Just one extra thought - I don’t think the rich are behaving the way they are IN SPITE of having all their needs taken care of, they’re acting the way they are BECAUSE they have all their needs taken care of. Our brains don’t know what to do with a complete lack of adversity. There are pretty interesting articles on ‘Are The Rich Mentally Ill’, and the answer is kind of yes.
Chris Hedges dissected this really well in his writings and speeches on the pathology of the rich, about a decade ago.
He pinpointed their lives of privilege in their own bubble, from cradle to school to adulthood to grave. They literally don’t inhabit the same world and typically have little understanding of real proles lives. And they are from birth taught that all want and need are purely due to the inferior intellect and moral weakness of the poor. Collorary being that all their riches they are born with are due to their own moral and genetic superiority.
It’s not until you understand this that you can grasp how they literally will kill people for money, whether that’s hapless rednecks thrown into war in Ukraine or children bombed in playgrounds and homes in Palestine, or poor people in the global south dying because Bill Gates vaccine patents supercede a declared pandemic.
this is it exactly. Honestly I have also had thoughts about how we, the sorta-kinda-middle-class folks are actually victims of this same mechanism, though not nearly to the same degree. But I personally know lots and lots of people who believe, for instance, that homeless people are homeless because of their own moral failings 'eh they're all alcoholics and drug addicts with mental issues' (as if those same things don't apply to plenty of people with money, except they get treatment and care). It's the same thought process. Like how many of us have been told 'you better study hard in school if you don't wanna end up flippin' burgers for a living' - basically teaching kids that people who work low paying jobs are lazy and stupid and thus couldn't do any better for themselves, as if we don't literally need all those jobs to SURVIVE.
So much unpacking to do in the 'meritocracy' belief system.
Chris Hedges was a scholarship student at a rich kids high school, where he rubbed shoulders with Rockefellers. He shamed the administration into improving the help's quarters, whereupon they threatened him with suspension if he did something like that again.
You say "Our brains don’t know what to do with a complete lack of adversity." but anthropologists, describe Homo Sapiens as highly social primate, in fact I've read hyper social. So when they are not fired up to fight a battle, they can find plenty to do together that might benefit our society.
for sure. By adversity I don't mean extremes. But if you are told from birth you are special and therefore shouldn't struggle for anything, you form differently than if you had to take care of yourself. It's not accidental that so few kids from rich families grow up resilient, humble, or caring. You have to learn these things. What social interaction do they get if they're surrounded by maids and cooks and drivers and people who are basically paid to make their lives easier?
Well, that raises the long running debate about Nature v Nurture. To be sure people can be conditioned to accept a given set of beliefs and to to behave accordingly, even if those behaviours meet the clinical definition of psychopathy. But to be equally sure, some people don't need much conditioning.
I guess the only way to reach a diagnosis in individual cases would be a thorough psychiatric examination.
For sure, on an individual level that is true. But I feel we don’t need psychiatrists when we hear people stating things like ‘I don’t think water should be a human right’ (CEO of Nestle, responsible for many communities not having drinkable water because his company is draining their reserves for their bottling plants), or ‘We need to see unemployment rise by 40-50%, then workers will stop being ungrateful and stop asking for rights and unions’ (I think that was a CEO of Blackrock? I could be wrong but it’s not far off) or the diamond trader guy saying ‘oh we shouldn’t support synthetic diamonds because the real ones are providing a living for many poor people’… literally defending the trade called ‘the blood diamond trade’… many other statements these people freely and openly make that show they are unable to view the rest of humanity as worth of…. well, literally anything. Look at it this way. If you had a company, and your company made phones, and those phones needed a particular mineral, and children were literally dying in the most horrific conditions digging that mineral up for you with their bare hands, and you knew that but shrugged and said ‘well, that’s the cost of doing business’… would I need a shrink to tell me you’re not well?
True, and this becomes even more alarming when you consider that our cultural prescription for responsible rich people is that they enter politics, where their inner quest for adversity typically takes the most available forms of trying to subvert the popular will and fighting with other countries.
I'd like to see some comprehensive proof of that. The reason I say "comprehensive" is that there is no doubt that many of us behave like the aforesaid rich that you mention above, but on the other hand many do not. Either they live well in general or they are mixed cases. Also, we don't observe many people (or animals, as a matter of fact) upon whom Nature (or God or chance or whatever) does not impart a good deal of adversity from time to time.
