The Raven Foundation

Have you ever wondered how mimetic theory changes lives? ME TOO! So, I decided to put together a top ten list. Here you go:

1. You will resent monkeys for the phrase “Monkey see, monkey do” because you know that we humans are by far the superior imitators.
2. You will see the destructive nature of religions.
3. You will see the constructive nature of religions.
4. You will understand the paradox of 2 & 3.
5. You will see how scapegoating works and that the goat you scape may be your own. (I don’t know what that means, but I think you get the picture.)
6. You will impress others as you boldly use words like “mimetic,” “interdividual,” and “internal/external mediation.”
7. You know you have to be bold with #6 to give the impression that you know what you are talking about.
8. You will find out that there is a wrathful divinity and it is us.
9. You will realize how bad it is to be good.
10. You will discover that the best way to scandalize someone is to forgive them.

That's my list.  Would you add anything?

I recently came across a controversial statement about peace that I’d like to discuss with you. Here it is – our desire for peace actually makes us violent. (See Rene Girard’s book Battling to the End, especially page 44.) Sounds counter-intuitive, huh?  I mean, if everyone desired peace, wouldn’t the world be a more peaceful place? Maybe not. The Hunger Games offers us a way to understand this idea

I don’t know about you, but it’s easy for me to hate the Capitol of Panem. It keeps the districts down through oppression and violence – ultimately through the violence of the annual sacrifice of teenagers called the Hunger Games. But here’s the thing about the Capitol – it desires peace and it creates a sense of peace and order in the Capitol by uniting through violence against the districts. The Capitol thinks that the districts are a threat to peace, so the Capitol uses violence as a method to subdue the districts. About 74 years before the events in The Hunger Games, we are told that the districts rebelled against the Capitol.  Katniss, the main character of the novels, narrates that this rebellion created

… the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol.  Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated.  The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the dark days must never be repeater, it gave us the Hunger Games. (18)

It is the Capitol’s desire for peace that fosters the violence and oppression of the Hunger Games – because the Capitol thinks the Districts are a threat to peace. Indeed, the Capitol believes the Districts are barbaric, but it never questions its own violence as barbaric. (See page 74.) Indeed, in its use of violence to create peace, the Capitol believes itself to be unquestionably good. (84) Of course, you and I can easily question the “goodness” of the capitol because we know its sense of peace comes at the expense of the districts, whose citizens have to deal with the realities of violence and oppression every day.

Again, it’s easy for us to hate the Capitol.  But here’s the sad truth about us humans.  We’ve always used violence as a method to achieve peace.  There’s a bit of the Capitol in all of us because violence does give us a sense of peace as it unites us against a common enemy. We all want peace, and we always tend to see another as an obstacle to that peace. So, we must subdue or destroy the other to achieve our desired peace. We see this not just in The Hunger Games, but we see it throughout human history. For example, the Pax Romana (or Peace of Rome) was created through the use of violence to subdue those that Rome believed threatened their peace. The Aztecs also used violence that created a sense of unity against an enemy. (See Father Robert Barron’s excellent video on The Hunger Games by clicking here.) Unfortunately, this method of achieving peace through violence remains with us today. In a desire for peace, the United States wages war against a common enemy.  In an article called “The Bad Apple,” peace journalist Bob Koehler quoted a veteran of the war in Iraq,

The military turned hadji into a disempowering word.  My sergeant major said, ‘The hadji is an obstacle. Get him out of the way.’ Denying a person their name gave us permission to separate ourselves from the people of Iraq.  Thus, when a boy was hit by a truck, the CO said: ‘He’s gone, move out.’

The truth about violence that The Hunger Games points to is that humans have always believed our violence to be unquestionably good because we have faith that our violence will lead to our desired peace.  The problem is that there is always one more obstacle to peace, one more bad guy that needs to be defeated. Who is the good guy when everyone believes in their own goodness and in their right to use violence to kill one another?  To put it another way, does our use of violence turn us into monsters?

We’ll explore that question in my next post on The Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents

The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace

The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil

The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love

The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua

He made you look desirable!

-Haymitch, The Hunger Games, 135

We must understand that desire itself is … directed toward an object desired by the model.

René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 146.

The Hunger Games presents us with a post-apocalyptic world living with a fragile peace.  (For a summary of The Hunger Games, click here.) Violence is front and center with the annual ritual called The Hunger Games in which two young people from each District are entered into a bloody contest to the death that reminds us of the Roman Coliseum.  (See Julie Clawson’s wonderful book The Gospel and the Hunger Games.) But all that bloodletting is meant to prevent a bigger outbreak of violence, like the one more than 74 years ago that nearly destroyed all life on the planet. We are not told much about that old conflict. We don’t know what it was about or what started it, but in this article I’d like to reflect with you on conflict and what we know about how it gets started.

