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Accentuating the positive
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In today’s Irish Times, columnist and psychologist Maureen Gaffney writes:
“Ireland is at a dangerous psychological moment. Human beings have a built-in meter for keeping account of accumulated negativity and bad news – constantly balanced by the flow of positive events. Normally, that change in balance from positive to negative back to positive happens smoothly, automatically and largely below consciousness. It is a kind of economy of the heart.
But there is an invisible threshold. Once negativity exceeds this threshold a catastrophic change in perception occurs. Suddenly as the invisible threshold is crossed, there is dramatic change from one state to another very different state, a “flip” from a state of virtuous to vicious cycle.
Once that fateful threshold is crossed, it precipitates highly well-documented changes in cognition, in emotions and in behaviour. Everything darkens. The normal belief that this is a temporary “bad patch” is replaced by a more enduring sense of hopelessness. There is a collapse in trust – in yourself, in others, in the relationships, or in the entire society. There is a change in emotional tone – more anxiety, fear, disappointment, hurt, anger. More attack, defensiveness, withdrawal and stonewalling.
Finally, even the past becomes unsafe, reconstructed into a negative chronology. The good times are forgotten or explained away. Behaviour becomes more highly patterned into rigid negative sequences from which it is hard to escape.
The capacity for experimentation and innovation disappears and the willingness to be flexible collapses. It is when individuals, personal relationships, business teams, and indeed whole societies, become clinically depressed and dysfunctional.
Anybody observing the current public mood can’t fail to worry about how near we have got to that tipping point on a few occasions over the last few months. Because of the complexity of human thinking-feeling-behaviour patterns, if we cross that threshold, it will prove remarkably difficult to flip back to positive functioning.
We are now faced with the urgent, practical tasks of shoring up the banks and keeping the country afloat. We are beginning the complex process of thinking about institutional and political reform. But that work of rebuilding will be fatally compromised unless we pull back from this negative tipping point and recover our personal and national sense of confidence.
This is not to shy away from confronting the problems besetting us, or the calling to account of those responsible. Critical analysis was never more important. But that process must be balanced by hope and optimism and rebuilding trust in ourselves.
It would be nothing short of a national disaster if, at this critical developmental point, we were to retreat to a narrow and pessimistic view of ourselves. Optimism and renewed trust in ourselves are not optional accessories to national recovery. They are central components. The simple psychological truth is that confidence, effort, persistence and optimism are more powerful in achieving your goals than objective talents or abilities. The individual sense of self-efficacy – the power of believing you can – and the parallel sense of collective efficacy in a society is a vital precursor to assured and effective working to accomplish goals.
A historic opportunity for optimistic leadership presents itself. Now, we have to see if there are any takers.”
So folks, has she got a point? Is it time, in the interests of our own self-preservation as a society, that we focused on the things we’re good at and the inspiration and creativity that generally arises from such an approach or should we keep indulging in our present cycle of negativity?
The former, of course, involves really hard work. It requires taking responsibility, individually and collectively, for making things better. It means refusing to brand ourselves or allow anyone else – the media or political forces - to brand us as ‘victims’ of any elite or institution or wrongdoing of the past. It demands a clear-sighted acknowledgement of our own weaknesses, while at the same time accentuating the positive things that are happening in our lives, our society and our economy. It means keeping things in proportion and not losing sight of what it is we need to do and want to create for ourselves, our country and our future no matter how angry successive exposure of the wrongdoing and the past mistakes of others may make us.
That’s a much harder road to travel than wallowing in negativity, self-pity, paranoia, bitterness and recrimination, which is always the easy way out, but ultimately destructive. Is it time we took the first steps?
It means refusing to brand ourselves or allow anyone else – the media or political forces – to brand us as ‘victims’ of any elite or institution or wrongdoing of the past.
And what a charter for getting f*cked over again in the future by the same unrepentant guilty parties – Church, State and mercantile princes – this would be, eh? Accountability, how are ye.
I’m sure that this little piece was nothing in the way of an attempt by persons connected with the government to start rehabilitating FF’s (and the PD’s) reputation. After all, can’t we just forgive and forget past wrongdoings?
Veronica has a major point ie. that overcoming where we are now involves hard work with no easy pickings or possibly none at all.
Question is there any sector of society that does not have its hand out as it says – Yes we will change, provided we do not lose anything of what we have now and that we have cast iron guarantees that we will be for the hoped for outcome/benefits, starting with a down payment now.
Machiavelli put it slightly differently, but aptly “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand or more uncertain of success than to take the hand in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovation has for its enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders those who may do well under the new”.
Ahh, yes, here it comes:
“[Cowen] said as Ireland faced into its economic difficulties, we needed to maintain a unity of purpose and to ignore what he called the ‘foghorns of negativity’.”
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0425/pay.html
How long before he’s back to calling critics of Fianna Fáil – sorry, the Government – unpatriotic?