I would say we have extremely comprehensive proof in just looking out of your window and seeing what is happening to society today. Workers' rights are eroding, wars are everywhere, teachers and nurses are underpaid and freelancing in their spare time to afford rent and food for their kids, food banks are facing more pressure than ever, homelessness is on the rise, and all the massive companies are reporting massive profits while simultaneously laying off as many people as they can. Looks pretty comprehensive to me :)
If the system is falling apart and producing bad results, then that's not a moral failure of some particular individuals, it's the system itself, to wit, capitalism. And yet people keep voting for it, working for it, contributing to it, fighting for it; and so the beat goes on.
who makes the system tho? That's the trick question ;)
It's a great sleight of hand giving people the right to vote in order to solve their issues but then set it up so that whoever you vote for you get a pile of crap heaped on you anyway. I wonder why every other form of civil involvement is so strongly argued against, and why police are arresting kids who peacefully protest/ planting agent provocateurs in peaceful BLM protests etc to give themselves excuses for violent reaction. Hint it's not because the system is fair and balanced and we're free to make our choices.
Well Gordon above was saying that people keep voting for the corrupt system and that’s why it keeps being bad. What I was trying to express is that I don’t think we get a real choice or say in how the system operates. We are essentially voting for two different-flavored tentacles of the same monster. We are not just ‘free to vote for better options but keep choosing bad ones’. We are screwed in fundamental ways no matter what we choose, because that’s how the system has been constructed. There’s that quote from ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ that says ‘You didn’t make good choices, you HAD good choices’. We don’t.
It's easy for rich people to be kind to people in need especially when it entails donating money for which they will get a tax credit. They have the money, why not if it makes them look good? But if giving that help means giving up a significant portion of their wealth and status, I am not so sure. And I think most if us would be at risk of behaving that way if we got rich.
Behaving that way if one has a void in their essence. When a person who is wealthy cannot bring themselves to be giving, empathetic and charitable, they likely have come to depend upon their material worth as representative of who and what they are. When one values oneself and enjoys the activities and outlooks which define their lives, they are rich in their souls. Money cannot buy talent, intelligence, empathy or creativity.
When I read your astoundingly clear and informative work, it’s very obvious to me that you have done a lot of inner work. You have processed your defensive structures sufficiently that they don’t blind you to what is actually happening. You have outgrown the tendency to take sides, so you see the bigger picture clearly. Your voice is refreshingly honest.
The theme of this essay is one I’ve been meaning to address. So true: even if we were dropped into a sane and pristine world, we would poison it with our unmetabolized wounds.
I help individuals do this type of inner work, and I can tell you it’s not for sissies. It’s way easier to project your trauma than to resolve it. It takes courage to look inside when strong emotions get provoked and make the necessary adjustments that allow you to grow beyond defensive reactions rooted in old pain.
Thank you for your dedication to telling the truth and being courageous enough to take responsibility for the glitches in your own psyche.
It’s called prayer, dear. It’s called using the concrete circumstances of our everyday lives to instantiate God’s love in the world. You want to change your inner life? Wish good on your enemies. Feed the starving. Cloth the naked. Do good to those who hate you. Forget cosmic reform. It is beyond us. Know that the line between good and evil lies in every individual’s heart.
In my neck of the woods, excluding persons with a religious bent from the public square would alienate 80% of the population. Besides, read again the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’ Second Inaugural Address. Although Jefferson and Lincoln were not devout, they used religious metaphor as powerful as a two by four upside the head.
Not quite John. Injecting personal religion into conversation involving the general public isn't welcoming. If religion is injected into a conversation it makes me uncomfortable and therefore I don't want to continue a discussion with you. And using an example of old white slave owners and the Declaration of Independence they have forced on us is not helping your argument
Again your religion is not mine. Keep it to yourself
I'm not religious, actually closer to an atheist, but discounting another person's religious beliefs in a sincere conversation because it makes you uncomfortable is not something to feel good or self-righteous about. Don't be sure you have everything figured. These are tough questions and dilemmas. Hard to solve without some humility and openness to the humanity of others.
Im also atheist. You're putting words into my mouth. I'm not discounting anything --I simply asked that religion be left out of public discussion which by all means I'm allowed to do. Religion is PERSONAL not public. Your religion makes me uncomfortable. I shouldn't have any religion spoon fed to me in my chosen safe spaces. That's what places of worship are for. I don't wish to be exposed to it anywhere ever. Thank you . Again- PLEASE KEEP YOUR RELIGION TO YOURSELF
A public discussion board or a comment section like this is not designed to be a safe space. It is a place for civil and respectful discussion where sincere people can freely and openly exchange and challenge varied ideas, insights, experiences and opinions. That's its purpose. If you are triggered by the mention of religion, I'm sure there are some online discussion boards where religious ideas are banned or discouraged or just never seem to come up. Maybe you should seek out one like that. You should not expect that here, especially given the topic of the article being commented on.
Powerful for whom? White slave owners? Because that is who Lincoln was. Religion was used to justify the slavery and oppression of actual humans. The separation of church and government was to be a foundation of our country yet at every turn here we are encouraging its consumption as if it were gospel. Whatever a white slave owner had to say about slavery in not really buying.
