Meet Canada’s new first lady, economist and author Diana Fox Carney
Diana met her husband, new Canadian PM Mark Carney, at Oxford University, where they both played ice hockey – they now have 4 daughters and she is an economist who has spoken out against consumerism.
A respected economist and author, Diana represents a stark contrast to her predecessor, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau. Trudeau, a retired Canadian television host, was celebrated for her glamorous style and was a darling of the Canadian people, said Elle. And although she comes from wealth, Diana has spurned consumerism and is not a lover of “things”.
According to Diana’s LinkedIn profile, she has master’s degrees in philosophy, politics and economics, and agricultural economics. She’s also a strategist for government policy: she served as vice-president of Canada 2020, a think tank focused on climate, energy, social mobility and inequality.
She was director of strategy and engagement at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London and has been a trustee of the Friends of the Royal Academy and a World Wide Fund for Nature ambassador.
As an economist, there’s no doubt Diana knows her way around money. Per The Guardian, she spends her spare time fighting consumerism and has said on a few occasions that “having more stuff does not make us happy”.
She’s been scathing in her approach to a consumerist culture, writing that she has “seen, first-hand, the devastation that our wilful refusal to change our consumerist habits is wreaking on marginal communities”, as also quoted by The Guardian.
I think the above video really reveals how Viktor Frankl was right when he said the following about the importance of responsibility in relation to freedoms.
Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
Viktor Frank Man’s Search for Meaning
What I’ve noticed over the years is a reoccurring pattern within society that pretty much sums this up. It can be seen in the behaviour of toxic males, toxic businesses, and toxic politics.
What many of these people want is the freedom to do anything they want but without having to take responsibility for what they do.
This is why victimhood and blame have become so rampant within our society today that they’ve effectively become a national past time, only further cultivating a reactionary approach to life for many people.
This is why the real work of our lives isn’t of an economic nature but of a psychological one.
The only way we can truly empower ourselves is by taking leadership and responsibility over our own lives, something which I myself struggle to work on daily.
A lot of young men had the sense that the Democrats didn’t see them as having problems. They saw them as being the problem.
Richard B. Reeves American Institute for Boys and Men
Yet in many ways, men are faring worse than their female peers. Young men have lower academic achievement. They’re more likely to still live with their parents. They suffer more deaths caused by opioid overdoses and suicide. Younger White men from low-income households in particular are worse off than their fathers on most economic and social measures.
Men today have also become more isolated. Americans across the board spend more time alone than was the case 20 years ago — but this is especially true for young men.
That’s arguably how Trump won over young men, too — less with his policies and more with his macho affect and his ability to help isolated young men feel welcome and liked. After all, Trump’s agenda has done little to address the economic and mental health challenges young men face. Indeed, Reeves says American men’s policy preferences haven’t changed much in recent years.
On some level, the very things that disturb fussy establishment pundits like me —Trump’s strongman tendencies; his propensity to arbitrarily fire people and break stuff without regard to consequences — might appeal most to young male populists frustrated by a system they believe has abandoned them.
If Trump’s agenda results in, say, more economic stress (higher prices, fewer jobs) and less access to mental health or substance-abuse care — both outcomes that seem likely — young men will suffer, too. Maybe their affection for Trump will curdle.
Ultimately, the key to winning young men back — whether you’re a politician, concerned parent or potential partner — is to stop “pathologizing” them, Reeves admonishes. Instead, start listening.
I believe this relates to why we’re seeing a breakdown in society that started decades ago with the destruction of blue-collar work which made work accessible for men with Socialized Minds. Thus these men felt like an integral and valued part of society by doing a physical, “honest days work” and getting paid well for it.
Today this has shifted to white-collar work which requires more of a Self-Authoring Mind. Yet even today, with the increasing usage of AI, this type of work is also coming under threat and may be lost as well.
Yet if businesses in the work world don’t create newer forms of physical work for not just men but people with Socialized Minds or mental work for people with Self-Authoring Minds, you will have even more disenfranchised and marginalized people feeling like they are abandoned by society.
Alternatively if governments don’t create programs to help people to “level up” their level of consciousness (i.e. Socialized Mind > Self-Authoring Mind) so that they feel capable of tackling more challenging work, perhaps even starting their own business, these people will feel useless, without any value, and abandoned by society.
