Posts under ‘Society and culture’

When The Minority Is You

Nov 26th, 2009

What do you do

When democracy’s all through

What do you do

When minority means you?

‘What Do You Do‘ by The Proclaimers (from ‘Sunshine on Leith‘ -1988)

I was listening to this song the other day. I don’t usually pay much attention to the lyrics, but something about the line ‘What do you do when minority means you?’ caused me to stop and think (yes, it happens from time to time!).

Minority of One

I am a minority of one.

No other human being has the same view of the world, interests or responsibility for my life as I do. Even if I found someone who was similar enough I doubt I would fully trust them to govern any major aspect of my life. That’s my responsibility and I don’t want to put aside some things that are important to me – such as my continued education, my health, the well-being of my family etc..

We are all minorities.

As being a minority can be a lonely experience, we tend to group together in many different ways. We’re each part of communities based around families, schools, churches, interests, work or where we live. Each of those communities is a minority as well.

The only point at which we stop being part of a minority, I suspect, is when the community is so large it encompasses each and every one of us – the community of all the human beings sharing this planet.

Majority Rule

I get the impression at the level of society that the mainstream has settled for our (principally US and European variants) vision of how to organise at society level. Of course it’s a hugely complex thing and living in Europe I’m much more familiar with Western forms of government that are often conveniently lumped together and called ‘Democracy‘.

One of the principles I’ve taken for granted through my whole life is that of ‘majority rule‘ – one of the seemingly unchallenged foundations of democracy. Whenever a group of people has to make a collective decision, in my experience it ends with someone saying ‘Let’s vote.’ Of course, the unspoken assumption is that the majority will get their way and the minority will immediately give up their disagreement and follow the decision.

I’ve been wondering if maybe the root of many conflicts and violence in the world are a direct result of this assumption. After all, whenever a majority forms, there is, by definition, a minority. Aren’t many of the wars in the world a direct result of separation into majority and minority? Minorities fighting to get heard? Majorities resorting to force to get submission of the minority?

Is ‘majority rule’ really the best way we can imagine of making collective decisions?

Learning and Growing

As an individual I’m changing and developing throughout my whole life.

Physically I may start to decline at some point, but how I see the world and operate in it gets better and better as I learn. When things don’t work I make adjustments and when they do, I capture what works and repeat it. Sometimes I go down a path that isn’t serving me and then I might make radical change, but usually the growth is more gradual.

I’ve found that this is not just an unconscious experience but one where I bring things to the surface, explore my experiences to learn from them, to consciously grow and seek improvements.

While the process and the journey are different for all of us, I believe we’re fundamentally built the same way – as learning machines.

I do this as an individual, but …

… Are We Learning As Communities?

Probably, but there are not many signs of it. Reading the media and watching the foreign policies of the powerful nations I would have to conclude that ‘democracy’ and ‘majority rule’ are perceived as the ultimate form of governance. So much so that there’s a desire to export them all over the world.

I don’t have any answers at the level of society – but I’m concerned by the lack of conscious questionning of our ’systems’ by those who hold power.

There are form of governance that don’t alientate minorities – for example ‘sociocracy‘. But there seems little appetite to introduce these kinds of government that include minorities rather than exclude them.

And it scares me.

After all – we are all minorities.

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A World Where Conflicts Are Solved Peacefully

Oct 20th, 2009

by ianpeatey.

16 comments

Something suddenly became crystal clear to me yesterday. What had been fuzzy and out-of-focus, in a flash became sharp and well defined. It wasn’t of Newtonian ‘apple-falling-from-tree-equals-gravity ‘ proportions – yet important for me nonetheless.

Dreaming Of World Peace

I’d just returned from an International NVC Mediation Conference and was chatting to a friend over a coffee, sharing our impressions of the Conference. I get quite animated when talking about my dream for the future of the world – the one I state as clearly as I can in the Welcome message over there on the right:

“… a world where conflicts are solved peacefully …”

Despite my passion for this vision, I found myself apologising for it as naïve, idealistic and impossible to achieve. I could even say I was whining a bit!

Why was I apologising, I asked myself? Do I really have my head in the clouds, I wondered? It was more confusing as I’d just spent the last 5 days together with 60 people from all over the world, learning how to mediate between two conflicting sides.

Then the apple fell.

I, like the majority of people, haven’t believed that universal peace is possible:

“World Peace? Wonderful idea .. but no chance of happening! At least not in my lifetime”

But why not?

Are we doomed to a future of turmoil, hurting and killing each other? Are we really unable, as a species, to rise above that and choose love and peace instead of hatred and fighting?

Believing In The Possible

If I don’t believe something is possible then how can I expect it to happen? If I’m trying to achieve a goal without the conviction that it can happen, my energy is getting diverted. It’s half-hearted.

