This is a sequel to previous posts dealing with some of the changes we are seeing in world events in the past months.
The chaos we are seeing is totally expected, given the deep behavioural, cognitive, and personality issues of the leader causing these new problems.
I am disappointed that news media does not seem to adequately grasp the enormity of this problem. It is important for journalists to report on the terrible policies and consequences of these policies, but the overarching problem is something worse than any collection of policy events: once again, we are in a position analogous to having a mean-spirited, capricious, unintelligent, unskilled, humorless, and vindictive middle-school bully take over the piloting of a jumbo jet. This time, the bully is in a mood to play with the controls of the aircraft, and he may find the fearful response of the passengers to be entertaining. Many of the safety features of the plane have now been removed. I really think there is almost no limit to how much harm can be done as this situation continues.
Of course, this situation is doing great harm to mental health, in a variety of ways. For starters, there will be economic hardship and a lack of security that will dampen morale.
One of the most common causes of psychological stress at this point is compulsive or excessive consumption of news, often coming from news streaming sites or social media. Some of us are spending many hours a day “doomscrolling” — this is tiring and depressing, and does nothing helpful. This is a contagious phenomenon, since even if you stop “doomscrolling” it may be that your friends or family have not stopped, so every conversation gets tainted by a cloud of doom from the daily news events.
So I recommend, as a mental health intervention, that we all severely restrict “doomscrolling” behaviour, or other similar phenomena such as having a news channel playing in the background of your home at all times. While it is important to be informed, I think that it is adequate to follow news once every 1-4 weeks, preferably by reading a few different physical newspapers or news magazines, rather than by obtaining news from social media or from your phone. The “doomscrolling” is a behavioural addiction. And furthermore, this form of news propagation is one of the reasons this situation has developed in the first place, since electronic media make it easier for people to form “echo chambers” of like-minded people, often leading to worse and worse polarization and extremism. Unfortunately the economics of news propagation is such that echo chambers and behavioural addiction, with all the malignant polarization that follows, is profitable for the news companies.
What else can be done? I think this is a difficult question. But one insight from history is this: if we receive only a negative or catastrophic piece of information, especially one example after the next, then we are likely to be demoralized, tired, perhaps infuriated, perhaps resigned. But if whenever we take in negative news, we also receive a message about what can be done about it to help, then the process can be quite different — it can be energizing, and motivate people to take positive action. So I encourage you, whenever you are watching the news, to always ask yourself what you can do to help. If you can’t think of what to do, consider what Mr. Rogers said, “look for the helpers.” Actions could involve letters to political leaders; peaceful protest; and changing consumer behaviour so as not to reward companies or individuals associated with the negative world events, and to communicate to companies to encourage them to take positive leadership steps to stand up to the problems going on. Of course it is absolutely crucial that we all vote, and do our best to encourage others to be well-educated about the issues, and then to vote themselves.
Another piece of strong advice — and this follows many of my other posts in the past years, including those about the pandemic: we humans are intensely tribal by nature. It is an evolved trait that causes humans to form strong communities; these communities can then thrive, economically and culturally. As I’ve discussed in other posts, and as many great psychologists have discussed (such as Jonathan Haidt and others), our tribal nature causes us to form “ingroups” containing people who share similar beliefs, histories, political leanings, language, culture, religion, and appearance. These ingroups are extensions of our biological families, and historically were in fact more likely to consist of extended relatives in a village environment. Loyalty to these ingroups is like loyalty to family. This is a normal and often beautiful thing, but the dark side of it is that ingroups become impervious to influence by outgroup members, even when the ingroups are engaging in destructive or bizarre behaviours, and becoming more and more extreme or even cult-like. But all of us are tribal, and our natural reaction to dealing with another “tribe” is to defend ourselves, and to attack the other. But this is just a recipe for a spiral of escalating conflict.
In this case, we cannot just stick to our ingroups in dealing with this problem. While it is important to energize our voices, to rally our own “ingroup,” and to gather and motivate peers and fellow citizens who are similarly concerned by the events going on, we must also reach out to those on the other side of the political and ideological divide. There should be gentle efforts to understand why people on the other side of the ideological divide (that is, those who enthusiastically chose the bully to fly the jumbo jet) continue to believe or act as they do. The interactions should take place with dignity and respect. If such respect is provided, those on the “other side” are more likely to listen to other arguments, or to hear evidence about the bad things that are happening. Without such respect, ideological opponents may simply double down with their previous beliefs, and may either not look at any evidence of the bad things going on, or may think that the evidence is “fake news.” If you use social media regularly (such as Facebook or X) be careful that you are not simply interacting with others who share the exact same view, and that you are not simply attacking or mocking those who have a different view — instead, always be mindful about whether your contributions and involvement in social media could have a positive impact to engage those people who are on the other side of an ideological divide. In any case, we all need to be taking positive action, rising to this difficult occasion with gentle, dignified strength and respect, while resisting the temptation to let our anger dominate our actions in harmful ways.
I am hoping to see more leadership in this regard, and even heroism, from other parts of society. Unfortunately the situation may be sufficiently dire at this point that individuals or companies who desire to do the right thing, by standing up to what is going on, may face some risks of economic or other repercussions. But such is the nature of being a hero, to be brave in the name of doing the right thing and helping others. As I’ve said before, I wish that the psychiatric community could come together to make public statements about the dangers of psychopathy and malignant narcissism in a group leader (in this case, the group being an entire nation). I wish that there could be leadership from small and large corporations to stand up to support the best of their nation’s values in light of what is going on. I wish that companies involved in news media could do much more work to address the problems of extreme tribalism, propagation of false information, and addictive news consumption. I wish that religious leaders could come forward to speak compassionately to their followers, to support the best values their religions offer, including grace, wisdom, compassion, altruism, kindness to strangers, and humility: these are the values that will guide us together safely through these difficult times.