After Anglo-Irish, the comprehensive failure of the Financial Regulator and a linked failure on the part of our political leadership during the 2000s it’s hard to take seriously the notion that we’re not in fact victims of elite institutions.
A situation where citizens are being asked to stump up the cash for a section of the private sector across many years doesn’t seem to be a victim free event, particularly given that those funds directly remove funding from other areas of social expenditure that require it.
Regarding the psychological analysis, I think that it is important not to slip from the science, if you can call it that, of analysing an individual into the far more tenuous art of diagnosing the state of a nation.
I think the advice that we need, as individuals, in order to bring positive and innovative thinking to bear on our situation is fine; and ok too that we each and every one of us ought to put our difficulties in perspective. But we must maintain our disposition towards the elite that has so much to answer for in getting us here.
I think it would be a shame now if the public anger were to dissipate and we were to find that, oh, after all, we as a nation, just have to take a happier angle on the past, there were some mistakes but lets move on.
Let’s stay clear about the main thing: Ireland’s economic catasrophe was not an accident but the direct result of our particular mixture of inadequate political machinery, corruption, elitism, and reckless, incompetent economic management. It may have been an accident that the US and attendant global crisis triggered the collapse of our bubble: but the bubble itself was home made.
Far worse, those failings in our governance are not simply responsible for the housing collapse, but are behind of many other of our shortcomings as a society as well.
If we are to make our country more prosperous, more equal, and more adept at managing the challenges of 21st century life, then we have to, absolutely must, remake our system of governance. Not by the kind of Fine Gael token changes like reducing the number of TDs. But by digging in and fixing and updating our system of governance at all levels – from County council to department of finance, from changing the appointments system to state boards and agencies, to perhaps creating something like Sweden’s National Financial Management Authority, and so on.
This requires a complete reconfiguration of our political and administrative functions. And none of this can happen unless there is sustained and intense public anger.
We will never fully bring clientelism and parish pump politics to an end in a small country, nor we can never completely prevent the formation of a privileged and powerful elite. But we must at least try to insulate our system of governance from these twin blights, which together cripple any efforts to build a modern, effective republic.
@Tomaltach
Molaim.
I have no idea what possessed Veronica to comment on this particular article as Maureen Gaffney has no idea what she is talking about.
Gaffney says “Ireland is at a dangerous psychological moment. Human beings have a built-in meter for keeping account of accumulated negativity and bad news – constantly balanced by the flow of positive events. Normally, that change in balance from positive to negative back to positive happens smoothly, automatically and largely below consciousness. It is a kind of economy of the heart.”
There is no such thing as a country having a psychological moment. Human beings do NOT have any built in meters for keeping account of accumulated negativity. Gaffney is engaged in some sort of psycho babble that may have some meaning for her but cannot possibly make any rational sense.
Now if Gaffney were to say that there are “insiders” in our society who are completely psychotic, – i.e. unable to experience responsibility for their actions,- who have inflicted unbelievable pain and distress on the powerless “outsiders” in our society then I would agree with her. She didn’t so I can’t. By the way what in God’s name is the “economy of the heart”.
Setanta,
I can’t agree with you – there is such a thing as ‘mass psychology’ and volumes of literature describing how different social and cultural groups within a society interact as well as respond to injustice, exclusion indifference and unfair treatment by the elite classes or other powerful groups and interests.
By the way, I didn’t say Ms. Gaffney was right. I simply asked if she has a point? In fairness, her ‘psychobabble’ is more than effectively counterbalanced by some of the more lunatic conspiracy theories that abound across the internet.
I think she has a point about our response to crisis situations and the general importance of not allowing justifiable anger to screen out any and every positive indicator of a resolution to our current difficulties because we are overwhelmed with anger. Of course those individuals who made mistakes and whose reckless actions – or inactions – led us to this pretty pass need to be brought to account. Basic justice demands no less than that. But, in the meantime, we can’t lose sight of the need to take the right actions to deal with the financial deficit, fix the bloody banking system, restore economic competitiveness and lay the foundations for recovery.
Tomaltach’s comment above to the effect that public anger should be channelled into a sustained demand for reform of our political system – and not just tokenistic gestures like reducing numbers of TDs or shortening the term of the President or abolishing the Senate etc – is inspiring. Unfortunately, we don’t have the political infrastructure to achieve it, not in the short term anyway and certainly not in respect of the limited choices served up by the established political parties in one election after the next. You can only vote for who, and what, is represented on the list put before you. There may be individual politicians with a strong public service ethic, principles and idealism, but sadly, in my view, the current leadership of the three main poltical parties give a clear impression of either wanting to gain power, or hold on to it, mainly for the purposes of self-aggrandisement and status.
