On Root Issues In Finances, Fishing, Fearfulness and Friendliness

By Daniel J. Benor, MD

I believe that a lot of our world’s conflicts derive from lack of trust of ‘others.’ This occurs between individuals; families; geographic, social, cultural and religious communities; and nations. As long as we maintain our ‘otherness’, we have a ready justification blaming anyone but ourselves for the problems we encounter in life, and for venting our displeasures upon them. These sorts of behaviors pretty well guarantee the perpetuation of the problems we are addressing rather than solving them. Politicians have recognized and exploited these attitudes and behaviors for millennia.

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

Our greatest challenges today are to survive the potential disasters of global heating (‘warming’ is really an unacceptable euphemism!); exhaustion and poor distribution of resources; pollution; and overpopulation. In order to deal with these issues, we must cooperate with people at every level of our interactions. Yet our leaders are dithering away the time available before we reach some unknown tipping point. Our elected representatives are influenced by the self-interests of industries and limited by their event horizons that do not reach beyond their next election.

How do we develop broad trust and cooperation?

Finances:
As individuals, we learn our lessons of trust and distrust through life experiences primarily in our families and local communities. Where social structures and economies are based primarily on local interactions, trust is predominantly based on personal experiences with other individuals. Trust is more solidly established when we have this sort of personal familiarity with all the people with whom we deal. James Surowiecki, in The Wisdom of Crowds , points out that the maximum capacity for such solid interactions is a community of 150 individuals. Beyond that number, we lose our capacity to establish familiarity with everyone in the community.

In larger, more complex and diverse societies, the treads of acquaintance become thinner, and in most cases may not exist at all. Lacking such familiarity with most of the people with whom we deal, we may feel vulnerable and at risk for mistreatment. So we come to rely on broad characteristics that give us some measure of promise of safety – looking for people who are similar to ourselves in social behaviors, dress, skin color, language and other characteristics. Conversely, we may tend to distrust ‘others’ who lack these characteristics.

Historically, politicians and religious leaders have played upon these social anxieties. More on this below.

You might think that the business world is the last place where strong trust would be developed, but this is actually not the case. I was struck by the observation of Surowiecki that our whole financial system is based on trust between people who are negotiating agreements around money issues.

In earlier times, people dealt mostly with local businesses, where there was a history of personal interactions upon which to clarify and establish one’s levels of trust. This began to be a challenge when many business opportunities opened up in more distant markets, where there was no familiarity between the negotiating parties. A more impersonal business ethic evolved among the Quakers in the late 18 ^th and early 19 ^th centuries, when local trade expanded dramatically in England, and international trade was beginning to expand significantly. Because the Quakers adhered to ethics of trust and honesty, they were readily able to negotiate deals with each other even when the business partners did not have a personal acquaintance as their basis of trust. Soon they became known as reliable business partners with whom non-Quakers could strike deals as well. Learning from this experience, other businessmen came to adhere to reliable promises in dealings with each other around the world.

Without this sort of impersonal trust, it would be virtually impossible to develop commercial relationships between distant buyers and sellers. This has come to be taken for granted over the many decades of international commerce. This applies to promises of delivery of goods in return for payments that must be made prior to delivery, or conversely, to promises of payment following delivery.

How would you live if you felt you could trust life fully? If you believed you were totally protected and secure, that forevermore your life would be filled with love and prosperity? Think of how your fears would dissolve, of how totally accepting of yourself and others you would be – it wouldn’t matter if they met your expectations or not. Think of how you would venture forth knowing you would succeed. Think of how your heart would open, of how free you would feel. How free you would be to love. All of this is the treasure that life offers us. We just lack the consciousness to experience it.
                      – Susan L. Taylor

Fishing:
You might consider this an odd topic to follow a discussion of finances, but please bear with me. I want to point out how the trend in international fishing is a polar opposite to what has been for generations the standard of trust in the world of business.

The world is facing a dire crisis in the oceans. Fishermen around the world have become so efficient at catching fish that the fish stocks are being depleted faster than they can reproduce. There are whole regions of the ocean now that are watery deserts – devoid of what used to be reliable sources of fish to feed people in nearby countries. If this continues, fish will soon be totally wiped out and billions of people will starve.

