Hi everyone, Salut tous le monde,

I know I don’t write very often but I wanted to publicize an important event. I was contacted by a couple who lost their son to suicide in 2017. They are involved in this initiative that started in Ireland.

Je sais que je n’écris pas souvent mais je voulais vous informer d’une initiative importante. J’étais contacté par une couple qui ont perdu leur fils au suicide en 2017. Ils sont impliqué dans une initiative qui a débuté en Irlande.

It is a new walk in Montreal for suicide prevention called Dark into Light. It starts predawn and ends at sunrise overlooking the city from Mount Royal – symbolizing the therapeutic journey from despair into hope.

Il s’agit d’une nouvelle marche à Montréal pour la prévention de suicide qui s’appelle De l’Obscurité Vers La Lumière. La marche commence avant le levé de soleil sur le Mont Royal – symbolisant le voyage thérapeutique du désespoir vers l’espoir.

The movement started in Ireland and takes place in Irish communities around the world on May 11.

Le mouvement a commencé en Irlande et a lieu dans des communautés Irlandais autour du monde le 11 mai.

A Montreal chapter is holding a walk here on Mount Royal at 5 a.m.  Any money raised will benefit Suicide Action Montreal.

Le chapitre Montréalais aura lieu sur le Mont Royal à 5h00. Tout argent récolté bénéficiera Suicide Action Montréal.

I can think of no better way to commemorate a loved one than this and I encourage all of you to participate and please, help spread the word!

Je ne peut pas penser à une meilleur façon de commémorer un être cher et je vous encourage tous d’y participer et SVP, aider à passer le mot!

Here is the info: Voici l’information: De l’obscurité vers la lumière / Dark Into Light

If you happen to be a Trump supporter then you obviously share some of his strong views on trade or immigration or gun control or whatever hot-button issue excites you. Nevertheless this means you have to live with the whole package. The following is just a partial list of the things you have to be OK with if you are a Trump supporter:

-      The fact that Trump sponsors beauty pageants. You have to be OK with the fact that well into the 21^stcentury we still rate women on appearance. You have to be a self-respecting woman, or a man who respects women, and still support someone who thinks a pageant is not only a good thing, but a thing so good he will put money behind.

-      You have to be OK with someone who mocks climate change science and who believes that burning coal to produce electricity makes sense.

-      That free trade is bad and that trade deficits are good indications of the success or failure of agreements despite the fact that countless economists and studies consistently say this is irrelevant.

-      You have to be OK with Trump hiring his daughter and son-in-law as advisors. You have to believe that these two advisors can disagree with Trump and not risk being cut off from family money. I suppose if nepotism is good enough for North Korea and Cuba it must be good for America too.

-      You have to think the idea of building a wall to keep out Mexicans is a good one and you have to believe Trump will get Mexico to pay for it. Plus you have to actually believe that Mexico is stupid enough to do so. What is interesting here is that illegals come because Americans hire them! The employer of the thief is the person who buys stolen goods. The root cause of illegal immigration are all the true blue Americans who hire these modern day equivalents of slaves at bargain basement prices and threaten them with deportation if they don’t do what they’re told.

-      You have to be OK with the idea that the cost of building such a wall is not better spent on other things such as, hmm let’s see… improved mental health services, broader health coverage, or paid parental leave to name a few. By the way, the United States proudly joins Papua New Guinea as the only two countries in the world that do not provide this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave).

-      You have to be OK with the idea of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem knowing that dozens will die in the ensuing protests. Regardless of your personal views on Jerusalem, America’s right to choose, or the protesters responsibilities for the deaths, other countries and previous American administrations haven’t made the move in the interest of peace and to prevent the inevitable carnage. You have to be OK with a president that is either too stupid to realize people would die or too callous to care.

-      That the people who are competent enough to govern in key posts are almost all old white guys. That somehow a qualified number of younger, swarthier, or ‘female-er’ people just can’t be found!

