Lessons from Springfield

 

I just watched an Emmy Award winning video called “ Deport Them All- Who’s to blame for Springfield’s immigrant crisis”? 

Perhaps it may be easier to recall those now famous words : “ They’re eating cats and dogs”! 

The video was made by someone who wanted to get to the bottom of it all. Someone who wanted to find out what was really going on in Springfield. What was the cause for the unrest. 

What they unfolded after talking to people from different backgrounds in the city was an eye opener. The history of the city went from being a lazy town to one that saw rapid growth from a strong employer International Harvester backed by the power of workers union which attracted white Americans from the Appalachian region and also immigrants. This booming phase was followed by a decline brought on by government policies that cut funding for essential services like education and health care while allowing massive tax cuts for the rich. A group of people tried to revive the city by attracting immigrants for jobs. The strategy worked initially. But greedy elements sought to extract labor from the needy immigrants and use immigrant desperation to huddle in large numbers under the roof of rental properties at substantially higher rents putting local residents at a disadvantage. The tensions were rising amongst those who felt marginalized. The large number of immigrants were putting a strain on the community resources. When the local officials reached out for federal help, the plea, instead of being looked at from a perspective of solving the problem, was entirely spun out into a weird political drama from the interpretation of one prominent politician. A story of a family’s missing cat, which actually was later found in their own basement, was spun into a fabricated drama vilifying immigrants from a particular region. What it stirred up was an unprecedented unrest allowing for exponential venting of frustrations from people who were struggling with their lives and the political capitalization of it. Instead of assimilating a community of diverse backgrounds and sensibly solving their problems, irresponsible commentary from the nation’s top leaders fueled divisions in the small city. The few reasonably intelligent people in the community were left scrambling to do the damage control and mitigate the situation in the interest of the entire city. It was no small task. 

The players here:

The greedy corporations

The greedy locals

The needy immigrants 

The frustrated locals who could only see their own problems and whose best way to solve the problems was by blaming someone else

The idiot politicians who knew nothing about this community 

The wise people from the community who cared for each and every person and saw the bigger picture 

This is just a prototype of how things are globally. 

Broadly the players fall into three categories:

Those that create the problem.

Those that become part of the problem and add fuel to it.

Those that want to find a solution to the problem.

Ideal is to belong to the third category where you are in the problem solving team. 

Let’s look at the different ways you can try to solve the problem.

You can start with what the makers of the video did. They tried to understand the problem in its entirety. Investigate thoroughly. Sift out hard facts from rumors and beliefs. 

You can make a conscious effort to stick to facts and not allow your blind beliefs, inherent prejudices and floating rumors and opinions influence your judgement and actions.

You can try to give direct specific help. For example, the video shows a pastor in the community who took upon himself to provide food and shelter for the homeless. If you see an immigrant being harmed, you can do whatever in your capacity to protect them. You can give skills training for those who seek to make a living. You can provide your professional services for free to those who cannot afford it. 

If you are inclined towards political reform you can participate in organized protests, rallies and action committees working to bring about a change. You can do it through responsible journalism. You can write to your elected representatives independently. You can put your thoughts out in the social media. 

The toughest way to solve the problem is by recognizing the people from the other two categories and trying to change them favorably.

It is harder to change the people who are creating the problems. The greedy ones, the selfish ones. They call for a different machinery altogether.

A little easier than them are those who are in the middle category who unknowingly add to the problem created by others. These are the people who are quick to blame others for their problems. Although changing them is also a difficult task. It is easy only in a relative sense.

With a strategic approach, this middle category can be coaxed into better thinking. They can be tactfully taught to stop playing the blame game. They can be drawn into small actions that steer them away from attacking who they tend to place the blame on. The strategy here is constructive realignment in the form of action instead of idle destructive thinking. Instead of idleness fueling attacks on others, cleverly attack the idleness which is the real troublemaker. That’s the simplest thing you could do when facing this group of people. In short, mobilize them wisely. 

Tendency to blame someone is one of the biggest barriers in the evolution of a human mind. It is the most idiotic trait to possess. Eliminating it in ourselves and others should be the goal. 

What does that do? 

When you deviate from blaming someone for the problem you begin to make room for grace. Grace allows the basic ability to understand someone else. You allow your vision to extend a bit beyond yourself. You begin to question your primitive perception that showed the automatic tendency to point the finger at someone else. From that questioning you may be able to find out whether there was any truth for citing that person or truth was something else, something more than the person you were ready to blame. It will create a shift within you. 

You may eventually begin to identify the nature of the problem instead of associating the problem with a person or group of people. For example: identifying greed as a problem instead of a greedy person. Identifying lack of understanding as a problem rather than the idiot who exhibits the trait. You will then start finding solutions that circumvent the problem rather than try to harm the person it’s is coming from. You will find checkpoints to control greed, and you will remain vigilant about putting wise people in charge of important matters instead of ones who can’t understand those matters. And in doing this eliminate hatred towards anyone. Interpersonal animosity comes in the way of finding lasting solutions to problems. Until we learn to eliminate interpersonal animosity we cannot achieve peace for ourselves or our people. That’s the reason we must learn to separate problems from people who are problematic. It is ok to choose and keep a certain distance from problematic people. You can do that without nurturing animosity. Love needn’t be stupid. 

Most of our human struggle is because we cannot balance love with wisdom. We cannot balance ignorance and learning. We cannot balance independence with community and commitment. We cannot balance survival with sacrifice. The moment we understand our deepest struggles and problems we will grasp the solutions to them. Our adjustment in our smallest to largest community ultimately is contingent upon recognizing our most intimate struggles, strengths and weaknesses and working on them. How can we recognize these in others until we first start with ourselves? 

The Springfield saga serves to teach really big lessons for solving problems within a small community as well as globally. Understand the bigger picture. Recognize the root problem. Resist interpersonal animosity and focus on the problem.

Use tact and love to influence and reassign or realign problematic people so the entire community can achieve harmony and wellbeing. 

When indirect strategies fail, use direct language to show the mirror.

Reserve wars for the toughest players who cannot be influenced to stop doing the harm they are used to doing. 

When you study the Springfield picture, you realize that immigrants were not the real problem that needed correction. It was the greedy people who were the problem. Immigrants were not greedy. They were needy. Greedy elements were source of the troubles over and over again. They made the needy people the scapegoats. Need can be resolved with love, charity and reform. It is greed that often proves not amenable to love and peaceful interventions and therefore calls for tough measures to get cured. Wisdom is essential to be able to make the distinction between the needy and the greedy.

It is important to not lose sight of love and wisdom when war becomes inevitable.To solve problems in this world, love, wisdom and war are all necessary at some point or other. War is the least desirable option of them all. A complete human being is one who can keep love and wisdom alive even when convinced that war is necessary and inevitable. For this human, peace will remain uninterrupted even in the midst of war. This may not be easy to comprehend for many. But just because one cannot comprehend it, it doesn’t prove that it is impossible. Those who will know, will know the truth.

I am sorry to say this but right now the USA is on the side of greed. I feel like Vibhishan who loves his brother but can see clearly that his dear brother is on the wrong side of history. Defeat and destruction of the greedy is inevitable if wisdom fails to penetrate it. It will remain to be seen how Ram ends up protecting all the Vibhishans when he is forced to destroy Ravan and his army. But then every Vibhishan would have in essence merged with Ram already by means of the eternal wisdom. What can destroy that which transcends life and death?