Blogger Tim Urban recently wrote an e-book entitled “What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies.” It’s an excellent analysis of psychology, philosophy, history, and sociology about why it’s so hard for humans to create functioning governments, how and why America was founded, and the problems facing our country today. One of the things he talks about is “Political Disney World.”
Disney movies – especially ones from the 1980’s and 1990’s – have not just a hero, but a truly cartoonish villain. From Scar to Jafar to Ursula, the antagonist is someone who is simply purely evil – and in the audience, we instinctively root against them because they have no redeeming qualities. One of the biggest problems in our society, though, is that we often see “the other” as the purely evil, cartoonish villain rather than trying to understand what their perspective, goals, and values are within their own internal logic. We are often more interested in cursing the other rather than blessing them.
We see this in this week’s portion, Balak, where the titular king of Moab sees the people of Israel and hears of their victories, so he is scared of their power and numbers. He reaches out to Balaam, a prophet for hire, and says to him,
“Come then, put a curse upon this people for me, since they are too numerous for me; perhaps I can thus defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whomever you bless is blessed indeed, and whomever you curse is cursed.” (Numbers 22:6)
If it’s true that Balaam’s words lead to either a blessing or a curse, depending on what he says, then why doesn’t Balak ask Balaam to bless his own people rather than coming to curse the Israelites? “Would it not have made more sense for Balak to ask Balaam to bless Moab with victory in battle?” asks the commentary of Beit Ramah. “We learn from this that the essential intention of Israel’s enemies is not to seek their own benefit but to harm Israel. Moab’s anger at Israel does not flow from love of their own people, but hatred of Israel.”
This emotional affect is both deeply human and deeply destructive and is one that we’re certainly seeing ripple out in our society. It’s not new that our public discourse has continued to devolve into polarization, and in this upcoming US election, a large number of people will be voting against a particular candidate rather than voting out of love for their hoped-for president. As negative polarization continues to climb, there’s a strong feeling of not just anxiety but even hatred and anger, and this past weekend’s shooting is likely to make this polarizing trend even worse.
That is why trying to cool down the political temperature has been so valuable and important – particularly because we often tend to demonize those on “the other side” as cartoon caricatures. As but one example, political scientist Sean Westwood shared this surprising fact: “Americans think the *other side* supports violence at absurdly high levels. Both Democrats and Republicans think nearly 40% of the members of the other party support partisan murder, when the truth is around 1-2%.” Like Balak, we become so focused on fighting “the enemy” (which is often a gross exaggeration) that we don’t even look at or champion the potential positives of our own values.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, David Brooks highlights how identity politics – a common source of values on both the left and the right – has been filling up a moral vacuum. But as he says,
The problem with this form of all-explaining identity politics is that it undermines democracy. If others are evil and out to get us, then persuasion is for suckers. If our beliefs are defined by our identities and not individual reason and personal experience, then different Americans are living in different universes, and there is no point in trying to engage in deliberative democracy. You just have to crush them. You have to grab power and control of the institutions and shove your answers down everybody else’s throats.
So what might it look like if we argued for the blessings that our policies might advance for our society rather than cursing those who disagree with us? Indeed, one of the great advances of human society is our ability to realize that prosperity is not a zero-sum game but rather that it allows us to “grow the pie” rather than fight over the scraps. Cartoon villains deserve to be cursed. In real life, it’s much more effective to try to create more blessings.
Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the scientific and religious worlds and is being incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. He was ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and served as Assistant and then Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester. In addition to My Jewish Learning, he’s written for The Huffington Post, Science and Religion Today, and WordPress.com. He lives in Westchester with his wife, Heather Stoltz, a fiber artist, and their daughter and son.