Almost everyone I see or speak with asks this question, these days. And I don’t blame them: it’s almost overwhelming how many people are expressing anger – and how much attention the media puts on it!
So let’s begin with the awareness that whatever is happening of this sort is greatly enhanced by all the media attention it’s getting. You know how it is: give kids attention for what they’re doing and they’ll do more if it; let people who are feeling lost and scared see an example showing them that acting out is okay, and they’ll act out.
Then let’s accept that the media’s job is to focus on what’s not working, not normal. When we do that what they’re talking about begins to slip back into – oh yeah, this is a one-in-several-thousand “man bites dog” news item.
Finally, let’s remember that the old rules of polite conversation (once called “manners”) were to avoid talking about religion, politics, sex, or money – for a reason! People have always tended to disagree, and sometimes fight, about those subjects! But today, those tend to be the primary topics of conversation, in all circles.
Recognizing all that, hopefully some of the distress we’ve been carrying has been reduced a little…
All that having been said, we are truly seeing increased fragmentation and polarization in our culture – across all nations and states. And, believe it or not, it’s a totally natural process, the result of several dynamics in the cultural system.
First, the shear number of people has been growing exponentially for decades, and all research on mammalian populations tells us that increased population density leads to increases in: gangs (polarized groups), violence, infanticide and miscarriage, and property theft.
Second, the business model of corporate greed has been globalized – which encourages competition and aggressive behaviors in workers, and requires assertive reactions by consumers and regulators.
Third, the cultural values of “acquire, accumulate, control” associated with that globalized culture, have led to the destruction and exploitation of our shared resource base, and so the behaviors associated with scarcity are increasing exponentially.
Fourth, the communications links across cultural groups have dramatically increased. But this is also the case within ideological groups, making it almost impossible NOT to have one’s belief system reinforced – it’s possible to live in an ‘information cocoon” that never challenges any of one’s ideas, however far from the actual “facts” (or other peoples’ experience) they may be.
So, the conditions for fragmentation and polarization are fully in place, and continue to expand exponentially. (No, it’s not Facebook or Google’s fault; they’re simply part of, and designed in a way they must reinforce, the process.)
David Bohm talks about the roots of this dynamic in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order[1]. Bohm, a 20th-century physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, saw that the way we teach and learn about the world encourages us to separate it into fragments:
…the prevailing tendency in science to think and perceive in terms of a fragmentary self-world vies is part of a larger movement that has been developing over the ages and that pervades almost the whole of our society today; … tends very strongly to re-enforce the general fragmentary approach because it gives men a picture of the whole world as constituted of nothing but an aggregate of separately existent “atomic building blocks”…
He goes on to say that this tendency has broad implications for how individuals see themselves:
One might in fact go so far as to say that in the present state of society, and in the present general mode of teaching science, which is a manifestation of this state of society, a kind of prejudice in favour of a fragmentary self-world view is fostered and transmitted… (…mainly in an implicit and unconscious manner)… men who are guided by such a fragmentary self-world view cannot, in the long run, do other than to try in their actions to break themselves and their world into pieces.
So let’s begin with the awareness that whatever is happening of this sort is greatly enhanced by all the media attention it’s getting. You know how it is: give kids attention for what they’re doing and they’ll do more if it; let people who are feeling lost and scared see an example showing them that acting out is okay, and they’ll act out.
Then let’s accept that the media’s job is to focus on what’s not working, not normal. When we do that what they’re talking about begins to slip back into – oh yeah, this is a one-in-several-thousand “man bites dog” news item.
Finally, let’s remember that the old rules of polite conversation (once called “manners”) were to avoid talking about religion, politics, sex, or money – for a reason! People have always tended to disagree, and sometimes fight, about those subjects! But today, those tend to be the primary topics of conversation, in all circles.
Recognizing all that, hopefully some of the distress we’ve been carrying has been reduced a little…
All that having been said, we are truly seeing increased fragmentation and polarization in our culture – across all nations and states. And, believe it or not, it’s a totally natural process, the result of several dynamics in the cultural system.
First, the shear number of people has been growing exponentially for decades, and all research on mammalian populations tells us that increased population density leads to increases in: gangs (polarized groups), violence, infanticide and miscarriage, and property theft.
Second, the business model of corporate greed has been globalized – which encourages competition and aggressive behaviors in workers, and requires assertive reactions by consumers and regulators.