This last week I found the belief I was missing. I started to believe that not only is peace possible, it’s actually not that difficult!

I learned a few skills and a simple process designed to help solve conflicts peacefully. They’re not hard to learn and we all have the foundations already – for example, empathy, interrupting, asking questions, making requests, keeping track of a conversation. There’s a little more to it than that – but not much.

I became clear that anyone can learn how to solve conflict peacefully.

World peace is possible.

All it needs is enough people to learn and apply these skills. We’ll have world peace when most of us learn a little – just enough to solve day to day conflicts, and a few learn deeper to deal with the more intense conflicts.

Peace In My Lifetime

Conflict is not going away – it is an important part of life. It’s stimulating and in the tension where interests meet there’s a creative possibility greater than what the individual sides bring. Conflict – inner or outer – drives us to innovate, create and is part of being alive. I love conflict!

Peace is not the absence of conflict but the resolution of conflict with love and respect.

I strongly believe the majority of the world’s population want this – they just don’t believe it’s possible. Many people get a superficial kick from violent conflict – but deep in their hearts are wishing to get their kicks in ways that are peaceful.

We all want peace in our lives but we don’t yet believe it’s possible. We’ve built a world where we are constantly receiving messages designed to keep hope away and keep us believing in violence.

War has been glamorised to get us to support killing in the name of the nation, religion or other cause
Violence has been pushed down our throats as entertainment by the mass media
Our culture values aggression as a sign of strength.

We’ve lost our collective hope that it can be different.

Yesterday I had also lost hope.

Today I write boldly and clearly:

Help me build a world where conflicts are solved peacefully – it is not only possible, it’s easy.

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Art Of Peaceful Competition

Oct 13th, 2009

by ianpeatey.

11 comments

The spirit of the universe is at once creative and destructive.. it creates while it destroys and destroys while it creates, and therefore it remains to us a riddle. And we must inevitably resign ourselves to this.

Albert Schweitzer

Competition is all around us .. in our business world, our education systems, sport and many forms of entertainment. It’s impossible to escape the dominance of competitive thinking and practice.

People who know me would probably describe me as an averagely competitive person. Getting me to ‘play’ might be a challenge, but when I do play, I like to win and it’s not the end of the world if I don’t. Whether it’s in my personal, social or economic life, I’ve always preferred co-operation over competition and partnership over adversarial relationships.

Somehow I had this idea that ‘competition’ is bad and I avoided it as much as possible. Recently I started to question that belief. One of the reasons was that I really enjoy watching sport and rooting for my favourite soccer team seemed hypocritical – but I still did it!

I think there are two basic approaches to competition, one creative and one destructive.

Competition as a creative force

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Ayrton Senna

This approach is to use my fellow competitors to help me raise my game to the best it can be. Winning is a measure of how well I played, relative to my opponent. It feels good when I’ve won, not because I’ve beaten anyone but because I’ve performed the best I could and that was better than anyone else.

My energy is about creating the circumstances to raise both of our games to the highest level possible. I want all my competitors to be at their peak and without my full respect towards them this won’t happen.

In my view there are few things more creative and exciting to watch than two (or more) sides at the height of their game, challenging each other to more and more skill. Whether it’s in sport, business or any other endeavour.

Yes, there may be a winner and a prize. But it is the art of the competition itself that is of primary importance. It’s what we’ve created together and we can all feel proud by having taken part.

Competition as a destructive force

Racing is not what I like to do; it’s winning.

Jeff Gordon

This approach is about winning at all costs. Winning is the end and competition the means. If I approach it in this way then I may be equally focused on getting the other side to lose than on raising my own game. One upmanship and cheating (maybe even stretching the rules to the extreme) all become part of the game and my focus is to prove (to myself, and ideally the other side), that I’m better. Winning feels good, not because I’ve played the best I could, but because I’ve won.

As competition is secondary to winning it’s much less likely that we’ll create much. It may happen but is a by-product and may be more about creative ways to destroy the opposition.

I’m more interested in myself than I am in my other player and in extreme cases I want to damage my opponent – certainly I’m not at all interested in respecting them.

I don’t believe either is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but is more about how we approach life and the people in it.

Personally I’m more interested in creative competition and avoid people who only play to win.

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Celebrity, Sex and Grainy Photos

Oct 7th, 2009

by ianpeatey.

14 comments

On the rare occasions I pick up a newspaper or magazine I feel more and more like a visitor from another planet with each page I turn. This morning I picked up a newspaper laying on the back seat of the taxi I was riding in. I didn’t understand the language, but as they say, ‘a picture says a thousand words’.

This page in particular caught my eye – with the headline, ‘Girls, where have you left your knickers?‘

This picture is one of three photos of different women, all in their twenties and apparently local ‘celebrities’. The photographers had somehow managed to point a camera up their skirts to reveal the crotch of each woman. The text claimed that celebrity women were joining Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in an attention seeking trend of not wearing panties while in public.

