Black and White Thinking

It is 2008 and it would seem that the world is in quite a bit of chaos.

I am all about staying sane in the 21st century.

Many people say that the world is in a mess and something has got to be done about it.

I say the world has always been in a mess and don't give your self a hemorrhoid about it.


What the previous generations have done has not appeared to fix it and I do not think that this generation is going to fix it, and I do not think that the next generation is going to make things right either. There will always be something really wrong with the world as long it exists.


Does that sound realistic or pessimistic? You are your own person. You decide.


Actually, I think that I find it quite liberating. Here is why.


There have been countless wars and acts of brutality throughout human history. Civilizations have come and gone. There have been famines and plagues and tyranny before during and after the great civilizations.


I think that people have always been anxious about something. When the world was agrarian in nature, people worried about rains their crops coming up and being raided by foreign invaders.


The same kinds of sins and crimes have always been happening. Murder, rape, robbery, assaults, etc., have always been going on.


What do you think really makes this time any different from any other era in human history?


My answer is black and white thinking. The thinking that makes you forget about the past and deny that there will be a future.


In reality, the people who are screaming or being histrionic about the world being in a mess and in big trouble have this rigid and narrow, telescopic focus on the here and now. It is also called black and white thinking.

Black and white thinking is evidenced by perfectionists, depressed individuals, borderline and narcissistic personalities, fundamentalists, extremist liberals (a fundamentalist liberal) and little kids. Black and white thinking also happens in anyone who has either had something catastrophic happen to them and all they can think about is the worst case scenario.


Black and white thinking can really be good or bad. Black and white thinking only allows things to be wrong or right. It only allows for extremes and makes no room for shades of gray.


Black and white thinking usually is connected with extremes in emotion. For example, when political gatherings of very liberal people and very conservative people happen, you get this really convoluted mix of self-righteous anger that almost comes across as a pentacostal worship service. People at those gatherings are intensely emotive in ways that they would not otherwise be in social situations. It is safe for them to vent their emotion in that setting whether their feelings of emotion are pertinent or inpertinent.


For many emotion still wigs people out and makes unaccustomed people feel scared. Many people do not know what to do with the emotion and they get most uncomfortable.


I will say that the liberal gatherings seem much more intense than the "fundamentalist" gatherings. The reason why: liberals for the most part are idealists. Idealism is black and white.


I am branding myself early, but liberalism in the political and religious sense is still quite a source of irony to me. They are all about accepting others, except when those others do not agree with them. People may call me a conservative already.


However, many fundamentalists call me a liberal because I do not agree with them. The fundamentalist already has a narrow point of view, so you pretty much expect them to say "You are for me or against me." You just do not expect that of the extreme liberal--but really you get it.


I have decided that in election years the black and white thinking gets thrown around a lot. Both sides make the other side look like immoral, intolerable inbreds. The black and white thinking has people living in the worst case scenario all the time. The bottom line, the politician we elect to lead the nation will be a human and just a human with strengths and faults.


However, the idea behind much of political rhetoric (speeches and punditry) is that the voting public thinks in black and white terms and is easily moved by emotion. It really does not matter that things are not going to change dramatically whether the other side is in power--if I have you believing it, then you will vote with your emotions.


2008 is a lot like 1979. We have an issue with fuel and inflation. In terms of the world scene iIt feels like the United States is an impotent country in need of national erectile dysfunction medication. Yeah, we are learning all over again how much we are a petroleum-based economy where the price of oil is raising the price of pretty much everything else. Yeah, people are learning that it was not a good idea to get that house out in that new housing development with that adjustable rate mortgage. People are learning some hard lessons again.


The message to myself and others is: do not be black and white about this. The worst possible stuff will not happen.