Parties Negative Quotes

In the event of a communication breakdown, decide whether you will dwell in the negative or rise above the angst and turmoil in a firm, positive manner and encourage all parties to listen and be heard.

Man ordinarily lives in loneliness. To avoid loneliness, he creates all kinds of relationships, friendships, organizations, political parties, religions and what not. But the basic thing is that he is very much afraid of being lonely. Loneliness is a black hole, a darkness, a frightening negative state almost like death … as if you are being swallowed by death itself. To avoid it, you run out and fall into anybody, just to hold somebody’s hand, to feel that you are not lonely… Nothing hurts more than loneliness. But the trouble is, any relationship that arises out of the fear of being lonely is not going to be a blissful experience, because the other is also joining you out of fear. You both call it love. You are both deceiving yourself and the other. It is simply fear, and fear can never be the source of love. Only those who love are absolutely fearless; only those who love are able to be alone, joyously, whose need for the other has disappeared, who are sufficient unto themselves… The day you decide that all these efforts are failures, that your loneliness has remained untouched by all your efforts, that is a great moment of understanding. Then only one thing remains: to see whether loneliness is such a thing that you should be afraid of, or if it is just your nature. Then rather than running out and away, you close your eyes and go in. Suddenly the night is over, and a new dawn … The loneliness transforms into aloneness. Aloneness is your nature. You were born alone, you will die alone. And you are living alone without understanding it, without being fully aware of it. You misunderstand aloneness as loneliness; it is simply a misunderstanding. You are sufficient unto yourself.

So here, then, is the last fifty years of American politics summarized: we became more consistent in the party we vote for not because we came to like our party more—indeed, we’ve come to like the parties we vote for less—but because we came to dislike the opposing party more. Even as hope and change sputter, fear and loathing proceed.

Who are we to say getting incested or abused or violated or any of those things can’t have their positive aspects in the long run? … You have to be careful of taking a knee-jerk attitude. Having a knee-jerk attitude to anything is a mistake, especially in the case of women, where it adds up to this very limited and condescending thing of saying they’re fragile, breakable things that can be destroyed easily. Everybody gets hurt and violated and broken sometimes. Why are women so special? Not that anybody ought to be raped or abused, nobody’s saying that, but that’s what is going on. What about afterwards? All I’m saying is there are certain cases where it can enlarge you or make you more of a complete human being, like Viktor Frankl. Think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good that it happened? No, of course not. But did you read Viktor Frankl? Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning? It’s a great, great book, but it comes out of his experience. It’s about his experience in the human dark side. Now think about it, if there was no Holocaust, there’d be no Man’s Search for Meaning… . Think about it. Think about being degraded and brought within an inch of your life, for example. No one’s gonna say the sick bastards who did it shouldn’t be put in jail, but let’s put two things into perspective here. One is, afterwards she knows something about herself that she never knew before. What she knows is that the most totally terrible terrifying thing that she could ever have imagined happening to her has now happened, and she survived. She’s still here, and now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows. Look, totally terrible things happen… . Existence in life breaks people in all kinds of awful fucking ways all the time, trust me I know. I’ve been there. And this is the big difference, you and me here, cause this isn’t about politics or feminism or whatever, for you this is just ideas, you’ve never been there. I’m not saying nothing bad has ever happened to you, you’re not bad looking, I’m sure there’s been some sort of degradation or whatever come your way in life, but I’m talking Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning type violation and terror and suffering here. The real dark side. I can tell from just looking at you, you never. You wouldn’t even wear what you’re wearing, trust me. What if I told you it was my own sister that was raped? What if I told you a little story about a sixteen-year-old girl who went to the wrong party with the wrong guy and four of his buddies that ended up doing to her just about everything four guys could do to you in terms of violation? But if you could ask her if she could go into her head and forget it or like erase the tape of it happening in her memory, what do you think she’d say? Are you so sure what she’d say? What if she said that even after that totally negative as what happened was, at least now she understood it was possible. People can. Can see you as a thing. That people can see you as a thing, do you know what that means? Because if you really can see someone as a thing you can do anything to him. What would it be like to be able to be like that? You see, you think you can imagine it but you can’t. But she can. And now she knows something. I mean she really, really knows. This is what you wanted to hear, you wanted to hear about four drunk guys who knee-jerk you in the balls and make you bend over that you didn’t even know, that you never saw before, that you never did anything to, that don’t even know your name, they don’t even know your name to find out you have to choose to have a fucking name, you have no fucking idea, and what if I said that happened to ME? Would that make a difference?

The struggle is lost from the beginning, long before the victorious party or army conquers state power and ‘betrays’ its promises. It is lost once power itself seeps into the struggle, once the logic of power becomes the logic of the revolutionary process, once the negative of refusal is converted into the positive of power-building.

For Washington, parties weren’t so much expressions of popular politics as their negation, denying the true will of the people as expressed through their chosen representatives.

Depression severs all attachments. Mourning differs from depression above all through its strong libidinal attachment to an object. In contrast, depression is objectless and therefore undirected. It is important to distinguish depression from melancholy. Melancholy is preceded by the experience of loss. Therefore it still stands in a relation - namely, negative relation - to the absent thing or party. In contrast, depression is cut off from all relation and attachment. It utterly lacks gravity.

The days are passing so quickly. This is the only time of year when I want to slow time down. I spend the entire year trying to get here as fast as I can, then once I'm here I want to slam on the brakes. I'm beginning to have those moments when the feel of autumn is so strong it drowns out everything else. Lately it's been making me think about the perfect soundtrack for a Halloween party. The top of any Halloween music list as to be the theme song from the movie Halloween; right on its heels is "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones. For some reason I've always equated the old Van Morrison song "Moondance" with Halloween, too. I love that song. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus is an October classic, as well as anything by Type O Negative. And Midnight Syndicate. If you've never heard anything by Midnight Syndicate, look them up right this moment. If you distilled the raw essence of every spooky story you ever heard, you would have Midnight Syndicate. I have a friend who swears by them, believing them to be a vital element of any Halloween party. To finish off the list you must have "The Lyre of Orpheus" by Nick Cave and "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle.

Any time the topic of my religion surfaces, there are always people who react negatively, telling me to leave my crazy beliefs out of it. The problem is, I can’t. My beliefs are as much a part of my being as my music, or my family, or my obsession with earthy-tasting cereal. Luckily,

In the music industry I get a lot of public judgement. Any time the topic of my religion surfaces, there are always people who react negatively, telling me to leave my crazy beliefs out of it. The problem is, I can't. My beliefs are as much a part of my being as my music, or my family, or my obsession with earthy-tasting cereal. Luckily, after all the rejection I faced on my mission, I'm no longer afraid of negative reactions. I've already heard it all--- face-to-face. Hateful comments still hurt, but they don't hold the same weight they once did. Besides, say what you want, but I'm a short-haired angel. (Or at least I was to one man on a subway.)

The press in America has become the public relations arm of the Democrat Party, which is so blinded by rage for its loss of the White House and Congress that it will stop at nothing to cook up a negative story about Donald Trump, with no regard for truth.

moral hazard is “when one party in an agreement is protected against the negative consequences of its own actions.

I would like to ofer some exercises that can help us use the Five Precepts to cultivate and strengthen mindfulness. It is best to choose one of these exercises and work with it meticulously for a week. Then examine the results and choose another for a subsequent week. These practices can help us understand and find ways to work with each precept. 1. Refrain from killing: reverence for life. Undertake for one week to purposefully bring no harm in thought, word, or deed to any living creature. Particularly, become aware of any living beings in your world (people, animals, even plants) whom you ignore, and cultivate a sense of care and reverence for them too. 2. Refraining from stealing: care with material goods. Undertake for one week to act on every single thought of generosity that arises spontaneously in your heart. 3. Refraining from sexual misconduct: conscious sexuality. Undertake for one week to observe meticulously how often sexual feelings arise in your consciousness. Each time, note what particular mind states you find associated with them such as love, tension, compulsion, caring, loneliness, desire for communication, greed, pleasure, agression, and so forth. 4. Refraining from false speech: speech from the heart. Undertake for one week not to gossip (positively or negatively) or speak about anyone you know who is not present with you (any third party). 5. Refraining from intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. Undertake for one week or one month to refrain from all intoxicants and addictive substances (such as wine, marijuana, even cigarettes and/or caffeine if you wish). Observe the impulses to use these, and become aware of what is going on in the heart and mind at the time of those impulses (88-89).

When, in a free society, the press is criticized for negativity, that almost always means it has dared to question the policies of the party in power. 'Patriotism,' Samuel Johnson said, 'is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' He could have been speaking of those who use it to shield themselves from dissent.

One of the study’s major findings was that in the successful relationships, positive attention outweighed negative on a daily basis by a factor of five to one. This positive attention wasn’t about dramatic actions like throwing over-the-top birthday parties or purchasing a dream home. It took the form of small gestures, such as: using a pleased tone of voice when receiving a phone call from the partner, as opposed to an exasperated tone or a rushed pace that implied the partner’s call was interrupting important tasks inquiring about dentist appointments or other details of the other person’s day putting down the remote control, newspaper, or telephone when the other partner walked through the door arriving home at the promised time—or at least calling if there was a delay These small moments turned out to be more predictive of a loving, trusting relationship than were the more innovative steps of romantic vacations and expensive presents. Possibly, that’s because small moments provide consistent tending and nurturing.

