this country. Where does this all end?  

I am personally urging anyone who reads this blog to question the narrative that rings in your ears every day. It is important to question the validity of what we are hearing. According to Professor Tom Nichols, Ph.D. the country that we now live in is one of narcissism. It would seem that people think that they know more than the educated professional’s specialty. He has referred to this as the death of expertise in the time of social media that can sway and influence people to follow their own political agenda. Media has a vested interest in what they want us to buy into. Social media has the potentiality to give voice to someone who is not an expert and then gather a following which is known as a tribe. The tribe then extends their momentum and influence over others in a very immediate manner. The trajectory of tribalism has become more important than reporting the facts. This makes what some have referred to as “fake news” however amidst the news and the many social media platforms as well as newspapers how do we find the truth. What is “true”? Is it possible to have multiple versions of truth if so, how far does that deviate from a fact? This tribalism goes back to a previous blog I wrote which states that humans are swayed by three basic tenets:

1. Humans are tribal; therefore, we look to our leaders for the answers instead of facts.
2. We relate to stories more than facts. Historically we have always looked to our stories for confirmation it also appears in our psychological story of self as well. However, this does not mean this is at all healthy.
3. We think like lawyers, not scientists. We are more likely to seek out information that confirms our beliefs.

Just how far back does the pandemic of our narcissistic society reach? According to Professor Tom Nichols a specialist in international affairs and a current professor at the U.S. Naval War College, the narcissism in this country extends back for 40 years and once someone picks a side or team, they cannot ever admit they are wrong. According to Professor Nichols our society is in danger from social media and a lack of respect for experts in all fields.   In fact, he wrote a book, “The Death of Expertise” where he claims he heard from doctors, wedding photographers, dentists, and plumbers that reported when it comes to expertise the American people think they know better than the expert.

On a side note even our government has been investigating social media. Just last week the House antitrust subcommittee continued their investigation of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook who all appeared remotely during the pandemic to answer abuse of their power regarding business practices and market dominance as well as “touching on politically contentious issues, including alleged foreign interference in U.S. elections and the company’s contracts with the U.S. military and local police.

In conclusion, back to the question this blog was addressing the truth comes from deep within all of us. In each and every one of us there is a guru, the higher self, the Christ within or the Buddha and we have to be able to quiet our minds in order to check in with that part of self. The question is how do you quiet the mind in the storm of this overwhelming illusion that we have all contributed to. We would make better choices if we learned how to discern what is coming from the ego side of self and what comes from our hearts highest good. There seems to be agreement among psychologists and Buddhist teachers that part of being human is believing in gods or worshipping something greater than who we are. Having a sense of what is sacred is an important part of humanity. According to Dr. Haidt, “a society that has no sense of the sacred is one in which you’ll have a lot of anomie, normlessness, loneliness and hopelessness.” As a psychologist I would agree with this, our society has had an increase in psychopathology. In my last blog I addressed what makes life worth living and I have found that it also appears in Dr. Haidt’s work. He states that a life worth living is being connected to a noble community such as a spiritual or religious group that brings the human life a sense of satisfaction, meaning and worth. He also contends that it is harder for those who are atheists or secular. Moreover, being a part of a spiritual or religious community in general seems to contribute to our state of happiness. Being a part of something larger than who we are is a requirement in life. Now I know some of you reading this may be turned off by this section on God or spirituality, but it is part of our lineage and it cannot be denied. For as much as we deny it the more it contributes to our suffering. The origin of the word religion, Religare is a Latin word that means to root or to bind together. Therefore, it refers to our reconnection with God. According to Dr. James Hollis we are being asked to connect with our nature our soul. Furthermore, without this deeper connection to something greater or our soul, there is a search for life’s meaning in wealth, power, status, sex, food, drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. otherwise known as our negative attachments or addictions. I would agree with Dr. Hollis and have seen this in my own psychotherapy practice over the years. What I have noticed is that underneath all of the fear, sadness and anxiety is the deep struggle and disconnection with our soul’s true expression, with God or spirituality. Carl Jung, M.D. psychiatrist and psychoanalyst recognized that people struggle with a religious or spiritual issue no matter what the presentation of their symptoms. A Course In Miracles would also agree, whatever bothers us boils down to our belief in or lack thereof with God.  The difficulty in the world we live in which I have discussed throughout this blog is, the world of opposites. In this world there is always good and evil, tall and short, warm and cold, male and female, winners and losers, victims and victimizers, black and white, and life and death. The world is based on opposites and our existence began on the thought of opposites. The thought of opposites is predicated on and fosters opposition, because it opposes the true oneness of reality. There is only one truth and that is that we are all interconnected and one. The differences that we see were put there by the ego and the ego thought system is one of opposites and can be characterized by one or the other. Someone is always going to win, and someone is always going to lose it is a kill or be killed world we live in. No matter how much we try to reconcile this there is always going to be a winner and a loser. There is only one thing we can do and that is to learn how to change our mind and question what we see because the outside world is a picture of an internal condition of a world made mad by our ego self.