JONATHAN HAIDT, POLARIZATION, DIVISION, AND CONTEMPT

NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt observes that we are coming apart. Polarization is out of control and has become the breeding ground for contempt and intolerance. These have become so intense that many friends and family have been separated into armed camps.

In Haidt’s keynote address to the APA, he provided some possible solutions to this escalating and threatening problem. One of them is self-examination and humility:

·        We are moralistic hypocrites. We must be more humble and less judgmental.         https://youtu.be/vAE-gxKs6gM

Indeed, if we honestly examined ourselves, we would find less justification for our hyper-judgmentalness and contempt. In support, he cites a number of religious sages, including Jesus:

·       You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:5)

If we could only see ourselves accurately, we would be too humbled to hastily stick the accusing finger in another’s place. Consequently, we have also become too quick diminish the importance of those on the other side of the aisle. In this regard, Haidt sites J.S. Mill:

·       A party of order or stability and a party of progress and reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state or political life.

This is often the case. We need the corrective tension and the accountability too often absent in our centers of power, policy, and education.

However, our problems are far deeper. We no longer believe in equality and what it entails – the dignity of every human being. Yes, we believe in it as a useful pragmatic principle, but we believe in it the way we believe in the counseling principle of unconditional-positive-regard. This is a valuable therapeutic principle necessary to build a meaningful therapeutic relationship with a client. If the client does not feel valued, they will remain behind fortified walls.

However, the therapist often believes in this principle, not because it is true, but because it works. Instead, he might actually regard his client with contempt, but he does not dare show it. Consequently, he lives a double-life.

Likewise, we might greet our neighbor with a smile that covers our contempt. We fail to see him as a fellow human created in the likeness of God. Instead, he is a worm, and if he is going to make this a better world, he should just disappear.

Does this sound extreme? It shouldn’t! When Hillary Clinton called half of the Trump supporters “deplorables,” she was merely expressing the contempt she knew to be on the heart of most of her supporters. Otherwise, she would not have made her contempt public.

“Deplorables” are disgusting and irremediable. At the least, they should be pushed into a closet, where they cannot be heard. Therefore, it is not a matter of finding common ground with the other side. There is no common ground. They simply must be resisted – whatever it takes.

It is not simply a matter of exercising a bit of civility or learning how to appreciate what the other side has to offer. We already have our minds made up. The other side has to be defeated and silenced.

How did we get to this state? I think that there are many reasons for this deadly growth of intolerance. However, understanding the reasons might not contribute to a solution any more than understanding why the shark chose my leg to ingest will restore my leg or give me the ability to deal with my loss.

In 1787, this nation had been on the brink of dissolution as the Continental Congress found itself unable to agree on a constitution. In the midst of its acrimonious stalemate, the deist Benjamin Franklin arose on June 28, 1787 to recommend something startling but yet decisive:

·       “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth: that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel . . . I therefore beg leave to move— that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.” (Wikipedia)

We have come a long way since then. However, ever as late as 1981, the Senate Chaplain Richard C. Halverson (1981-95) prophetically warned the Senate:

·       No great nation or empire was defeated from without before it had rotted from within – spiritually, morally, ethically. America will be no exception. She will be destroyed not by forces without, but by her own decadence….the need is critical for her people to take a stand against the conditions contributing to the pollution and corruption of American life. Secular humanism, materialism, hedonism, self-indulgence, sexual permissiveness, drunkenness, drug abuse – a cancer is ravaging America’s health and strength. (No Greater Power, 46)

Perhaps we have become too proud to humble ourselves in prayer.

Halverson concluded with this prayer:

·       What will it take, O God, to make us know that we cannot do it alone? What calamity must fall before we humble ourselves and acknowledge our dependence on Thee?...Lord God help us. Quicken our minds to seek Thy wisdom, our hearts to repent, our wills to obey Thee. Return us to the noble dependence on Thee by which our forefathers persevered against incredible odds to give us our grand national legacy. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

I fear that we still think that we can address our growing problems on our own without resorting to the radical surgery of prayer.