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Charles EisensteinCharles Eisenstein

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Ljepši svijet za koji naše srce zna da je moguć

Poglavlje 29: Zlo

 

Kada smo suočeni s nečim što smatramo "zlom" to predstavlja prijetnju samoočuvanju ega. Toliko smo zauzeti obranom naše egzistencije od te prijetnje da uopće ne možemo jasno vidjeti stvari.

—Chögyam Trungpa

Ponekad na snimanjima Q&A programa ili Internet komentarima suočavam se s optužbama da ignoriram "tamnu stranu ljudske prirode." Volio bih razložiti ovu izjavu. Što je tamna strana ljudske prirode? To sigurno znači više od "Ponekad ljudi čine prilično grozne stvari," jer očito ako nije nečija greška ili namjera da čini štetu, onda to nije jako mračno. Osim toga, svi koji su čitali moje radove znaju da sam prilično svjestan groznih stvari koje mi ljudi činimo jedni drugima na planetu. Ne, kada govorimo o mračnoj strani ljudske prirode to je dispozicionistička tvrdnja: činimo loše stvari zato jer postoji zloća u nama. Mi u sebi nosimo zlo, pakost, sebičnost, pohlepu, divljaštvo, okrutnost, nasilje, mržnju i bešćutnost.

U jednu ruku to je banalna istina: sve to dio je ljudskog iskustva. Čak ako ih prilike iznose na vidjelo, oni moraju prije svega biti tu da bi se iznijeli na vidjelo. Ali, kad bi se radilo samo o tome, onda bi bio dovoljan odgovor situacionista: promijenite prilike koje izazivaju zlo. To nije lak zadatak: "prilike" obuhvaćaju cijelo zdanje naše civilizacije sve tamo dolje do fundamentalne mitologije Odvojenosti i Uspona. No ipak, ljepši svijet je još uvijek u principu moguć.

Koliko se meni čini, kritičari govore još nešto: "Ne samo da je zlo proizvod naših institucija, iako sigurno mnoge od njih, kao što je novčani sustav, izazivaju i nagrađuju zlo. Zlo prethodi svemu tome; uistinu, naše zle institucije stvorili su i nametnuli zli ljudi. Štoviše, takvi ljudi su danas još uvijek među nama. Oni ti neće dozvoliti da promijeniš sustav. Zlo postoji u svijetu, Charles, fundamentalno zlo. Ako se tješiš fantazijama o tome kako se ono može iscijeliti, ono će te jednostavno iskoristiti. Sa zlom se treba suočiti i poraziti ga."

Neki od ovih kritičara eksternaliziraju zlo u obliku zle kabale iluminata koji potajno vladaju svijetom; drugi nude više iznijansirani stav koji zlo pronalazi i u njima samima. Na bilo koji način, oni gledaju kroz esencijalističke leće (esencijalizam -   pretpostavka da neka skupina ili kategorija ima najmanje jedno ključno obilježje koje bitno određuje identitet svih njezinih pripadnika).

Prije nego odgovorim na ovu kritiku, osjećam potrebu konstatirati da nisam neupućen u najgore što se dogodilo i još se uvijek događa na ovom svijetu. Ja znam o čemu ljudi govore kada se pozivaju na institucionalno i osobno zlo. Što bi to drugo bilo kada međunarodni kreditori cijede plaćanje kamata iz zemalja gdje djeca gladuju? Što bi to drugo bilo kada žene u Kongu siluju bajunetama? Što je kada tek prohodalu djecu šalju na vješala? Što je to kada ljude muče motornim pilama i kliještima? Što je to kada bebe siluju na webcam snimkama sa dječjom pornografijom? Što je to kada djecu ubijaju pred očima njihovih roditelja kao kaznu zbog borbe za radna prava? Što je to kada domorodačku američku djecu silom šalju u internate kako bi izgubili svoj jezik, a često i svoje živote? Što je to kada se djevičanske šume sravne sa zemljom zbog profita? Što je to kada se otrovni otpad odlaže u vrtače? Što je to kada se gradovi sravne sa zemljom atomskom bombom samo u svrhu dokazivanja? Brutalnost i dvoličnost ovog planeta ne poznaje granice. Najgore što možete zamisliti da jedno ljudsko biće učini drugom, već je bilo učinjeno. Ako nije zbog zla, onda zašto?

Svaki svjetonazor koji ne priznaje realnost ovih stvari na kraju će nas iznevjeriti kao izvor optimizma, vjere i hrabrosti. Rođeni u svijetu u kojem se događaju ove stvari svi nosimo njihov pečat. Bilo da smo toga svjesni ili ne. Meni je važno ponekad pročitati o genocidu dana, pogledati fotografije iskopavanja katranskog pijeska, pročitati o propadanju šuma diljem svijeta i dotaknuti se pojedinačnih priča o ljudima pogođenim ratom, zatvorskom industrijom i tako dalje. Jedino tada, vidjevši najgore, moj optimizam može biti autentičan. Obično su to mali, osobni slučajevi koji uđu pod kožu. Na primjer, postoji žena koju sam sreo u Kaliforniji koji odbija svoga sina liječiti još jednim lijekom koji mu je bio prepisan zato jer, kako kaže, svaki novi lijek čini ga još bolesnijim. Već mu je bilo prepisano više od dvadeset lijekova i sad joj je dosta. Zbog toga joj je socijalna služba oduzela dijete. Umro je mjesec dana kasnije. Ovu priču kao i stotine sličnih, svuda nosim sa sobom.

Ako imate oči da vidite i uši da čujete, često ćete susretati takve užasne priče i puno gore. Možete li zuriti u ponor očaja koji one predstavljaju, a da ne padnete unutra? Možete li trpjeti njihov poziv na mržnju, bijes, ritanje protiv zla, a da ne prihvatite taj poziv? Taj poziv nije nepovezan s očajem: prema kalkulacijama rata zlo je jače od dobra. Ono nema grižnju savjesti. Ono će koristiti sva potrebna sredstva. Zbog toga nema nade u narativima u kojima okorjeli zli iluminati kontroliraju sve svjetske vlade, korporacije, vojske i banke.