Third, the cultural values of “acquire, accumulate, control” associated with that globalized culture, have led to the destruction and exploitation of our shared resource base, and so the behaviors associated with scarcity are increasing exponentially.
Fourth, the communications links across cultural groups have dramatically increased. But this is also the case within ideological groups, making it almost impossible NOT to have one’s belief system reinforced – it’s possible to live in an ‘information cocoon” that never challenges any of one’s ideas, however far from the actual “facts” (or other peoples’ experience) they may be.
So, the conditions for fragmentation and polarization are fully in place, and continue to expand exponentially. (No, it’s not Facebook or Google’s fault; they’re simply part of, and designed in a way they must reinforce, the process.)
David Bohm talks about the roots of this dynamic in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order[1]. Bohm, a 20th-century physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, saw that the way we teach and learn about the world encourages us to separate it into fragments:
…the prevailing tendency in science to think and perceive in terms of a fragmentary self-world vies is part of a larger movement that has been developing over the ages and that pervades almost the whole of our society today; … tends very strongly to re-enforce the general fragmentary approach because it gives men a picture of the whole world as constituted of nothing but an aggregate of separately existent “atomic building blocks”…
He goes on to say that this tendency has broad implications for how individuals see themselves:
One might in fact go so far as to say that in the present state of society, and in the present general mode of teaching science, which is a manifestation of this state of society, a kind of prejudice in favour of a fragmentary self-world view is fostered and transmitted… (…mainly in an implicit and unconscious manner)… men who are guided by such a fragmentary self-world view cannot, in the long run, do other than to try in their actions to break themselves and their world into pieces.
However, he says this tendency is “and attempt to divide what is really indivisible,” and so impossible, and thus:
In the next step such an attempt will lead us also to try to unite what is not really unitable. This can be seen especially clearly in terms of groupings of people in society (political, economic, religious, etc.). The very act of forming such a group tends to create a sense of division of separation of the members from the rest of the world but, because the members are really connected with the whole, it cannot work. Each member has in fact a somewhat different connection, and sooner or later this shows itself as a difference between him and the other members of the group.
This, Bohm says, causes even greater fragmentation:
Whenever men unite by identification within a group, it is clear that the group must eventually develop internal strife, which leads to a breakdown of its unity. Likewise, when men try to separate some aspect of nature in their practical, technical work, a similar state of contradiction and disunity will develop…. Fragmentation seems to be the one thing in our way of life which is universal…
The result, he says, is that throughout Western industrial culture (which is now global) there is:
…a confusion around the question of difference and sameness (or one-ness), but the clear perception of these categories is necessary in every phase of life. To be confused about what is different and what is not, is to be confused about everything. [emphasis his] Thus is it not an accident that our fragmentary form of thought is leading to such a widespread range of crises – social, political, economic, ecological, psychological, etc. – in the individual and in society as a whole.
He says that we can’t solve the issues until we stop fragmentary thinking, but we can’t just impose a holistic view in place of the fragmentary one, because that would be choosing one model-of-the world in place of another, and
…any form of fixed self-world view implies that we are no longer treating our theories as insights or ways of looking but, rather as “absolutely true knowledge of things as they really are.”
Which, of course, is the basis for much of the fragmentation and polarizing we are witnessing in our early 21st-century world: the belief that “my explanation is right/true and yours is wrong/false.” Bohm uses the rest of his book to explain how we might change our mode of thinking, and ultimately our actions, to one in which we can see the unity, rather than project our assumptions of difference and separation, of all that we encounter.
Most of what he says is consistent with the spiritual traditions of Eastern and Indigenous cultures. Learning to think in wholes rather than fragments starts with early training in observing the thought process and its contents, and more training in seeing how they’re interconnected – you can’t separate the activity of the mind, nor the processes of the world around you.
Through those practices, one begins to realize that there is no separation at all, and therefore nothing to fear, nothing to challenge, and no one “out there’, “other”, or “different” from who I truly am. People who have not had this training may achieve this awareness through a moment of ecstasy, or the experience of dying.
At that moment, all fragmentation and polarization ceases. And, from that moment, every action is based on the awareness of Oneness, of a wholeness that is not always visible, but is the essential nature of all beingness.
So, to get back to the original question, “why so much polarization today?” it’s part of a natural process. It was not necessary – we could have changed many things along the way that would minimize it – but it is a symptom of where our culture, our world, is today, and where it’s heading.
Because, in order for a culture to emerge that is based on a mindset of wholeness and oneness, the old culture, based on fragmentation and separation, must dissolve. And being part of that is scary. And when people are scared, they either curl up and hide, or act out.
