U.S. politics | My Eyes Are Up Here

Today is International Peace Day. I think a lot about peace and I try hard to cultivate it within myself as well as to be a peaceful participant in the world around me. The degree of success varies but it is rare that a day goes by without my being mindful of my intent.

I have not written as frequently as in the past, in part, because my mind is fragmented. My emotions are fragmented. The world is not making sense. There are many things going on but they are all getting wrapped up literally and metaphorically in our U.S. Presidential election. It is white male heterosexual privilege against everyone else. We have a major presidential candidate with no experience who is viable just because he is white, heterosexual, powerful, and more importantly, an explicit spewer of hate and selfishness. When he cheats, he is savvy. His exploitation of people and resources makes sense because he is the right sex, orientation, and color to dominate others.

Meanwhile, we have a very competent woman running for president with decades of experience who manages to get things done despite the fact that she’s been held to a level of scrutiny that arguably no other candidate has ever faced. Her crime? She’s made mistakes. Women are not allowed to make mistakes. They are allowed to be perfect mothers or to serve men.

Meanwhile, African American people, some children, are being murdered by police. No, this is not new. What is relatively new is that the incidents are now filmed and even when they can be viewed, many white people still come up with reasons why the person, often unarmed, sometimes with their hands-up, deserved to die.

Meanwhile, an African American football player decides to stop standing for the National Anthem at football games. There is strong backlash against this kind of “disrespect” to our country as well as to our military. This is a peaceful protest by a man who belongs to a race that has been owned, systematically oppressed, and clearly shown on video, hunted. It is 2016. This is still happening. We have a major presidential candidate who is whipping up hatred for every “otherized” person. People, what are YOUR PRIORITIES? Respecting the flag or not killing people?

Meanwhile, nearly half of the homeless youth in the U.S. are LGBT. LGBT youth, more generally, are subject to a high incidence of sexual and physical assault, drug/alcohol use, and suicidality. This is all because we believe that not being straight or cisgender somehow threatens our safety.

Meanwhile, immigrants, potential immigrants, or anyone who resembles an immigrant from a non-European country, are being treated like terrorists, despite research evidence pointing to the opposite. Immigrants, by and large, are hard-working people. Their children, on average, engage in significantly less crime and drug use than U.S. born white youth.

Meanwhile, I was at home yesterday when my husband received a text from a friend, who referred to him as “a girl” as a joke. My tolerance for this kind of sexism is low. I told him that it was a misogynist joke. He disagreed and his feelings were hurt. Both men are good and decent men but I was taken aback that my husband defended the joke and acted like I was overreacting. My reaction may have been stronger than usual but that is only because it is exhausting and unhealthy to be in a constant stage of outrage over the insidious and outright violent oppression in our country and world.

I know that I can best advocate for peace, when I have more myself. That does not mean not being angry, afraid, or in grief for some very hateful forces in our world. But it does mean balancing them with the good that exists around me.

In about an hour I am going to the Frye Museum in Seattle where there is a sitting meditation every Wednesday. That will help as will meeting my friend, Nancy, there.

I wish you all peace in your hearts.

I have a Ph.D. in psychology. This is a science degree. I was a researcher for many years, following the scientific method to answer empirical questions. Before starting a study, there is also rigorous review of research involving human participants by ethics committees, which are comprised of both academic researchers and community members. I also have a number of peer reviewed research publications. The peer review process requires that other researchers in the field (and they shouldn’t be your buddies, by the way, that would be a conflict) review an article and not only weigh in on whether the article should be published but also make sometimes very extensive recommendations about changes to be made in the writing, the logic, the conclusions, or even the type and amount of statistical tests that are performed. And by the way, the authors’ names are taken off of the article by the journal editor and the authors are also not told the names of the reviewers.

It is not a perfect system. It is not totally devoid of bias. But it a systematic process, with built in checks and balances, carried out by in my experience, very smart and dedicated people. I find it extremely powerful that at the basis of statistical testing is the possibility that a hypothesis is wrong. Mathematically, each hypothesis is tested against the null hypothesis, which to make a long story short means, “Researcher, you are wrong. What you thought made a difference, made no difference.” So while an individual researcher might be arrogant, the basic assumption of statistical testing is still steeped in a kind of humility. In sum, carrying out science involves the hard work of employing logic, making predictions, gathering evidence, and working as a scientific community to continually build a systematic understanding of the world.

