Do Unto Others

I am a firm believer that the world is what we think it to be. If  we’re feeling a bit down or if we’re elated, we’ll tend to focus on information that justifies our mood. Since our moods can quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies, it’s important that we recognize how much our prefrontal cortex can dampen the activity of the emotion producing amygdala. We can think ourselves into a better place.

However, there are times when there’s a greater cause for concern, and this may be one of those times. The struggling economy is taking its toll, not just on those families that are suffering from lost jobs, but on all of us that are forced to lower our expectations. Many of us are having to set aside our dreams for retirement or for a life with reasonable financial security. There just doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon that will soon restore our lost prosperity.

The policy makers that are elected to help us in times like these aren’t proving to be much help. Whether it’s the initial stimulus package, the need for another, or the reform of a health care system that represents a sixth of our economy, there seems to be an unconscionable level of finger pointing and game playing.  One begins to sense that all too many are more concerned with whether they personally win or lose than whether they resolve the problems our country is facing.

The same  spirit seems to rule the media. So much of what I read and hear is about why the other side is not only wrong, but lacking the basic human values each side claims for itself. Conspicuously absent is an appreciation for someone else’s point of view and any attempt to use the competition of ideas to arrive at better ones than any of us can come up with on our own.

And having just endured the Monday morning commute, I see the same selfishness in our society at large. Too many drivers are unwilling to let others merge in front of them, as if the race to work is a life and death matter to be determined by the precious seconds one might lose.

There’s pretty good data that our species is driven by what Richard Dawkins has called the “selfish gene,” but there’s also abundant evidence that humans flourish because of their ability to cooperate.  Those individual sacrifices we are called upon to make in the short term pay huge dividends in the longer term.  The world we live in is made better by our collective effort.

So perhaps we need to stop looking to our elected officials for leadership and one by one, demonstrate it ourselves. Those mirror neurons recently discovered in our brains encourage us to mimic the thoughts and actions of others, and for others to mimic our thoughts and actions. In this way, adaptive behaviors become contagious.  In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes how a fondness for Hush Puppies spread through our culture.  Imagine what would happen if self-sacrifice and civility were to spread the same way.

It all starts with what some have call “random acts of kindness.” We let that stranger merge in front of us during the morning commute, and they then mimic the behavior and let another stranger merge in front of them.  Little by little, the behavior spreads until road rage is replaced with all of us politely nodding and smiling at one another. The pleasant mood we would all find ourselves in at the end of the commute might just carry over into our work and then into the rest of our lives.

With the norm becoming civility and cooperation, divisive politicians and journalists would find themselves shunned. It would soon become clear that the only way to get elected or sell products for your advertisers would be to focus on the common good.  Those that didn’t would be ostracized.  Soon perhaps even the bankers would feel compelled to set aside self-interest, and obscene compensation packages would become a thing of the past.

I know that this is a bit of a pipe dream, but at a local level, polite behavior does create wonders. Try going out of your way to be friendly and treat others with respect.  All of a sudden, people become friendly in return, and life seems less stressful and more fun. One begins to feel better about the human race and not as pessimistic about our prospects for the future.

We may not transform the world at large, but we will transform the world we live in, and that’s a pretty good start.

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Mirror, Mirror

Metaphors are nonpartisan. Today two New York Times columnists, one conservative and one liberal, used
the same “look in the mirror” metaphor. It seems that regardless of what side
of the aisle you’re on, those on the other side lack self-awareness.

In “The Tenacity Question,” David Brooks raises questions
about President Obama’s desire to pursue the war in Afghanistan. He suggests
that it’s not his scheduled meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that’s
important, but the one with the “mirror, in which he looks for some firm
conviction about whether Afghanistan is worthy of his full and unshakable
commitment.”

Paul Krugman writing about health care reform in “The Defining Moment”
takes aim at the centrists opposed to the current bills. While he deigns not to
“psychoanalyze” them, he does urge them to “take a good hard look in the
mirror.”

Whether you agree with their positions or not, it would be hard to
deny that both of these men are brilliant, and that’s what’s so surprising
about their use of the same metaphor. The two are judging the character of
those opposed to their point of view, and asserting that with a little
self-reflection, they would recognize the error of their ways.

In rhetoric, going after the character of your opponent is known as an
“ad hominem” attack, and it is usually resorted to only when the logically
challenged fail to come up with a convincing counter-argument. Since it demeans
the other side, it’s hardly going to persuade anyone not already persuaded, and
it usually elicits an ad hominem attack in return. 

As Steven Pinker has pointed out in The Blank Slate, our minds have evolved to convince us that we are
always the one acting morally, regardless of whether we are or not. I’ve got to
believe that both Brooks and Krugman are familiar with Pinker’s work. So the
only way they could resort to an ad hominem attack is if they were lacking
self-awareness as well.

