Fear of the unfamiliar in America

My training in group dynamics tells me that when there is a persistent group dysfunction, there is usually an underlying "hidden issue" that needs to be surfaced and dealt with. This issue is one or more interacting incorrect assumptions or misconceptions that drives behavior. For example, if I experience tension with John, it is usually because we are assuming things about each other that are not true that create a tension that persists until we engage the conflict openly and productively.

I believe there are important hidden issues that America and Americans have not dealt with. (Other peoples have different issues, but no one is free of issues in their "blindspot.) I will not try to outline then all here (I couldn't), but one complex of problems centers around privacy, fear of the unknown/unfamiliar and individualism.

First on fear, because this is the core of the core. By and large, Americans are afraid of the unknown and unfamiliar. In some ways this is ironic because we seem courageous: we cross the Atlantic in small ships and colonized a huge new country. But below all our bravado is a fear and mistrust of anything we haven't experienced, don't understand, or don't recognize. This fear we try to disguise in the form of the "right to privacy," but really we only want privacy so we don't have to deal with the unfamiliar. Then we celebrate the individual because we lack the skills or the emotional capacity to create collectively. We retreat to our isolated lives and live far below our potential as a nation.

This manifests itself everywhere:

• Persistent self-segregation of races, ethnicities, cultures and classes. If you look at where Americans choose to live, they choose to live next to people that are very much like them. If they are reasonably open minded they worry about having a sense of connection with people who are different and about how those people will affect their property values (it is always assumed to be negative if they are of a darker complexion or lower economic class). This has the effect of concentrating poverty away from wealth, which contributes to the persistence of inequality. In pockets of poverty (meaning not just economic capital, but social capital), problems compound themselves and there is no network of support for people. The problems seem worse than they are people the people in them lack the resources to correct the situation themselves and the people with the resources to invest don't know anyone from the poorer community and so it is easier to dismiss them as "hopeless." If there were real relationships across race, culture and class, neither of these problems would be as serious and progress could be made. It's not about charity, it's about investment. The disenfranchised lose hope (what happens to a dream deferred?) and the wealthy suffer the dysfunctions of the isolation and lack of a purpose greater than themselves: depression, addiction, empty hedonism, self-loathing, etc.
• Within cultures, people are still isolated. Here's a story. I was recently in a train sitting in front a woman with a crying baby. This woman could not figure out how to help the baby: her bag of tricks was insufficient. My girlfriend thought about offering to help: she loves babies and would have been happy to walk with him or play with him. But because this woman was a "stranger" a barrier existed. To offer to help could be interpreted as a demeaning commentary on a parent because a parent is supposed to know what is best for their child. To ask would be to bother a stranger, and they should have to deal with her problem. This creates a disincentive to help, leaving the mother alone to suffer the dual pains of failing to be a good mother and public humilation for the same, and the people in the train car to suffer the distraction of a screaming baby. And no suffering was necessary! It's all self-inflicted. BUT to do would require that we rethink our notions of individualism and privacy. And more fundamentally our fear. We can practice letting it go. But more than that we need to deal with the reactiveness currently in our culture that makes those fears justified. These reactions are in all of us: what would you do if a stranger offerred to help you with your crying baby? Would you resist out of fear, or would snap back that you didn't need help, taking it as a blow to your ego? Trust is the path out of this mess.
• An inability to hold human complexity leads to strategies doomed to fail. All of this fear (which most people don't even know they have), really constrains one's ability to hold the full human complexity of most situations. It leaves us with very small, low capacity hearts. We hide from ourselves things we don't want to know about ourselves or others.We don't want to know how much and how other people are suffering. We don't want to know how much better things could be for us. We would all be much better of as individuals and as a society if we worked on increasing the capacity of our hearts. We would be able to figure out what was really going on and be able to do something meaningful rather than simplistic about it. We would develop the capacity to influence when we give up the futile attempt to control. We can do this by noticing when we are avoiding things and pushing ourselves to face their reality, in whatever little way we can.
• We place limits on our potential contribution. A discomfort with the unfamiliar or unknown contributes to our tendency to want to put people into boxes. She is an architect. He is homosexual. She is interested in cooking. In themselves, these are innocuous enough descriptions, but they can also be symptoms of wanting people to be fixed and finite. However, people are constantly changing and infinite in their potential to grow and change. By not relating to people in a way congruent with their real nature, we end up constraining their options for growth, and for contribution to the broader world. How many of us are afraid to take up singing at a late age because we are afriad of what people will think? How many of us are only using part of full potential because society asks us to be neat fitting cogs in a big machine rather than beautiful, unique contributions to vital and rich garden? Our fear of the unknown and desire for certainty contributes to our addiction to specialists and specialization. We miss out on thousands of opportunities daily to contribute and be contributed to.
• Dysfuynctional behaviors are left unchallenged. Another story. A friend of mine is currently living in a shared household with 2 other people. One of these people thinks she should be able to benefit from the reduced rent but not have to negotiate any of her needs. She leaves her stuff everywhere and complains about other people doing the same and gets annoyed with the other roomates invite friends over. Clearly this is an untenable situation. But my friend and the other roomate are thinking about moving out because this woman won't budge! In a more vital community (Americans don't know their neighbors), people in the neighborhood would have relationships with the people in the household, which would help to provide better perspective and help them to work through their problems. Right now, unreasonable people are not held accountable for living in an interdependent world. What this requires of the broader community is compassion rather than judgment, because I am certainly not advocating lynchings, literal or figurative.
• Limited creativity and learning (and greater oppression) The judgment mentioned above is all too common in American history (and present). A companion problem to the fear of the unfamiliar is the mistrust and denigration of the unfamiliar. We assume that we are right and have the answer and that the other is wrong and should be punished. This leads to oppression and suppression of difference, but it also slows creativity and learning. Without engaging diverse perspectives, we will only every have part of the story, which limits learning. Better solutions remain hidden, undiscussed and unimplemented. If we are willing to listen, we will find that everyone's perspective is important in creating a better future together.
• Expensive and fruitless wars Applying this fear as a nation against other nations and peoples leads us to invent enemies where there don't need to be. We engage in wars (the Iraq War included) that are a product of fear and ignorance of the other (and an unknown future). It is the same dynamic at play in our communities at home played out internationally. We waste money that could be much more productively spent on R&D to invent alternatives to our oil addiction, investing in development abroad, investing in our children at home.