Most theories of conflict focus on the differences between the two adversaries, because that’s all the adversaries can talk about. When we are in a conflict with someone, we claim to be as different from each other as night is from day, as good is from evil. Yet, conflict is not due to our differences, but due to our similarities. Indeed, there are extreme differences in The Hunger Games between the Capitol and the Districts. They are divided into the power elite and the oppressed workers, the well-fed and the starving, the rich and the poor and so on.  But the differences, while they may exist in a very real way, are insignificant as triggers for conflict. Think about it this way, if there is an apple on the table (I mean the kind you can actually bite into) and you want it but I don’t, well, there’s no problem at all. But here’s where the conflict begins – as soon as I see that you want the apple, I get a little craving for it. In fact, the more I hear you talking about how good that apple is going to taste, the more I want it. And if I reach for it, trying to head you off at the pass, your desire will be both frustrated and intensified by the display of my desire. You see, we come into conflict with one another because we share desires, desires we learn from one another. Now there’s an easy way out of the conflict – I can admit that your desire preceded mine. I can even thank you for reminding me how good apples are and then I can pick some up on the way home from work. But we rarely take the easy way! I am most likely to forget that I borrowed my desire from you and see you only as a big ole meanie who won’t let me have my apple. Instead of a model for desire, I see only an obstacle to the fulfillment of my desire and that is the recipe for conflict.

So if we want to understand conflict in the Hunger Games we can’t let ourselves get distracted by the differences. We have to look for shared desires. We have no information about the old conflict, but we can look at the potential for conflict that exists in the present of the first novel. The thing that the Capitol wants more than anything is prevent open rebellion. Stated positively, we can say that the Capitol wants peace and it goes to great lengths to get it, most notably forcing 24 teenagers to murder each other on nationwide television each year as a form of entertainment. I’ll discuss how the Hunger Games work to keep the peace in the next article. But what is interesting is that the Capitol sees the Districts as a threat to peace and, you guessed it, the Districts think the same thing about the Capitol. Both want peace and both see the other as the obstacle to its fulfillment. It is seeing the other as obstacle that allows each side to justify their hatred and violence against each other. I don’t owe obstacles anything, except their destruction. As the story progresses through the second and third novels, we will see all manner of violence committed in the name of peace. If, on the other hand, I recognize that we share the same desire for peace, I recognize myself in the other and that might be enough to at least slow my hate to a simmer. Unfortunately, what usually happens is an escalation to all out warfare as the Hunger Games will show us.

There is another example in the Hunger Games of shared desire, but one that does not lead to conflict but instead to love. It is the desire of Peeta for Katniss, which he openly displays in front of the entire country during his interview.  The audience is sympathetic to Peeta, “For unrequited love they can relate to” (130). In other words, they openly allow Peeta to be their model of desire. At the end of his interview, the audience roars in approval of Peeta’s expression of love.  Katniss blushes in embarrassment and after the show she confronts Peeta and yells, “You had no right!  No right to go saying those things about me!” (134)  Haymitch, their mentor, sees this happening and responds to Katniss by saying:

You are a fool … Do you think he hurt you?  That boy just gave you something you could never achieve on your own … He made you look desirable!  And let’s face it, you can use all the help you can get in that department.  You were about as romantic as dirt until he said he wanted you.  Now they all do. You’re all they’re talking about. (135)

The audience’s desire for Katniss is openly borrowed from Peeta’s desire – he reached for the apple and they want it, too!  Peeta’s love for Katniss is actually contagious because like all good fans, the Capitol audience is not ashamed of their open admiration for these two celebrities from District 12.  Peeta’s desire for Katniss is also explained by this contagious aspect of desire, as Peeta openly claims that “a lot of boys like her” back at District 12. (130)

The Hunger Games reveals how shared desire can lead to conflict and to love. This is of great importance if we desire a better world. When we find ourselves locked in rivalry with some wicked other who only seems to want to deny us the very thing we want, we may be caught in the trap of denying how that very rival has taught us what to desire. Learning what to desire from others is nothing to be ashamed of, it’s just how humans work. The danger comes when we think our desires are our own. That is, we run the risk of feeling justified in knocking others to the ground on our way to the apple. When Jesus talks about forgiveness in the Gospels, I think he means that we need to remember that the one who seems deserving of our hate may be the one we have the most in common with. The enemy that seems so different from me, may be my mirror image and want the same things I want precisely because I want them. It’s weird to think about conflict that way, but the next time you crave an apple (or an Apple) look around and see who else is thinking the same thing.

