WHY WRITE ABOUT POLITICS?

Over the last few years, as I’ve written about various political decisions and activities, numerous people have asked a variety of questions about this. Here are some of them.

Why do you write about politics? My most basic aim is to apply the NLP Communication Model, especially the Meta-Model, to things going on in the world of politics and political movements. And why do I want to do that? The reason is simple— as politics is about how we relate to each other in community, it is essentially a function of our thinking, languaging, framing, and meaning-making. And NLP, as “the study of the structure of subjective experience” applies to every form of subjective experience— including the subjectivity of politics.

Why do you write about you political opinions? Mostly because those are the only opinions that I know. Others can — and do— write about their opinions. And many own their opinions as their own. Some do not. They assume their opinions are universal Truth (with a capital T) and are ready to impose it upon others. I do not. My opinions, as everyone’s, are certainly informed by my own beliefs and understandings. By using the Meta-Model as a critical thinking tool, my aim is to think as clearly as possible and to expose those ideas that seem to me to be ill-formed and that violate the very principles of clear and precise thinking.

What does NLP have to do with politics? The value of NLP is that by thinking about our thinking, we can run an ecology check on what we are thinking and test its validity. There is also value in looking at the internal semantic structure of various ideas as we also do with any other human strategy. After all, there is an internal neuro-semantic and neuro-linguistic form for every human experience and behavior. Now with the tools of Neuro-Semantic NLP, we can fully examine the ideas and meanings that govern a political understanding, policy, and experience.

This means that the way people talk and act gives us a window into their internal processes that lead them to talk and act in the way they do. And with that, we can now explore what’s behind the surface activities. We can examine the premises and assumptions behind the policies. And this is as valid for the corporate politics that occur in the boardroom as it is for the national politics that occur in the halls of Congress.

Won’t you get people upset and angry by writing about politics? Probably. Well, at least people who are rigid in their thinking will get upset. And yes there have been dozens who have written angry emails to me. Some have stooped to name-calling and insulting. Many just ask to be dropped from the mailing list. A few write to seek to understand. I don’t write to be liked or disliked, what someone thinks about me is not the point. I write about what’s relevant and important especially for human sanity and well-being.

Those who are closed-minded, cannot and will not even consider an opposing view, obviously are not able to do critical thinking. They have so identified with an idea or position or side, that their ideology now dominates them so that they are what Erik Hoffer called “a true believer.” And of course, we cannot even have a conversation with such people. They are not able to enter into do the very first of “thinking” — considering what someone with an opposite view is saying.

That level of intolerance, dogmatism, and closed-mindedness is the very epitome of the opposite of true thinking. It is essentially a left-over from the world of the Middle-Ages or the Dark Ages before the introduction of scientific thinking where men and women present an idea, then set up life experiments to test if their ideas, as hypothesis, are valid or not. Dogmatic people want to shut the conversation down and exclude from the marketplace of ideas any view that they disagree with.

It seems that with the “cancel culture” and “political correctness” fewer and fewer people are willing or able to calmly listen to an opposing view. Instead they step into “the deity mode” of thinking and speaking, assuming that they have all truth which excludes others from speaking any opinion that differs.

I write about politics because our lives, for better or worse, result from how we think, how we learn, what we believe, and the meanings we construct. When we do it poorly, we not only create limitations— we undermine our well-=being and the well-being of the next generation.

Over the millennia, the human race has tried out many versions of government and economics: theocracies, dictatorships, kingdoms, socialism, communism, capitalism, and democracy. From that we can learn what works and what does not work. And we can apply a criteria that goes beyond just working for some. For me the ideal is to “create a more perfect union,” an union that fulfills the vision of “equal justice for all,” an equality of opportunity, and equality standing before the rule of law. (For more, see Political Coaching: Self-Actualizing Politics and Politicians, 2015).

For a fascinating short video about people relating to people, click on — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzKtI9OfEpk

It’s just 12 minutes and you’ll see why it is an award winning film.