Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad
Mainstream regimented schooling is a psychopath: While I long for the inevitable collapse of current civilization and all of its destructive ways, I fear it also, as I have a 2yr old grand daughter that I want nothing but the best of times for. Denouncing the evil capitalist exploiters may feel good, but I am not sure that it does very much to advance the discussion of real solutions to our dilemma.
Our basic problem is comittment to a specific intitutional basis of economic activity rather than a committment to short term gratification. Dedication to these institutions inevitably makes our economic activity growth oriented, and this dedication extends far beyond the captains of global finance and manufacturing.
Such well known exponents of ecological economics as Herman Daly, Lester Brown, and Bill Mckibben show no signs of understanding the fatal weakness of these institutions. They want to reform these institutions by adding to them some form of ecological cost accounting, but they are utterly unwilling to consider abandoning them. The alternatives to these institutions are conceptually simple but nevertheless terrifying to contemplate for most people.
The alternative to private finance is community finance in which risk is socialized, so that we do not have to demand interest as the price of infrastructure investment. Some forms of infrastrusture investment already follow community principles e. When we build a new school we do not give money to a school corporation and then expect them to pay us back with interest out of the tuition fees they collect. We simply pool our collective resources and build the school because we believe it is a useful piece of infrastructure. This kind of investment needs to be extended to manufacturing infrastructure as well.
The first question we should ask about any piece of infrastructure is whether it will help to maintain the welfare of the community in the long term, not whether it will make money for private investors in the short term. The alternative to the competitive accumulation of domestic consumption rights is work and income sharing. If someone works themselves out of a job by figuring out how to maintain adequate services with less expenditure of labor and other resources they should have confindence that their income will not suffer thereby.
Of course there is good reason to fear these kinds of changes. Such a revolution in the fundamental institutions of society is not going to come about without a painful period of political struggle. Nevertheless if our conversations about the future are to be anything other than predictions of apocalypse and self-righteous denouncement of the vilains who are bringing it about, then we need to articulate alternatives to the normal institutions of our society beyond which many well intentioned people can perceive nothing but a chaotic void. Those in power will use whatever means necessary to maintain their lives and way of life, which I think adds to the urgency of resistance.
Then they enact the same cultural vision that is dominant here on Earth. Yes, population is a problem, and sustainability will require less people on this planet — but we need to strike at the cause. I hope you check out the latest on my blog that deals exactly with this dilemma. Hope to see you there! I loved this article, and agreed with it. What I missed was a few ideas from the author about what to do about living in a sociopathic culture. One by one; Group by Group; and Organization by Organization. If every thought-provoking author dared to carry a paragraph or two concerning even a single idea of how we might go about standing up against the wrong they are writing about, their articles may get some terrific traction.
Yes, we can all agree there is a problem… but how many of us will rise to fighting the problem? And who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin Fighting for a system built to fail Spooning water from their broken vessels As far as I can see there is no land. Love the lively discussion. From my limited knowledge of psychology, I remember that such pathology is usually developmental in nature… ie. I fear for our current stock pin failing public schools of parents who never cared themselves… the entitlement generations from poor to affluent.
If you look at the parallels he outlines between the conditions of victims of abuse and those of us struggling to come to grips with our abusers we come to the series of accommodations the abused make that hold them in thrall and paralyze them into maintaining the status quo. The question of hope falls into this category of accommodations to abuse. We cry out for the necessity for hope as an antidote to paralysis and despair. What is difficult to realize is that hope and despair, paralysis or fervent action fall into the categories of binary double-bind thinking that abuse fosters onto the abused.
Before we can get to any question of what to do we need to come to grips with this. We need to see that there is no functional difference between paralysis and ineffectual activity, between a hope that attempts to bind us to an untenable position and a despair that clouds all that we see. The damaged psyche that grows into an abuser will have undergone a trauma it was unable to deal with and snapped into irreality as a response.
The aftermath of this violence within the psyche then leads to the perpetuation of violence to maintain the facade. Jensen rightly puts the rights of the abused ahead of the right of the abuser for his recovery. Still, unless we are clear about the entire mechanism we are trapped within it. Chris fillie — The problem with the rich and powerful elites that Jensen refers to is that they see no reason to seek treatment.
Most psychologists would refuse to treat such folks even if by a rare miracle they requested help, because of the dismal record of failure among those who were foolish enough to become entangled with these types. Your compassion for them is commendable, but these folks only use such concerns to manipulate and con those who evince them. It does us no good to denigrate those we perceive as adversaries. If characterizing them in such negative ways serves as our personal therapy, then we are just as dysfunctional — but with a different malady.
Bou, does this explain the Obama phenomenon, and his chicanery, in an entirely new light. He is a classic abuser, using the tools as best he can to continue to subjugate the abused… WOW!! I would be careful with your personal attacks, you have no idea where we all have been, what we have done, and where we are now!! Richard — One needs to distingish between mean spirited name calling, and careful realistic diagnosis.
An accurate assessment of those who are most responsible for the severe problems our world is suffering is an intelligent first step towards finding some solutions. Psychopathy is a real and serious mental condition. To relate to those exhibiting it as you would to normal people could prove disasterous. This kind of response that ignores who these folks really are and what they are up to only enables them to wreak their depredations. To wait for them to evolve to a higher state of consciousness would truly be waiting for Godot.