-      That arming teachers is a better response to the over 30,000 annual gun-deaths in the country than trying to contribute to a less firearm obsessed culture.

-      You have to be OK with the hypocrisy of Trump having criticized Obama for playing too much golf during his presidency while he himself plays twice as often (http://trumpgolfcount.com).

-      You have to be OK with him calling people fat and ugly. We have evolved to the point where calling someone a nigger or a redskin is not acceptable. Is fat and ugly any more acceptable? And you have to not expect some sort of leadership on issues of human decency and respect from a president.

-      You have to see nothing absurd with the fact Melania Trump wants to champion anti-cyber-bullying campaigns despite her husband’s penchant for giving people degrading nicknames on Twitter.

-      That despite his explicit campaign promise to ban all Muslims from entering the country, you must believe his current claim that his attempted travel ban is not about religion.

-      You also have to be OK with someone whose companies filed for bankruptcy four times. If I were one of his former creditors who got stiffed and now see him flaunting his fortune and not repaying past debts I would be justifiably pissed. Legal? Yes. Moral? Don’t think so.

-      You have to not care that Trump has never shown his tax returns. On one hand he says his tax reform will cost him millions while on the other saying to a group of wealthy people, “I just made you all a lot richer!” You also have to believe he is sincerely there to fight for the little guy!

-      And finally you have to be OK with the fact that as of today’s date 16 months into his presidency Trump has so far lied or misled people over 3000 times (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.f2a4f4a5c06d). That seems like a lot. Or is it just me?

Hi Folks, Salut

Come join me this Sunday at Montreal Walks for Mental Health

Venez me rejoindre ce dimanche à Montréal Marche Pour La Santé Mentale

________________________________________________________

Speaking of mental illness here is an article on the topic of stigma:

THANK YOU, HOWIE MANDEL!

What’s the big deal with shaking someone’s hand? Well for someone like Howie Mandel it evokes such a visceral repulsion that he avoids it at all costs. Not being able to do something so basic affects almost all social interactions. How many times in a day do you shake hands? And how would people react if you refused?

When we diagnose mental illnesses we can’t rely on blood tests. Instead we look at things such as how much individuals suffer or how their social or occupational functioning is affected. By these metrics, Mandel’s problem is a full-blown mental illness.

Last week was mental illness awareness week in Canada, we have the Bell Let’s Talk day every January, a mental health week every May, and Montreal is hosting its annual mental health walk this Sunday. These campaigns all have the mandate of educating the public about mental illnesses with the ultimate goal of removing the stigma associated with them. But what makes this necessary and why are we so apt to judge?

Well, you brought this on.
When we see a child with leukemia we feel only sadness and empathy. No child chooses to be ill. But there are other conditions that can have a basis in our behaviours, at least in part. Lung cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, or cirrhosis of the liver are just a sample. Leaving aside the question of whether we have as much control over our behaviours as we want to believe, whenever a lifestyle choice is associated with an illness we tend to temper our support with a tacit tsk tsk. “Just don’t drink so much and stop smoking.”

Most people tend to do the same thing when it comes to mental illness. Since many are behaviourally based we are likely to assume the sufferer is somehow more in control, and therefore more at fault, than the child with leukemia.

In the mind of the patient
The main source of stigma lies in our own minds. Empathy comes from our ability to imagine the circumstances of another and then to feel what we would feel. It’s simple. If you hear of a nice young couple losing a child you will undoubtedly imagine it happening to you. Your empathy would be genuine and you would completely understand if they couldn’t function normally after that. When the experience speaks to us empathy comes easy.

Mandel’s obsessive-compulsive disorder is a perfect example of why we are so prone to judge. Most of us comfortably shake hands. When we imagine the same circumstances, we feel nothing negative. It makes it very difficult to fathom his reaction.

OCD is hard to understand. It is no more logical than a facial tic we see in a case of Tourette’s. It is probably driven by a neurological condition and strengthened by an anxiety-driven self-reinforcing habit response. I once asked a client exactly what she felt when she touched something that was “contaminated.” She said, “It is like someone threw up in a plate and forced me to eat it.” It’s hard to imagine such revulsion but powerful urges or discomfort are part of this condition.