You might think that fish farming could replace ocean fishing, but this may not be the case. Farmed fish are fed by catching and grinding up massive numbers of ‘dross’ fish from the oceans that are not suitable for human consumption. These dross fish too are approaching the point of being wiped out in the world’s oceans.

Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught, will we realise that we cannot eat money.
                     – 19th Century Cree Indian

Why is this regional, national and international threat to human life being allowed to happen? Local, national and international commissions have been aware of these problems for over 30 years but have not succeeded in halting the over-fishing of our oceans. Why? Because there is a basic, pervasive distrust among the members of the fishing community. Fishermen complain that the governmental agencies which are legislating restrictions on fishing are relying on flawed scientific research that is not based in valid assessments of conditions in the fishing grounds. While this may be true to some extent, in most cases, the more basic problem is the short-sightedness of the fishermen themselves.

At every level of the fishing industry there is distrust: Individual fishermen, fishing companies that command whole fleets of modernized fishing boats, and national fishing agencies simply do not trust their fishermen counterparts – locally, nationally or internationally – to be honest in reporting their true catch or in abiding by restrictions on catches.  The short-term gains of a boatful of fish are apparently irresistible and outweigh any long-term considerations about depletions of fish stock.

Fearfulness:
As noted above, politicians and religious leaders have played upon our social anxieties. They often target people who are obviously ‘others’ as scapegoats, blaming them for troubles in local communities, or instilling fears about these ‘others’ in order to manipulate the populace. It is easier to remain in power and enhance one’s control over the populace when one doesn’t accept blame for local problems. Instilling fears about ‘others’ also keeps the flock in the fold.

In time, the populace begins to wise up, and eventually they may rebel and establish a more democratic social and political order… Until the ‘haves’ again build up their power and establish unfair advantages over the ‘have-nots.’

Returning to observations on finances, we see that with time, Western commerce has developed largely into very impersonal interactions, often with communications via advertisements, letters, long-distance cable, phone messages and emails. While frauds and scams occur, they have generally been the exception to the rule. Recently, this has changed – and at such high levels in the financial world, that it is eroding the basic levels of trust required for facilitating the conduct of commerce with customers.

A case in point is the proposed governmental legislation in the UK to eliminate the labeling of foods in supermarkets to include their country of origin and miles-cost-added to the cost of the food. Similarly, the government is moving towards abandoning the requirement to label foods which are genetically modified. The government is clearly under the influence and sway of marketers’ interests rather than the interests of the public, or interests of controlling global heating (global ‘warming’ is an unacceptable euphemism). Films like Monsanto, Food.Inc and Michael Moore’s Super Size Me detail the processes that lead to such conflicts of interests. The customer is viewed and treated as a purchaser of products, with the corporate bottom line of profits taking complete precedence over the wellbeing and welfare of the consumer as a person.

The granddaddy of all examples of breach of trust at high levels was Enron, a financial house of cards from which the business and banking communities reaped mega-profits, at the expense of millions of once-trusting small investors, many of whom lost their life savings.

The more serious breach of trust is in the financing of governments through Federal Reserve loan systems that benefit the banks at the expense of the citizens of the country. These systems create a culture of unnecessary, perpetual loans that enrich the banks beyond any reason and limit the resources of the citizenry. The culture of living in debt starts at the top and is a house of cards that is a collapse just waiting to happen.

The above examples are but a tiny sampling of distancing and distrust between corporate and government entities and individuals in the public. Individual citizens have ever-increasing numbers and varieties of reasons to distrust the ‘others’ who are supposed to be their elected representatives.

This has very often been the case throughout history. The monetary and governing elite serve their self-interests at the expense of the populace. To keep the populace from noticing this, they channel dissatisfactions into the blaming of ‘others’ who are allegedly the causes of the problems at home. Wars are started from manufactured excuses, playing on fears that are deliberately created and fanned. This brings the populace to follow their leaders to battle against the alleged ‘others’ who are blamed by the leaders for causing the problems which are actually caused by the leaders.

