The deeper the love, the more hurtful the pain

America has historically felt pretty good about herself. Others look up to her. She likes to tell other nations what to do and usually thinks she has the right answer. She looks great--purple mountains, amber waves of grain. Though she's seen some wear, her national parks still show off her best side. Her people make her extremely interesting and complex. And she has a very strong foundation. But lately she's not feeling so well. She's harboring a lot of internal conflict, and she is really touchy these days. And it's not helping that she spends so much time on Twitter. Feeling valued A pivotal point in the campaign came on the night of the second nationally televised debate during which the president and his opponent faced questions from a live studio audience. One woman asked the candidates a rather confusing question: `How has the national debt affected each of your lives? And if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them? President Bush was in the unenviable position of having to answer first. I'm not sure I get the question. Finally, it was Clinton's turn. He got down from his stool, walked towards the woman and said, `Tell me - how has it affected you again? She talked, and for every problem that she raised, he responded with an aspect of his economic plan, phrased in the language and experience of his questioner. Many political commentators believe that, in that moment, Bill Clinton won the American presidency.

Nancy and Shaun McCartney have tried--often in vain--to bring the attention of Canadians to the potential dangers of a drug their son was taking after being given a sample at the doctor's office. The Bolton, Ontario, family lost their dear son, Brennan, at age eighteen, after he went to the doctor for symptoms of a chest cold. Sounds innocent enough, right? Asked about his spirits, the usually outgoing Brennan admitted to feeling low about a breakup and was given a sample of an antidepressant called Cipralex. Four days later, after having left the house the day before and not returning, he was found dead in a park near his home. Brennan had hanged himself. The McCartneys didn't seek media attention. Instead, it came to them through an investigation into a possible link between SSRIs and suicide. Their motivation is not a long, drawn-out and costly lawsuit. When I asked Nancy McCartney, who was an elementary school principal at the time of Brennan's death, how long it took after losing her son for her grief to turn into anger and action, she responded: She's mad half the time and makes decisions before she counts to ten. You'd think, at the age of 242, that she would know better. As columnist David Brooks noted, We used to have a certain framework of decency within which we held our debates, and somehow we've lost our framework. I read classic works of European social critics who saw American democracy as a beacon of light to the world. I listened to the incredible story of Daryl Davis, the African-American blues musician whose friendship with members of the KKK inspired them to relinquish their robes. I found places where people discuss politics without rancor. And I talked with a West Virginia conservationist who looked to coal executives for help. Narcissism vs. What does Brooks's envisioned framework of decency for debates have to do with narcissism? In its pathological manifestations, narcissism renders individuals and groups incapable of the engagement crucial to shared problem-solving and collective governance.

It was because he addressed one of our basic emotional needs: he made her feel valued. He involved the woman who asked the question. He didn't talk at her, as President Bush had done, but rather talked and engaged with her. Most of us desire the positive emotions brought on by feeling valued. These people also reported being more productive when they are around positive people who value them. Most of us desire the positive emotions brought on by feeling valued. One of the first changes that Sir Terry Leahy implemented as Tesco's chief executive was to change the format of a simple question, to dramatic effects. When managers visit a store, they no longer ask, `What's gone wrong? It is no surprise that Leahy has been voted one of Britain's most admired business leaders. At the seminars, trainers use the analogy of the `emotional tank' to get coaches to think about the right ratio of praise, support and critical feedback. We were not immediately angry. We were seeking to understand and seeking answers as nothing made sense; We [Nancy and husband Shaun] were going for individual counselling with Dr Leslie Balmer, and I remember saying to her, I can't help but wonder if the medication had something to do with Brennan's death. Leslie had been wondering the same thing. It was at that time that they learned from the coroner that no toxicology testing had been done because of the manner in which Brennan died. Nancy says that's when the anger began. We felt that the Coroner was not interested in determining the cause of death as they knew he had died from hanging. They had no interest in examining any mitigating factors. We knew that many people died from suicide and we naively thought that the Coroner's Office and Health Canada would want to know why. We thought they were in place to protect the citizens of Canada.

