“If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.” (Jung)
In the 19th century Americans were taught civics, a process which among other things instilled in most citizens a sense of structural regard for the views of others. By the mid sixties American public education had largely abandoned civics in favor of “social studies” which even to this day tends to suborn civics to a week long unit–usually in the sixth grade or so. But civics is more than merely learning how a bill becomes a law: its about how to achieve good results in respect to your neighbor. Its about social psychology. And yes, its about the “golden rule”. The G.R. is the best shorthand to avoid the subjectivity which allows us to imagine our neighbors as fools. How did you forget we are all part of the same twilight?
Strife and misunderstanding are better stories than civics and successful small “d” democracy and you can see the effects of this in the 24 hour talk cycle cable television and radio industries. Carl Jung again: “We still attribute to the other fellow all the evil and inferior qualities that we do not like to recognize in ourselves.”
Well of course. But the commodification of this weakness coupled with the failure to teach civics means that Americans see one another as betes noirs and scapegoats and the effects of this are actually rather dangerous. I have written on this blog or have referenced story after story about police abuse or administrative abuse of people with disabilities–especially those with psychiatric or intellectual disabilities.
What would a better education in social psychology achieve? The most important thing I think is that it would teach people to meditate on the lowly side of their own natures–while I don’t like William Bennet much, I like his Book of Virtues. “What would you do little boy if you saw a blind man selling apples and one of his apples fell to the ground? A. I’d steal it and run away. B. I’d tell the blind man and hand it back to him.
The problem of course is that not understanding our own lowly capacities we are too quick to project them onto our undeserving neighbors.
Look at Lou Dobbs.
Jung again: “A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.”
What would you do little boy? Little girl?
“I’d taser a deaf man seated on a toilet.”
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 