At some point in your adult life, you’ve probably walked into a party and felt a frisson of relief upon discovering at least one woman there who was fatter, uglier, and/or dressed more inappropriately than you. We sure have. But if you want to have any hope of making peace with your own body, you need to knock that shit off. We’re not even telling you to stop just because it’s nasty, petty, and beneath you to judge other women so harshly; it is, but because you’re not a saint, and neither are we. We’re telling you to stop because it’s actually in your own self-interest to stop being such a bitch. ‘Cause you know what happens when you quit saying that crap about other women? You magically stop saying it about yourself so much, too. Judging other women negatively creates a constant stream of nasty thoughts in your head. It is inevitable that you will end up applying those same standards to yourself. We think we’re building ourselves up when we do this but, really, we’re just tearing other people down to our level. And we hate to go all Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on you, but tearing other people down isn’t really productive. It leaves you in the same place you started, which is full of loathing for your own body.

The key idea here is “negative partisanship”: partisan behavior driven not by positive feelings toward the party you support but negative feelings toward the party you oppose. If you’ve ever voted in an election feeling a bit bleh about the candidate you backed, but fearful of the troglodyte or socialist running against her, you’ve been a negative partisan. It turns out a lot of us have been negative partisans. A 2016 Pew poll found that self-described independents who tended to vote for one party or the other were driven more by negative motivations. Majorities of both Republican- and Democratic-leaning independents said a major reason for their lean was the other party’s policies were bad for the country; by contrast, only a third of each group said they were driven by support for the policies of the party they were voting for.

Fifty people can go to the same party, the same reality, but everyone will have a different experience.

After all my mother's negativity, I could design the rooms, cook anything I wanted, throw parties, and make a home for us.

That decades had to pass before a mistake with obvious negative consequences began to be corrected is one sign of the problems of decisions by third parties who pay no price for being wrong.

List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true.         ■

Republicans also screamed bloody murder about the censorship by social media platforms of conservative voices and negative news stories about Democrats. They were horrified by a media complex that moved from extreme partisan bias to unabashed propaganda in defense of the Democratic Party. They watched as a completely legitimate story about international corruption involving the Biden family business—and implicating Joe Biden himself—was crushed by media and tech companies colluding to suppress it.

One clue’s to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It’s not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As Hyde (whom I pretty obviously like) puts it, “Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.” 32 This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground-clearing. Surely this is the way our postmodern fathers saw it. But irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks. This is why Hyde seems right about persistent irony being tiresome. It is unmeaty. Even gifted ironists work best in sound bites. I find gifted ironists sort of wickedly fun to listen to at parties, but I always walk away feeling like I’ve had several radical surgical procedures. And as for actually driving cross-country with a gifted ironist, or sitting through a 300 page novel full of nothing but trendy sardonic exhaustion, one ends up feeling not only empty but somehow… oppressed. Think, for a moment, of Third World rebels and coups. Third World rebels are great at exposing and overthrowing corrupt hypocritical regimes, but they seem noticeably less great at the mundane, non-negative task of then establishing a superior governing alternative. Victorious rebels, in fact, seem best at using their tough, cynical rebel-skills to avoid being rebelled against themselves—in other words, they just become better tyrants.

party.   Being a net addition is different than just not being a net negative. Being simply neutral is often a negative, as you are taking up an attendance slot that could have been used by someone else who could have been an addition. It's important to proactively add to social situations.   Most

The assumption that all our struggles boil down to misunderstanding negates that parties in conflict do not come with equal access to power over their lives. The attempt to resolve conflict with interpersonal strategies like empathy often disregards how coercion and force shape the lives of enemies.

When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal.

As the issue of security becomes more important in people’s midst, the party and leader that offer the deepest sense of understanding and competence will win support. At the same time there is always the risk that negativity, fear, and nastiness may become issues in their own right. People may tire of it, wanting more optimism and more hope.

the sweet and smiley and sexually unthreatening elf with liberal values and a positive attitude is supposed to transform everyone into noble gay-loving protectors—again, as long as the gay in question toes the party line, isn’t messy or too sexual, negative or angry and offers no contradictions and is certainly not conservative or Christian.

A party, or any institution that is in power or in opposition, does all things to get only for its own goal and interests, no matter in a legal way or through illegal resources, like forces, print and electronic media, and negative propaganda among the people , spending the millions of money for this. It is called dirty politics by the support of evil spirits.

People in one of two states in a relationship. The first is what I call positive sentiment override, where positive emotion overrides irritability. It's a buffer. Their spouse will do something bad, and they'll say,'Oh, he's just in a crummy mood.'Or they can be in negative sentiment override, said that even a relatively new tool thing that a partner says get perceived as negative. In negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other. If their spouse does something positive, it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. It's really hard to change their states, and those states determine whether when one party tries to repair things, the other party sees that as repair or hostile manipulation.

the KGB was working hard to try to ensure that Thatcher lost the 1983 general election. In the eyes of the Kremlin, Thatcher was “the Iron Lady”—a nickname intended as an insult by the Soviet army newspaper that coined it, but one in which she reveled—and the KGB had been organizing “active measures” to undermine her ever since she came to power in 1979, including the placing of negative articles with sympathetic left-wing journalists. The KGB still had contacts on the left, and Moscow clung to the illusion that it might be able to influence the election in favor of the Labour Party, whose leader, after all, was still listed in KGB files as a “confidential contact.” In an intriguing harbinger of modern times, Moscow was prepared to use dirty tricks and hidden interference to swing a democratic election in favor of its chosen candidate.

Then he launched into a classic statement of his political philosophy. I appreciate all you say about what Bryanism means, and I also … [am] as strongly opposed to populism in every stage as the greatest representative of corrupt wealth, but … these representatives … have themselves been responsible for a portion of the conditions against which Bryanism is in ignorant, and sometimes wicked revolt. I do not believe it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing, that, whereas the populists, socialists and others really do not correct the evils at all … the Republicans hold the just balance and set our faces as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.66

Or they can be in negative sentiment override, so that even a relatively neutral thing that a partner says gets perceived as negative. In the negative sentiment override state, people draw lasting conclusions about each other. If their spouse does something positive, it's a selfish person doing a positive thing. It's really hard to change those states, and those states determine whether one party tries to repair things, the other party sees that as repair or hostile manipulation.

The first black president found that he was personally toxic to the GOP base. An entire political party was organized around the explicit aim of negating Obama. It was thought by Obama and others that this toxicity was the result of a relentless assault waged by Fox News and right-wing talk radio. Trump’s genius was understanding that it was something more, that it was a hunger for revanche so strong that a political novice and accused rapist could topple the leadership of one major party and throttle the presumed favorite of another.

The fall of the protecting class walls transformed the slumbering majorities behind all parties into one great unorganized, structureless mass of furious individuals who had nothing in common except their vague apprehension that the hopes of party members were doomed, that, consequently, the most respected, articulate and representative members of the community were fools and that all the powers that be were not so much evil as they were equally stupid and fraudulent. It was of no great consequence for the birth of this new terrifying negative solidarity that the unemployed worker hated the status quo and the powers that be in the form of the Social Democratic Party, the expropriated small property owner in the form of a centrist or rightist party, and the former members of the middle and upper classes in the form of the traditional extreme right. The number of this mass of generally dissatisfied and desperate men increased rapidly in Germany and Austria after the first World War, when inflation and unemployment added to the disrupting consequences of military defeat; they existed in great proportion in all the succession states, and they have supported the extreme movements in France and Italy since the second World War.

Preemptive or preventive war is now accepted by both political parties. It is also accepted by all branches of our government. Likewise, assassinations, secret military tribunals, and torture are now identified worldwide as policies acceptable to the US government and the American people. The image of the US throughout the world, and especially in the Middle East, is more negative now than at any time in our nation’s history. Many Americans have at the same time exhibited a general willingness to give up liberty for safety. We have ignored the warnings of the Founders that the loss of liberty leads to the loss of security as well.

Fly with those who lift you up and thrust you forward A pilot friend of mine told me there are four main principles to master when flying airplanes: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. You have to take all these into account to make sure the plane will fly. It struck me that these same principles apply to specific types of people. There are some who lift you, brighten your day, cheer you up, and make you feel better about yourself. You meet them and you have a spring in your step. They’re a lift. Then there are people who thrust you. They inspire you, motivate you, challenge you to move forward and pursue your dreams. The third group are weights. They pull you down, dump their problems on you, so that you leave feeling heavier, negative, discouraged, and worse than you did before. Finally, there are those who are a drag. They’ve always got a sad song. The dishwasher broke. The goldfish died. They didn’t get invited to a party. They’re stuck in a pit. They expect you to cheer them up, fix their problems, and carry their loads. We all encounter people from each of these four groups. You have to make sure you’re spending the majority of your time with lifters and thrusters. If you’re only hanging out with weights and drags, it will keep you from becoming everything you were created to be.