Apart from the obvious fact that this young lady is, in fact, wearing underwear, it seems to me she’s more concentrated on her mobile phone than on attracting attention. And the graininess of the pictures would indicate the photographer took the picture at a distance with a telephoto lens.

I don’t know whether to be appalled or amused.

Probably both!

It’s Amusing

I’m amused by how stupid the whole thing is. Apparently this is ‘news’ and something the public should know about. She’s not wearing knickers because that’s what the article says – apparently it’s irrelevant what you actually see in the picture.

To be fair to the journalist, the other two women in the article were definitely not wearing anything under their dresses – though I can’t be 100% sure as it’s amazing what they can do with PhotoShop!

I concluded that I’ll have to be careful myself not to meet any ‘celebrities’ in case ‘celebrity’ is contagious. The woman in the picture is the former girlfriend of a footballer – which apparently puts her in the ‘celebrity’ status.

It’s Appalling

I’m appalled by how degrading the whole thing is.

It’s easy to dismiss it as the ravings of a small gutter newspaper with no real influence. But this was in the paper with the highest daily circulation in this country.

How can it conceivably be ‘ok’ to point a camera between someone’s legs without their permission and publish it as being in the public interest? There’s already far too much sexual violence, humiliation and degradation in the world.

This kind of ‘light’ news does influence people. How can it not? It influenced me to write this article – in what ways has it influenced more impressionable and less questioning minds?

It joins the vast number of similar articles and pictures that objectify people in the public eye. More than that it objectifies women and treats the human body as something to snicker at.

It’s not often I feel both appalled and helpless. But I really have no idea how to change this kind of thing.

And it does need to change!

Vered at MomGrind often writes about this kind of thing – it was one of the first blogs I followed as a young man and I can’t recommend it enough.

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A World Of Deals And Exchanges

Sep 23rd, 2009

by ianpeatey.

12 comments

What happened to altruism and generosity? The sheer pleasure of giving without any expectation of getting something in return.

“Oh Ian! You’re so naive!” the cynic may cry and then quote some well worn epithet:

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours

There’s no such thing as a free lunch

Well, I think it’s sad!

I noticed it very clearly yesterday evening. I went with Elena, my daughter (6), to a restaurant to meet some friends for a few hours. I was watching how easily Elena made contact with people. I think by the end of the evening she knew all the staff in the restaurant, to the point she was helping one of the waitresses serve the tables. I found it wonderful seeing her proudly take bread baskets to the customers.

Then on the way home, as we waited at the bus stop, she befriended a middle aged lady. I’m not quite sure how she did it but by the time we’d got off (coincidentally at the same stop) she’d recounted her life story to the obviously enraptured lady.

None of this was in any way exceptional to my little one, just another day out meeting people and sharing a few important stories from her life. There was no hint of a suggestion that she might want something in exchange other than the pleasure she got from smiling, chatting and helping.

It’s natural – not learned.

I’m such a proud father!

I’d like to take credit that it’s how I’ve raised her but I honestly think it’s natural. In the innocence of childhood we are not suspicious of others and wondering what they want from us. We’re not scared to smile freely and give of ourselves with no expectation of getting something back.

As children grow up they learn to behave differently. And where do they learn that?

It is us adults that teach our children to be suspicious, to negotiate for things, to do deals and to withhold themselves. It is us adults that have a hard time making effortless connection with people we meet day to day. It is us adults that transform the perfectly natural and innocent approach of our children into something more selfish and based on a mentality of scarcity.

It’s all about exchange

We’ve become so used to turning everything into an exchange we’ve forgotten the sheer pleasure of just giving without any expectation of something in return. Even as something as simple as a smile or eye contact is a free gift – yet we expect something in return.

Consider this. If you are walking down the street and a stranger approaches you or maybe just smiles at you, what’s the first thought that enters your head?

If you’re like me it’s probably something like “What do they want?”

If I turn that around, that’s precisely the same reaction I’d expect from you if I was the stranger walking towards you and smiling. I don’t like it but that thought is so deeply engrained it’s hard to remove.

Over the last couple of years I try an experiment from time to time. I make the small step of making eye contact as I go about my daily business. With shop assistants, people on the bus, walking down the street or in a café.

Try it yourself sometime.

It’s very revealing as it’s almost impossible to get eye contact with someone. Everyone goes about with their heads down and their hearts sleeping. I thought maybe it was just me. Perhaps I look a bit creepy (I don’t think so but I can never be sure) and it’s only me that people avoid. But it’s not. Everyone goes about their day to day stuff avoiding most kind of contact other the unavoidable.

And I still think it’s sad.

I don’t want my children to grow up that way.