Tag: politics

Positive psychology and politics

Should all ideas be critically examined? Are there ideas –thoughts that pop into your head – that should be abandoned as soon as they’re formed in fear and panic that someone might see in your eyes what you were thinking?

FRIDAY, 29 MARCH 2019

11:31

As an adult, you are responsible for your own self-esteem. As an adult, you are responsible for how you think about yourself. There are exceptions, such as people with severe mental disabilities, but the majority of the population does not fall under these exceptions. This leads to a preliminary conclusion that people are responsible for their own attitudes and thought patterns. Which is all fair and well if attitudes and thought patterns didn’t have much of an impact on the quality of your life experience.

Academic research (see Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, and Shawn Achor’s The Happiness Advantage; Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers also have interesting examples) indicates that how you think about yourself, how you think about your place in the world, how you think about the potential impact you can make in the world, how you think about your value in the environments where you spend your life, how you think about yourself in relationships with other people, how you think about your talents and abilities all have a radical effect on your behaviour, on what you do, on how you live, on your relationships, and ultimately, on the results of your actions and behaviour.

So, question one: Does it matter how you think about yourself?

Question two: Can you as an adult be held responsible for how you think about yourself?

Question three: If it matters how you think about yourself, and you as an adult can be held responsible for how you think about yourself, to what extent are you responsible for your own position in society?

Question four: If it matters how people think of themselves, and adults can be held responsible for how they think of themselves, and they are therefore to a large extent responsible for their own positions in society, to what extent are adults responsible for their own oppression by the state?

And question five: Do these thoughts resulting from free thinking relatively unrestricted by rules about what I may say and think and write mean that I am now on the side of the oppressor? Do these questions mean that I now believe the bully has a right to rule – because he is stronger than the one under his foot, or under his fist? Are these not reasonable questions? May one not ask reasonable questions if the answers are politically uncomfortable?

Seeing that I can’t expect anyone to take it upon themselves to answer my questions, I will have to do it myself. The fact that I will be accused of being X, Y or Z does not really mean much in the world we live in by the end of the second decade of the 21st century. I hope, however, that I will find honest answers, and for once be able to put this nagging discomfort to rest.

14:38

For the record, the idea of supremacy of any ethnic, racial, or cultural group is absurd. Why would it be better if people of a certain race, language or cultural group ruled? Any being from outer space who spends more than two minutes on this planet will know that in any race, language, and culture group there are people with different outlooks on life, different ideas about themselves, different ideas about other people, and different ideas on how the world should be governed – some better and more effective than others. To claim that the members of one race, language or culture group should rule in spite of all these, and other differences is really quite unintelligent … to say the least.

My focus is on people’s views of themselves, how they fit into their environments, their relationships with other people, and what they should do to lead happy and fruitful lives. If certain ideas turn out to be good after careful consideration, if certain views prove more likely to produce results most people can benefit from, whereby the greatest number of people can find happiness, it makes sense to seriously consider these views, does it not? And if ten people, or a hundred people, or ten thousand people, or twenty million people agree with these ideas, it can lead to environments and circumstances within which a large percentage of the population can live their lives in peace and a reasonable degree of well-being and happiness, can it not?

______________________

A brief history of modern South Africa

FRIDAY, 11 JANUARY 2019

Here is a brief history of modern South Africa: For a long time, white people thought they were better than black people, and acted accordingly. Most black people observed this behaviour and concluded that if white people thought they were better than black people, and acted out this belief, they probably were better. Therefore, most black people did what white people told them to do and behaved in ways white people prescribed to them.

However, a minority of black people never fell for this story that white people are better than black people. This conviction was also evident from the way that they acted. Other black people observed this, too, and started looking at these people as leaders who might bring about a better situation for them. Whites also saw this behaviour, viewed these people as threats, and arrested them, charged them with laws that whites had written to protect themselves and entrench their better positions in society, and – if the people did not leave the country in the middle of the night to go into exile – locked them up for decades. When a new generation yielded new leaders who also did not want to fall for the story that white people were better than black people, their lives were also made very uncomfortable: for example, what they could say and where they could travel were severely restricted. If they still didn’t want to listen, they were simply killed.

