Systemic Worry
One of my favorite movies is “Waking Life,” first watched almost 25 years ago while teaching in the Black Studies Department at Califoria State University, Long Beach (CSULB). I shared clips from the film with my students and we used them as prompts to critically think and write about our understanding of life. Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding reminded me of 1) why I committed to education, and 2) why life is a web of complexity, somewhat expressed in clips from “Waking Life,” like this one, titled “Self-Destructive Man”:
“A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. What he fails to realize is that society has…a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes…We’re irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state… created out of death and destruction. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things…. But we all know the function of the media… is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers.….And they haven’t given us any other options… outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left?” [1]
Duffy points to media and politics as part of a larger system that fires up our biases. He suggests that education is part of a larger solution, though such efforts are challenging. “Critical, statistical, and news literacy are going to be difficult to shift, but we can do more. Ideally early on, though it’s difficult to change school curricula.” [2] I was able to change the manner in which the school curricula was taught at CSULB with my students, and still use the same teaching methods today. [3]
While at CSULB I facilitated the learning of a population of students who see themselves in the media (and the education system) as being a certain way. These misperceptions construct the manner in which they must learn to live in a world that often sees them as wrong, misshapen delusions of their true divinity. These delusions are built in part by the media which feeds into a larger system designed to promote fear among the masses. [4] Fear of immigrants, fear of teen pregancy, fear of the black male, fear of being shot by the police. Fear is not necessarily a bad thing, but stoking fear is unhelpful. [5] and unless we shake off our biases, our future direction could lead to destruction.
Similar to Kahnemen, [6] Duffer understands how difficult it is to shake off the bias. System 2 thinking can be used, but challenging our biases won’t be enough on its own. Nor will transforming the education system. Healthcare, education, and all the “ism’s” are systems that feed into each other, and they cannot be fixed in isolation, “there’s not just one thing you can fix, there isn’t… You can’t just teach kids critical literacy, news literacy and then suddenly you will solve this problem, ’cause you can’t teach the human biases out of our kids. And, equally, you can’t just tell the platforms, social media platforms, to sharpen up their act or get stricter in the regulations with them, and that will solve the problem. It’s… How you deal with that as a whole group and system is the crux of what we need to do.” [7] But taking on the whole system – that’s scary. Even pushing against a small part of the system can be overwhelming.
For me this fear shows up mostly in worry, manifesting in my physical body as anxiety, challenging my ability to remain differentiated. [8] A balanced diet of media intake helps. I learned that in high school. But the media is not solely responsible, “one and the other interact and reinforce each other in this cycle of delusion that we create.” [9] The web of cycles creates a system of fear, worry and anxiety, the engines that power worldly systems of control [10]. And that’s what struck me about Duffy. For as long as I have known this, and as educated as I am, I am still delusional as I relate to my son.
As the mother of a Black male I must teach him a certain way to move in our world to remain alive. I learned my role largely through media but also through stories. Real stories from real people. So because the media reflects, to some degree, my personal experence and the stories of others, plus his special care needs, I worry that his behavior will be misperceived because of someone else’s bias, and I’m terrified something terrible could happen – so I teach him harder, which often backfires. This negative cycle continues because of my fears, and his learned responses to my fears. Yet, again, it’s even more complex than that, going further back. Generational trauma is also a real thing,[11] one that curses Black mothers with a fear of losing our sons and daughters in horrific ways. The fear insists that we train up our sons and daughters more often from a place of fear rather than a place of love, demanding that they be harder, more careful, more different than God designed them to be.
Duffy offers some hope to somewhat relieve the anxiety from the weight of all this complexity, “Things are not as bad as we think. We also tend to think things are getting worse.” [12] It certainly feels like things have gotten worse lately, but Duffy warns us to beware of our personal experience and proces our emotional responses to stories as carefully as we curate the news. [13] Further, Duffy notes that we are only humans, and we often don’t recognize “slow, positive change, (such data don’t translate as news.)” [14] I tend to spend more time worrying about what could happen instead of thanking God for the positive growth that has happened in my son over the years.
Hope also comes from continued education. Duffy identifies a clear individual pattern for greater perceptual accuracy with a higher education level. [15] As leaders, our challenge is to process our own fears and help others locate and process theirs, while bringing the isolated, alienated and marginalized into the community of God in Christ, the alpha and omega of complex solutions. He is always working on everything all at the same time and “the telescopic nature of the evolutionary paradigm” [16] is ensuring that slow change could occur instantly at any time.
[1] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001
[2] Mark Kelly, “Nonfiction Notes,” February 7, 2021. http://www.markrkelly.com/Blog/2021/02/07/nonfiction-notes-bobby-duffy-why-were-wrong-about-nearly-everything/
[3] Avianta Robertson, “A Class United by Community Effort.” Daily 49er, California State University, Long Beach (December 2001)
[4] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018; US edition, November 2019).
[5] Ibid., p. 204
[6] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
[7] Free Thoughts, Libertarianism.org, Episode 329, January 31, 2020 https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts/why-we-are-wrong-about-nearly-everything
[8] Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (New York: Seabury Books, 2007).
