The Election of Obama, the Healing of America, and the Future of Cooperation and Friendship with the Rest of the World

The election was a very long one, and a lot of people are exhausted, finally getting through this process that has managed to prove how divided a nation the United States really is. We knew we were divided some time ago, when each subsequent election showed that half of America wanted one party while the other half wanted the other. In a winner take all system like we have here, that meant a lot of people being completely misrepresented by a party not their choosing. This allowed the Republicans to run the White House, and so many others to continue to control the halls of government of this once great, shining country.

But when it came to the election, people became so divided that they stopped seeing clearly. Instead of seeing people who disagreed with them as the other side of the family that loves you but holds you in check, people saw anyone who disagreed with them as enemies, as people who not only had to be defeated, but had to be disgraced, dishonored and, if possible, destroyed. This has been politics in this country for some time now, and right now, things can get better, or we'll be turning over a cesspool of political disfunctionality to those who come behind us. It's our choice, even though we sometimes make it without thinking about exactly what we are doing when we finally do it.

The United States has suffered greatly because of the misguided intentions of a few who believed they had the best intentions at heart. And they probably did. But their thinking was archaic and outdated. Their thinking was confrontation leads to solution, but that's 19th century thinking that led to 20th century destruction. The future needs to be something different, and unfortunately, people have been swimming in the same muck for so long now that they are no longer capable of thinking about alternatives other than what someone may have tried before. Unfortunately, hitting the same nail into a board only goes so far before you're just breaking wood. The future needs something different than what we are capable of achieving with our think tanks of old ways and diplomats of ancient ideas. The world has been crying out for a future direction, and all we keep hearing is old ways that rarely worked in the past as if they will somehow work some day in the future.

What the world needs is directed cooperation, not mandated imperialism or negotiated compromise. In interpersonal communication literature, one of the final achievements of success in successful communication with another person is not the predicted compromise, but an understanding with the other person that together both of you can achieve a combined learning process that leads you both to a successful outcome that is not a compromise for either but achievement for both. People still don't think that way. Even counselors rarely think this way, telling people that one person must compromise so that two people can reach a commonality (although it is usually directed at both partners, so that both compromise).

The future can be one of successful cooperation, but only if the most powerful nation on the planet realizes such a future can be achieved. Right now, we live in an era where our diplomats play catch up games with international affairs. If someone treats us unfairly, we treat them unfairly in return. If someone does something nice for us, we produce easier trade routes into our borders. That may seem, on the surface, to be the answer to achieving successful economic stimulation, but it is really only temporary, and in most cases does not produce friendships that are long-lasting but develops trade relationships that last only as long as it is economically viable for both sides. In a game theoretic framework, this means that we continue to prosper as long as our "friends" prosper, but once one of us drops out of the game, the only path usually ends up being one that utilizes either the proverbial carrot or the stick. Our paradigm does not know any other functionality.

I suggest the future needs to look at this game theoretic and introduce the idea of cooperation and generational footprinting. What this means is that our targeted friends should not just be those who do right by us, but that when we do right by those who are in our economic and political spheres of influence, we must also do right by those who are overlapping our partners' economic and political spheres of influence as well. This isn't the old "my friends of my friends are my friends" but more a directed desire to work towards friendly relationships with those who border us, and recognize changes in our relationships to where we share certain, fundamental characteristics, such as the desire to wear plaid pants (dumb example, I know). The more functions we share with this neighbor where we wear plaid pants, the more likely we are to also begin sharing other characteristics, like wearing the same kind of hat. This expands out into the cultural realm as well, so that over time we become more like our neighbors, and our neighbors become more like us.

Then we focus on their neighbors, and we look for when those neighbors (who may have very few dealings with us as well), and if we see them wearing plaid pants, we reward them by opening up functionality spheres with them so that we share more venues where we can both show off our plaid pants, so that we, too, might begin to share other attributes and then become more and more like our friends.

This is a simplistic example of the model I'm proposing, but at the same time it also leads to the ability to create long-lasting friendships with potential friends and enemies. This isn't a new process by any stretch of the imagination, but a recognition of certain mathematical principles that do exist in raw social interactions. I use a matrix application to run the interation mathematics that drives the process, but what is important is that nations that are actively involved in attempting to build stronger friendships must be as willing to recognize the change in others as well as accept changes within themselves because self-reflective entity nations have a tendency to attempt to self-correct themselves when they see change as an error rather than a natural progression of cooperative behavior.

This is kind of an offshoot of the FOT (Friendship Over Time) Theory that I created with K. Bruce, and it is going to be presented at the NCA National Conference. We sent a shortened version of the process to the Obama campaign during the last month of the election, as I felt it was important to at least make an attempt at trying to find a better alternative to the rotten ways the US attempts to conduct international relations. My guess is that our letter was either ignored, passed on to some flunky who ignored it, or treated as fan mail. Unfortunately, there are really few avenues for an academic theorist to try to make one's ideas known, especially ideas of such magnitude that would require enlightened leaders to take notice. So I just thought I would say that I at least gave it a try before realizing that in most cases, no leader ever really vies for changing the way things are, even if one's campaign is run on the idea of change.

There is a better way. Making it known is a deeper struggle than finding the solution.

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