Ja bih želio ukazati na drugačiji poziv koji nude ove užasavajuće priče. To je poziv na zavjetovanje, "Ja ću učiniti sve što je u mojoj moći da stvorim svijet u kojem se to više neće događati." Uključivanje takvih priča u moju svijest cijepit će me protiv još uvijek dominantne Priče o Svijetu u kojoj su stvari u osnovi onakve kakve bi trebale biti.

Prije više godina moja tadašnja supruga Patsy posjetila je jedno mjesto za čuvanje djece u kući gdje bi Philip mogao biti u kontaktu s drugom djecom sat ili dva dnevno (ni jedno od nas nije vjerovalo u dječje vrtiće). Ušla je u prizor gdje su dvije žene čuvale oko dvanaestero djece u dobi od nula do četiri godine, uz djelomičnu pomoć elektronskog babysittera – televizije. Jedna beba od oko devet mjeseci bila je baš u fazi puzanja. No nije mogla puzati jer je bila unutar male "ogradice" – drugim riječima u kavezu. Beba nije plakala, samo je tamo sjedila. Patsy se sažalila nad njom tako ograđenom. "Zašto beba ne može izaći?" upitala je. Dežurna žena je rekla, "Pogledajte koliko imamo posla. Ona se svuda petlja. Ne možemo je pustiti van s toliko djece koju treba nahraniti, presvući, paziti …"

"Ja ću paziti na nju," rekla je Patsy. Žena se složila da se dijete pusti napolje na neko vrijeme.

Tako ga je Patsy izvadila iz ogradice. Čim je bila slobodna bebino lice obasjala je razdraganost. Konačno može puzati! Ići tamo, i tamo, pomiješati se s drugom djecom. Bila je u raju. Imala je za to petnaest minuta. Onda je Patsy morala otići, a beba je vraćena u svoju ogradicu. Petnaest minuta bilo je sve što je ta beba dobila.

Kada sam čuo tu priču, u meni je navro poriv da se zavjetujem, "Učinit ću sve što je u mojoj moći da stvorim svijet gdje bebe neće stavljati u kaveze." Naizgled sićušan otisak u litaniji užasa kojima je protkan svijet, ali mi je ušao pod kožu. I vidio sam kako je bio povezan sa svime što se danas događa, žrtvovanjem ljudskosti za učinkovitost, monetizacijom intimnog i nametanjem režima kontrole na svakom području života. Iznova sam se pitao: "Kako smo došli u tako jadno stanje siromaštva da bebe moraju biti u kavezu?" Beba u kavezu je jedan mali sastavni dio naše ukupne Priče o Svijetu.

Svijet u kojem se bebe stavljaju u kaveze, da ne spominjemo u kojem se ubijaju mačetama, je nepodnošljiv. Dobra definicija Pakla je: ne imati izbora već podnositi nepodnošljivo. Naša Priča o Svijetu na daje nam nikakav način da to zaustavimo jer zlo je – bilo pod krinkom genetske sebičnosti ili demonskih moći – elementarna sila u svom svemiru. A vi ste samo slabašna individua u oceanu drugih. Zato nas naša Priča o Svijetu baca u Pakao.

Žena koja je vodila brigu o toj djeci očito nije bila zla. Bila je preopterećena, zauzeta i unutar priče u kojoj je sve što je radila bilo u redu. Pitanje zla se možda svodi na ovo: Je li ta žena u kontinuumu s pretjerano ambicioznim tužiteljem, otrovnim političarom, sve do sadističkog mučitelja? Ili postoji diskontinuitet koji dijeli uobičajeno oštećenog čovjeka od istinski zlog? Prije nego prenaglimo sa zaključkom trebali bi dati sve od sebe da shvatimo kakva vrsta "situacije" može stvoriti čak i najodvratnija djela.

Možda je ono što mi vidimo kao zlo u ljudskoj prirodi, uvjetni odgovor na prilike tako sveprisutne i tako drevne po svom porijeklu da ih ne možemo vidjeti kao uvjetne. "Stvaranje drugog" koje nam omogućava da nanosimo zlo i priče koje sadrže stvaranje drugog, prisutne su do neke mjere čak i kod domorodaca i čine temeljno tkanje modernog društva. Mi stvarno ne znamo kakva bi bila ljudska priroda u okolišu koje utjelovljuje Priču o povezanosti. Mi ne znamo kako bi to izgledalo odrasti u društvu koje je afirmiralo našu povezanost i kultiviralo njene pridružene percepcije, osjećaje, misli i vjerovanja. Mi ne znamo kakvo bi bilo iskustvo života da nikada nismo naučili samo-odbacivanje i prosuđivanje. Mi ne znamo kako bi reagirali na prilike obilja umjesto oskudice. U Svetoj ekonomiji sam napisao "Pohlepa je odgovor na percepciju oskudice." (Ako svi imaju puno i društvo živi u ekonomiji dijeljenja koja nagrađuje velikodušnost, tada je pohlepa besmislena.) Možda bi to mogli proširiti ako kažemo, "Zlo je odgovor na percepciju odvojenosti."

Na jednom seminaru duhovne obnove tražio sam od sudionika da naokolo šeću kao odvojena sebstva. Trebali su sunce vidjeti kao običnu loptu vodika koji se tali, drveće samo kao drveno tkivo; pjesmu ptica trebali su čuti kao genetski programirane pozive za parenje i teritorijalne markere. Jedan drugog su trebali promatrati kao grabežljiva sebična ega, a svijet kao natjecateljsko borilište. I stalno ih se podsjećalo da sat otkucava. Kada smo se kasnije preispitivali, jedan od učesnika je rekao, "Jednostavno sam počeo osjećati bijes. Želio sam nekoga udariti, ubiti nešto."

