NARRATIONS & IDEOLOGIES

One of the insights that surprised me most of all

was when, in an interview with Heinz von Förster, I listened to him telling how he first came into contact with the systemically integrative family therapists and how they brought him into a room where there was a viewing window that was only transparent from one side and one could follow the family setting and the therapist unobserved. In relation to the method of circular and open questions from the therapist to the father, for example, who should answer "what his son would probably think of him if he behaved differently towards his mother", Heinz von Förster laughed out loud and said: "Of course the father does not have the slightest clue what the son would think, any more than the son and the mother! But in an effort to find an answer in a cooperative setting, this form of therapy helps to create mental constructs that help solve a family conflict!" Or at least, these are the expressions I remember.

What he was trying to say: You build a story very subtly, you are somehow aware that you are doing it, but you don't say it directly. In order not to shake the general faith.

I don't know how you feel, but maybe you've experienced this before and thought silently your part and didn't ask the person or people in the room that they were just listening to an imaginary story that wasn't even true!

Heinz von Försters anecdote was by far one of the best explanations I had so far heard. Not whether the answer to a question asked in the subjunctive is absolutely true or absolutely wrong, not whether one would have found a final truth, but the fact that life consists of stories.

As long as people can agree that they are involved in the construction of their own stories and that they are willing to co-create with each other, solutions to conflicts can be found. Thus, a story need not be true in order to decide what to do or what not to do, it needs to be accepted as true.

Yuval Noah Harari expresses something similar in this interview (I write from memory and use my own terms of understanding): "The stories that people tell each other and that can be transferred not only to small systems but to much larger systems" than a family, i.e. "at the national level and later at the global level, are the ones that herald change." He ads that it has not yet been decided whether for the better or for the worse, because it is the story and its content itself that creates a common vision. Harari notes that jumping from a tribal culture where something like absolute identification is easy, since you know the hundred people personally, to a national one is quite a challenge. But once this has been achieved, the leap towards global identification would no longer be so difficult.

The reason why it would be better to handle the concept of one truth less inflationarily

is that different people at different times come into contact with different mental constructions and something like a simple concept of truth cannot always be found because there is no willingness to silently admit - like in the example of systemic family therapy - that one is merely constructing a story, i.e. coming up with an ideology. Because this is often confused with a lack of authenticity and awakens a feeling of "lying" and one would like to shout "infamous".

According to Harari, "freedom of the individual" is such a co-created narrative, just like "humanism",

which is not inherent to man, at least not absolute, but man also always has the striving for more and would often take what he desires completely without asking.

For a long time I believed that "ideology" was a term to be understood in a negative way throughout, but one can also regard it positively, because in the word there is the "ideal" which one has decided to commit oneself to as a common narrative. There is nothing wrong with that so long as an ideology is not regarded as evil or destructive, but as useful and helpful. In this broader sense one can speak of a truth content, because one has become aware of this phenomenon and uses it for moving in conflictual spaces in order to reach an agreement.

What Harari says in his talks and books about the present situation is that we are not very much presented with an ideology that is common in large systems, because the importance of religions, for example, has diminished and there would be no difference between a Palestinian, British or Israeli bureaucracy, just as there would be no difference between building weapons or using capital between this countries.

Since there is a lack of really strong visions for the future,

because the rulers often do not dare to touch the really explosive issues, the politicians themselves and thus the people turn to past ideologies, such as nationalism, which can easily be seen in the Trump government and the Brexit of Great Britain. Again, he says that not everything that has to do with nationalism is bad, because one would certainly need a national identity in a global world.

It is a very annoying habit to use either-or questions,

but the most likely thing is that the two aspects that are confronted are always found to be both true and untrue in the same person. Apparently only humans have this contradictoriness, which they can deal with in everyday life without any problems. Depending on the situation they find themselves in, who they talk to and what they try to achieve.

If one begins to pay attention to how quickly people can change from one story to another and let themselves be fruitfully irritated by this in order to use exactly this contradiction in the consultation, an encounter can really become inspiring.

I recently had a client who came to me and talked about the recent separation from her husband.

