Jun
19
Choice as a political touchstone
June 19, 2003 | Comments Off
We really do choose our own realities much more than we give ourselves credit for. This is the teaching of meditation, of therapy, of education, of innovation in business. In most situations, there is more choice than we appreciate or embrace. But of course it is difficult to remember this: we choose our friends, our [...]
Jun
18
“Respect” as the new political touchstone
June 18, 2003 | Comments Off
Twice in two days I’ve heard the same thing: The most important thing our society needs now is respect—respect for ourselves and respect for our neighbors—and respect for both our own views and for those of others. This is not something that is in great supply among political leaders and pundits of our society. Mass [...]
Jun
17
The Unconquerable World by Jonathan Schell
June 17, 2003 | Comments Off
This is a terrific book. Schell explores detailed cases of the interaction of two forms of power–coercive power and cooperative power. Cooperative power comes from people joining, trusting, co-creating. Coercive power comes from armies and other organizations that use violence and force.
Schell argues that cooperative power seems to lose to coercive power–but actually wins most of [...]
Jun
16
Addictive spirals, war and third party support for war
June 16, 2003 | Comments Off
I am intrigued with the notion of a “palliative”—in the sense of a treatment that masks the symptoms but does not address the disease. A palliative is not always a bad thing. For a cancer patient who is dying, morphine is a palliative, and a very helpful one. But sometimes palliatives are a bad thing, [...]
Jun
15
Creative expressions of Being: Physicists, Buddhists, Quakers, Democrats
June 15, 2003 | Comments Off
Ok, I’m really turned on by the idea of playing with political metaphors (see my earlier post today). I believe that what is happening now to the Democratic Party is that its core metaphor—of government as good mother—is wildly out of date, and is inconsistent with how hip, generally progressive people see themselves–which is as [...]
Jun
15
George Lakoff on “Metaphor, Morality, and Politics: Why the conservatives have left the liberals in the dust”
June 15, 2003 | Comments Off
In response to my post yesterday on psychoanalysis and the Democratic Party, and on a “politics of Being,” Abe Burmeister sent a fascinating article by George Lakoff on the metaphors underlying conservative and liberal politics. Lackoff is a well-known cognitive psychologist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and the author of the [...]
Jun
13
The limits of psychoanalysis and of the Democratic Party
June 13, 2003 | Comments Off
The science fiction writer David Brin recently opined that the reason Democrats can’t win is that their view of society is so dire. Democrats—indeed liberals—brought us women’ rights, racial progress, sexual freedom and more—but somehow Dems can’t make a “product” that excites the voters.
My first reaction was to make a list of the top ten [...]