How politics and corruption make a society on a collective and continuing survivor mode.

Joseph V. Zeidan, M.S, Mental Health Professional, Author

This is an analytical perception from a psychologist’s point of view on the broad effect of politics on the psyche, based off of observing corruption in different countries around the world. This article reflects an observation on how a human being’s constant need to feel safe pushes them to accept and alter their understanding of what is right or wrong. The article will also tackle potential solutions targeting specifically education and how to build trust in a system that has shattered the notion of the latter.

Introduction

The term “politics” is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the activities done to govern a country or a specific area, while these parties debate over who will have the power. From a psychological perspective, power is addictive and leads into a rabbit hole of dopamine-infused pleasure to control and orient a nation. Nowadays, politics produces a sense of survival too. To keep the power, politicians are forced to do unspeakable behavior for the sake of the power. This can be seen in different circumstances like the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, 9/11, and quite presently, the Russian invasion on Ukraine. It seems too easy for politics to ignore the repercussions of their actions, and from a psychological perspective, it also seems too easy for individuals to ignore the corruption under the notion of helplessness or some conspiracy to justify the horrific actions. At the core of this ignorance is simply education, specifically since there is no government that will invest in its nation’s education and critical thinking, because no government wants to teach their people how to overthrow them.

Survival mode and its link to Education

“If man has no danger, he will create danger”.

A human being’s sensory receptors towards danger are always on high alert due to the nature of the human body and the prehistoric inevitability in living in a hostile environment. As far as history can go, the homosapien has always altered their environment to survive the predators that roamed at that time. They would design traps, weapons, and learn from their environment generation after generation to increase their ability to prosper. Back then, life was lethal and they had to treat it as such. At that time, a human being learned from the constant anxiety-crippling pressures of their time to overcome death itself. That is the survival mode which is innate in every being.

In modern times, that hostile environment is rare. Human beings have conquered this earth so vastly that they bent nature to their own control (to a certain extent). The percentage of a person to be killed by a bear, mountain lion, saber tooth tiger, or dinosaur is close to zero. But then what do you do to the innate sensory receptor towards danger?

Humans are known to learn quickly under pressure, and it is linked to that innate survival homosapiens had. 

The most interesting thing happened was when pressure was turned into a form of excitement through academia. The ability to learn more information and pass exams has paved the way into orienting this sensory receptor to be dormant, but not for long. Humans outsmart even themselves, and the moment a seed of doubt plants in their minds it would destroy everything they have built to feel safe. This is where politics played its role for centuries.

Politics originated from the need to solve issues in the least violent way possible, but politicians found more creative ways of seizing power and hiding the slaughter in different forms. Proxy wars, sanctions used as pressure, and bending media to their own will begins to show the creativity human beings can get to so that they keep the power. 

What are we leaving to our sons and daughters?

            Generations passed, and parents of wars transfer their traumas and aggression to their children. Civil wars have caused people to blindly follow their political parties even if their hands are soaked in innocent blood, because politics mixed with slaughter has made the population dependent on their leaders and completely ignoring how guilty they are. Even worse, people would start justifying their leaders’ war crimes only to put their trauma at bay. Understanding this does not mean it is justified, but rather it is proof of how people hold on to their racism, subjective social justice, and normalization of violence out of an innate horror to coming to terms with the fact that they can be easily manipulated and everything they believe in is a lie.

            And who can blame them? Imagine everything you believed in turns out to be a simulation and one big lie, wouldn’t you get traumatized?

            What every person does then, to make sure that their beliefs and affiliations are true and that they made the right decision in their lives, is to transfer these belief systems to their children and never accept any revolt from them should they question these beliefs.

The Education we need

            When science tries to prove a hypothesis, it does not only look for the evidence that confirms it, but also digs into the evidence that could disprove it until you have no other choice but to accept the results. It is imperative that in order for something to be right, it is not enough to only find the factors that reinforces it, but also to try everything to prove that it is wrong. 

            The disadvantage of this technique is that it has the potential to cause immense confusion if not disciplined. This means that people would end up ambivalent over mostly everything without finding the truth. Discipline in this form of critical thinking is the key factor that would pave generations into overthrowing corruption and utilizing diplomacy to benefit the population.

            Through psychology, the most important factors to be good at the job is disciplining critical thinking, and building professional empathy to fully understand and find the best approaches. This is done through seeing everything as interesting rather than using an emotional spectrum of judgments like “right” or “wrong”. Today, we need to pave the way for more communication where we try to prove and disprove every fact until we find the truth. That form of dialectics, combined with empathy, would make conversations bloom and prosper to a better future. 

            To stop ignoring, to stop judgements, and to critically & empathetically think with your people, is the bravest way to build a generation that has no tolerance for corruption and manipulation.