The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.

and confused if someone does not appreciate their niceness. Others often sense this and avoid giving them feedback not only, effectively blocking the nice person’s emotional growth, but preventing risks from being taken. You never know with a nice person if the relationship would survive a conflict or angry confrontation. This greatly limits the depths of intimacy. And would you really trust a nice person to back you up if confrontation were needed? 3. With nice people you never know where you really stand. The nice person allows others to accidentally oppress him. The “nice” person might be resenting you just for talking to him, because really he is needing to pee. But instead of saying so he stands there nodding and smiling, with legs tightly crossed, pretending to listen. 4. Often people in relationship with nice people turn their irritation toward themselves, because they are puzzled as to how they could be so upset with someone so nice. In intimate relationships this leads to guilt, self-hate and depression. 5. Nice people frequently keep all their anger inside until they find a safe place to dump it. This might be by screaming at a child, blowing up a federal building, or hitting a helpless, dependent mate. (Timothy McVeigh, executed for the Oklahoma City bombing, was described by acquaintances as a very, very nice guy, one who would give you the shirt off his back.) Success in keeping the anger in will often manifest as psychosomatic illnesses, including arthritis, ulcers, back problems, and heart disease. Proper Peachy Parents In my work as a psychotherapist, I have found that those who had peachy keen “Nice Parents” or proper “Rigidly Religious Parents” (as opposed to spiritual parents), are often the most stuck in chronic, lowgrade depression. They have a difficult time accessing or expressing any negative feelings towards their parents. They sometimes say to me “After all my parents did for me, seldom saying a harsh word to me, I would feel terribly guilty complaining. Besides, it would break their hearts.” Psychologist Rollo May suggested that it is less crazy-making to a child to cope with overt withdrawal or harshness than to try to understand the facade of the always-nice parent. When everyone agrees that your parents are so nice and giving, and you still feel dissatisfied, then a child may conclude that there must be something wrong with his or her ability to receive love. -§ Emotionally starving children are easier to control, well fed children don’t need to be. -§ I remember a family of fundamentalists who came to my office to help little Matthew with his anger problem. The parents wanted me to teach little Matthew how to “express his anger nicely.” Now if that is not a formula making someone crazy I do not know what would be. Another woman told me that after her stinking drunk husband tore the house up after a Christmas party, breaking most of the dishes in the kitchen, she meekly told him, “Dear, I think you need a breath mint.” Many families I work with go through great anxiety around the holidays because they are going to be forced to be with each other and are scared of resuming their covert war. They are scared that they might not keep the nice garbage can lid on, and all the rotting resentments and hopeless hurts will be exposed. In the words to the following song, artist David Wilcox explains to his parents why he will not be coming home this Thanksgiving: Covert War by David Wilcox

just as there are times when all it takes for us to dissolve into tears is for someone to place a hand on our shoulder, so the disinterested joy of a dog can reconcile us for one brief minute to the pains, sorrows, and disappointments of this world. Given that Found knows little of human emotions, be they positive or negative, but of whose existence there is ample proof, and given that Marçal knows still less about canine emotions, about which there are few certainties and a myriad of doubts, someone will one day have to explain to us the reasons, apparently perfectly comprehensible to both parties involved, why these two should be locked in an embrace when they do not even belong to the same species.

Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. ■​The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. ■​Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. ■​Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. ■​List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. ■​Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics

■​Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. ■​The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. ■​Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. ■​Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. ■​List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. ■​Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.

1. Close Friend, someone who got yo back, yo "main nigga." 2. Rooted in blackness and the Black experience. From a middle-aged social worker: "That Brotha ain like dem ol e-lights, he real, he a shonuff nigga" 3. Generic, neutral refrence to African Americans. From a 30 something college educated Sista: "The party was live, it was wall to wall niggaz there" 4. A sista's man/lover/partner. from the beauty shop. "Guess we ain gon be seein too much of girlfriend no mo since she got herself a new nigga" From Hip Hop artist Foxy brown, "Ain no nigga like the on I got." 5. Rebellious, fearless unconventional, in-yo-face Black man. From former NBA superstar Charles Barkley, "Nineties niggas... The DailyNews, The Inquirer has been on my back... They want their Black Athletes to be Uncle Tom. I told you white boys you've never heard of a 90s nigga. We do what we want to do" quoted in The Source, December 1992). 6. Vulgar, disrespectful Black Person, antisocial, conforming to negative sterotype of African Americans. From former Hip Hop group Arrested Development, in their best-selling song, "People Everyday" 1992: A black man actin like a nigga... got stomped by an African" 7. A cool, down person, rooted in Hip Hop and black culture, regardless of race, used today by non-blacks to refer to other non-Blacks. 8. Anyone engaged in inappropriate, negative behavior; in this sense, Blacks may even apply the term to White folk. According to African American scholar Clarence Major's From Juba to Jive, Queen Latifah was quoted in Newsweek as criticizing the US government with these words. "Those niggers don't know what the fuck they doing

Irony in postwar art and culture started out the same way youthful rebellion did. It was difficult and painful, and productive—a grim diagnosis of a long-denied disease. The assumptions behind early postmodern irony, on the other hand, were still frankly idealistic: it was assumed that etiology and diagnosis pointed toward cure, that a revelation of imprisonment led to freedom. So then how have irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling in the culture today’s avant-garde tries to write about? One clue’s to be found in the fact that irony is still around, bigger than ever after 30 long years as the dominant mode of hip expression. It’s not a rhetorical mode that wears well. As Hyde (whom I pretty obviously like) puts it, “Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.” 32 This is because irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function. It’s critical and destructive, a ground-clearing. Surely this is the way our postmodern fathers saw it. But irony’s singularly unuseful when it comes to constructing anything to replace the hypocrisies it debunks. This is why Hyde seems right about persistent irony being tiresome. It is unmeaty. Even gifted ironists work best in sound bites. I find gifted ironists sort of wickedly fun to listen to at parties, but I always walk away feeling like I’ve had several radical surgical procedures. And as for actually driving cross-country with a gifted ironist, or sitting through a 300 page novel full of nothing but trendy sardonic exhaustion, one ends up feeling not only empty but somehow… oppressed.

Where the parties speak different languages the chance for misinterpretation is compounded. For example, in Persian, the word “compromise” apparently lacks the positive meaning it has in English of “a midway solution both sides can live with,” but has only a negative meaning as in “our integrity was compromised.” Similarly, the word “mediator” in Persian suggests “meddler,” someone who is barging in uninvited. In early 1980 U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim flew to Iran to seek the release of American diplomats being held hostage by Iranian students soon after the Islamic revolution. His efforts were seriously set back when Iranian national radio and television broadcast in Persian a remark he reportedly made on his arrival in Tehran: “I have come as a mediator to work out a compromise.” Within an hour of the broadcast, his car was being stoned by angry Iranians.

Break the habit of attempting to get people to say “yes.” Being pushed for “yes” makes people defensive. Our love of hearing “yes” makes us blind to the defensiveness we ourselves feel when someone is pushing us to say it. ■​“No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti-“Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning. ■​“Yes” is the final goal of a negotiation, but don’t aim for it at the start. Asking someone for “Yes” too quickly in a conversation—“Do you like to drink water, Mr. Smith?”—gets his guard up and paints you as an untrustworthy salesman. ■​Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you. That’s why “Is now a bad time to talk?” is always better than “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” ■​Sometimes the only way to get your counterpart to listen and engage with you is by forcing them into a “No.” That means intentionally mislabeling one of their emotions or desires or asking a ridiculous question—like, “It seems like you want this project to fail”—that can only be answered negatively. ■​Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you. ■​If a potential business partner is ignoring you, contact them with a clear and concise “No”-oriented question that suggests that you are ready to walk away. “Have you given up on this project?” works wonders. CHAPTER 5 TRIGGER THE TWO WORDS THAT IMMEDIATELY TRANSFORM ANY NEGOTIATION

King immediately appreciated that Gandhi’s theory of nonviolent resistance was not a moralistic affirmation of love, as nonviolence had been in the teachings of Jesus. Instead it was a set of hardheaded tactics to prevail over an adversary by outwitting him rather than trying to annihilate him. A taboo on violence, King inferred, prevents a movement from being corrupted by thugs and firebrands who are drawn to adventure and mayhem. It preserves morale and focus among followers when the movement suffers early defeats. By removing any pretext for legitimate retaliation by the enemy, it stays on the positive side of the moral ledger in the eyes of third parties, while luring the enemy onto the negative side. For the same reason, it divides the enemy, paring away supporters who find it increasingly uncomfortable to identify themselves with one-sided violence. All the while it can press its agenda by making a nuisance of itself with sit-ins, strikes, and demonstrations.

