from The New Body Politic, Spring 2004

Progressive Social Design:

Sustaining Peace & Justice in Our Times

Bill Du Bois

There are few great debates about the major issues of our times. In 1858, when the nation debated slavery, the seven Lincoln-Douglas debates each lasted three hours. One candidate talked for an hour, the other responded for an hour and a half and then the first had a half hour reply. Today, we get one minute answers to questions and thirty second sound bite commercials. We get images not visions.

The powers that be make the real decisions behind closed doors. Then, they call the folks up in advertising to figure out how to sell it. They don’t believe in democracy. They believe in public relations.

When politics is mainly about personalities, it’s easy to be conned. As Katherine Hepburn said, “It took me awhile to learn that the key to acting is sincerity. Once you’ve learn how to fake that, you’ve go it made.”

We should be choosing a new direction for America -- not looking for an appealing personality. This is no time for heroes. As an early labor leader Eugene Debs said, “I would not lead you to heaven even if I could because if I could, some other man could lead you out.”

We must move beyond personalities to issues. Only if we have a full debate about the current clash of visions can we change the world. I think the key issues are these:

Love or Fear? Love and Fear are at the center of any conversation about how to make a better world. Where do you put your faith? Once you decide, everything else follows. Strangely, we’ve created a world where adults take fear seriously but think love’s naive. Of course, we must be streetwise. But we must be careful we don’t abandon our finest dreams.

Only Win-Win Solutions Need Apply. Pope John XXIII said, "If you want peace, work for justice." There is no clearer formula. Win-win solutions are not religious pie in the sky. They are the heart of any good business deal. And they are the only realistic formula for a lasting world peace.

Losers are dangerous. They’re always waiting for next season to get even. Parents know that if even one child feels like a loser, they’re in for a long afternoon. But somehow we think we can get away with win-lose solutions at work or worldwide and not pay the consequences. It should be simple wisdom. Unless everyone is o.k., nobody’s o.k. That doesn’t mean everyone has to be the same or anything like that. But people need to get their basic needs met. If there are extreme losers, we’re asking for trouble.

Love is a commitment to settle for nothing less than a win-win situation. We must fashion win-win solutions between individuals, between the person and the organization, and between the communal good and individual good. Otherwise, we need to go back to the drawing board. Nothing else is practical.

Prevention or Reaction? We have learned a great deal in the first 150 years of sociology and psychology about the causes of social problems and human unhappiness. Rather than simply reacting to the crisis de jour, we could invest in prevention and creating a better society that has less crime and fewer social problems in the first place.

We can significantly change the odds someone will turn to crime or bad behavior by planting social resources in the environment. Of course, individuals are responsible for their behavior. But if we as a society know how to prevent social problems and refuse to do anything, aren’t we also responsible?

The War on Terrorism. Today, we see most of our leaders -- grown men and women -- standing up talking like characters from a cartoon show. We are the good guys and they are the “evil doers.” That should have been our first clue something was terribly wrong. Following September 11, George Bush repeatedly referred to first Osama bin Laden, and later to Saddham Hussein as “The Evil One.” The past 20 years, many in Arab countries have referred to whomever happened to be the American president as “The Great Satan.” Ka-Pow. Ka-Bang. Zap. A “War on Evil” might make great Saturday morning television. But it’s never going to make the world any safer.

A direct frontal assault on evil often only strengthens it. Ironically, social psychology shows most evil actually originates from misguided attempts to stamp out evil. Projecting evil on to others and seeking to eliminate it there sets up an endless cycle of violence, retaliation and fear. While winners quickly forgive themselves for any harm they’ve done, losers never forget. We see our sins as unfortunate collateral damage. However, their attacks prove they’re evil. Our attacks are deterrence or justifiable retaliation. Psychology suggests a war to eliminate all Evil is like trying to get a knockout punch in a fight with your own shadow.

What Do We Do About Evil? We need to be more than bit players in the drama of our lives. In the daily work world, most people have jobs that are too small for their spirits. By the time they reach high school, most students have been relegated to the sidelines. There’s more room for participation in the parking lot than in the gym. Youth want meaningful roles. With legitimate avenues blocked, they find other ways to star. Talk to any gang member. They’ll tell you there’s a lot more heroism and meaning in putting on your gang colors and strutting down the street than in learning to say, "Do you want fries with that, Ma'am?"

People alienated from their lives do all sorts of things to feel alive whether it’s healthy or not. People will do almost anything to recoup some sense of control over their lives or feel even a fleeting sense of meaning. So much of the behavior we call evil is a complicated response of people who feel powerless or meaningless.

People need to be effective. People need ways to have their needs and concerns addressed. Attempts to totally control people and render them impotent don’t make us safer. They actually backfire. As Carl Rogers said, "Violence is the last resort of a powerless person."

What Will Keep Us Safe? The fellow who invented the Gatling gun thought it would put an end to war forever. No one would dream of charging up a hill in the face of machine gun fire which meant certain death. Alfred Nobel thought the same thing when he invented dynamite. Both underestimated the human willingness to be heroes for some cause.

Today, politicians tell us the same fairy tale -- nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will protect us. But no amount of military spending or police state tactics will protect us from suicide attackers willing to exchange their lives for ours. On a two lane highway, our lives are in the hands of the driver in the oncoming car. Ultimately, we must have faith they are human just like us. They have voices that must be heard, hopes, dreams, loved ones, needs that must be answered and pains that must be healed.

