The Psycho-Spiritual Dimension of the Other Shoe Dropping

Charles Shaw

(this is a response to Daniel's "When the Other Shoe Drops", published November 23, 2007)

Daniel,

First, permit me to thank you for articulating these issues the way you have. They are complex and intimidating, at times incredulous, and are evoking powerful responses from people, which is the topic of my comments.

In our work together, we spend a great deal of time pouring through sources and trying to make sense of the events transpiring around us. These days, that is an increasingly difficult task, given the shocking amount of distressing news we are receiving on a daily basis, even as most of the true extent of the problems are obscured by the mainstream media, politicians, and pundits. This presents us with daunting challenges every day to maintain our diligence and continue to spread the information, all the while trying to maintain a positive attitude and not allow ourselves to be to subsumed by the grief and despair of portentous or traumatic news.

It is difficult to communicate the full extent of what is going on in the world, much less what we go through as investigators, to an audience outside our milieu. Those who aren't actively looking for this information are unlikely to come across it in the normal course of their day, and what they do see or hear tends to be watered down or spun, often without the appropriate larger context. This means that each additional new piece of information can cause a shock to their reality. Too many shocks in too short a time, such as we are seeing now, causes a kind of trauma, the response to which is often extreme. This most often involves deep layers of denial coupled with a kind of pathological positivity brought about by a culture that is chronically bad-news averse, where one is constantly cajoled to "lighten up" and "be happy." It's even worse in some of the artistic and spiritual communities which we call home, which has seen many an otherwise solid mind succumb to the empty panaceas of The Secret-like new ageisms that give people the excuse to detach themselves from the suffering of others, because those suffering others brought that suffering on themselves through their "negative thinking and bad thoughts." In a piece published last week In The Times, Silja Talvi, an incomparable journalist and a friend, writes about this secondary trauma within the context of the suicide of investigative reporter Iris Chang:

"Regardless of profession, many of us are unwilling (or unable) to look the other way in the face of war, rampant poverty, sexual violence, mass incarceration, the preventable epidemics of infectious disease and so on. The logical outcome is that we start to suffer feelings of sadness, hopelessness or despair. To do otherwise would require a level of detachment that, in itself, might be more troubling than anything else.

"As psychotherapist Gary Greenberg wrote in an essay in the May 2007 Harper’s, "These days my native pessimism was feasting on a surfeit of bad news—my country taken over by thugs, the calamity of capitalism more apparent every day, environmental cataclysm edging from the wings to center stage."

"This concept that individual mental suffering can, indeed, be closely linked to our social and political environments, is at the center of clinical psychologist Bruce Levine’s new book, Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green). Levine is a longtime critic of the marketing and manipulation of mental illnesses by Big Pharma. For Levine, the extent of mental suffering in the United States is not in question. What is questionable, Levine says, is the notion that depression is disconnected from the political economy and from the meaninglessness of a self-absorbed consumer culture.

"Levine criticizes the notion that depression can simply be medicated away with adjustments in serotonin and/or dopamine levels. Levine also sets his sights on the idea that happiness can be bought, even the idea that happiness is a desirable state of being. From this perspective, it’s not hard to see that while states of ecstasy, love and joy are one thing, our society’s relentless “be happy” sloganeering is devoid of any real meaning or lasting application.

"All stigmatizing of frightening natural human experiences is good for a consumer culture," says Levine, "because labeling something as weak, sick or diseased results in buying of more products to shut down that experience, or divert or distract ourselves from it."

I also very much doubt it is by coincidence that the New York Times recently published "Denial Makes the World Go Round" The piece, a clear apologia sans irony, tells us denial is "ok", that it's an important part of getting along in life, that the denial you hold about the fidelity or honesty of your wife allows you to perceive dishonesty in the world around you, or in the alternative, live with a bad situation. It seems to me the latter is what they are really advocating. And what better time to begin reminding people of this, as they are about to embark on a personal debt nightmare as our economy sputters and coughs in the throes of the consumer credit meltdown.

Just this morning I was rather mercilessly excoriated on my local community's discussion list by an acquaintance who, I gathered, had reached a certain saturation point with what I was circulating.

He writes: "I will be upfront in saying that I am a little tired of the seemingly never-ending Chicken Little (he of “the sky is falling” fame) doomsday predictions and the radical distrust that seem to pervade many of your postings. Not only are the contents of some of these quite questionable as to their accuracy, but there are also better forums (and potentially more engaged audiences) for these types of discussions."

He goes on to say: "I have noticed that over the past few months, quite a number of your postings have been quite bombastic, dogmatic and extreme. They are often filled with seemingly know-it-all proclamations, covering myriad topics, from global politics to international relations, to drivers of current macro-economic changes, to environmental dangers, to the legal system, to US domestic policy, to the state of corporate America, to the underlying causes of certain medical/psychological conditions, and to just about any topic under the sun. These postings, often written quite passionately, are sometimes not only inaccurate, but blatantly incorrect."

He does not, however, offer any countervailing evidence which would have corrected supposed fallacies. He does proceed to ramp up the insults, though, coloring the accusations with his own particular set of adjectives and projections, most of which come from the canon of conspiracy theory:

"The content and tone of your postings generally imply that just about every institution is conspiring to destroy us. They drone on with predictions of doom and gloom, from complete economic collapse, to a legal system about to run amok and destroy us, to a political system that is pure evil in all its forms, to corporate America that is about to annihilate ‘the little guy’, to a future in which we, as a community, may have to break away from this society and all its evils and take shelter from the calamities around us by creating an alternative reality somewhere else. They essentially predict a near-total meltdown around us, and have labeled anybody who does not position themselves as anti-establishment as a corporate shill. Even if some of your gloomy “predictions” come true, they are hardly predictions at all, for those of us who stay informed about such issues from sources as varied as the ‘Wall Street Journal’ on one hand to ‘The Onion’ on the other, from Al Franken one side, to Bill O’ Reilly on the other. So there will be no “I told you so” factor regardless of what happens. (It’s always best to get information from multiple sources, multiple points of view, trying to understand why those who disagree with you in fact disagree with you.)"