I am assuming by your remarks that: Therefore, anyone can ignore your categorizations as the rantings of a malcontent. Am I missing something here? Mike, I heartily agreee with your distinction: Excellent post as usual Antonio, and much needed in this discussion. Let me add a couple of comments:. Often we cannot control what form our descent to our bottom takes, or what awaits there when we arrive. Often the bottom proves to be our final resting place.
For those who are more fortunate, some lifeline, such as AA appears, and only through that grace, and our willingness to use it, are we salvaged. The other point is, that like so many things, hope has two faces. One face is the false hopes of victims of abuse, but the other face is the realistic, healthy hope that there exist ways to actually break the hold of abuse and move decisively out of its sphere altogether. Even Jensen has that kind of hope, although I disagree with some of his ideas of how to deal with our abusive culture. Lastly, most people are unconscious and in denial of the pervasive abuse that our whole civilized culture embodies.
The amount of feverish criticism and abuse heaped on Alice Miller for uncovering this reality was testimony to the lengths people will go to to avoid facing this frightening reality. We are born into a world saturated with abusive structures and their agents. Tough pill to swallow, but it is an essential ingredient of the Red Pill.
She states as a bad thing the fact that:. She may want to ban all manner of vaccines some are controversial , anti-rabies shots, insulin, etc. I refuse to go down the eugenics road with her. I discourage such thinking in the strongest possible terms.
The Orion article rightly warns us against going down that road and points out how we are vulnerable to and tempted to make that kind of argument. We cannot go back to being primitive societies but we can go forward to being like them even in a technologically-advanced, psychologically regressed society like ours although the model Shepard proposes would thankfully mean the end of civilization as we know it. I do not think technology is neutral. It can do good only to the extent of the uses we put it to and the restraints we are willing to place on it and only truly mature adults are capable of this kind of restraint.
Modern humans are in such a state of infantile regression that we are largely incapable of restraining ourselves. I am fascinated with human civilization and it has some major accomplishments it is not all bad , but as I said earlier this 6,year history is nearing its end, either in collapse or a new form of organization for human society resembling more the arrangements of primitive society, but quite different at the same time since modern technological innovations will come into play. I do know one thing: I am amused that Wikipedia refers to Derrick Jensen as an anarcho-primitivist.
Might not be such a bad idea. Decentralized societies organized around democratic communities and watersheds, with no standing armies, no more nation-state, no capitalism or macro-economies aside from perhaps loosely organized trade federations since some trade will be required. Other than that, economies will be strictly localized. This society could have computers and advanced technological medicine but also more hand tools, more reliance on naturepathy, midwives, and most certainly utilize sustainable practices however these come to be defined and take shape.
My vision of alternative society is very crude at best, I admit it, but we need much more discussion of what post-civilization will look like. I am not talking about eco-topias or utopias—away with them! I am talking about what an alternative way of life would look like in practical, concrete down to earth terms. Especially with the 6,year civilization coming to its inevitable end, a fascinating but seriously flawed model.
We better get on with the business of replacing it—now! Griz — I think I am agreeing with you? Nevertheless, a clear and deep idea of what the disease is helps greatly in finding a cure. Head for the hills from whence cometh my strength and try to heal society. Reflecting more on Nature and Madness and culturally-determined psycho-pathological behavior, I would like to point out that in one of the last intact primitive tribal societies left in the world in New Guinea, depression is almost non-existent whereas in the U. I knew a book author who suffered from severe clinical depression who spent extended periods in the wilds whereupon his symptoms disappeared only to re-emerge upon return to society.
Eventually he committed suicide. Doug Peacock author of Grizzly Years and a traumatized war veteran found equilibrium and a similar peace in grizzly country, but continued to find modern U. All these examples suggest that modern civilization leads to a kind of disintegration of psyche or personality and that extended time spent in the wilds produces a re-integration of personality. The destruction of nature only leads to more pathology as human alienation from nature deepens—the pathology is self-perpetuating in other words.
I like where this is all going. But, it is not just elites, we are all part of this system, like Germans in Nazi times… there is a banality.. We the healthy have to lead by example, take their blows in defiant dignity, and reach out our hands to them, to all, to the better way. Possibly the best discussion on the future: In these two dialogues Krishnamurti and physicist David Bohm explore the prospects for the future of human beings, given our immense capacity for self-destruction.
As there is no psychological evolution and becoming is an illusion, Krishnamurti suggests, change may require a mutation in the very cells of the brain. Exploring this, they touch on consciousness, brain, mind and intelligence. Griz — Amen to the nature cure. Two weeks alone deep in unspoiled Nature does wonders on the muddled psyche.
A lot of defensive reactions to the awful truth can come out. Just watched a good TED episode w Daniel Pink on motivation and 21st century tasks… carrots and sticks do not work on complex tasks… money as motivation cannot compete with autonomy and sense of purpose as far as productivity is concerned…. Obviously there is general agreement that the crisis we face began with our emergence from the early Neolithic, with the advent of big agriculture and the birth of cities.
