Upstream Solutions
As war breaks out in the Middle East, I watch helplessly as Israel reacts, first to the Palestinian kidnapping of one of their soldiers with over the top (or so it seems to me) punitive responses to the civilians in Gaza. And now in the twinkling of an eye, the conflict has widened into Lebanon with rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah into Israel and now of course, we are witnessing the expected retaliation. I sit on my hands and scream with frustration because none of this has to happen. All of this could be otherwise. Yet this cycle of violence is so predictable and it keeps on happening. What is going on here? Do these people, both Israelis and Arabs, have a death wish?
These are important questions to ask, indeed vital questions to ask, if one has more than a passing interest in the idea that this conflict could end. When I say end, I mean completely stop, forever and for all time end. I'm talking about something far more profound than ceasefires and brief periods when the conflict merely simmers on the back burner. I'm talking about all out peace. In order for such a thing to happen in the Middle East, I am convinced that the parties involved in this conflict at every level would have to begin exploring upstream solutions.
The concept of upstream solutions comes from the following parable or extended metaphor. Imagine that you are at the edge of a river and you notice bodies floating downstream. You know how to swim and have lifesaving skills. You jump in and save the first person you see. As you are congratulating yourself on your heroism you notice another body and another body floating by. You raise a ruckus and call for help because you know you cannot save them all on your own. People come and together you work to save the bodies coming downstream. You are heroes! But as you are drying yourself off you see even more bodies coming downstream. This is serious! You need a lot more help and you put out the call until you get more and more people to help. After a while people are getting tired. Finally someone has the good sense to ask, "What's going on upstream? Why are so many bodies washing downstream? Let's go and find out." So they go upstream a while and they find that for some reason people are getting sick in some village and they fall into the river. You decide to take care of them in the village. But more and more of them are getting sick in this village and surrounding villages! After awhile, all the aid workers you can muster are getting exhausted. What to do? Finally someone decides to go further upstream until they find out the real reason people are getting sick and deal with the ultimate and final cause.
When it comes to medical problems and public health issues, the world is somewhat farther ahead of those of us who are concerned with issues of violence, war and murder. When there is an illness, medical researchers study until they find the causative organism or toxin or genetic defect that is responsible for the illness and then they try to find a remedy for that cause. When the cause is a germ or a toxic substance or a contaminated water supply, those things can be attacked and corrected. The situation gets a lot, lot more complicated with social problems like war and violence caused by how human beings think and respond emotionally to the actions of other human beings.
There is a belief among human beings that war is always with us and that violence will never disappear. I simply don't believe that. If that were true we would still be practicing cannibalism and owning slaves. Humans are evolving and we are in the midst of growing out of the antiquated habit of violence toward our fellow humans. It is time to begin looking for upstream solutions for complicated, ongoing and intractable conflicts like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and other repetitive, cyclic conflicts.
We have come a long way in the past one hundred years or so in understanding human behavior. The fields of psychology and sociology, among others, have helped us to understand how and why humans behave as they do, and the recent upsurge in the study of the human brain has given us an intimate acquaintance with how the brain, and particularly the emotions, work. It has become possible, in my lifetime, to entertain the possibility of humans acquiring emotional intelligence, and many humans have become adept at learning how to manage and control their emotional responses. Even in very demanding and harrowing circumstances people have learned that they can master their emotions. We have also learned an amazing amount about how people respond to traumatic events and how memories of these events linger in the brain, but more importantly, how they linger in the stories and interpretations we make up about what the trauma means. We have even begun to understand how whole cultural, social and ethnic groups can develop and shape their identities around memories of shared historical traumas and we now understand that these memories can be important in fomenting the automatic emotional responses that feed the cycle of violence.
That's what we have learned, or perhaps I should say it's what some of us have learned. Because it amazes me that just because this knowledge is out there in the public square and is well known in the academy and in the professions of psychology and sociology, it has not been eagerly absorbed or taken up by political leaders, diplomats, the military or the public. As creatures who fear death, we still cling to our tribal, ethnic and national groups when we feel threatened or afraid, and we look to our leaders to save us. All too often, their prescription is some form of organized violent response to our so-called enemies. It makes you wonder whether the world really wants to live in peace at all. Is all that language so much feel good rhetoric and window dressing? Do people really want peaceful, joy-filled lives for themselves, their children and their descendants?
If we wanted to end intractable conflicts, and if we truly wanted to live in peace with our neighbors, it seems to me that we would go to any lengths, I mean any lengths, to look at our blind spots from the past, master our tendencies to over-react emotionally, learn how to truly listen to people we don't like and master the skill of standing in the shoes of our enemy. We would become committed to finding the myths from the past that are still running usunconsciously, not because those myths are bad or that we are wrong for holding onto them, but because they are simply unworkable in today's world, because they interfere with our ability to lead lives of safety, fun and creativity. Call me crazy but I love being alive! I think being alive is the greatest thing going and I'd like to stick around for a lot more of it. I'd like every person on the planet to have a chance to fulfill every talent and skill they were born with and to experience as much joy as possible while they are here. Upstream solutions seem like the only way to go if we really want to have some fun around here.
