Does Garry Breitkreuz Fit the Vic Toews Profile?

Breitkreuz denied having made any such statements, and asked Foote to withdraw her statement and apologize to him.

"This is completely unfounded," he said.  "It's absurd and totally without foundations."

Isn't that more or less what Vic Toews said to Don Martin over the "with us or with the child pornographers" line?

The facts aren't all in yet, but they will be in time; Breitkreuz spoke to an entire class, meaning every student in the room, their parents and of course, the teacher will all have their take on what was said.  I hate to break it to Breitkreuz, but in he said/they said competition over the facts, the politician ain't likely to win.

Which brings us back to the question we should be constantly asking - what on earth drives folk like Toews, Breitkreuz and Gilmour to say such ridiculous things and then try to cover up (miserably) after the fact?

Racial profiling is so yesterday.  The future of behavioural forecasting is in cognitive profiling.

And there's a set profile emerging of reactionary, threat-centric and bombastic individuals who have a hard time committing sociology, i.e. understanding the perspectives of unlike-minded peers.

Unlike their with-us-or-against-us approach, the rest of us can focus on empowering them to think differently.  They, too, have maximum potentials to contribute - they just need to get over themselves to get there.

After all:

What is a good person but a bad man's teacher?

What is a bad man but a good person's job?

Cenotes, Yggdrasil and A Testament to Politial Irony

 

Indeed, the economy took on a life of its own, as something over and above those puny beings who happened to live and work in it.

 

One of the great political ironies, from my point of view, is this:

 

The political right says they're all about unburdening the individual of regulations and rules, then throwing them in the deep end so that they learn how to swim the stern-father way.  But then they talk about the free market as the thing that's meant to shape society, as though a structureless system is somehow itself the leader.  This shifting of power to a nebulous something beyond people leads to uncertainty, fear and anger.  An eye for an eye, etc.  God wills it.

 

The political left, however, talks about society, not a market, as the system of choice - they want everyone to live in gardens watered by running streams.  How we get there is never clear, but the thing that is seen as hindrance is often the structures that define society - business, government, public institutions.  While the talk is of social strength, the practical focus is on individuality and expressing oneself freely yet respectfully; if you are offended by difference, you can turn the other cheek.

 

There's a bit of cognitive dissonance within both these views, which actually makes a lot of sense - the reality is that you can't have a strong society without strong institutions, but those institutions cannot be strong unless the people are themselves empowered.  People are naturally imbued with both ends of the spectrum in varying degrees - the either/or dichotomy is a false, fabricated one.  The lines we draw between binary extremes exist in our minds, only; our emperor-like firewalls are made of glass.  To consciously see this, though, requires a change of perspective.

 

As it's not humanly possible to escape our own frame and look down upon ourselves from on high, another option is required.  Instead of building out, we must explore inwards, deconstructing our own points of view down to the most basic common denominator.  Funny enough, this has been the goal of science and religion, two supposedly opposing fields of study.  Both can be viewed as similar takes on interdisciplinary systems theory, considering the whole and its parts simultaneously rather than through an imposed binary lens. 

 

What does this have to do with politics?  We like to think of politics as a tribal affair, with left and right in unending competition.  The reality, however, is that the tribes at each end of the spectrum tend to trade roles and perspectives over time, chasing each other like day does night.  You can't fight the right without becoming the right; you can't squeeze out the left without becoming that which you attempt to replace.  Rather than being poles on a spectrum, the political left and political right orbit each other around a hard-to-define political centre.

 

When you drill down into that common centre, you'll find no dichotomy, no opposition, just a shared starting point from which all perspective emerges.  From that place, you can perceive the roots of the cycle and better understand its trajectory.  Conscious of this, it's possible to break free of the cycle and find balance; when the options before you aren't limited to left or right, it becomes possible to move forward.

The Centre Always Holds

Started my day listening to a little Jesus Christ Superstar; it has struck me of late that, with so much focus on drought, political turmoil, war, etc, there are more than a few folk with a little Armageddon on their minds. Blame it on the Tzolkin.  This, naturally, got me thinking about Yeats' The Second Coming:

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Of course, we Western folk tend to be a bit on the selfish side.  We look at time through our own lens, "like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives" kind of thing.  Not everyone looks at the world through such linear terms; in fact, even when you look at systems theory in the West, there's a recognition of boom and bust cycles.  After all, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

Days, seasons, the rise and fall of empires, the boom and bust of economies, the spiral outwards to political extremes and the oppositional contraction to the political middle - these aren't linear things; they're turns of the wheel.

