Donald Trump is the only one who can save America!
These words came from the flight attendant I chatted with on my flight to America recently.
I was in the galley stretching and we started chatting. She asked why I was going to the US - I was going to give a TEDx talk. She asked what my topic was - Why chasing happiness is nuts and what to do instead. From there she launched into why America is so unhappy at the moment.
A story of seeking certainty
It was clear from the outset that this woman's views were set in concrete and vehemently held, so I was not going to try and change them. Well....not obviously.
But I was curious! I'd never met anyone who supports Donald Trump. So I decided to just ask questions and try to understand.
It wasn't easy. Minutes into the conversation I became aware of a cocktail of feelings I'd never felt before. Curiosity was definitely in the mix, but there was also fear and revulsion.
In no time we'd had illegal aliens taking over jobs and increasing crime in America, we'd had all the addicts who are living homeless on the street and taking the government's money to buy drugs with, we had Trump's children who are so smart and successful being a symbol of how great he is (whereas Hunter Biden's problems show how terrible Joe Biden is).... it was a real treat.
Oh, and Kamala Harris? She's a liar! Did you know she's not even black?!
It was as if I had no ground beneath my feet. She was living in another reality! I was tempted to just walk away, but my curiosity got the better of me.
After a while I said to her: I'm really curious about something - as a woman, how do you reconcile your positive views of Trump with his attitude to women?
What do you mean? What's wrong with his attitude to women? She asks.
I pick my jaw up off the floor and grab the most accessible memory I had.
Well, so for example he was caught on video bragging about one of the perks of fame being that you can grab women on the pussy in public places - that they let you do that.
I will never forget her response as long as I live. She said:
Well I'd rather be grabbed on the pussy than have a pussy for President!
Gobsmacked!!!! Just.....gobsmacked!!!
Shortly after this I'd had my fill. I actually felt nauseous. The callousness, the flagrant embrace of wrong facts, the vehemence.
Earlier in the conversation I'd asked her where she gets her facts from. She told me: Oh, I research everything, all over the place, all sides! I asked:
Ok, so you look for disconfirming evidence?
Her: Do I look for what?
I explained.
As I ended the conversation, she reiterated that Trump was strong and he was the only one who could save America. I simply said to her kindly: Oh well, just try and keep an open mind.
Her response, with a vehement shake of her head: Nope, no way, I won't be keeping an open mind!
The noise of the plane covered my cough/laugh, as I turned away and went back to my seat, my mind boggling at how someone with that attitude could think they research "everywhere, all sides".
Understanding it
The reason I was so curious about this woman's view is that I'm genuinely interested to understand what's driving it. Her bevy of inaccurate facts was stark. What was driving her to so obviously and grotesquely seek and imbibe them?
I think there were two Elements of Flourishing that are being served by her view. Material Security, and Certainty. And of those, I think Certainty dominates.
The reason I think Material Security is in the mix is that I picked up fear in her descriptions of the illegal aliens and addicts. And a number of times she described Trump as strong and used words like protect and defend. She told me a story of the police not being able to do anything about a theft she'd witnessed. The reason for their inaction was that the shop owner didn't want to report the theft, but she took away the view that the police can't do anything against crime.
Both Material Security and Certainty are on the safe in the picture above. That is, they contribute to our feelings of safety. This woman was clearly feeling unsafe.
She felt these views so strongly that she'd recently moved out of California even though that's where her children and grandchildren live, because it had become way too progressive.
It was clear that her views also simplified the world for her into good and bad, right and wrong, strong and weak, saviour and devil. When you're feeling unsafe, you want to know what the threat is! And in this complex world of ours, that can be complicated!
If you get to mid-life and you haven't spent much time learning about the world - society, psychology, economics, politics - I can imagine it could be overwhelming. You could reach for whatever lever you could pull to get that sense of safety.
So, that is a story of how we (humans) can reach for clear-cut, black and white, rigid views, to make ourselves feel safe.
My fear of including Certainty in my program
Back to the here and now and I'm almost finished creating my online program module on the Nine Elements of Human Flourishing. And I'm struggling with the session on Certainty because it's about exactly this - our views and how they can give us a 'high' - a feeling of safety in an uncertain world.
In the model, Certainty is about understanding enough about the world and people to be able to cope with the UNcertainty that's part of reality. A high score means our mental models of the world make us feel certain (enough) that we can cope with the uncertainty of life. I'd rather call it A robust-enough mental model of the way the world works to not be threatened by the uncertainty that's inherent in life.