Taking the Bible seriously should mean taking politics seriously. The major voices in the Bible from beginning to end are passionate advocates of a different kind of world here on earth and here and now. Many American Christians are wary of doing this, for more than one reason. Some are so appalled by the politics of the Christian Right that they have rejected the notion that Christianity has anything to do with politics. Moreover, the word “politics” has negative associations in our time. Many think of narrowly partisan politics, as if politics is merely about party affiliation. Many also dismiss politics as petty bickering, as ego-driven struggles for power, even as basically corrupt. But there is a broader meaning of the word that is essential. This broader meaning is expressed by the linguistic root of the English word. It comes from the Greek word polis, which means “city.” Politics is about the shape and shaping of “the city” and by extension of large-scale human communities: kingdoms, nations, empires, the world. In this sense, politics matters greatly: it is about the structures of a society. Who rules? In whose benefit? What is the economic system like?—fair, or skewed toward the wealthy and powerful? What are the laws and conventions of the society like? Hierarchical? Patriarchal? Racist? Xenophobic? Homophobic? For Christians, especially in a democratic society in which they are a majority, these questions matter. To abandon politics means leaving the structuring of society to those who are most concerned to serve their own interests. It means letting the Pharaohs and monarchs and Caesars and domination systems, ancient and modern, put the world together as they will. In a democracy, politics in the broad sense does include how we vote. But it also includes more: what we support in our conversations, our contributions, monetary and otherwise, our actions. Not every Christian is called to be an activist. But all are called to take seriously God’s dream for a more just and nonviolent world.

Do self-fulfilling prophecies color our personal relationships? There are times when negative expectations of someone lead us to be extra nice to that person, which induces him or her to be nice in return—thus disconfirming our expectations. But a more common finding in studies of social interaction is that, yes, we do to some extent get what we expect (Olson & others, 1996). In laboratory games, hostility nearly always begets hostility: People who perceive their opponents as noncooperative will readily induce them to be noncooperative (Kelley & Stahelski, 1970). Each party’s perception of the other as aggressive, resentful, and vindictive induces the other to display those behaviors in selfdefense, thus creating a vicious self-perpetuating circle. In another experiment, people anticipated interacting with another person of a different race. When led to expect that the person disliked interacting with someone of their race, they felt more anger and displayed more hostility toward the person (Butz & Plant, 2006). Likewise, whether I expect my wife to be in a bad mood or in a loving mood may affect how I relate to her, thereby inducing her to confirm my belief.

But the manner of giving voice to thoughts and feelings becomes particularly significant in the case of negative feelings or doubts about a relationship. The difference was highlighted for me when a fifty-year-old divorced man told me about his experiences in forming new relationships with women. On this matter, he was clear: "I do not value my fleeting thoughts, and I do not value the fleeting thoughts of others." He felt that the relationship he was currently in had been endangered, even permanently weakened, by the woman's practice of tossing out her passing thoughts, because, early in their courtship, many of her thoughts were fears about the relationship. Not surprisingly, since they did not yet know each other well, she worried about whether she could trust him, whether their relationship would destroy her independence, whether this relationship was really right for her. He felt she should have kept these fears and doubts to herself and waited to see how things turned out. As it happens, things turned out well. The woman decided that the relationship was right for her, she could trust him, and she did not have to give up her independence. But he felt, at the time that he told me of this, that he had still not recovered from the wear and tear of coping with her earlier doubts. As he put it, he was still dizzy from having been bounced around like a yo-yo tied to the string of her stream of consciousness. In contrast, the man admitted, he himself goes to the other extreme: he never expresses his fears or misgivings about their relationship at all. If he's unhappy but doesn't say anything about it, his unhappiness expresses itself in a kind of distancing coldness. This response is just what women fear most, and just the reason they prefer to express dissatisfactions and doubts - as an antidote to the isolation and distance that would result from keeping them to themselves. The different perspectives on expressing or concealing dissatisfactions and doubts may reflect a difference in men's and women's awareness of the power of their words to affect others. In repeatedly telling him what she feared about their relationship, she spoke as though she assumed he was invulnerable and could not be hurt by what she said; perhaps she was underestimating the power of her words to affect him. For his part, when he refrains from expressing negative thoughts or feelings, he seems to be overestimating the power of his words to hurt her, when, ironically, she is more likely to be hurt by his silence than his words. Such impasses will perhaps never be settled to the complete satisfaction of both parties, but understanding the differing views can help detoxify the situation, and both can make adjustments.

I love the way David put it in Psalm 23, verse 5: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (NKJV). God will not only avenge you and make your wrongs right, but He will also bless you in front of your enemies. He could promote you anywhere, but He’ll promote you in front of those trying to make you look bad. He’ll give you favor, honor, and recognition. One day those who stabbed you in the back will watch you receive the credit you deserve. Knowing that God prepares the table for us in the presence of our enemies keeps me from being discouraged when people talk unfavorably of me. You see, I know God just sent the angels to the grocery store. If somebody lies about you, no big deal. You can see Gabriel setting the table. Your critics can see the meal on God’s table, but they aren’t invited to the party. They’ll have to watch you enjoy what God has prepared for you. They will watch as you are promoted. Be ready. If you’ve done the right thing and overlooked offenses and negative words and blessed your enemies, then know God’s table is set. Your dinner is ready. It’s just a matter of time before you’re seated at the table. Your enemies may try to spoil the party by stealing your joy. They’ll plant doubts, but shake them off. The dinner bell will ring for you at any moment. Those hindering you, trying to bring you down, will see you stepping to a new level. They will see God’s favor and goodness enter your life in a greater way.

By 1937 the whole of the intelligentsia was mentally at war. Left-wing thought had narrowed down to “anti-Fascism,” i.e., to a negative, and a torrent of hate-literature directed against Germany and the politicians supposedly friendly to Germany was pouring from the Press. The thing that, to me, was truly frightening about the war in Spain was not such violence as I witnessed, nor even the party feuds behind the lines, but the immediate reappearance in left-wing circles of the mental atmosphere of the Great War. The very people who for twenty years had sniggered over their own superiority to war hysteria were the ones who rushed straight back into the mental slum of 1915. All the familiar war-time idiocies, spy-hunting, orthodoxy-sniffing (Sniff, sniff. Are you a good anti-Fascist?), the retailing of incredible atrocity-stories, came back into vogue as though the intervening years had never happened. Before the end of the Spanish war, and even before Munich, some of the better of the left-wing writers were beginning to squirm. Neither Auden nor, on the whole, Spender wrote about the Spanish war in quite the vein that was expected of them. Since then there has been a change of feeling and much dismay and confusion, because the actual course of events has made nonsense of the left-wing orthodoxy of the last few years. But then it did not need very great acuteness to see that much of it was nonsense from the start. There is no certainty, therefore, that the next orthodoxy to emerge will be any better than the last. On

Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5   In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality.  We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc.  These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so.  The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern.  Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality:   While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6

In the end, Putin won with the aid of Americans who had turned on their own values. The news media assisted greatly by elevating stolen innocuous emails from an insecure party server to a national crisis in which the victims were treated suspiciously. To Trump supporters it validated everything they ever suspected about Hillary Clinton—she hid emails, which meant she was a liar. No matter that Trump voters elected a man who openly embraced white supremacy, rejected diversity, abhorred global engagement, ignored his own corruption, and enlisted his own family and staff as royalty to be worshipped. Trump voters saw these traits as perks. They viewed nepotism, largess, and excess as virtues of a business and political shark. If he vocally stood against virtually all gains America had made in equality and global economic expansion since 1964 and it got him elected, then all the better that he hold those positions. By all means necessary was Trump’s apparent motto for the 2016 election. Russian intelligence lived by that motto too. The spies of the Red Square were shameless enough but the real scandal was that Team Trump saw nothing wrong with it. Trump voters had blindly elected him despite knowing that Russia had intervened in the electoral process. They cared not that Trump’s own surprising level of slavish devotion to Putin was suspicious. It. Did. Not. Matter. Trump had created a cult of personality in the white lower class so that they worshipped his every word and challenged the veracity of anything negative said against him. This worked out well for Putin. For the

If you comrades here already know materialism and dialectics, I would like to advise you to supplement your knowledge by some study of their opposites, that is, idealism and metaphysics. You should read Kant and Hegel and Confucius and Chiang Kai-shek, which are all negative stuff. If you know nothing about idealism and metaphysics, if you have never waged any struggle against them, your materialism and dialectics will not be solid. The shortcoming of some of our Party members and intellectuals is precisely that they know too little about the negative stuff. Having read a few books by Marx, they just repeat what is in them and sound rather monotonous. Their speeches and articles are not convincing. If you don’t study the negative stuff, you won’t be able to refute it. Neither Marx nor Engels nor Lenin was like that. They made great efforts to learn and study all sorts of things, contemporary and past, and taught other people to do likewise. The three component parts of Marxism came into being in the course of their study of, as well as their struggle with, such bourgeois things as German classical philosophy, English classical political economy and French utopian socialism. In this respect Stalin was not as good. For instance, in his time, German classical idealist philosophy was described as a reaction on the part of the German aristocracy to the French revolution. This conclusion totally negates German classical idealist philosophy. Stalin negated German military science, alleging that it was no longer of any use and that books by Clausewitz should no longer be read since the Germans had been defeated.” -Mao Zedong

The village club manager went with his watchman to buy a bust of Comrade Stalin. The bust was big and heavy. They ought to have carried it in a hand barrow, but the manager's status did not allow him to. The old watchman couldn't work out how to do it ... Finally ... he took off his belt, made a noose for Comrade Stalin ... and in this way carried it over his shoulder through the village ... It was an open-and-shut case. Article 58, terrorism, ten years ... A shepherd in a fit of anger swore at a cow for not obeying. 'You collective-farm wh__!' And he got 58, and a term ... The children in a collective farm club got out of hand, had a fight and accidentally knocked some poster or other off the wall with their backs. The two eldest were sentenced under Article 58 ... There existed a very simple standardized collection of charges from which it was enough for the interrogator to pick one or two and stick them like postage stamps on an envelope: discrediting the Leader, a negative attitude toward the collective-farm structure, a negative attitude toward state loans, a negative attitude toward the Stalinist constitution, a negative attitude toward whatever was the immediate, particular measure being carried out by the Party, sympathy for Trotsky, friendliness toward the United States ... The pasting on of these stamps ... was monotonous work requiring no artistry ... And so that Security chiefs did not have to strain their brains, denunciations from informers came in very handy ... In the conflicts between people in freedom, denunciations were the superweapon .. And it always worked ... Europe, of course, won't believe it. Not until Europe itself serves time will she believe it ...

