The State of Disunion And Why It Won't Change

What does it take to change a government of ineptitude and corruption - one dividing a country and even the world? It takes precisely what persuasion experts and philosophers have identified for centuries - a very tall order.

Change, by its very nature, is threatening. Major change requires relinquishment of the status quo.
Detest as we might reluctance to change what is clearly bad, the devil we know is often perceived as more appealing than the one we don't. Most people do not embrace major change unless provoked to do so and, even then, they need to believe that the outcome will be substantially better than their current circumstances.

So what is needed? First, in order to change we need something impressive to change to. No one changes without attractive options. Are these articulated in the views of Al Gore, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or perhaps John McCain? Not yet.

The second obstacle to change is the frame of leadership we've adopted from business and applied to government. Big business is about profits. The blame game dismantling the reputations of all but the CEO and some senior execs is how things are done in big business during a crisis. Most respond to attack by falling quiet and sharing only misinformation. We've allowed our government to become an unethical big business and to operate in a big business as usual manner. Until we reframe government, separate it from this model, nothing will change because most businesses other than new entrepreneurial ones are the antithesis of more admirable aspects of nature; they don't protect their young or the weak, they protect themselves -specifically those at the top.

The fourth obstacle is the current culture of corruption. It promotes pathological politics of the type foreign to the honest among us. Moreover, enmeshed in messages of fear about terrorism many voters are inclined to overlook deception - consider it the price of security. Remember Maslow's positioning of safety. If that cannot be convincingly offered, nothing will change.

A fifth obstacle is the tendency to misconstrue controversy within a party as a sign of dissolution. Allowing Dubai to protect American ports angered some Republicans and it's as rational as suggesting that the purported nicer Greeks should have been allowed to guard Troy, but is this controversy enough to threaten the now much entrenched perception that the Republicans have your back - that Democrats are, well, just too nice to lead in dangerous times? The absence of effective persuasion on this point is a significant obstacle to change.

Finally, change requires accurate information - something begrudgingly given in Washington. Operating on assumptions is much like crossing a frozen lake without testing the thickness of the ice. It's foolish, and yet we do it all the time. In philosopher Bertrand Russell's words, we have more "knowledge by acquaintance" than "knowledge of truths." We know much more of things than we do about them - and the biases and ineptitudes of media exacerbate this condition. To the extent that information is withheld, not just in politics but also in fields such as science and medicine, those not in power or privy to the truth function largely in the dark. When Juan Williams suggests, as he did on Fox yesterday, the Republicans may make a comeback by bringing up abortion, gay rights and similar old saws to win again, he is essentially saying that from the depths of contrived ambiguity and divisiveness old tactics will emerge to win the day. And the Democrats won't see this assault coming if they're still earnestly playing the fair Where's Waldo game of political pretext even as Waldo has left the board.

It is not so much hatred or political partisanship that polarizes our nation as contrived disunion. While we happily preach to our particular choirs and reject much needed dialogue and intelligent debate, we play into the hands of those who value this disunion. Until we make change attractive and doable, separate government from business, recruit supporters from across the political spectrum, comprehend and aggressively deal with pathological politics, convince people they will be both safer and better off with a change of leadership, and plumb the depths of deception to reveal what is truly going on change will not happen. Instead, this time three years from now, this time next November, we'll be once again shaking our heads in disbelief.
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