Te percepcije odvojenosti koje su sudionici trebali usvojiti – one su zrak koji dišemo kao članovi modernog društva. One su u središtu implicitnih vjerovanja naše kulture. Nije čudo da smo tako ljuti. Nije čudo da smo tako nasilni. Uronjeni u takav svijet, kako ne bismo bili?

Ništa od ovoga ne osporava činjenicu da postoji užasno mnogo opasnih ljudi naokolo, ljudi koji su duboko uvjetovani Odvojenošću i koji bi se jedino čudom mogli promijeniti. Takva čuda se ponekad događaju, no ne preporučam da se u njih pouzdajete u svakoj situaciji. Ponavljam, kada bi neki naoružani uljez zaprijetio mojoj djeci ja bih vjerojatno koristio silu da ga zaustavim, bez obzira razumijem li ili ne da su njegove akcije posljedica trauma proživljenih u djetinjstvu. Trenutak opasnosti vjerojatno nije vrijeme da se liječe takve traume.

U drugu ruku, mogle bi se. Ustanovio sam – i drugi su to otkrili u mnogo ekstremnijim situacijama od one koju sam ja doživio – da djelovanje iz razumijevanja istovjetnosti, a ne iz straha, može imati iznenađujuće učinke u napetim situacijama. Neprijateljstvo rađa neprijateljstvo, a povjerenje rađa povjerenje. Ne mogu reći da to "funkcionira" svaki puta, ali narušavanje uobičajenog scenarija barem dozvoljava mogućnost drugačijeg ishoda. Reagiranje na nekoga bez straha šalje mu poruku, "Ti nisi opasan. Znam da si dobra osoba." To za njega stvara novi scenarij u koji može zakoračiti. On bi mogao odbiti tu ulogu, ali bar postoji mogućnost.

Ne tako davno, moj sin tinejdžer prodao je neku svoju stvar drugom klincu iz susjedstva za 75$. Klinac se našao s njim da bi uzeo stvar, ali umjesto da Jimiju plati zgrabio je to i pobjegao. Jimi se dao u potjeru, ali ga nije mogao uhvatiti. Drugi tinejdžer, član lokalne bande, vidio je prizor i upitao Jimija zašto ga lovi. Jimi mu je ispričao, a ovaj je na to izvadio pištolj i rekao, "Pomoći ću ti da to središ. Ja znam gdje on živi." Jimi je rekao "Još ću ti se javiti u vezi toga." Tu večer ispričao mi je priču i upitao, "Što ti misliš tata, što bih trebao učiniti?"

Razmislio sam o tome minutu i rekao, "Pa ti si ovdje u poziciji moći i vjerojatno bi mogao silom povratiti svoj novac. Ali ako s tim dečkom koji barata pištoljem odeš do lopova da bi uzeo svoju stvar ili novac, ti znaš kako priča ide. Klinac će se htjeti osvetiti, ili na tebi ili vjerojatnije na nekom slabijem. Krug nasilja će se nastaviti. Zašto umjesto toga, ne bi preokrenuo situaciju? Mogao bi naoružanome poslati SMS 'Znaš što, ako on stvarno tako jako želi tu stvar, neka ju uzme na poklon. Stvarno. To je samo stvar.'" Još sam Jimiju objasnio da taj pristup ne bi funkcionirao da on već nije u boljem položaju jer bi tada izgledalo kao kapitulacija.  No kako su stvari stajale, takva poruka bila bi potpuno neuobičajena.

Jimi mi je rekao da će razmisliti. Nije učinio kako sam mu predložio, ali čujte što se dogodilo. Kasnije taj tjedan Jimi se dogovorio da se nađe s lopovom. Otišao je sa svojim prijateljem M., ekspertom za borilačke vještine. I lopov je također doveo dva svoja prijatelja. Rekao je da stvarno želi tu stvar i da ne želi za nju platiti. Njegova dva prijatelja počela su huškati njega i Jimija da se potuku. Jimi (koji je visok preko 180 i također je trenirao borilačke vještine) je rekao, "Ma zaboravi, neću se s tobom tući zbog te jadne materijalne stvari. Zadrži je. Ne treba mi tvoj novac."

Lopov je bio zapanjen. Onda je rekao, "Znaš što, to se ne čini u redu. Ne bih to trebao samo tako uzeti. Daj da ti dam nešto novca. Može 50$? To je sve što mogu dati."

S obzirom da su jedan drugog držali u priči neprijateljstva, sad je tu bila ljudskost.

Pancho Ramos Stierle vodi kuću mira na granici između teritorija dviju bandi u okrugu koji se smatra jednim od najgorih u Oaklandu u Kaliforniji. Ljudi mi pričaju da su mnogo puta pojedinci ulazili u kuću s namjerom da opljačkaju ili ubiju, ali bi umjesto toga bili preobraćeni u borce za mir.

Prije više godina Pancho je bio uključen u protest na sveučilištu UC Berkeley gdje je pohađao magistarski studij astrofizike. On je bio jedan u grupi studenata koji su javno gladovali protestirajući protiv uplitanja sveučilišta u razvoj nuklearnog oružja. Poslije devet dana sveučilište se umorilo od toga pa su pozvali policiju da učini nešto s grupom koja je štrajkala glađu, da bi to poslužilo kao primjer ostalima. Policajci su razbili živi zid protestanata, a jedan policajac je laganog Panchu podigao u zrak, tresnuo ga na beton i brutalno mu stavio lisice.

