Bringing peace into politics as a life purpose

[Nichts]

Hi everyone,

I have almost completed the Life Purpose Course and, after four months finally think that I’ve figured out my Life Purpose. Although I am pretty sure that it goes in the right direction, there are certain points I’m not entirely sure about. I think having some other perspectives and opinions on this could help me out a lot.

 

In short, my Life Purpose is as follows:

“Taking on and combining different perspectives to help people to understand each other's views”

 

So, this is gonna take me a while to explain because I think I need to explain some background information to accurately explain my life purpose and the intentions behind it. I hope that, if you choose to read this whole post, it won’t completely waste your time and you’ll maybe also take one or two insights from it.

 

I already kind of knew what impact I wanted to have on the world, even before I took the course. Although I kind of repressed it because I was (and still am) scared of it. While taking the course it came into my awareness again and it became more and more clear to me that this is what I need to do in life. About two months ago though, I had a series of realizations which reframed and changed my view on it. But more on that later.

 

So, before this realization two months ago, my impact statement looked something like this: “To raise attention about the dangers of mass migration into Europe and eventually find a way to stop it”.

 

I guess this is going to offend some people, so, before I go on, let me explain why I think this way. If you disagree with me on this: I understand you. Two years ago, I probably had the same opinion as you. It was a long and painful process for me to change my opinion on this. I will now explain my political journey and opinion in detail. This is gonna be pretty long because I’m worried that people might misunderstand me. If you consider this too long, I also wrote a TL;DR below, you might wanna skip forward to that.

 

As many of you probably know , in 2015 the German chancellor Angela Merkel opened the borders and let over a million asylum seekers in. Around that time I was still pretty left politically. I saw (and still see) myself as a citizen of the world and viewed it as our duty as Germans to help those who had to escape from their home countries. I did not at all understand right wing movements like PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident) or Generation Identity or right-wing parties like the AfD (Alternative for Germany). I saw them as xenophobic Nazis who are just selfish, racist and evil.

However, as more and more people started to vote for the AfD I started wondering. I just couldn’t believe that over ten percent of German people should be racists. So I decided to them a chance and actually looked at the arguments they were making. And to my surprise those arguments actually made sense to me. I realized how different cultures can be. I looked into surveys who were asking Muslims in different cultures about their views on women’s rights, gay rights and political and religious freedom. You can have a look at them yourselves:

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-women-in-society/

And I am very very worried that in a few decades people with such opinions will be the majority in many European countries. And yes, this could actually happen. Families with a migration background have a much higher birthrate than families in almost all of European countries. And in many German cities, children with a migration background are already the majority.

All by itself this wouldn’t be a problem for me. I don’t consider myself a patriot at all.

What worries me are, as stated above, the political opinions of the majority of Muslims in Europe. And those opinions don’t seem to change very much over generations. And I am genuinely scared that the many rights and liberties we enjoy in Europe , which people fought for centuries to attain, could vanish if a majority of people vote against them.

I could go on and on with arguments. For example how on average, people with a migration background commit significantly more crimes, especially when it comes to instances of homicide, mayhem, rape and sexual assault. But I do not want this post to become more political than it needs to be. If you’d like to discuss this more deeply with me, feel free to send me a DM. I would actually be very happy if you changed my mind on this topic because my whole family and almost all of my friends disagree with me on this and I am very worried that this might damage many of my relationships.

 

TL;DR:

In a nutshell I now believe that it would be much better for everybody if those refugees didn’t go all the way to Europe to seek asylum but rather receive help in their neighboring countries which in turn receive financial aid from the countries in Europe. This would not only be cheaper, which means more people could receive help. It would also be safer for the refugees who would not have to go on a dangerous journey over thousands of miles and they also could get home much more easily once there is peace again in their home countries. Also I think letting so many people with completely different views on human rights, democracy and religious freedom  into Europe would pose a big threat to the people in Europe.

 

 

Alright, with all that being said, we can continue to the important part of this post.

While researching and contemplating on how to solve this problem, I realized that most of the people who are against this policy of open borders (at least in Germany; I’m not entirely sure how it is in other European countries) are conservative SD stage blue/orange type of people.

Because of that, I realized two things:

1. They terrible at convincing (mostly stage green) people who have the opposite opinion because they don’t speak their “language”. Stage blue and orange arguments just don’t resonate with green people. And vice versa.

2. Blue/Orange have their limits. So even if the AfD* gets a majority of votes (which is nearly impossible imo because they don’t appeal to the many green people in Germany), they might stop mass migration but apart from that their policy is not up to date imo and won’t be able to solve many of today’s problems.