German philosopher Theodor Adorno said, Democracy is nothing less than defined by critique. He elaborated, The system of checks and balances, the reciprocal overview of the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary, means as much as that each of these powers subjects the others to critique and thereby reduces the despotism that each power, without this critical element, gravitates to. Citing evidence of growing political polarization, such as increased political homogeneity among married couples and within residential neighborhoods, Shanto Iyengar and Sean Westwood set out to evaluate the level of animosity between members of opposing political parties. They wanted to look beyond the open hostility that often infuses political debates and see to what degree attitudes toward political differences infiltrate nonpolitical and personal domains. Their findings, published in the 2015 report, Fear and Loathing across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization, offer a sobering perspective. Using the Implicit Associations Test--famous for exposing the unconscious biases of well-meaning people4--they reveal that unconscious hostility toward opposing party members is even stronger and more automatic than implicit hostility based on black-white racial polarization. While society places constraints on racial bias, partisan animosity is socially encouraged--as anyone can gather from a scan of social media posts. How often, for example, do we challenge fellow party members to check their facts and watch their assumptions? The study further showed that partisan animosity manifested in discriminatory practices, such as selecting students for scholarships based on cues to party membership instead of qualifications reflected in their resumes. Discrimination based on party affiliation exceeded discrimination based on race. If your car's tank is empty, you can't drive very far. If your emotional tank is empty, you are not going to perform at your best. After the emotional tank analogy is introduced, the trainers begin an exercise. First, they ask the coaches to imagine that the person next to them has just missed an important chance in a game. The coaches are challenged to say something to the person to drain their emotional tank. Since clever put-downs are a staple of many sports, the exercise is embraced with noticeable enthusiasm. Thompson says, `The room fills with laughter as coaches get into the exercise, sometimes with great creativity. Then the coaches are asked to imagine that someone else has made the same mistake, but they're now in charge of s that person's emotional tank. This generates a more muted response. Thompson says, `The room often gets very quiet, and you finally hear a feeble, Nice try!

The McCartneys have been motivated to find another way to make a difference. Their mission is to inform Canadians in general--but especially youth--about the dangers not only of this particular drug but also of taking any prescription without reading the fine print. The biggest challenge they have faced is maintaining the energy needed to sustain advocacy, as well as balancing their battle with their need for healing and personal wellness. We did not want anger to consume us. We did not want to be bitter, angry people. We both felt that Brennan would want us to feel joy. I also have the personal belief that I will meet Brennan again and he will ask me, So, Mom, what did you do with your life? Today, in addition to their work trying to bring attention to the possible deadly side effects of Cipralex, the family honours Brennan's memory as a fighter for the underdog with the ARK Award for acts of random kindness at his high school. Nancy is also endeavouring to open people's eyes and minds to suicide and the role medication can play. I find the platitudes to be very draining. Finally, the researchers found that discrimination was motivated more by animosity toward members of the opposing party than by favoritism toward members of their own party. The authors of the study noted that this deep hostility sends a clear signal to elected officials to stay within, rather than reach across, party lines. The Dance of Collective Narcissism What fuels this hostility between parties? Social psychologists have long identified a tendency to overvalue members of one's own group (in-group love) while devaluing members of other groups (out-group hostility). Psychologist Drew Westen and his associates discovered, through brain imaging, that people with strong partisan identifications use rationalizations to turn off neural circuits channeling threatening information about their own party. At the same time, Westen discovered, the brain activates reward circuits that offer partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased reasoning. Though the brain does its part in protecting and enhancing in-group love, collective narcissism seems to have an important role in feeding out-group hatred. In 2009, Agnieszka Golec de Zavala and her colleagues launched an extensive project to quantify and study the characteristics of collective narcissism. They defined collective narcissism as an exaggerated in-group esteem contingent on external validation.