I am not attempting to say that these problems are solely American, but I do believe they are something we critically need to address. And it all starts with unwinding our fears and our fearful reactions. This possible and can be done intentionally.

• Individually, we can learn to become aware of our reactions and our fears. We can begin to notice our reactions as they happen and let them go. We can take steps, however small, to increase our trust and openness . THe resulting beauty of our growth will be an inspiration for others.
• As groups, we can engage in dialogue around these issues. Everyone will learn a great deal and develop new freedom. Creativity will be unlocked, especially the more diverse the the group. This assumes you have a good facilitator. Not all facilitators know how to productively handle diversity and open conflict. It is essential to create a safe, but challenging space where people can experiment safely with new approaches and new feelings. I have seen it work.
• As a nation we should do some soul searching. Like an adolescent growing up, the US needs to grow up and mature in its outlook. Our current behavior is juvenile and destructive.
• As a world, we should engage in cross cultural dialogue, surfacing and testing our assumptions about each other. Coming to a place of real knowledge and understanding. We need to be increasing our capacity and the capacity of our children to face the unknown unafraid, especially in a time as full as change as ours.

I hope people come to understand how fundamental and important this work is and start engaging it. Through this work, we will develop the intersubjective capacity we need to move forward together. As philosopher Jason Hills describes it, we will have moved into a future of "moral cosmopolitanism."