The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents

The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace

The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil

The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love

The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua

The world runs on violence.  That’s the message of the best selling book by Suzanne Collins titled The Hunger Games and it is also the message of mimetic theory.  For many of us, there is a growing concern that this violence threatens our very future.  As political, economic, and other forms of social oppression spread throughout the world, I’m convinced that this violence needs to be confronted.  Throughout human history we have confronted violence and have tried to subvert it in two distinct ways.    The first way is offered to us by Collins in her books.   According to The Hunger Games, the best way to confront and subvert violence is with violence.  The second way is offered to us by mimetic theory, which takes its inspiration from the Gospel.  According to this approach, the best way to confront violence, and the only way to truly subvert it, is through universal sacrificial love and forgiveness.  It is confrontational because it meets violence head on and, by refusing to play by the rules of violence, it offers another way of being.  It is universal because the principles of sacrificial love and forgiveness include even our enemies.

The choice we make between these two ways matters if we want to have a future.  It’s the choice between the way of life and the way of death.

The Hunger Games – Our Cultural Fascination

The first book in the series, The Hunger Games, was released in 2008. It quickly became a USA Today and New York Times bestseller and has spent more than 100 consecutive weeks on the New York Times list.  The Hunger Games has been sold over a million times as a Kindle ebook, making Collins one of six authors to join the “Kindle Million Club.”

The series has captured the imagination of our culture – and with the release of The Hunger Games movie this Friday, I decided it was time to read the first book in the series.  It didn’t take long before I discovered why so many are fascinated with it.  Collins explores universal themes in a very engaging way.  Like any good work of fiction, the reader can identify with the characters in The Hunger Games as they struggle with the themes of identity, love, greed, sacrifice, freedom, compassion, and violence.   As I read the first book of the trilogy, I understood what Stephen King, the master of violent thrillers, meant when he wrote in his review of The Hunger Games for Entertainment Weekly, “I couldn’t stop reading [because The Hunger Games] is a violent, jarring speed rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense and may also generate a fair amount of controversy.”

I was also intrigued by the reviews from fellow Christians who engaged their faith with the books.  There are at least two ebooks that relate the trilogy in very positive ways to Christianity.  The Gospel According to “The Hunger Games” Trilogy was written by Andy Langford and Ann Duncan, who are both Methodist pastors.  It compares the characters of the trilogy to characters in the Bible.  For example, Langford and Duncan compare Katnis Everdeen, the main character of The Hunger Games, to Moses and Jesus in her attempts to overthrow the oppressive Capitol.  The second ebook is Julie Clawson’s The Hunger Games and the Gospel: Bread, Circuses, and the Kingdom of God.  Clawson’s book is very good and worth reading, as she reveals how the fictional oppression found in The Hunger Games is an allegorical critique of many real oppressive practices in our world today.  I have only read the first book, but so far the most important revelation I have found in The Hunger Games have to do with desire and violence.  Collins knows that desire and violence are mimetic (a term we will explore in parts two and three), but Collins doesn't offer the Gospel's alternative to violence. If the final two books in the series follow the trajectory of The Hunger Games, Clawson’s argument that the books are closely related to the Gospel is dangerously flawed.  She writes, “Although not explicitly ‘Christian’ books, the themes explored in the Hunger Games are the same ones Christians have wrestled with since the days of Jesus and his apostles.  Themes of love, compassion, and justice in the face of oppression.  Themes of what it looks like to live full of hope that a better world is possible” (Kindle, 90) and that The Hunger Games helps us understand the “life affirming way of the Kingdom of God.  That is the life Christians are called to: a life that, despite struggles and hardships, still chooses to work for a better world that reflects God’s dreams” (Kindle, 292).

Does The Hunger Games offer us that hope for a better world?

No.

While I agree with Clawson that Jesus and his disciples wrestled with the same “Themes of love, compassion, and justice in the face of oppression,” found both in The Hunger Games and in our 21^st century world, I fundamentally disagree that the methods used to fight the oppression in The Hunger Games are the methods Jesus and his disciples used or would endorse.   To the contrary, the Kingdom of God that they lived and taught as the hope for a better world critiques those methods because Jesus and his disciples knew that using violence to confront violence makes the world a more violent place.  The methods that the Kingdom of God uses to confront and subvert violence are nonviolence, sacrificial love, and forgiveness. It is because of those diametrically opposed methods that, as fascinating as The Hunger Games is, it is neither explicitly nor implicitly a “Christian” book.

In fact, The Hunger Games may be fascinating for the wrong reasons.

Because the way that we confront violence and oppression in our world matters.  In fact, it is a matter of life and death.

