The Casualties of “Winning”
The need for more adults has never been greater
Pinky: “Gee Brain, what are we gonna do tonight?”
Brain: “The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world!”
— From Pinky and the Brain, an American animated sitcom created by Tom Ruegger
Watching Israeli protestors marching across fields to prevent humanitarian aid from going into Gaza, where more than a million innocent Palestinians are trapped between war and Egypt’s border, is painful. As it should be for anyone who empathizes with the suffering of innocent people. Yet we see women, men, and children (one guy with a baby strapped to his chest) crossing grassy fields trying to get to chain linked fencing and guards protecting trucks of food, water and medical supplies intended for Palestinian people fleeing war https://www.cnn.com.
One woman talked resolutely, denying the truthfulness of how perilous and desperate are the lives of Palestinians, caught between bombs, bullets, famine and no health care. I could not help to wonder, from where does the absence of empathy come? And why, as they were confronted by security, are these people putting these kids in harms way? How different is this from the accusations being leveled against Hamas, I wondered.
Does this mean over two thirds of Israeli Jews actually support innocent people, babies and children, dying from starvation, becoming ill from poor sanitation, and the lack of health care? How can this be?
Horrifically, Israeli attitudes support the Israeli woman’s disregard. According to the Israel Democracy Institute (Feb. 2024):
“A majority of Jewish respondents (68%) oppose the transfer of humanitarian aid (to Palestinians in Gaza) even under these conditions...”
Does this mean over two thirds of Israeli Jews actually support innocent people, babies and children, dying from starvation, becoming ill from poor sanitation, and the lack of health care, How can this be?
This is but one example of how pervasive is humanity’s abandonment of the call to be one another’s “brothers’ (and sisters’) keepers.” Instead, the dominant viewpoints, ways of being, and branding are seemingly “my way or the highway.” We ourselves have become the center of a universe that seemingly values self over others. Not the survival of self, that’s different; this is the kind of energy that has only one end game — domination.
Here Come The Judge, Here Come The Judge!
When Marine Le Pen, then France’s presidential candidate, refused to cover her head while visiting Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdellatif Deryan’s, a highly renown Sunni scholar and Lebanese Muslim leader, my online chat argument with a former colleague and an online acquaintance, both White (I am not), concluded with me being told that my insensitivity to the plight of Muslim women was abhorrent. My retort: if you come to my house you obey my rules. We went round and round. No one giving ground! And then it turned personal. The attack on my character, hubris as it was called, was leveled by my former colleague. I’ve not spoken to them since. That was more than five years ago.
Interestingly, in 2010 France banned the wearing of face covering (typical of many Muslim women). In recent years the country has also banned students from wearing abayas and hijab in schools. Their latest move, also banning their Olympic athletes from wearing hijab, affirms my view— my house, my rules prevailing!
Significantly, a number of people in the U.S. seemingly find demonizing others easy. How often do we see and hear people at Trump rallies laughing when he mocks people with disabilities, when he demeans women, calls people who have died in service to the country losers, and worse? His racist epitaphs have consistently characterized “people of color” and the countries from which they come as being a danger to U.S. society. And lest we think other leaders are immune from using “evil other” characterizations to incite xenophobic emotions, during the State of the Union address President Biden’s use of the “illegal” label to describe an undocumented immigrant is not any different.
A number of people in the U.S. seemingly find demonizing others easy. How often do we see and hear people at Trump rallies laughing when he mocks people with disabilities, when he demeans women, calls people who have died in service to the country losers, and worse?
And, it’s not just our political leaders. It’s also us! In disclosing my cancer diagnosis in a previous essay, Are You Old Daddy, a respondent wrote, referring to my being much older than my wife and our children, 32 years and 67 years respectively, that cancer was the universal revenge for my selfishness. The judgement of others was not a surprise. I come from a political career where people have felt free to say judgmental and callous things, both to my face and anonymously. What’s disheartening is the motivation for judgments casually strewn across public squares. Word bombs that are tantamount to a dismissal of people’s right to exist. That energy feels eerily like a return to the witch hunts that were once a popular tool of ignorance.
Al Fin - In Search of Adults In The Room
To use Transactional Analysis theory as a lens, life these days is like living with millions of parents and children, but no adults. Developed by Dr. Eric Bern, Transactional Analysis (also known as TA) tells us people relate to the world and communicate with others primarily out of one of three ego states — parent, adult, or child — sending and receiving messages that affect how we see ourselves and others.
“Which state we are in during an interaction depends on a few factors, such as how we have been conditioned to act or react from childhood, any past traumas that now cause us to act in a certain way during particular interactions or situations, and how the other person we are interacting with is treating us/ what ego state they are in when speaking to us.” — Simply Psychology
As the labels imply: the parental ego state tend to replay the way our parents have dealt with us. The authoritarian parent tends to be judgmental, controlling and critical. The nurturing parent tries to take control by nurturing, soothing and solving problems as one would treat our children.
The child ego state replays how we behaved when we were children. It’s like we stay addicted to the reinforcements, the strokes, we got from how we acted. Even as grown-ups, we look for what makes us feel. Be it positive or negative! We aim to please when our child takes over, whether what we are doing to please others advantages or disadvantageous us. And when faced with situations that do not seem to give us what we need, we act out. Or we abdicate all responsibility and go play.
We are increasingly plagued by parental attitudes and childish behaviors. The consequences of this has taken lives, and fostered decisions that advance a few while oppressing many. When such ways of being go unfettered, our world is imperiled by an absence of balance.
“When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” — Kenyan Proverb
When we act out of our adult ego state, we are more likely to have adult-to- adult communication. We leave our baggage behind, so to speak, when dealing with others. We’ve worked through our past issues, recognizing our biases before they infect our views of the world. We understand when our past experiences are infecting our way of dealing with others.
Being an adult requires us to make the effort to be healthy, more rational, and less quick to make harsh judgments. Communication from our adult ego state makes us more likely to be respectful, to compromise, listen fully, and to value each other regardless of our differences. Winning becomes less important than finding common ground.
The need for more adults has never been greater.
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