And certainly there is general agreement that we can never simply return to the Pleistocene. But, what Shepard is clear about is that we are already OF the Pleistocene, it is in our genetic heritage. His Coming Home is simply coming back to what we are by nature. It does not require some cellular transformation in the brain, as the reference to Krishnamurti suggests.
Clearly, our commitment to clock time has itself been forged by some well-embedded cultural habits, the Curriculum of the West. But this relatively modern convention does not quite square with our pre-reflective experience of being-in-the-world. Part of the problem, I suspect, goes back to the organization of our senses. Modern civilization is primarily a visual world spread our in front of us; a Pleistocene world is more fundamentally aural, it surrounds one with sound.
This provides a fuller experience of the environment than a predominantly visual map. In fact, as J. Smith wrote years ago: Map is not the Territory. The territory is encompassing, a map provides only a visual field spread out before one. We must recognize how deprived and empty life in this modern world has become; emptiness due largely to the eclipsing of the sensorium by the demands of civilized existence under the watchful eye of Father Time. Perhaps we can emerge as a new society along the lines that Alpha Griz laid out.
Can we step back enough to reclaim a more natural place within the animal kingdom, and recover from our early civilized need to dominate nature, and the substantial hangover that really came into its own with Francis Bacon and the scientific method, and our transition into the modern era of infinite progress. This pathology, this disease, if you will, is a feeling of dis-ease with our own feral core, a cloak foisted upon us through 6, years of indoctrination to the Curriculum. But, modern Homo sapiens appeared almost , years ago, and the earliest species of our genus, Homo habilis, two million years back; they lived in relative harmony with nature and with one another; and they lived without history or the terror of historical consciousness until its eruption with the birth of civilization.
What the scholars will not tell us is that there was something substantial lost with the emergence of this new consciousness and the subsequent construction of historical thought approximately 5, years ago. Recovering this buried genetic memory trace must begin with a recapitulation to subjectivity of our bodies and a complete re-association with our sentient selves.
Changing the perspective and agenda of modern society and the masters of the universe is thus not an ethical or religious matter; it is an epistemological, even an ontological matter; it cannot be achieved by imploring, cajoling, threatening or harming. It may not be do-able at all on a broad scale. It may just require that those who have rediscovered that inner feral core do what they can to prepare themselves for ultimate collapse and try to enjoy the Spectacle.
As consciousness evolves, changes, grows, unfolds to more complex levels and deeper understandings there is both a need to transcend or go beyond previous limitations, and a corresponding need to carry forward and include the useful capacities and values of previous levels. This involves sorting out what was truly useful from things that are better left behind. As much as we might like the closeness to nature indigenous cultures had, we probably would not wish to bring into our present time human sacrifice or cannibalism. A romantic idealism about ancient lifeways would be as big a mistake as denigrating them as brutish or violent.
The reality, as modern archaeology is revealing, is not a simple monotone, but a richly varied tapestry of possibilities. The hope that peoples of a former age had found the ideal way of being humans on earth is a perennial feature in the thinking of those who are aware of the many shortcomings of our present culture. Shangrila, Eden, the Golden Age, are symbols of this archetype. However consoling, these dreams are more revealing of our deep need for a better world than a realistic appraisal of the difficult journey we have traversed on this terrible and beautiful planet.
I think it would be helpful for you to read some real anthropological, ethnographic, and history of religions studies on pre-civilized, preliterate and contemporary indigenous tribes. You might find it enlightening. The brush strokes you are using here to paint a straw man view of indigenous cultures are based on vastly antiquated and chauvanistic views.
At any rate you brought some further clarity to where I am trying to go although we may come at it a little differently. A couple of things: First, I agree that, assuming we are at the end of civilization, we are at the end of history or his-story, since it has been a male-dominant perspective—the only honest organization of society is matri-lineal , that story is primary. Story is the way, as Barry Lopez suggests, we read the landscape and navigate the cyclical rhythms of life, for linear time as you point out is a fiction.
I also agree that moral turpitude is a product of our madness, for example, the flagrantly bogus morality play that informs jihad the Crusades or any other number of ideological and religious wars. Ideology and authoritarian religion are basically instances of arrested development, the permanently adolescent state that modern humans find themselves in and this idealism plays itself out in what are supposed to be mature adults with incredible violence.
However, if humans answer to the primal heritage Pleistocene that is part of our DNA a different organization of society will emerge bearing fundamental similarities to those of our distant ancestors even though on the surface it may have a different look because of the technological innovations that have occurred in the meantime. But things are bad now. Groups like al-Qaida and the tea party are examples of infantile temper tantrums thrown by adult humans in a state of arrested adolescence. Modern civilization carries within it the seeds of its own destruction the seeds being capitalism, industrialism, capitalism, individualism in some cases, and fundamentalist religion.
We cannot destroy it. It can only destroy itself. But in answering to this, we must have some intentionality, some practical discussions of what this new society may look like. I enjoy literacy and I do not see computers as necessarily bad things, but I think we will know what technologies are useful and what are not if humans can survive post-civilization without major trauma or even extinction. If we see time as cyclical rather than linear, we may not be at the end of anything but rather emerging out of the winter of our discontent to find a return of spring.
