Addendum posted January 3, 2024: Because of recent changes in how individuals tend to read online posts and use -- or rather, misuse -- posts (by taking bits and pieces out of context and using catchy phrases to support their personal crusades), I want to say right up front, before you get to the paragraphs I wrote in November 2016, that I do not support former President Donald Trump in any way on any topic. Nor am I likely to ever change my mind. He is a coward -- a bullying, narcissistic, selfish coward.
In 2016, I didn't have the evidence to support or condone a flat out, across the board denunciation of the personality and policies of Donald Trump. But since the January 6, 2021 violence on Capitol Hill, Trump has, through his own words and actions, provided abundant proof about the kind of man he really is. Today, I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last person in Christendom.
Following this addendum is the post I originally wrote over seven years ago. You can decide for yourself whether Trump believes he's been elevated to the status of God.
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No one was more surprised than I when I woke up on the morning of the 2016 U.S. election to discover my vote was going to Trump.
I
should quickly explain that I'm Canadian, so I couldn't actually vote,
but, like so many others outside the U.S., I was carefully watching the
primaries and the election.This election seemed somehow different from
U.S. elections of the past. It had little to do with typical issues such
as budget priorities, foreign policy, or health care reform. It was,
for all intents and purposes, a debate about the soul--not, as you might
imagine, the Soul of America (a sweeping phrase that aims to capture
the self image of a nation) or the soul as a metaphor for righteousness
and moral relativism (in other words, a justification for just about
anything) but the actual permanent inner soul of individual human
voters.Yes, that kind of soul.
You don't hear the word "soul"
used much these days except in limited contexts. "Soul" in its core
meaning of non-Materialist continuing consciousness has become an
embarrassment in our society. Even those who profess faith in God are
often reluctant to acknowledge the soul outside the strict limits of
theology and religious doctrine. Excuses abound. We say the soul can't
be seen, so it's superstitious nonsense (though we now run our lives on
unseen wireless networks). We say the soul is part of a harmful
dualistic body-soul paradigm we no longer accept (though we doggedly
embrace many other dualisms that fly in the face of quantum weirdness
and we ignore the complex, interfolded, universal energy systems we still
know so little about). We say the soul is a religious idea, so the idea
must be suspect because sometimes religious people do bad things (though
non-religious people do bad things all the time and we don't discard
every useful contribution made over the centuries by the non-religious
among us). We say the soul, even if we do have one, must be greatly
inferior to the human mind, since, after all, any sensible person can
see for him/herself what the human mind can accomplish.
Yet the
story of the human mind is far more complicated than most of us can
imagine, and what we've seen in the recent U.S. election is the reality
of the human mind writ large. It's a story about how we use our free
will, how we make our choices, how we find our inner courage, and how we
learn to balance both Happiness and Meaning in our daily lives as human
beings.
Many people aren't yet fully aware of recent research
into the intricate workings of the human brain. It's a vast topic, of
course, and the avalanche of new findings seems overwhelming at times.
Eat this, don't eat this. Do this exercise, don't do this exercise.
Always stay positive, don't always stay positive. Go to church, don't go
to church. Admittedly, it's very confusing, especially since many
people assume there's one simple pathway amidst all the confusion that
will lead us (if we do it right) to excellent health, longevity, status,
success, romance, and, above all, Happiness.
Except there isn't one simple pathway and there never has been.
The
biological brain of human beings isn't wired to seek only one pathway.
There are actually two main paradigms or operating systems working
side by side in the brain from the time of birth till the time of death.
It's a theory about the brain called, among other things, Dual Process
Theory, and it's based on observations about the priorities and
contributions of different networks within the brain and central nervous
system.
With the cautious restraint of scientific language,
these two different systems have been labelled System 1 and System 2
(which always makes me think of Thing 1 and Thing 2 in Dr. Seuss’s
classic children’s story The Cat in the Hat). System 2 aligns closely with our current
understanding of the human mind's best qualities. Its priorities are
logic, rules, status, analytic reasoning, algorithmic models,
predictable results, and short-term rewards and sensations of pleasure
(Happiness), all of which are most definitely necessary for biological
survival in human societies. System 2 processing systems are newer to
the brain in evolutionary terms. In the Big 5 model of personality
traits, System 2 is linked to agreeableness and neuroticism.
The
other processing system, called System 1, is much older in evolutionary
terms and is linked to empathy, faith, emotional cognition, intuition,
creativity, sexuality, calculation of complex systems using differential
calculus and non-linear quantum flow rates, along with long-term
rewards and delayed gratification (Meaning and Soul). These are the
human gifts so necessary to a sense of safety and "heart" in
interpersonal relationships. In the Big 5 model, System 1 is linked to conscientiousness,
openness to experience, and extraversion.
What
the human brain is wired for, and what it constantly strives for, is
some semblance of balance between these two different yet equally
important processing systems. In recent decades, however, our society
has been creeping closer and closer to an imbalanced System 2 cultural
narrative, one in which the short-term needs of Happiness take constant
precedence over the longer-term needs of System 1 Meaning. This
imbalance, I believe, is the root cause of the tension we were all
sensing in the run-up to the 2016 election.
