Ambigamy

Insights for the Deeply Romantic and Deeply Skeptical

Jeremy Sherman is an evolutionary epistemologist studying the natural history and practical realities of decision making. See full bio

September 10, 2008, Politics

Comments on "Chickenhawk: How did fear come to signify bravery?"

Chickenhawk: How did fear come to signify bravery?

By Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on September 10, 2008 in Ambigamy

Neo-conservatives and militant Islamic fundamentalists both claim to be braver than the rest of us because they see a clear and present danger that we don't. Both movements fear that liberalism and tolerance are powerful corruptive forces that are about to take over the world. They have that much in common. They differ on their other fears. Neo-conservatives feared Communists and now Islamists. Read More

How does this apply?

Submitted by eslmatt on September 10, 2008 - 11:43pm.

After reading your two posts today I am left with the question. How do they apply to ambigamy? Great articles, but how does this help us who live with two contradictory thoughts? I may just be missing the connection.

I really enjoy your writing, the blogs last week were great. Some great thoughts and tools for working through ambigamy. I hope you will focus on ambigamy here, and keep these other interesting essays on the mind reader's dictionary.

Good points

Submitted by Andy G on September 11, 2008 - 7:13am.

You made lots of excellent points. Unfortunately, like most points made by people who oppose the chickenhawks, they'll probably end up drowned out by the screaming of the chickenhawks. People in this country seem to be swayed far more by repeatedly screamed stupidity than carefully reasoned arguments. I hope this election proves the exception.

That's true so far

Submitted by Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on September 11, 2008 - 7:34am.

I couldn't agree with you more. This is a real problem. The self-certain have only one question to deal with: What is the most effective way to push my agenda. The somewhat certain have two and it splits their attention: What is the most effective way to push my agenda and is it the right agenda anyway? Almost universally the self-certain have trumped the somewhat certain in head-to-head competition. This is a fundamental tragedy as far as I can see. I take modest comfort for thinking this election is a very clean IQ and EI Emotional Intelligence test for the US population. The choice is pretty clearly between bombastic self-certainty and a more considered approach. We'll get the government we deserve, even though I'm rooting for the government we need. J

Very good question

Submitted by Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on September 11, 2008 - 7:28am.

Thank you for writing and I'm very glad you're enjoying the ambigamy thread and my writing in general. I apologize for the rapid change of subjects.

A little behind-the-scenes explanation: I'm a generalist. The common thread to all of my work is understanding tough judgment calls, their nature, natural history and the ways we deal with them. I look at this in all areas of life, from love to biology, politics, economics, career, child-rearing. You picked up on this and rightly noticed that I've already established a place to talk about them in general at www.mindreadedrsdictionary.com.

When Psychology Today invited me to write a blog I suggested several possible topics and they chose Ambigamy. I was happy to do it. I've got lots to say about it and lots of articles already written on the subject. Still, I've got a hugely busy life and I need balance, what's more I'm working on some very academic writing on central questions in biology and I can't afford to have my academic science life compromised by looking too focused on sex love and romance. Regardless of whether it should prejudice readers of my academic work, it is very likely to. Not all academics are generalists like me and it looks pretty suspicious to them if you get this much cross-over work.

Anyway I got back in touch with PT about my concerns about Ambigamy being too narrow a focus for me to be able to invest in fully at this time and they suggested that I think about this as my place to write about tough judgment calls in general.

In these last two political pieces I didn't make a clear connection to ambigamy but there is a connection to be made. With Chickenhawk the main dilemma is what to fear and what not to fear. In love, what's worth fearing and what's not? Sometimes you hear people say, "Oh, he's afraid to love" as though that's obviously a bad thing. Fear makes him a wimp or an emotional cripple. Well, any ambigamist can tell you there are plenty of potential risks in love. The trick isn't letting go of fear or holding on to fear. It's knowing what to fear (and attending to it) and what not to fear.

With Teflon Tyrants the tough judgment call is when to give feedback. That is a huge issue in relationship, perhaps the most central of them all. I'll post an article that addresses this directly in love. And here's a Brad Paisley song that makes a counter-intuitive case that when combined with the conventional wisdom that in love, honesty is the best policy, gives you the ambigamist's dilemma.

www.mindreadersdictionary.com/thatslove.mp3

I will end up writing about a broader array of issues. I'm sorry but I need to use this venue to represent my work in its entirety. I continue to contribute to the ambigamy thread and any time you its not obvious how to apply a seemingly off-topic piece, please do write and I'll help. And thanks again for your solid interest in all of this. And your very kind delivery in your comment above. Very honoring while making a good clear critical point. I appreciate that. And not only that, that is a key skill for the ambigamist, to get good at maximizing the kindness of his or her honest critique. If you don't have anything nice to say, try to find the nicest way to say it.

Jeremy

Good responce

Submitted by eslmatt on September 12, 2008 - 5:15am.

Thank you for your response and explanation. I do understand that you are busy and that what you are posting is currently on your mind. If I might make a suggestion that might work for both of us? Recycle old posts on relationships here as well as your new essays. I don't have time to search through all of www.mindreadersdictionary.com, there is far too much there to distract me.

I look forward to your next posting.

Great solution

Submitted by Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on September 12, 2008 - 6:45am.

Thanks for working with me on this. Will do. And I'll make all of the ambigamy articles searchable on that term. Best, Jeremy

Hurray, Jeremy!

Submitted by Cindy Taren on September 11, 2008 - 9:16am.

