How Things Don't Change
On specks and planks and solving problems in the actual world.
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This dispatch starts with some discussion of politics and elections, but it isn't really about politics and elections. Politics and elections, as they are in our current context, seem like a good illustration for what this dispatch is really about. It is about (as the title suggests) how things don’t change.
Here in the fall of 2022, we are in the season of politics. (On the other hand, when are we not in the season of politics? I may write in the future of the totalizing of everything into politics and politics into everything - the original meaning of ‘totalitarian’ - but that is for another time.) We are in a political season and are surrounded by political ads as a result. The St. Louis, MO area is a great place to live, but one misfortune of living here is you have all the political ads for St. Louis and for Missouri and you also have all the political ads for Illinois races. It is a double dose - for me, one set of ads for races I am mildly interested in and one set of ads for races I care nothing about. The nature of these political ads are something like: “my opponent acts in good faith and is basically qualified for office, but my solutions are better in the long term for all of us. And I'll speak in detail of the complicated problems we face and how we will all have to compromise and work together to get the solutions we need.”
Ha Ha Ha! Just kidding! Mostly, they are: “my opponent is a (fascist, communist, evil, horrible person). And I care about you, unlike them. If they are elected, (democracy, freedom, our future) dies. If I am elected, we will advance upward to the golden land together.” One of our children, as part of a school election years ago, contemplated the campaign slogan “I will make all your dreams come true”. It was funny at the time and still funny in that context. It is less funny in real life. This is what many people hope or even expect to happen if we elect the “right” people and keep the “wrong” people from being elected. I remember when those in the church would say "if only we could get a real born-again Christian in office" ... well, maybe not that all our dreams will come true, but a lot of our problems would be fixed. Since then, there have been at least a couple born-again Christian presidents - and I don't think that fixed our problems.
That is how things don't change.
Politics illustrates one pattern for how things don't change. We over-simplify the problem, we demonize the ones we are scapegoating as the cause of the problem (so we can't compromise because they are demons), and we look for a leader to fix things or a golden solution to fall from the sky. This is a pattern that plays out in politics, in business, in the church, in marriages, in families, and in our own inner lives. The boss is the problem, the pastor is too _________ or not enough ________, my spouse is whatever, or I am just the way I am. We would rather apply a label or treat other people as an abstraction. We would rather have our simple narrative, or our outrage, or our current self-understanding (good or bad), or believe that they are the whole problem than accept that the problem might be complicated, the solution difficult and maybe a little uncertain, that I may be a part of the problem, and that I may need to change or work or do something for there to be a solution. This is a pretty effective way to make change not happen.
Ronald Heifetz is the founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School where he has taught for nearly four decades. One of his insights concerning problem solving involves dividing them into technical problems (we know what to do, we have the answer, we can just do it) and adaptive problems (we have to work together, get everyone on board, adapt on the fly). He gives the example of someone with a problem with their heart. One way to solve the problem of a faulty heart is surgery. Heart surgery is a technical solution, the surgeon is the expert, advancement in technology and technique tell us how to perform the solution. A technical solution to a technical problem. But that isn’t the only solution needed, because it isn’t the only problem. In addition to surgery, what is required for health includes all the life changes that need to accompany surgery problem. And these changes in diet, exercise, stress level, and other aspects of life are not a technical solution to a technical problem. This part of the problem is what Heifetz would call adaptive. And an adaptive solution, one that requires longer term change, participation, a paradigm shift, is not simply provided by an expert. It requires ongoing, participative, self-reflective effort and taking of responsibility.
One way in which things fail to change is to treat every problem like a technical problem with a technical solution. We want to think the technical, provided, “we know how to do it” solution is all we need - but it isn't. We want to think that every problem has a "technical" (just do this, just adopt this strategy ...) solution. But most problems aren't so clear cut. Most problems aren't easily solved. Virtually all endeavors involving other people require adaptive approaches to problems.