 |
| If you break down this photo into small pieces, you can logically explain the physics, chemistry, and biology of each small piece: how lakes freeze, how sunlight reaches the Earth, how clouds fill the sky. That's the System 2 approach. What you can't define logically when you look at the whole picture is the the knowledge of God's presence. System 1 looks past the logic to see beauty, hope, and wonder -- all "big picture" emotions that lend Meaning to our lives. Photo credit JAT 2021. |
The brain's System 2
pathways, enamoured of rules and logic and Happiness, have a most
unfortunate tendency to throw the whole brain under the bus of identity
politics. Boiled down to its essence, identity politics is the belief that if you follow the
cause-and-effect pathway of rights, you'll reach your goal of personal
and societal perfection without the need to impose any responsibilities on
your citizens. This pathway of rights is based on a series of either-or/black-or-white algorithms. What inevitably follows from this approach, however, is not empathy for others or common sense fairness, but an addiction within the brain to "saviour" paradigms. The "saviours" are the small number of righteous people who, according to themselves, are the only ones who can be trusted to understand the algorithm
of Happiness properly. These are the ideologues who try to bully everyone else into accepting the "truths" of identity politics, and who adamantly believe the rest of us are just boobs too
uneducated/racially biased/gender biased/historically biased to look at
the picture from the "correct" System 2 angle. And, of course, there's only one
correct angle as far as the algorithm is concerned. But only an ingrate would turn down the fine gift of salvation for all,
n'est-ce pas?
It just seems so darned logical to a
System-2-dominated brain that human beings can be forced to be Happy and
forced to have empathy for each other through legislation. And to a
certain point, it's true. A nation needs clear rules to protect human
rights, which do, indeed, help create Happiness. But at the same time, a
nation needs equally clear rules to protect human responsibilities and
the human need for interpersonal Meaning (as Dr. Viktor Frankl, author
of Man's Search for Meaning, so wisely recognized during his time
as a WWII concentration camp inmate). You can't build a nation on the
pursuit of Happiness alone. Happiness is sometimes colossally stupid,
and it needs to be slowed down and reined in by the non-linear insights
and sense of purpose that come only from Meaning. (Needless to say, our
society's addiction to fast-paced technology and social media isn't
helping this issue.)
 |
| Greek philosophers asked many questions about how to create a moral society, and some of their answers are still with us today. Although it's not often acknowledged, the flourishing of philosophical, political, and scientific inquiry in ancient Greece was probably due in part to their deep respect for the arts -- their respect for poets, sculptors, musicians, and architects. Development of the brain's System 1 circuits depends heavily on lifelong exposure to all facets of creativity and the arts, and such development enhances creativity in more logical fields, such as science and medicine. This Roman bust, which copied a Hellenistic bust of the 2nd to 3rd century BCE, may have been the head of a specific person, perhaps an ivy-crowned poet. On display at the Royal Ontario Museum. Photo credit JAT 2017. |
The need for balance between rights and
responsibilities is where System 2 thinking collapses under the weight
of its own certainty. When emotionally nuanced impulses from System 1
circuits are consistently suppressed (especially moral thoughts related
to guilt, sense of personal responsibility, right and wrong choices, and
empathy for others), the principles of neuroplasticity dictate that the
brain will eventually rewire itself to favour input from System 2
thought processes. At a practical level, System 2's agreeableness, aided
by its neuroticism, wind around each other to create an almost
unbreakable chain of denial, collusion, lack of courage, lack of
honesty, and malignant self-righteousness. At first it looks like a very
reasoned form of morality where no one's feelings ever get hurt. But
eventually its dualistic nature is revealed, and relationships devolve
into plagues of sugary-sweet niceness (agreeableness) countered by tides
of vicious trolling and bullying (neuroticism), with only small scraps
in the middle that look like common sense, respect for others, or faith
in something other than our own exceptionalism. The inner soul, which is
nothing if not empathetic, complains constantly of these injustices,
but the System 2 circuits have stopped listening. It's the very
definition of denial.
In addition, System 2's unwholesome
dominance can lead it to assume it has the power to "save" everyone
who's wasting their time on old-fashioned moral traits such as
humbleness, emotional courage, patience, meaning, and soul intuition. It
makes the mistake of believing that when the human mind builds pure
Happiness, everything else will fall into place according to some vast
cosmic Materialist law. It logically preaches that Meaning and soul will
be proven redundant and human progress will finally achieve apotheosis.
Simple as that.
The 2016 U.S. election suggests that almost half
the American populace isn't buying into this bread-and-circuses
illusion of Happiness. They may not know exactly why they aren't happy,
or why they want to vote for a man who is demonstrably imbalanced much
of the time. But perhaps, like me, they just can't stomach one more
minute of the suffocating contempt so many now show toward the parts of
ourselves that make us most human and most capable of love: our System 1
processes.
I was rooting for Trump not because I like the way he
treats other people (I don't like his behaviour at all), but because I
like Clinton's saviour complex even less. It remains to be seen whether
Trump can find the balance within himself to forge policies that honour
both rights and responsibilities, System 2 and System 1 perspectives,
Happiness and Meaning. If he's able to find the courage to do this, I
have no doubt his soul will rejoice.
In the meantime, I toast all those
Americans who want some respect for the other half of their brains.
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Addendum posted January 13. 2021: It's been a bit over 4 years since I wrote this post, and, during this time, a lot has changed. The entire world has been dealing with the unexpected travails of the novel coronavirus we call COVID-19. And the United States has again struggled with an election where a man named Donald Trump has forced a debate about the soul.
I'm writing this addendum on the day the U.S. House of Representatives is going to vote on a motion to impeach Trump for inciting insurrection. I hope the vote succeeds.
Over the past four years, Trump has shown with increasing clarity that he has no courage. He doesn't have the courage to listen to his own soul, let alone the souls of millions of Americans who needed a courageous leader during the 2020 pandemic, but instead found themselves saddled with someone who could only think about his own loss of Happiness when he lost the fall election.
On the plus side, people from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been appalled by the barrage of lies spewed by Trump and his closest supporters, lies that directly incited violence on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. America has been forced to see the ugly side of rhetoric, personality cults, and dualistic political mongering -- all negative aspects of System 2 when left unchecked by System 1.
It's a lesson we all should have learned from 20th century history, but apparently we needed a refresher.