National Socialism nurtured racism. In reality there are only two races, namely the "race" of decent people and the "race" of people who are not decent. And "segregation" runs straight through all nations and within every single nation straight through all parties. Even in the concentration camps one came across halfway decent fellows here and there among the SS men-just as one came across the odd scoundrel or two among the prisoners. not to mention the Capos. That decent people are in the minority, that they have always been a minority and are likely to remain so is something we must come to terms with. Danger only threatens when a political system sends those not-decent people, i.e., the negative element of a nation, to the top. And no nation is immune from doing this, and in this respect every nation is in principle capable of a Holocaust! In support of this we have the sensational results of scientific experiments in the field of social psychology, for which we owe thanks to an American; they are known as the Milgram Experiment. If we want to extract the political consequences from all this, we should assume that there are basically only two styles of politics, or perhaps better said, only two types of politicians: the first are those believe that the end justifies the means, and that could be any means...While the other type of politician knows very well that there are mans that could desecrate the holiest end. And it is this type of politician whom I trust, despite the clamor around the year 1988, and the demands of the day, not to mention of the anniversary, trust to hear the voice of reason and to ensure that all who are of goodwill, stretch out their hands to each other, across all the graves and across all divisions.

supposed weakness on national security. Ours was a brief exchange, filled with unspoken irony—the elderly Southerner on his way out, the young black Northerner on his way in, the contrast that the press had noted in our respective convention speeches. Senator Miller was very gracious and wished me luck with my new job. Later, I would happen upon an excerpt from his book, A Deficit of Decency, in which he called my speech at the convention one of the best he’d ever heard, before noting—with what I imagined to be a sly smile—that it may not have been the most effective speech in terms of helping to win an election. In other words: My guy had lost. Zell Miller’s guy had won. That was the hard, cold political reality. Everything else was just sentiment. MY WIFE WILL tell you that by nature I’m not somebody who gets real worked up about things. When I see Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity baying across the television screen, I find it hard to take them seriously; I assume that they must be saying what they do primarily to boost book sales or ratings, although I do wonder who would spend their precious evenings with such sourpusses. When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal. Still, I am not immune to distress. And like most Americans, I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry. It’s not simply that a gap exists between our professed ideals as a nation and the reality we witness every day. In one form or another, that gap has existed since America’s birth. Wars have been fought, laws passed, systems reformed, unions organized, and protests staged to bring promise and practice into closer alignment. No, what’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem. We know that global competition—not to mention any genuine commitment to the values

These negative-sum games of coercion and extortion lead to highly inefficient outcomes, and they can only be avoided by carefully crafting the ex ante rules to avoid such coercion and extortion. These coercive threats that make negative-sum games possible, and that decrease the payoffs of positive-sum games, cannot be neatly distinguished in practice from innocent externalities: any act or omission of one party that harms another, i.e. any externality, doubles as a threat, whether a tiny threat or a large threat, from which an extortion premium, its size depending on the size of the threat, can be extracted. In order to try to distinguish coercion, and the extortion it gives rise to, from an "innocent" externality that can be cured by efficient bargaining, there are ways to exclude some of these extreme possibilities from the prior allocation of rights. And indeed criminal and tort law do this: they distinguish purposeful behavior from negligent, and negligent from the mere unfortunate accident. But any such ex ante distiction contradicts the claim that the Coase Theorem applies to any prior allocation of rights. Voluntary bargaining cannnot give rise to tort and criminal law. Quite the opposite is true: at least a basic tort law is necessary to make voluntary bargaining possible. Tort law (and the associated property law which defines boundaries for the tort of trespass) is logically prior to contract law: good contracts depend on good tort and property law. Without a good tort law already in place, nobody, including the "protection firms" posited by anarcho-capitalism, can engage in the voluntary bargains that are necessary for efficient outcomes. This is not to claim that the polar opposite of anarcho-capitalism must be true, i.e. that "the government" along the lines we are familiar with is necessary. Instead, a system of political property rights that is unbundled and decentralized is possible, and may give rise to many of the benefits (e.g. peaceful competition between jurisdictions) promised by anarcho-capitalism. But political property rights are not based on a Rothbardian assumption of voluntary agreement -- instead, in these systems the procedural law of political property rights, as well as much of substantive property rights and tort law, is prior to contract law, and their origin necessarily involves some degree of coercion. Political and legal systems have not, do not, and cannot originate solely from voluntary contract. Both traditional "social contract" justifications of the state and the Rothbardian idea that contracts can substitute for the state are false: in all cases coercion is involved, both at the origin and in the ongoing practice of legal procedure. In both cases the term "contract" is used, implying voluntary agreement, when the term "treaty", a kind of agreement often forced by coercion, would far more accurately describe the reality. The real task for libertarians and other defenders of sound economics and law is not to try to devise law from purely voluntary origins, an impossible task, but to make sure the ex ante laws make voluntary bargaining possible and discourage coercion and extortion (by any party, including political property rights holders or governments) as much as possible.

If people believe the news is fake, they won’t believe the negative stories. If people believe the press is the opposition party, news stories are seen as no more trustworthy than political attack ads.

the president himself told Lesley Stahl, the reason he goes after the press is that he wants to be able to cast doubt on genuine reporting. Negative story? What do you expect from the opposition party? As reporters, we make that strategy destructively effective if we act like the opposition.

Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.

What is at stake for people around the world, from Spain and Argentina to Hungary and Poland, when they throw off dictatorship and establish a liberal democracy? To some extent, the answer is a purely negative one based on the mistakes and injustices of the preceding political order: they want to get rid of the hated colonels or party bosses who oppressed them, or to live without fear of arbitrary arrest. Those living in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union think or hope that they are getting capitalist prosperity, since capitalism and democracy are closely intertwined in the minds of many. But as we have seen, it is perfectly possible to have prosperity without freedom, as Spain, or South Korea, or Taiwan did under autocratic rule. And yet in each of these countries prosperity was not enough. Any attempt to portray the basic human impulse driving the liberal revolutions of the late twentieth century, or indeed of any liberal revolution since those of America and France in the eighteenth century, as merely an economic one, would be radically incomplete. The Mechanism created by modern natural science remains a partial and ultimately unsatisfying account of the historical process. Free government exercises a positive pull of its own: When the president of the United States or the president of France praises liberty and democracy, they are praised as good things in, themselves, and this praise seems to have resonance for people around the world.

What is presented as the “moderate” Left solution to any social problems—and radical left solutions are, almost everywhere now, ruled out tout court—has invariably come to be some nightmare fusion of the worst elements of bureaucracy and the worst elements of capitalism. It’s as if someone had consciously tried to create the least appealing possible political position. It is a testimony to the genuine lingering power of leftist ideals that anyone would even consider voting for a party that promoted this sort of thing—because surely, if they do, it’s not because they actually think these are good policies, but because these are the only policies anyone who identifies themselves as left-of-center is allowed to set forth. Is there any wonder, then, that every time there is a social crisis, it is the Right, rather than the Left, which becomes the venue for the expression of popular anger?The Right, at least, has a critique of bureaucracy. It’s not a very good one. But at least it exists. The Left has none. As a result, when those who identify with the Left do have anything negative to say about bureaucracy, they are usually forced to adopt a watered-down version of the right-wing critique.

