21-Day Challenge Checkup The LOOP shared a 21-day Challenge a year ago, a concept created by The America & Moore consulting firm, to invite you to see health equity as the larger social justice solution, to help us recognize our own biases, and to challenge how various policies may have unintended consequences for people of color and other vulnerable populations. The LOOP is inviting you to check in, a year later, to continue our collective work towards breaking long-standing habits that influence our mindset, behaviors, and environment, as well as our responses to others around us.
The term “zero-sum thinking” is derived from game theory, where one person's gain would be another's loss. Joanna Rozycka-Tran et al. (2015) defined zero-sum thinking as:
“A general belief system about the antagonistic nature of social relations, shared by people in a society or culture and based on the implicit assumption that a finite amount of goods exists in the world, in which one person's winning makes others the losers, and vice versa ... a relatively permanent and general conviction that social relations are like a zero-sum game. People who share this conviction believe that success, especially economic success, is possible only at the expense of other people's failures.”
Zero-sum thinking creates a perception that there is limited good, that the slice of pie you take for yourself means that someone else gets less pie. This way of thinking is a critical limiting mentality that is at the center of struggles for achieving and securing a more equitable and just future for all.
Today, we can see examples of zero-sum thinking everywhere – such as, debates over expanding health care coverage, conflicts over how we teach history in our children’s schools, struggles over how we represent history in public spaces, the battle over voting rights for all versus voter suppression, and debates over taxation and the distribution of public benefits – all of which suggest that this zero-sum thinking is something deeply embedded in our culture and politics. Unfortunately, there are many who exploit “zero-sum” to leverage their political and policy gains.
Understanding how “zero-sum thinking” shapes debates about public goods and benefits can help prepare those working in commercial tobacco control to both recognize and counter zero-sum dynamics when encountered in the field. How do we counter this way of thinking?
In her book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” Heather McGhee finds proof of what she calls the Solidarity Dividend: gains that come when people come together across race, to accomplish what we simply cannot do separately on our own. Furthermore, Ms. McGhee addresses the questions, do we gain when others lose? And what do we lose when we all benefit?
Join us over the next 5 days as we further explore “zero-sum thinking” and the “solidarity dividend” through readings, audio, reflection, and discussion. |
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