What Do We Do When Darkness Wins

Posted at Leading in Trying Times, Center for Positive Organizations, University of Michigan, http://positiveorgs.bus.umich.edu/essays/what-do-we-do-when-darkness-wins/, posted January 20, 2017

Sandra Waddock

Hatred, misogyny, bullying, corruption, cheating, conning, violence, racism, abusiveness, vulgarity, lying, homophobia, ignorance, cynicism, intolerance, sexual predation, demagoguery, authoritarianism, xenophobia, cruelty, ‘me first,’ anger, and the spewing of hatred are among many other negative values that seemingly have been supported in the 2016 US election. How do we begin to understand how and why so many of our countrymen and women voted for such values? More importantly, now that darkness seems to have won, how do we who want to act as healers begin to heal ourselves, our relationships with others of different views, and our country?

The election results speak to a regressive orientation that threatens not only the foundations of our nation and the values that have been trumpeted (albeit not always practiced) since its founding. They do, however, represent the will of the people, people who are in very real ways disaffected from what has been the dominant political scene and harmed by today’s economic realities and the discourse that has supported those since the Reagan-Thatcher revolution in 1980. Healing this disaffection and the disconnection it implies begins with understanding what caused it in the first place—and what caused so many on the progressive side of the equation to miss this serious element of discontent.

Shamans, I have written in my book Intellectual Shamans, are healers and people of light. Yet, today, the day after the 2016 US election, it strikes me that we face a future where darkness seems to be winning. What do we do to heal ourselves and our country when darkness seems to be winning? To heal ourselves and our nation, we need to tap all of the healing, connecting, and sensemaking powers of our inner shaman, and each do our own work of healing. Quickly, once those of us unhappy with and fearful of the results of the election have finished the mourning that necessarily needs to happen, we need to begin to bridge the divides that the election, and the economic and political realities that generated its outcome have created.[1]

Healing: Each of us needs to ask what we can do to begin to heal ourselves from the trauma that this election has caused, no matter on which side of the electorate we sit. Each one of us needs to sit with the discomfort of our new national reality and wonder what we can actively do to make it better in the future. Then we need to act. Not from fear, not from hatred, not from anger or darkness. But from a place of love that seeks understanding. A place of hope that we can find a way to work together. A place of learning and insight that asks each of us what we really want our world to be like—and how we can work together to achieve that world. A place that seeks an economy and society where everyone can succeed.

Connecting: We need to listen much better, ‘connect’ across the various boundaries and categories that now seemingly almost irreparably divide us. We need to try to understand why so many voters seem to be speaking from a place of fear and despair. Then we need to work together to change the narrative that drives that fear and despair, for example, today’s economic narrative of greed, ‘free’ markets and free trade, and the maximization of wealth —and the economic and political principles that drive us apart rather than pulling us together. Ultimately, it is fear and despair and consequent lack of hope for a better day that fundamentally drives people to accept values that in their heart of hearts they have to know are unacceptable over the long term. Particularly since these values certainly do not fit with many of our ideas about what our country is about.

Sensemaking: We who articulate what is happening and how we relate to others need to think carefully about the language that we use and how we characterize people who might have voted differently from ourselves. Perhaps they had their reasons—which we all need to try to understand far better than anyone did in the run-up to the election. More importantly, we need to think about how to make sense of what has happened for ourselves and our children, not to mention for the rest of the world, in ways that do not further demonize people different from ourselves—but make clear the need to bring more positive values into reality in the future.

The stakes are high and many things that progressives and many healers value are threatened: health, sensible and necessary action on climate change, civil rights, immigration policy, free press, sensible gun control, the inclusivity of our democratic processes, a woman’s right to choose, opportunity for all, even freedom, not to mention the US’s international standing and many other things. We are all stakeholders to this new political reality and need to bring our best selves to working for what we believe is right and what will benefit our country, for, as David Remnick wrote on November 9, 2016 in the New Yorker, ‘…despair is no answer. To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals—that is what is left to do. That is all there is to do.’[2]

Endnotes

[1] See Sandra Waddock, Intellectual Shamans. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

[2] David Remnick, An American Tragedy, The New Yorker, November 9, 2016, posted at: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/an-american-tragedy-donald-trump.