From ALICE (I): Here are some of the ideas we got from our meeting with Dr. Volkan. We intend to use them to develop a curriculum for 8th graders that we will teach in the spring. The students will emerge from the class with a project that they will write, film, present, and/or put on our website. 1) Prejudice is normal. It arises from our large group identities. It can become malignant, but its easier to recognize, accept, talk about and change if we can stop criticizing ourselves and others for having it. 2) Parents can deposit their cultural history into their children, often unconsciously. 3) In times of peace, we live from a position of individual identity. When our group tents are shaken, group identities take over and we respond as representatives of our large group. (We dont know that were breathing until theres smoke in the room; then all of us will think about breathing at the same time.) Some people will become so identified with those groups that they will become willing to die in its name. 4) ISIS and other malignant groups can be compared to a swamp filled with crocodiles. We cant approach the problem by going after the occasional crocodile that pops up and eats someone, because it wont work. We have to approach the swamp from multiple directions - historical, political, socioeconomic, psychodynamic, etc. 5) The move to mild Islam was a factor in allowing more extreme versions of Islam to arise. (Unfortunately I didnt understand all the history. Something about Islam having caliphates in the past, and mild Islam removing the father-figure that led to the creation of powerful father-like leaders in extremist groups.) 6) People dont like complexity. We tend to focus on one idea at a time and respond as if thats The Reason and The Solution. 7) One simple way to approach complex differences is to use appropriate symbols and metaphors. He gave an example of a time he was advising a high-level organization about a complex conflict. They were going nowhere until he asked, How can an elephant and a rabbit figure out how to live together? They all laughed, and were then better able to understand and approach the conflict. 8) Teaching symbol and metaphor is a great way to help students understand prejudice and difference in a way thats not about badness but about finding solutions to the problem of difference. Help them imagine appropriate symbolic representations of complex swamp-like differences and solve the problem as elephants vs. rabbits. 9) Our changing civilization with technology and globalization is leading to a sense of fragmentation in national groups all over the world, not just in America. Everyone, everywhere, is asking Who am I now?
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 11:08:37 +0000
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