Without getting into the nuts and bolts of OCD, suffice it to say that it is among the worst illnesses to suffer from. There is almost no relief. Imagine not being able to touch anything that someone else may or may not have touched earlier in the day. And this is only one form of this multi-faceted condition where we can be tortured by our own thoughts, or by possible disease, or accidents, or almost anything within the realm of human experience.

No one chooses to go through hell. But it happens to some people. Do children who stutter or who have tics enjoy being taunted relentlessly by classmates? Do they not try to control the behaviour? There is a reason why some people can’t control an urge…no matter how bad it makes them look.

It is why I admire Howie Mandel so much for having the courage to go public with his condition. He could have avoided the spotlight and done what most people with this and other serious mental illnesses do – suffer in secret. It looks bizarre, people make fun, they mock, and most importantly, they just can’t understand.

By being open about it he gives a name to the person with OCD who does odd things. Instead of that weird neighbor who spends twenty minutes checking that his front door is locked, or the crazy guy who stops his car whenever he feels a bump to ensure he didn’t run over a pedestrian, we see an individual. We see a real person with a real name.

We just see a guy named Howie Mandel – a guy who can’t shake hands but is normal in every other way. And we see a guy we should all admire.

I know I’ve been away a while but I haven’t gone anywhere. I am no longer at the Douglas Institute but plan to keep blogging for many years to come I hope. This blog will probably move at some point but so far let’s stick with the status quo.

Yesterday I published this article in the Huffington Post. It is on how actions – good or bad – beget similar actions form others. See: We Get To Decide Whether Or Not We’re Good Or Bad People.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty images

From heroic acts like a firefighter running into a burning building to rescue a child to a simple act like a father holding his daughter’s hand or a teacher reading a nursery rhyme to her class we are surrounded by the beauty of humanity.

And yet little girls are abducted and used as sex slaves, terrorists drive trucks through crowds, and famine relief often gets diverted to buy weapons. We are also surrounded by the ugliness of humanity.

We often wonder if human beings are fundamentally good or bad? Many people will say that some people are bad and some are good. While this may be true in extreme cases it simply doesn’t fit the available evidence in personality research. Others believe that there is good and bad in all of us. This may be a little closer to the truth but not exactly.

The best way to state it is that we all have the potential to be good or bad. However it is not part of our own individual characteristics. It is often more dependent on our culture and on our circumstances than our personality traits. While we like to believe that personality is a stable trait – and for the most part it is – it remains highly dependent on the situation we find ourselves in.

Photo by Vince Talotta

Tell me how I’m supposed to act
Here is a simple illustration. If a man is lying down on a city street and lots of people pass him, chances are very good that you will also pass by. Social psychologists call this pluralistic ignorance. If we feel others have already judged the situation as being a non-emergency so will we. In such cases we assume the man is a wino and ignore him. If others are crouched over him we are more likely to stop and reassess our role. We may not help if we feel there are enough people involved. Or we may jump in if someone asks. In other cases we may hesitate because we assume others are more qualified to help. They seem to know what they’re doing.

The common denominator in this scenario is that we look for guidance on how to act. If we are given permission to not get involved we are less likely to do so. If we receive signals that we should intervene we will.

Good sport, poor sport
This tendency to act based on cues around us applies to all social circumstances from simple things such as sports and games to major circumstances such as natural disasters and wars.

CBS photo archive via Getty images

When the show Survivor first came out they introduced viewers to the reality show confessional: the so-called spontaneous expression of backstabbing, paranoid, and hateful secret thoughts of competitors. It was disconcerting at the time but it has become standard fare for shows of that type and in social media comment sections.

This is not basic human nature. It isn’t good or bad. Basic human nature is to follow what others do. If others act like bullies then so do we. If others are nice we tend to be nice. While this is not true all the time – some asses will remain asses no matter how nice everyone is – it is how we are. We both influence others and are influenced by them in turn.