If my church or company is struggling, I may need a new strategy, but I doubt something so simple as a strategy will stop the struggle. A new strategy is a technical solution, let’s just do this … but who you are and how you approach doing anything together probably also needs to be addressed. If your family is struggling, getting one of your family members into counseling or on medication probably won’t stop the struggle. If that family member entered therapy on their own it might help, but until then, you might want to consider therapy for yourself. There aren’t magic bullets in this world, as much as we would like to think so.
… changing myself changes all the systems and relationships I am a part of. In fact, it is the only way I can change those systems and relationships.
To return to another political illustration, a recent presidential candidate told us, "We are the change we were waiting for". What you thought of that saying probably depended on some degree on what you thought of the candidate. Whatever effectiveness it may have had as a campaign slogan came from a sense of moving forward together, and being a part of the solution. I'm not sure that actually happened - but I think there is something there that appeals to us because it rings true. And because we hear it so rarely. I was talking to someone whom I was coaching about changes in her life, and she noted the truth: "I can only change myself". But changing myself changes all the systems and relationships I am a part of. In fact, it is the only way I can change those systems and relationships.
I may or may not be the change I was waiting for, but I am the change I am responsible for.
I may or may not be the change I was waiting for, but I am the change I am responsible for. If I have to change or move or act or learn or work or listen or give up my outrage and demonization and scapegoating of "them" in order for change to happen, and I refuse, that is how change doesn't happen. This applies in my family, my church, my friendships, my work, my inner life, and my relationship with God.
In the Sermon on the Mount, right after teaching us to love our enemies, Jesus taught about change - our change and the desired change of others.
Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)
The first two verses used to be more often quoted than they are now. We don’t say “live and let live” as much as we used to. The idea behind “judge” is “condemn”. And we are pretty comfortable with condemnation in our age. Jesus tells us that our standard of condemnation will be used against us. But there may be something to condemn in others. We may have a point about “them”. The speck is in their eye - I am probably right about that. There is at least a speck in every eye. But I can't take the speck out of their eye. My eye is my responsibility. Whether or not the total problem is in the mirror, the part of the problem I can do something about, by God's grace, is in the mirror. Until the planks are mostly gone there, if I am looking elsewhere - that is how things don't change.
Take
Following up on our discussion of the death penalty - The Sixth Commandment and Justice - Nikolas Cruz was given a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Given what I have already written, it probably isn’t a surprise that I don’t have a strong view of what really should have happened.
Links
Ronald Heifetz: The nature of adaptive leadership (Thanks to Trey Herweck of Refuge Church in St. Charles, MO for directing me to Heifetz’s work.)
As I read this discussion about the worst, entrenched parts of us coming out in politics, I kept thinking about something I recently heard from Collin Hansen from The Gospel Coalition. In a recent visit to one of my classes he was discussing his upcoming book about Tim Keller's influences. Keller, according to Hansen, suggests the fundamental contradiction in Western culture that counters a post-enlightenment paradigm is the attempt (or demand) to be simultaneously moralistic and relativistic. Some would argue that our culture has become extremely immoral. The reality is just as much morality as ever, evidenced by widespread demand on individuals to rally behind certain justice issues (and those who don't are morally reprehensible, not simply wrong). At the same time we also can't escape the "you do you" belief-narrative. In effect, it's "Choose your own identity and way in the world apart from outside influences, as long as you choose from the following pre-approved options." As for morality and guilt, the concept is alive and well. It's just that morality has shifted from something that happens at the individual level to something that happens between groups, and the result is destructive. Alan Jacobs' label for this is incisive: "the problem of the repugnant cultural other."
Jacobs: "If I'm consumed by this belief that that person over there is both Other and Repugnant, then there is no reason to interact with them as a neighbor or to consider their perspective." "The cold divisive logic of the RCO impoverishes us, all of us, and brings us closer to the primitive state that the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes called 'the war of every man against every man.'"
It is helpful and peace-producing to consider that morality and guilt, in God's design, have a restorative function rather than simply a destructive one.
I appreciate the remark about being the change we're responsible for. I recently wrote a short piece in my blog about this issue. We can only repent for ourselves, so rather than throwing stones at culture we should consider the ways our own failures have contributed to issues in culture.