Bad leadership and ignoring the truth has trapped us in a bubble of helplessness and hopelessness, writes Bill Hobbs
Can there be any national renewal if we remain trapped within a political and economic union that willingly visits social and economic destruction on small nations to prop up larger nations banking systems?
Have our political and institutional leadership systems become victims of a confirmation bias that is amplifying our helplessness?
We have become captive the ECB’s dogmatic economic fundamentalism. In fulfilling its role to prop up our banking system, the ECB will not and cannot agree to an organised debt forgiveness programme. Its institutional hubris and arrogance is matched by a Franco/German political nexus that cannot and will not accept sharing the responsibility and cost of a dysfunctional euro system.
Anxious for re-election, German and French politicians remain unwilling and incapable of addressing the fundamental problems at the core of the euro-zone project.
Our growing sense of helplessness at the hands of the IMF/ECB/EU “troika” is exacerbated by a reluctance of Government to admit to the consequences of applying a remedy that will destroy the social and economic systems needed to rebuild a shattered economy. Is this the only response to the structural violence visited by an omnipotent central bank’s narrow mandate to protect larger more powerful Euro-zone members? Why are our leaders so willing to adopt ways of doing things that are undermining our capacity to rebuild our economy?
Even the troika’s members are conflicted. Both the IMF and some EU participants appear to favour organised debt forgiveness but the hawkish ECB and other EU participants remain rooted to a dogmatic demand for reparations.
With international and independent analysts all saying that we cannot afford to repay what we owe, why is this compelling, factual based evidence not being acknowledged and acted on?
When we are faced with news that blatantly conflicts with what we believe to be true we use the information to support our beliefs. When we think we know something to be true our immediate reaction to news indicating the polar opposite is to jump to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the source.
When faced with overwhelming, contradictory factual evidence why do we not pause for thought? Are we thinking at all? According to one recent study of brain activity, it seems we don’t think. When processing contradictory statements, it appears that not only do we suffer from confirmation bias but the part of our brains associated with reasoning reveals no sign of activity at all. Even more startling is once we interpret news to reconfirm our beliefs, the part of our brains involved in reward and pleasure become active.
We reinforce what we believe to be true, eliminate negative emotions and activate positive ones. We reward ourselves for being able to stick with our original position. Our emotional reactions and not our thinking minds cause us to be even more passionately committed to original beliefs.
Perhaps this explains our Government's passionate commitment to repaying every cent we owe even when others know we cannot. Is the overwhelming evidence that the Euro project is failing being perversely used to confirm a commitment to the Euro project?
Our Government is committed to do what needs to be done to regain economic sovereignty even if this means enforcing the structural violence demanded of external “partners”. Could it be that it’s conformational bias blinds it to other alternatives and its communications are reinforcing a belief in helplessness and its dangerous twin, hopelessness?
One of today’s glaring institutional vacuums is a singular lack of transformational leaders that sets out a clear inspiring goal, tells the truth, commits to change, fights for what ordinary people want, communicates using inspirational narrative and not mind-numbing detail, directs its attention to what’s right and not what’s demanded by others and elicits an enthusiasm in us all that we can build a better future.
During his Congressional address in 1862, Abraham Lincoln said “The dogmas of the past are inadequate to the stormy present…..As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves”
There are many who think that in dealing with the stormy present we need to disenthrall ourselves of an economic fundamentalism and its dogmatic insistence on the unnecessary and punitive destruction of our capacity to build a better future.
What is needed is transformational leadership that defines the common good not in terms of repaying debt but defends the pre-eminence of our own national right to think and act anew.
We need leaders who talk of regaining economic sovereignty not as the goal but as a means to achieving a goal.
A version of this article appeared in the Irish Examiner, Business Section, Monday 13th June 2011
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