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

The closer we collectively get to the middle, the more stability we have.  This is what Lao Tzu meant when he said "hold on to the centre."

In the mean time, the wheel keeps turning - we're just along for the ride.

Free Will in the Land of the Blind

Many people have tried to define what media bias is, and attempted to measure it, but I want to try to answer a different question here: not how we can decide if the news is biased, but how each of us actually does decide — and what it means for journalists.

"In the Land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king."

Ready for it?  You don't really have free will.  At best you have semi-free will that is heavily influenced by factors beyond your control, whether you're conscious of it or not.

It's a topic that makes people squirm (or get angry); the idea that you don't have internal control can be a terrifying one.  How many people are more comfortable with the notion of a War of the Worlds than they are with the concept of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?  There's a reason why it's the Zombie Apocalypse we fear most.

The truly amusing part is that every hyper-confident element of society thinks they're exempt from this risk; they have it all figured out, they're the one-eyed kings, the Shauns of the Dead.  When disaster strikes, they're the ones who will escape - not be part of the zombie horde.  It rarely occurs to them that maybe, just maybe, there's another veil to be lifted, another connection they haven't quite made, but could.  Yet almost cyclically society becomes so fearful that these folk, the people in whom we have placed our trust don't have the answers that even they start to doubt that anyone knows what will happen next.

A bit of doubt is a positive thing; it keeps you questioning, challenging, pushing boundaries and peeking around corners.  The more conscious you of are of the things that shape your perception, the more clearly you see; it's through that level of transparency we truly understand who we are and what we're part of.  It's not the destination, but the journey, etc.

We don't live in a two-dimensional world of black and white; life is more like a sphere reflecting the full spectrum of light.  If you go inward deeply enough, you see where everything connects, at what Lao-tzu called Tao.  Science is still trying to quantify that space through the quest for a Theory of Everything.

In terms of cognition - it's there, at the centre, that you don't gain control but become control.  From the centre, all things are possible:

     The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
     When his work is done,
     the people say, "Amazing:
     we did it, all by ourselves!”

That's a path open to all of us - we just need to be conscious of the terrain.

UPDATE 15/11/14:  Fear the stirogi, fearsome not-quite-humans with a hive mind?  Exactly.

Atlas Never Wavered

First, not everyone is prepared to lead in risky environments.

Second, as leaders who are assessing risks, we need to have skin in the game; otherwise we are only pretending to lead.

Third, character matters just as much as any knowledge or skills acquired from training and education.

Whenever I hear someone decry the idea of "The Public Good" as some sort of totalitarian subterfuge, I ask them why giving back and self-moderation somehow implies a loss of freedom.  The answer, invariably, is that they don't want anyone telling them what they can and can't do - which, of course, kinda misses the "self" part, but I digress.

Let's play along for a minute.  What happens when everyone has complete independence to do whatever they want to?  They come into conflict.  Our costly and inadequate justice system is all about people trying to protect their own interests, with a third party arbitrating (not a very independent solution, but maybe that's just me).    Or, by looking after their own immediate interests, the group - because that's what society is - creates tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios ranging from pushing-matches to get on and off subway trains to the denuding of natural resources without consideration for tomorrow's needs.

How do you avoid zero-sum conflict or unsustainable practices?  It's simple - by thinking ahead.  When you plan - when you're strategic - you invariably include other people's interests into your calculus.  Everyone knows Sun-tzu's maxim about knowing yourself and knowing your enemy. 

Another one of Sun-tzu's key lessons is about discipline, or self-control.  There's also the one about creating resource-efficient, win-win scenarios where possible to avoid the loss that invariably occurs through conflict.

In other words, be mindful of the consequences of your actions.  Taken from a slightly different angle - do unto others what you would have them to unto you.

True independence comes not from hiding from the reality that we're all in this together, but internalizing that concept and acting from a place of consciousness.

In other words, altruism is nothing more than selfishness that plans ahead.

And true leadership isn't about control, but empowerment.

Rob Ford should brush up on his Lao-Tzu (Updated)

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/01/24/mayor-ford-calls-council-foes-two-steps-left-of-stalin

Poor, polarizing Mayor Ford would do well to visit his nearest public library and take out a copy of the Tao te Ching.  In his political peccadilloes, he would benefit greatly from Lao-Tzu's advice:

"When people see some thing as beautiful,
  other things become ugly.
  When people see some things as good,
  Other things become bad."

Or, when you see some folk as left of Stalin, others are going to define you as being right of Hitler.

Lao-Tzu's advice?

"The Master doesn't take sides;
 He welcomes both saints and sinners."

"Hold on to the centre."

