The Upward Path

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worldview

The control reaction driving the world

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There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.
– Robert Benchley

There are a zillion ways to classify people, and one of the most important is by mental elasticity.

Most of us like to know what’s what. If the picture of the world in our head is a good map to what (and who) goes where, that makes us feel secure. Some of us can tolerate a fair bit of bending, twisting and horizon expanding. Some can’t stand much at all, and have a strong need for the world and their place in it to stay simple and consistent.

And some people, of course, want systems and structures and hierarchies to stay put so they can keep their position at the top of the heap.

So when people start talking to each other from anywhere to anywhere, and cross-fertilising ideas, and doing business by going round established institutions, that generates resistance. It comes from people who rather like the old ways of doing things: clear hierarchies (especially with themselves at the top), people divided into distinct communities, and uniform ways of thinking.

The changing world rubs against their worldview and produces reactions of fear and anger. And they respond by trying to create greater control.

The fact that the world is changing creates cultural forces to enforce structure and lock in vested interest.   [Read more…] about The control reaction driving the world

Tribalism – shielding ourselves from an inconvenient world

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Demonstration divided

This is so common these days. People use labels as a form of angry dismissal. ‘You remainers, liberals, leftists, feminists…’

It’s taking refuge in a tribe, using it as a structure to make sense of a world that stretches and inflames us. Tribes can be good, but not when they’re at war with the Other.

The internal process goes like this. ‘They are one of those people, and those people always say those things, so I don’t need to take those things seriously.’ It’s a way of draining power out of input that challenges our worldview or threatens to give us more thinking work.

It operates through a story of implacable opposition between Them and Us. ‘They’ will always oppose/badmouth what is good and right. What ‘they’ are expressing is not real thought, real concern, real fear.

Or it’s just a handy rationale for a ‘chimp response’ outburst to let off a pressure of discomfort-energy.

In UK politics a form of empty tribalism took the place of real ideas for the last few years. It was the Red Team versus the Blue Team, and political debate was too often framed as tribal warfare rather than genuine questioning of ideas. Even petitions crowdsourced from the public got painted by this dismissal tactic.

I was going to post this yesterday, but held off as news of an attack in London was coming through. One man killed and injured a number of people. Before there was any public information about him apart from a glimpse of a brown face, social media was full of the familiar frothing claims that Muslims would destroy the country and they should all be sent away.

Muslims are often the out-tribe, the blame-tribe, that people latch on to when things go wrong. Even if this man does turn out to be an Islamic terrorist, does that mean he somehow represents millions of people who never knew him?

I can understand the appeal of a worldview made of a small number of blocks, but it will never be a good model of reality. People are complex.

The point is, this kind of tribalism stops us engaging with the truth. It’s easier to wrap our energy up in the artificial conflict.

But there are many truths that desperately need engagement. What actually is going on? What kind of world and society do we actually want? What steps will we take to get there? That’s where the action is.

Reality continues down its path whether we show up to influence it or sit in bunkers throwing mud at each other.

I think most people don’t want to be frightened and angry, defending their territory against enemies real or imagined. I think they would love peace.

The only way to get there is to break the pattern, brave a little discomfort and join the tribe of Engagers.

 

Agents of S.T.O.R.Y.

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Stories at sea graphic

We’re living in a time when old stories of the world are breaking down.

More and more people are seeing and feeling it, as a sense of unease at the edges or a head-on reality gap collision. People are hunting for ways of making sense of the world that they can believe in.

And those of us with messages to share need to help them get there. The world we want is waiting to be made. But only if enough of us manage to make the jump.  [Read more…] about Agents of S.T.O.R.Y.

Planet of the Bubble People

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Worldviews, change, the frustration of persuasion, and why people say mad things

Planet of the Bubble People - worldviews, change, the frustration of persuasion, and why people say mad things.

Do you struggle to understand why people refuse to take on board ideas that are principled and sensible and would lead to fixing problems?

If so, your personality type probably has some overlap with mine. Congratulations and commiserations. 😉

Untangling this kind of thing has been a big deal for me. As some of you know, I was involved in the environmental and sustainability movement from the late ’80s through the ’90s and beyond, and part of the frustration of that was that people didn’t simply understand the explanations of the problems and move swiftly to solutions. No, it was all so much messier than that.

If we want to build a better world, we have to begin in people’s heads

So now I’m interested in how all that head stuff works – and how to use that understanding to help people building the upward path so you can bypass the frustration and make your messages more effective.

The content of this post, and the title, popped up when I was writing Crowd/Control. It became the beginnings of a future book, but I realised it’s important to get the basics out now, as it’s part of the foundations of what I talk about.

So read on for my take on a framework for understanding how people react to messages, based on years of observation and reflection.  [Read more…] about Planet of the Bubble People