So next time you see someone being loudly assertive or demanding, recognize that a very young inner child is doing the best they can to deal with a world that is terrifying – just as you would with a child having a nightmare and lashing out. Remain calm and centered, listen without taking in what’s being said, and let it run its course until you can offer something else to focus on. Remember: their words and actions are not really directed at you, but at something they’ve decided is there, where you are. If it’s on the media, turn it off. If it’s in your family, send them love. If it’s in your own mind, observe it and appreciate it and find a way back to the calm, centered, oneness.
And, as you do so, you will find less and less of such behavior in your world – and ours – as lack of reinforcement, and shifting the focus, does its work.
[1] This material is taken from pp 19-20 of the 1980 Rutledge Classics edition.
In the next step such an attempt will lead us also to try to unite what is not really unitable. This can be seen especially clearly in terms of groupings of people in society (political, economic, religious, etc.). The very act of forming such a group tends to create a sense of division of separation of the members from the rest of the world but, because the members are really connected with the whole, it cannot work. Each member has in fact a somewhat different connection, and sooner or later this shows itself as a difference between him and the other members of the group.
This, Bohm says, causes even greater fragmentation:
Whenever men unite by identification within a group, it is clear that the group must eventually develop internal strife, which leads to a breakdown of its unity. Likewise, when men try to separate some aspect of nature in their practical, technical work, a similar state of contradiction and disunity will develop…. Fragmentation seems to be the one thing in our way of life which is universal…
The result, he says, is that throughout Western industrial culture (which is now global) there is:
…a confusion around the question of difference and sameness (or one-ness), but the clear perception of these categories is necessary in every phase of life. To be confused about what is different and what is not, is to be confused about everything. [emphasis his] Thus is it not an accident that our fragmentary form of thought is leading to such a widespread range of crises – social, political, economic, ecological, psychological, etc. – in the individual and in society as a whole.
He says that we can’t solve the issues until we stop fragmentary thinking, but we can’t just impose a holistic view in place of the fragmentary one, because that would be choosing one model-of-the world in place of another, and
…any form of fixed self-world view implies that we are no longer treating our theories as insights or ways of looking but, rather as “absolutely true knowledge of things as they really are.”
Which, of course, is the basis for much of the fragmentation and polarizing we are witnessing in our early 21st-century world: the belief that “my explanation is right/true and yours is wrong/false.” Bohm uses the rest of his book to explain how we might change our mode of thinking, and ultimately our actions, to one in which we can see the unity, rather than project our assumptions of difference and separation, of all that we encounter.
Most of what he says is consistent with the spiritual traditions of Eastern and Indigenous cultures. Learning to think in wholes rather than fragments starts with early training in observing the thought process and its contents, and more training in seeing how they’re interconnected – you can’t separate the activity of the mind, nor the processes of the world around you.
Through those practices, one begins to realize that there is no separation at all, and therefore nothing to fear, nothing to challenge, and no one “out there’, “other”, or “different” from who I truly am. People who have not had this training may achieve this awareness through a moment of ecstasy, or the experience of dying.
At that moment, all fragmentation and polarization ceases. And, from that moment, every action is based on the awareness of Oneness, of a wholeness that is not always visible, but is the essential nature of all beingness.
So, to get back to the original question, “why so much polarization today?” it’s part of a natural process. It was not necessary – we could have changed many things along the way that would minimize it – but it is a symptom of where our culture, our world, is today, and where it’s heading.
Because, in order for a culture to emerge that is based on a mindset of wholeness and oneness, the old culture, based on fragmentation and separation, must dissolve. And being part of that is scary. And when people are scared, they either curl up and hide, or act out.
So next time you see someone being loudly assertive or demanding, recognize that a very young inner child is doing the best they can to deal with a world that is terrifying – just as you would with a child having a nightmare and lashing out. Remain calm and centered, listen without taking in what’s being said, and let it run its course until you can offer something else to focus on. Remember: their words and actions are not really directed at you, but at something they’ve decided is there, where you are. If it’s on the media, turn it off. If it’s in your family, send them love. If it’s in your own mind, observe it and appreciate it and find a way back to the calm, centered, oneness.
And, as you do so, you will find less and less of such behavior in your world – and ours – as lack of reinforcement, and shifting the focus, does its work.
[1] This material is taken from pp 19-20 of the 1980 Rutledge Classics edition.
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