Kinda trite way of putting it, but I believe human epochs are similar in this regard to seasons. Winter is not the end of things, but only a pre-emergent time. We may find ourselves in this pre-emergent time. I just am at a loss of how that will really happen in a sustainable way that is truly non-authoritarian, non-coercive and meaningful for the participants without fundamentally overturning the hegemony of unilinear time as I indicated.
But, is the trap already laid by the technologies that consume us as we long to consume them? Are we capable of living a life with a fully activated sensorium, viscerally feeling ourselves part of the world we inhabit, even through the distractions of our modern scientific-technological protheses? As well, I more or less agree with your assessment of religious zealotry; but, I would also argue that those terrorist voices in the Middle East may be a visceral reaction to the forced installment of our fully advanced Western hegemony on a somewhat more traditional culture.
Sandy—This reply will be somewhat short. I believe al-Qaida as well as Western hegemony have roots in the first civilization that clear-cut the cedars of Lebanon and depleted the Fertile Crescent. The real tribal cultures in the region, including Islamic, are peaceable and generally hospitable to their guests as Greg Mortenson has reported. Remember, Osama bin Laden is the member of a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia with connections to the Bush family.
He is just a spoiled rich kid with too much time on his hands. He is a religious fanatic with little feel for the true values of these societies. I can understand anger at the imposition of Western hegemony—after all it has been imposed upon me as well—but al-Qaida does not have an ounce of my sympathy. I think they are simply another manifestation of the problem.
I certainly do a lot of reading but my critique of civilization is instinctual, intuitive. I am learning more to trust my instincts as Terry Tempest Williams has urged based on m actual experiences of industrialism, authoritarian religion, ideologues, careerism, consumerism and the general rat race as opposed to experiences in the wilds, or out in the garden. Others, too, relied on an instinctual critique of civilization—Thoreau, Abbey, and likely Mr. You are right, Osama was a spoilled rich kid with nothing to do; but you Have to admit he had a pretty big target to hit when he decided to turn on us which after all is common among thieves.
By the way Griz: I wrote this over a year ago, you might find it relevant to our current discussion. Kock and exxon mobil. The philosopher David Hume postulated that it was almost impossible to feel empathy for a creature not your kin. As for the earth and sacred Life itself, we have been through worse than this present psychopathic sickness of mankind for example, being struck by and asteroid.
Life will go on—but will you or your children? Self-preservation is another characteristic lost by the psychopathic culture. Great discussion while I wuz away. The only thing that pops into my brain right now, addled as it is, is… willow, why are you still watching the psychopathic spectacle? I bear witness to the effect money has on our discourse and opinions, no matter how painful the experience. I am not fishing for titles, willow. But I do have another question. In what way do you profit knowing about yet another creep?
Neither will political processes become irrelevant. Sometimes colleagues make statements that do not make good sense to me. That was the peak estimate, made years ago and long abandoned currently the maximum expected is 9 billion. Birthrates are in freefall everywhere in the world, not even slowing down at replacement level which is 2.
Rockefeller Foundation shut down its large population-control program ten years ago.
All who have worked so hard on family planning for decades can celebrate an enormous victory and set about retooling for other crucial issues. Thanks for the thoughtful note…. It is my deepest hope that those experts in population science, who have put forward what looks like your consensually validated understanding of human population dynamics, are correct. New and apparently unforeseen data suggest something that appears to be fundamentally different about the way this natural world works and about the placement of humankind in natural order of all living things.
According to the unexpected data, the population bomb has not been defused. To the contrary, the continuous growth of absolute global human population numbers — at its current rate and scale — could be a clear and present danger for humanity, biodiversity and the integrity of our planetary home, even in these early years of the 21st century. Thank you for all of what is being done to protect humanity from endangerment, biodiversity from extinction and Earth from irreversible degradation. Now comes a statement from another respected colleague that is confusing to me.
Just this morning I shared my thoughts with him. I want to share them with you, also. But even little children would know that only gods, not men, not puny men so self-destructively maladapted to technology, could do that. He might yell of human beings acting like self-proclaimed gods once walking upon that Moon in the sky. Ask Ronald Raygun how being a spokesman for GE helped him get over his former progressive ideas. Brand blithely assumes that we will all share in the largesse of his new world paradise. Steve — Your friend Marty seems to have drunk of the wine of techno-hubris.
Those inebriated by this toxic brew lose all sense of simple humanity and responsibility, lost as they are in delusions of techno-omnipotence. Dear Steve, there seems to be a lot of insanity in the population debate. What they completely ignored that in absolute numbers, Egypt went from some 22 million to 77 million and so on down the line… every such nation went through explosive population growth before it stabilized. It takes about years of steady economic growth and out of control population growth before people realize that more kids is a disadvantage.
This, they were recommending for Haiti!!! Ed T — If we are going to play politics, we should stop dreaming we are in a soft-ball game. McKibben plays right into their hands with his nice guy half-hearted efforts. With the numbers he has mobilized behind him, he should commit to being more effective, and play the game how big boys play it. Please note that the context for my comment earlier today in response to Professor Martin Hoffert can be found at the following link, http: Willow — I support your type of televiewing; I do a good bit myself. We can never learn enough about our world, the good and the bad.