Would a new party help? I don’t know. We had the PDs emerging in the crisis-strewn ‘eighties, and look what happened to them in the end…
In all probability Veronica will be proven right: the inertia of the political system will resist real change. Those within the system will not have the biggness and courage to bring about change. Still I think we ought to keep trying to push change on the agenda in any little way we can, signals at the ballot box and clogging up the streets being the two most effective ways.
A new party? Hmmmm. I was talking to a friend the other night who said he would actively support a party who were campaigning on a platform for democratic reform. i.e a party which had no ideoligical agenda in terms of health, economy or whatever – just aiming to build a more democratic, accountable and transparent system of governance. I couldn’t see it fly – too abstract and not really going to capture the imagination.
Tomaltach,
Maybe there’s a simpler way – a pressure group to lobby for democratic change? We have so-called think tanks on the right and left of political opinion, so there might be room for a group more representative of a range of political opinions, dedicated to promoting reform and obliging the existing parties to prioritise a specific reform agenda in the next Dail. For example, I’m greatly in favour of the concept of a Fiscal Council, which would change the dynamics of budget formation and its presentation and in so doing, would also have a major impact on the political debate surrounding decisions on fiscal and economic policy.
I think it’s also something that people can relate to – after all it’s about the way decisions are made that affect what comes out of, and goes into, their own pockets. Properly constituted, a Fiscal Council would not only impose a real brake on any immediate government tendencies towards profligacy but would also ensure that in the event of external shocks to the economy, ‘rainy day’ funds and surpluses from good times would be available to lessen the trauma on the public.
I think the reform agenda should, at least initially, be short, specific and backed up with research that demonstrates real benefits to the political process and to society. For the next election, the focus has to be on making sure that we don’t get ourselves into the same position again and putting the political infrastructure in place that will do that, especially since our society is having to go through so much pain to get out of the present fix. Under a Fiscal Council, for example, political parties in opposition don’t have to restrain their critique of government policies. They just have to be more intelligent and serious about it, with less of the hullabaloo, point scoring and demonisation of one another’s positions, because they are all signed up to achieving a common goal that has been defined in the public interest.
@Tomaltach
I do think there is something in the idea of a movement in favour of better systems of checks and balances on how power is gained, exercised, controlled and lost. One might care to call it the mechanisms of government – some of which does not need any change to the Constitution. eg more considered budgetary practices. These have clearly failed – not just during the past 10 years but also during the 1980s during which I began to take an interest in our way of governing ourselves.
@Veronica
re. Fiscal Council.
Without being very specific about the powers, I remain to be convinced that this alone is adequate.
Consider the fate of the National Competitiveness Council. It produces worthy reports and has done for years. There is no sign that anyone in government paid any attention to these reports at all or that any policy/behaviour changed as a result of these reports. Note that these reports go directly to the Taoiseach.
Consider than An Bord Snip was set up during the 1980s and then had to be set up again in recent years. Did anyone learn anything from the previous manifestation?
How many of the recommendations of the recent Commission on Taxation are the same as those made by a similar Commission on Taxation during the 1980s?
Eddie Molloy’s recent criticism of the Dept of Finance (in the ITimes) was trenchant. As far as I know, neither the Department nor the Minister has yet responded to this criticism.
Past experience (the abolition/re-absorbtion of the Depts of the Depts of Economic Planning and Development in the late 1970s and of the Public Service in the 1980s) suggests that the Department of Finance will not tolerate any institutional change that takes away their power.
Without a serious political change, I suspect that the Fiscal Council will go the way of the Competitiveness Council, the National Economic and Social Council, An Bord Snip (1980s and 2000s), the Commissions on Taxation etc.
Donal,
Paper on a Fiscal Council for Ireland by Philip Lane of TCD is worth a read: http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/documents/discussion/pdfs/iiisdp315.pdf
I agree with your point that of its own it’s not enough. But I was thinking in the context of a pressure group demanding reforms and picking a short list of agenda items which could be simply and clearly explained and would resonate with the public. Fiscal Councils operate in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden and there’s been some discussion about the concept in the UK. (In the most recent leaders’ debate, the Lib Dems Nick Clegg alluded to it, but it was pooh-poohed by Gordon Brown and Cameron had nothing to say on the subject, which tells you a lot!) Fine Gael’s detailed proposals for reform of the budgetary process in the paper released at their Ard Fheis go some way towards it, but not quite far enough.
It’s a necessity, not an option, in my opinion, and really does not bear comparison with bodies like the Competitiveness Council etc. It also has the virtue of acting as a catalyst for much wider reform of the parliamentary process at least.
So for example, if you were asked to construct a list of core reforms that would comprise the intitial agenda for a Reform Lobby Group, what items would you prioritise?
By the way, despite the fact that I think serving politicians drawing pensions is utterly ridiculous in this day and age I have a sense of unease about the Irish Independent (who started that particular ball rolling early last year) dictating the political reform agenda. Far better to have the pressure coming from a non-aligned and independent ‘Citizens for Justice’ type group, no?