This is not a post about Michele Bachmann so much as a reflection on the interior of a nation generating leaders who are reflections of our own most discomforting emotions – vengefulness, paranoia, rigidity, fear, and most disturbing, an addiction to the light. And by addiction to the light I mean a wish to believe that there is one path to the divine and that path must be obeyed without reservation. Ms. Bachmann calls this path Jesus or Christian but I strongly suspect these are just symbolic words for believing that one is more righteous than others. We all have these feelings at times – a self righteous sense of being better than others or conversely not feeling valued enough by others – but when this becomes a group phenomenon it carries with it a great wave of destructiveness.
How do I know these interior feelings are gaining traction in the collective rather than simply being about the person of Michele Bachmann? Well, because one of the Republican candidates for President, Tim Pawlenty, told me so. On his leaving the presidential race he acknowledged a slight misstep. He thought he brought a “rational, established, credible, strong record…” However, he added “But I think the audience, so to speak, was looking for something different.” So much is suggested when a Midwesterner uses the phrase “so to speak.” The words that come to my mind as different from “rational” “credible” “established” and “strong” are irrational, unreliable, temporary, and desperate. How is that for a shadow job description of a role considered the most powerful in the world?
The collective has a way of flirting with disaster by generating leaders who exhibit extreme forms of polarization. The leaders themselves are often empty vessels for the collective, opportunistic and inflated about their talents, accomplishments, and vision. No wonder politicians, literally the manifestation of the people, sometimes get a bad name.
What has become particularly clear is that the collective ability to engage the irrational, unreliable, temporary, and desperate is not a matter of compromise. It is a matter of necessity, and it takes compassion. You say what?
I say compassion, but an unrelenting compassion that goes for the jugular, meaning an ability to cut to the throat of the matter. This is a form of compassion that uses speech, as opposed to physical violence, as a means to break the trance that carries groups to the edge of the cliff and beyond. This is a particular kind of speech that uses humor, surprise, sojourns into common sense, and makes the most of persuasive skills to make a point, counter a false argument, and rally the collective to something larger than itself. It is not simply telling people it will be hard or that it will take compromise. This is common sense but it is also paternal and patronizing. We need to wake ourselves up, find new images, and take on directly those dark emotions that are smoldering in the heat of uncertainty, ambiguity, and flickering violence. And it is not a job for one person but for all of us who care about birthing a new consciousness.
The composer Eric Whitacre invited his online fans to participate in an ambitious attempt to create the world's largest virtual choir. Featuring 2052 performances from singers in 58 countries, the Virtual Choir 2.0 – singing Whitacre's "Sleep" – is the largest assembled online in history, and far surpasses Whitacre's original goal of 900 voices.
Check out John Hunter talking at the TED conference on solving the world's problems with his fourth grade class… it's entertaining and touching…. and suggests that in the emergent nature of self organizing groups, there is a human capacity for wisdom that is not written in any manual.
In the Jewish tradition, there is a song beloved on Passover. It’s called Dayenu (pronounced DI A NU) and its meaning is that even in the most difficult of times, it is critical that we appreciate what we have – that what has been done for us is sufficient. Loosely translated, dayenu means “it would have been enough.” It is a song sung to God and I remember this song more than others because on Passover, as a child, I sung it with such exuberance, banging my fist on the table and screaming at the top of my lungs, I was asked to leave.
These memories come back to me as I read Bernie Sanders, the son of Jewish immigrants, who also happens to be Vermont’s U.S. Senator. He is an independent and socialist and I suspect others things outside the normal way business is done. If the Senate could ask him to leave, I’m sure they would, because he deals in solutions that nobody wants to hear.
And he has found a way to make dayenu relevant again at the Congressional table, although not in exactly the same way it had originally been intended. He asks the wealthy in America if there is ever going to be enough for them.
He has an ear for rhythm:
In 2007, the top 1% of all income earners in the U.S. made 23.5% of all income.
NOT ENOUGH
The percentage of income going to the top 1% has nearly tripled since the mid-1970’s.
NOT ENOUGH
80% of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent.
NOT ENOUGH
The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. NOT ENOUGH
Wall Street executives now earn more than they did before the financial bail out of Wall Street firms.
NOT ENOUGH
The United States now has, by far, the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth.
NOT ENOUGH
You see Sanders has the melody so critical to deep understanding. For many at the top there is such a feeling of scarcity and privilege that it can never be enough. Lo Dayenu would be their song – Never Enough.
And so Sanders has proposed solutions, believing if a raggedy group of slaves fleeing through the desert and being attacked from all sides could sing about having enough, then it’s possible that even in the most wealthy country in the world, it might again be possible.
In his speech to the Senate on June 27th, he listed 13 measures that could reduce the deficit without cutting Social Security, Medicare or other programs.
End the tax breaks for oil and gas companies.
AND THERE WOULD STILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE
Eliminate offshore tax havens, bringing the deficit down by $40 billion over the next decade.
AND THERE WOULD STILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE
Repeal the Bush-era tax cuts for the top two percent of earners, generating $700 billion.
AND THERE WOULD STILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE
Establish an estate tax on inherited wealth of more than $3.5 million, raising another $70 billion over a decade.
AND THERE WOULD STILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE
Shrink military spending and bring the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to an end as soon as possible.
AND THERE WOULD STILL BE ENOUGH FOR EVERYONE
Dayenu is a reminder that to live psychologically with the concept of scarcity is to remain a slave. It must never be used as a justification for social inequality. Rather, it is a call for community, that we are grateful for what we have and most notably for laws that bind us together and make us appreciate ourselves as a community.
"One of the essential qualities of collective wisdom is a palpable sense of connection with each other and to larger forces that is found, for example, in nature, in relationship to our ancestors, and even in relation to a physical place….
People who talk about their experiences of collective wisdom often report a sense of openness and awareness of something larger than themselves. The ability to communicate seems broader, and people are often astounded by the creativity that comes forward.
“You have a sense,” Frenier observed, “that the whole group is creating together, and you don’t quite exactly know how.”
~ The Power of Collective Wisdom: And the Trap of Collective Folly