To deconstruct the bullshit and tease out the true is a useful exercise in developing our consciousness. On the plus side, I really dig cosmology. I am a big admirer of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme sp? My attitude to TV is: BTW those hyper Luddites who condemn all electronics and electricity itself are not my guides when it comes to gathering information and experience.
Mike, I am with you on McKibben. Still hoping that Obama will throw him a crumb. Myself, I am a something of a luddite: My friend is habituated to it. Computers share some of the crap, and isolate people… but they allow me to be selective about the news I take in, and connect me with other people in a whole new way.
Vera — I watch most of my TV on tape, and zap the commercials, although there is a lot to learn from them about influencing people, if you watch consciously. From the rational point of view, most commercials are absurd. But from the unconscious point of view, which the devisers of these mind numbing numbers are trying to affect, they are a window into the unspoken codes of our culture.
The amount of money and man hours that go into this whole project is indicative of its powerful effectiveness. We need that power on our side. That how many inches tall a candidate stands is one of the best predictors of who folks will vote for speaks volumes about what level of mind most of our decisions are coming from. Vera — When Padmasambava brought Buddhism to Tibet, he encountered the established homegrown Shamans, who opposed the newcomer with their magic and local demons under their control. However, Padmasambhava invited the demons to a parley, and ended up converting them to Buddhism, so that they became his allies in defeating the Shamans many of whom then also converted.
The techniques of persuasion are neither good or bad in themselves: For instance, if words have been used to deceive and enslave people, they can also be used to enlighten and liberate them. Steve — Yes, culture is a gigantic, perverse cult. However, culture is also the hope of the world. Our task is to separate the coarse from the fine; to build a new world from the best that our past offers, plus the best that we can new create.
Culture is both the enemy and the friend. Hold fast to what is good, and let go of all else. Vera — I am something of a Luddite, too. Not as much as I should be. Addictions are numberless — the work to be free continues…. Discerning true values, rejecting false values, and living according to the former, has been our need from the beginning.
This need is the concern of all true paths of spirituality. Lacking this foundation, all our efforts are futile or worse. In this age of ignorant secular philosophies, and corrupted religious institutions, people scoff at the most obvious necessities of a truly civilized life together. We find ourselves in a dark wood, where the straight way is lost. How dark and bitter is this wood! As Aristotle said long ago, each field of knowledge defines certain parameters of what means are appropriate to study it, and how precisely or otherwise one can hope to understand it.
The significance of a work of art, for example, cannot be deeply understood with the tools of mathematics or physics. The meaning and experience of Love cannot be reduced to chemistry although some of our ultra materialists would have us believe that it can! Likewise, culture slips thru the crude nets of our rational analyses, and hides within it and beyond it deeper significances than these methods can grasp. The classic tale of the wise men and the elephant illustrates how a variety of perspectives are required to get a fuller understanding of anything, not just elephants.
This understanding has been given deeper treatment by both post-modern philosophy and Buddhism. In truth, there are hidden depths to every aspect of our existence. The net of Indra weaves every seemingly separate thing into its all inclusive embrace. Tape it and share it with your friends. Small groups can watch shows like this, then discuss them together. Vera — Handling serpents takes a certain degree of caution. Be careful accepting cookies from strangers especially people stranger than yourself!
Intelligent trust requires time and careful nurturance. In a small group process this is the limiting factor on how deep and how far the group can go. If it is handled with awareness and patience, then growth is corespondingly facilitated for all involved. One of the farther developments of this process is telepathic communion. Vera — The Dark Side is always beckoning: McKibben may not see himself as an artist especially, but his project was a well-wrought work of performance art, where the main ingredient might be seen as forgiveness, altho it was not initially his intention.
There are many ways to learn things in this world. People with conscience will be bred out of the gene pool long before the sociopaths are, especially if we leave population questions up to individual conscience. We could just give up and try to live our lives in relative peace, or we could deal with them like the way the Buddha advised us to deal with our own shortcomings — like wrestling with a very strong man, not giving up, constrain them with laws again and again they see each new constraint as a challenge; and each time they break our hold we have to see it as a new challenge.
True, Mike, the dark side is always beckoning. Derrick pillories symbolic actions like this one! I welcome your thoughts on psychopaths… why do you think they will breed us out instead of the other way around? In this diverse universe there are many ways to go in the direction we need to go.
Half a million men are direct descendents of Ghengis Khan. You are right about population logic … but apart from rapists on horseback, what we need is for women to recognize psychopaths and stop breeding with them. But that raises again the very contentious question of private property and ownership… one of the corner stones underlying the immanent collapse. The symbolic actions and the work of Stewart and co.
There are many ways to do it. This one is pretty effective. No miracles on that side either. I was married to one. Strictly because no one warned me, no one told me what to beware of. In other words, I did not even know there were humans without empathy and conscience! Civilization has been dominated by bullies from its beginnings. Not that there were no bullies before the aggregation of population in the fertile crescent, but the increase in power that came with larger social units invited abusive types to take over.
