Subtlety, Intimacy, Motivation X

The Beats, Boomers, civil rights marchers, Green Peacers, and feminists took a huge leap towards--perhaps even into--multiculturalism. I say "perhaps" because we have little idea right now of just what is possible a few more steps down the road, not to diminish what has happened so far. "Huge leap" is my estimation of what has occurred in that direction. Of course, there is farther to go concerning race relations, wage equality, tax structure, educational system, environmental protection and revitalization, media and corporate responsibility, etc.

As far as I can tell, there are two or three things that stand out as being central now though not addressed adequately. There are the constant issues of economic deprivation paired with population control. It is impossible to speak of one without the conversation being haunted by the other, so we might as well speak of them together. And when I speak of economic deprivation, education, cultural opportunities, and upward mobility are included in that. Everyone is familiar with these issues, though, and I don't necessarily have anything really insightful to add. I don't know that we have adequately theorized "empowerment", resentment and reluctance, and the need for failure in a meritocracy. I think this is where at least an overview of Motivational Interviewing is helpful. In our post-colonial, economically global world, this approach is relevant to the ethnic, class, and specialist differences and relationships between various groups of people. In my opinion, one of the most basic aspects of Motivational Interviewing is that it addresses ambivalence by utilizing "push" motivations as well as "pull" motivations. Rather than trying to tell someone else what to do, motivational interviewing outlines a way to elicit multiple (or simply, "both", in some cases) motivations around any particular topic. Rather than just trying to "accentuate the positive" and ignore the rest, in motivational interviewing, the negative aspects of a situation are not ignored but solutions are not authoritatively provided and enforced.

While the Boomers rejected authoritarianism, GenX-ers tended to go with apathy in response to authoritarianism. Neither rejection nor apathy, though, build or sustain a neighborhood. We can't ignore these common responses, then, but we can't lock ourselves into them either. I don't know that becoming a yuppie or a putz in response is all that helpful either. But in moving forward, it is important to be able to feel the motivations that push us away from what we don't want as well as the motivations that pull us towards what we do. In most current power analyses, I see positives and negatives weighed but not much attention paid to neutrality--especially to equanimity. To some extent, because some Beats and Boomers embraced an influx of Eastern transcendental techniques and rest-inducing techniques, meditation has become important in our culture, perhaps even helping push a revival of prayer and other Christian methods. But because nearly everything that the Boomers pushed was pushed in extremist ways (breaking out of the old forms), transcendence and rest/peace/equanimity techniques have not yet been institutionalized--although this is happening to some extent in some places--rather, so many of the "new" influences are still somewhat disconnected from one another. The point about motivational interviewing, though, is that there are clearly understandable ways of addressing ambivalence even if ambivalence itself never seems clear. So how can we bring these disparate influences together? There are at least three parts to answering that question well.

It's easy enough to negotiate a humanistic perspective's outlook on what needs to be avoided. For the most part, most societies and governments recognize a certain internationlist-humanist thought policing (whether they follow the general trend or not), certain liberal assumptions about how things should be which go against certain historical tribalist anachronisms like the recent Saudi trial of an illiterate woman who was forced to sign a confession to witchcraft of all things. While there may appear to be a certain cultural arrogance in my comment, the Saudis do not claim to be inhumanist; generosity and truthfulness and fairness are part of the Islamic religion. Which might mean that we need to discuss what humanism is or what may be universal/international in humanist values, but we may be able to come up with a common list of things to avoid (even if we maintain a disagreement on hanging illiterate "witches" forced to unknowingly sign confessions). Of course, the applications will be forever debated. C'est la vie. But we can generally agree that not many people want in their society: starvation, disease, lack of opportunity, oppression, environmental degradation, etc. Generally.

The second grouping--things that are generally desired beyond threat avoidance--will be more unique to each society. We should clearly delineate, in international-multicultural discussions, the difference between what humans can agree on universally wanting to avoid (negatively) and the things that individuals and unique societies want (positively). Not everyone wants virtual pornography streaming into every home, accessible to anyone who can turn on a computer and type in a webpage or searchword; some do; more often, it is a question of whether we want to take the risk. While some positions will consistently be seen as more "progressive", I'm not sure I always prefer that progressivism. Sometimes traditional values are much more solid than progressivism, so this needs to be an ongoing discussion within and between societies. I really don't want sex slaves traded into America through Mexico whether that practice is framed as an ancient tradition or a new sort of practice--point being, again, some things can be generally agreed on even if that leaves a few pimps out in the rain.

The third grouping may have a great degree of commonality between various cultural presentations. The neutral aspects of relating which allow us to communicate may also be fairly universal--equanimity, resilience in the face of challenge, a reasonable amount of solidity when dealing with difference and change, rest and relaxation, etc. Again, the values and their proportions that each society emphasizes may be different according to changing circumstances and varied backgrounds, but these are generally recognized though not necessarily taught explicitly in effective ways.

The question that stands out here, then, is: in the dynamic between historical tribalism and the internal health of each uniquely developing living society, how can we note the difference between appeasing tyranny and respecting sovereignty of cultures and individuals? In other words, how can anyone tolerate intolerance? I firmly believe that the new internationalist liberal world order is not necessarily more humane or wise than historical tribalisms of various stripes. But, it is possible for us all to move in a generally positive direction.