The Hunger Games Blog - Table of Contents

The Hunger Games Part 1: The Hope for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 2: The Desire for a Better World

The Hunger Games Part 3: The Desire for Peace

The Hunger Games Part 4: The Desire to Subvert Evil

The Hunger Games Part 5: The Desire to Love

The Hunger Games Part 6: The Fear of Death and the Hope for Life: Katniss and Perpetua

Are you wondering what to make of all the God talk in today’s politics? It seems we can’t decide if we want God nosing around our political decisions and anointing candidates for us. Remember the dove that descended on Jesus at his baptism and the voice from heaven booming for all to hear, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased”? It’s as if some of today’s politicians think they have a dove floating over their heads and they can’t understand why they are the only ones who hear the divine endorsement: I’m God and I approved this message. Republican candidates in particular like to dally in this double-edged delusion: that (1) God takes sides in American politics and (2) is keeping his divine fingers crossed for your victory.

Of course, God will only root for you if your position is the right one. You have to be on the right side of every issue from economics to immigration. Stray across into the grey middle ground and God will join the crowd in calling you weak or wishy washy. Stray all the way to the wrong side and you might as well admit you are siding with Satan. And don’t be fooled by Democratic candidates who don’t use God-talk because they are just as guilty of certainty in the sanctity of their positions. They just claim to be “right” instead of divinely chosen. I’m not sure whose voice they hope we hear, but the point is the same. Being on the right side of an issue, whether you think in religious or secular terms, naturally results in absolute, unwavering, uncompromising faith in your position and total condemnation of your opponent’s. When it comes to casting our votes, they want us to believe in their differences from one another, but the thing that is becoming more and more apparent to voters is how alike the candidates are, not only in their pre-election barnstorming, but in how they behave in office. Choosing one over another seems to be a futile exercise, like choosing which pair of blue socks I’ll wear today. Just reach in and grab one/ vote for one, because the differences don’t matter.

And that, folks, is where we are today. Oddly it is where we have been before and the result was an American tragedy. The American Civil War was fought by two sides (there were a slew of diverse positions which telescoped into two opposing armies when the war broke out) that each believed that God was on their side. It was all God talk back then, because religion was assumed to be part of political life. Everyone was more or less a Christian in name if not in practice, and the Bible was the go-to reference book for how to vote or who to support in an election. Folks on both sides of the slavery issue whole-heartedly believed that they had Biblical and therefore Godly support for their position. Did you get that? Both sides of the slavery issue believed that God was on their side and the proof was in the Bible. I won’t go into that here, but if you can attend our conference at Wheaton College on March 16-17 you will hear directly from Civil War historians about how even the pro-slavery South could feel divinely inspired.

The salient point for us today is that the abolitionists and pro-slavery folks were locked in a heated argument about their differences, differences so extreme that God was supporting one side and condemning the other. Which side you thought God supported depending on which side you were on, of course. But each side resembled the other in a critically important way: their confidence that they knew the mind of God. Today’s debates around moral issues have a bit more diversity because all sides aren’t making the God argument. But if you substitute “certainty that I’m right and you’re wrong” for “knowing the mind of God” then our debates on same-sex marriage and reproduction, immigration and terrorism, fall into the same pattern as the slavery debate. According to Mark Noll, the insistence of both sides on absolute certainty that you are reading the Bible and the mind of God correctly created a hostile environment leading up to the Civil War that “transformed the conclusions reached by opponents into willful perversions of sacred truth and natural reason.” (The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, page 20) In other words, both slavery and anti-slavery positions were called “perversions of truth” by their opponents so confidently that the truth itself, that both sides were guilty of blind racism, was hidden from view for the next 100 years.

But what’s the risk today for a politics of certainty? Politics has become a form of entertainment. No one thinks that all this certainty and God-talk will lead to violence, do we? I mean, we’ve come a long way since the 19^th century; we’d never let things go that far. But there is a place where God talk is part of an outbreak of violence: the fight against Islamic terrorism. Americans insist that we are completely different than terrorists whose conviction that God is on their side leads them to die for their cause and to murder civilians without ever doubting God’s favor. To prove how different we are, when we fight back we are careful to avoid God talk of any kind. But is that a difference that matters? Just like our adversaries, when we kill civilians, we don’t doubt our own goodness. When our soldiers die for our cause, our certainty does not waver. In a very real way, we are exporting our violence right now, allowing our combating certainties to play out in foreign wars. Our Civil War, four years of escalating violence in which over 850,000 Americans died, may be a warning to us that if our current wars end and we don’t start another one, all this certainty may find a violent outlet at home. We may be marching to the tune of our own infallibility toward a Sophie’s Choice of war abroad or the risk of war at home. I wonder which side God is on.