The Emory researchers who identified the four phases of meditation found that when meditators slip out of the focused attention of the TPN and into Mind Wandering, the DMN activates. The wandering mind of the DMN has a “me” orientation, focusing on the self. It may flit from what’s going on at the moment (“Is that a mosquito buzzing?”) to future worries (“I’m nervous about next week’s exam”) to the past (“I’m so mad at my brother Jim for calling me a sissy at my fifth birthday party”). The precuneus contributes to both self-referential focus and episodic memory. Disturbing memories are played and replayed. The idle brain defaults to what is bothering us, both recent and long-past events. These egocentric musings of the wandering mind form the fabric of our sense of self. When you quiet your TPN in meditation, you open up a big empty space in consciousness. For a few moments, the brain is quiet, and you feel inner peace. Then the engine starts revving. The DMN kicks in, bringing with it a cascade of worries and random thoughts. You’re doing 2,000 RPM in Park, but going nowhere. And it gets worse. The DMN has a rich neural network connecting it with other brain regions. Through this, it busily starts recruiting other brain regions to go along with its whining self-absorption. It commandeers the brain’s CEO, the prefrontal cortex. This impairs executive functions like memory, attention, flexibility, inhibition, planning, and problem-solving. 2.5. Nerves from the Default Mode Network reach out to communicate with many other parts of the brain. The DMN also recruits the insula, a region that integrates information from other parts of the brain. It has special neurons triggered by emotions that we feel toward other people, such as resentment, embarrassment, lust, and contempt. We don’t just think negative thoughts; we feel them emotionally too. At this stage, the meditator isn’t just wallowing in a whirlwind of self-centered thoughts. The DMN has taken the brain’s CEO hostage, while through the insula it starts replaying all the slights, insults, and disappointments we’ve experienced in our relationships. The quiet meditative space we experienced just a few moments before has been destroyed. This drives meditators absolutely nuts. No sooner do they achieve nirvana, the still, quiet place of Bliss Brain, than the DMN serves up a smorgasbord of self-absorbed fantasies. It pulls us into negative emotional states—then drags the rest of the brain along behind it. The DMN. Hmm . . . that acronym reminds me of something: “the DeMoN.” The DMN is the demon that robs me of the inner peace I’m seeking through meditation

For a story on Facebook’s failings in developing countries, Newley Purnell and Justin Scheck found a woman who had been trafficked from Kenya to Saudi Arabia, and they were looking into the role Facebook had played in recruiting hit men for Mexican drug lords. That story would reveal that Facebook had failed to effectively shut down the presence of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel on Facebook and Instagram, allowing it to repeatedly post photos of extreme gore, including severed hands and beheadings. Looking into how the platform encouraged anger, Keach Hagey relied on documents showing that political parties in Poland had complained to Facebook that the changes it had made around engagement made them embrace more negative positions. The documents didn’t name the parties; she was trying to figure out which ones. Deepa Seetharaman was working to understand how Facebook’s vaunted AI managed to take down such a tiny percentage—a low single-digit percent, according to the documents Haugen had given me—of hate speech on the platform, including constant failures to identify first-person shooting videos and racist rants.

such as between affective polarization, the tendency of members of oppositional groups to feel negatively about the opposing group members and positively about members of their own group, and ideological polarization, the divergence of attitudes on substantive issues.10 Recall that the Boston leadership dialogue group was able to slowly disentangle these two forms, and their feelings and ideological beliefs eventually diverged. Political polarization is somewhat different from both affective and ideological polarity, referring instead to cases in which an individual’s stance on a given issue, policy, or person is more likely to be influenced by identification with a particular political party or ideology (e.g., progressive or conservative) than with understanding the issue or the person

They Have Excuses for Everything Apart from empty apologies, they also make excuses for everything. They won’t come with you to the party or at a family gathering, they won’t complete their part of the chores, and they will say they are tired when you try to initiate sex… another one of their excuses!

They Are Spending Too Much If all of a sudden you notice too many credit card bills and receipts in their pockets and yet you don’t receive any supposed gifts, then someone else is on the receiving end of them. When asked, they will always have an explanation over how they had to lend some money to a friend, how they had to pitch in the last minute for an office party for a guy’s farewell or how they had to pay a medical bill of some relative. He/He’s Doing Things They Hated Before Remember the time you asked them to go golfing with you and they flat out refused and joked about how it’s an old man’s sport? Look who is all polo shirts and hats now! If their interests have changed all of a sudden and they are doing stuff they hated, know something is up.

The existence of an official trade union negated any reason to set up an alternative union, and the party suppressed radical activists who pushed for workers’ rights that might undermine the CCP’s focus on production.48 Such structural social organizations were referred to as transmission belts in Leninist parlance, but the main direction of communication was from top to bottom, with less capacity for members to influence national policy. The workers learned that their role as masters of the country was subject to party guidance and leadership.

Automatic thoughts occur because the subconscious mind stores information that is meant to protect you. However, it also stores negative associations better than positive ones because it acts as a safety mechanism. Although this is effective from an evolutionary standpoint, it unfortunately perpetuates a lot of anxious and hopeless thoughts. Also keep in mind that since the subconscious mind is programmed through repetition and emotion, the more we perpetuate beliefs, the more deeply ingrained they become over time. So, how do we identify automatic thoughts and the core triggers that created them? Well, the brain is always looking for information to support what it believes. This is called supportive evidence. Supportive evidence is the information that the brain picks out of its environment to reinforce its existing thoughts. In the context of reprogramming your subconscious, this is a negative practice. An example of this may occur if Connor were to go to a work party—remember that he believes that he is fundamentally unworthy of emotional connection. When he walks in, his automatic thoughts include “No one likes me, and no one wants me here.” The brain then begins to look for supportive evidence: Someone frowning in conversation while looking in his direction, to Connor, means that they hate him and want him to leave. With Suneel, supportive evidence may occur when Suneel makes grammatical corrections in the project they’re working on together. To Connor, this may again reinforce that Suneel is trying to undermine him. A powerful aspect of supportive evidence to consider is that it occurs every day and everywhere in our lives. Our mind is constantly looking for supportive evidence of what our subconscious believes. When the subconscious stores fundamentally painful beliefs, they become projected onto our reality everywhere we look. Therefore, it is essential to begin looking for contradictory evidence for our core wounds to reprogram our subconscious and heal our everyday perspectives. Contradictory evidence is information that disproves existing beliefs. Since memory is colored by emotion, finding contradictory evidence in our past and present and pairing it with the emotions associated with that experience allows us to begin reprogramming our subconscious. Essentially, finding proof of the opposite helps to equilibrate our subconscious, and from there, it can be taught new and updated beliefs.

The Qing created a system of district lecturers who were appointed based on their scholarship, age, and worthy character. Twice a month they would expound upon the relevant imperial maxims, and attendance at such lectures was compulsory. Good children would be hailed and rotten elements would be vilified—with their names posted in public places, to remain there until they saw the error of their ways and sought a return to the fold. This practice was adopted by the CCP to promote local or national heroes to be emulated while vilifying persons who were negative examples. This meant that the state defined an expansive role for itself and that, unlike in the West, its role as moral arbiter was not challenged by other organizations, such as organized religion.

AS A MASTER OF SELF, when I look into the eyes of another individual I see another Authentic Self, a beautiful expression of the Divine. No matter where this person is in the process of awakening, I respect that his or her intent is just as powerful as mine, and doing so is an act of unconditional love. If I were to try to control this person, I would be lost in the fog and place conditions on my love and acceptance of him or her. If you see the world through the eyes of conditional love, you are by definition attempting to control others, imposing your will so that they conform to the definition of who and what you think they should be. If they don't agree to your demands, they will receive the punishment of your judgment. This is conditional love in a nutshell. But remember, every time you judge someone you are punishing that person for not following agreements they never made. As you look back over your life, you can see that many of the relationship battles you thought were for your own personal freedom were really battles of who was going to domesticate whom. And every time you experienced a moment of anger, outrage, indignation, or any other negative emotion as the result of someone else's behavior, you created a dream of villains and victims, and you were once again caught in the drama of the party. Perceiving yourself as a victim and another as a villain doesn't allow you to see the person who is actually standing before you: you don't see their story, their past, their heartbreaks, and how all of that has impacted their life and contributed to forming the person you're talking to. All you can see through the fog of domestication is that the person you have cast as the villain in your story isn't living up to the values you think they should. But when you see another with the eyes of unconditional love, you are then able to clearly see who is actually in front of you, a living being who is trying to survive and thrive in a world filled with domestication and conditional love. Unconditional love allows you to disagree with the choices or beliefs of others while still respecting their right to have them. Practicing unconditional love is the art of the Master of Self. Once you have recognized, released, and forgiven the self-judgments that have arisen from your own domestication, you can then recognize and forgive others when they act from their domestication. The person in front of you has been domesticated, and now they want to pass that on to you because it's all they know. However, they can only subjugate you with your permission.

Mr Xi worries about what h e calls “historical nihilism”: a tendency that was once evident among China’s liberals (though few dare raise their heads these days) to dwell on negative aspects of the party’s history, especially during Mao’s brutal rule. Study of the four histories is intended to ensure that no such nihilism mars the party’s birthday. Instead, the idea is that only one lesson can be drawn from the party’s past century, and that is an uplifting one. There is an app to help, called “Study the Great Nation”.

In the six years that we dealt with them, they never broke any term of the agreement. Did I trust them? I didn’t even know them! So here is a key. In the absence of trust, you need a mechanical substitute to give them an incentive not to cheat. It can be a monetary structure as above. It can be money in escrow or potential negative opinions by third parties. It can be the net present value of future profits from the deal.

Just as is the case in the years between 1938 and 1943, in exactly the same way as now, the same ill-founded reproaches were made then: well, if you bring the Nordic man so much to the fore, you're creating a new split, a new class-distinction,-it's a new class hatred. We're overcoming the social barriers, so I've been told by important party members, and now you're setting up racial ones. My reply to these people has always been: If you want to look at things in a negative way, there is nothing in the world which you cannot see in a negative way. From the negative angle, of course, you can argue that way. I see it differently, for I see it on this plane: What is the binding factor which holds the man in East Prussia and the man in the Black Forest together, the man in Schleswig-Holstein and in Hamburg and the man in Munich, in Graz, in Pomerania, in Berlin and in the Rhineland? What is then the factor or the element which contains all that is dear and precious and valuable to us? It is in fact what we Germans call inherent culture, it is this Germanic, this Nordic component of our blood.