U tom času većina od nas bi vjerojatno upala u priču i navike odvojenosti. Mogli bismo reagirati mržnjom, sarkazmom, osuđivanjem. Nemajući fizičke sile da svladamo policiju mogli bismo pokušati da ih umjesto toga javno ponizimo. Da sam to bio ja, pretpostavljam da bi se moja urođena indignacija nepravdama ovog svijeta projicirala u osobu tog policajca. Konačno netko da ga okrivim i mrzim. Što bi me gore mučio to više bih mu bio zahvalan, to veći mučenik, nevin, nedužan. To godi na neki način, zar ne, imati nekog okrutnog da ga mrzimo bez ograničenja. Osjećamo se odriješeni od grijeha. A personificiranjem zla, svjetski problemi izgledaju mnogo jednostavniji – samo se riješite tih groznih ljudi.

Pancho je reagirao drugačije. Pogledao je policajca u oči i rekao s ljubavlju i bez pokušaja da ga okrivljuje, "Brate, opraštam ti. Ja ovo ne radim za sebe, ne radim to za tebe. Ja to radim za tvoju djecu i djecu tvoje djece." Policajac je načas bio zbunjen. Onda ga je Pancho upitao za ime i rekao, "Brate, hajde da pogađam, ti sigurno voliš meksičku hranu." [Neugodna stanka.] "Da." "E, pa ja znam jedno mjesto u San Francisku koje ima najbolje carnitas, fajitas i quesadillas i znaš što, kad završim s ovim i kad ti završiš s ovim volio bih svoj post prekinuti s tobom. Što kažeš?"

Začudo, policajac je prihvatio poziv. Kako i ne bi? Olabavio je Panchu lisice, a i drugim demonstrantima. Moć Panchove akcije bila je u tome što je prebivao u drugačijoj priči i to tako čvrsto da je zauzeo prostor priče i za druge ljude, poput policajca, da bi i oni mogli zakoračiti u nju.

Tao Te Ching kaže, "Nema veće nesreće do podcjenjivanja svog neprijatelja. Podcijeniti svog neprijatelja znači misliti da je on zao. Na taj način uništavate svoja tri blaga i sami postajete neprijatelji" (strofa 69, Mitchellov prijevod). Panchova priča i priča moga sina ilustriraju ovo. Zadrhtim na pomisao kakva nesreća je mogla rezultirati "podcjenjivanjem" neprijatelja. Čak i da je policajac bio ponižen ili kažnjen, čak i da je lopov bio zgažen, pravi "neprijatelj" bi cvao. Razina mržnje u svijetu se ne bi smanjila.

Želio bih da bude potpuno jasno, da bi riječi poput Panchovih djelovale, one moraju biti apsolutno autentične. Ako ih kažete, a ne mislite tako, ako ih ustvari govorite s ciljem razotkrivanja svog mučitelja kao još podlijeg zbog prezirnog odbijanja vaše nenasilne ljubaznosti pune ljubavi, tada će on vjerojatno poslušati i potvrditi tu podlost. Ljudi, pogotovo policajci, znaju kada se s njima manipulira, i to im se ne sviđa. Svrha nenasilnog reagiranja nije da pokaže kako ste vi dobra osoba. Nije čak ni da se bude dobra osoba. To zapravo dolazi iz jednostavnog razumijevanja istine. Pancho je mislio ono što je rekao. On je znao da policajac nije stvarno želio to uraditi. Gledao ga je s nepokolebljivim saznanjem, "Ti ustvari nisi takav. Tvoja duša je previše lijepa da bi to činila."

Ustanovio sam da svjedočenje ovakvim slučajevima ili čitanje o njima utvrđuje moj vlastiti položaj u Priči o Međupovezanosti. Znajući Panchovu priču, možda ću i ja, u situaciji koja ugrožava moj položaj u novoj priči, biti u stanju da je vjernije branim. Nedvojbeno, ovakve izazove susrećem svaki dan. Do sada me nije tukla policija, ali svaki dan vidim da ljudi rade stvari koje me izazivaju da ih proglasim "drugima", da ih demoniziram i da poželim da ih kaznim ili s njima manipuliram. Ponekad izgleda da je cjelokupni novinski tisak osmišljen da bi čitatelja naveo na takav način razmišljanja. Oni nas pozivaju u svijet neoprostivih, groznih ljudi i čine nas sklonim da u skladu s tim djelujemo unutar naših društvenih odnosa.

Prije nekoliko tjedana u Engleskoj sam govorio o promjeni mitologije u našoj kulturi. Opisujući znanstvenu dimenziju tog pomaka nabrojao sam ne samo potpuno prihvatljive paradigme promjena kao što su horizontalni prijenos gena i ekološka međuovisnost, već također i kontraverznije primjere poput morfnih polja i memorije vode. Jedan iz publike (bila je to mala soba) zakolutao je očima i prezirno rekao, "Ma daj!" Emocija ispod njegovog protesta bila je opipljiva i ja sam osjetio potrebu da se branim. Što sam trebao učiniti? Iz mentaliteta sile moja reakcija bi bila da pokušam svladati tog čovjeka i, moram priznati, da sam upravo tako počeo. Pričao sam o svom poznanstvu s Rustum Royem, jednim od najvećih znanstvenika dvadesetog stoljeća kojeg materijalistički znanstvenici globalno poštuju kao oca tog polja koji je razjasnio mehanizme nanostrukturiranja i mikrostrukturiranja vode. Upravo sam htio nastaviti s znanstvenim primjerom za memoriju vode gdje bih naveo istraživanje Geralda Pollacka sa sveučilišta University of Washington, kampanjom protiv Jacquesa Benveniste, i tako dalje, kada sam primijetio namrgođeni izraz lica moga izazivača. Očito je njegovo odbijanje memorije vode bilo ideološko, a ne utemeljeno na nekom čitanju i budući nepripremljen, ne bi imao nikakve šanse da me porazi u debati. Samo bi bio ponižen. Ja bih pobijedio, pa što? Bi li taj čovjek promijenio mišljenje? Vjerojatno ne. Vjerojatno bi zaključio da izlažem neobjektivan slučaj, otišao bi kući i pročitao tekst o memoriji vode na skpdic.com. Ako išta, njegovo vjerovanje bi se učvrstilo.

