{"id":36885,"date":"2024-03-20T10:30:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T17:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36885"},"modified":"2024-03-20T15:32:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T22:32:55","slug":"36885-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/36885-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Systemic Worry"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my favorite movies is \u201cWaking Life,\u201d first watched almost 25 years ago while teaching in the Black Studies Department at Califoria State University, Long Beach (CSULB).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 <\/span>Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/span><\/i> reminded me of 1) why I committed to education, and 2) why life is a web of complexity, somewhat expressed in clips from <\/span>“Waking Life,” like this one, titled \u201cSelf-Destructive Man\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cA self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. What he fails to realize is that society has\u2026a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes\u2026We’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\u2026. But we all know the function of the media\u2026 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.\u2026.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?\u201d [1]<\/span><\/p>\n

Duffy points to media and politics as part of a larger system that fires up our biases.\u00a0 He suggests that education is part of a larger solution, though such efforts are challenging. \u201c<\/span>Critical, statistical, and news literacy are going to be difficult to shift, but we can do more. Ideally early on, though it\u2019s difficult to change school curricula.\u201d [2] <\/span>\u00a0I was able to change the manner in which the school curricula was taught at <\/span>CSULB with my students<\/span>, and still use the same teaching methods today. [3]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019t be enough on its own. Nor will transforming the education system. Healthcare, education, and all the \u201cism\u2019s\u201d are systems that feed into each other, and they cannot be fixed in isolation, <\/span>\u201cthere\u2019s not just one thing you can fix, there isn\u2019t\u2026 You can\u2019t just teach kids critical literacy, news literacy and then suddenly you will solve this problem, \u2019cause you can\u2019t teach the human biases out of our kids. And, equally, you can\u2019t 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\u2019s\u2026 How you deal with that as a whole group and system is the crux of what we need to do.\u201d [7] But taking on the whole system – that\u2019s scary.\u00a0 Even pushing against a small part of the system can be overwhelming.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me this fear shows up mostly in worry, manifesting in my physical body as anxiety, challenging my ability to remain differentiated. [8]\u00a0 A balanced diet of media intake helps. I learned that in high school. But the media is not solely responsible, \u201c<\/span>one and the other interact and reinforce each other in this cycle of delusion that we create.\u201d [9] The web of cycles creates a system of fear, worry and anxiety, the engines that power worldly systems of control [10]. <\/span>And that\u2019s what struck me about Duffy.\u00a0 For as long as I have known this, and as educated as I am, I am still delusional as I relate to my son.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As the mother of a Black male I must teach him a certain way to move in our world to remain alive.\u00a0 I learned my role largely through media but also through stories.\u00a0 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\u2019s bias, and I\u2019m terrified something terrible could happen – so I teach him harder, which often backfires.\u00a0 This negative cycle continues because of my fears, and his learned responses to my fears.\u00a0 Yet, again, it\u2019s 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Duffy offers some hope to somewhat relieve the anxiety from the weight of all this complexity, \u201c<\/span>Things are not as bad as we think.\u00a0 We also tend to think things are getting worse.\u201d [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\u2019t recognize \u201cslow, positive change, (such data don\u2019t translate as news.)\u201d [14]\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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. <\/span>He is always working on everything all at the same time and \u201cthe telescopic nature of the evolutionary paradigm\u201d [16] is ensuring that slow change could occur instantly at any time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001<\/p>\n

[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\/<\/p>\n

[3] Avianta Robertson, “A Class United by Community Effort.” Daily 49er, California State University, Long Beach (December 2001)<\/p>\n

[4] Bobby Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/em> (2018; US edition, November 2019).<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid., p. 204<\/p>\n

[6] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em> (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).<\/p>\n

[7] Free Thoughts, Libertarianism.org, Episode 329, January 31, 2020 https:\/\/www.libertarianism.org\/podcasts\/free-thoughts\/why-we-are-wrong-about-nearly-everything<\/p>\n

[8] Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em> (New York: Seabury Books, 2007).<\/p>\n

[9] Bobby Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/em> (2018; US edition, November 2019).<\/p>\n

[10] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001<\/p>\n

[11]\u00a0 Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing<\/em> (Milwaukie, OR: Uptone Press, 2005).<\/p>\n

[12] Boddy Duffy, RSA Spotlight,\u00a0 “Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything,” November 30, 2018. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2heHoSVTi5c<\/p>\n

[13] Ibid<\/p>\n

[14] Ibid<\/p>\n

[15] Bobby Duffy, Why We\u2019re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/em> (2018; US edition, November 2019).<\/p>\n

[16] Waking Life, Richard Linklater, 2001<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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