For us the question of blood was a reminder of our own worth, a reminder of what is actually the basis holding this German people together. Just as is the case in the years between 1938 and 1943, in exactly the same way as now, the same ill-founded reproaches were made then: well, if you bring the Nordic man so much to the fore, you're creating a new split, a new class-distinction,-it's a new class hatred. We're overcoming the social barriers, so I've been told by important party members, and now you're setting up racial ones. My reply to these people has always been: If you want to look at things in a negative way, there is nothing in the world which you cannot see in a negative way. From the negative angle, of course, you can argue that way. I see it differently, for I see it on this plane: What is the binding factor which holds the man in East Prussia and the man in the Black Forest together, the man in Schleswig-Holstein and in Hamburg and the man in Munich, in Graz, in Pomerania, in Berlin and in the Rhineland? What is then the factor or the element which contains all that is dear and precious and valuable to us? It is in fact what we Germans call inherent culture, it is this Germanic, this Nordic component of our blood.

A party, or any institution that is in power or opposition, does all things to get only its own goal and interests, no matter in a legal way or through illegal resources, like forces, print and electronic media, and negative propaganda among the people, spending the millions of money for this. It is called dirty politics by the support of evil spirits. Most of the political parties criticize the party in power, not for the best of the people, but to get the power for themselves. Political parties are national and democratic assets, not leaders; don’t destroy them; however, remove corrupt and criminal ones from them. Undoubtedly, political parties constitute the key mother pillar of all pillars of democracy; no state can achieve its goals and interests without them. The day you vote is an opportunity to vote not for a leader but for a party manifesto and constructive thoughts and plans. Indeed, you will have good fortune, a bright and joyful social status, and prosperity will always be a part of your society and life. Political parties in every society are a convenient avenue and beneficial wager for those donors who donate and rule the world, not through bona fide democracy and its genuine process. As a result, the people of the world remain slaves even in a civilized environment in their societies.” A coalition, in a political term, defines a conditional and non-significant journey that starts risking the collapse without notice, whereas it also mirrors a hollow and unstable organ to decide and solve wide-scale subjects and issues. In the third world, political leaders run political parties in the frame of their factory management.

Yet Jesus went further. When people asked him for ‘a sign from heaven’, he saw their request as a sign of unbelief. They wanted things to be obvious. The only sign he would give them, he said, was another prophetic sign: the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12.39). Jonah disappeared into the belly of the whale – and then came out alive, three days later. That, said Jesus, was the ‘sign’ that would tell his generation what was going on. The other ‘signs’ that Jesus was doing were not negative ones. They were not like the prophetic ‘signs’ to which Amos referred, or indeed like the ‘signs’ that Moses and Aaron performed in Egypt to try to shake Pharaoh out of his complacency and allow the Israelites to go free. Those ‘signs’ were strange warning signals: plagues of frogs, or locusts, or rivers turning into blood. Jesus’ ‘signs’ (John gives us a neat catalogue of them) were all about new creation: water into wine, healings, food for the hungry, sight for the blind, life for the dead. The other Gospels chip in with several more, including parties with all the wrong kind of people, indicating a future full of forgiveness. All these were forward-looking signs, declaring the new thing that God was doing. Was doing now.

This means that nobody is to interject while the other person is talking. Cutting a person off mid-sentence tends to be perceived negatively, which can escalate aggression. If possible, have another person facilitate the conversation, warning both parties to

A party, or any institution that is in power or in opposition, does all things to get only for its own goal and interests, no matter in a legal way or through illegal resources, like forces, print, and electronic media, and negative propaganda among the people, spending the millions of money for this. It is called dirty politics by the support of evil spirits.

This is a big one. One of the most prominent sources of stress in peoples lives is the worry of things which MIGHT happen. We can all recall times when we have lost sleep over seemingly menial things. Will my new work colleagues like me? Will I fail my exam next week? What if bad weather ruins my garden party this weekend? The list is endless. However, continually fretting about things does us no good. It will only result in anxiety and unnecessary internal suffering, which in turn will affect our daily lives in a negative manner. Instead, and as

This is an important tactic at other points in the negotiation as well. When the other party throws out an offer you can’t accept, say nothing. When the other party asks for a concession you don’t want to provide, say nothing. Even when the other party offers a concession to you, but you think you can get more, keep your mouth shut. In our society, most people get very uncomfortable with prolonged silence. Especially when someone else has initiated the discussion and we are now expected to answer. By maintaining your silence, one of two things is likely to happen: The other party will get uncomfortable with the silence, and will break it themselves; or The other party will interpret our silence as anger or disappointment, and will work to rectify the negative reaction.

He (George Washington) saw those dangers to good government without even exposure to today’s runaway election expenses. For the presidency alone, what is more wasteful than the multimillions of dollars raised and spent for presidential primaries? All evidence is that today, the true best and brightest of our potential national leaders have no appetite for entering into the long, long months of primaries, raising and spending those multimillions, exhausting all that money and themselves, getting their careers dissected and maligned. Then, the “lucky” winner emerging in the fall is usually so smeared by his primary rivals that the other party simply has to raise a few reminders of what a candidate’s own party “friends” had said about him or her. Hell of a system, after more than 230 years of the evolution of our democracy.

CAMPBELL CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE FROM that of a holding room where you wait to meet Christ later to a living room in which to commune with Christ’s consciousness here and now. It’s not just the personal-relationship “Buddy Jesus” I was taught in Sunday school, the Divine Pal we keep in our pockets, sticking His head out of our handbags like a purse dog, ready to offer help finding parking or protection from the flu that’s been going around. It’s an invitation you extend for His essence to pass through you. Active and empowering, not just “please protect me,” but transform me. Merge with me. Help me kill this overactive, critical, limiting brain of mine. Help me escape the dungeons of cultural expectation, familial expectation, all the I shoulds and I shouldn’ts, I cans and I can’ts. Help me take the small person inside me and kick his ass, leave him for dead, and resurrect to my full, connected, light-filled potential. The story is you being reborn, you getting saved from your basic, boring, limited, mundane, same-story-at-every-party, same-vacation-every-year, same-restaurant-every-birthday, same-river-of-negative-thoughts self-loathing and cruel humanity and awakening to who you really are. Go and do likewise.

Surround yourself with people who bring more sunshine than shade, who turn “ugh” into “ahh,” and who sprinkle laughter like confetti. Life’s too short for gloomy vibes and energy vampires. So, wave goodbye to negativity and welcome those who light up your world. Your tribe should be a mix of comedians, dreamers, and go-getters—folks who make even mundane moments feel like a party. Remember, to choose your circle ⭕️ wisely.

and I would be voting to impeach a president who was a member of my party. I needed to explain why. I knew that what I was about to do would likely have negative political consequences for me in Wyoming. But there was no question what my oath required.

A recent cross-sectional study in two states, Ohio and Florida,37 showed that the rate of death in those states was strongly associated with political party affiliation—after May 2021, when vaccines were freely available to all adults, the death rate for Republican voters was 43 percent higher than for Democratic voters. The long echo of the negative public response to COVID-19 has led to greater resistance to all forms of vaccination, putting children at risk for diseases like measles and polio that had almost been eradicated in the developed world. This may be the most consequential example of distrust of science in modern history.

A recent cross-sectional study in two states, Ohio and Florida,37 showed that the rate of death in those states was strongly associated with political party affiliation—after May 2021, when vaccines were freely available to all adults, the death rate for Republican voters was 43 percent higher than for Democratic voters. The long echo of the negative public response to COVID-19 has led to greater resistance to all forms of vaccination, putting children at risk for diseases like measles and polio that had almost been eradicated in the developed world. This may be the most consequential example of distrust of science in modern history. This circumstance is utterly contrary to the way a person or a nation should respond to a threatening pandemic: political party should be set aside in favor of clearheaded and objective assessment of the facts. But with our current separation into divisive tribal communities, the opportunity for thoughtful considerations of options—for achieving wisdom—has mostly been lost. The consequences have been truly tragic.

I wasn’t daft. I could recognize my own negative influence in her eager desire to lie with permission. Not that it was really lying . . . it was just doing what I liked to do—play a part.

From the beginning of the trip to Egypt there had been strange rumours. The dark anecdotes which make up much of the story of Hadrian’s stay in Egypt nearly all reflect a deep unease and the gradual emergence of the negative aspects of the emperor’s character. Despite the beautiful companion at his side, it seems that from the time he left Athens in 129 Hadrian was more introspective and more uneasy. How much of the account of the Egyptian tour has grown up as a dramatic framework to what happened next is impossible to clarify, but there was some kind of shadow hanging over the party and the tension was exacerbated by the volatile situation in Egypt itself.

partners are neither perfect as individuals nor perfectly matched, even in the best scenarios. All partners have some traits that are less desirable, and those traits can drive us crazy. When those traits go unmitigated and manifest themselves as chronic meanness, cruelty or a lack of concern, then people are right to point out these concerning characteristics and to ask for some mindful changes on the part of the guilty party. When we are guilty of allowing our worst traits to get the best of us and of allowing those traits to consistently have a negative impact on our relationship, reasonable requests for discussion should not be ignored or dismissed. No partner is perfect, and part of a relationship is showing a consistent effort to manage your own weaknesses, while showing some consistent grace when it comes to your partner’s weaknesses.