And so the modern history of South Africa continued through the seventies, and the eighties, until political developments in other parts of the world pressured the white government to embark on radical changes, and the pressure of more and more black and coloured people who no longer believed white people were better than them also became too much. By the mid-nineteen-nineties, a new dispensation had come to power. At the head of this dispensation were many of the men and women who, decades earlier, had not fallen for the conviction of white people that they were better than black people.

* * *

That brings us to today. I read on News24 that racism is rampant in the Northwest town of Schweizer-Reneke. One of the teachers at a primary school took a photo of a group of children in a classroom on the first day of school. The photo showed a few black children sitting at a table on their own, with the white children at other tables. The photo spread like wildfire on social media. There were protests, at least one suspension, and widespread anger over what was seen as a return to apartheid. [A later explanation was given that the children who were sitting on their own could not speak English or Afrikaans, and that they had to be assisted by an interpreter.] [Also see the interview with a father of one of the black children in the photo.]

Another teacher in the town told the journalist that racism would never end in the town, especially among white people. “We don’t know democracy here,” the teacher said. “Whites think they are superior [to] everyone here.” The report does not specify the teacher’s race. If the person is white, I wonder: Was this an expression of his or her own feelings towards other population groups? If the person is black, how does he or she know what the whites (in plural) think?

A few weeks ago, I read Elaine Hilides’s explanation of the Three Principles of Sydney Banks. She writes, among other things: “We create our reality moment by moment via thought and then we experience that reality via feeling. We are always, 100%, feeling our thinking. It can look like it’s our circumstances that are causing our feeling, but we are only ever feeling our thinking about our circumstances.”

The teacher in Schweizer-Reneke went further in his or her conversation with the journalist: “They [the white people] own everything in this town including public schools. This primary school is an example of their behaviour and hatred toward black children.”

* * *

The story of white domination in South Africa and the oppression of especially black people is a story of one group of people, who were in the minority, who convinced a significant percentage of a bigger group of people that they were better than the majority group, and that the majority should just accept it. Low and behold, it worked! A critical percentage of the majority group fell for it!

Now, in a new century and a new South Africa, their children and grandchildren and other descendants are furious that white people got away with it for so long. They now insist that things must be “corrected” – land should be taken away from the white group, and mostly given to members of the black group. Hundreds of thousands of jobs and thousands of business opportunities should be reserved for members of the previously excluded groups. There is even talk of white people who now have to be more careful about how they talk to black people, to prevent the latter from becoming even angrier.

Will it work? Will everything get better over the next few decades? Perhaps many white people still think they are better than black people. Of course, it is absurd to make a general statement that your group is better than another group, since Person X can only be better than Person Y in some aspects of their person, or abilities. Do many black people think deep inside that white people are actually better than them? Who can say?

* * *

What should one say of racism, of white people insulting black people, of white soccer spectators throwing banana peels on the soccer field to provoke a black player?

Imagine the following situation: Someone gets a sneering look on his face, lifts his finger in your direction, and says:

“Na-na-na-na-na! You can’t bake a souffle!”

The only problem for this joker is that you don’t have any ambitions or pretensions to bake a souffle. He is literally barking up the wrong tree. Nevertheless, you respond.

“What did you say?”

“I said, Na-na-na …”

“Yes, okay,” you’ll stop his taunt, “I caught that part. And then?”

“You can’t bake a souffle …”

Imagine something else. One rude soccer fan has a problem with his eyesight one day, and sees people darker than they really are (without realising it). He sees a black player jogging past the spot where he’s sitting, and throws a banana peel on the field. To rub in his point, he also makes monkey sounds, and jumps around and swings his arms.

What the spectator doesn’t know is that the player is Hans Christiansen from Sweden – probably the whitest player on the team. He sees the banana peel, and he sees the man next to the field jumping from one leg to the other, with his arms gesturing above his head. Will Mr. Christiansen feel insulted? It’s unlikely. Why? Many people will point out that he won’t think much of it, because there is no history of white spectators taunting white players by referring to them as monkeys. Certainly it will also help that he doesn’t think of himself as a monkey. The insult will fall flat. The offender will appear absurd.

What happens when such an uncultivated person tries to provoke and insult a black player? The authorities and the media go berserk. The poor black player, they will say.