These are important questions to ask, indeed vital questions to ask, if one has more than a passing interest in the idea that this conflict could end. When I say end, I mean completely stop, forever and for all time end. I'm talking about something far more profound than ceasefires and brief periods when the conflict merely simmers on the back burner. I'm talking about all out peace. In order for such a thing to happen in the Middle East, I am convinced that the parties involved in this conflict at every level would have to begin exploring upstream solutions.
The concept of upstream solutions comes from the following parable or extended metaphor. Imagine that you are at the edge of a river and you notice bodies floating downstream. You know how to swim and have lifesaving skills. You jump in and save the first person you see. As you are congratulating yourself on your heroism you notice another body and another body floating by. You raise a ruckus and call for help because you know you cannot save them all on your own. People come and together you work to save the bodies coming downstream. You are heroes! But as you are drying yourself off you see even more bodies coming downstream. This is serious! You need a lot more help and you put out the call until you get more and more people to help. After a while people are getting tired. Finally someone has the good sense to ask, "What's going on upstream? Why are so many bodies washing downstream? Let's go and find out." So they go upstream a while and they find that for some reason people are getting sick in some village and they fall into the river. You decide to take care of them in the village. But more and more of them are getting sick in this village and surrounding villages! After awhile, all the aid workers you can muster are getting exhausted. What to do? Finally someone decides to go further upstream until they find out the real reason people are getting sick and deal with the ultimate and final cause.
When it comes to medical problems and public health issues, the world is somewhat farther ahead of those of us who are concerned with issues of violence, war and murder. When there is an illness, medical researchers study until they find the causative organism or toxin or genetic defect that is responsible for the illness and then they try to find a remedy for that cause. When the cause is a germ or a toxic substance or a contaminated water supply, those things can be attacked and corrected. The situation gets a lot, lot more complicated with social problems like war and violence caused by how human beings think and respond emotionally to the actions of other human beings.
There is a belief among human beings that war is always with us and that violence will never disappear. I simply don't believe that. If that were true we would still be practicing cannibalism and owning slaves. Humans are evolving and we are in the midst of growing out of the antiquated habit of violence toward our fellow humans. It is time to begin looking for upstream solutions for complicated, ongoing and intractable conflicts like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and other repetitive, cyclic conflicts.
We have come a long way in the past one hundred years or so in understanding human behavior. The fields of psychology and sociology, among others, have helped us to understand how and why humans behave as they do, and the recent upsurge in the study of the human brain has given us an intimate acquaintance with how the brain, and particularly the emotions, work. It has become possible, in my lifetime, to entertain the possibility of humans acquiring emotional intelligence, and many humans have become adept at learning how to manage and control their emotional responses. Even in very demanding and harrowing circumstances people have learned that they can master their emotions. We have also learned an amazing amount about how people respond to traumatic events and how memories of these events linger in the brain, but more importantly, how they linger in the stories and interpretations we make up about what the trauma means. We have even begun to understand how whole cultural, social and ethnic groups can develop and shape their identities around memories of shared historical traumas and we now understand that these memories can be important in fomenting the automatic emotional responses that feed the cycle of violence.
That's what we have learned, or perhaps I should say it's what some of us have learned. Because it amazes me that just because this knowledge is out there in the public square and is well known in the academy and in the professions of psychology and sociology, it has not been eagerly absorbed or taken up by political leaders, diplomats, the military or the public. As creatures who fear death, we still cling to our tribal, ethnic and national groups when we feel threatened or afraid, and we look to our leaders to save us. All too often, their prescription is some form of organized violent response to our so-called enemies. It makes you wonder whether the world really wants to live in peace at all. Is all that language so much feel good rhetoric and window dressing? Do people really want peaceful, joy-filled lives for themselves, their children and their descendants?
If we wanted to end intractable conflicts, and if we truly wanted to live in peace with our neighbors, it seems to me that we would go to any lengths, I mean any lengths, to look at our blind spots from the past, master our tendencies to over-react emotionally, learn how to truly listen to people we don't like and master the skill of standing in the shoes of our enemy. We would become committed to finding the myths from the past that are still running usunconsciously, not because those myths are bad or that we are wrong for holding onto them, but because they are simply unworkable in today's world, because they interfere with our ability to lead lives of safety, fun and creativity. Call me crazy but I love being alive! I think being alive is the greatest thing going and I'd like to stick around for a lot more of it. I'd like every person on the planet to have a chance to fulfill every talent and skill they were born with and to experience as much joy as possible while they are here. Upstream solutions seem like the only way to go if we really want to have some fun around here.
posted by Joy at 10:53 AM
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