Adam and Bob were delighted to welcome acclaimed Civil War historian Professor Mark A. Noll to the program. We talked with Mark about the startling thesis in his book, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. He writes that in the years leading up to the American Civil War, theologians, preachers and devout churches argued about what the bible said about slavery. They couldn't agree on whether God was for or against the South's "peculiar institution." In his book, Mark says that "the remedy that finally solved the question of how to interpret the Bible was recourse to arms." Listen in as Adam and Bob discuss with Professor Noll how the dynamics of the Civil War continue to influence our lives today.

Adam and Bob start the conversation by discussing one of Adam's latest blogs, "The Spiritual Warfare of Lent: Jesus, Satan, and Rick Santorum."  To read the blog, click here.

Click on the arrow below to listen to the conversation.

That’s mimetic.

The “Tebowing” and now “Cruzing” and “Bradying” phenomena are evidence of humanity’s mimetic nature.  As René Girard has put forth in developing the “mimetic theory,” humans are the best imitators on the planet.  We are so good at imitating, most of the time we don’t even know we are doing it.  This non-conscious imitation is how we learn from others.  Girard calls the “others” we imitate our models – we admire our models and want to be like them.  We want their success, fame, prestige, or fortune.  For example, as the above video shows, our culture has begun to dance the salsa in imitation of Victor Cruz’s celebrations after scoring a touchdown.  As the announcer in the video says, “The salsa is spreading like an internet virus.”  Babies, teenagers, and adults (even a dog!) are imitating Cruz’s victory dance.  Not only are we imitating Cruz, but we are imitating others who are imitating Cruz – hence the baby and the dog.

Even Madonna isn’t immune from imitating Cruz.

According to Girard, this imitation is a positive thing because it’s how we learn, but he also claims there is a dark side to this imitation.  It can turn very negative.  As we imitate one another in the desire for success, fame prestige, or fortune, we can easily fall into rivalry with one another because we desire the same things.  Two football teams, let’s take the Giants and the Patriots for example, want the same thing – to win the Super Bowl.  After winning, the Giants can celebrate by dancing the salsa, but how do the Patriots feel?  Envious.  Why?  Because they want what the Giants have – success.  And here’s the scandal: If you are a Patriots fan, you have a secret admiration for Giants fans.  You admire them because they have what you want.  Sure you feel a sense of hatred, but behind every hatred is a sense of admiration.

When the other team has what we want, we get frustrated.  And frustration always finds an outlet.  If we don’t deal with frustration in a positive way, the need for an outlet will either cause internal strife within our community as we blame one another for a loss, or we will find an external outlet.  As the video shows, a group of frustrated Patriots’ fans were congregating in Boston after the game.  A Giants fan did a little salsa dance, and the group turned into a mob.  Its frustrations coalesced on the man and “as he continued to taunt the crowd, he got sucker punched.”

Yes.  It was a stupid thing to do.  But he was imitating his model, Victor Cruz.  Every celebration after a touchdown will be interpreted by the other team as a taunt.  As a bit of mockery.  In essence we’re saying, “I have what you want.”

And then the ultimate taunt – “Nananananana!”

We imitate winners, but we can also imitate “losers.”  Imitating losers can be a positive thing, if we imitate them in order to share in their pain.  But it can also be a negative thing, as I think is the case with the “Bradying” phenomenon.  Imitating losers is often a way of mocking them – but we only mock those we secretly admire.  We admire our models and our rivals.  In fact, our rival is also our model, for we want what our rival has.  Football fans admire Tom Brady because he has the success we all want.  Playing in five Super Bowls and winning three of them is an amazing career.  We envy Brady because we want the success he’s had.  And so when he fails we mock him.  We imitate one another in mocking him in order to keep him down.  For when our rival is down, we are up.

We admire both our models and our rivals.  We want what they have, which can lead to rivalry, and even to violence.  Now, you may be searching for an answer to all of this negative imitation that’s going on.  Fortunately, there is an answer – but, I’ll tell you up front, few people like it.  It’s not glamorous.  And it’s hard work.  If you want to transform this negative imitation into a positive imitation, the answer is in identifying with cultural “losers” in a way that feels their pain.  Few people want to do that.  We’d rather do a salsa dance – and keep others from dancing with us.

Giants and Patriots fans, after all, don’t dance together.