According to peacemaking criminologist Hal Pepinsky, we must heal broken lives. The key to peacemaking is understanding democracy and violence. He defines violence as refusing to alter your course in response to other people. The rapist goes right ahead despite the other’s objection. Democracy is the opposite. We listen to each other’s concerns. That doesn’t mean I cave into your agenda or even agree. But I hear you and take what you say into account. I understand your concerns and needs. It’s hard to export democracy when we don’t understand it. Democracy is about dialogue.

Force or Understanding? We can no longer rely on force and our Weapons of Mass Destruction to keep us safe. We have enough technology to blow each other to smithereens. How long will it be before terrorists have personal nuclear, chemical and biological weapons like people today have personal computers? We’re going to have to understand each other and learn how to live together and share a world. There is no other way.

We are going to have to understand terrorists -- how they think and feel. What are their concerns? There are reasons people act as they do. What would lead someone to go so far off the deep end? We certainly do not approve of what they do but we need to understand. The psychiatrist who examined Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh concluded, “He was not crazy, just serious.” Unless we understand, how can we possibly think we’re going to prevent it?

Empire or Community? Myths aside, the reason the Soviet Union collapsed was because it went bankrupt in a runaway arms race. President Reagan simply out spent them. They couldn't afford to keep up that level of defense spending and still maintain their domestic programs. Today, the War on Terrorism threatens to do the same thing to us. This time, our enemy doesn’t have to spend a cent. We have launched an arms race with Fear itself. If the work of terrorists is to spread fear, they have no better allies than many of our own politicians.

There are people who mean us harm. But Fear should not dictate our direction. We could have handled things much differently. In 1993, violent crime in the United States reached an all time high. People in the inner city got together and took back their neighborhoods hand in hand. They came out from behind closed doors where they’d been hiding in fear of crime for two decades. Community policing was part of a new way of doing things. Rather than acting like an occupying army, police officers went door to door asking people about their problems. People organized community meetings. Positive recreational opportunities were created. Even gangs were co-opted for more positive purposes. Relying on force alone hadn’t been able to stop crime. Creating community made it easier to curb violent extremists. Within a few years, violent crime was cut in half.

Good Business or Bad Business? When government sides with bad business, it drives good businesses out of business. Good business pays attention to workers and customers. In an information/service economy, putting people and ideas together effectively is the source of wealth. Bad business tries to seize monopoly control and bribe government to avoid taxes and change the rules that protect the public. How can good businesses who try to do the right thing compete? In a bizarre logic that defies common sense, corporate controlled politicians refer to this as creating “positive business climate.”

Who Pays and How Much? Liberals haven’t managed to sell the idea of investment in a good society that pays dividends to us all. However, in an era of tax cut fever, no one dares talk about investing in society. We often hear the rich so say, “Only in America” could they have made it. But then when it comes tax time, some don’t want to pay their dues.

In Human Hands. North Dakota has the lowest rate of repeat offenses for juvenile offenders in the nation. No other state even comes close. And this isn’t smoke and mirrors. They hire an independent Colorado firm to track real numbers so they get an accurate picture rather than just what looks good on paper. To understand just how dramatic their success is, 40%-50% of juveniles commit repeat offenses in most states with the rate going as high as 70% in some states. The state with the second most successful programs has between 25 - 30% of kids repeating. North Dakota has a 10% repeat rate. Lisa Bjergaard who is the director of Juvenile Corrections for the eastern half of the state says, it all begins with a philosophy. They start by asking what kind of person they want at the end. It is the question for all social designers.

There is no way to sit out the conversation. What we do has consequences. Decisions once reserved for God are now in human hands. Abortion is but the tip of the iceberg. We have awesome powers. We are moved to a dialogue with all creation.

In the late 1800’s many ministers believed in a Social Gospel. They felt their calling was to remove as much suffering as possible by human hands and make as much heaven on earth as possible. They felt human consciousness had evolved to be a positive force in the progress of evolution. On a political level, they were called “progressives”

Hands Off or Hands On? Knowledge of human behavior can either be used to empower people to make a better world or sold to the highest bidder to perfect the art of enslaving.

Psychotherapy was barely a generation old when Sigmund Freud’s nephew appeared on American shores offering to sell knowledge on how to manipulate consumers and voters. He would be known as the father of Public Relations. We have no control over whether knowledge about human behavior will be used for malevolent purposes. It will be. We do have a choice of whether or not we are going to use knowledge for good to promote the human agenda. Conservatives say, “Hands off the system.” However, when we just throw things up for grabs, the rich and powerful use their money and influence backstage behind closed doors to rig the game for their own benefit. Democracy demands the conversation about how to design our society takes place front stage. If intelligence cannot be used to create a better world, then what’s knowledge for?

A Synthesis: Liberals and Conservatives. The conservatives are right that we must begin with values. Where we start determines where we end up. But the question is, what values? If we are going to live together and share a world, we’re going to have to begin the hard conversation about values. All the great religions agree the key to living together successfully on earth is the Golden Rule. Empathy is the core of what we mean by civilization.

A new synthesis between liberals and conservatives awaits. The old Chinese story says that if you give a person a fish, they can live for a day but if you teach them to fish, they can live for a lifetime. Liberals want to provide a daily fish. The conservative strategy consists of little more than putting up a sign saying: “Go Fish.”

There is a third alternative. It is asking what kinds of social resources would be helpful to individuals in their struggles. What resources enable people to fish? We have common problems. What social inventions enable us to do our best?

We should begin to craft a political agenda firmly in the human interest. Self Esteem -- a subjective feeling of well being -- should be our evaluative mechanism.

Liberals and conservatives have been arguing for centuries over whether people are basically good or evil. The truth is we can go either way. All the many cultures across human history have shown human beings can be very good and they can be very bad. It’s the human potential. We can create a world that brings out our best -- or one that brings out our worst.