Polarization and Intelligence
The more fully we apply intelligence to any circumstance, the more we become able to align our efforts with the actual realities of the situation and thereby succeed. In their efforts to understand reality, intelligent people seek to understand similarities and differences. Of course, those similarities and differences should be real and relevant. Getting hung up on imaginary, irrelevant differences and similarities -- thinking a handsome candidate is better than a conscientious one, for example, or that everyone who looks like an Arab is a potential enemy -- can lead to make stupid mistakes. Sometimes someone -- perhaps an advertiser raving about an expensive product -- will insist that we pay attention to fine distinctions, when similarities may be far more obvious and important. Other times people will insist that certain things -- such as "all politicians" -- are similar despite glaring differences. At such times, we need to dig deeper into what's going on. Intelligence involves questioning anything that interferes with our ability to seriously consider actual, relevant similarities and differences. In most cases, polarization undermines intelligence by misleading us in exactly this way. It reduces vast human diversity into categories like Left and Right that are often ambiguous, distracting and even downright irrelevant (see <http://co-intelligence.org/polarizationDynamics.html>). Polarized partisans reject any notion that there may be important similarities between people on the Left and Right, or important differences within the ranks of their enemies or allies. Polarization is usually antithetical to intelligence. It is especially antithetical to co-intelligence, the intelligence of the Whole, because it impedes our ability to connect with diverse other people to discover a bigger picture that integrates all our views.
The more we align our actions with reality -- especially with people or forces we could work with -- the less force we need to exert to achieve our ends. This is the logic behind many energy-saving approaches, such as:
When we go with the natural flow of forces in a situation, we don't have to use so much energy -- effort, money, fuel, enforcement, etc. There is a smooth elegance to what we do. In other words, intelligence -- which helps us align with reality -- can be used as a replacement for force. Fighting, extreme effort, domination and violence are all signs of a likely failure of intelligence to understand the situation so well that only the most minimal, elegant, exact use of energy is needed to accomplish our ends. In most cases, polarization increases energy and decreases intelligence. It narrows our thinking, blinding us to larger realities beyond our stereotypes, and thus reduces our ability to accurately and fully understand the situations we face. Worst of all, polarization makes it virtually impossible to imagine -- to say nothing of identify or talk to -- potential allies "on the other side." All polarization does is help us whip up more energy on "our side" to fuel our efforts to defeat the evil enemy. Because polarization usually blocks us from understanding and working with the actual realities and people involved in a situation, it drives us to waste large amounts of energy fighting battles that would be more elegantly resolved using dialogue, inclusive strategic thinking and cooperation. Ironically, when all is said and done, we lose many of those battles anyway. Whenever we play win-lose games, someone loses. Sometimes there is compromise, but such compromises often feel like a loss to both sides (lose/lose). But the biggest loss -- and the one least acknowledged -- is the loss of collaborative, collective intelligence with which we could find a really creative, satisfying solution, rather than just a tolerable one.
All that said, we must acknowledge the powerfully positive role that polarization -- and its close cousins, violence and nonviolent confrontation -- often play in breaking through denial and life-degrading social arrangements. Although polarization cannot resolve issues well, it contains energy that can force those issues onto the table when most people refuse to attend to them or when people or institutions with undue social power prevent vital issues from being considered. People whose views and interests are suppressed or oppressed often experience, though that oppression, a sense that they are different from and opposed to the people or systems that are holding them down or threatening what they value. Asserting this difference and opposition is often a necessary part of breaking out of victimhood. The alienation of the oppressed or suppressed is mirrored in those who suppress them or who buy into the oppressive system: In order to maintain the oppression, they need to dehumanize those who are held down and to delegitimize their views. As both sides decry the other, polarization moves into gear. Injustice and suppression breed polarization and violence like stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. Of course, the antidote to not being heard and taken seriously is to be heard and taken seriously. Thus, the antidotes to polarization and violence are dialogue, justice and empowerment. So what does all this have to do with intelligence? Since intelligence does not get applied to what people cannot or will not consider, anything that makes them attend to real and important issues opens the door to intelligence. The question THEN becomes: "What happens when that door is opened?" At the point that productive dialogue becomes a real possibility, the polarization, violence or confrontation which may have made dialogue possible in the first place need to be set aside or ameliorated so that productive dialogue can proceed. Furthermore, during the dialogue, itself, good facilitators, mediators and diplomats know that the same dynamics may be at work. When people start shouting or shutting down -- when there is polarization, attack, victimization and alienation -- that's a sure sign that people need to be more fully respected and heard. To accomplish that in the midst of major polarization is a skill we should honor as highly as we honor the masters of surgery, sport, music and management.