Alas, this article makes me so sad in that it reminds me how vulnerable our country is right now. So vulnerable in fact that we tend to lend our allegiances to bombastry and fear mongering. The right wing's extreme propaganda has put the American psyche so on edge that we are almost too anxious about our dubious future to remain calm and collected enough to reason and consider the more positive and preventative approaches to safety.

BTW - I totally see your ambigamist standing coming through here, but then again I am a top notch generalist as well.

Confused

Submitted by Becky on September 11, 2008 - 10:43am.

I'm confused on the argument that fearing terrorism is more cowardly than fearing global warming. If you truely believe in a terrorist threat than naturally it will be important to stand up to that fear just as if you truely fear global warming it will be improtant to stand up to that fear. How is conservatives calling global warming propogandists "wusses" any less hypocritical than liberals calling war propagandists "fear mongers"? Both threats have real evidence behind them, but how people interpret the severity of threat derived from that evidence differs. People could argue that the evidence for global warming is just as flawed as the evidence for constant terroist threats and there are surely global warming trumped up tactics that make the level of fear-mongering. The recent push to make conservatives out to be evil tyrants also seems pretty fear-mongering to me. I can't even go to the grocery store with out people screaming that McCain is the next Hitler.

It's not a blame game, it's life or death

Submitted by Cindy Taren on September 11, 2008 - 1:39pm.

Though I see your point that there is a double standard in this argument, there is a real message here that I hope you are not missing. Despite whether any fear is cowardly or not and despite who is or isn't more hypocritical and despite the amount of evidence behind each of the said fears, the bottom line is that the actions taken to combat the global warming fear pose no direct threat to humanity, whereas the actions taken to combat the terrorism fear pose a very deadly threat. Herein lies the real problem with right wing fear mongering.

Right on, Becky

Submitted by Jeremy Sherman, Ph.D. on September 11, 2008 - 2:41pm.

I sure wasn't arguing that fearing terrorism is more cowardly than fearing global warming. You're main point is exactly my point. You see, I was arguing against any simply correlation that sounding an alarm is either a sign of virtue (e.g. brave) or vice (e.g. cowardly). Sounding false alarms is bad, not sounding true alarms is bad, sounding true alarms is good and not sounding false alarms is good too. My case was against anyone making a simple correlation because as you say, Becky the real issue is which are the priority alarms, in a world of great uncertainty and a lot of potential alarms, a world in which you can only bet which threats will prove most significant--you can't know for sure, and yet you can't refrain from betting, saying "who knows?" either. Notice the number of descriptions of alarm calling we have that imply a automatic link to it being a good thing. For example: Sounding the alarm, The rallying cry A shot across the bow Seeing the writing on the wall The wake up call. And how many we have that make it sound like a bad thing: Conspiracy theory Alarmist Chicken Little Crying Wolf Whining These lists go on and exactly to your point. There is no simple correlation, no absolute rule of thumb for knowing when it's seeing the writing on the wall and when it's crying wolf. And we don't have unlimited resources with which to fight all battles and all phantom battles. So we have to select carefully. I think you exaggerate with your last statement. I don't know where you live but really the grocery store without people screaming (sounding alarm depicted as intrinsically negative) that McCain is the next Hitler? But you do make a telling point. Both the left and the right consider each other irrational. And either could be right. Time will tell (somewhat) who is right and who isn't. I mean with time we'll know whether the terrorists, WMDs, global warming, N. Koreans, Neo-Cons, Liberals, or Iranians posed the greatest threat. It's grounding and sobering to realize this. We are only in uncertainty now. What proves the greatest danger will be come clearer with time. Not absolutely crystal clear. For example it's hard today to know just how great a threat the Soviet Nuclear arsenal proved. But this isn't a game. We should be thinking carefully about prioritizing our threats. Still one thing is pretty clear, it's easier to see the other side's dogma than our own. I calling it the pot calling the kettle capped. I could be a closed-minded pot and I look at you and the ways you can't see my point and therefore assume that I'm open and you're closed. That alone should be reason why responsible leaders should focus more on comparing threats and should be very wary of simply leading by fear, claiming they know for certain which threat is greatest and claiming that they're sounding of the alarm is automatically associate-able with virtue. With that in mind, and with your keen ear to shrillness, I think it's hard to explain away the strident, smug, dogmatic, snide, insult-throwing, oversimplifying, sanctimonious rhetoric we saw at the Republican Convention. I mean, content aside, if you just look at the choice of words and phrases, I think there's no question we're seeing more of that from the right than the left these days. Which is odd because their experiment wasn't very successful over the past 8 years. It did in fact inspire the Teflon Tyranny article. Now a Republican can say, Jeremy, you see that just shows your intolerance, bias and hidden agenda. You see you really do prefer the Democrats. Well, I do but the question of whether the preference is a bias for which I come up with rationalizing arguments or whether the arguments are the way I work to a rational preference remains a live one, or else any preference can be dismissed as just a bias. And here's a point for another article. The wrod Tolerance makes acceptance sound like a good thing the way that "hearing the wake up call" makes sounding an alarm sound like a good thing. But tolerance is a mixed bag. It's a dilemma. We must be tolerant of the things that will prove OK to have welcomed and intolerant of those things that will prove not OK to have welcomed. So deciding what to tolerate is a real question. To show that this is true notice the intractable dilemma posed by the assumption that is a pure and simple virtue. It would mean that you should be intolerant of intolerance. Well isn't that a kind of intolerance? If any reader were to accuse me of being intolerant of the Teflon tyranny approach, I'd say, yup, you read me right. From any party any time, I think it will prove not OK to have welcomed that stuff into the political arena as many enthusiastic simplifiers--on the left but pretty evidently moreso on the right-- seem to be doing these days.