Do you have or know a child with an attention deficit disorder diagnosis? Then you are probably aware that the standard approach to diagnosing and treating A.D.D. is being seriously challenged by long term studies and neuroscientific discoveries. If you have been doing your best to cope with an A.D.D. child, this news may trigger a complicated range of emotions, everything from joy that there might be new hope for your child to anger, resentment, guilt or downright despair that by following the best medical advice of the last twenty years you may have harmed rather than helped your child. In spreading the news, it is not my intention to make anyone feel bad. That we have been misled is not our fault and fault-finding, while tempting in the short run to ease some personal pain, will not help your child. My hope for you and your child is that your undeniable willingness to do whatever it takes, including adjusting and adapting your own behavior, will enable you to listen with an open mind to the current discoveries and that you will find my parenting advice helpful. Here goes:

As a pre-school teacher in the late nineties, I had to deal with the standard approach to A.D.D. Over the years, a few of my students were in the process of being evaluated. Well-meaning parents, keen to give their children the best edge at early learning, eagerly embraced the diagnosis and drug treatment. But I wondered about the rush to diagnosis. Observing one parent at home with her young son, I couldn’t help but question the belief in genetic or born-with explanations. Believing that her child had trouble attending to the task at hand, I think it was playing with a set of blocks, she interrupted every few seconds with directions. It sounded like rapid gun fire to me.

See the big one? No not that one—the big one is blue. You know what blue is—you wanted to wear your blue shirt today. Look at your shirt. Look at your—don’t walk away. I want you to finish this. I know you can do it. Now sit down and see if you can find the big, blue one.

I felt my blood pressure rise as I listened to her relentless string of directives and I thought two things: no one could concentrate under those conditions, I don’t care how “normal” they were and her lack of confidence in her child broke my heart, and I am sure it wounded his. The big question that formed for me was this: Was this child truly born with an attention problem or was his parent’s behavior creating one in him? And if the latter, what good would a pill do?

The look-inside-the-child’s-brain-and-fix-it-with-a-pill approach to solving behavior problems is a symptom of a deeply held cultural conviction in the human being as a self-made, self-starting creature. The belief goes something like this: We are born with innate abilities and deficits, gifts and limits, that make us who we are. The job of concerned parents and educators is to correctly sort out what to encourage and what to fix and then to throw ourselves into the task with devotion as demonstrated by the barraging mother above. This conviction infects medicine, of course, as medicine is embedded in culture, not separate from it, and so medicine seeks to fix with its own brand of corrections. We have been operating under the self-made, self-starting picture of human beings for a good 500 years now, but this view is in the process of being overturned by theorists and experimental scientists and yielding exciting new ways to think about medicine, education and parenting.

In an article in the New York Times recently, L. Alan Sroufe, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, beautifully summarized the shift in thinking about A.D.D. that has occurred since the 1960s. From a theory of inborn dysfunction, the field has begun to recognize that “behavior and the brain are intertwined” and grow in a sort of feedback loop with one another. Behavior and environment influence and actually shape the physical brain. Prof. Sroufe says it this way: “One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience.” Or as René Girard, cultural theorist and founder of mimetic theory might say, we are not individuals at all but at every level and fiber of our being, we are inter-dividual, social creatures who when left alone as infants fail to thrive and even die. Just the opposite of independent self-starters, human beings develop under the influence of others, our community and culture. Are we born with particular bodies, unique genetics and predispositions? Of course we are, but that is not the limit of our becoming, in fact it is more like a cupboard of ingredients that can be shaped into different dishes by different environmental factors. It is also true that our particularities at birth will shape our response to the environments, but the critical discovery is the profound interaction of biology with environment that is the creative force in human development.

You may be surprised to know that this understanding of human development is not new, but rather has been part of the minority report operating below the surface. As a Montessori educator I learned that as early as 1903, Dr. Maria Montessori was teaching that the absolute worst thing one could do with children is to interrupt their play, or “work” as she called it. These interruptions interfere with a child’s normal attention pattern by imposing our will upon him. Today this is a common problem where busy lifestyles, the need to get to work, daycare, or other appointments forces the child into adapting to adult patterns of behavior.

Here is how Montessori described it in her medical textbook from the early 1900s:

Often what we call naughtiness on the part of the individual child is rebellion against our own mistakes in educating him. The coercive means which we adopt toward children are what   destroy their natural tranquility. A healthy child, in his moments of freedom, succeeds in escaping from the toys inflicted upon him by his parents, and in securing some object which arouses the investigating instinct of his mind; a worm, an insect, some pebbles, etc.; he is silent, tranquil and attentive. If the child is not well, or if his mother obliges him to remain seated in a chair, playing with a doll, he becomes restless, cries, or gives way to convulsive outbursts (“bad temper”). The mother believes that educating her child means forcing him to do what is pleasing to her, however far she may be from knowing what the child’s real needs are, and unfortunately we must make the same statement regarding the school-teachers! Then, in order to make him yield to coercion, she punishes the child when he rebels and rewards him when he is obedient. By this method we drive a child by force along paths that are not natural to him. (emphasis in the original)