Ne želeći da budem agent ponižavanja, promijenio sam smjer. Napomenuo sam publici da iza tog pitanja ima mnogo emocionalne energije. Zašto? Očito, rekao sam, mi nismo suočeni s  običnim intelektualnim neslaganjem. Odakle dolazi emocija? Može biti, gospodine, da je vama iskreno stalo do ovog planeta i fantastična vjerovanja smatrate distrakcijom od nužnog, praktičnog rada koji moramo odraditi. Može biti stoga jer vi vidite štetu koju je neznanje znanosti učinilo na područjima kao što su klimatske promjene. Može biti stoga što čudesne mogućnosti bude u nama strah jer živimo u civilizaciji gdje su naši sustavi obrazovanja, roditeljstva, religije, ekonomije i zakona iznevjeravali čudesne mogućnosti ljudskog života. Može biti stoga jer se bojimo raspadanja naših svjetonazora koje je nužna posljedica pomaka u paradigmi.

Čovjek se nije smekšao; uskoro je ustao i otišao. No nekoliko ljudi mi je kasnije reklo da je to bi najsnažniji trenutak popodneva. Tko zna, možda iskustvo prihvaćanja, a ne poniženja, pridonese dodatnu perolaku mrvu ljubavi inventaru iskustava tog čovjeka.

Najbolja pobjeda je ona, kaže Sun Tzu, u kojoj gubitnici ne shvaćaju da su izgubili. U staroj priči mi svladavamo zlo i naše neprijatelje ostavljamo u prašini da cvile i škrguću zubima. Više ne. Svi se pridružuju ovoj vožnji. U novoj priči, mi razumijemo da svatko tko je ostavljen osiromašuje odredište. Mi svako ljudsko biće vidimo kao posjednika jedinstvenog pogleda na svijet. Pitamo se, "Koja je to istina koju je ovaj čovjek u stanju vidjeti iz svoje perspektive, a koja je nevidljiva iz moje?" Mi znamo da tu mora nešto biti; da uistinu svatko od nas zauzima različito mjesto u matrici svih bića upravo zato da pridonese jedinstveno iskustvo našem totalitetu koji se razvija.

Ne znam je li Panchov susret s policajcem direktno promijenio čovjekov život. No znam da svako iskustvo ljubavi, kao i svako iskustvo mržnje, ostaje upisano u našoj nutrini. Svako iskustvo ljubavi gurka nas prema Priči o Međupovezanosti jer se ono upravo uklapa u tu priču i opire se logici Odvojenosti.

Mislim da ove priče jasno govore da djelovanje iz međupovezanosti nije izjednačeno s tim da budemo pasivni poput otirača ili dozvolimo da se dogodi nasilje. To sigurno nije isto kao ignoriranje onoga što se zbiva u svijetu. Ponekad dobivam kritike upravo suprotne od one da sam naivan, poput "Charles, zar ne razumiješ? Sve je to dobro. Mi smo svi jedno. Sve te "loše" stvari događaju se radi našeg odrastanja. Hajde da se usredotočimo na naše blagoslove i okanimo se negativnosti. Ti kritiziraš tehnologiju, ali pogledaj – Internet mi omogućava da kontaktiram sa svojim sinom u Kini. Sve se odvija savršeno." Ne slažem se s tim stavom, ili prije, mislim da on predstavlja samo djelomično razumijevanje metafizičkog principa. Stavljajući ružičaste naočale u voljnom ignoriranju boli i ružnoće u svijetu isto je kao popločiti odlagalište toksičnog otpada i nadati se da će ono nestati. "Sve je to dobro" je na neki način istina – ali to uključuje našu percepciju da je nešto užasno krivo. Upravo je ta percepcija i vatra, koju ona u nama nadahnjuje da bi stvorili ljepši svijet, ono što čini  da "Sve je to dobro" postane istina. Savršenstvo onoga što se razvija obuhvaća nesavršenstvo. Otpor prema "negativnosti" i sam je vrsta negativnosti, po tome što potvrđuje da su sumnja, strah itd. uistinu negativni. No oni imaju važnu ulogu, baš kao i sve ostalo. Osporavati to, osporavati naš strah i bol zapravo bi značilo ignorirati mračnu stranu. Djelovanje iz međupovezanosti ne osporava ni jednu jedinu činjenicu ili iskustvo koje nam je poklonjeno. Ono zapravo zahtijeva odbacivanje uobičajenih interpretacija tih iskustava. To može biti teško zato jer te interpretacije nisu samo kulturološki utvrđene na način istovremeno suptilan i snažan, one su također neka vrsta pokrivača za duboke rane odvojenosti koje nosi većina nas.

Dozvolite da ponovim. Mržnja i Priča o Zlu pokrivač su za ranu Odvojenosti. Mi moramo skinuti taj pokrivač i pokloniti pažnju rani da bi ona mogla zacijeliti. U protivnom i sami ćemo i dalje djelovati iz Odvojenosti i nehotice ćemo je stvarati još više kroz sve što radimo. Opet, možete li buljiti u ponor koji otvaraju užasna nedjela i ne baciti se u mržnju? Možete li podnijeti duboku, otvorenu, bolnu ranu koju te priče otkrivaju? Možete li pustiti da boli, i pustiti da boli, i znati da ćete usvajajući to ranjavanje djelovati s mudrošću, jasnoćom i učinkovitošću koji daleko nadilaze poražavanje neprijatelja?

Upravo sam želio reći da je djelovanje iz međupovezanosti daleko od kukavičke kapitulacije pred zlom jer zahtijeva priličnu hrabrost. No onda sam shvatio da se, sročeno na taj način, to veže na način razmišljanja u odvojenosti. To bi podrazumijevalo da onima koji to ne rade nedostaje hrabrosti i da biste više pažnje trebali pokloniti hrabrosti kako biste djelovali iz ljubavi. Ustvari, dešava se to da naša uronjenost u Priču o međupovezanosti generira hrabrost.