Culture has as much to do with the expression of ugliness as does any innate character flaw. Boys we consider to be nice will pat their opponents on the back for a good hit in football but shove fists in their faces when playing hockey. It is simply a question of what that particular sport’s culture expects (and accepts).

Can we treat each other with respect? Can we decide that it is not ok to denigrate or belittle our opponents? Absolutely. We can choose to do so or we can choose to flip everyone off with our middle fingers. We are the same people. When we choose to put people down as a matter of routine, or when election campaigns have deteriorated to nothing but name-calling, is it any surprise to see what today’s White House has become? Tolerate garbage and disrespect and that is what you get. You won’t get decency unless you both expect it from others and offer it yourself.

Culture determines much of our behaviour but culture is ultimately a refection of our own values. We cannot completely control the culture that surrounds us but we are the ingredients that make it up. By remembering our roles in shaping it, we can promote the values we admire in our culture. Respect begets respect. Pettiness begets pettiness. It’s our choice to decide which of these values to promote.

PRESERVING LIFE OR PROLONGING DEATH?

Let’s cut to the chase – should we allow euthanasia?

A Quebec man – Michel Cadotte – is facing murder charges after respecting his wife’s request to end her life when her dementia had progressed too far. “I gave in to her demand for help in dying. I’m waiting for the police,” he wrote in a post in March.

When the country was debating the proposed law on assisted dying I wrote about the ethical dilemma of balancing two important principles: Preserving life versus preventing suffering. (See: How would you like to die, Sir?) The debate comes down to this: if we do not offer choice, then we are in fact making a choice. The default choice means that no matter what your living circumstances are – confusion, anger, tears, bedsores, immobility – so be it.

The law, as it stands, is a brave one. But we have made another choice. We have decided that only those with a “grievous and irremediable” medical condition, and for whom natural death must be “reasonably foreseeable” can opt for it. Except that represents only a small percentage of people who actually want the freedom to choose the circumstances of their own deaths. For those with a cognitive decline and no reasonably foreseeable end, this means the law cannot apply to them. They are forced to wait for nature to take its course. Or more precisely, nature plus modern medicine.

The crystal ball test
If we had a crystal ball, and saw what the latter parts of our golden years looked like, what would we want for ourselves? Many of our younger selves would be mortified. More importantly most of us will never meet the criteria of the current law.

The law is based on the principle of proper consent. This seems like an important place to start. Consent requires that the person is fully informed of and able to appreciate the pros and cons of every option and that the person is also completely free to choose. Furthermore the person has the right to withdraw consent at any time. Unfortunately, when it comes to assisted-dying these conditions can rarely be fully realized.

Should we allow for euthanasia?
Should we as a modern society allow for euthanasia? The old argument that we allow it for animals seems trite but remains apropos. Are human lives far too sacred and beloved for something we only tolerate for lowly animals? Or is it because we know it is more humane to end the animal’s life rather than watch it slowly fade away in a pitiful deathwatch? If so then why deny ourselves and our loved ones the same humanity?

This is not about whether life is sacred. It is. But whatever your position happens to be on end of life issues it comes down to this: Should we be allowed to decide for ourselves how and when we die?

I don’t want to die any more than anyone else. And as a psychologist I take suicide prevention very seriously. But when I deal with a suicidal individual it is with the conviction that, if the person can get through this difficult period, a better and more normal life awaits. When someone is facing a degenerative condition there is no returning to normal. Every day is worse than the previous one…and better than the next.

I understand the slippery slope argument and the potential for abuse but as I wrote in my earlier post this must be weighed against the abuse produced by lack of choice. Ethical debates are never simple ones. They occur when equally important values clash. There is never a clean resolution to such debates but when we weigh all values and consider them as a whole, any decision made at that point is generally the best one. It doesn’t have to be clean. It has to be the cleanest.