I do admire her boldness – she is really unconcerned if she is hurting the feelings of well-meaning parents because her first and foremost concern is with the child. It is a wonderful example to imitate. Prof. Sroufe, also putting the child’s developmental needs first, pointed out that behavior problems in children have “many possible sources. Among them are family stresses.” He lists a few obvious stressors like domestic violence or chaotic living situations, but the one that interested me was this:

…especially, patterns of parental intrusiveness that involve stimulation for which the baby is not prepared. For example, a 6-month-old baby is playing, and the parent picks it up quickly from behind and plunges it in the bath. Or a 3-year-old is becoming frustrated solving a problem, and a parent taunts or ridicules.

The mother I described at the opening may not have thought of her directives as taunting, but I wonder if her child would agree. Someone who hovers over you and persistently focuses your attention on what you are doing wrong may indeed be described as engaging in ridicule. Now, if you have read this far, you are surely following in Montessori’s footsteps by doggedly putting your desire to help your child ahead of your instinctive need to avoid feeling hurt, guilty or whatever. Allow me to conclude with some easy to implement parenting tips to support a child’s natural development.

1.  
   1. When you see a child engaged in play or concentrating on seemingly trivial things like specks of dust or his own hand, think: “Einstein at work”. If you had to interrupt Einstein, you would do it in a spirit of humility and regret, wouldn’t you? That is the same attitude to take when you need to interrupt your child.
   2. Young children are notoriously bad at transitions, but easily coaxed into them with sufficient warning. Let’s use the example of transitioning from play time to dinner time. While the children are playing, slowly squat near them and in a quiet voice say, “Five minutes until it’s time to wash our hands for dinner.” Then walk away. Of course, the 5 minutes means nothing to them and be as short or long as you need it to be. But in a few minutes more, repeat your warning in a quiet voice, “3 minutes till dinner. It will be time to put your toys away and wash your hands.” Then give a one minute warning and finally, “It’s dinner time. Let’s put our toys away and wash up.”
   3. If your child balks at the moment of transition, don’t get into a power struggle. Just ask, “What did my words say?” Not “What did I say,” but precisely, “What did my words say?” Your child will think for a second and then repeat some version of “It’s time for dinner”. You will just shrug as if it is a shame for you, too, that we have to go to dinner, sharing in your child’s experience at that moment. Then off you go together, putting toys away and washing up as a team.

That’s it, three easy steps! It is hard to underestimate how vitally important this style of parenting can be to the formation of a healthy pattern of attention. As Dr. Montessori put it over one hundred years ago, “We cannot know the consequences of suffocating a spontaneous action at the time when the child is just beginning to be active: perhaps we suffocate life itself.” Too dramatic? Maybe, but maybe not. The beauty of it all is that to support life itself may be as easy as one, two, three.

The United States of America is under attack.  America has an enemy that will stop at nothing until it defeats our way of life.  If you are afraid of any possible threat to our way of life posed by Islamism, or China, or the European economic crisis, or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, well, those are all child’s play when compared to this threat.

You may be wondering, “Just who is attacking the United States?”  According to the conservative website Caucus for America, which is “dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the historic American civilization,” liberals are to blame.  Liberals are attacking the religious core at the heart of America’s way of life.  The secular Left, which, according to the website, has contaminated protestant Christianity, “knows that the only way to destroy the America we’ve known is by destroying the Christianity, the Judeo-Christian ethic, which has made it great.”  The Left is attacking America’s soul from the inside.  If this was an enemy from the outside our borders, “We would have raised our swords” against this threat.

That’s pretty serious.  But, there’s more.  According to the progressive website Common Dreams, it’s not the Left who is attacking America; it’s the Right.  And you should be very afraid of the policies those demons would legislate if they were to gain power.  “It’s very possible that Mr. XY Zombie Republican could seize power in November, with the backing of endlessly deep pockets like the Koch brothers, Big Energy, and Big Finance, and the blessing of the Supreme Court.”

As I read these equally hysterical but completely opposite viewpoints, I realized they had something in common that is more profound than their panic and fear.  Whether on the Right or the Left, the American way of life many of us are so eager to defend involves demonizing and shaming others so that you aren’t the one demonized and shamed.  Attack!  Attack so that the attention is on your opponent’s deficiencies and not on yours.  Seriously?  “Zombie Republican”?!?  Are you kidding me?  It’s sophomoric and certainly not progressive.  And the suggestion that we should raise our swords against the Left to protect our American way of life is an American way of life that I reject.

