The Miseducation: On welcoming emotional intelligence, perspective and balance on to the playing fields of advocacy and social justice

If my time as a Clinician, a Psychologist, a neighbor and healer has taught me anything about understanding the human condition, it is that perspective taking is profoundly core, and powerful, in all connections that we make.

And, it could be that this knowing, this learning, is what troubles me so about our present age. This age of heroes, and advocates, and doers, and influencers, so knighted. That we live and breed beliefs and lives in these social echo chambers, at higher heights and greater volumes, could be what troubles me. That we have know true sense of the other as a human, but will execute the version we believe we have immediate access to, is what troubles me. That we talk at our children, without speaking with them, and then offer so many grand proclamations on their behalf, that we are aggressively willing to discard the lives of those who will not change and grow at our expected pace, troubles me. That we cannot admit to proceeding forward and speaking with an expertise that we have not trained and do not own, about human interests so far ranging, troubles me. Such are our times.

You would imagine that in spaces made ready for advocacy for our young, and our vulnerable, and our broken, and our healing, and our lost, that those many knights would be the first to carry out the practices of taking perspective, and acknowledging ignorance, and humbling oneself toward learning, and admitting fault, and offering exuberance at connecting with all others as a means of accomplishing human goals. If you are watching, truly watching, you would share my unease.

As I observe these times of battle and raucous and shout around the lives and needs and voices of all others, I see the all too human stain of narcissism in those who wish to be seen as most right, and first to that space. I see the means by which that stain has become a weapon to smite those who are less aware and evolved. I see now that there are honorifics like “woke”, which have been promoted to the point of being religious practices, and those best clothed in their practices given the status of clergy. I see that these ways, our times, are absent of so much of what we need to make the evolutionary steps we claim as our agenda.

I wonder what space there may be for emotional intelligence. I consider how we go about putting some part of this genie back in the lamp, considering how much social currency comes from being so devoutly disconnected and dogmatic. I wonder at what point we redirect, and begin personal and shared dialogues about how we process others, and what human data we are using to feed our processing of others, and what we gain personally from publicly declaring another to be universally good or evil. I wonder at what point, we allow for that powerful, balanced view of the other. That one that walks us through the primordial muck of what was given them, and what they chose, and produces what we see before us, and will likely come of them next.

At some point in these proceedings, in this time of pressure and change, we will need to examine our approach. We will need to interrogate the means by which we have failed to consider the human in human endeavors. We will need to effectively question and resolve our practices around understanding the means by which beings come to be who they are.

We will need to call our misgivings forward, welcome them into our shared spaces, as they should be acknowledged and addressed. We should make these misgivings, living things as they are, aware that taking perspective, learning and knowing, does not by necessity mean excusing, enabling or forgiving. We should speak to the concerns of these misgivings, leading them toward the reality that we can educate ourselves about the component parts of the psychology of others, and still hold them accountable. We should remain with these until we can negotiate the knowing that we can address behavior, while dissecting it for later prevention, and build a means toward reintegration for the worst of us. Our understanding of our ills must be effectively shaped around both cure and prevention.

There is great power in perspective taking, and perhaps that is what makes it such a frightening prospect for such as we. It could be that we see perspective taking, and making use of our inherent emotional intelligence (knowing our wild and free emotions, and those of others) as tethers for the influence of those who we see as enemies, first. It could be that we fear being poisoned or intoxicated by the belief set of others, or, that we fear being perceived as sympathetic to their depravity. There is, to be certain, no end to the insecurity we just and upright feel when we take up arms in the name of doing good.

And still, emotional intelligence is key. We must learn and know why we feel a way, and then transmit that experience to our understanding of what forces shaped the other. How else do we intend to make true, sweeping human change, if…that is truly our goal? We must be able to see the path taken by the other, even if treacherous. This does not require that we agree with any of their conclusions. No. Rather, it is useful if we are to begin to shape a space for change with them, or should they be anchored, in spite of them.

If we do not assume the humble position of learning the patois and unsteady rumblings of earth beneath the feet of our children, how can we craft lessons and learning/teaching spaces fit for them. Absent of their point of view, we are practicing a craft fit for our needs, and demanding that they surgically remove parts of their core selves to meet our standards. It is cruel, ineffective, inefficient, and self aggrandizing, in the main.

If we cannot see how supremacy has made our privileged predatory and unwell, how our vulnerable imitate these behaviors and aspire to this so called strength, how our humanity has been oppressed and muted…

…even our social justice and advocacy approaches smack of supremacy. We nearly barrel over one another to pick apart anything presented to us to find the pieces of shale which cut and harm us, and we dig into the recesses of everyone’s history of find the space to shame them, and elevated ourselves, and we do so, too often, for the bits of emotional applause and amens, and for the protection that army provides us, so called. Each term and word and offering must be just so. Our ability to remain current on all of our rapidly shifting and changing humanity must be impeccable, lest we be stoned in the square for all missteps. Those of us who fight for all others, too often stand armed, poised, and ready. Rarely do we circle back to assess what we left in our wake. Too often we declare comatose those with whom we are opposed. Again, applause.

I ask that we lean in to the fear and vulnerability essential to understanding the human condition, even when it is most broken. I ask that we allow ourselves a space to reasonably know the fuel and food of the poorly formed among us. I ask that we employ caution when preparing to discard all others, especially those beaten by the worst humanity has to offer. I ask that we make emotional intelligence, perspective taking and the reframing of our beliefs about other beings full spiritual practices. I would ask that we consider all of this, as a means of promoting the change we seek. Otherwise, we are but warriors, and victory is all that matters then, and the damage we do to those opposite us on the field of battle is justified.