Co-operation without Competition: Mental Health and Politics.
Dariusz Baran
(delivered in the Mental Health Europe Conference – Sinaia, Romania – 1999)
What I am going to say in this speech is that co-operation in politics is utopian. At the same time I believe that to co-operate is a spiritual need, a requirement for mental health.
I am not only a clinical psychologist at work, but a local politician in my city as well. So whatever I say that is critical of politics I am saying about myself.
A fundamental definition politics says that it is about "who gets, what when and how". Politics is a process of sharing poverty and wealth. People's needs are unlimited, but resources are limited. Therefore, not everybody will be satisfied with their share. If deceit and brute strength are not to be the chief means of trying to eliminate such dissatisfaction, if there is to be any community among humans, then some rules, behavioural boundaries, and accepted practices must exist to constrain the struggle for
redistribution of limited resources.
Mentally disturbed people are less productive and less effective within the economy. So they are an obstacle on the way to prosperity. For what rational reason should mental health be a priority on the political agenda? Maybe there is a risk in any political activity of a split in politicians' minds as they try to please their voters.
Seeing politics as an instrumental process, I could say that when I deal with my mental health difficulty alone it is my personal problem. When I join a well organized group of people caring for mental health issues with the capacity to influence a major part of society, then it is a political act. To mobilize a majority of society around any idea however stupid, is to become a politician. Democracy rules that the majority is always right.
But central to democracy is also the belief that individuals are important, that political institutions exists to serve them rather than the reverse. Closely related is the belief that individuals can manage their own affairs better than someone else can do that for them. Democracy assumes only a hope that in the long run people are usually good judges, and that they can distinguish sensible policies from shortsighted ones and capable leaders from incompetent ones. But the only course for human growth is through
one's own experience, including mistakes.
Politics implies conflict. If everyone agreed about everything there would be no politics. Human beings create governmental structures to channel (not eliminate) conflict. Conflict is a part of the creative process in the nature of living+. Someone has to make the rules; someone has to assign the benefits; someone has to be able to apply any sanctions necessary to implement these decisions. The best people to do it are politicians selected in free election, though with the support of the media nowadays.
The essence of politics is always competition. More or less brutal, this can sometimes be very sophisticated competition. Called co-operation, this is when two or more partners co-operate together to win a competition with another group. I believe in co-operation within non-profit relationships. This is called friendship, when people enjoy staying and doing something together without winners or losers.
The aim of politics is to make human life: freer, healthier, and richer, but not necessarily happier or without pain and risk. Only happiness is outside of political control.
When people grow afraid of other people's behaviour they usually turn to power, especially to organized power, political power. They want an authority to take the burden of responsibility off their shoulders. They get excited about money and position because they want to be safe and secure. They want everybody to agree with them, because they feel safe in their beliefs. People want an authority to tell the others what to do to make them feel safe. Politicians can easily overuse people's needs and offer a mystified solution. If you vote for me you will feel safe and happy. It's a hypnotic induction. Politicians can't actually make people feel really safe and happy.
I believe that people with a high level of mental health think for themselves and feel for themselves, and as a result they know what they want to do. One of the surest signs of a person's well-being is their ability to stand alone, to be different from other people, to think differently and feel differently and behave differently.
We are only persons at all through our relations with other persons. The core of human mental health lies therefore in our capacity to be ourselves for other people. Friendship is the essence of mental health. Our own well-being consists precisely in our ability to know people as they are and to love them for what they really are.
I believe that co-operation without competition is possible only as friendship. Is friendship reachable in politics?
Political rules are blind to friendship. The free market is a competition for profit and the highest efficiency and effectiveness^. A free election is a competition for the power to implement the best policy for the major part of a society in the required time.
I believe that a politician can be a good friend to his or her voters when he or she lets them be different and committed with others in their own way. This means that a politician helps people to become mentally healthy. A good politician is ready to take a risk to promote independent thinking and free commitment among people even if he or she has to stand alone on the public stage.