UPDATED: There've been lots of opportunities to add to this; but this one was too good not to include:

After some back and forth between Ford and I, the mayor said "I am going to hang up before I say something I regret."

I think it was too late by then, your Worship.

Opposites create each other.  So, by creating a "with me or against me" dichotomy, Ford has basically undercut his own ability to adapt and, as a result, is turning everyone who could and should be his ally against him.

Call it natural selection.


If you are a patter for the world... there will be nothing you can't do.

Alchemy, Wealth and Eternal Life

“I look to heaven and I see
there's a silver dollar
in the sky shining down on me.”

-       Sitting In the Sun, Louis Armstrong

"Was it not because man had a fixed, determined form that he cannot possess eternal life?  Does not true life begin only when tangible form has been lost?"

- Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa


 

Reading “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, many thoughts cross my mind.  Each stems back to the same place – the nature of perception. Or, as we refer to it in more concrete, rational, scientific terms – cognition.

I’m an anthropologist by training, a traveler by nature and a linguist by inclination.  I’m also hard-wired to be pro-social, which is why I have always been fascinated in that which connects people and that which cleaves us apart.  The pursuit of this understanding has taken me around the world, from small communities in Ecuador to hot spots in Bosnia to the Pink Palace in Ontario.  A little story cuts to the root of what I have learned so far:

When I was living in Italy, a key Other identified by many of my Italian friends were the Maroccini – the Moroccans. The epithets used against foreign Moroccan workers were the same as has been used against any Other in history, whether it be the Gauls, the Irish, the Chinese or First Nations:

- They don’t think like you and I;
- They are corrupt, immoral, dangerous;
- They are intentionally out to get us;
- They are not to be trusted, therefore:
- We must defend against them, through offense if necessary.

It’s a deep-rooted fear of the unknown which quivers beneath the surface of many a mind to this day.

During a trip from Italy to Morocco with a busload of Moroccans and over weeks spent in various parts of Morocco proper, I heard the exact same prejudice raised.  This time, it was about the Italians on the part of Moroccans. South of the Atlas, I frequently heard the same words spoken by small-towners and Tuareg, but in reference to the big-city folk from Casa.

Of all the wonderful riches of diversity that separate ethnicities, linguistic groups, religious groups and political groups, people fundamentally have one key thing in common – a mistrust of each other. That mistrust is instinctual, limbic-based and fortified by a deficit of understanding.  That lack of awareness helps leave one with the feeling of being unempowered, of not having control.

Why, though? Why does surface or anecdotal knowledge lead us to focus on differences between people, when the similarities are so pronounced?  In my experience, language is the key. We codify everything – nature, people, positions – by giving them names.  Trouble is, the naming of things applies levels of value that are not intrinsic to the subject in question. Codification allows for more complex communication, certainly, but it equally imbues whatever's being defined with significance beyond its internal fabric.  We automatically mistrust what we don't understand, because it is different.  That mistrust wedges itself into our definitions.  That cognition-level stigma restricts us from knowing a subject on its own terms; instead, we know things in terms of what they mean to us.

The Other provides a clear example of this.  When you define a person as different than you, they become foreign, unknowable, threatening. Conversely, if we used the elements we have in common to form the base of understanding, diversity becomes an opportunity for growth, difference becomes a positive, the unknown becomes a teacher.

That variance in perspective leads to the great irony of alchemy, the mystical search for immortality and immediate wealth that played a role in fostering the development of modern science and Western thought in general.  The perspective that developed alchemy has left us with individual-focused definitions of wealth and life - a perspective which leaves us searching for answers to problems that exist in our perceptions alone.

This framework and the quest for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone is core to Western thought; therefore, it has informed the institutions and infrastructure that form the skeleton and nervous system of Western civilization. Our health care system is designed to help us individually live longer.  We want to live longer to enjoy wealth.  At the same time, we try to get rich as quickly as possible to be able to enjoy our wealth for greater parts of our lifespans (hence the inevitability of get-rich-quick schemes). Or, we tackle the problem from a slightly different angle and seek immortality and wealth through legend. It’s the same choice Achilles grappled with – glory or immortality, only now we define this by saying it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

When you define riches as that which are rare and difficult to obtain, you automatically set yourself on a competitive trajectory. Precious metals are rare, so it’s those at the top of the food chain who get them. Money doesn’t come easy, so it is seen as important. Unless you’ve got access to financial wealth – in that case, it’s some other rare commodity you seek, with your money, that helps define you as rich. This can be an artist’s work (which gains much value once it’s clear that their output is irrevocably limited) or a pet or pelt of a nearly-extinct animal. The pursuit of wealth is a perpetually isolating one, intrinsically twinned with the fear of losing something – something you have already, or perhaps the next opportunity if you don’t move quickly enough.

