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Defusing Polarization: Understanding Divisive Politics
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Introducing “empower politics”
Instead of reacting to liberal rhetoric with your counter conservative arguments, you can do something exquisitely different: Listen.
Yep. You offer no immediate resistance. You offer instead your caring ears. You seek first to understand them, to compassionately recognize those eager needs bubbling up from behind their passionate talk.
Politics-as-usual emphasizes your needs. You can then ignore theirs. Does that sound very attractive?
Empower politics emphasizes their needs. You inspire them to respect your needs. You attract mutual concern.
When our politics misses this critical and yet sensitive component of needs...
...we then easily misunderstand each other.
Liberals that now detest you may just open up to you more, esteem you more, perhaps even love you more. Or wonder what you’re up to. You get to build or rebuild trust.
Instead of reacting to a liberal person’s support for these NFL football players’ protests with…
“The right to protest comes from what that flag stands for! Respect for the flag demonstrates a deep gratitude to all those who fought to preserve such a Constitutional right as free speech!”
…you can replace it with…
“I get what you’re saying about protesting the anthem and flag as your right to free speech, that for you it’s about airing your grievances at a high profile event, to draw attention to all the violence your community continues to suffer, perhaps hypocritically, in the name of that flag.”
Understand to be understood
You open a dialogue about each other’s needs. You focus on their needs, not on yours. You make it easier for them to courageously admit their vulnerably felt needs. And give reason to reciprocate, for the needs you guard behind political arguments.
Isn’t it pointless to disagree with another’s stated need? Have you ever said to someone, “I disagree that you need that”? Who are you to accurately know their specific need?
They’re usually struggling to better understand it themselves. Arguing from your own experience, instead of theirs, typically triggers their defensiveness. And it doesn’t show love, but quite the opposite.
"Only our needs matter to me!"
Political debating shouts: I don’t really care about your needs, I only care about my own and those who share my experience. If “debating” excludes the specific needs of unheard others, no wonder it gets you nowhere!
So let’s skip the debate. Let’s get right down to each other’s specific needs. Let’s understand divisive politics, to understand polarization, and perhaps something we call can do about it.
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Let’s replace overgeneralized beliefs of political ideology with dynamically relating to specific needs.
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Let’s replace alienation with impacting engaging, to relate better to each other’s impacted needs.
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Let’s replace polarization with mutually affirmed value, with value framing.
These are just some of the items addressed in a new eCourse, available to you at Udemy.com, called….
Your responses indicate you lean politically rightward.
You need conservatism, to ease your particular set of needs.
Popular opinion assumes your political views results from reasoned arguments. That you could choose to be more liberal, if persuaded by a good argument. What if this is actually backwards?
Your needs come first
Before you had any reason to follow conservative ideas, you experienced a particular set of needs. At some point, your needs seem best relieved through conservative policies. Right?
You see a minimal role for government essential to your budding individuality. You experience a greater need to incentivize your personal potential at the most local level than, say, broad social inclusion.
You experience your self needs like self-resiliency and personal responsibility more than your social needs like equal inclusion and fair treatment.
From the perspective of your burning needs, it sure can seem strange to you that anyone would advocate increasing the imposing tendencies of the federal government.
It is this priority in your experienced needs that initially attract you to conservative ideals. Not ideology. Your needs come first. Appealing arguments come later.
We trust you learned something valuable about yourself. We see you as valuable, no matter where you fit along the political spectrum. Your responses indicate you lean politically to the right.
Of the many influences upon your political outlook, your responses help us appreciate the central role of your needs. It is your experience of needs that pull you rightward.
Unfortunately, political orientation theories tend to overstate the role of choice. We do not simply choose what we may need. We don’t flexibly choose our political beliefs; we find what gives expression to our less flexible needs. We can only change our politics when aligned with our needs.
We trust you learned something valuable about yourself. We see you as valuable, no matter where you fit along the political spectrum. Your responses indicate you lean politically to the right.
To delve deeper into your survey results, click through each of these eight slides. Navigate by clicking on the arrows . Afterwards, hold your mouse over the bottom of the slide to read its text.
Now I do have to ask you something.
Won any political debates lately?
No, I didn't think so.
If your political views express your particular needs, and others experience a different set of stubborn needs, guest what. Most political debating is just a tragic waste of time.
Your persistent needs yearn for better understanding, not to be proven wrong. So does theirs.
Instead of insisting how your need-based arguments should fit everyone, go ahead and browse through these “rightward leaning needs” slides.
You likely lean rightward because you depend upon traditional forms of community for your place in this world. Or you lean right because of your strong affinity with others seeking such supportive cohesion.
You seek to conserve traditional forms of social cohesion. Others from a very different culture could threaten your well-grounded cohesion. Conservatism offers the promise of conserving your socially cohesive local units, like family.