If you loved your kids you’d never let them be in danger right? So really you could never let them leave your sight, go to school, fall in love, leave home , have kids etc coz that would put them in harms way. Is it loving to molly coddle children and wrap them in cotton wool? No it’s not. You let them live despite the danger coz you love them and want them to experience life. It’s the same thing with God. It’s not hard to understand why there is suffering since we all learn anything worth learning from it. It’s just hard so grow a pair 😉
I don’t follow religion thank you I do believe in God though after also having religion shoved down my throat as a child. The two things are totally different and thinking for myself involved working that out.
What or whose god? I side with those ancient Hebrew tribes who arrived at the astounding notion of the one God who made the heavens and the earth, declared all creation very good, made man and women in his image and likeness, conferring on us the inviolable dignity, children of God
John........ None of us know anything much about much of anything.... least of all a God... HE's on your list, and it's YOUR list. Moreover, why a God would choose to be a Male is also a projection not deserved by the gender.
Here we go with more religion injected in the chat room. Can't we leave that to your chosen space or worship please? I don't pay for this Substack to wade through religious nonsense about some man being god...... I'm here to discuss reality
Dear Sir, I find it beyond hilarious that you are triggered by something I view as benign as taking a breath. You obviously have moral insight and judgement. You recognize that Palestinians are truly among the most wretched and dispossessed peoples on the face of the earth. Forgive me, but it is part of my nature to think such moral insight comes from a conscience given to you by ANOTHER. If you ever have a wild hair cross your mind, and you think you’d like to challenge your dogmatic certainty and woeful intolerance, please read Stephen C. Meyers’s book, The Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal MIND Behind the Universe. You read that correctly: three Scientific discoveries. Yes, I’m pretty damn crazy, pick up your cross and follow me stuff, but maybe I’m not the complete lunatic you take me to be. Read the book, if you care to find out.
Of all the things you wrote this one has resonated with me the most by far. It’s absolutely true that, though we like to think of the left-right spectrum as roughly mapping on to the good-evil spectrum, nothing could be further from the truth and there are levels and levels of leftist shitfuckery that sadly need unwinding…. The biggest one I see (in people around me and myself frankly) is the ‘I just can’t think about ALL of this, I’m just a small bean’ type thinking… like we will be super passionate about one aspect (maybe women’s rights, maybe it’s Gaza, maybe housing or workers rights, whatever) and will endlessly pontificate on that while refusing to engage with other issues by the ‘oh it’s too complicated/ I don’t know enough/ I don’t have mental bandwidth’ type deflection.
And yeah sure we can’t all be fighting for everything all the time and that’s fine frankly. The not fine is trying to dismiss or bash someone else’s cause to avoid internal guilt over not personally being involved. (It’s also not fine to trash people for not being involved in YOUR particular cause, nond of us are involved in eeeeverything).
The other day I was talking to a friend about how I found it easier than I thought to follow the BDS boycott list and it’s honestly sort of healing, not that I think I am singlehandedly saving the world or bringing these corporate giants to their knees but just in terms of my inner intention it feels good to avoid, when possible, financially supporting a$$holes.
She immediately responded with I CAN’T GIVE UP AMAZON IT’S REALLY CONVENIENT I DON’T HAVE TIME!!’
It was a very interesting reaction, because I hadn’t said a word about her having to do it too or anything along those lines. And she is genuinely a person with clear eyed and empathetic views on most most social and political issues. But there is this struggle in all of us between ‘what is happening is clearly wrong’ and ‘I still want my coffee/ running shoes/ cheap fashion/ political candidate/ general comfort’
Many of those TYPE of people, you mentioned, are big time overthinkers. It gets to the point where their social justice busybody-ness equates to actual valuable action (in their delusional minds). Yes, I too, have acquaintances colleagues and loose distant friends who focus so much on trying to "save the world" that they, in spite of themselves, end up "losing themselves!"
In my personal experience, we either get results or we don't as humans. And the more we simplify our thinking and focus on what we can actually DO, which often starts with our immediate family and community, the happier we can be.
Learning, growing and developing, inwardly, is a pivotal fuel for all that. However we got to have fun too. Otherwise we burn out!
this is absolutely a great point. I agree that many people feel that 'thinking virtuous thoughts' is basically what it takes to be a good person. So if you see a homeless man on the street the more you feel sorry for him in your mind the better a person you are, no matter that you didn't give him a penny.
I also majorly agree with needing to do things at the smallest, most grounded level. It can be 5$, it can be a tiny change of habit. It isn't nothing. People justify not changing by 'eh my effort isn't going to do anything.' But even though we're grains of sand individually, if each grain shifts a bit we will change the landscape.
That discrepancy between 'talk' and 'action' is precisely (noticeable more so to me in my fellow brothers) why I created a PREFACE to a letter written by a longtime colleague of mine, here:
We have this pivotal moment to take a small, but perhaps meaningful, step for Palestinian human rights. It’s time for the IOC to ban Israel from the Paris Olympics. Unless the entrants can prove they are not settlers and/or have not participated in the illegal occupation, they should not be allowed to compete. Let the IOC know how you feel.
