January 2016 – Engaging Peace

Clever devils: getting good people to act bad

Posted on January 28, 2016 by kathiemm

“In Self-Defense”. 1876 editorial cartoon by A. B. Frost. Depicts a caricatured former Confederates in the U.S. South with a knife and smoking gun in his hands standing over the corpse of an African-American toddler.
Image is in the public domain.

Moral disengagement involves a set of unconscious psychological processes allowing individuals to engage in or support or tolerate inhumane treatment of others while still thinking of themselves as good people. Common examples include using euphemistic language to make bad things sound less bad (“collateral damage”), pseudo-moral justifications (“the war to end all wars”), displacement or diffusion of responsibility (“I was just following orders”), advantageous comparison (“killing a couple of terrorists is a lot better than letting them kill thousands”), and attribution of blame/dehumanization (“axis of evil threatening the peace of the world”).

Unscrupulous power-hungry political leaders throughout history have often successfully promoted moral disengagement in those whom they want to dominate for their own purposes. Unfortunately, in regard to the burgeoning global refugee crisis, expressions of moral disengagement in the home of the “tired and the poor” are rife.

Consider the following comments. What forms of moral disengagement, as listed above, do you see?

“When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse….it could be the great Trojan horse of all time…”
“some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy….things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
“One of the problems that we have and one of the reasons we’re so ineffective is they [terrorists] are using them (civilians, family members) as shields….It’s a horrible thing, but we’re fighting a very politically correct war.”
“I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they do to us….They don’t use waterboarding over there….They use chopping off people’s heads.”
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems… they’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

A SIMPLE, NAÏVE APPEAL
To the Taliban, ISIS, Pentagon, Kremlin, and Everyone Else

Posted on January 25, 2016February 1, 2016 by kathiemm

By Guest Author Tom Greening, January 2016

•Please stop killing people and destroying things they need and treasure.

•Help us all work peaceably together to create good lives for everyone.

•That will take a lot of effort, creativity,
sacrifice, cooperation.

•We can, we must do it.

•The alternative is horrible, endlessly tragic.

•Let’s show each other and our children that we and they are not members of a monstrous species.

•Let’s prove that together we can transcend the past and create a humane and loving future for everyone.

•Let’s begin doing this now.

Tom Greening was educated at Yale, the University of Vienna, and the University of Michigan. He has been a psychologist in private practice for over 50 years, and is a retired professor from Saybrook University, UCLA, and Pepperdine. He was Editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology for 35 years. He is a Fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and Poet Laureate of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry.

How to Feed the Power Hungry

Posted on January 21, 2016 by kathiemm

Cartoon from the records of the National Child Labor Committee (U.S.). During the Progressive Era many organizations were formed to outlaw the child labor that was a feature of Gilded Age industrial revolution, which included teenage girls working long hours in mills. The cartoon shows a child laborer supporting the world with her labor, including an uncaring robber baron industrialist.
Image is in the public domain.

There are two easy ways to feed the voracious power-wielding groups in this country, those contemporary robber barons who gobble up the sustenance, the lives, the well-being of millions of people and the planet on which they struggle to survive:

1) Succumb to their lies, their distortions, their fear-mongering, their racism, their endless worship of capitalism, and their militarization of everything; how succumb? by voting for them;

and

2) Don’t vote. Stay home. Tell yourself, the world is an unholy mess. Your vote won’t matter. There is no difference between political parties. That’ll get them. Not.

This is a big year. Another Presidential election, Congressional elections, other elections, and if you’re a US citizen 18 or over, you have the right to vote. There may be no right more important than that one. Thousands of people were locked up, beaten, and murdered so that you and your compatriots would have that right.

From small communities to the nation as a whole, countless decisions are decided by votes. Congress votes to preserve or destroy forests, wildlife, the atmosphere.

The President votes by approving or vetoing Congressional votes.

Community level governments decide whether or not to put more money into education, recreation, local social services based on voter behavior.

It’s not too late to make a new year’s resolution and this one won’t involve giving up things you like.

Vote.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Posted on January 18, 2016February 1, 2016 by kathiemm

guest author: Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D.

The new calendar year is upon us . . . in every sense of the word! We use the New Year as an opportunity for renewal — a chance for a fresh start. We leave behind the accumulate residue of the past year, and respond now with a blank slate of possibilities — an imagined vision of what could be . . . “If only.” Yes, it is the “If only,” constraining us and inspiring us. I once wrote a wisdom bite: “If! A two-letter word, simple in sound, profound in consequence.”

So here we are! Wanting a new start, but clear we have much unfinished business from last year. There is wisdom in knowing the challenges we face, for life is never free of them. It is also useful to know the resources we possess, even if they may be inadequate to the task. It is useful to explore the dynamics of resource-challenge relations. There will always be tradeoffs and compromises, and these are disappointing. Yet, they constitute a reality that cannot be ignored. So what does 2016 look like from the resource-challenge perspective?

In my opinion, there are reasons for fear, and reasons for hope. Has it ever been anything different? Hasn’t history shown us each age was filled with its challenges and resources? Yes, this is true. But what is different this year – 2016 – is the “global stage” in which the challenges and resources are being tested and contested. We are unprepared for the magnitude of stage. And, the problem is resources are always fewer in number than challenges. But is their power less?

There is something noble and inspirational about the willingness to assert human and environmental dignity and worth via various resources. There is something noble about joining causes to bring positive changes. This may be the most important thing! It is hard to speak of the nobility of the human spirit when we consider the widespread abuses and insults human have engendered. But perhaps the “process” of responding to challenges reminds us of the essence of life itself – a felt force seeking and pursuing, not only survival, but growth, development, and becoming. Go for it!

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.

Show, by your actions, that you choose peace over war, freedom over oppression, voice over silence, service over self-interest, respect over advantage, courage over fear, cooperation over competition, action over passivity, diversity over uniformity, and justice over all.