President Bush and his cohorts were masters at these tactics. They took the US and other countries to war over phony stories of Weapons of Mass Destruction that were never found, and phony connections between Al Qaeda and Afghanistan woven of words rather than realities. By the time this became clear, the troops and the countries backing them were too embroiled in the battlefields to extract themselves, and too manipulated by fears of other sorts to call a halt to the wars. One wonders how many phony wars like Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan will be perpetrated before we as citizens get together, put our collective feet down, and say, “No more.”

Coming back down to personal levels of dealing with fearfulness, we find that there are now technologies to release stress, anxieties and distress.

Forgiveness releases us from the power of fear. It allows us to see with kindly eyes and rest in a wise heart.
                      – Jack Kornfield

Friendliness:
Wendell Berry notes that people have been exploring a return to local economies as an assurance to the satisfaction of their local needs and interests. There is now a network of local business networks called Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), which provides information and support for a growing web of economies that are community-based, green, and fair – local living economies.

I highly recommend Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest , a book that details the major ecological challenges that our world is facing. He doesn’t pull punches in describing the dangers of energy consumption, exhaustion of fossil fuels and other resources, pollution, governmental mismanagement, bad habits of consumerism, and above all the carbon emissions and global heating. I was startled to see the positive twist he puts on these problems. He points out that these threats to the survival of our planet and of every living thing on it have brought together people around the planet like no other problem has done in recorded history.

These crises are bringing people to work together for the healing of our problems. The internet is facilitating this in a big way. People are forging personal and organizational links with individuals and groups in diverse cultures around the world. This is, simultaneously, a step towards healing for the anxieties of dealing with ‘others.’ We are all on this ship that is sinking because people are punching holes in its hull, and because the ship’s officers are taking unfair shares of our global riches and depriving the crew of their due share of resources.

Releasing fears and building friendliness
TWR is an outstanding tool to help us as individual pixels on the big, global screen to release our fears. Imagine TWR taught in schools, so children could grow up without fears! Politicians and others who would want to manipulate them would have a much harder time doing so.

TWR (and any other healing method) can contribute to the clearing of collective fears, angers and hatreds as well. Whenever we are clearing negativity in ourselves or helping others to do so in themselves, we can invite clearing of similar issues in others – through the collective consciousness. A simple invocation can convert any individual healing into a doorway for clearings of others through the collective consciousness:

I/we invite anyone and everyone.
Anywhere and everywhere.
Anywhen and everywhen.
Who is ready to clear this [negativity/ anger/ hurt/ fear/ sadness/ grief/ etc] with me/ us, to come along and do so.

 

Resources:

Benor, Daniel J. My suggestions to clear the PTSD from humanity’s collective consciousness – hopefully to help us avert collective suicide:

Brief version
http://wholistichealingresearch.com/World_Healing_Collective_Consciousness.html

Full version
http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/col_con_hooponopono_whee.html

Berry, Wendell. The Idea of a Local Economy
Orion magazine, winter 2001
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/299/

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE):
Over 20,000 entrepreneurs building the new economy
The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) is North America’s fastest growing network of socially responsible businesses, comprised of over 80 community networks with over 21,000 independent business members across the U.S. and Canada.
BALLE brings together independent business leaders, economic development professionals, government officials, social innovators, and community leaders to build local living economies. We provide local, state, national, and international resources to this new model of economic development.
We´re showing that independent locally owned businesses can go beyond traditional measures of success. We’re proving that these businesses are accountable to stakeholders and the environment. We’re helping these businesses flourish in their local economies. And we’re leveraging the power of local networks to build a web of economies that are community-based, green, and fair – local living economies.
http://www.livingeconomies.org/

Hawken. Paul. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming ,  NY: Viking/ Penguin 2007.

Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds , New York: Anchor/Random House 2005.

Your feedback on this article is welcomed.

Dan
[email protected]

You may reproduce all or parts of this article in your journal, magazine, ezine, blog or other web or paper publication on condition that you credit the source as follows: Copyright © 2008 Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM   All rights reserved. Original publication at WholisticHealingResearch.com where you will find many more related articles on this and similar subjects of wholistic healing.