Your clarity is awesome to behold. We all manifest our internal pain in our actions, relationships, and lives. Sadly it can also be a nation-level phenomenon. The Israelis are so trapped in their unprocessed intergenerarional trauma (which is manipulated and weaponized by their state and politicians) it has transformed them into monsters committing genocide. And yet so many of them are incapable of even seeing it. I have long thought they need massive, national-level truth telling, trauma processing, and therapy.
I have to do it constantly. Get grounded. When you have seen the things you can’t unsee it affects you in every way. And since I’m on a healing journey on top of our work, I have to balance a lot of things. After our work in Africa it sent me into depression until I went back and did an initiation meditation 6 hour silent hike in South Africa near the stone circles. It helped me ground and get focused. We were reaching out to the Mother Spirt. ❤️🙏🏽
In taking refuge in Kindness, compassion, mindfulness and meditation we attain wisdom. To make peace with ourselves we have to be kind, be gentle - not only to others but ourselves as well.
When I told the monk that the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza has made me unable to meditate these past seven months, he said not to exclude from my caring the soldiers who have to do the killing. Maybe it will take me more than one lifetime to attain that kind of compassion but I see his point.
To those who will find this reasoning ( the monk's) somewhat strange, let me tell you about the monk who was meditating among some protesters when a young man came up to him and said " A fat lot of good that will do"!
I absolutely agree with everything you are saying. If we don't work on keeping ourselves together, we won't be there to help anyone else. Some rely on God, some meditate, some go to psychotherapy, some play music, some create art. I had not been meditating for a few weeks, but when I started again, it helped...a lot. Also, helpful is body work such as massage therapy.
“… The truth is that even if you could snap your fingers and magically transport us into a socialist utopia where we are no longer ruled by tyrants and everyone has what they need…”
Strange framing, as we are currently ruled by tyrants, much of the world is in need, and nowhere do we open the newspapers and read this described as a capitalist dystopia.
Perhaps not being ruled by tyrants is a neutral outcome? Perhaps children being able to avoid routine hunger or starvation or daily trauma is a simple neutral outcome ? Those things don’t mean that we have to all hold hands and dance around a campfire or anything. They are just basic stuff that even by capitalisms own measurements are of net benefit to the economy.
Part of the inner work progressives need is to filter the propaganda from their minds. It’s insidious.
This is s great point, though I think a lot of us (including Kaitlin) absolutely DO think we are living in a capitalist dystopia. But as someone who lived in a socialist country that sort of worked out (former Yugoslavia), I definitely feel people everywhere are far too quick to accept certain types of injustice and inequality as ‘simply inevitable, what can you do, human nature, look at lobsters blah blah’ instead of examining why it’s there and whom does it benefit.
"Most of the internal feuding you see on the western left is nothing other than garden variety drama addiction...masquerading as Very Important Discourse about a hot social justice issue or the correct understanding of Marx or whatever."
You've described why I left the local DSA chapter--all they wanted to do was argue and do nothing to really change anything. I just couldn't take it anymore!
I've found that working through the 12 steps and reading daily meditations has helped me deal with a lot of the frustrations and anger this current world brings. I highly recommend The Center for Action and Contemplation daily emails that you can sign up for at https://cac.org (This week is actually featuring the 12 steps, btw, but topics vary widely, from all different traditions.)
I agree! I’ve been receiving CAC daily meditations for years. It’s the first thing I read every morning. So many times I’ve thought, after finishing one, “I wish everyone in the world could read this”.
I have also thought that about several of Ms Johnstone’s essays!
Just one extra thought - I don’t think the rich are behaving the way they are IN SPITE of having all their needs taken care of, they’re acting the way they are BECAUSE they have all their needs taken care of. Our brains don’t know what to do with a complete lack of adversity. There are pretty interesting articles on ‘Are The Rich Mentally Ill’, and the answer is kind of yes.
Chris Hedges dissected this really well in his writings and speeches on the pathology of the rich, about a decade ago.
He pinpointed their lives of privilege in their own bubble, from cradle to school to adulthood to grave. They literally don’t inhabit the same world and typically have little understanding of real proles lives. And they are from birth taught that all want and need are purely due to the inferior intellect and moral weakness of the poor. Collorary being that all their riches they are born with are due to their own moral and genetic superiority.