An imperfect decision-making process
So what are we left with if we are too far gone to properly consent? Advanced directives are a good place to start. We can tell our loved ones what we would want under various conditions but who can accurately predict all the possibilities and their severity? Advanced consent cannot be fully informed nor meet the reversibility principle. Nevertheless it remains one part of a necessary formula.

Most of us want to live as long as possible. Like them I want to see my loved ones and feel the warmth of their touch for as long as I can. I don’t want to give that up until the last possible minute. If I remain lucid I want to be free to decide.

But if I wait a little too long and can no longer be lucid I don’t want to be forced to linger. And what if my medical condition came on suddenly and I didn’t have time to express myself on my current condition. What then?

For me the answer is relatively simple. I want my loved ones to decide for me. And decide for me alone. A substitute decision maker, such as my son, for example, must make the choice that I would make for myself. Substitute decision makers must not choose what they want to see happen, nor what they believe is best for the patient, nor what they would do in similar circumstances. Their obligation is to choose as the person would choose for him or herself, even if the substitute disagrees.

I trust that my loved ones would make the right call. I want it in my hands as long as I am able. But beyond that it should be in theirs. Especially if I have made my opinions abundantly clear to them. The Michel Cadottes of the world should be supported and consoled, not led away in handcuffs.

What more can be said about Donald Trump’s America that hasn’t been said?

It isn’t even about him in particular. It’s about the mentality he represents. That enough people share his thinking is what’s most disturbing.

Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…

My parents were illiterate immigrants. They never mastered the language, they tilled a makeshift garden next to a railroad track, they hung sausage in the cold room and made wine in their garage. One generation later their three children are all professionals – two chartered accountants and a psychologist. It took only one generation to create fully integrated Canadians. Their grandchildren are a slice of Canadian life: engineers, researchers, web content specialists, HVAC technicians, and military reservists.

Theirs is the stereotypic immigrant’s story; two young people living in the mess that was post WW-II Europe. They arrived on a boat with empty pockets and nothing but hope and the willingness to work hard in their spirits. It didn’t take long for those uneducated immigrants to go from mopping your floors and sewing your undergarments to planting the seeds of a growing group of typical Canadians. Just more of us.

It does indeed take time to integrate newcomers. It’s not easy to help them find work and teach them a new language but surely we can be more welcoming. By fully accepting ‘them’ they quickly become one of ‘us.’

And it probably isn’t as tough as we think to find work for them. While we often favour educated immigrants who speak our language and who can bring advanced skills, there are plenty of jobs we don’t want. Immigrants like my parents will indeed be happy to mop floors, drive taxis, and sew underwear. The skilled jobs can be filled later by their children. Their Canadian children.

Soon in the bars around the harbor was talk of America for Americans
Someone said “You want ‘em out, you got to burn ‘em out.” And brought in the Texas Klan
- Bruce Springsteen (Galveston Bay)

I regularly dine at a restaurant owned by a survivor of the barbarous Khmer Rouge, I recently met the remarkably inspiring writer Kim Thuy, who was one of the many Vietnamese boat people, and I order pizza from a Serbian-owned restaurant. All of these people have become part of us – who we are – and of our ever-evolving culture.

Kim Thuy

Why then are immigrants so often seen as a problem? I am particularly disheartened by the plight of the Syrian refugees. If a starving man were to approach you and beg for something to eat would you turn and walk away? Yet this appears to be the attitude of anti-immigration zealots like Trump and his supporters. To close the borders to Syrian refugees is akin to stepping over a starving child on the way to the garbage can to dump the chicken nuggets you didn’t finish!

– Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

For security reasons no less. Threats to security do not come from the ‘wretched refuse.’ Threats come from the people we alienate by treating them as unwanted outsiders. And, of course as we saw this week in Quebec City, from the bigots we inflame with our tribal rhetoric.

Those we take in under desperate conditions are the most proud to become one of us. Go to a Canada Day parade and count the faces of the visible minorities. And among the whites, the ones who are immigrants can easily be identified as well. Just look for the people who wave the flags with the most enthusiasm.

