Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Mission Anxiety Through the Roof

A frantic day preparing every last minute detail and overcoming several major obstacles only prefaced the tension at dinner tonight. Sitting down to eat with my parents at the table, I could hardly look them in the eye. My father was silent, and the silence spoke quite loudly from a man like my father. His voice usually audible over his roaring boat engine on fishing trips, the glimmer of his eye was pale and the blank glare beat down my enthusiasm and optimism like Freddie Mac beats down its slight lobbying competitors on Capitol Hill. My mom, shielding her grave concerns in a comforting pretense of supportive concern, finalized her understanding of the details of my whereabouts. Her biggest challenge was overcoming the broken English Google translation of the Russian itinerary I had emailed her. My parents are not happy with me, and perhaps I can understand why.
Operation Civil Elixir has its dangers. "What if someone stops me while I am on the computer?" "What if the participants report the research to the government?" "What if I am being watched the whole time?!" All of these questions and many more were thrown about tonight and for the past while. All these questions were asked under the pretense that encouraging a group of young people to decide as a group--democratically--how best to support local orphans with money from caring people is not only illegal, but dangerous and potentially deadly for an American. It may not be, depending on how Russian law enforcement interprets the new law, but it very well may be. Which brings me to what is more important than the dangers: the benefits.
True: I still do not have a outlet for publishing the massive amounts of knowledge and data that I am collecting. True: My methodology is brand new and unproven and my theory might not work. True: I am working this mission with very little fiduciary resources and no outside government or institutional support. But I am confident, and I believe just naive enough, to put everything on the line--my financial stability, my safety, my credibility, my time--trusting in myself that I can make it happen. And I can. My theory will work and I will find a publisher and lives will be saved and lives will be improved and nations will change. The implications of Operation Civil elixir reach far beyond my comparatively insignificant problems ad insufficiencies. If I can prove that it is possible for trained professionals to infiltrate the minds of citizens of countries on the brink of Democracy; if I can prove that those citizens can participate and institutionalize local Deliberative Democracy programs; if I can prove that these citizens then crave freedom for themselves more intensely than any craving instituted at the point of bayonet; then the world's destined concourse to freedom for all will be paved with intellects and enthusiasm instead of bodies and fear.
I wish I could name all of the people that have begun to pave that concourse with me (like "anonymous" who commented on a previous post), but for now it must suffice to mention that they have been many, and hopefully more to come. If you believe that people can live together in friendship, if you believe that we can show those who are living in fear to live with hope, if you want to see me come out of this safe, if you believe in Democracy and want to save the lives of those who protect it: Support this mission. Please leave a comment. Not too much to ask, right? And if you don't, please let me know why--I'll do my best to respond (or even maybe reconsider!). If you have a question, please ask--I would love to explain. Hope to hear from you soon.
Posted by Conditioning Democracy

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a problem. Google Forms is a pretty awesome tool that makes it easy to collect information.

As far figuring out how to entice people to fill out the DPS...I'm guessing your problem is not attracting unwanted attention, while at the same time attracting enough positive interest to make everything legitimate (?).

(If that is, in fact, the problem) The first thing that comes to mind is getting like minded people interested in the project, who then get their like-minded friends involved. Remember that movie "Pay It Forward", where the kid does something good for three people, who in turn do something good for three people each (thus the web of doing good grows exponentially)? Well, I would use that concept, just electronically.

Is there any reason you don't want to do this completely electronically (via internet)? By doing so, you'll be able to reach a greater amount of people, much faster.

But still, you still need to figure out how do make people want to take part. As you know, the good needs to outweigh the bad. My suggestion (if you haven't done so already) would be to start figuring out what the "bad" is, then finding ways to counteract it.

Overall, though, I think the internet might be your biggest asset in solving this problem.

July 15, 2008 at 11:25 PM
Anonymous said...

The person sitting across from me at the dinner table was no longer my little boy but a man who is pursuing his dream. My body and speech seemed composed while soul was crying with love and concern. I can not hold this man back. I must let him go. It's what I've tried to prepare him for all his life. But I felt so unprepared. Have I told him everything I should? Does he really know how much I love him? Does he know that his life is my life?
So as unprepared as I felt myself, I felt certain that he was prepared to follow his dream. And since love is trust then trust I must to let him go. I must trust him to pursue his dream in order to fulfill my own.
I know that you will return safely because I will pray for you every step of the way.
God speed.
Love, mom

July 15, 2008 at 11:31 PM
HoCo Stacey said...