What will happen if one black player after another dismisses it as harmless absurd behaviour – because, after all, they do not think of themselves as primates; that the taunting and potential insult roll off the proverbial duck’s back?

The guy who tries to throw me off balance with the reminder that I can’t bake a souffle is only going to be effective with his attempt if I have an obsession about not being able to bake a souffle. How I think about the souffle business is exactly what would give the man the power to taunt me. If I have no ambition to bake a souffle and have no concern about not being able to do it, the person’s efforts will flop as quickly as a pudding baked with rotten eggs.

I know I have never been a black soccer player, and I have never felt what it feels like when someone taunts me about being less human than he is. However, I have a strong suspicion that few if any black athletes feel like monkeys. So, who gives the one in the crowd the ridiculous idea that his taunts and insults will have an effect?

The same can be said when a white South African is captured on film saying something negative about a black South African. If that black person has a positive view of him or herself, and the white man or woman goes on like a crazy person with a red face – who is really the one making a monkey of him or herself?

Instead of telling everyone what they may or may not say, and always thinking of new ways to punish people who make others feel bad about themselves, why not pay more attention to what people think of themselves and how they feel about themselves?

There are strong indications that there are still people who believe they are better or smarter than people who have a redder or browner or blacker or yellower skin than their own pink shade, and that they deserve to be treated better, and must get preferential treatment when it comes to opportunities and access to resources. I reckon if you feel you have no other way to build up your own sense of value other than to break down other people’s dignity, you have a problem, and you should do yourself and everyone around you a favour by doing some introspection. But it also needs to be said that if you go off your head every time someone is unfriendly with you, or plain rude, or deliberately tries to mock, taunt, or offend you, you might need to start working on your perception of yourself.

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Max du Preez’s dangerous intention

FRIDAY, 4 JANUARY 2019

Ever since I bought my first Vrye Weekblad in the early nineteen nineties, I have had respect for South African journalist Max du Preez. I have always considered him consistent in his principles. He also never allows himself to be intimidated by the powers of the day – and especially in the late eighties and early nineties there were many attempts to intimidate him, even to get rid of him completely. After 1994 he was initially rewarded for contributing to the struggle to establish a democratic dispensation in South Africa, but it wasn’t long before his opinions started annoying the dominant political group again. Over the past two decades he has continued to write books, articles, and opinion pieces on the Internet, still anchored in the same principles that had led him to start his progressive newspaper thirty years ago. Especially his opinion pieces are sometimes ruthlessly critical. One of his most controversial pieces was on how then South African president Jacob Zuma appeared to be on a one-man mission to destroy South Africa. As expected, the piece made him an even bigger enemy of some politicians than he had already been.

However, Max’s latest column for News24 strikes me as odd, to say the least. He refers to two incidents in which he was recently involved. The first one was when he wanted to buy a bottle of wine in a shop in a village on the Garden Route. One of the two cashiers was busy talking on her phone; the other one ignored him. When he asked her after a few minutes if he could pay, her response was that she was still busy with another customer and pointed to a person standing at the entrance talking to the security guard about crime in the town. After waiting a few more minutes, he approached the customer at the door and asked her if she could please complete her transaction – he was parked on a yellow line. She immediately got upset, called him arrogant, and asked him when “you people” were going to realise they were no longer the boss.

Max concedes that the situation embarrassed him very much because he is usually the person who intervenes when a white person is rude to a black employee in a store. He also admits that he was annoyed with himself because he knew he would have dealt with the other customer with much more confidence if she were white.

He also tells of an incident at a petrol station when another motorist almost drove into him as he was pulling out at the station. He reversed his car a little, and politely gestured to the other motorist to pull in. The other motorist, however, jumped out of his car and confronted Max. “What was that gesture about?” the motorist demanded, called Max a racist, and threatened him with violence.

Max believes there is a high probability that the two people expected rudeness and racism from whites because of past experiences. He comes to the conclusion that, rather than take offense, he should respect their willingness to confront him.

He also mentions that he is determined to appear “demurer and friendlier, extra polite and extra careful” when he interacts with black strangers in the future. He wondered if it would be racist and dishonest to treat black people differently than whites, but then decides it is simply the reality in South Africa today – that many South Africans are still struggling with the racial issue.