To those of us studying the trends, none of these predictions or warnings are particularly surprising, although I must point out again, the color commentary and the conclusions he drew about my beliefs, motivations, or intentions were purely his own, and I believe, meant more pejoratively to mock and insult me. My response was to say that if he disputed something I have written or posted, rather than take up pages of ad hominem attack against me meant to discredit me in the eyes of my community, he should offer a counter-point or prove me wrong. In the absence of that, I said, he should try and consider that his post may have been a typical anxiety-based response to bad news, which is to say, attack the messenger with a measure of hostility. I explained that it’s normal to be bugged out about most of it, it’s a process called “cognitive dissonance” and it wreaks havoc with the psyche. I also said it's common to attack the messenger. It’s not acceptable, but it’s common. Prophets and their acolytes, throughout history, have been unspeakably brutalized for speaking truth to power.

But after all is said and done, my efforts were most likely in vain. Not only had he, in one fell swoop, made mocking light of the crises we are facing, and made sure he cast deep aspersion on my credibility and judgment, but he also made sure to mock our efforts to address it collectively. Allow me to explain.

The dig where he says I was promoting "a future in which we, as a community, may have to break away from this society and all its evils and take shelter from the calamities around us by creating an alternative reality somewhere else" was a reference to efforts made by members of our community to come together in the spirit of positive action and begin discussing the events we see unfolding around us, and planning for possible contingencies. It was inspired by a film I saw last spring, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. The Cubans were caught totally unawares when the Soviet Union collapsed and they lost their main source of support. They had to be creative and collaborative to solve their problems, which were daunting. What we face here in the US is on a magnitude and scale that the Cubans could never fathom, and I would argue we're much less prepared, nor are we as united a culture as the Cubans. It seemed the perfect time to begin talking about it.

The logic, at least to me, seemed pretty clear: If the economy collapsed tomorrow, would you be prepared? Are you prepared in the event of a legitimate terrorist attack or disease epidemic. What about a natural disaster? How about a disruption in the food or energy supply? What about another war, and increased martial law? What about domestic uprisings? Can anyone say these are not only possible in the coming years, but also highly plausible? I would even call some probable. What's to me the most shocking part of it all is that we have no contingency plans, nor any real awareness of the need for one. Could this be because we have sublimated and outsourced our survival to the Federal government, thinking that if anything goes wrong, FEMA will swoop in and save us? I am sure that's part of it, even after FEMA has shown they are both unwilling and incapable of helping masses of citizens in a crisis. I am also equally certain it is because there is near catastrophic levels of denial about the potential for disruption to our lifestyles. Somehow, however incredulously, people think this culture is immortal.

And yet, when we try and be conscious and proactive about this, we are subjected to ridicule. Is the ridicule warranted? I don't think so. This isn't a cult of personality or a group with ulterior motive, and we're not preparing to mass-suicide or be lifted up into the rapture. These are simply friends and family coming together to express mutual hope and fear, and turn their anxiety into action. The goals are only the safety and continuity of our community: food, communication, shelter, exchange. There are no overt political or ideological ends. And in the process of planning for our future, we strengthen our community bonds, give voice to challenges and concerns and learn how to formulate group solutions. Preparation is everything, and I for one don't want to be the one left without a chair when the music stops playing.

Ultimately, I am beginning to fear that there will be a new cultural divide, what can be characterized as an "Ant and Grasshopper" motif between those who get it and begin preparing for large-scale changes to our culture and lifestyle, and those who don't and who continue enabling the system. Although we speak of no more "us and them" and how only "we" can change the world and save humanity, nothing can be done for those who refuse to see what might happen and take it with the appropriate measure of seriousness. But for those who are open to it, there is a way to cope throughout all the trauma of bad news and the possible disruptions to our lives, as well as what can easily grow into relentless ridicule by those who do not accept your beliefs.

It's no longer a fringe idea to suggest that the way through it all is not only through the power of community, but also through spiritual transformation and personal growth. As you so deftly put it in your first Conscious Choice column, we need to move from Ego to We Go. In The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, a book about the end of the oil age, author Thom Hartmann. the populist political writer, suggests that to survive the effects of peak oil we develop a spiritual centernedness. David Korten argues in The Great Turning that only a mass-evolution of consciousness with a spiritual connection will give us the strength to navigate the massive changes ahead. Andrew Harvey call this "sacred activism", – the fusion of the deepest mystical knowledge, peace, strength, and stamina with calm focused and radical action. Harvey believes that only through acknowledging and moving through our individual and collective despair--our "Dark Night of the Soul'--will we emerge out the other side strong, balanced, and grounded. Starhawk and Riane Eisler speak of reintegrating the Divine Feminine. The Institute for Noetic Sciences calls this the "global shift." All of these speak to the same theme: Only a profound spiritual transformation will have the ability to save ourselves, and each other.

It pains me that even good intention is met with hostility, but that's often the case. We need to keep the information flowing, even if it's not all sunshine and lollipops, and keep developing our spiritual core to withstand the relentless onslaught of denial. Those who see it clearly need to be reassured that they are not alone. And if we truly believe that collective action and intention can change our reality and the course of future events, then it seems all the more critical that we get on the same page, move through our collective fear, turning it into fierce compassion, and begin building the kind of world we want. It is all, of course, right within our grasp. Dare we take hold of it, is where we stand today.

Charles Shaw

Executive Editor - Evolver/Reality Sandwich