In fact, your pressing needs keep you from recognizing how liberals legitimately experience a contrary set of needs. We overcome political polarization by respecting one another's differing needs.
You likely lean rightward because you depend upon traditional forms of community for your place in this world. Or you lean right because of your strong affinity with others seeking such supportive cohesion.
You can click through each of these twelve slides to delve further into your rightward experience of needs. Be sure to hold your mouse over the bottom of each slide to read its text. Navigate by clicking on the arrows to either side.
Now compare your rightward needs with their leftward needs. If you find conservatism well suited for your needs, can you appreciate how they find liberalism a better fit for their particular needs?
Liberals likely lean left because they individually do not fit in well with the larger group of mainstream society. Or they lean left because of their strong affinity with others marginalized by established norms.
They seek liberation from traditional forms of oppression. Mainstream culture continues to exclude them in some ways. Liberalism offers the promise of being liberated from traditional forms of oppression.
In brief, they feel their social needs more sharply than their individual needs. And this experience of need drives their political outlook more than anything else. We overcome political polarization by respecting their different needs.
Liberals likely lean left because they individually do not fit in well with the larger group of mainstream society. Or they lean left because of their strong affinity with others marginalized by established norms.
A first step to overcoming polarization is to understand both sides. So click through these to better understand the other side. Compare the legitimacy of their needs to your own. Just remember to mouse over the bottom each time.
You see how neither is better than the other? You see how both sides imperfectly address their needs in opposing situations?
Instead of pushing others away with your need-based arguments, are you open to an alternative? Instead of fueling the political hate, are you interested in how you can spread some love?
We all need at least one person in life who we can trust with our deepest secrets. Someone who helps each of us face life’s deeper challenges.
Unfortunately, too many of us resort to some partisan group to ease our frustrated needs. Then think the worst of those who don’t.
Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions. - George W. Bush (2016)
Care to better understand our bias against each other? What we call pseudo-opposition?
There's not a liberal America and a conservative America, there’s the United States of America. - Barack Obama (2004)
Care to help make this ideal more of a lived reality? Not only in the USA, but all over the world?
PREVIEW Defusing Polarization:
Understanding Divisive Politics
HIGHLIGHTS
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7 sections, plus a bonus
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3 three video lessons in each section after the 1st one
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A recap in each of these sections
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A 3-question quiz in these sections, to internalize what you’re learning.
It’s about needs, especially the need to be loved.
Here’s a preview of some the key lectures.
Welcome, let's get started. Lesson #1 is the brief intro to the course, where I introduce myself and the book this course is based upon. What can you expect from this course? What can you get out of it yourself?
How to optimize this course. Lesson #2 has no video, just PDF provides some tips to maximize the course for your life.
It's not about having the correct ideology. That's the theme for lesson #3. It's about love, or the lack thereof.
Undrstanding politics by defining it. Jumping ahead to lesson #7, you get a satisfying definition of politics. This definition puts your needs back into the equation.
You see both liberalism & conservatism impartially. Jumping ahead to lesson #20, you see how the course enables you to appreciate liberalism and conservatism on equal footing. See how neither is inherently better than the other, at least not for all of us.
Section 7. This last full unit goes the extra mile, or 1.6 meters. You get a taste of what you can start to do about this messy problem of political polarization. You see the alternative of “empower politics” in action.
Only so much I can give you here. The course gives you a new vocabulary to better understand the experience of needs beneath all that emotionally thick political talk. And this course can answer some questions I likely raised for you. Such as...
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What is this “wide” or “deep” psychosocial orientation, and how does it shape my political orientation?
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What is this new academic field for better understanding my needs?
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What is this dynamic relating and impact engaging and value framing?
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What exactly is empower politics, and what it can mean for me?
So go ahead and check out the full course. Avoid the full price at the Udemy platform. Join others in not only understanding political polarization, but who are starting to do something about it. See you there.
Your responses indicate you lean politically rightward
It's about your overlooked needs
OPTION A:
Be normal
Keep believing politics is all about rationally argued conclusions.
Keep assuming others should follow your politically reasoned arguments.
Keep suffering disappointment as others cling harder to their own views.
SKIP THIS COURSE
OPTION B:
Be transformative
Start relating your needs more effectively, to make it easier for others to respect you.
Improve how you relate to the needs of others, beyond political generalities.
Start seeing some amazing results in your life and in the lives you impact.
TAKE THIS COURSE
The full course is available here at Udemy at its full price of $95. You can get yours for free if you act now.
If all the free coupons are out, you can still get a deep discount, for only $9.99 while quantities lasts. If you act fast, as there are only limited quantities at this low price.
For a limited time (till 1/31/2018) and for a limited quantity (20), you can still avoid the full price, at only $24.99.
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Take a peek at what you would see if self-identifying as a liberal.
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