[9] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018; US edition, November 2019).
[10] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001
[11] Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (Milwaukie, OR: Uptone Press, 2005).
[12] Boddy Duffy, RSA Spotlight, “Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything,” November 30, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2heHoSVTi5c
[13] Ibid
[14] Ibid
[15] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (2018; US edition, November 2019).
[16] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001
About the Author
Erica Briggs
14 responses to “Systemic Worry”
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Erica,
Thanks for your transparency. I have a co-worker who is Black and married to a Mexican. I wish I could spend more time with him. He graciously, for the past three years has come to my cultural and human diversity class and spoken to my predominately White class what his experience has been being a Black person in America. I love his honesty and assessment of what needs to change for our country to be better. As you talk about biases, I teach my students that everyone has biases, giving examples from Scripture. I remind them that biases can be both positive and negative and their challenge is to confront their biases and hopefully the overly positive ones (we’re the best) can become more reality based and the negative ones can become more positive. Duffy says things are not as bad as we think, given the world in which you live, have you personally seen any positive changes in the last few years that might confirm what Duffy says?
Jeff and Erica,
I’ll jump in here. I think you bring up a good point about biases and our natural inclination to bias. We all have them, but it does take a bit more of system 2 thinking to recognize them and respond to our biases. I recently read a book called “Biased” by Jennifer L. Eberhardt. It was a good read and interesting to learn about the ways she has been teaching organizations, like Oakland PD about bias and our response to it.
From my perspective, some people are more aware of changes that need to be made. I see others making an honest effort to make the changes. I see individuals changing, but the systems themselves are designed not to change without a massive shift in large numbers of people.
Hi Erica,
Can you share any stories of positive growth that has happened in your son in the past few years?
I once had a friend tell me that we can’t make accurate projections of my child’s future based on their current state. Praise God that this true!
I love reflecting on how they’ve grown and matured over the years.
I’d love to hear some ways that you’re celebrating your son’s growth.
Blessings to you as you navigate parenting in a tricky world!
I’m all about the word. Praise and verbal affirmations are the way I celebrate with him. Small wins get noticed in my house! And I praise in my testimony to others. The wins are His!!
Hi Erica, thank you for sharing your personal fear for your son’s safety everyday in your writing. We live in a difficult world right now that makes parenting so much harder than when my girls were young. My grandson is hispanic and I find myself praying for him differently than his siblings. I know if he gets stopped for speeding or because his car windows are tinted too dark, his outcome could be so much bleaker than others. At times there is a feeling of helplessness and other times I lean into thanking God for him and praying for his safety. I can only imagine how you live with this as a mom. No question right now, just want you to know I will be praying for you both.
I appreciate your prayers. Feelings of helplessness sits differently in my soul than hopelessness. So long as I hope in Christ, our help will come. That what I lean into.
Hi Erica,
I enjoyed reading your post. Thank you for sharing your personal story!
How does education contribute to greater perceptual accuracy, as Duffy suggests, and what impact can it have on our understanding of complex issues?
Continued, higher learning adds depth and greater understanding of all the layers of complexity. Education helps us better understand ourselves, our fears, the way we feel about life, how deeply and critically we think and engage with others. Our biases are one more layer in that learning process.
Hi Erica, Thank you for your post.
When you mentioned slow positive change not being recognized as news it reminded me of something I got from “How to Make the World Add Up”. Considering the long view of history allows one to have a more balanced diet of information by holding ‘news’ alongside big stories of the past decades, centuries, millennia. How could contrasting the ‘birds eye’ and ‘worm’s eye’ views of reality in life with your son, or any situation: work, etc be helpful in the current moment?
Thanks for the visual contrast: honestly the worms view on the ground can get pretty dark. The Birds Eye sees the poor worm wrestling within its context and thinks, “poor worm, why can’t she see? Worm is necessary to make good ground so things can grow.” Trying to gain some altitude and putting my hope in the eagle.
Hi Erica,
Thank you for your heartfelt post. (BTW – Nancy and I lived in Torrance for a season.. not to far from your old stomping grounds!).
After one of the terrible police shootings of a black man (its really sad that I can’t remember which one, as there have been so many) we went to a church for a community meeting with the police. One of the moms that I will never forget, held up a picture of her son, in front of all the police officers that were sitting, and tearfully begged them that he had some mental health issues and he would not respond to any commands he was given. She begged them to remember his face because she was so afraid of him being another black person shot. It was heartbreaking.
I will continue to pray for your son and for his safety in this world we are temporarily living in.
Thank you for sharing your heart in your reply. As Christians our hearts break each time we hear another story. The agony of absence that was once part of your soul is unbearable in my imagination. That’s why we work so hard to never feel it in real life.
Erica, thank you for sharing your heart in this post. This was a beautiful self-awareness statement, “I tend to spend more time worrying about what could happen instead of thanking God for the positive growth that has happened in my son over the years.” I am guilty of this in areas of my own life. What is a way you hope to remember to apply thanksgiving in those moments of worry? Asking for a friend 😉