That is, power corrupts the corruptible. Who are, alas, always with us. Aldous Huxley touched on this core problem in his utopian novel Island. How to dislodge these psychopathic power freaks remains a central problem in the way of a better world. The problem for us conscientious do-gooders is that no matter what we devise to make the world better, the self-satisfied nut cases with the power ignore our efforts and continue their self-aggrandizing, planet destroying madness. The elite power holders simply turned a deaf ear to the millions of concerned people, and did as they damn well pleased.
So much for sweet persuasion in dealing with confirmed bullies. My suggestion is for thousands of small groups to find the answer s to the crucial Koan of our age. Either we find ways out of this agonizing impasse, or we are doomed. We need a framework to put our heads together and come up with effective action plans to save ourselves. The two articles by Malcolm Gladwell that I have suggested contain important hints as to what may be possible ways to defeat Goliath.
How to Beat Goliath, and In the Air. That sounds like the social critic who perceives the world as entirely dysfunctional and finds nothing constructive in the myriad movements to heal or rebirth it, who cannot tolerate criticism and responds with venomous or contemptuous language towards any who disagree with his very narrow and self-destructive perspective, who is so overwhelmingly frustrated with the status quo that he impulsively moves toward violence as a legitimate response, who cannot realize or anticipate the consequences of encouraging others to tear down and destroy society rather than build and renew, and who does not have the vision to see beyond the immediate malaise to a higher evolution that is organic, spontaneous, self-creating and happening all around him.
It sounds like a man who sees a pile of shit but fails to see that it is the necessary manure to nurture the next crop, and who derides those who are planting the seeds of promise and possibility. In fact, that sounds like a man who was abused as a child and sees his entire world as abusive and irredeemable. It sounds like Derrick Jensen. Ed T, how did I confirm your point? As a young woman, I would have rather shot myself in the foot than be with a guy unable to love. Recognition here would do wonders. Nobody but a few gold diggers would pair up with these men. The problem of power remains unaddressed.
There are people out there without empathy, without conscience, impervious to guilt or shame or remorse. They are not like us, and whether or not they were abused had little to do with how they turn out. There is no treatment. They harm people they profess to love, and they never accept responsibility for the harm they do.
The goal is to make that person so questionable and despicable, that no one should even bother to listen to them. By trashing the person, you seek to trash their arguments. Due to the easily mislead nature of the majority, this is unfortunately a very effective technique. The attack ads just before an election are loaded with this kind of misdirection. The election ends up being more of a superficial popularity contest than one based on real issues. A bold and disturbing social critic like Derrick Jensen lays himself open to this kind of attack.
But neither am I taken in by the rhetorical device of lumping all of his work, and his person in one mental basket, in order to reject it. His work stimulates and informs me, and I take from it what I need. I hope others will approach his sometimes difficult and disturbing messages in the same open spirit. We all have a lot to learn from many diverse sources if we are to navigate the white waters of these times successfully. Robert Riversong has much wisdom and a good Heart to contribute to our creative search for a better world. Thanks for your comments, Robert.
Good to hear your voice on this thread again. These folks are wizards at self-justification. More than that, they will try to make you feel that you are responsible for the abuse they are heaping on you. It is for your own good. These folks are big time sickos. The Devils of human imagination have nothing on them. To think of reasonable negotiations with these monsters is to betray yourself into the hands of an implacable and remorseless enemy.
And these very people are in charge of our destiny unless we find a way to unseat them. Any milder agenda towards these types is a waste of precious energy. It would, as an educated reader, be irresponsible to disregard the fact the this essay certainly shows signs of symptoms: Just as Jensen is projecting his own un-recognized shadow on the world around him, you are projecting your own fallacy on my simple statement. RR — Accusing another of projection when you simply disagree with their position is another of the subtelties in the ad hominem repetoire. All these devices are designed to throw an opponent on the defensive, luring them to respond to an unending cascade of baseless accusations.
For one avowedly committed to the way of peace and understanding, it is remarkable how skilled you are in destructive argumentation. In order to cut to the chase, I will simply ask you: Jensen attracts others who, like himself, choose to live as victims rather than actors in the world. Defining oneself as victim, of course, not only prevents constructive action or peaceful reconciliation, but also relieves one of personal responsibility for improving the world.
Nothing, after all, can be done until we destroy the victimizers and yet the real victimizers are the inner demons convincing us of our impotence. But they are just like us. Every one of us is capable of both good and evil. Healing comes only when we own our whole humanity, recognize and learn to love our inner demons which are no more than holy allies begging for acceptance. All of us, to some degree, received less acceptance than we deserved and needed and hence contain the seeds of pathology toward others. When we cannot recognize our inner demons we project them unknowingly on others.
We are all a little sick at heart, some more than others. But blaming and fighting externalized shadows only further injures and alienates ourselves and prevents any possibility of wholeness. We are a culture in denial of our own shadows, and Jensen is a perfect example of this pathology. An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.
This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too. Robert, I really did not think that you would answer my simple question. Debaters never respond like that. In this case, I think you may have felt you would have to reveal more about the one sided nature of your position than you cared to.