Doduše, mogu postojati situacije u kojima su nenasilna sredstva dovoljna, no naviknuti, kao što već jesmo, na koncept zla, paradigmu sile i naviku drugosti, mi smo skloni skoro svaku situaciju uključiti u tu kategoriju. Nasilje može biti vrlo suptilno, zavijeno u koncepte poput "pozvati na odgovornost", što je obično šifra za sramoćenje, ponižavanje i odmazdu. Rijetko imamo mašte, hrabrosti ili umijeća da djelujemo iz svjesnog razumijevanja ljudskosti agresora ili nezahvalnika, ili budale. To što uopće postoje riječi poput nezahvalnik, budala, idiot, lažov, čudak, apologet, imperijalist, rasist i tako dalje, već nas uvlači u dispozicionističko vjerovanje da ljudi jesu takvi. Odvojenost je ugrađena u sam naš jezik. Možete li sada vidjeti dubinu revolucije ljudskog bivanja koju poduzimamo? Možete li vidjeti kako nas snažno uvjetuje naš kontekst da zlo u svijetu vidimo kao činjenicu?

Čak i ako čitatelj nije uvjeren da postoji tako nešto kao elementarno, esencijalno zlo, trebalo bi bar biti jasno da je ono što pripisujemo zlu zapravo posljedica situacije. Čak i ako čitatelj i dalje misli da postoji "diskontinuitet koji dijeli običnog manjkavog čovjeka od istinskog zla," jasno je da mi često kategoriziramo ono prvo kao ono zadnje. To je izuzetno važno zato jer dok zlo može biti svladano samo nadmoćnom silom, sve drugo se može promijeniti promjenom situacije, ukupnom sumom unutarnjih i vanjskih prilika. Velikim dijelom te prilike se sastoje od mnogostrukih naslaga priče, sve dolje do naše osobne i kulturalne Priče o Sebi.

To je razina na kojoj moramo raditi ako želimo stvoriti drugačiju vrstu društva. Mi moramo postati pripovjedači novog svijeta. Mi priču ne pričamo samo riječima već i akcijama koje izviru iz te priče. Svaka takva akcija pokazuje svima onima koji joj svjedoče da tamo vani postoji drugi svijet, drugi način shvaćanja i bivanja i da vi niste ludi zato što mislite da on postoji.

Svaki čin plemenitosti poziv je na plemenitost. Svaki čin hrabrosti poziv je na hrabrost. Svaki čin nesebičnosti poziv je na nesebičnost. Svaki čin iscjeljivanja poziv je na iscjeljivanje. Siguran sam da ste svjedočeći tim djelima osjetili taj poziv.

Jednom sam pročitao priču o željezničkoj nesreći u Peruu. Putnici i turisti zapeli su u planinskom području, zimi, bez hrane i grijanja. Mnogi su mogli umrijeti te noći da nije bilo lokalnih seljaka koji su došli s hranom i dekama da ih ugriju. To su bili siromašni seljaci i donijeli su svoje jedine deke.

Sjećam se kada sam čitao tu priču kako mi se učinila beznačajna moja nesigurnost, kako škrto moje srce i kako sićušna moja plemenitost. Osjetio sam neku vrstu otvaranja. Ako ti obični seljaci daju svoje zadnje deke tada ni ja sigurno ne moram biti toliko zabrinut za svoju financijsku budućnost. Ja mogu davati. To će biti u redu.

Jedan način da se interpretira ova priča je zaključiti da su očigledno ovi naoko obični seljaci mnogo bogatiji od mene. Pokušajmo s novom definicijom bogatstva: "lakoća i sloboda da se bude plemenit." Možda ovi seljaci imaju nešto što mi, u potrazi za novcem i njegovom iluzornom sigurnošću, želimo postići. Jedan razlog jest što su oni u zajednici i znaju da će se o njima pobrinuti oni oko njih. To nije istina u ekonomiji novca kao što je naša. Drugo, oni imaju duboku povezanost sa zemljom i osjećaj pripadanja. Kroz svoje međusobne odnose oni znaju tko su. To je vrsta bogatstva koje nikakva količina novca ne može nadomjestiti. Mi moderni isključeni ljudi moramo mnogo toga iznova izgraditi. Ljudi poput tih seljaka, i bilo koga tko živi u međupovezanosti, podsjećaju nas na naše potencijalno bogatstvo i temeljnu istinu međupovezanosti. Njihova plemenitost nas obogaćuje samim time što smo joj svjedoci.

Svi smo mi u nekom trenutku imali sreću da budemo svjedoci plemenitosti i da osjetimo kako nas ona otvara. Unatoč tome, ako ste vi kao i ja, tada i vi također u sebi čujete glas koji kaže, "Ali što ako to nije u redu? Što ako dam i samo budem iskorišten? Što ako dam i ništa mi ne ostane, i nitko se za mene ne pobrine?" Ispod ovih tugaljivih pitanja još je jedno, čak i dublje: "Što ako sam sam u svemiru?" To je primarni strah odvojenog sebstva. Po svojoj logici davanje je suludo. Ako smo ja i svijet jedno, onda ono što radim svijetu, radim sebi – plemenitost je prirodna. No, ako sam odvojen od svijeta, nema garancije da će mi se vratiti išta od onog što radim. Ja to moram izvesti, ja moram konstruirati aveniju povratka, neko osiguranje. Ako dajem, onda to moram uravnotežiti nekim oblikom utjecaja na primatelja, pravnim ili emocionalnim, kako bih osigurao da će mi to biti uzvraćeno. Najmanje što mogu je pobrinuti se da drugi ljudi vide moju plemenitost tako da budu zadivljeni i ja dobijem priznanje društva. Prepoznajete da je ovakav način razmišljanja u suprotnosti s duhom darivanja.