For a while she seemed very vulnerable, cried, and showed signs of great helplessness. I was careful, however, to "buy" the statements connected with it completely and kept asking questions.

Thereupon she suddenly revealed a different side of herself. She became aggressive and she added strong expressions to her language so that I finally asked her if she wanted to take revenge on her husband and if she thought that he had to be punished. Just as she had previously believed the story of herself as a sad little girl, she now thought she had to act as a revenger. I asked her if she would believe that her husband too would endure the pain of separation and how he might feel after all that had happened. I also told her my impression that she would talk about him as if he were a child, but not her husband, a mature man.

Then, and when I asked her if the concept of revenge still had a living meaning in her culture and upbringing, we talked about this aspect of human coexistence and got a slightly different view of the situation between her husband and herself. Finally, after I questioned that she would want to tell her children that the father would be solely to blame for the "destruction of the family", how she felt as a child when her parents quarreled and whether it helped her that one settled the blame with the other. She answered this with a clear "no" and then became thoughtful.

An ideology that is accepted by almost all people is that children must be protected from their parents' conflicts

and that those parents must be made aware of this when advising people, as in my case. So there is always a little lawyer sitting in my head who thinks of the children or the child who is not currently in the room and who is loved by his parents, but who is not taken into consideration enough because of the confirmation that the client is looking for with me (and others). Not because separating parents would be stupid, but because they get so entangled in their own stories and separation for the better seems so unusual that some narrations are almost superimposed.

Basically, humans don't know themselves very well.

If they did, they would be very surprised that they don't succeed in becoming masters of their own thoughts. Here, too, I would like to repeat Harari's words. He said that when he tried to meditate for the first time and only observed the inhalation and exhalation of his nose, he had not even managed for ten seconds to limit himself to this activity. This would have been like a shock for him, he had never thought before that a supposedly so simple matter was so difficult.

When you think about the fact that insomnia always has something to do with mental restlessness, isn't it really a very surprising thing to see it as normal? We often say to each other: "Oh man, I couldn't sleep last night, I threw myself back and forth in bed and in my head my thoughts were chasing each other". And the other one to whom you tell this nods knowingly.

Hardly anyone asks: "Why, aren't you the master of your mental chamber and why don't you know a method to be able to sleep?"

But maybe more and more people are asking: "Have you ever tried meditation?

Last example about an ideology: UBI (Universal Basic Income)

About ten years ago I was member of a politically active group who supported the idea of a Universal Basic Income.

I worked side by side with the activists for about two years and we organized panel discussions, did public relations work on the street with stands and flyers, we organized two very big events here in Hamburg with the well-known stars of the scene, I even gave a lecture at the adult education centre on the topic in front of senior citizens. In addition, I had my own online blog, where I wrote a lot of articles and also got an active participation of commentators. It gradually became clear to me that I was attached to the ideology of capital and humanism, a kind of "human right to good treatment". Which I will not elaborate on, because capitalism also has good and bad outgrowths, just like the humanist movements.

What gradually became clear to me was that it was only in this political and democratic process of an incipient deep confrontation with a subject that my initial opinion of spontaneous "per basic income" changed over time and that I was able to take on several perspectives. If I had not initiated this process, I would still be running around with only one opinion today and representing it quite thoughtlessly. The process of wrestling, discussing and becoming aware of one's own ignorance taught me a lot.

What I learned was that I can now take an independent position on the subject because I am no longer trapped in the neediness that I cannot live without a general "Yes to UBI" agreement and have to despair about it. I have thus taken away the fear of existence that had haunted me time and again and I thought that my life would no longer be happy if all others were not convinced of the idea of a UBI.

This whole thing brought me much deeper philosophical considerations.

What I want to say is that the representatives of our governments have to make it their goal, that they are interested in a common global vision, that people still need narratives and that they make a difference. They should make it priority No. 1. Not backwards, but forwards and at a moderate pace. Countries need to learn to trust each other and tackle climate change, nuclear threats and technological disruption together. We're not that far from a common narrative, if you think about it.

Meanwhile, as individuals, we too must do our work, knowing ourselves and asking again and again what reality is.

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Photo by Reuben Juarez on Unsplash