 

At the same time I think that the majority of stage green people in Germany didn’t integrate some really important and healthy aspects of blue and orange. For example, it might be true that no culture is “better” than any other and that there are a lot of dangers to a view like that (and as you could imagine, Germans are very well aware of those dangers). But there are cultures which are more liberal and more tolerant than others  and it is very important to keep that in mind.

Another example: People who criticize the current migration policy or point out its dangers are almost always described as Nazis by most politicians, mainstream media and most people who are not AfD voters. There are even people who lost their jobs because they voted for the AfD. And even though the AfD has its problems and certainly has some questionable members, accusing them of being Nazis just adds to a toxic climate which makes peaceful and constructive discussions even more difficult in my opinion.

 

So, in short, I think right-wing people in Germany need to realize the limits of their own thinking and start seeing that stage green, when embodied in a healthy manner, is not just toxic neo-marxism. At the same time green left-wing people in Germany need to realize the importance of fully embodying orange and blue and see that most right-wing people are not nazis but normal humans with needs and fears, some of them justified. And finally, both sides need to stop demonizing each other and start talking to each other like adults.

 

So that’s what I want to do with my life: I want to mediate between those two sides and eventually help them rising up the spiral.

 

So that’s my mission statement: “Helping people to understand each other’s views”.

 

What I’d like to ask you now is: Which skills do you think are important to learn for having this kind of impact in the world?

I’ve already come up with a few myself:

·        Getting a profound understanding  of spiral dynamics; becoming a “spiral wizard”

·        Becoming really good in persuading other people

·        nonviolent communication

 

Lastly, I’d like to hear your opinions on this life purpose. If you consider this to be total bullshit, PLEASE tell me. I really could use some second opinions on this because I know I can’t really be 100% objective when thinking about this stuff and I certainly still have many delusions my ego clings to.

 

Alright. Thank you very much for taking the time and reading all of this!

 

*The AfD is a right-wing conservative party in Germany. In my opinion you could compare them to the Republicans in the US. They are pretty much the only party which supports strict immigration laws and closed borders.

[Odysseus]

Hi. I'm from Germany too. First of all I think your life purpose is a noble one. Mediating in this culture-war is an important attempt to raise overall consciousness. The problem is that you're too attached to the political debate, victimization and figures.

There is absolutely no way to move up the spiral by excluding refugees which is the disownment of higher western values like equality, freedom and care. We have to move up the spiral collectively. Even when most of them are stage red/blue/orange. This situation won't be solved by repressive politics. You might start contemplating why green people are against closed borders, walls and collective demonization of any kind of cultures, religions and people. Because they didn't integrate stage blue or orange? Way too easy man. I think you have to conquer your fear of Muslims in order to follow your life purpose (and move up the spiral). You'll also have to drop your victim mentality. The set of skills you mentioned are a good basis. The reduction of your ego will be your driving force. Wish you all the best 

[RichardY]

 

[RichardY]

 

[Leo Gura]

@Nichts Seems like a good life purpose, but you must be very careful here not to make your LP fear-based. Nevermind what you fear will happen to Germany, what do you actually wish to create? Do you want to create a more Spirally-informed world? Do you want to help people understand each other more simply because that's what you're passionate about? Then do that. That is valid.

Don't make your LP a reaction to anything happening in the world, especially politically.

Think of it more like this: If the world was just fine, what would you enjoy doing?

[now is forever]

@Nichts i‘d recommend you to have a really big family on your own as soon as possible - at least your line will not die off. you should make that your biggest goal if you are afraid of european culture diying off. and then you could try to do all the lowliest jobs no one wants to do. or you could just move to one of these super low countries everyone wants to flee from to live a life in luxury. i mean syria will take some time until you can build a house there again, but i guess you can make some money by building the whole country from the scratch. ok maybe you‘d need some kind  of fence around your house to protect you but hey - it’s about protection.

no of course it’s not nationalistic. with this view it’s really difficult to mediate with green because green sees right through the ego scheme.

Edited January 27, 2019 by now is forever

[Divingdeeper]

wow, pretty ambitious one i d say

[Nichts]

Hi @Odysseus , thanks for your answer and thanks for challenging my views. You might have a point in that I might be too involved in victim mentality. I definitely see that a lot in right-wing or just migration-critical groups. It’s possible that I’m guilty of that too to a certain degree.

 

But there are a few points which I’d like to make clear.