I love doing science. I’m no longer a researcher so I am not engaged in conducting it anymore. But I like to think of myself as an extremely logical person, a scientific person, a person who despite the fact that I am passionate with strong feeling and quick thoughts, tries to examine questions in the time it takes to do so, think about evidence to support my initial judgments, and make revisions as I go.

I am also a person with a strong faith in God. And again, I am not a traditionally religious person but I do have strong faith. God cannot be seen directly, anyway. God cannot really be measured. A belief in God is not scientific. The way I have thought about this is that there are some questions that are subject to faith and others that are subject to science. The existence of God is not a question, at least at this time, that is subject to scientific inquiry. But I have faith and experience God through the love people express for each other and nature’s majesty the latter of which includes Earth and the wide expanses of the universe.

Today, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It was a truly tragic and horrible event during particularly turbulent and violent times in our country’s history. People die for no good reason all of the time. It is easy to get desensitized to it. But thinking about JFK, a charismatic, young, idealistic, and good looking president grounds us and reminds us of the horror of violence.

I think most people in the U.S. would agree that there is too much violence in our country. But after that agreement, things tend to fall apart. Today I was reminded of the National Rifle Association slogan, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” I hate that slogan. And as you know, I hate very few things. But I hate it and it’s not just because I disagree, as do most Americans, with the extreme positions of the NRA.

I could go through the illogic of the slogan. It’s not an either or situation. People with guns kill people, both a person and a weapon are usually necessary. Yes, people still get beaten to death with someones bare hands and feet, but this is a minority when all violence related deaths are considered. A tool is usually used and guns are an extremely fast and effective way of killing someone.

There has been systematic research on guns in this country. I could give you all kinds of statistics about how having a gun in one’s home increases the risk of gun death. I could quote all kinds of evidence that our current gun control laws are insufficient in truly protecting people. I could also give you really obvious logic like do people really need assault weapons for duck hunting? Or do you really want to follow the logic of Ted Nugent? I mean have you listened to him? He makes no sense.

I could give you data. Because guns, their use, and their impact are observable. They are subject to scientific inquiry. And yes that inquiry can be subject to bias and given that NRA successfully lobbied to defund grant funding through the Centers for Disease Control (they have a section of injury prevention) on any studies that involve guns, we will unfortunately get less information about a problem that most all of us would agree exists. Too many people are getting killed by people with guns.

But I could not convince most of the people I’d like to convince with logic and data. Because many people have decided that this question is one of faith, not one of science. So there’s really no way to argue. And it doesn’t matter that there is supposed to be a separation of Church and state. A religious belief, by a powerful lobby, in highly unrestricted gun access and ownership is held to not be questioned and is incorporated into law.

As a general rule, I avoid discussing politics especially the politics that get intertwined with religious belief. It’s not so much that I disagree with everyone. I just find that whether I am discussing these issues with a person who agrees with me or not, there’s an incredible intolerance for people who express a different view point. And not only is there intolerance, there is name calling, “morons”, “un-American”, “not real Americans”, “Bible thumpers”, “idiots”.

And then I just come out of the conversation fighting harshly judgmental views. I try really hard not to be harshly judgmental because it is incompatible with love and respect. And I add “harshly” because we are supposed to be judgmental; we make hundreds perhaps thousands of judgments in a single day. But the best judgments are those that are fair, safe, and respectful to ourselves and to others.

You may agree with me. You may disagree with me. If you’ve gotten to this part of this post, I thank you for your kind attention. In any case, I have faith in God. I have faith in the power of love. And I believe that violence is a problem in our society. And in my work, I help parents and children to use alternatives to aggression. In that sense, I work on the “people” part of the NRA slogan. Along with my husband, I work to teach Zoe how to live as a loving, peaceful, fair, and respectful person. I continue to try to live in this way myself. I am not always successful. Nobody is, there is conflict in life. But I hold peace as an ideal to which I continually strive. To me, that is my personal practical brand of pacifism.

People, let’s get to work.