Notice to Readers: This post discusses the grave dangers to humanity from Global Warming.
In a touching video that I recently watched, Joanna Macy commented: "What is falling apart is a demented system - political, economic, corporate capitalism." She said this in the context of a discussion about the deep danger that our Planet is in as a result of human action.
Just as a boil festering on the skin is an aggravated symptom of deep dis-ease within the body - whether from Bubonic plague or some other malady, I see the current U.S. President as such a pronounced symptom. As with many symptoms, they reflect not just the ailment itself but also the contradictory aspects of the dis-ease as the body manifests that it is both ill and fighting the ailment. Hence, dis-ease.
To carry the metaphor further, the dis-ease is to the entire system. The body continues to have its own internal dialogue - shall I allow myself to succumb to this ailment or shall I continue to fight it with the intention that I can prevail.
I think this is where global society is currently at. There is the ailment which is the deep danger we and our Planet are in based on Global Warming which has the potential for the extinction of the human race along with the many other species that are on a daily basis going extinct.
One major cause of Global Warming as Macy points out is the "demented political, economic, corporate capitalistic system." However you choose to describe the current system, what we are speaking about is the unrestrained taking of carbon out of the Earth in the form of fossil fuels and the unrestrained expelling of carbon into the atmosphere. One can add agricultural practices in here as well. What has legitimized this practice and institutionalized it during recent times is the "demented" system that Macy speaks about.
Human psychology presents us with additional challenges. While the physical body immediately goes to work producing antibodies to an ailment, humans often go through stages of denial in which they claim that the ailment is not really happening, that the ailment is happening to someone else but not to them or where they try to bury all of the facts which directly point to the ailment. There are, of course, may other strategies of denial that humans use.
I believe that human society is aware on some deep level in its collective unconscious that it is now in danger - whether individual members are explicitly aware of the danger, illness and its threat.
The psychological response of denial can be an explicit, conscious one - "I just prefer not to think about it" or an unconscious one where even admitting the denial consciously is avoided.
This in turn is compounded by other psychological dynamics such as a fragile ego which makes denial into a crusade as an additional form of protection. Many other manifestations of this can then occur.
I believe that human society is in the throes of grappling with its own process of denial, of grieving for a way of life soon to be gone, of the threat to life itself, of guilt for what it has perpetrated upon other species and its own descendants. This is a heavy burden to carry especially when it is all being contained unconsciously within thereby being deprived of the human compassion that can be provided when it finally becomes conscious and expressed to others.
In these times, it is a great temptation to project all of this onto one person and thereby gain the illusion that one is relieving oneself of the untold anxiety. The current U.S. President is the ideal receptacle for all of these unconscious feelings. His own pronounced need to protect a fragile ego at all costs, to deny the existence of threats, to project onto others what he prefers not to face in himself, to engage in incessant tweeting as a distraction makes him such a receptive object for the anxieties of others.
In this instance, his slogan "Make America Great Again" is really a plea "can things just please be the way they were before this threat came onto the scene."
Luckily, a great part of society is not susceptible to these unhelpful dynamics though even among this larger segment the process of moving through denial, grief and a call to action has not fully germinated. Even for this group of people, the U.S. President is the "poster-child" for what is going on within themselves - should I confront the denial in myself and others, should I encounter my own grief, should I work through it to action.
When the society as a whole allows itself to face and work through its own denial, grief and move to action, it will no longer need the symptom sitting and evoking attention on the skin of the society. Then the challenging work of facing the future will begin.
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