I am not afraid of Muslims. But I understand how one could think that after reading my post. Some of my closest friends are Muslims. That’s one of the reasons why it took so long for me to change my opinion on this. I always thought: “Well, that’s the evidence that integration really works”. But what I didn’t realize at that time was that I was kind of biased because I went to a “high” Highschool*. I guess the Muslims who go to those schools (for the most part) come from  families which are already integrated pretty well into society. So I only came into contact with Muslims who were integrated pretty well and didn’t have many extreme views. But there are many people who are not integrated in this society at all**. The problem is, you don’t meet them very often exactly because they are not integrated and almost only interact from people in their own culture. I’m not saying this to judge or condemn them in them any way. I think this is normal human behavior. If I moved to another country and there was a rather big German minority there, I would also tend to move to a neighborhood where many Germans are living.

 

19 hours ago, Odysseus said:

Even when most of them are stage red/blue/orange. This situation won't be solved by repressive politics. You might start contemplating why green people are against closed borders, walls and collective demonization of any kind of cultures, religions and people. Because they didn't integrate stage blue or orange? Way too easy man

I don't think that green people have those views because they didn't properly integrate orange and blue. I think those are perfectly valid and healthy stage green opinions. And I share all of them. When I'm talking about revisiting blue and orange, I mean realizing stuff like that you can criticize certain beliefs prevalent in other cultures without demonizing and completely condemning those cultures, for example. Or that saying that a culture or group of people is less evolved (in terms of spiral dynamics for example) doesn't mean that the other group/culture is  worse, anymore than saying that a 18-year-old is more evolved than a 12-year-old means that 12-year-olds are worse than 18-year-olds. (In my opinion it just makes a massive difference if a culture has gone through 500 years of Reformation, 300 years of Enlightenment and 100 years of Feminism or not. And I think it is extremely difficult to teach people this through a bunch of integration courses). But this was the kind of black-and-white- thinking I had at that time. I basically thought that all cultures were the same and anyone who criticizes other cultures is just racist. And I see this kind of thinking in many stage green people in Germany (of course it comes in degrees. I don't wanna make a straw man argument here). When I looked more deeply into stage orange and blue material I had a lot of realizations similar to the one I just talked about. I became a lot more open minded, politically grounded and less judgmental. In retrospect it kind of felt like entering a completely new stage of spiral dynamics (even though at that time I wasn't really familiar with that concept). 

I might have been not hard enough on right-wing views in my post. I agree that many right-wing people oversimplify things and easily condemn entire cultures, religions and groups of people. And in my opinion that also won’t get us anywhere. I also don’t like the idea of borders. In my opinion borders are just imaginary lines on maps and they become more and more obsolete. And I doubt that just closing the borders and letting nobody in is going to solve any problems.

The only way I can think of for really solving those problems is supporting refugee camps in neighboring countries. Because, not only wouldn’t there be such a “culture shock” with all the problems that would bring with it. But also more people could be helped with less money because the costs of living are much higher in Europe than in Jordan for example. This means actual lives could be saved this way.

 

I think that this is also more humane than motivating millions of people to go on a very dangerous journey which could potentially kill them (for example people drowning in the Mediterranean) and destabilizing the countries those refugees came from (only middle and upper class people have enough money to even afford going to Europe; the really poor people are the ones who will have to build their country back up alone).

 

One of the central causes of the refugee crisis in 2015 was  actually a massive cut in funding for refugee camps in Jordan which then forced millions of people to pack their stuff and travel to Europe.

 

 

* In Germany we have three kinds of highschool which differ in difficulty. There’s the “Hauptschule” (least difficult), the “Realschule” (medium difficult) and the “Gymnasium” (most difficult). I went to a “Gymnasium”.

 

**you can see this for example in the referendum started by the Turkish president Erdogan (it was basically about granting him much more power and essentially paving the way for a dictatorship) where German Turks (those who had a double-passport) were allowed to vote to. What I find scary, is that 63% of them voted for those changes. That’s even more than in Turkey itself where only 51% of people voted that way. It’s also important to consider that many of those German Turks already lived in Germany in the second or third generation.

 

 

@Leo Gura

 

Thank you very much for the advice, Leo. I never really thought about it that way. I guess I’ll need to contemplate this a lot.

[Odysseus]

@Nichts I appreciate you for differentiating and zooming out on your points. Furthermore, your opinion is much clearer to me right now. I agree that the main work has to be done in the home countries and in neighboring countries - which is consensus in German politics too. In my opinion this current state in Germany has to be tackled with much more optimism and compassion. It's incredible how fast some people can become more conscious and evolved if the citizens and the state support them. I also see the problems you mentioned and I won't sweep them under the rug. But in my opinion these problems will be resolved in the long run if we do proper integration work, don't fall for the collective ego backlash and try to understand each other. Therefore your LP is so valuable. 