BEYOND HEALING AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION Most anti-polarization efforts seek to improve relationships and thus reduce violence and its related harms. This is the rationale for conflict resolution and community healing work. However, I would like to suggest that the enhanced collective intelligence possible through dialogue may be at least as important. This is especially true because, if we recognize that collective intelligence is our goal, we will not quell polarization at those rare critical points where collective intelligence is actually served by it. Polarization -- like fire and other powerful sources of energy -- is life-serving in specific circumstances but very dangerous most of the time. Polarization may wake up otherwise passive bystanders to an important issue, but it makes embattled partisans blind to big chunks of reality. If we look openly at life, we will usually find that everyone and everything has gifts and limitations. Everyone and everything has complexities, contradictions, internal diversity and conflicts. ALL of this is grist for the mill of collective intelligence. But polarization won't let us use these things to further our collective intelligence. Polarization demands that we see an entire world of perspectives, information, options and people -- "the other side" -- as homogeneous (falsely identical) and bad. Being on "our side" means that we need to focus on defeating the other side and to ignore everything else. Polarized people see anything besides "Us vs. Them" as wishy-washy or downright treasonous. Thus polarization usually represents a tragic loss of opportunity, insight, and resources for satisfying our needs and dreams. These resources become available only when we work together, when we exercise our collaborative and collective intelligence. In polarized situations, we can facilitate collective intelligence by PERSONALLY setting aside our reactivity and being curious about "the other side," litening well and quelling our own defensiveness. COLLECTIVELY we can facilitate collective intelligence by employing dialogue processes that help us use our differences and conflicts as stimulants for greater exploration, creativity and insight rather than as reasons to attack or cut off communication.
DESIGNING SYSTEMS FOR POLARIZATION OR COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE Social systems -- decision-making institutions, deliberative processes, mass media activities, accepted modes of citizenship and activism, educational institutions, etc. -- meet our deep personal and collective needs in diverse ways, depending on how they are designed. Our needs for personal and collective identity can be met through systems that generate polarization OR through systems that generate collective intelligence. Polarizing systems are sustained by an undercurrent of fear and a desire for security. At a personal level, we cling to the certainty that accompanies righteousness, fearing the incoherence that seems to wait for us if we don't hold fast to our side's ideas and positions. Ideology can comfort us by providing a rationale for blaming others for our own or the world's problems so we can escape responsibility or guilt. Polarized ideology paints the "other" as less than human, even evil, thus projecting all negative responsibility away from us onto something or someone that we can band together to attack. It builds a powerful tribal sense of belonging, held in place in times of doubt by fear of ostracism ("What will my friends think?"). The conformity dynamics of righteous solidarity can make dissent virtually unthinkable. All permissible ideas and options are pruned and squeezed into our group's limited set of positions, and anything that doesn't fit with those positions is set aside (for appearances sake) or actively suppressed. We direct all the energy of conflict at the other "side" and actively nurture it -- for the energetics of polarization feed -- and feed off of -- CONFLICT. Collectively intelligent systems, in contrast, are sustained by an undercurrent of engaged meaning-making and a love of fruitful co-creation and co-evolution. At a personal level, we make meaning by discovering bigger ways to make sense together, by playing our role in consciously co-creating what happens next and by being recognized for our positive contributions in these efforts. Even as we are clear about what makes sense to us, we live in inquiry, curious about what life and other people have to teach us, ready to change as needed to better align with a larger reality as we find it. We know we are CO-creators and see diverse people and ideas as possibilities, resources, grist for the mill of our collective intelligence, rather than as opponents to fight or destroy. The energetics of collective intelligence are less about conflict than about CHALLENGE -- the challenge of solving problems, learning, finding common ground, growing more capable, being more fully the creative, truthful, visionary, passionate, compassionate people we all potentially are, individually and together. Conflict is part of that, but we value what we might call "healthy conflict," conflict that leads us all into greater understanding and potential -- into win/win results -- rather than conflict that seeks one-sided victory (win/lose), Collectively intelligent systems especially discourage a "win at any cost" attitude which destroys the relationships needed for co-intelligence. Because diverse people see things somewhat differently and so possess
different pieces of the puzzle, we are all resources for each other
to see a bigger picture. Collectively intelligent systems help us
use our differences that way. They contain conflict within collaborative
contexts so that our diverse gifts can be tapped for creativity
and for expanded perspective. Collectively intelligent systems invest
in people seen as "the Other" as stimuli, resources, and
potential partners, rather than ignoring them or wasting them by
viewing them as enemies. Collectively intelligent systems support
a tribalism as intense as that of polarized systems, but it is expansive,
inclusive, and co-creative. The big "we-ness" of the co-intelligent
tribe comes from engaging in common projects and meaning-making
rather than from excluding and fighting the Other. And, finally,
in a collectively intelligent system, we find our personal identity
through being a contributing participant or a facilitator of participation.
We may even experience ourselves as unique manifestations of Life's
co-creative urge to evolve and discover what's possible. This is
a different kind of adventure than battle, but it is quite an adventure,
nevertheless.
Dialogue is one of the most powerful vehicles to move us beyond polarization. Three general categories of citizen dialogue can help us overcome polarization and translate our diversity into collective intelligence.
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