It’s not until you understand this that you can grasp how they literally will kill people for money, whether that’s hapless rednecks thrown into war in Ukraine or children bombed in playgrounds and homes in Palestine, or poor people in the global south dying because Bill Gates vaccine patents supercede a declared pandemic.
this is it exactly. Honestly I have also had thoughts about how we, the sorta-kinda-middle-class folks are actually victims of this same mechanism, though not nearly to the same degree. But I personally know lots and lots of people who believe, for instance, that homeless people are homeless because of their own moral failings 'eh they're all alcoholics and drug addicts with mental issues' (as if those same things don't apply to plenty of people with money, except they get treatment and care). It's the same thought process. Like how many of us have been told 'you better study hard in school if you don't wanna end up flippin' burgers for a living' - basically teaching kids that people who work low paying jobs are lazy and stupid and thus couldn't do any better for themselves, as if we don't literally need all those jobs to SURVIVE.
So much unpacking to do in the 'meritocracy' belief system.
Chris Hedges was a scholarship student at a rich kids high school, where he rubbed shoulders with Rockefellers. He shamed the administration into improving the help's quarters, whereupon they threatened him with suspension if he did something like that again.
G'day Lidija
You say "Our brains don’t know what to do with a complete lack of adversity." but anthropologists, describe Homo Sapiens as highly social primate, in fact I've read hyper social. So when they are not fired up to fight a battle, they can find plenty to do together that might benefit our society.
for sure. By adversity I don't mean extremes. But if you are told from birth you are special and therefore shouldn't struggle for anything, you form differently than if you had to take care of yourself. It's not accidental that so few kids from rich families grow up resilient, humble, or caring. You have to learn these things. What social interaction do they get if they're surrounded by maids and cooks and drivers and people who are basically paid to make their lives easier?
Well, that raises the long running debate about Nature v Nurture. To be sure people can be conditioned to accept a given set of beliefs and to to behave accordingly, even if those behaviours meet the clinical definition of psychopathy. But to be equally sure, some people don't need much conditioning.
I guess the only way to reach a diagnosis in individual cases would be a thorough psychiatric examination.
For sure, on an individual level that is true. But I feel we don’t need psychiatrists when we hear people stating things like ‘I don’t think water should be a human right’ (CEO of Nestle, responsible for many communities not having drinkable water because his company is draining their reserves for their bottling plants), or ‘We need to see unemployment rise by 40-50%, then workers will stop being ungrateful and stop asking for rights and unions’ (I think that was a CEO of Blackrock? I could be wrong but it’s not far off) or the diamond trader guy saying ‘oh we shouldn’t support synthetic diamonds because the real ones are providing a living for many poor people’… literally defending the trade called ‘the blood diamond trade’… many other statements these people freely and openly make that show they are unable to view the rest of humanity as worth of…. well, literally anything. Look at it this way. If you had a company, and your company made phones, and those phones needed a particular mineral, and children were literally dying in the most horrific conditions digging that mineral up for you with their bare hands, and you knew that but shrugged and said ‘well, that’s the cost of doing business’… would I need a shrink to tell me you’re not well?
True, and this becomes even more alarming when you consider that our cultural prescription for responsible rich people is that they enter politics, where their inner quest for adversity typically takes the most available forms of trying to subvert the popular will and fighting with other countries.
Basically.
I'd like to see some comprehensive proof of that. The reason I say "comprehensive" is that there is no doubt that many of us behave like the aforesaid rich that you mention above, but on the other hand many do not. Either they live well in general or they are mixed cases. Also, we don't observe many people (or animals, as a matter of fact) upon whom Nature (or God or chance or whatever) does not impart a good deal of adversity from time to time.
I would say we have extremely comprehensive proof in just looking out of your window and seeing what is happening to society today. Workers' rights are eroding, wars are everywhere, teachers and nurses are underpaid and freelancing in their spare time to afford rent and food for their kids, food banks are facing more pressure than ever, homelessness is on the rise, and all the massive companies are reporting massive profits while simultaneously laying off as many people as they can. Looks pretty comprehensive to me :)
If the system is falling apart and producing bad results, then that's not a moral failure of some particular individuals, it's the system itself, to wit, capitalism. And yet people keep voting for it, working for it, contributing to it, fighting for it; and so the beat goes on.
who makes the system tho? That's the trick question ;)
It's a great sleight of hand giving people the right to vote in order to solve their issues but then set it up so that whoever you vote for you get a pile of crap heaped on you anyway. I wonder why every other form of civil involvement is so strongly argued against, and why police are arresting kids who peacefully protest/ planting agent provocateurs in peaceful BLM protests etc to give themselves excuses for violent reaction. Hint it's not because the system is fair and balanced and we're free to make our choices.
Not sure I understand the gist of your idea... especially the last sentence about being "free to make choices???"
Well Gordon above was saying that people keep voting for the corrupt system and that’s why it keeps being bad. What I was trying to express is that I don’t think we get a real choice or say in how the system operates. We are essentially voting for two different-flavored tentacles of the same monster. We are not just ‘free to vote for better options but keep choosing bad ones’. We are screwed in fundamental ways no matter what we choose, because that’s how the system has been constructed. There’s that quote from ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ that says ‘You didn’t make good choices, you HAD good choices’. We don’t.
