Scarcity mindsets

Most of the time in my life I don’t have to deal directly with the social effects of living in a culture based on a scarcity mindset. During the presidential elections, though, it’s a constant, in-your-face irritation: sort of a “if you’re not for me & mine then you’re the enemy & must die!” attitude. I do have friends I care about deeply, whose opinions differ from mine on important topics. Most of the time we can discuss these issues thoughtfully, calmly hear where we believe different things, change our minds if we feel so inclined, and if not, courteously agree to disagree.

There are certain topics, though, which seem to be really knee-jerk reactions for many people. Politics is one… just off the top of my head, patriarchal male privilege seems to be another. The heated defenses I sometimes hear for such subjects is so virulent, so furiously denying any validity to any position but their own, that I can only believe they’ve woven those beliefs into part of their personal mindset. It almost appears that if you disagree with them on those issues then apparently they feel you’re also saying they themselves are bad people… I think? I admit I’m not entirely sure how this works. Sadly, because we have this scarcity mindset there also seems to be a linked attitude that if you are to promote your belief or candidate… you must therefore trash the other side’s beliefs or candidates. This can cause some really ugly situations. Trump’s disgusting promotion of ignorance, bigotry, racism, sexism, and violence is just the most visible result of this unfortunate meme.

I find this meme enormously frustrating for the simple reason that, as far as I can tell, this path leads to nothing more than anger, unproductive shouting matches, and broken friendships. I would far rather you tell me why your belief/candidate is good, than why mine is supposedly stupid and irrational, you know? I can then take that data, do a bit of research on it if I so wish, and integrate it into my worldview. I may not change my mind, but you have actually enriched my understanding by sharing so with me.

Communicating this belief to others, however, seems to be problematic at best for me. I’ve had people nod in emphatic agreement with my suggesting that building up those you believe in is better than trashing those you disagree with — and then the next day do the very same thing again that we were just discussing not doing the day before! I’m not entirely sure how this works yet either… so for the nonce I’m quietly blocking certain friends on FB and not discussing certain subjects with certain folks. Once the political season is over — and assuming we do not have a Trump presidency, which I would account an utter disaster for the country — perhaps we can make a bit more progress on learning how to truly and productively share ideas. I’m certainly open to suggestions.