4)  POLARIZATION

 This posting was going to be about reincarnation, but this came to me tonight. Actually I have been working on it for years, but a new facet came up tonight.

Morality. It’s a spectrum, from one extreme to the other. That’s it. The only question is this, “in a particular area of concern, where do you come down on the spectrum? Give me a number.”

0 is the least concern and 100 is the most. Pick a subject where decisions have to be made. Now figure out your attitude toward the subject. Are you closer to less concerned or closer to more? Are you in the absolute middle?

We are confronted by situations periodically. What do you do? How do you vote?

Are you a liberal or a conservative? Pragmatist or idealist? What those come down to is “don’t care” or “should”—don’t forget this is in a single subject only. If you give yourself less than 50 on a bunch of issues, perhaps you can label yourself “liberal”.

But I’ll wager that anyone who considers himself a “liberal” is quite conservative on some issues.

The basis of all morality is reciprocation. If I give you something, I expect something in return, even if it is not a business transaction, but a favor.

Of course what is needed in the return varies by what is considered valuable. There are those who give to a Buddhist monk food in the morning in order to get blessings later, and there are those who feel that they are bettering the world, and that is their reward.

Animals have this basic sense of morality. It is innate. We don’t need any religion to tell us. It’s not “right from wrong”, it is “do I feel compensated for what I gave?”, or the reverse, “do I feel that I got away with getting without returning?”. In most people there is an internal sense that knows the answer to this, in any particular decision.

But we were discussing the “don’t care” vs. “should” spectrum. Let’s take an example. Do I mind having the homeless camping on the streets? I have to say 30 for myself, it’s ok, but don’t like it if they are allowed to kill businesses. Do I mind if a homeless person sets up a tent inside my apartment complex? Should not, don’t like it, 70. Do I mind if a homeless person stays inside my apartment with me and my wife? Definitely should not, 95.

The point is that everyone has a different set of numbers, usually somewhere in the middle, not at either extreme. And a lot depending on the details of the situation.

How do we decide? There is a great book where the author Steven Pinker paints a picture of an elephant and its rider. He claims that the elephant is the right side of the brain, the associative computer, and the rider is the left side, the reasoning computer. Studies have shown that confronted with a situation, the elephant decides like or dislike and the rider is left to come up with the reasons why. Of course it is possible for the rider to change the direction of the elephant, but it takes a lot of work, or you have to know what you are doing—a good working relationship with your automatic associative brain.

Interesting, this is one of the metaphysical concepts, that to have any type of control, you must first bring the conscious and subconscious minds together. Now I see why they said that.

We are getting to “polarization”. What I don’t like is someone telling me where I should be on the spectrum of a subject. I can decide for myself, I can listen to arguments, and I can change my elephant if needed.

The Dalai Lama recently said that the greatest good can come from people having “compassion”. What I think he meant by that is that we would get along better with people that we disagree with if we could ask for their viewpoint on the subject without arguing with them. We don’t have to agree with them, but listening and trying to understand would bring peace to the planet. I think he may be right.

But instead we get radio personalities who make the arguments that you are either a liberal or a conservative and that the “evil” liberals need to be fought by the “righteous” conservatives. They are just labels, but putting a bad label on someone can help us to hurt them if the occasion ever arose. It’s ridiculous. It’s polarization, encouraging people to the right, with the liberal reaction shifting left, when the truth for each individual is more in the middle.

I personally think that a person who encourages polarization is incurring big karma, especially if they are doing it for profit.

Oh, and the new facet. It seems that polarization happens all the time in a particular society, culture, group. But the subject of the polarization changes with time. You could track it. And it always comes down to the “don’t cares” versus the “shoulds”.

There are enemies outside and enemies inside. The enemy inside is polarization.