It's easy for rich people to be kind to people in need especially when it entails donating money for which they will get a tax credit. They have the money, why not if it makes them look good? But if giving that help means giving up a significant portion of their wealth and status, I am not so sure. And I think most if us would be at risk of behaving that way if we got rich.
Behaving that way if one has a void in their essence. When a person who is wealthy cannot bring themselves to be giving, empathetic and charitable, they likely have come to depend upon their material worth as representative of who and what they are. When one values oneself and enjoys the activities and outlooks which define their lives, they are rich in their souls. Money cannot buy talent, intelligence, empathy or creativity.
When I read your astoundingly clear and informative work, it’s very obvious to me that you have done a lot of inner work. You have processed your defensive structures sufficiently that they don’t blind you to what is actually happening. You have outgrown the tendency to take sides, so you see the bigger picture clearly. Your voice is refreshingly honest.
The theme of this essay is one I’ve been meaning to address. So true: even if we were dropped into a sane and pristine world, we would poison it with our unmetabolized wounds.
I help individuals do this type of inner work, and I can tell you it’s not for sissies. It’s way easier to project your trauma than to resolve it. It takes courage to look inside when strong emotions get provoked and make the necessary adjustments that allow you to grow beyond defensive reactions rooted in old pain.
Thank you for your dedication to telling the truth and being courageous enough to take responsibility for the glitches in your own psyche.
It’s called prayer, dear. It’s called using the concrete circumstances of our everyday lives to instantiate God’s love in the world. You want to change your inner life? Wish good on your enemies. Feed the starving. Cloth the naked. Do good to those who hate you. Forget cosmic reform. It is beyond us. Know that the line between good and evil lies in every individual’s heart.
Injecting religion into public discussion and discourse is not the way of uniting people. Religions is yours, not mine.
In my neck of the woods, excluding persons with a religious bent from the public square would alienate 80% of the population. Besides, read again the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’ Second Inaugural Address. Although Jefferson and Lincoln were not devout, they used religious metaphor as powerful as a two by four upside the head.
Not quite John. Injecting personal religion into conversation involving the general public isn't welcoming. If religion is injected into a conversation it makes me uncomfortable and therefore I don't want to continue a discussion with you. And using an example of old white slave owners and the Declaration of Independence they have forced on us is not helping your argument
Again your religion is not mine. Keep it to yourself
I'm not religious, actually closer to an atheist, but discounting another person's religious beliefs in a sincere conversation because it makes you uncomfortable is not something to feel good or self-righteous about. Don't be sure you have everything figured. These are tough questions and dilemmas. Hard to solve without some humility and openness to the humanity of others.
Im also atheist. You're putting words into my mouth. I'm not discounting anything --I simply asked that religion be left out of public discussion which by all means I'm allowed to do. Religion is PERSONAL not public. Your religion makes me uncomfortable. I shouldn't have any religion spoon fed to me in my chosen safe spaces. That's what places of worship are for. I don't wish to be exposed to it anywhere ever. Thank you . Again- PLEASE KEEP YOUR RELIGION TO YOURSELF
A public discussion board or a comment section like this is not designed to be a safe space. It is a place for civil and respectful discussion where sincere people can freely and openly exchange and challenge varied ideas, insights, experiences and opinions. That's its purpose. If you are triggered by the mention of religion, I'm sure there are some online discussion boards where religious ideas are banned or discouraged or just never seem to come up. Maybe you should seek out one like that. You should not expect that here, especially given the topic of the article being commented on.
John... Using "a two X four upside the head" as a metaphor for doing the right thing isn't exactly in everyone's perspective.
Good point. I agree. But do read Lincoln's second inaugural address. It is quite powerful, and uncompromisingly religious.
Powerful for whom? White slave owners? Because that is who Lincoln was. Religion was used to justify the slavery and oppression of actual humans. The separation of church and government was to be a foundation of our country yet at every turn here we are encouraging its consumption as if it were gospel. Whatever a white slave owner had to say about slavery in not really buying.
WHOSE “god”?
WHAT “god”?
John can postulate a God if he wishes, can he not?
Yes, if he’s delusional.
What “god” ( who supposedly loves his children) allows such misery?
That question is very infantile. God is for adults.
"God is for Adults".... Now I can understand why becoming an adult is not necessarily the cat's meow... Children don't kill children, but adults do.
God obviously doesn’t put a stop to suffering that would make zero sense if he’s promised us free will.
@Jessica
On the contrary. I had religion crammed down my throat as a child. As an adult, I learned to think for myself. I suggest you try it.