Immigrants are not a threat. They just become US. Unless of course we treat them as THEM.

For last year’s Bell Let’s Talk Day I listed some reasons why we should be more open about our mental health struggles. But what happens when we do open up and seek treatment?
(Published Jan 25, 2017 in the Huffington Post)

Here is just a partial list of some of the biggest issues we might face:

Lack of scientific knowledge
The biggest issue with mental health treatment is that we simply do not have very many answers. It is especially problematic when the consumers of knowledge fall prey to the belief that an expert – by virtue of being an expert – knows everything. If we know one percent of how the brain works and an expert knows five times more than we do, the expert is still missing 95% of the information.

Lobotomies, insulin comas, and ice baths now seem barbaric but were all once touted by experts as reasonable treatments. Schizophrenia and Autism were thought to be caused by bad parenting. We now know these are biological illnesses. In retrospect these claims and treatments were abusive. Well intentioned perhaps, but abusive nonetheless.

Where are we now? We do know a lot about mental illness but we still don’t have as much knowledge as most of the general population wants to believe. And not much as some experts pretend to have.

Proliferation of pseudo-knowledge
Into this knowledge void dive all the charlatans, snake-oil salesmen, and purveyors of the latest alternative treatment. Knowledge doesn’t come from wishing it. Knowledge comes from having it. And we often don’t have it. Placebo effects remain a very powerful reality. Anything you believe in will help. A lot. But beyond these placebo effects don’t we want to know if something adds some additional benefit?

Who wouldn’t want to rid themselves of panic or depression forever with a food supplement? Proposing an alternative treatment is not the problem. I recommend many of them. If something is based on a sound logical theory or if research shows a potential benefit then it’s worth exploring. But most claims are not that hard to test. And when new alternatives are tested, most don’t measure up.

The Procrustean bed of medical diagnoses
Another important issue with mental illness is that we try to force it into a medical model. Psychiatry is not like other medical disciplines. Mental illness is an emotional state that causes distress to the person or to others. These emotional states result from a mix biological/medical conditions, personality styles, and social circumstances. There are few if any blood markers for mental illness. You can’t see it under a microscope.

Psychiatric diagnoses strive for precision by using clear and well-defined criteria. But in working with real clients we often see that no label quite fits. A diagnosis is important if specific treatments exist for specific conditions, but forcing someone into a category does little more than provide a meaningless and stigmatizing label. If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn’t, don’t. Trying to apply the medical model to all mental conditions is akin to trying to precisely define the sections of a cloud.

Oversimplification of medical treatments
When we pretend that all psychological distress is caused by a biochemical imbalance we perpetuate the belief that mental illness is a medical condition requiring medical treatments. All emotional states are found in the brain so technically every mental illness is a biological illness. But just because something is found in the brain does not mean the brain is ill. If I lose a loved one my brain will make me feel depressed. That doesn’t mean I’m diseased.

People can benefit from both medical and non-medical treatments, regardless of the cause.

Oversimplification of psychological treatments
One of the challenges I face when someone asks me for a referral is finding the name of someone I can trust and would see myself. Lots of people offer the service but it is difficult to do well.

Psychologists or other therapists have three main tools at their disposal. The first is more than a century of research into what makes humans tick and which treatment principles work. A good therapist should have this knowledge. Then there is what we learn from the lives of all the clients that pass through the office doors. This rich collective experience can be used to inform and educate other clients. And finally a therapist has his or her own ability to think logically and help guide people into making choices that are in their best interests. This is where it gets really tricky. What is learned from these experiences and how this is articulated for the individual client remains far more of an art than a science.

It isn’t as simple as just listening and encouraging people to express themselves. Some therapists will offer little else.

One size fits all and the latest fads
The latest megatrend in mental health treatment is mindfulness, a form of meditation. Let me start by saying that I recommend it for many clients and there is good scientific evidence that it helps many people. But like any treatment, it doesn’t work for everyone. For some people it is life transforming. Others just can’t do it.

