Shakespeare

Drama.  People love it.  In fact, as I wrote this, the word drama was uttered by the TV.  What are the key element of drama?  Conflict.  Division. Tension.  Controversy. You can see it in the Greeks, through Shakespeare, all the way up through the latest Mel Gibson movie.  It is exciting and it sells. Everyone has their addiction.  Whether it is reality TV, or Trash TV (Who doesn’t enjoy an episode of COPS or Jerry Springer every once in a while?), or even something more classy, we all like it.

Keep that in mind when you watch the news; the art of drama is alive and well:  Man vs. Nature, man vs man and man vs. the government, (or depending on the newscast and current ruling body, government vs man).

It’s almost as if our government is set up to maximize this. Big, bold, headlines: REPUBLICANS VS DEMOCRATS. When you watch the news, the format for the political pundits is almost the same:  here is what one party is doing, and here is why the other disagrees with it.  I have heard those words, almost verbatim, from a news program before.

I get it, though.  They need to get their name out, and they need to make people hear their voice. Each side, and each person, needs to make a name for themselves.  Democrats and Republicans have to be unique entities with unique ideas, and thus must see the world in different ways, and they have to be heard.  Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to cause a ruckus. Yes, a ruckus. For those less blue collar than myself, a “ruckus” is a ”noisy commotion,” or more  apt for this situation, “a heated controversy.”  This ruckus is inherently divisive–or if you prefer metaphors–the issues are used as a grappling point to drive a wedgie into the brown heart of the American buttocks.  Sure, they get our attention, but at what cost?

Can you appreciate the picture that I am painting?

I think that Carl Jung put it wonderfully in The Undiscovered Self.  So much so, in fact, that I have a picture of the page in which this passage was written on my cell phone:

“If for ‘person’ we substitute ‘modern society,’ it is evident that the latter is suffering from a mental disassociation, ie, a neurotic disturbance. In view of this, it does not help matters of one party pulls obstinately to the right and the other to the left. This is what happens in every neurotic psyche, to its own deep distress, and it is is just this distress that brings the patient to the doctor.”

Where do we go from here?  The only solution I have is to listen to both sides.  Broken record, much?  Maybe.  Truly listening to both sides means understanding where they are coming from.  Also, we all need to pay attention to what is being said.  Are they barking to draw attention to a rabbit hole, or are they offering solutions?  To put it another way:  are they arguing just for the sake of arguing?  Are they hitting on issues that are meant to drive that rug burn home and make  it an atomic wedgie? If they can manage it, the underwear will be pulled up our heads and down over our eyes.

In a play, the lesson is learned by the folly–and most likely the death–of the characters. Do we have to it in us to learn from this? I am not suggesting that we agree on everything (why can’t i support Leno AND Conan?), but disagree with some grace.  Driving home the division, and only the division, in our politics is what divides us. It is a bad guy’s foot on a neck in a Jackie Chan movie.  We can fight back.  We can pull some snake-like-twisting-no-stuntman-Jackie Chan maneuver.  That complex maneuver begins with a single movement: understand that we are more alike than different.

Advertisement