WEALTH

The big secret of the Philosopher’s Stone is this – you cannot turn common stones into gold, but there’s no particular reason why gold must be exclusively valuable. In fact, you can choose to value that which is all around you, if value is not prescribed as something you can have to the exclusion of others. Hence the Satchmo quote that kicked this article off – the glory of a sunset is a wealth everyone can attain when wealth is seen not as an individual end but as a personal, connective beginning.

What of the other quest of alchemy, the Elixir of Life, which is essentially the same conceit as the Fountain of Youth? The same principle of codification applies here. When you identify things in terms of possession, you either have something or someone else does.  If there's something someone else has and you don’t, you must’re probably missing out. There’s a reason why anxiety and depression are connected to consumption. Equally, when you view life on the individual level, it is short, your time is limited, the stress is on to get what you can with the time that you have.

This is what we do – we start inward, then expand slowly outward. We worry about our own lives, then the lives of our families, our self-identified groups, our communities and somewhere way down the line, our species and the general ecosystem. Yes, we in the West understand the circle of life, ashes to ashes, etc, but we don’t really believe it. Life is a trajectory, not a cycle; when we’re done, we’re done. This is all there is.

Of course, we could dig deeper, if we wanted to - cells within our body die and are replaced all the time. The fabric of who we are changes over the course of our lives - we're literally not the same people at our deaths as we were at our births. That same perspective can be applied to society; the death of an individual does not mean the end of society, just as the end of a society doesn't imply the end of the species.  Individual deaths actually facilitate the adaptability of the whole – as true for cells as it is for political parties or business ventures.  These days, in social contexts, we refer to this adaptive process by a new name – creative destruction.

It is widely recognized that the business which proves itself incapable of innovation is destined to fail, just as the body or society that does not adapt cannot last.  Of course, that which is successful will invariably incorporate elements of that which came before, as is the nature of evolution.  Existence IS a cycle of regeneration, not a trajectory; death is a starting place, as much as an end.

Yet our society is built of individuals seeking their own survival and benefit; that is the perspective that informs everything from the way we plan cities or conduct ourselves in traffic to the way we fund health care programs (again, designed to keep us ticking for as long as possible). Going inwards, we don't see the loss of a limb as the loss of self; so long as the self is intact, the limb can be compensated for (when it comes to impacts on our cognitive abilities, however, there is a sense that with neurological challenges, a measure of the man is lost).  At the outer (governance, corporate) level, individuals are often viewed the same way, though the emergence of the knowledge-based economy is changing this.

Systems are built with focus on how to support the individual, then expanded to groups and models. Institutions - public, Not-For-Profit, Private - worry about achieving their own interests and mandates first, frequently at the expense of others in their field. This is why we are being weighed down by the burdens of duplication, gaps and overlaps; repetition and inefficiency results when you look from the ground-up, rather than from the crowd inwards.

It is no surprise that the more densely integrated global society becomes, that trend is starting to change.  It’s also no coincidence that this change is being accompanied by a deeper understanding of cognitive function and how individual perception informs crowd behaviour.

LIFE

Have we strayed from the quest for the Elixir of Life?  No – we’ve just given it some background.  The nature of existence is cyclical, but the nature of cognition is linear.  The major religions touch on the circle of life – ashes to ashes, dust to dust, etc – but they do so from a linear fashion.

Consider: Hindus believe in reincarnation. There’s comfort in knowing that, in some way, your individual existence will go on. Buddhists, on the other hand, are focused on Nirvana – the ending of one’s individual existence. Samurai in feudal Japan looked at life from a completely different perspective – they focused on death. In the Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo tell us "The way of the warrior is death." This doesn’t mean Samurai were suicidal; what it meant was, the individual acceptance of death took away the fear of ending.  By accepting an end was inevitable, they had no resistance to living life fully.  Lao-tzu put it thusly:

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

When you perceive wealth as personal, it is fleeting.  When you view life as individual, it, too, is fleeting.

Alchemy is the pursuit of the eternal through the lens of the individual.  The eternal, though, is beyond the grasp of the individual – it is not achieved through chemistry or industry, but by shifting one’s perspective beyond the self.  Don Tapscott calls this “networked intelligence.”  That expansion of self is a proven generator of wealth.

The real magic, then, happens when we sublimate the self and allow ourselves to connect with the matrix of the eternal.  Wealth is not isolating, but shared.  Life is not personal, it is systematic.  We move forward, as they say, together.