Clearly that name's not going to fit on the picture!
The reason I'm struggling with it, is that this Element is about our lens on the world, our beliefs about how it works, our views. Us humans can get very attached to these views! The flight attendant was clearly very attached to her black and white views, but the worst thing she's likely to do is vote for Trump and make people like me feel nauseous.
Us humans can do much worse things to gain that feeling of safety. We can be violent, even murderous towards people who disagree with us.
As I write this, there are many conflicts raging around the world. The two that are receiving the most media attention in Australia are the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the violence in Israel/Gaza which is now expanding to Lebanon. Many many thousands of people have died in these conflicts, and many more have lost their homes and their livelihoods.
If we boil down the genesis of this immense suffering and destruction, it comes down to views being used to prop up other Elements (e.g. Material Security, Belonging, Autonomy).
For example, reports suggest Vladimir Putin has views about both his own and Russia's right to power in certain geographical places.
In Gaza, members of the terrorist organisation Hamas have views about who has the right to live and die (the criterion being primarily about what views people hold), and about what happens (think: paradise) to those who die in the service of jihad.
The politicians in Israel also hold views about their right to the piece of land that was given to them decades ago by foreigners to that land (or perhaps given back to them in their view), and about the means (tens of thousands of civilian deaths) justifying the end (their safety, and perhaps dominance in that location).
Even as I write that very simplistic, and rudimentary summary of my perception of the views at the heart of those conflicts, I feel nervous. People might read this and disagree with the perceptions I've just described. I welcome informed disagreement. I see it as improving my own education on any topic. But on some topics like this, the disagreement can be aggressive, nasty, even violent.
One of our wise ancestors, the Buddha, was notoriously avoidant of answering questions about views. He received such questions frequently - when and how did the universe begin, is there life after death, a soul etc. Most of the time he simply refused to answer them. He spoke of becoming entangled in a thicket of views and referred to using his teachings in this way as wrong use of the dharma (his teachings).
As I ponder this, I can see why he took this stance. In my session on Certainty I want to suggest that we build an awareness of our views and our relationship to them and that we ensure they don't cause harm. In my considerable pondering of this issue, this is how certainty relates to flourishing - the focus of my program.
When a view provides us with certainty, it provides us with a feeling of safety - there's that high, that pleasure. If someone questions it, that can feel like our safety is in jeopardy. Our reactions to that loss of safety can be fast, strong and very harmful. There's the reason to beware of the high!
Prompting people to ponder their views, their ways of making sense of the world, and their relationship to those views, I may be stirring a hornet's nest - especially if I'm suggesting caution with those that are causing harm.
Should I make like the Buddha and just give the whole topic a swerve?
Let me test the idea on you! Would you be willing to answer these questions?
What views do you hold that make sense of life for you? (Mine are good science and the insights I've verified for myself from the Buddha's teachings.)
What is your relationship to your views - i.e. how reactive are you to disagreement? (I welcome it as long as it's rational and evidence based.)
A book-end to the flight attendant story
I said that I'd decided I wouldn't obviously try and change her views. Sometimes just being willing to listen and ask questions, can indeed do just that. And to my great surprise, it did seem to make two small in-roads.
First, on telling me of the problem of illegal aliens, I winced and said: ooh, that sounds harsh!
She said: What do you mean? That's what they're legally called.
Me: That may be true, but don't you think that term de-humanises people?
Her: It what?
Me: De-humanises them. Casts them as less than human, sub-human.
To my great surprise she stopped in her tracks for a few seconds and thought. Eventually she said:
Oh, yeah I guess maybe it does.
The other shift I wasn't expecting was in relation to the homeless addicts. It became clear to me that she saw them as irresponsible people who enjoyed using drugs.
Me: Actually a huge portion of homeless people suffer from mental illness.
Her: Yeah, they get that from using drugs!
Me: Usually the mental illness comes first and drugs are used to numb the pain. These people have usually had a pretty tough time of life, they're not coping well and they use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain.
She paused for a beat.
Her: Well, so what do you think we should do with them?
Me: Help them. Give them the support they need, psychological help, rehab.
She thinks for a bit.
Her: Well ok, I'd be ok with using public money to give them rehab, but there'd have to be rules! They'd have to stay in rehab for the whole six months or whatever it is, and if they leave, they don't get support!
There's that need for certainty again. The unpleasant mix of emotions was still there, but at least I got to see a little pinhole of compassion in the tough armour she was using to protect herself.
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