Tag: Roger Hallam

Everything Old is New Again

Posted on by Marie Snyder

by Marie Snyder

We’re being asked to believe six impossible things before breakfast. We have to reckon with several  upheavals at once: more conflicts, discrimination, poverty, illness, and natural disasters than many of us have ever seen in our comfortable lifetimes, and without a clear path forward. It’s unsettling. It feels necessary to find courage for this disquieting time. I was recently reminded of Maya Angelou’s words, “Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.” It might help to look back to stories of those who were able to maintain their integrity in the face of prior adversities as we manage this collective anxiety. 

Emile Durkheim wrote about this feeling back in 1897.  Suicide is a book-length report on the four scenarios that provoke people to give up on life: egoistic, altruistic, fatalistic, and anomic. His discussion of anomy may be a useful warning for today:

“Whenever serious readjustments take place in the social order, whether or not due to a sudden growth or to an unexpected catastrophe, men [referring to all people] are more inclined to self-destruction. …. Man’s characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience. … But when society is disturbed by some painful crisis or by beneficent but abrupt transitions, it is momentarily incapable of exercising this influence. … Appetites, not being controlled by a public opinion become disoriented, no longer recognize the limits proper to them. … The state of de-regulation or anomy is thus further heightened by passions being less disciplined, precisely when they need more disciplining. … A thirst arises for novelties, unfamiliar pleasures, nameless sensations, all of which lose their savor once known. … What blinded him to himself was his expectation always to find further on the happiness he had so far missed. Now he is stopped in his tracks; from now on nothing remains behind or ahead of him to fix his gaze upon. … He cannot in the end escape the futility of an endless pursuit. … Time is required for the public conscience to reclassify men and things.”

Abrupt transitions make it hard to think. Some political figures recognize a crisis as an opportunity because the public isn’t thinking clearly. We go into survival mode and become more animalistic, unable to organize in order to stop questionable policies. We thirst for novelty, using distraction to cope with the upheaval. Time may be required, but what do we do if it feels like there’s a never ending urgent crisis presented, one after another? More clever commenters recognize them as planted distractions to keep us confused, but that doesn’t significantly negate their effectiveness.   Read more »

Monday, December 2, 2024

Developing the Capacity for Rational Choices

Posted on by Marie Snyder

by Marie Snyder

“As the world falls around us, how must we brave its cruelties?” —Furiosa 

Imprisoned climate activist, Roger Hallam, recently wrote about the necessity of expanding emotional well-being as we face bleak events happening around the world. While climate scientists try to “help people through the horrific information that they are being given,” they also need a way to manage their emotional reactions. We can no longer afford to merely distract ourselves from the inner turmoil. Beyond climate, we could very well be entering into a period of much greater conflict at a time of even more viruses, some destructive to our food system. When the watering hole gets smaller, the animals look at one another differently.

To move forward with compassion, at a time when divide and conquer strategies have created polarization and infighting, seems to require an effort from each one of us. 

Hallam writes,

“We might want to think about why saint-like people are enormously influential, even powerful. . . . They see the world as dependent upon the mind. . . . They are not enslaved by the world; their minds are intent, driven even, to change it. They do not see this as an end in itself.”

He explains the journey toward collective action as beginning with exploring the self as it relates to reality. The part of interest to me is this: 

“Some people are so into themselves that they find it almost impossible to get out of themselves. They are stuck, enmeshed. Children are often like this. They are literally overwhelmed by their emotions. . . . You see it a lot in prison–people so full of their distress, their anger, and rage, they cannot see themselves at all. . . . The ability to reflect on yourself, on your emotions and your behavior, leads on to a more general idea, and that is transcendence. This might be described as a deep ability to move outside of oneself, to look at oneself from the outside, simply to watch. . . . The more you practice doing it, the stronger you get at doing it. . .  . The essence of being human is nothing to do with our being in this world–it is to do with having a choice.”

The ability to choose to be responsive instead of reactive can be developed and refined through intentional introspection. This isn’t anything new; it’s an old truth ignored until it becomes crucial to our survival.   Read more »