Like political reporters, I have realized that it is futile to continue to ask a simple question if your respondent flatly refuses to answer it. Real peacemaking requires real dialog, something you seem to be determined to avoid. What really bugs you about Jensen is that he does not rule out active resistance, including sabotage, such as taking out dams and cell phone towers.
BTW I am not on board with those suggestions of his. I think this side of his writing rubs up uncomfortably against your self image as the ideal pacifist. As a result, you have created this totally noir image of DJ, that you can then denounce. If you read any of his books, which I can understand you would not, you might realize that this man is not the made to order effigy you have constructed in order to burn it. I realize that you are deeply into your chosen way to frame Mr. Jensen and his moving and significant work, so I have no intention of trying to convert you.
It would be nice if you should decide not to do to Derrick what you accuse him of doing to others. Golden rule, and all that. You are making a very sweeping and judgmental statement about millions of people. Psychopaths are not folks like us. They do both good and evil, true enough, but what makes them dangerous and different is their lack of empathy and conscience. Sociopathy does not arise in neglected children.
It seems a genetic disorder see pertinent studies of twins. The man I lived with, in his candid moments, said he traced it to his babyhood. His family was one of the most caring parents I have ever known. How is it projecting my inner demons on others by pointing out there are dangerous people out there and that we should learn to recognize them? Check out my new post, Sociopaths among us, at http: Vera — I hope folks truly interested in this aspect of our discussion will check out your post on leavingbabylon, it was very informative to me.
Wolves usually try to avoid contact with people, to the point of even abandoning their kills when an approaching human is detected…though potentially dangerous, wolves are among the least threatening for their size and predatory potential. In both cases, we project our own fears onto others and raise their power to mythical proportions, which or course diminishes our own power proportionally.
Ironically, the mythology that you and Jensen choose to live inside of is the one that is used to keep you from realizing your own true power and potential. But those movements toward constructive engagement with the world are exactly what Jensen cannot stomach, because they undermine his self-perpetuating myth and his self-image as victim in a world of victimizers. Congratulations on deflecting the argument. Let the grandfather use wolverine, for example.
Is it responsible not to inform those you love of the dangerous creatures out there in the woods? Your mind seems to be closed; instead of responding, you project on me your belief that I am somehow thinking of myself as blameless victim. He is just being a dick.
Account Options
I usually try to at least try for some kind of personal reconciliation in a dispute, but in his case that seems to be off the table. He is so blind to his insulting and abusive tone. God protect me from the self righteous! I have lived long enough to know that passive aggression far exceeds in venomousness a more open form of attack. You are right, it is impossible to have true, open, non egotistical communication with such as these. I give up my attempts to be Mr.
By and large this has been a pretty civil discourse among us commenters. I will try to keep it that way by breaking off my attempts at discussion with RR. I have just read Derrick Jensen for the first time and the comments so far. It is important to acknowledge we each retain elements of psychopathy and psychosis in our psyche to some degree and these are reflected in our institutions, including the Green Movement. The capacity of human beings for self-deceit is literally incredible and thus the most well-meaning of people can be their own worst enemy.
He is correct to associate his responses with the fact that no one ever mentions psychopathy. His sad response also derives from the fact that people at such conferences rarely discuss in depth the power and role of compassion in our lives.
Better to end by metamorphosis than a crash which is the usual pattern. It is not a new question. Hope to see you there! And I have one question to ask you: Neither will political processes become irrelevant.
It is eminently possible for well meaning folk like Al Gore and Bill McKibben to flit around the world calling for change; while their lifestyles and language denies the change they call for. This does not make them liars though it makes them very vulnerable to becoming agents serving the psychopathic corporations that Derrick speaks of. Thus they put us all at much greater risk. Some of the comments alluded to the reality I speak of.
It draws on deep physics and psychology with the objective of enabling us to transcend the limitations of our ego and our grand capacity for self-deceit. Green Movement members may find it particularly insightful and helpful. When we fight the projections of our fears, we feed them as the wise old Cherokee said and give them power. They exist only in so far as we make room for them in our dream, our myth, our fairytale, and they have power only in so far as we give them our energy. We — that is, what passes for civilized humanity — have been living an increasingly dysfunctional dream for thousands of years.
Some call it a mistake or a detour from our destiny or evolutionary path. Wiser ones understand it as the required curriculum for learning the lessons we came here to incorporate. Indigenous traditions, ancient prophesies, and modern seers all concur that we are passing through a galactic moment of immense evolutionary shift that will focus around the winter solstice of Humanity has been moving into this transition for many years, and many of the grassroots movements for cultural change that give Jensen a bellyache are part of that species-wide metamorphosis.
As the caterpillar, a perfect consuming machine, nears the end of its life cycle, it defends itself within a cocoon. Yet that cocoon becomes an alchemical cauldron of transformation. The old structure of the consumer dissolves to mush no one needs to destroy it, as its destruction is built into its story. But, before long, there are too many imaginal cells and they begin to coalesce into communities which are stronger than any antibodies that the remains of the consumer can muster.
That new story has been in creation for some time and is about to become the next evolutionary leap for humanity. It will be those with the foresight and far sight to build arks to carry our dreams through the coming tsunami and are willing to let go of the shore who will survive to co-create a new world order in which all can flourish.