Later in the piece he also wrote that he felt it would be inappropriate for him as a white person to publicly express his opinion on the slaughter of a sheep on a beach in Clifton.

One gets the idea that Max is indeed struggling with the correct formula for how a white person should behave in South Africa almost three decades after the end of Apartheid. He acknowledges that it won’t be good for anyone if we all “tiptoed around matters of race”. He also reckons he is not one of the so-called good whites who believe white people should keep their mouths shut and not participate in public debate. He does express his belief, however, that whites have a responsibility to be more respectful and to choose their words more carefully when it comes to these matters. He hopes his grandchildren, if they are white, will be released from this burden.

I have to admit that I was a little taken aback. I think it’s generally a good idea to be respectful of anyone who is respectful to me, to be polite to any person I encounter, and not to treat someone differently just because they have a different skin colour or are from another ethnic group. And for the record: I’m willing to be polite first, to be the first one to say hello, and the first one to be kind. If the other person reciprocates, then all is well. If not, it’s that person’s problem. (I also have to mention that it won’t work out well for me not to be kind and polite to people of other races, seeing that I am one of only a few thousand pink skins who live and work amongst 23 million Taiwanese people and people of other ethnicities.)

Taken aback were I, because how long does Max believe whites in South Africa should be extra friendly and polite, and extra cautious before it would be expected from them? How long before a black guy slaps a white guy because he wasn’t demure enough on the street, or in a government building, or not extra careful or polite? How long before such a person would justify his action with the idea that by that time white people ought to know how to “deal” with the race issue in South Africa? (And would he be surprised by the support of bystanders who would agree that he had acted properly?) How long before a black pupil complains to his parents that his white teacher was not modest enough in the classroom, or was not friendly and polite enough, or was not careful enough when the teacher reprimanded the pupil? How long does Max think it would be before the parents of black pupils demand that white teachers be more careful about how they treat black pupils? And how long before somebody gets the idea that coloured and Indian South Africans didn’t suffer as much under Apartheid as black South Africans, and that it might be good if they also behaved more modestly and friendlier when they interact with black citizens, and extra polite and extra careful? Lastly, what kind of person would expect you to be friendlier to him or her than to citizens of another skin colour? What kind of person would expect you to demurer, more polite, and more careful with your words than with someone of a different ethnicity? Is this the type of world in which Max du Preez wants to live, and where he wants his children and grandchildren, and perhaps even great-grandchildren to live?

In the article, “The Fear of White Power”, Remi Adekoya refers to a conversation he had with a black friend in London about a black colleague of the friend. (I specify the race of the people because it is relevant, and because the author specified it himself.) The colleague was apparently quick to play the race card when he was stopped by a policeman after violating a traffic rule. “Why did you stop me?” the colleague asked the policeman. “Is it because you saw a black man driving an expensive car?” The policeman was immediately defensive and mumbled something about it not having anything to do with race. He ended up just giving the driver a warning. The driver’s friend who was in the car with him then asked him why he had brought up race if he knew he was in the wrong. “Dude,” came the response, “when in a tough spot with a white person, bring up racism and there’s a 99 percent chance they’ll get defensive and back down.”

The author of the article tells how the conversation with his friend continued. He shared his opinion with his friend that they should challenge black intellectuals who call “racism” for strategic reasons, and who use political correctness as a lever for psychological benefit. His friend did not agree with him. He explained that if white people in Britain weren’t kept on a leash by political correctness, things could easily return to the bad old days of a few decades ago: “In his view, the fear of being called racist is the only thing restraining whites from using their power to dominate us openly.” He concluded by reminding his friend, the author, of an important phenomenon in human relationships: “It’s not even about white or black, it’s about human nature, how people behave with unchecked power.”