And so I’m attacking this American way of life.  Yes.  I’m attacking it because it’s pathetic.  It’s banal and I think it’s time for us to grow up.  The Left and the Right justify the demonization of one another in the name of protecting America.  And they both look pathetically similar.  The Left and the Right are caught up in a mimetic rivalry, where both sides assert differences where no difference exists.  They are exactly the same.  They both claim the mantle of righteousness while they demonize the other.  It is, apparently, what America is all about.

Indeed, it’s pathetic and weak.  It makes us into cowards because the American way of life that demonizes the other conveniently blinds us to our own faults.  It takes courage to look deep within ourselves and critique our own failings.  Under our current way of life, we will never have that kind of courage because we are possessed.  Make no mistake - when the bible talks about demon possession, it’s not talking about an archaic misunderstanding that our ancestors had about humanity.  No.  They had a much more powerful anthropology than we moderns do.  When we accuse others of being a demon (or a Zombie), when we blame the other for all of our cultural problems, we become instantly blind to our own demons.  You can be damn sure that you are possessed by a demon if are inciting fear of Liberals and accusing Republicans of being “Zombies.”

I’m attacking this American way of life because I demand better.  The American way of life that mimics accusations against one another needs to stop because it will destroy us.  I have little hope that politicians, the media, and bloggers have the power to change this pattern.  I do have hope, though.  I have hope that people like you and I can change.  We don’t have accuse one another.  We are not enslaved to a way of life that demonizes and shames our family members, our neighbors, our co-workers, or even those we call our enemies.  We must say no to that way of life, because only when we say no to that way of life can we be empowered to say yes to a way of life that respect opposing views and values dialogue over demonization.

When the American way of life emphasizes that spirit, I will stop my attack.

“Those who say that the media and our political leaders are out of touch with the ‘real’ America have a point.”  Thus begins Stuart Muszynski in his fascinating article on the Huffington Post called “Taking America Down the Rabbit Hole”. Muszynski (who runs "Purpe America", a really cool educational organization that explores America's values) claims that the news media has become a form of violent entertainment by “framing everything [in politics] as a fight.” This pattern of violence infects more than the news media, of course.  Muszynski says it permeates much of our television airwaves and he specifically holds “reality” TV responsible for its use of violence.  He tells a story of someone who works for a non-profit that raises money for an “important and worthwhile cause.”  According to this person, the co-chairs of the non-profit “have been increasingly disagreeable, catty and outright, publicly mean.”  Muszynskin explains the behavior by stating that it turns out “they’ve been watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

This violence has real effects on our culture, according to Muszynski.  He warns that “Our children and even adults replicate the language and actions they see on TV, on the Internet and in the newspaper.”  From a mimetic theory perspective, this is fascinating because of its truth about human nature.  As I read the first five paragraphs, I kept thinking:

“C’MON!  SAY MIMETIC THEORY!!!”

Then came the sixth paragraph.  “It’s human nature to mimic what we frequently see.”  Exactly.  But there is something missing from Muszynski’s analysis.  He’s right that we humans are mimetic, or imitative, creatures.  And it’s easy to see how the news media often frames political debates as a violent battle between gladiators, and how politicians frequently fall into the trap of demonizing one another.  The problem, though, is that this pattern of violence is much bigger than the news media or politicians. In fact, when we blame the news media, television, and politicians for their violent rhetoric, we usually do so using violent rhetoric in return.  Muszynski says that current American political conversations are not sustainable.  “By vilifying one side over the other and turning everything into a fight, public policies become intense wars that will be reversed once the other side comes to power.”  I appreciate the truth in that statement, however, I can’t help but think Muszynski is mimicking that fight.  His solution to the vilifying in media and politics is to vilify the media and politics.  The final paragraph of his article is evidence to my point.  The way to fight the corrupt power in American culture is through … yup, you guessed it, power.  “So let’s demand art, politics and citizenship that reflect the values and goodness of America and spur us to be our best.”

Now, I want America to be a more peaceful place and I agree that the escalating, combative rhetoric in politics and on television is a problem for American culture.  But I disagree with Muszynski’s solution.  Demanding that “art, politics and citizenship reflect the values and goodness of American” and vilifying the news media and politicians is simply another form of violent rhetoric, which is exactly what he is critiquing.  Violence, even violent language that seeks peace, breeds more violence.

What’s the way out of this cycle?  One of the first steps in transforming our pattern of violence is to acknowledge that we all (even good, peaceful people) fall into the “rabbit hole of violence.”  We all have our scapegoats that we enjoy vilifying.  Acknowledging this truth about human nature leads us to the next step, which is transforming the pattern of violence into a pattern of forgiveness.  Only through forgiving ourselves and others can we begin climbing out of the rabbit hole.