The issue is that when something seems to help, some therapists recommend it for everyone and offer nothing else. It is easy to overstate and oversell the benefits of a treatment, be it traditional or alternative. A tool is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Not all tools work for all jobs.

The bottom line is that we are all in this boat together. We don’t know everything but we do know a lot. With the right amount of critical thinking we will encourage questions that force both the professional and the client to be on their toes. This will help us avoid dead ends and ruts and guide us towards better and more effective treatments for all.

Sorry, folks. It took a while to find my writing discipline again. Here is something I published yesterday on the rising trend of identity politics in the Huffington Post. (See: Tribalism Remains Mankind’s Most Dangerous Instinct)

CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

Here’s a disturbing thought. If human nature produced the atrocities of the last century, is it any less likely to produce atrocities in this one?

Is there any truth to the adage that those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it? I certainly think so. History is there for the teaching but sometimes it seems we’re just too damn stupid to learn from it.

Emotional evolution
Human evolution has provided us with a series of survival emotions. We needed to be aggressive hunters so as to eat, and fearfully defensive so as not to be eaten. In the natural world the strongest and most aggressive alpha male got to eat first and choose the woman he wanted whether she liked it or not.

But the world is very different today and we are not always well served by the same instincts that helped in the past. The fear of getting trapped in a cave protected cavemen and women from being attacked by predators. But today it makes a lot less sense to be afraid of modern-day equivalents of caves such as elevators, MRI machines, and subways, yet many people feel claustrophobic in them.

Cultural evolution
Another form of evolution exists as well. It involves culture and education and it can often overcome basic human instincts.

When there is plenty of food to go around all we have to do is wait in line at the grocery store. No need to club someone on the head and steal their wildebeest. Mating rituals have changed too. We now attract mates by treating them with respect – hopefully. Sure we still use the old standbys of flexing muscles and displaying cleavage but exerting physical force is no longer culturally accepted.

These changes do not come easily. They require constant vigilance. By seeing how natural instincts clash with our current reality we replace survival behaviours with a more orderly conduct. We educate each other. We create rules and laws. We develop societal habits. In short, we evolve a culture that benefits the greatest number of people and does the greatest good. Or at least that’s what one would hope.

Uniting against a common enemy
Humans not only need to eat and not be eaten, they must also protect themselves from other humans. When food supplies are scarce we can be pretty sure others will try to attack us and steal ours. The tendency to unite and fight against a common enemy thus becomes as necessary an instinct as fearing a cave. The sharpening of spears and the painting of faces makes sense in such a context. But does this is us-and-them thinking make any sense today? It may be funny when zealous fans paint their faces with team colours at a tailgate party but it isn’t so funny when defense departments spend billions on high-tech equivalents of modern day spears.

Why wars?
Why do wars happen? The simple answer is that if human nature leads to conflicts between tribes in a primitive world then human nature will continue to lead to conflicts between tribes in the modern world. Modern day tribal equivalents include races, linguistic groups, countries and their subdivided regions, religions and their subdivided sects, political ideologies and all their subdivided iterations. There is no shortage of tribes to pick from. Just add water and you can produce a person who feels superior to, or slighted by, a member of the other tribe.

We get so blinded by this tribal zeal that we support anything our side says or does. In sports your guys are always fair and the other guys are always either cheating, playing dirty, or whining. We saw this in the last American election. Even avowed feminists supported and defended Donald Trump – a man who sponsored beauty contests for years – even after he bragged about groping women. There is no shortage of blinded loyalty to your side and that’s the danger of identity politics. There is no more dangerous adage than, “My country. Right or wrong!”

Cogent arguments and a reasoned analysis of policies and facts take a backseat to dogma. What you say becomes irrelevant as long as you are wearing the right uniform, or speaking the right language, or wearing the right religious symbol. That’s why the rise of identity politics is so disturbing. We travelled that road many times in the last century and always to a horrific destination.