This conversation took place in Britain between a black banker and a writer whose mother is Polish and whose father is from Nigeria. The banker’s opinion was to keep the power of white people in check, because human nature is human nature. In South Africa, nearly 80% of the population is black, just under 9% white, the same percentage brown, and about 2.5% Indian or of other Asian origin. It is a fact that the majority of black South Africans still live in poverty. But a significant percentage of South Africa’s middle class, and higher middle class, are also black. Millions of black children are nowadays born and raised in beautiful, leafy middle-class suburbs. And when they finish high school, they go to university, where many of them get involved in political movements. What will be the practical consequences if they agree with veteran political writer Max du Preez that whites should be “demurer and friendlier” in their interaction with black citizens, and “extra polite and extra careful”? What will be the practical implication when these young students enter the professional world? What will be the practical implication when they take over the political reins from their parents? Would the expectation for whites to be more modest and friendlier, and extra polite and extra careful be part of their thinking about racial relationships to such an extent that the expectation could just as well be made official? What will happen ten or twenty years from now if a critical percentage of South Africans agree with Max du Preez, and a white South African is not friendly enough, or polite enough, or not careful enough with their words? In short, what will happen if a white man or woman, or a white child, does not behave as expected of a white person in a country where they should be sorry for the actions of their ancestors?

I have always had respect for Max du Preez. I believe his vision has always been for a South Africa where people of different ethnicities, and different beliefs and cultures can work together to create one nation. It is still an ideal worthy of pursuit. But I’m afraid Max’s intention, and perhaps his suggestion for white South Africans until his great-grandchildren’s generation is simply too dangerous to seriously consider.

———–

My perspective on these issues may be somewhat different to that of many middle-class white South Africans. I am not a financially comfortable white person surrounded by black poverty; I am a white person with an average income, surrounded by Taiwanese/Chinese people, of which most adults very likely have more money in the bank than me. The dominant group in this country where I have been living for almost twenty years also has a monopoly on political power.

Therefore, I find the idea outrageous that a minority group should make sure that they are friendly and polite enough, and modest enough and careful enough with their words when dealing with members of a majority group. As I have already explained, I find it even dangerous, and irresponsible, considering how full history is of how people begin to act if the scale tilts too far to the one side in terms of power dynamics.

______________________

Red pill, or just reasonable? Part two

TUESDAY, 28 AUGUST 2018

A thought has been rolling around in my head for a few days: Activist journalist. It’s understandable that you want your life to mean something, that you want to make a difference to the world. Perhaps I even agree with your political views and appreciate the time you take to lay your points of view out in ways that help people understand the issue from a certain perspective.

But let’s be clear about one thing: If you are an activist journalist, or an activist reporter or an activist anchor person, you cannot be trusted to report the news accurately. You cannot be trusted to tell me what’s going on, because I will always assume you’re distorting what is happening to suit your agenda.

* * *

The same goes for activist academics. An academic is a scientist. A scientist must be able to drop a favourite hypothesis like a plate of hot cakes if experiments suggest something different than what they had envisioned. An activist academic finds a way to fit the results of an experiment into what they had hoped for. That is dishonest. It’s not science – it’s propaganda. Such an academic is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

TUESDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2018

People migrate across the desert from countries in North Africa, and from war-torn areas in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In many (or most?) cases, they do not speak the languages of the countries where they’re heading. In most cases, there are aspects of their culture that are directly opposed to the dominant culture of their ideal destinations.

What does this lead to? Conflict, and disorder.

Do the migrants/refugees want conflict and disorder? Certainly not, seeing that conflict and chaos are exactly what they are fleeing from in many cases.

In fact, migrants/refugees do not only end up in “Italy” or “France” or “Sweden”, but in the Italian town, Ferrara, or in the quiet French village, Forges-les-Bains, or in the Swedish city of Malmö. Is there work for them? Is there enough housing? Is there enough space in the local schools for their children? Are there enough beds in the local hospitals for when they get sick?

What percentage of the new inhabitants are willing to make changes to their culture to fit into Ferrara, or Forges-les-Bains, or Malmö? If this percentage is not sufficient, it will lead to conflict and disorder.

When hundreds or thousands of people arrive in Ferrara, or Forges-les-Bains, or in Malmö, how many of them say: This is it. This is my and my family’s new home. Here we will grow new roots and do everything in our power to fit in and contribute to the well-being of the community. How many of them express something of this nature? Seventy percent? Fifty percent? Ten percent? And if not enough of the new residents are willing to declare that a place is their new home and that they will do what they need to do to prove themselves to their new community, where does it end? In disorder and conflict.