Dariusz Baran
(delivered in the Mental Health Europe Conference – Sinaia, Romania – 1999)
What I am going to say in this speech is that co-operation in politics is utopian. At the same time I believe that to co-operate is a spiritual need, a requirement for mental health.
I am not only a clinical psychologist at work, but a local politician in my city as well. So whatever I say that is critical of politics I am saying about myself.
A fundamental definition politics says that it is about "who gets, what when and how". Politics is a process of sharing poverty and wealth. People's needs are unlimited, but resources are limited. Therefore, not everybody will be satisfied with their share. If deceit and brute strength are not to be the chief means of trying to eliminate such dissatisfaction, if there is to be any community among humans, then some rules, behavioural boundaries, and accepted practices must exist to constrain the struggle for
redistribution of limited resources.
Mentally disturbed people are less productive and less effective within the economy. So they are an obstacle on the way to prosperity. For what rational reason should mental health be a priority on the political agenda? Maybe there is a risk in any political activity of a split in politicians' minds as they try to please their voters.
Seeing politics as an instrumental process, I could say that when I deal with my mental health difficulty alone it is my personal problem. When I join a well organized group of people caring for mental health issues with the capacity to influence a major part of society, then it is a political act. To mobilize a majority of society around any idea however stupid, is to become a politician. Democracy rules that the majority is always right.
But central to democracy is also the belief that individuals are important, that political institutions exists to serve them rather than the reverse. Closely related is the belief that individuals can manage their own affairs better than someone else can do that for them. Democracy assumes only a hope that in the long run people are usually good judges, and that they can distinguish sensible policies from shortsighted ones and capable leaders from incompetent ones. But the only course for human growth is through
one's own experience, including mistakes.
Politics implies conflict. If everyone agreed about everything there would be no politics. Human beings create governmental structures to channel (not eliminate) conflict. Conflict is a part of the creative process in the nature of living+. Someone has to make the rules; someone has to assign the benefits; someone has to be able to apply any sanctions necessary to implement these decisions. The best people to do it are politicians selected in free election, though with the support of the media nowadays.
The essence of politics is always competition. More or less brutal, this can sometimes be very sophisticated competition. Called co-operation, this is when two or more partners co-operate together to win a competition with another group. I believe in co-operation within non-profit relationships. This is called friendship, when people enjoy staying and doing something together without winners or losers.
The aim of politics is to make human life: freer, healthier, and richer, but not necessarily happier or without pain and risk. Only happiness is outside of political control.
When people grow afraid of other people's behaviour they usually turn to power, especially to organized power, political power. They want an authority to take the burden of responsibility off their shoulders. They get excited about money and position because they want to be safe and secure. They want everybody to agree with them, because they feel safe in their beliefs. People want an authority to tell the others what to do to make them feel safe. Politicians can easily overuse people's needs and offer a mystified solution. If you vote for me you will feel safe and happy. It's a hypnotic induction. Politicians can't actually make people feel really safe and happy.
I believe that people with a high level of mental health think for themselves and feel for themselves, and as a result they know what they want to do. One of the surest signs of a person's well-being is their ability to stand alone, to be different from other people, to think differently and feel differently and behave differently.
We are only persons at all through our relations with other persons. The core of human mental health lies therefore in our capacity to be ourselves for other people. Friendship is the essence of mental health. Our own well-being consists precisely in our ability to know people as they are and to love them for what they really are.
I believe that co-operation without competition is possible only as friendship. Is friendship reachable in politics?
Political rules are blind to friendship. The free market is a competition for profit and the highest efficiency and effectiveness^. A free election is a competition for the power to implement the best policy for the major part of a society in the required time.
I believe that a politician can be a good friend to his or her voters when he or she lets them be different and committed with others in their own way. This means that a politician helps people to become mentally healthy. A good politician is ready to take a risk to promote independent thinking and free commitment among people even if he or she has to stand alone on the public stage.