HEART ACTION Plan a tea party to gather together some old or new friends. Even having just one person over for a cup of tea and good conversation will create a time of hospitality and connection. Make it simple so that you enjoy it and can focus on sharing your heart with your guests. A TEA PARTY HAS ITS OWN MANNERS Serving tea is a wonderful excuse for sharpening etiquette around the table. Mothers can use this time to teach their young daughters about the importance of learning and practicing good manners. • The server of teas and all liquids will serve from the right. The person being served will hold their cups in the left hand. You may adjust this if the person receiving is left-handed. • To prevent from getting lipstick on your teacup, blot your lipstick before you sit down at the serving table. • Scones and crumpets should be eaten in small bite-sized pieces. If butter, jam, or cream is used, add them to each piece as it is eaten. • Good manners will dictate proper conversation. The goodies are theatre, museums, fine arts, music, movies, literature, and travel. The baddies are politics, religion, aches and pains, deaths, and negative discussion. Keep the conversation upbeat. • A knife and fork are usually used with open-faced sandwiches and cakes with icing. • Milk or cream is always added after the tea is poured.

How much does this thing cost?” Travis says, walking closer to it. Honestly, Travis is always like this. A negative nelly is what my mother would call him. He always has to ask the questions that nobody wants to answer because it ruins all the fun. “Well, that’s a hard question. Are you talking about the rental price or the price of all the smiles on everyone’s faces as they are having the time of their lives?” “The rental price.” “Well, here’s the thing−” I start, but he holds his hand up and looks to Tina. “$1599.00 plus deposit and taxes,” she says. “WHAT?” Travis exclaims. “No way! Forget it. This is a veto.” “You can’t use a veto for this!” I argue. “Well, I just did,” he says, shrugging. I can see he has already put the idea out of his mind, which is completely ridiculous. I mean, I know it is pretty expensive, but then I think of all the fun memories everyone will make together− and can you really put a price on that? “Travis, you’re not seeing the bigger picture here!” I argue. “We said a small party. A couple of friends, some food and wine. This,” he says, pointing to the obstacle course, “is not small.” “Who wants small for a thirtieth birthday party? I mean, you only turn thirty once−” From the look on Travis’ face I decide to switch tactics. “What about if we charge people?” “You’re crazy,” he says. “Not our guests, but the neighbours and stuff. Kind of like a carnival.” Actually, I just thought of that idea right here and now, but it’s not a bad one. Plus, it might be easier to have the neighbours agree to have it on the street if I let them join in the fun. “Or we could just stick to the regular plan,” Travis says and turns to Tina. “I’m sorry we wasted your time.” I already know the next part of this conversation is not going to go well. “I kind of already put the deposit down,” I say, trying to get an imaginary piece of dirt off my sweater. No one says anything and I am starting to feel pretty sorry for Tina because she looks beyond uncomfortable with the conversation. “What kind of deposit?” Travis says in a low tone. “The non-refundable kind,” I say, biting my lip. “How much was the deposit?” he asks, looking from me to Tina. Tina’s eyes are wide and she looks to me desperately, asking me to rescue her from this awkwardness. Honestly, if anyone needs a life jacket right now− it’s me. “Nimfy perfin,” I mumble. “What?” “Ninety percent,” I say, meeting his eyes. “The remaining ten percent is due on delivery.” “You really are crazy,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you are getting all worked up about,” I say. “I’m paying for it!” “Etty, this… thing… is your rent for the month!” “I’ll take extra shifts,” I say, shrugging. “I wanted to make sure Scott’s day was really special.” “It’s going to be special because he’s with his friends and family. You don’t need to do these things.” “Yes, I do!” I say. “It’s how I show people that I care about them.” “Write them a nice card,” Travis says slowly. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’re always the storm cloud that rains on my parade!” “No, I’m the voice of reason in a land of eternal sunshine and daisies,” he says, and turns to Tina. “Is there any way we can get her deposit back?” Tina is now fidgeting with her skirt. “No, I’m sorry, but−” “Don’t worry Tina, I don’t want my deposit back. What I want is my brother to have the best day ever with his friends and family on a hundred foot inflatable obstacle course,” I narrow my eyes at Travis while lifting my purse further up my shoulder. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and start my first of twenty overtime shifts to pay for the best day of all of our lives.

Picture the athlete at the starting line of a race—adrenaline pumping, energy flowing, muscles tightening, skin aglow with anticipatory perspiration, heart beating faster and faster, the mind focused on only one thing: the starter’s gun and the race. Now, picture the person about to enter a social gathering. He or she approaches the door, behind which a number of people are talking, laughing, having fun—adrenaline pumping, energy flowing, pulse beginning to quicken, the mind focused on anticipation: “What will happen when I enter the room?” “Will I see anyone I know?” “What will they think of me?” What do these situations have in common? The answer is anxiety. For the athlete, anxiety is channeled into energy that just may win the race. By allowing the anxiety to play a role in gearing him or her up for the race, the athlete is making good use of the natural fight-or-flight response. For the partygoer, it is not so clear. If that person is willing to let being “keyed up” or “excited” be a positive kind of energy flow, then any initial nervousness or uncertainty will remain manageable and nonthreatening. But if the physical sensations of anxiety become distracting and the thoughts obsessive, the party guest is in for a difficult time. Similarly, a person who prepares for an important meeting may feel a kind of nervous energy in gearing up for negotiations. But if that same person, although well prepared, allows interactive inhibition to keep him from suggesting a solution, questioning a point, or voicing an opinion, he will feel a real letdown. When holding back becomes a habit, the pervasive feeling of “Oh no, I did it again” may lead to a lack of enthusiasm that interferes with productivity and job satisfaction. The truth is, we all want to be heard without—if we can reasonably avoid it—being rejected or embarrassed. How to resolve this dilemma? First, by understanding anxiety in its simplest terms. The more you understand about anxiety, the more you will be able to control it. Remember, social anxiety is not some abstract phenomenon or indelible personality trait. It is an explainable dynamic that you can choose to control. Let’s look more closely at the athlete. For that person, in that situation, anxiety is normal and appropriate. In fact, it is crucial to effective performance. Without it, the physiological workings of the body would fall short of what is required. In the second example, anxiety is also appropriate. But it can become negative if the person begins to worry about what is going on inside the room: “What are they laughing about?” “Will anyone talk to me?” “Am I dressed right?” “Will I seem nervous?” At that point it’s the degree of incapacity—the extent to which the anxious feelings and thoughts prevent interacting—that becomes the most important issue. (In the workplace, these thoughts may run to “Have I done enough research?” “What if I can’t answer my boss’s questions?” “Can they tell I’m anxious?”)

List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.

A piece of paper is not an eraser or a bottle of correction fluid. It may legally negate the “contract” between two parties, as a lawyer might put it. But it cannot expunge the memories, the traditions, the patterns that spring up between a couple, no matter how good or bad the state of their relationship.

La phrase de Brecht : le parti a mille yeux mais l'individu n'en a que deux, est fausse comme toutes les vérités premières. L'imagination exacte d'un dissident peut voir plus que mille yeux auxquels on a mis les lunettes roses de l'unité et qui ensuite confondent ce qu'ils perçoivent avec l'universalité du vrai, et régressent. C'est à cela que s'oppose l'individuation de la connaissance. De celle-ci, de la différenciation, ne dépend pas seulement la perception de l'objet : elle est tout autant elle-même constituée à partir de l'objet qui en elle réclame pour ainsi dire sa restitutio in integrum. Néanmoins, les modes de réaction subjectifs dont l'objet a besoin ont eux-mêmes besoin d'être incessamment corrigés sur l'objet. Cela s'accomplit dans l'autoréflexion, ferment de l'expérience spirituelle. Le processus de l'objectivation philosophique serait, pour l'exprimer métaphoriquement, vertical, infratemporel, face à l'horizontal, abstraitement quantifiant, de la science : c'est là toute la vérité de la métaphysique du temps de Bergson.

The conflict between left and right in modern republics is a sort of perpetual-motion mechanism and negative spiral at the same time. When we support political parties, it is regrettable more than just a matter of adopting certain political beliefs. We are also expected to agree that our party's beliefs are better than those held by the other party. Feelings of hostility and superiority are an inevitable byproduct of partisan competition. The media encourages representatives of both sides to vent their emotions, because this sells newspapers and boosts ratings. When we hear that other disagree viscerally with us, we tend to return the feeling of emotional dislike.

But before, not so long ago - my own rose from prom still OK on the mirror, dried but not a corpse - you were just Ed Slaterton, jocky hero, handsome in the student newspaper and star of a million strands of gossip. Now Annette was a person to me, standing right there, and not just an oh-my-God-have-you-heard, and I tried to put it together in my head, the print and the negative, the boyfriend and the celebrity shadow, like Theodora Sire sat next to me in history, borrowing pencils, but was still a movie star above my bed. Because as you came out of the dark to me, you were the boy I was kissing and wanted to kiss more, back to find me at a party like anybody might do, but you were Ed Slaterton too, and not the cad you are now, but just Ed Slaterton, co-captain, with a beer in your hand and Jillian Beach on your arm.