If you loved your kids you’d never let them be in danger right? So really you could never let them leave your sight, go to school, fall in love, leave home , have kids etc coz that would put them in harms way. Is it loving to molly coddle children and wrap them in cotton wool? No it’s not. You let them live despite the danger coz you love them and want them to experience life. It’s the same thing with God. It’s not hard to understand why there is suffering since we all learn anything worth learning from it. It’s just hard so grow a pair 😉
I don’t follow religion thank you I do believe in God though after also having religion shoved down my throat as a child. The two things are totally different and thinking for myself involved working that out.
How do you know he's delusional?
What or whose god? I side with those ancient Hebrew tribes who arrived at the astounding notion of the one God who made the heavens and the earth, declared all creation very good, made man and women in his image and likeness, conferring on us the inviolable dignity, children of God
John........ None of us know anything much about much of anything.... least of all a God... HE's on your list, and it's YOUR list. Moreover, why a God would choose to be a Male is also a projection not deserved by the gender.
He supposedly made woman out of a man’s rib—-like an afterthought.
And made HER the villain.
The Abrahamic religions have employed this silly notion to subjugate women for centuries and still do to an extent.
I’m really not sure how anyone can believe in a being that cannot be proven and is based on a big book of horror stories.
But hey, more power to ya.
@ John Waring
Here we go with more religion injected in the chat room. Can't we leave that to your chosen space or worship please? I don't pay for this Substack to wade through religious nonsense about some man being god...... I'm here to discuss reality
Dear Sir, I find it beyond hilarious that you are triggered by something I view as benign as taking a breath. You obviously have moral insight and judgement. You recognize that Palestinians are truly among the most wretched and dispossessed peoples on the face of the earth. Forgive me, but it is part of my nature to think such moral insight comes from a conscience given to you by ANOTHER. If you ever have a wild hair cross your mind, and you think you’d like to challenge your dogmatic certainty and woeful intolerance, please read Stephen C. Meyers’s book, The Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal MIND Behind the Universe. You read that correctly: three Scientific discoveries. Yes, I’m pretty damn crazy, pick up your cross and follow me stuff, but maybe I’m not the complete lunatic you take me to be. Read the book, if you care to find out.
Not quite John... God is in the eye of the beholder, and seeing the world without HIM is not necessarily a bad thing.
Of all the things you wrote this one has resonated with me the most by far. It’s absolutely true that, though we like to think of the left-right spectrum as roughly mapping on to the good-evil spectrum, nothing could be further from the truth and there are levels and levels of leftist shitfuckery that sadly need unwinding…. The biggest one I see (in people around me and myself frankly) is the ‘I just can’t think about ALL of this, I’m just a small bean’ type thinking… like we will be super passionate about one aspect (maybe women’s rights, maybe it’s Gaza, maybe housing or workers rights, whatever) and will endlessly pontificate on that while refusing to engage with other issues by the ‘oh it’s too complicated/ I don’t know enough/ I don’t have mental bandwidth’ type deflection.
And yeah sure we can’t all be fighting for everything all the time and that’s fine frankly. The not fine is trying to dismiss or bash someone else’s cause to avoid internal guilt over not personally being involved. (It’s also not fine to trash people for not being involved in YOUR particular cause, nond of us are involved in eeeeverything).
The other day I was talking to a friend about how I found it easier than I thought to follow the BDS boycott list and it’s honestly sort of healing, not that I think I am singlehandedly saving the world or bringing these corporate giants to their knees but just in terms of my inner intention it feels good to avoid, when possible, financially supporting a$$holes.
She immediately responded with I CAN’T GIVE UP AMAZON IT’S REALLY CONVENIENT I DON’T HAVE TIME!!’
It was a very interesting reaction, because I hadn’t said a word about her having to do it too or anything along those lines. And she is genuinely a person with clear eyed and empathetic views on most most social and political issues. But there is this struggle in all of us between ‘what is happening is clearly wrong’ and ‘I still want my coffee/ running shoes/ cheap fashion/ political candidate/ general comfort’
I will help simplify some of your thoughts.
Many of those TYPE of people, you mentioned, are big time overthinkers. It gets to the point where their social justice busybody-ness equates to actual valuable action (in their delusional minds). Yes, I too, have acquaintances colleagues and loose distant friends who focus so much on trying to "save the world" that they, in spite of themselves, end up "losing themselves!"
In my personal experience, we either get results or we don't as humans. And the more we simplify our thinking and focus on what we can actually DO, which often starts with our immediate family and community, the happier we can be.
Learning, growing and developing, inwardly, is a pivotal fuel for all that. However we got to have fun too. Otherwise we burn out!
this is absolutely a great point. I agree that many people feel that 'thinking virtuous thoughts' is basically what it takes to be a good person. So if you see a homeless man on the street the more you feel sorry for him in your mind the better a person you are, no matter that you didn't give him a penny.
I also majorly agree with needing to do things at the smallest, most grounded level. It can be 5$, it can be a tiny change of habit. It isn't nothing. People justify not changing by 'eh my effort isn't going to do anything.' But even though we're grains of sand individually, if each grain shifts a bit we will change the landscape.