And you definitely don’t want a world where most of the population is marginalized in one way or another. Why? Because these people are the most susceptible to being psychologically manipulated by others, as politicians will often gain power through them by tapping into their anger and create divisions through blame. This is the standard “divide & conquer” playbook that most authoritarian leaders use.
All said and done, we need both business and governments to start caring about the well-being of the people that they interact with and are in relationships with.
I’ve been reflecting upon the election and this quote below was the first clue I found that touches upon the real cause of why Trump won over Harris. In effect, Trump won by tapping into and manipulating the existing limiting beliefs and conventional mindset of most of Americans.
In other words, misinformation only works if there is an existing belief or tendency to play off, which means that it doesn’t create beliefs so much as confirm them.
In developmental psychology, these are roughly 60% of people who are operating from their base psychological needs (ie survival, belonging, and self-esteem). In effect, people who are often dependent upon someone else to save them from their situation. And in this case, they believed Trump was that person.
This was the second clue I found as to why Trump won over Harris. In particular, the opening subtitle stating the following.
When the world stops making sense, we instinctively look for the simple solutions. Someone to blame, an easy way out or a strong leader who will “fix it”. But what is the price for the quick fix?
In effect, many Democrats are now feeling like Republican voters in the past. They’ve regressed to a state where they’re feeling like the following. “I’m fearful, angry, and upset. Who can I blame? Who will save us from this mess?” In other words, a sense of hopelessness and a sense of being powerless, with a feeling of being unable to change the situation they are within.
This was the third clue that I found, that revealed why Trump won over Harris, that really started bringing everything together.
But Democrats need to realize that they have less a policy problem than a propaganda problem, one that is evident in both the messages the parties send and the systems through which information is delivered. If Democrats can figure out how to do something about that, they’ll be less likely to find themselves in the position they are now.
In other words, while Bernie Sanders saying that Democrats had abandoned working class people wasn’t completely true (since Biden supported unions), the issue here is that the average, conventionally minded American believed that the Democrats had abandoned the working class person because of the increasing wicked problems (aka highly complex problems) arising in our world today.
Yet the average American, let alone most politicians even, often have no capacity to understand the inherent nature of these wicked problems and where they are coming from. They just want someone to fix them and save them from this increasing uncertainty right now.
This was the fourth clue that I found that revealed why Trump won over Harris, particularly these two quotes below.
Take the time you need to mourn the future we lost on Nov. 5, but as we gear up for what is almost certainly another dark chapter in American history, it’s important to recognize that we still have agency. Experiencing grief and disappointment doesn’t make you powerless, Martin stresses.
“Community is really essential in these moments, and there’s so much power in mobilizing,” she says. “When people are feeling powerlessness and hopelessness, I encourage them to find ways to take that power back, to be an agent of change in your community and your home in the world.”
Those experiencing fear and anger should try channeling those emotions into something productive, like caring for yourself and others.
In effect, go beyond your base reaction to the situation and instead learn how to respond to it positively and creatively. This is the very thing that neither just the left or right need to do but rather what all Americans need to do.
In effect, to step beyond their feeling of dependency and powerlessness to recognizing the independent latent power already within themselves. In other words, the saviour (aka strong leader) you’re seeking isn’t out there. It’s within you…within every one of us.
The fifth clue as to why Trump won over Harris lies within a YouTube interview with Cheryl Dorsey from three years ago, in which she speaks about social innovation and how we need to tap into the collective leadership within us all to bring about the social change we seek (i.e. Gandhi’s “Be the change you wish to see in the world”).
9:11 Toiling in the field of social innovation two plus decades now. The animating feature of social Innovation is this clear-eyed recognition that current systems are not working or not working for enough of us. But there’s this real animating feature to try to fix, repair, rebuild, reimagine those systems to make them more inclusive and provide more opportunity for all.
9:38 But the diagnosis that these systems aren’t working is the same diagnosis that we see from those who are animated by populist anger. Right. So we come at the problem from the same vantage point. The way we have constructed societal forces are simply not working. I often talk about the weight of systems, systems residue, that is weighing folks down. People of colour. Marginalized folks. Women. We can go through all the forms of oppression. And these systems are exacerbating those.