We are proud of you and are sending many positive thoughts and prayers your way. Stacey and the HoCo gang

July 17, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Conditioning Democracy said...

--Anonymous
I like the internet idea. I have to figure out a way to work with aa RUssian university or the like. I know of one center that does social research independently, so I will contact them and see if they can help me find a way to electronically administer the DPS. I do know of several places online where I can post a scale, but again the trouble is finding people to take it....

For now I must so it in person especially since the trip includes DD pre/post scores. I think these will be important prelim data. And of course I must conduct the DD. I also think some Russian feedback would be nice. Also I've got to master the operational techniques (or at the very least discover what the challenges will be) to write my book :)

Thanks again!

July 25, 2008 at 6:23 AM

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Why Build Foreign Democracies?

Strong Democracies support the national security not only of the United States, but of the whole world. I'll explain this in terms of psychology: most people are in many important ways fundamentally similar. Natan Sharansky' book, The Case for Democracy, outlined an argument for freedom that relied on this belief. Essentially, people everywhere want the same things: peace, security, satisfaction, etc. Free societies will support these ends because people can act toward achieving what is in their best interest. Wars are truly not in the general interest of people. Free societies are safer because people will choose to be safe. When confronted with a simple choice between death and life, in a free society people will choose life.

I can already hear everyone shouting at me: "But they're different! If those people are free, they will all want war--they'll want the destruction of the United States and all the civility and culture of the West!" This doomsday scenario is actually a perfect example of the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). Look it up on Wikipedia. Don't feel bad if you feel this way, but you are not looking at the whole picture. We all have a tendency to overemphasize the role of the person and under-emphasize the power of the situation. It's impossible to judge what people who are living a fear-based society would do if they were living in freedom. But why would you jump to the conclusion that they are somehow fundamentally different from us? I think people see themselves in a wholly separate manner from the way they see anyone else. Just assume with me for the moment that other people want the same things from life that you do. They want to survive, they have fears, they want to succeed, they want some modicum of happiness, etc. What would the world look like? Probably very similar to the world that we already live in, right? People are placed in different situations. It's hard to imagine someone who would want an ultimately different set of goals in life. And everyone wants to be free. And everyone wants to be safe. And war does not fit into this picture at all. Free societies support everyone's security.

Aside from our own collective security, some have mentioned that strong liberal Democracies have a moral duty to spread liberal Democracy to other countries. I find this argument weak so I won't go there. But you certainly can.

And aside from both of those, liberal Democracies support the progress of science, industry, and economic development. If you think these are bad, then A) I feel sorry for you, and B) ignore this argument and take one of the above. Free societies liberate the innate creativity, ingenuity, and curiosity of humanity. This is what fosters development in these areas.

Proposing "Conditioning Democracy"

After nine years in the Gulag, Natan Sharansky might have conclusively refuted the self-evident nature of inalienability of Liberty in the USSR. Instead, he emerged triumphant, voicing the universal appeal of freedom in his seminal book, The Case for Democracy. With the moral clarity of America at stake, Sharansky writes about the inevitable rise of freedom and Democracy with moral authority like Andrew Jackson spoke about Manifest Destiny and like Karl Marx wrote about Communism: people in every country yearn to be free, and non-democratic governments prohibit this freedom. However with growing resentment toward the War in Iraq, criticisms of the expenditures of the United States on democratizing foreign countries have grown vociferous. The United States is past due for an policy overhaul: Americans want to maximize the impact of every resource allocated to promoting Democratic initiatives. John Prados’s Safe for Democracy identifies five tools that the United States has utilized to promote Democracy: behavior examples, diplomacy, economic sanctions, military force, and covert operations (propaganda). Each of these tools relies on Sharansky’s argument in a large measure for their success; each tool requires that people yearn for their own Democracy.

“Conditioning Democracy” proposes Democratic Propensity Theory to shape the much-needed policy overhaul. With a unique focus on individual endorsement of Democracy, “Conditioning Democracy” relates psychological principles to Democracy initiatives. The United States is missing a sixth tool from its toolbox: conditioning people for Democracy, creating the yearning for freedom from within individuals. Exposing individuals from emerging Democracies to successful Democratic deliberation experiences increases the individual’s propensity for Democratic government. Conditioning Democracy proposes policies that incorporate professional “operational” psychologists into missions that “condition” denizens of emerging Democracies, whole communities at a time, to accept the potential both for participation in Democratic government and Democratic rule of law. If policy-makers consider the evidence that I will present in “Conditioning Democracy,” new policy should both more efficiently use resources and perhaps also save lives.

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