Reaching for Unity

Expanding my library and finishing old projects has me feeling motivated. Political discord and research on isolated ideas, not so much. Lets reach for unity every step of the way this week.

Weekly Reflection

With an incredible stroke of luck, I was able to grab a few new books this week with little effort and equal money. I decided to stop and shop the local used bookstore and was able to find some great works. Among them was Carl Jung's Psychology and Alchemy; a dense read and something I have been looking to get my hands on for awhile. My wife, out of town on a trip, was able to divine 4 pristine volumes to the Great Books of the Western World collection. I was also gifted three more volumes for my birthday, so that makes seven books for that collection. Only about a dozen more volumes and I will have the complete collection. It's been an incredible week for my little library.

Being that I was home alone all weekend, I spent some time refinishing a cabinet that I have ignored for the past few years. It was a relief to make progress on something staring at me from the corner of my garage for far too long. I hope to put it all back together this weekend and finally have a designated spot for some important things.

There has also been a great deal of thought going into my content, particularly the podcast, and I believe I have found a new way forward, at least for now. Given that I want to be more consistent in releasing episodes of the podcast and deepen my discussions a bit more, I am going to split up my topics into multiple episodes.

I try to cover too much in one go and then get busy with life to release on the bi-weekly schedule I have set, I am going to attempt a three-part series for every topic that I produce in one sitting. There will be one episode identifying a relevant problem, another looking at ways to improve it, and then the last one will apply insights to daily life. This seems more conducive to 1) consistency and 2) quality of material. While this is something I am going to try, I am looking for feedback, so I would love if you would comment your thoughts and if you think it would be helpful!

That being said, I have an episode coming out on habits in the next couple days, so keep your eyes peeled!

Things I Read this Week

Principles of Psychology Chapter 5 deals with the "Automaton Theory" or the idea that we do not have free will and are merely conscious of our existence, nothing else. This notion does not sit well for me, not because its an uncomfortable truth, but because it is an anti-human position.

Republic Plato's Socrates is continuing to discuss the role of classes in the state and how the "guardians" should be educated. He maintains that effective guardians need an education that is for the excellence of the body and mind. Without the education of the mind, they would be protected by brutish men who are unable to distinguish the enemy from the protectorate.

Will to Power I am disappointed in the arguments provided by Nietzsche. This second book is a very narrow critique. Still, the context is good.

Confessions St. Augustine continues to be relatable to a scary degree. It seems like I am, in some ways, reading my own story of life. Enjoying it so far and have no doubt that I will continue that trend.

The Bible After reading 1 Kings a little more, I decided to take a break from it and focus on Isaiah and Acts. Almost through Acts and I'm empowered by the resilience and fortitude of Paul. In Isaiah, I read of the prophecy of Cyrus the Great, which was a weird thing to read. It shows that God uses everyone to the betterment of his people, even non-believers. I think that is something we easily forget.

Something I learned this Week

Political idealism flourishes when we turn our ears off and focus on validating our own ideas in a procured echo chamber rather than looking for means of improving them through criticism. Social media provides not only the echo chamber but a mirror too, which creates the prime vehicle for cherry-picked idealism. The primary mode of transportation for political discussion seems to have created an environment that allows the echoes to grow louder and more disabling rather than dispelling that energy and generating unity.

Looking for more context into why that is, I came across a research article titled Selective Avoidance on Social Media: A Comparative Study of Western Democracies, which was written by an international team of researchers. They discuss the differences in political communication between individuals in the United States, United Kingdom, and France. The results were probably what you would expect.

"We therefore suspect that in a more polarized society such as the United States, the engagement with political opponents does not lead to the removal of specific content but rather relationship termination and suspension that filters out someone’s views and activities completely, as it triggers social identity–based dislike for opponents rather than ideological dissonance."

Okay, maybe you didn't expect that. Disconnecting from people rather than posts seems incredible to me. Not that it's impossible or that I don't see it happening, but incredible that there is evidence beyond my set of ideas that shows this perception has traction.

This sociopolitical communication gap is continuing to widen, not because we are disagreeing with the ideas—it's that we cannot separate the ideas from the person. When we begin to see someone as a vehicle for a "demonic" or "evil" idea, it is not a far step toward action and treating that person as such. Which I believe is safe to say is something already happening.

"This finding provides further evidence suggesting that citizens take active steps to cleanse their online social networks of people from the 'other side,' which is one of the indicators of context relapse—a natural human tendency to reestablish meaningful social context via various disconnection practices"

Context relapse is a disconnection from others so that we might reorientate ourselves and our assumptions. It is a new concept to me, but it does not seem good, especially when we consider "cleansing" and "relapse" a vital piece of the process. What is it that we are going back to; an imaginary idyllic land free from the pushback of our poorly articulated and highly emotional ideas?

"On the upside, through this process of curation and filtering of social media contacts, individuals should be able to build their own digital “safe spaces” in which social and political issues could be discussed more freely (Zhu & Skoric, 2021). Social media environments are thus becoming more similar to private salons in which the owners control the invitation lists (and the doors), moving away from the coffeehouse public sphere ideal."

Yes, I suppose that is what they mean here. How can isolating ourselves from dissenting thought be beneficial when we are stricken with rampant polarization? Is it best to shield ourselves from criticism when the ideas we hold are plainly poor? Now, surely there is a large degree of venomous vipers that strike out vehemently for the sake of creating chaos. Perhaps shielding yourself from their poison is best, especially when they do not offer anything but their own emotion-fueled, disingenuous spit.

But how can we find real discourse across political thought when we have trained ourselves to block someone at the first notion of opposition?

We should be reaching for unity, which means that we have to know 1) what ideas we actually hold, 2) how to decrease our emotional reaction to challenges to our ideas and 3) exposing ourselves to ideas we "feel" are wrong for the sake of genuine dialogue.

Selected works

I have enjoyed the Academy of Ideas for a long time. I see them as a great resource for anyone looking into purely informative and contextualized videos on big ideas. There is a great amount of respect from me for whoever makes these videos because they provide so much value. As an undergrad psych student, if there was a topic that I wanted to expand my knowledge of or just listen to an easy-going yet serious voice discuss despairing ideas, I would go straight here.

This episode is a recent favorite and I imagine it will be yours too. I hope you enjoy!

Thanks for Reading!

See you Next Week.

~Devan Rohrich