Tribal thinking is a basic instinct that must be recognized as dangerous. Through an understanding of where we have come from and where we went wrong in the past our culture can promote values to overcome basic instincts. Just like we fight against our innate aggressive instincts through our cultural values and laws we can do the same to fight against this fundamental human tendency to tribalism.

It isn’t so hard to promote the idea of respect for the individual, or the importance of judging people on their individual merits as opposed to the group symbol they represent.

So are we destined to repeat history? Not necessarily. But if we keep playing in the minefield of identity politics I fear the answer is yes.

Last March the Huffington Post was running a series on youth mental health. For that series I wrote an article about the theory of mind (the ability to imagine another person’s thoughts) and how the lack of this ability can impact children’s behaviour. This makes them point out differences in classmates because they are oblivious to the how much these comments can hurt. See On lady ‘states and why kids can be so cruel.

This month the Post is again focussing on youth mental health so I decided to follow up on my earlier article. In it I discuss what happens by high school when the theory of mind has typically developed. It focuses primarily on social anxiety. (Published in Frame of Mind series, September 27, 2016)

The High School Mantra: I’m a freakin’ loser!

In an earlier post I wrote about how the inability to understand another person’s mind can make a child inadvertently cruel. A theory of mind – the ability to imagine what is in someone else’s thoughts – is something that takes time to develop. Children in early elementary school have yet to develop this ability. This is what makes them comment on people’s appearances and to single out classmates who are different. They don’t intend to harm but their inability to appreciate the harm in others can make them appear to be cruel.

But then comes high school. By this age most high schoolers have developed a theory of mind. The ability to imagine another person’s mind means they develop an acute awareness of how they are seen by those minds. This awareness provides a strong source of negative self-perception for any student who feels different, regardless of whether or not he or she in fact is. Many of them develop social anxieties and a feeling of being out of place.

“Does my breath smell”
This newly developed awareness of who they are in the minds of others is what makes adolescents try to conform to their peer groups. Boys start to wear deodorant, girls put on make-up, and both obsess over their looks. This is also what makes adolescents so vulnerable to negative influences such as smoking or drugs. Their desire to fit in and be liked helps form gangs and cliques naturally. There is less to worry about when everyone thinks the same in a like-minded group. Of course for those outside the clique this just further confirms their “I don’t fit in” feeling.

Social anxiety
Social anxiety is a normal human instinct. Being concerned with what others think makes us conform to social groups. This enhances relationships, makes us love and care for children, and ultimately ensures the survival of the species. But when it becomes intense it impairs normal function.

Social anxiety can evolve and transform throughout the life cycle. Young children can develop social anxiety when they become aware of their differences. This can happen through direct self-awareness or when differences are pointed out by others. But in high school it takes on a new dimension. It is one that plays out in the heads of others. Adolescents become hyperaware of the image they project and of the judgments those images produce.

Are we really so different?
What is interesting about social anxiety is that our sense of being different also makes us believe that other people think differently than we do. But is that true? Are we really that prone to judging others negatively? If we see someone make a mistake or look nervous, do we think, “What an idiot,” or “what a loser?” Perhaps a few people might but most of us would see this as normal and would completely empathize. We might not even notice the mistake, and if we do we may not see it as a big deal. And because we all feel anxiety, when someone else looks nervous we are far more likely to empathize than judge.

The simple fact is most of us are not cruel or judgmental at all. I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna here but if you are honest with yourself you will see – hopefully anyway – that you are not so judgmental. What then makes us think we are so different from each other? If we are not normally judgmental, why would we believe everyone else is?

So while the ability to imagine another person’s thoughts can be a strong source of social anxiety, it can also be the best tool to counter it. A fully developed and more mature awareness of other people’s thoughts – or shall I say a more accurate one – is what will help us realize we are not so different after all, and that we do fit in. Both in high school and in later life.

(Voici un billet que j’ai publié durant les derniers jeux Olympiques).
I can touch my ceiling and other great Olympic feats.