Hello Friends,
Having been a month since our last correspondences (an eternity in the ever shifting 2020 reality), it feels bewildering where to start. Many of you reading this will have overlap in where you have given your attention these past several weeks, though it is possible for a vast array of narratives. Sense making in the post 2020 world reminds me of some of what followed the terrorist attacks in the USA on 9/11/2001. Many of you may remember feelings of disorientation, followed by cohesion around an almost oppressive sense of patriotism, preceding the dissolution of many “beliefs” about “our” society, culture and way of life. The destructive event, gave way to a union that was more juxtaposition than coherence… “We” were working under the facade of a united force: flags on cars and mutual responsibility, that quickly turned to difference; Endless wars in the middle-east, isolationism vs protectionism, sympathy for and opposition to government surveillance. Over time the xenophobia, that seems to inherently accompany a strong sense of nationalism, would grow back into increasingly hostile attitudes toward “fellow patriots” - leaving “us” with little of the positive change that was possible after a collective trauma, retaining mostly the dystopian aspects so many fear in our current collective collapses.
We have left civil society, and with it civility is becoming a phenomenon of the past. The current “culture war” is yet to become as destructive as “the war on terror” following 9/11, but we are still living through the transition of trauma, and have yet to settle into a new society. Off hand comments of “civil war” are said with snickers but little humor. One of the most destructive parts of the culture war I currently see playing out is the war between the individual and the collective, between liberty and empathy. Taken to their dystopian extremes, one leaves us in a society of disparities between the ultra-rich and the poor, the other leads toward obedience and the death of creativity. Both result in borders (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) and authoritarianism. Defense of free-speech can quickly be twisted into advocating for hate-speech, worries of government overreach can be warped into “anti-science-ism”; On the counterpoint, calls for government aid and for collective action are denounced as uninformed, unrealistic, mob mentality or “sheeple” group think.
Fanatics shout that any proposed solutions are not enough or, conversely, too much: The extremes argue over the safety/efficacy of vaccines (or choose your other divisive issue); while those who can see both a need for allopathic medical intervention and also a mixed history of chemical mediation, are branded fence sitters: libtards or Qanon adjacent, depending. In a postmodern society, scrying (crystal-ball gazing) into our glass rectangles, we can find legitimate sources backing up our individual truths and locate communities that affirm our shared narrative (assuming we stay loyal to their ideological belief system). The ideological war is in full-swing as we hope (in vain) to avoid escalating kinetic warfare.
In a war, there are those who participate: some will be heroes as others fall; There are also conscientious objectors, those who suspect further destruction is not endemic to creation. As I am actively attempting an embodiment of the later, there are some tools I find helpful that I would like to share:
Steelmanning: As opposed to strawmanning an opposite position (strawmanning: picking the obvious weak point in an argument and derailing possible discourse into greater difference). In steelmanning, the individual chooses to actively take on the best counterpoints to a personally believed truth. In steelmanning we end up challenging our own beliefs and often learn that “truth” is manyfold. As opposed to reducing arguments to right and wrong, good and evil, black and white; We learn to live and share in a world of nuance, contradiction and paradox… As opposed to a world defined by boundaries and territory to be won or lost, approaches such as the aforementioned, require us to get out of ideological echo chambers; They require us to trick algorithms, reading and listening to astute and opposing “sides.” This does not require us all to become “centrists.” It is possible to hold a progressive or conservative view point, without clinging to it. It is essential to have folks on different sides of the aisle advocating for individual liberty and collective empathy, but they must meet in the middle for progress to be shared instead of imposed. Imposed progress is never constructive and the present is not the past (though it rhymes, as Mark Twain reminded us).
Since each person reading this likely has different priorities, diverse strengths and divergent views of reality I am at present uninterested in offering a plethora of specific media (books, podcasts, articles) that I find essential to my own development (any list would be incomplete and skewed toward my own reality tunnel). Certain names I might share would be so polarizing to some of you, that you might discount everything I have written to this point as having been captured by the “Alt-Right” or “Antifa” depending. To this possibility, I am finding it is better to depart from meta-narratives whenever possible: Talking about climate change with an individual with an opposing ideology will get you little movement forward, but addressing the shared goal of cleaning up litter in the park may work to develop a shared sense of care and community, while being effective as opposed to merely feeling effective.
I am offering a recent pranayama and guided meditation, tools I find essential for calming one’s own nervous system and thus the impulse to react. I suspect we need to move away from reaction (no matter how dire the stakes) and into the territory of acknowledgement and co-creation. Moral, emotional, intellectual and physical superiority are only welcome in a world where domination and submission are the only possibilities. If postmodernism was successful in destroying absolute truths, these pillars of a totalitarian human culture must also fall.
Most days I find myself complacent in my solitary existence, while simultaneously feeling scared, sad, lonely. Sharing with you makes this collective trauma a bit easier to bare, I hope I have offered something constructive here, instead of more noise to the cacophony that seeks to further capture our attention.
Thank you and I love you.
❤️ Noah
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