I of all people understand why people go from one country to another in search of better opportunities, or a better life. But, I also understand why people in Europe become increasingly cynical when their governments fail to use their common sense.

______________________

Did I swallow the red pill, or am I still reasonable?

[The “red pill” and its opposite, the “blue pill” are popular cultural ideas – metaphors that represent the choice between knowledge, freedom, and the brutal truths of reality (red pill), and the safety, happiness, and ignorance of illusion (blue pill).]

MONDAY, 18 JUNE 2018

I understand why people, especially young men, want to migrate across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

I also understand why many European people see mass migration as an attack on their way of living, welfare, language, and culture – and why they are pushing back.

TUESDAY, 17 JULY 2018

(Inspired by the article “Devastation and Denial: Cambodia and the Academic Left”.)

(1)

A particular political group claims something is happening. Just because you are opposed to this group’s politics is not to say that that particular event is not happening.

One example: Conservative, pro-free market, pro-capitalism politicians, especially those in positions of power, took every opportunity during the Cold War (1945-1990) to argue that communism was an evil doctrine. (They also had the habit of ignoring injustices perpetrated by their own side.) In 1975-1979 they spoke of hundreds of thousands of people who had been killed and who were dying of hunger and inhumane treatment at the hands of the radical communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Many of their political opponents on the left ignored them, with tragic consequences. These people had clung to their own ideological positions instead of critically looking at reports about what was going on in Cambodia. One gets the idea that eyewitness reports were inconvenient for them, and instead of doing their own research they decided to reject and even criticise the reports.

(2)

Just because you can point to one case where someone whom you oppose politically was disastrously wrong is not to say they are wrong on other positions they take.

An example: Malcolm Caldwell, a British Marxist, was critical of American imperialism and the foreign policy of other Western powers in the 1960s and 1970s. He was also an energetic supporter of the Khmer Rouge – until he was killed in his hotel room in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, in 1978. The fact that he was wrong about the Khmer Rouge does, however, not mean he was wrong in his criticism of American actions and policies, and those of other Western powers in those decades.

SUNDAY, 22 JULY 2018

00:40

I watched a conversation on TV this morning with a woman who advocated the term “theybies” instead of babies. The idea is to not program the young child with any gender before the child has had an opportunity to choose their own gender. (According to nbcnews.com: “to shield them from gender stereotypes”).

So, I thought: Why stop at gender? It’s just one of many factors that ultimately determines who and what you are and how you think of yourself. Why speak English to the child? Why not expose the child to a dozen languages in equal measure, and give the child a chance to choose their own language? Same with culture. The American parents of a young child should never mention baseball and hot dogs and Independence Day or any other aspect of American culture in those first few years of a child’s development. What if the child wants to be culturally Portuguese, or Russian or Taiwanese? Then those parents would have caused the child irreparable damage programming him/her/X with a culture not of the child’s own choosing. The same goes with socioeconomic elements of their upbringing. How dare the parents expose the child only to middle-class culture? Should the child not be equally exposed to at least also working-class culture and artistic-bohemian? And if the child is primarily exposed to artistic-bohemian culture, how dare those parents? What if the child ultimately realises that he/she/X is petite bourgeois?

11:20

Most citizens of a country are keen to welcome new immigrants with talents and outstanding abilities.

Most citizens of a country are keen to welcome new immigrants with positive characteristics.

Most citizens of a country are keen to welcome new immigrants who are tolerant and open-minded.

Most citizens of a country are keen to welcome new immigrants who will contribute something to their community.

What people do not want is more garbage in the street. (The nation’s own citizens already create enough litter.)

What people do not want is more criminals. (There are already enough criminals among their fellow citizens.)

What people do not want is intolerance. (There is already enough intolerance among their own country folk.)

What people do not want are more gangs of young men angry with people they hold responsible for their own misery. (There are already enough gangs of nihilistic young citizens who destroy communities.)

* * *

Us South African English teachers in Taiwan are like Mexicans, and other Central American people who want to go to the US in search of a better life, and Taiwan is our America. We arrive here with a tourist visa, knowing that we are going to look for work, and if we get a job, that we might settle down here. We also hope for a “green card” (APRC plus personal work permit) that will allow us to live and work here permanently.

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