[Emerald]

You have to think more systemically than this and go from the root of the problem to solve it, instead of the surface area where the problem starts effecting you personally. 

The reason why there are so many refugees in your country isn't actually because of policies within your country being naive and allowing in too many refugees. That's not the root of the problem. The reason why there are so many refugees in your country is because they are fleeing a war zone. And that war was caused by corruption in politics.

So, aiming for peace between "left" and "right" is a really localized and topical way to attempt to solve those types of issues. In fact, quelling conflicts between people in different political parties is a bad thing, because conflict raises awareness and pushes us forward. I know that I won't kowtow and compromise on a lot of things as I feel just that passionately about them, and a lot of people feel that way. And the conflict between those people is the discomfort that keeps us aware and allows us to grow. And when there is not awareness, that's the fertile ground for corruption to blossom, which is really what you want to be focusing on.

But if you really want to nip that specific problem in the bud and strike at the roots of the problem, you need to ruthlessly care about Muslims and why they're coming to your country in the first place, instead of just caring about peace in partisan factions and maintaining your personal comfort zone. Right now, you only seem to care about maintaining the norm in Germany and getting rid of conflict and disagreement between people in your own country... and mostly for your own comfort and fears of "What if".

But make no mistake, Germany is not the country that's actually in deep trouble. The country that is in deep trouble is Syria, and that's why they're there. 

So, regarding Spiral Dynamics, you should be a lot more Yellow about this topic. Strike at the roots, not at the branches. Cure the illness, not the symptoms of the illness.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Emerald

[Nichts]

@Emerald

Hi Emerald, thanks for your answer. I agree with you that this fight between “left” and “right” is a symptom of a deeper problem which needs a systemic approach. I also think that part of this deeper problem is the corruption in politics which caused the war. But I think that this is not the only reason.

 

I think that my country “being naïve” is actually also a big reason why things happened the way they happened. When it comes to migration there are almost always push- and pull-factors. Push factors meaning reasons to leave your country like war, oppressive government, discrimination, or bad economy. Pull factors are the reasons why you migrate to certain countries. This includes safety, a liberal and tolerant culture, individual freedom, democracy, social welfare, a good economic situation and the possibility of getting a good education or a well payed job.

In this particular instance, the push factors are, of course, the war in countries like syria, iraq or somalia, but also the overcrouded refugee camps in countries like Jordan.

The pull factors that motivate people to go to countries like Germany, Austria and Sweden inlcude more or less all of the things I listed above.

 

I think you can make a big change, not only in Europe, but also in the countries the refugees came from by calming down the political climate in Germany. If you decrease the benefits of going to Europe and, at the same time, better the reasons to stay in nearby countries like Jordan by funding the refugee camps there, a lot could be changed.

 

I don’t want to make my Life Purpose about making half-ass compromises where everybody loses to a certain degree. I want to help people to understand the other side and stop demonizing them. At this time, at least in my opinion, political discussions in Germany (and basically in the whole world) are not about debating certain topics and letting the better argument decide. It’s about making the other side look as evil as possible. Logical arguments are mostly secondary.

I think if left and right acually talked to each other without trying to “destroy” each other with arguments, they would realize that their actual needs and goals are not that different and that they only have different strategies for achieving them. I think that then, people would agree that it is better for everybody to instead of luring people to Europe and thereby destabilizing their countries, to actually help them at places which are fairly near to their homes so that they can build build their countries back up.

 

I think that my Life Purpose goes in the right direction but thanks to your post I became conscious that it could be more yellow. To me right now this Life Purpose seems like the most important thing I could do with my abilities. But I’m sure it’s going to evolve and change over time as I move up the spiral.

So, again, thanks for the advice J

[Odysseus]

On 31.1.2019 at 8:48 AM, Nichts said:

@Emerald

It’s about making the other side look as evil as possible. Logical arguments are mostly secondary.

[...]

I think that then, people would agree that it is better for everybody to instead of luring people to Europe and thereby destabilizing their countries, to actually help them at places which are fairly near to their homes so that they can build build their countries back up.

You might contemplate on what you said here. Aren't you just propagating your political views right now, saying they are right? You also imply that logical arguments are more useful in this so-called crisis. I thought your LP is about mediating. Not about patronizing different view points. Drop your victimhood. 

[Nichts]

@Odysseus

On 31.1.2019 at 8:48 AM, Nichts said:

It’s about making the other side look as evil as possible. Logical arguments are mostly secondary.

I wasn't talking about the left specifically here. I meant both sides.

However, I agree with you that logical arguments probably are not the most useful thing. That was probably the "orange me" speaking. "Facts" would be a better term.