10:13 So we all see it. However our prescription for what to do about it is radically different. Social innovators recognize that indeed there’s a problem but they raise their hands as engaged, committed citizens to say “Well it’s our job to fix it. We roll up our sleeves, we get to work, and we figure out what we can do.”
10:30 So much of the populist anger is a nihilistic one as you said Peter. It’s blow it all up, consequences be damned. And these conflicting forces that are butting heads, there has to be a way to engage more folks from the other side who are as frustrated as many of us arewho are engaged in the work of social innovation but do it within the realm of democratic practice that provides a seat for all of us at the table. I think that’s the needle to thread. And I think we have to figure it out and we have to figure it out sooner than later.
Now in reflecting upon these five clues as to why Trump won over Harris, I decided to have a chat with ChatGPT, so as to see if a dialogue on the subject would reveal something important about the relationship between them all. And it did, in a very surprising way. In effect, it showed me how Trump’s insurmountable power in manipulating people was the very constraint that needed to be leveraged, so as empower people and see him for what he really is. That being someone who craves people’s dependency of him, so that he can maintain his power indefinitely.
Here’s my quote from my conversation with ChatGPT that really highlighted this point.
Wait a minute. What you’re effectively saying here is teaching people how to take leadership over their own lives. This is the exact opposite of what manipulating people with their limiting beliefs does because it reinforces a victim mindset that requires someone else saving them (ie Trump). So it’s asking the person, do you want to be a victim who needs someone to save you or a leader who can take leadership of their own lives. Isn’t this something that Obama tried to communicate to people when he got in but again people saw him as a saviour and when he didn’t save them (because he couldn’t do it alone), they got upset.
Nollind Whachell
And here’s a quote by ChatGPT that touches upon what happened with Obama.
Obama’s messaging often focused on hope, unity, and the idea that “we are the change we seek,” encouraging people to see themselves as part of a larger movement working toward collective goals. However, the desire for a quick fix led many to see him as a savior figure. When systemic change didn’t happen fast enough or his policies met resistance, some grew frustrated, feeling he hadn’t delivered on his promises, even though true change would have required ongoing engagement from both leadership and citizens alike.
ChatGPT
But how can leaders, who have at least a basic grasp of the highly complex problems we face today, actually mobilize people as actual responsible, empowered citizens, taking action to bring about the change they seek?
Again another quote by ChatGPT touches upon this.
Leaders who successfully communicate this message—without becoming savior figures—help citizens shift from a victim mindset to one of empowerment. This shift can be transformative, as it promotes a culture where people recognize both their challenges and their ability to address them. In this way, the real impact of leadership becomes enabling individuals to lead themselves and contribute meaningfully to society.
Stumbled across this post below on how vertical development relates to the elections in the United States today and provided my commentary on it below, both from the possibility of a late stage leader being drawn to a political position but also the importance of how leaders today need to be higher stages to understand the complexity of the problems we face.
Beyond Red and Blue: The U.S. Election as a Test of Adult Development
Whichever side you might be on, the imminent U.S. election is a choice between starkly different worldviews. What might vertical development teach us about the candidates and this moment?
What about Nelson Mandela? Yes, a different country but a late stage leader who transformed their country and their people expectations of what a leader should be from a political position.
Yes, America is different, filled with empty talk and phoniness as the norm in terms of politics, but it doesn’t mean it needs to continue that way. It can take a different path if people choose to take one. But if the dominant mindset of the people is based in lower stages focused on having a “strong leader” to “take control” so that “all their problems can just go away”, that’s who people will vote for regardless if that leader has an actual understanding of the problems and plan for them.
This to me is the more troubling issue. That being the relationship between the leaders stage of development and their ability to grasp simple, complicated, complex, and even wicked problems. Lower stages will often think they know everything and have simple answers for complex problems. Yet in trying to tackle complex problems with simple solutions, they may make them infinitely worse.
This ties into what Robert Fritz said in his book The Path of Least Resistance. It’s not enough having a clear vision of where you want to go into the future. You also have to be seeing and understanding the present reality clearly as well. Yet most political leaders today still don’t seem to understand the full breadth and scope of the systemic wicked problems we are encountering today. Having said that though, at least Harris seems like she’d be open and curious to listening to ideas, whereas Trump would just assume he’s the smart person in the room and doesn’t need to listen to anyone.