That discrepancy between 'talk' and 'action' is precisely (noticeable more so to me in my fellow brothers) why I created a PREFACE to a letter written by a longtime colleague of mine, here:
https://bearsbulletins.substack.com/p/less-talk-more-action
We have this pivotal moment to take a small, but perhaps meaningful, step for Palestinian human rights. It’s time for the IOC to ban Israel from the Paris Olympics. Unless the entrants can prove they are not settlers and/or have not participated in the illegal occupation, they should not be allowed to compete. Let the IOC know how you feel.
I just discovered that the prior link leads to a page that has now been 'suspended.' Here's another: https://support.olympics.com/hc/en-gb/requests/new
Let's see how long this one stays open.
So I am not going to lie here.
When I first came across your material I was not a fan.
Then I broke down the wall of partisan politics and boom 💥.
Everything you talk about is Valuable and Truthful!
Thanks for Opening My Eyes Even More.
❤️
Your clarity is awesome to behold. We all manifest our internal pain in our actions, relationships, and lives. Sadly it can also be a nation-level phenomenon. The Israelis are so trapped in their unprocessed intergenerarional trauma (which is manipulated and weaponized by their state and politicians) it has transformed them into monsters committing genocide. And yet so many of them are incapable of even seeing it. I have long thought they need massive, national-level truth telling, trauma processing, and therapy.
Like amerikkkans.....
Your insight and commentary continues to amaze me.
This This This is The Truth!
I thank you for showing the Shadow Work
Your writing resonates with me. Yes, it all starts within, peace comes from within. Then it can be shared with the world. 🌎
I have to do it constantly. Get grounded. When you have seen the things you can’t unsee it affects you in every way. And since I’m on a healing journey on top of our work, I have to balance a lot of things. After our work in Africa it sent me into depression until I went back and did an initiation meditation 6 hour silent hike in South Africa near the stone circles. It helped me ground and get focused. We were reaching out to the Mother Spirt. ❤️🙏🏽
Caitlin, Sadhu 🙏 to you.
In taking refuge in Kindness, compassion, mindfulness and meditation we attain wisdom. To make peace with ourselves we have to be kind, be gentle - not only to others but ourselves as well.
When I told the monk that the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza has made me unable to meditate these past seven months, he said not to exclude from my caring the soldiers who have to do the killing. Maybe it will take me more than one lifetime to attain that kind of compassion but I see his point.
To those who will find this reasoning ( the monk's) somewhat strange, let me tell you about the monk who was meditating among some protesters when a young man came up to him and said " A fat lot of good that will do"!
I absolutely agree with everything you are saying. If we don't work on keeping ourselves together, we won't be there to help anyone else. Some rely on God, some meditate, some go to psychotherapy, some play music, some create art. I had not been meditating for a few weeks, but when I started again, it helped...a lot. Also, helpful is body work such as massage therapy.
So true!
As activists taking care of ourselves is how we keep going in a caring and constructive way.
“… The truth is that even if you could snap your fingers and magically transport us into a socialist utopia where we are no longer ruled by tyrants and everyone has what they need…”
Strange framing, as we are currently ruled by tyrants, much of the world is in need, and nowhere do we open the newspapers and read this described as a capitalist dystopia.
Perhaps not being ruled by tyrants is a neutral outcome? Perhaps children being able to avoid routine hunger or starvation or daily trauma is a simple neutral outcome ? Those things don’t mean that we have to all hold hands and dance around a campfire or anything. They are just basic stuff that even by capitalisms own measurements are of net benefit to the economy.
Part of the inner work progressives need is to filter the propaganda from their minds. It’s insidious.
This is s great point, though I think a lot of us (including Kaitlin) absolutely DO think we are living in a capitalist dystopia. But as someone who lived in a socialist country that sort of worked out (former Yugoslavia), I definitely feel people everywhere are far too quick to accept certain types of injustice and inequality as ‘simply inevitable, what can you do, human nature, look at lobsters blah blah’ instead of examining why it’s there and whom does it benefit.
"Most of the internal feuding you see on the western left is nothing other than garden variety drama addiction...masquerading as Very Important Discourse about a hot social justice issue or the correct understanding of Marx or whatever."
You've described why I left the local DSA chapter--all they wanted to do was argue and do nothing to really change anything. I just couldn't take it anymore!
I've found that working through the 12 steps and reading daily meditations has helped me deal with a lot of the frustrations and anger this current world brings. I highly recommend The Center for Action and Contemplation daily emails that you can sign up for at https://cac.org (This week is actually featuring the 12 steps, btw, but topics vary widely, from all different traditions.)
I agree! I’ve been receiving CAC daily meditations for years. It’s the first thing I read every morning. So many times I’ve thought, after finishing one, “I wish everyone in the world could read this”.
I have also thought that about several of Ms Johnstone’s essays!