Pitanja poput "Što ako se nitko ne pobrine za mene? Što ako to nije u redu? Što ako sam sam u svemiru?" također leže u podlozi brige da filozofija jedinstva ili međupovezanosti zanemaruje "mračnu stranu". Kada me netko pokušava navesti da priznam postojanje zla, on govori iz nečeg bolnog. Ja to dobro znam jer to je i u meni. To je osjećaj ogorčenja, frustracije i bespomoćnosti. Tamo vani postoji jedan neumoljivi, zlonamjerni Drugi, utkan u cjelokupni svemir, koji čini da uvijek izgleda pomalo glupo da se vjeruje, glupo da se daje, i nikad potpuno sigurno da se voli. Naravno, mi živimo u svijetu gdje je to često bilo naše iskustvo. Nije čudo da to onda uzimamo kao fundamentalni atribut stvarnosti, a svako osporavanje toga smatramo opasno naivnim. Ali ono što se ustvari događa jest da mi naše iskustvo projiciramo na stvarnost i tada ga, ovisno o projekciji koju vidimo, još više utjelovljujemo djelujući u okviru njegove logike.

Zlo nije samo odgovor na percepciju odvojenosti, ono je također njen proizvod. Kako se mi odnosimo prema tom neumoljivom, zlonamjernom Zlu? Budući da je sila jedini jezik koji ono razumije, mi smo primorani da mu se pridružimo u sili; kao u Orwellovom dijalogu koji sam ranije citirao, i mi postajemo zli. Ljudska su bića tisućama godina činila užase u ime pobjede nad zlom. Identitet zla se stalno mijenja – turci! nevjernici! bankari! francuzi! židovi! buržoazija! teroristi! -  ali misaoni sklop ostaje isti. Kao i rješenje: sila. Kao i rezultat: više zla. Moramo li se zauvijek boriti sa slikom naše vlastite obmane? Rezultate vidimo diljem našeg povrijeđenog planeta. Izreka kaže, "Najjače oruđe đavla je vjerovanje da đavo ne postoji." Možda je suprotno istina: "Najjače oruđe Zla je ideja da Zlo postoji."

Treba malo vremena da se shvati suptilnost tog paradoksa. On ne kaže, "Zlo ne postoji." On ustvari kaže da je zlo priča. Znači li to da ono nije stvarno? Ne. Zlo je jednako stvarno kao krivolovac koji slonu skida kljove, Monsanto koji reklamira GMO sjeme indijskim seljacima, vlada koja naređuje napade bespilotnim letjelicama na pogrebne povorke. To je samo vrh ledenjaka, sićušna podrhtavanja usred grčeva koji uništavaju našu planetu.

Zlo je stvarno – ne manje stvarno od bilo koje druge priče. Koje su to druge priče? Amerika je priča, novac je priča, čak i sebstvo je priča. Što bi moglo biti stvarnije od nas samih? Ipak, čak i sebstvo bi se moglo shvatiti kao iluzoran konstrukt kada, božjom milošću ili praksom, bivamo oslobođeni od njegove priče. Poanta nije u tome da bismo zlo trebali tretirati kao nestvarno. Poanta je u tome da mu moramo pristupati na razini priče, a ne prihvaćati njegove vlastite nevidljive premise i logiku. Ako radimo ovo posljednje, mi postajemo njegovo stvorenje. Ako mu pristupamo na razini priče i uz pomoć riječi i djela dekonstruiramo mitologiju u kojoj ono živi, tada pobjeđujemo bez poražavanja. Sljedeća poglavlja detaljnije se bave radom na razini priče – rušenje stare i kazivanje nove.

Razmatrali smo brojne paradokse: da "Sve je to dobro" proizlazi iz razumijevanja kako je sve užasno loše; da je đavolovo najjače oružje sama ideja da Đavo postoji; da zlo dolazi iz percepcije zla. Kako bih povezao preostale nepovezane niti u ontologiji zla o kojoj se govori u ovom poglavlju, bojim se da ću morati pridodati još jedan paradoks. Nije samo zlo koje je istovremeno stvarno i priča; i "stvarno" je također istovremeno stvarno i priča. Naša upotreba riječi stvarno sadrži u sebi pretpostavke jednog objektivnog univerzuma koji je, kao što smo vidjeli u poglavlju "Znanost", vrlo upitan. Mi čak ne možemo reći, "Stvarnost nije stvarna," jer se na taj način u to potkrada jedna objektivna pozadina u kojoj stvarnost ili je, ili nije, stvarna. Mogao bih upitati, "Što ako je stvarnost stvarna za vas, a nije za mene?" no već će i riječ "je" prokrijumčariti unutra istu stvar.  Unatoč tome želio bih da na trenutak odbacite svoju naviku objektivizma i razmotrite da li bi to možda bilo moguće da zlo postoji u Priči o Odvojenosti, a ne postoji u Priči o Međuovisnosti. Ne mislim reći da ga jedna priča podržava, a druga ne. Želim reći da prijelazom iz jedne priče u drugu mi prelazimo iz jedne realnosti u drugu. Kako radimo taj prijelaz? O tome govori cijela ova knjiga.

