On the topic of politics from yesterday, here’s another way the right-left divide is exacertabed unnecessarily: the political gap is as much about us feeling unheard and invalidated in our respective intelligence centre as it is about different values.
I used to fight with my dad- he is a head type (5/6) and I’m a heart type (4w5). Under the stress of the fight, we’d always retreat to our main intelligence centre- he’d retreat into his head (logic) and I’d retreat into my heart (emotion). What this looked like is he’d give logical reasons for why I needed to adjust or change myself. I’d always complain that the temperature in the house was too cold, for example, and he’d respond that the median body temperature was 18 degrees celcius and therefore I needed to adjust to the median and put on a sweater. If I was napping in the middle of the day, he would say I need to get in sync with the rest of the world- in other words- the rest of the world kept certain waking hours and I needed to adjust my sleeping schedule to them. Most of the things I said or did came across as illogical and over-emotional to him, and could be counteracted and proven wrong with his objectivity and logic.
I have a 5 wing so I can go to logic, but it’s not my strong suit (or at least he made sure I never won), so knowing that I’d lose in his territory, I would debate him from my heart centre, purposely knowing I was being illogical, but also knowing my experience to be true, and my egoic structure had its own internal logic that I wanted him to understand. My exaggeration of my illogic was both an expression of longing for him to meet me there, and a lording over of my comfort in the heart territory, knowing he couldn’t access his. I’m not trying to say this was a conscious strategy on my part, but I was deliberately standing my ground in the heart centre because the heart was where he was weakest. Likewise, he knew he could make me feel less than in the logic centre, and refused to leave it. As might be expected, things never turned out great for our relationship.
A couple years ago, I got into a debate with a somewhat of a prominent member of the Enneagram community who types himself as a 4w5 (like me), although I think he might be a 5w4. Either way, he styles himself as a deep intellectual. He wrote a book on the subtypes and on this particular day, he kept trying to tell me I was a type nine, and I was debating him, saying he misunderstood me. He kept throwing very dense, technical logic about the subtypes at me to prove his point, and I was absolutely overwhelmed by what he was saying. It wasn’t correct, but he had such tight logic, it just wasn’t breathing. Anyway, knowing he wouldn’t listen to me if I tried entering his incredibly technical, logical territory, I kept trying to draw him into the emotional brain to talk to me there. Again, he refused to budge, and I left that online community so I never had to run into him again. (He has been banned from a few online Enneagram groups so it isn’t just me).
For the past few years, I have been operating under the assumption that liberals are archetypically head types, and conservatives are archetypically body types, (although it does not follow that the individuals within these groups are any particular type- you can be any type and align yourself with whatever particular party- I’m just talking archtypes here). Liberals are often accused of being intellectually snobby, hanging out in their academic ivory tower, and conservatives are maybe not so much accused of being anti-intellectual, although that’s an important part of my argument, but the body brain is about boundaries, knowing when enough is enough, not letting others encroach on one’s territory. The body brain is more instinctual, arising from the gut intelligence, appeals to groundedness in the earth and to “common sense” moreso than the head does. The archtypical farmer is a gut type, continually baffled at the complexity and lack of sense coming from the “intellectuals” in the city.
Of course, in order to be balanced psychologically, we need to have all three brains balanced within us- the head, the heart, and the gut, but we humans, with the ego structure that we have, are way too wrapped up in one brain, gainly reliant on a second brain as a back-up, and sorely out of touch with the last brain. When we’re out of balance, we make bad decisions, and can be a danger to ourselves and others. In which order we access those brains depends on our Enneagram type. From prsonal experience, I can say that getting in touch with that last brain is INCREDIBLY difficult, especially on a long-term basis. It’s no wonder, then, that opposing political parties start wars every couple generations- constitutional balance within the body requires so much work to maintain.
What I’m seeing in these turbulent political times is that people are unnecessarily exaggerating their arguments against the other political party in cartoonish proportions because they feel unheard and unseen as they are, meaning nuance is removed from discussion. Nobody is listening anymore, because now all we’re hearing are home-turf battle cries for our party’s archtypal brain.
Do conservatives hate cancel culture? So do I, I find it really reactive and not very thoughtful.
Do conservatives think women make up me too stories? Sure. I believe that can happen.
Do conservatives think children are too young to transition to another gender? So do I. I used to work in an elementary school full of liberal parents and children who were experimenting with other genders, and I don’t know a single liberal parent who was actually, fully comfortable with their child trying on another gender.
Do conservatives think there are too many South Americans coming across the United States border? I understand it feels like chaos and overwhelm in some of those southern states.
Do liberals want to save the planet from overheating? Conservatives are noticing the heat and the increase in hurricanes, yes.
Do liberals support the right to gay marriage? A lot of conservatives are totally fine with gay couples.
Do liberals see the case for bolstering social services for society’s most vulnerable? A ton of conservatives care about the poor too.
In today’s political turbulence, the body is fighting against itself. During covid, conservatives revelled in the fact that they caught covid to spite the liberals, and liberals support some gender politics that make them uncomfortable to spite the conservatives. It feels like the sickness it is. Let’s stop trying to cut off access to one of our own brains to win. We can do better. I hate to sound trite, but it starts with ourselves. When we are balanced as individiuals within ourselves, we can help our respective parties, and by extension our country, find constitutional balance. When our collective head, heart, and gut engines are revving at the same speed, we can make better decisions at every level of government, and work together much more efficiently to achieve great things as respective nations.