August 30, 2006

The Divisive View From The Top

 

The world seems an especially dangerous place these days. Violent conflicts and terrorist attacks are appearing in many places. Is this pure coincidence or something more? Might the leadership of this great nation be encouraging a culture of violence in the world through aspects of its leadership?

 

I’ve been a big fan of gangster movies for many years. Being also a student of personal dynamics, I’ve developed a theory about why people become gangsters, based on my movie experience.

 

Many of the powerful movie gangsters seem to have quite strong personalities, and views about how things ought to be.  They have a narrow tolerance for different opinions, even among their closest friends. I’ve often laughed myself to sleep thinking about running a feedback session for one of those gangster-leader types.

 

So, the first part my theory is that for some guys (I do mean guys) who just can’t conceive of adjusting to other’s views, getting the power to make sure that others will accept theirs becomes a principal strategy for dealing with the world. Just think about the hearty, nervous laughter among the loyal lieutenants at any one of Tony Soprano’s jokes.

 

My theory also includes the notion that having people at the top who possess this kind of narrow and strongly held perspective, in a culture in which violence is permissible, is likely to produce a very dangerous organizational environment. Thus the link between certain qualities of personality, vocational selection and organizational culture can create a serious culture of violence.

 

So, you ask, what does this have to do with international politics and the very dangerous current situation in the world? Well, we do have the most powerful nation in the world now led by a group of people with very limited, even rigid, notions of right and wrong and good and evil. As our fearless leader put it, “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

 

This “moral clarity” has divided the world into extremes – one that includes full-fledged human beings, and the other our hated enemies. The rigid sense of good and evil, along with the propensity for the use of military force by the most powerful country in the world, may be responsible, directly and indirectly, for the rise in violence in many regions.

 

This leadership approach forces the rest of the world into opposing camps. It raises the stakes on differences of views and loyalties, particularly as this particular boss does not hesitate to use violence as a tool. The possibility of the application of force to promote the very narrow perspective of right and wrong causes many groups to intensify their own defenses and lower the threshold for their own pre-emptive use of force. This approach ultimately limits our own and others’ options for dealing with the complexity of the real world.

 

It has already created difficult practical implications for addressing current crises. We watched anxiously as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attempted to broker a Middle East deal without speaking with the very people who have it in their power to make the concessions that might bring it about – Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.

 

Difficult challenges have emerged, as we’ve had to deal with countries that didn’t fit our moral criteria, but from whom we needed something to achieve large and important objectives. Most of these “bad” leaders and countries strangely see themselves as good. But they also have their own view of the world and their own political pressures. They may share common interests with us, though their realities also push them in directions that run counter to our own. Ugh! There are those awful shades of gray.

 

The administration has not been willing to speak directly with Iran or North Korea regarding their nuclear activities. That is also the result of this approach. Why should one speak to members of the “axis of evil”? Would a good Christian attempt to negotiate with the Devil, or with a hungry lion? Moreover, why should they speak to us?

 

These metaphors are not really my own. They are the metaphors that unfortunately are driving our foreign policy and having an enormous effect on the entire international system, a system that is in sufficient crisis to cause people to ask if we are beginning World War III, or perhaps Armageddon, for the more religious among us. We desperately need a different view at the top.