It is so great and swift, that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore, they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our heads above water..
And I say see who is there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Riversong, did I identify myself a page or two ago as a new age guy? I was talking about matters of the heart. My formal training and formal work experience in biology are 25 years behind me so I had to look up the imaginal cells. But while we work on our own personal metamorphoses world culture and human nature turn verrrrrry slowly, like the Titanic. Ah yes, the New Age metamorphosis story. It just… um… happens. So pull up a chair, insult those who believe otherwise, and watch that destiny unfurl.
Not all that different from knocking down a dam and repurposing all that concrete. When the time comes. We just need to end this one culture that has gone off the tracks. And we now know that the expression of DNA is determined by our environment and can be consciously controlled. For the first time, the prophetic traditions and science are pointing in the same direction. For the first time, we have a truly global community that can communicate at the speed of light.
And, for the first time we are facing a perfect storm of global crises created or exacerbated by our dysfunctional mythology. Teilhard de Chardin wrote of a teleological evolution aiming toward the Omega Point. Yes, it will happen AND we will destroy ourselves first, for there is no breakthrough without a precipitating breakdown. And, similarly, Ishmael never suggested anyone had to end this culture — it is a culture, he said, designed to fail. So it remains to the Leavers and the Imaginal Cells among us to simply co-create the new-old story as the old order falls of its own weight.
For those who wish to understand the story of cultural evolution in its entirety, the book The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein is the most insightful book yet written in this millennium. It was the necessary path, encoded in the very beginnings of life on earth, to get to our current moment of transformation, upon which we are already embarked. Get aboard or get left behind. The little Davids with their slings are history and outdated myth.
We no longer need leaders and messiahs. As the Hopi said: I have never herd so much mumbo jumbo in my life. You want to see an end to this Civilization. Want to help it happen more quickly… take longer showers, buy more cars, electronics and plastics. Drive more miles, fly to more vacation spots…invest in more abusive international corporations like Monsanto, Exxon, GE, Viacom, BP… Vote for Sarah Pallin in … We can all do our part to quicken the flesh, and hasten the end of this Spectacle.
One of the oldest human defenses against situations of a profoundly threatening nature in the face of which one feels powerless, is to create a myth, a fantasy that assures oneself that all will be well in the end. There is a powerful need in each of us, and indeed in our collective structures of village, society, or culture to weave some story s of a happy ending in spite of or even because of!
The story of The Rapture is a classic example of this genre of self-protective fantasy. This narrative encourages us to look forward to apocalyptic disaster on an immense scale, because it will actually be the dawning of a new incredible age of peace, happiness, and everything your heart desires. Now all of this would be merely academic if these various belief systems, held by huge numbers of people, did not have negative real world effects.
I used to think it would be unnecessarily cruel to take away this security blanket from those so dependent on it. In time, with actual experience, I came to understand that there was no way that you could wrest these security blankets from the hands so desperately clutching them.
The End of the World
These folks share with all deluded fundamentalists an unshakable tenacity in maintaining their chosen defenses against the threatening apocalypse. The downside of these fantasies is that they are based on lies, and that always creates problems. A basic untruth, and one that undermines any hope of effective action to avert disaster, is that the worst is inevitable. This is really the voice of despair, that effectively closes all options except those ginned up by hopeful imagination. Another lie is that some extraordinary agency will intervene to make everything work out wonderfully, thereby precluding the need for any difficult work on our part to forestall the blessed disaster.
Everything from theories of modern physics to psycho-neurology and the I Ching has been thrown into the cauldron of the imagination to concoct brews acceptable to the variety of needy palates out there. All of this dense smoke-screen of avoidance strategies only tends to obscure and bypass the need for real work to deal with our real problems. Unfortunately the self-absorbed fantasists will be of little use to the real workers to save our world from what is a still an avoidable fate. BTW if you should be so foolish as to not believe the stories these folks are putting out, there is a fiery lake of brimstone and other delights waiting for you.
And good riddance to the unbelievers! BTW the version of these defensive daydreams that RR has worked up is really a doozy! There must be plenty of folks eager to get on board this one. A heady brew of modern science, ancient prophecies, and to boot! But there I go. Probably let myself in for another helping of pacifist vitriol…….
I really have no idea where this idea that DJ presents himself as a victim comes from. It would help me if folks would be more specific, rather than making vague accusations. To my mind, Derrick is one of the most dedicated and proactive persons I know about. Some folks seem to think all he does or ever has done is write articles and books. How many of his critics has ever done the hard work involved in doing that? Aside from his literary output he has been an activist challenging the forestry industry, has taught people in prison, and goes on speaking tours trying to get folks to wake up and ACT to save our endangered planet.
But I believe that one of the causes of our current problem is that we are operating from a mythology that is rooted in the second millenium B. Whether you refer to Gilgamesh or Genesis, we are operating from the illusion that we have free reign of the planet. My point is we need a new mythology that illustrates our true relationship to the created, evolving world.
The one that is currently in vogue is both bad science and bad theology. Here is my response to something from the other article discussion. The Lay of the Land. How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
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