The findings of neuroscience suggest that the metaphor itself is
problematic, for we’re not capable of an objective view of the person in the
mirror. Our perception is a product of everything going on in the brain,
including our feelings of self-righteousness.

If my view of the mirror image were objective, I wouldn’t be so
shocked by the person that shows up in videos of my interviews and speeches.
While there are times that I’m less than pleased with my mirror image and
others that I’m quite happy with that good looking guy smiling back at me, what
I see is almost always a function of what’s going on inside of my head, and in
particular in the limbic system responsible for my emotions.

The objective self-reflection I believe both Brooks and Krugman are intending
for their opponents would indeed make us all better people, but it’s just not
possible unless we view ourselves not from inside, but from the outside. If we use
our mirror neurons to assume the perspective of others, we’ll be much more
objective when we look back at ourselves.

Even better, we should assume the perspective of those we feel are
deserving of those ad hominem attacks. Seeing the world from their perspective
will better enable us to appreciate the reasoning that got them to the position
we have such an issue with. While it may not lead us to agree with them, it would
make us better at reasoning them into an appreciation of our point of view.

And that should be why we take the trouble to state our position,
either orally or in writing. Otherwise, we’re no better than alpha chimpanzees
and their displays, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” We may get
people’s attention, but not their commitment.

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Switching Gestalts

A gestalt switch is when we change the framework we use to organize our perceptions and it fundamentally changes the meaning of what we perceive. Probably the best example is the popular old woman/young woman illusion. Seen one way, the drawing looks like an old hag, but when seen another way, it appears as a beautiful young woman.

Studies have shown that what is currently in our minds determines how we interpret the drawing. If we’re thinking about the perils of growing old, we’ll on average see the old woman.  But if we’re focused on the joys of youth and beauty, it’s the young woman that will appear.

Switching gestalts isn’t just a curiosity. It illustrates a basic principle governing how our minds work. We see what we believe, attending to information that supports our view and ignoring any that is in conflict.

The game of college football is a great example of gestalts at work. A well-executed strategy is a thing of beauty. From a bird’s eye view, its choreography rivals ballet. The athletic ability of the individual players can be a marvel to behold. The team spirit is infectious.

But football is also a horribly brutal game. The players are coached to hit hard, so that they knock loose the ball or take a player out of the action. Every game is marked by injuries.  When a player is lying on the field and not moving, the frame shifts and the game is no longer fun to watch.

Yet every weekend, I tune in to watch my alma mater, the University of Michigan. When the team wins, as irrational as it sounds, it seems to affirm my identity. My years in Ann Arbor were transformational and have informed my life and work. My liberal arts education taught me to respect intelligence, and it taught me the importance of human values, none more basic than the imperative to treat people with respect.

This has been a controversial period for the team.  A new coach, Rich Rodriquez, was hired from the outside last year and there were some contractual issues that cast a pall on his departure from West Virginia. This year opened with the news that he was involved in a failed real estate deal with an accused felon. Then just before the first game, the coach was accused by six Michigan players of violating NCAA rules on the number of hours of practice allowed per week.

But Michigan played brilliantly in its opening game and the sportscasters calling the game suggested that the allegations were just sour grapes by a few disaffected players. As I watched my team win, it seemed a plausible explanation to me. And, of course, West Virginia would not be happy about losing its coach, and how could he be responsible for the actions of his business partner.

The team didn’t do as well against Iowa in the sixth week and the precocious quarterback Tate Forcier struggled. After a particularly difficult series of plays, Forcier was benched and the television cameras captured Rodriquez going up one side of him and down the other.  It was then that the gestalt switched.

When the Michigan coach bullied his quarterback, he offended those very values that I associate with my years at the school. As a result, the real estate deal looked even more questionable and the allegations of NCAA rules violations more credible. The coach, I concluded with newfound clarity, wasn’t a very nice person, so everything he was involved in became suspect.

But it goes beyond the issue of the coach’s values to his intelligence. Tate Forcier is an obviously skilled and dedicated quarterback. In what universe could it possibly make sense to bully him? Is he going to be more motivated as a result? Will his judgment improve?

Not according to brain science. The only thing that’s going to happen is that his amygdala will key the release of cortisol, slowing down Forcier’s brain, narrowing his vision, and making his judgment worse. The coach’s aggression will summon up aggression on Forcier’s part, creating precisely the opposite kind of relationship high performance depends on.

It seems that Rodriquez has a rather skewed perception of human relationships. It isn’t surprising that the gestalt that would lead him to bully a player would also lead to a business partnership with a man of questionable character, to a less than congenial departure from his former school, and to a broken relationship with half a dozen of his players.

He lives in a world where hitting hard is a virtue, even when it makes no sense.

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