Everyone has a different motivator for growth; some are drawn by the creative excitement of exploring the unknown, while others are motivated by fear of negative consequences. When considering the growth of a whole country, we need to recognize the range of people's motivators and act appropriately. Carrots and sticks both have their place.
On the left wing, "stick" motivators are often considered unsavory and somewhat barbaric – words like punishment are rarely used. On the right wing, the "stick" motivators are inherently more valued, from military retribution to capital punishment. Underpinning the right wing orientation is a belief that humans need to be accountable for themselves and their actions, and therefore they need to feel serious consequences when they do something against the law or societal standards.
Instead of debating whether this is the best motivator for human growth, let's approach the issue more pragmatically: conservatives are saying that they personally do not trust human nature without "stick" punishments to keep people in line. This can also be read as a confession: we need strong consequences for mistakes to ensure we take personal responsibility.
A revealing thing is happening with this fall's election. Republican candidates across the country are scrubbing two things from their websites, speeches, and campaign materials: George W. Bush and the Iraq War. One race I read about prominently featured web pictures of the candidate with John McCain at a fundraiser and made no mention of the fundraiser that featured the President. Across the board, Republicans are trying to make the elections focus on individual candidates and local politics. What is really happening is that they are tacitly admitting that they have made two major errors of judgment: lock-step support of a misguided President, and an expensive, botched, and deceptive war with Iraq.
In both areas, Republicans chose unification behind the party line instead of critical thinking, healthy challenge, and democratic processes. In both areas, they have made serious blunders with financial, political, and human consequences for the American people and the world. By largely omitting mention of those two areas in their campaign platforms much less proposing real and innovative changes moving forward, they are trying to escape the consequences for their leadership failures.
Instead, all of America is bearing the consequences of these decisions. Even many right-wing pundits are seeing George W. Bush as having led America in the wrong direction, and there are few people who do not see the Iraq war as a failure.
This brings us back to the conservative approach to motivation. If the Republican Party does not feel serious consequences for the failures that it is now tacitly admitting, it will not improve, reform, or come back into integrity. It has wielded power these last few years and there is nowhere else to lay the blame for major mistakes. If elected Republicans refuse to offer solutions or to bear the consequences, instead playing a shell-game with the American people, it is beholden upon Americans from across the political spectrum to reduce the party's power.
Accountability is at the foundation of conservative values. If the Republican Party has fallen prey to the seductions of power and is refusing to hold itself accountable for its actions, then conservatives and moderate Republicans should join fellow Americans from the other side of the political spectrum in ensuring that the party has a major loss of power in the fall. That would send a clear signal that the American people want leaders who are willing to take ownership for mistakes and work to address them.
If we have the usual Democratic-Republican tug-of-war with a high percentage sitting jaded on the sidelines, that will not happen. However, if Americans as a whole admit that something has gone quite wrong with the Republican party right now, it becomes a trans-partisan issue to rebalance the scales of power. Conservatives who can't bear to vote Democratic can abstain from voting or vote Libertarian. For moderates who see that both major parties are potentially problematic and need to be balanced, voting Democratic ensures there are some checks on Republican power in the next two years.
I see it as a moral obligation for all citizens of America to ensure that the Republican Party breaks the spiral of power intoxication, ethical decay, and arrogance that is leading it far away from the healthy expression of conservative values.
We Americans need to remember that politicians are our employees. And when political parties as a whole go awry, it is beholden upon us as the employers to ensure accountability. Otherwise, it is we the people who bear the consequences rather than those who are the source of the decisions.
www.stephendinan.com
Stephen Dinan is the author of Radical Spirit and the founder of the Radical Spirit community, as well as the Director of Membership and Marketing for the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He graduated from Stanford University with a degree in human biology and holds a master's in East-West psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Stephen directed and helped to create the Esalen Institute's Center for Theory & Research, a think tank for leading scholars, researchers, and teachers to explore human potential frontiers. Stephen has several books in process, including a companion volume to Radical Spirit entitled Radical Spirit in Action, a memoir set in India called In Kali's Garden, and a collection of poetry called Angelfire.