Sumnja u apsolutnu diobu između subjekta i objekta navodi nas da razmislimo o tome što to iskustvo zla otkriva u nama, kao i o tome koje je to naše stanje koje nas mami da vjerujemo ili ne vjerujemo u apsolutno zlo. Jeste li se ikada osobno susreli s neumoljivom, zlonamjernom snagom, bilo u ljudskom obliku ili u nekom izmijenjenom stanju svijesti? Ako jeste, onda poznajete onaj silno intenzivan osjećaj nemoćne srdžbe, boli i straha koje izaziva takvo iskustvo. Ulazimo u arhetip Žrtve, bespomoćni, potpuno prepušteni na milost nemilosrdne sile. Sve dok se ne doživi takvo iskustvo nemoguće je uvidjeti da takvo stanje postoji latentno u svakome od nas. To iskustvo je sredstvo samo-otkrivanja, koje nas prenosi u vrlo mračan, nepristupačan kutak bića. Kao takav on je vrsta lijeka, vrlo oštrog lijeka doduše, no možda nužnog da na javu iznese svijest o prvobitnoj rani, a time i potrebu za njenim iscjeljivanjem. Volio bih znati što imaju zajedničko ljudi koji su bili žrtve psihopata ili nekih drugih zlonamjernih sila. Jesu li oni samo slučajne žrtve, ili postoji nešto u njima što privlači takvo iskustvo?

Oni koji rade ono što nazivaju šamanski posao mogli bi postaviti isto pitanje o "entitetima" koji se vežu za ljude. Jesu li te samovoljne, grabežljive sile poput bezličnih sila prirode koje pogađaju zlosretne? Ili postoji neka energetska rupa, nedostajući dio, rana koja je savršeni komplement konfiguracije entiteta koji se veže? U tom slučaju entitet možda radi uslugu, stapajući se s domaćinom u simbiotsku cjelinu. Mogli bi se upitati je li uopće entitet uistinu odvojeni entitet, ili je to možda jedan neintegrirani dio psihe? Ima li uopće sadržajne razlike između te dvije kategorije? Što je uostalom sebstvo? Ako smo mi međupovezana bića – ukupna suma naših odnosa – onda je vrlo problematično postojanje tuđinca,  "zla" u vidu drugog.

Ideja da je zlo dio šireg alkemijskog poigravanja silno komplicira uobičajeni narativ o borbi na strani dobra da bi se pobijedilo zlo. Umjesto toga mogli bismo zlo koje susrećemo gledati kao eksternaliziranu sliku nečega što je skriveno unutar nas samih. Nasuprot tome, koncept apsolutnog nemilosrdnog zla tijesno se podudara s bezličnim nemilosrdnim silama Newtonovog univerzuma u kojem nas razaranja pogađaju nasumce. Također se podudara s okrutnim natjecateljskim genima – kontroliranim robotima darvinističke prirodne selekcije. Obje ove stvari ključni su stupovi stare priče. Nije li onda logično da je i zlo jedan od njih?

Snovi, psihodelična iskustva, a i nekoliko njih pri punoj svijesti pokazali su mi da svaki puta kada ulazim u sukob s nekom zlonamjernom silom, postoji nešto u meni što je dopunjuje. U slučaju stvarnih ljudskih bića bio sam razapet između dva smjera: prema interpretaciji druge osobe u kojoj je on ili ona u potpunosti zla, i interpretacije u kojoj njegovo ili njeno užasno ponašanje ima nevinije objašnjenje ili možda neko objašnjenje koje obuhvaća moju vlastitu krivicu. Unatoč mom velikom trudu to nikada nije bilo moguće sa sigurnošću znati. Nije bila u pitanju samo intelektualna znatiželja. Poduzimam li preventivne mjere? Tretiram li osobu kao neumoljivog neprijatelja? Interpretiram li naizgled pomirljive kretnje kao običan trik? Da li moj osjećaj podijeljene odgovornosti daje prednost krivcu, što bi povlačilo da bih trebao odabrati zaštitni stav pravednika? Kako da budem siguran?

Odgovori na ova pitanja od ogromne su planetarne važnosti, jer to su ista ona pitanja na koja moraju odgovarati palestinci i izraelci, suniti i šiiti, hindusi i muslimani, kako bi odlučili između rata i mira. Ja sam ustanovio da je obično nemoguće naći neosporive dokaze koji mogu odlučiti o ovim pitanjima, jer nema neke objektivne činjenice s tim u vezi koja bi se mogla sa sigurnošću utvrditi. Zapravo, često izgleda da koji god odgovor odabrali on postaje istina. Prije nego što je izbor napravljen kao da se krivac nalazi u kvantnoj superpoziciji stanja. Svaka priča koju razmatramo nosi neku ulogu za drugu osobu. Odabirom priče mi biramo njenu ulogu.

Evo još nekih komplikacija. Kao prvo, što sa situacijama u kojima je naivno i kontraproduktivno omogućavati nasilniku da se i dalje koristi povlasticom sumnje, kao u situacijama kućnog zlostavljanja ili kada se radi o ovisnicima? Drugo, što je sa situacijama u kojima druga strana ne prihvaća poziv u mirotvornu ulogu – što ako odbija pridružiti se Priči o međuovisnosti? Treće, u redu je da kažemo da ljudi s određenim psihologijama privlače iskustva proganjanja i zlostavljanja i da je susret sa zlom dio razvojnog procesa, ali izgleda stvarno bešćutno i arogantno govoriti to za malu djecu koju zlostavljaju njihovi roditelji, ili cijele populacije izložene genocidu.

Ovo spominjem najviše zato da bih čitatelja uvjerio da nisam previdio očito. Ja na ovim stranicama neću pokušati da dam cjelovit odgovor na ove i druge teme; samo ću ukazati na koji način bi im se moglo pristupiti, a ostalo ću ostaviti čitatelju. Prvo, važno je razlikovati između odbijanja priče "on je zao" i prihvaćanja priče druge osobe. Ovdje ne govorim o predaji. Sigurno je moguće stajati u Priči o međuovisnosti te s puno ljubavi i suosjećanja odbiti da alkoholičaru posudite svoj auto, ili spriječiti nasilnika koji tuče ženu da to ponovo učini.

Što se tiče druge točke, svakako je moguće da će druga strana odbiti da uđe u novu priču čak i ako je pozivate uporno poput Gandhija. U tom će se slučaju pojaviti druge okolnosti koje će ih izbaciti iz vašeg svijeta. Tko se mača laća od mača i pogiba, a mi ne bi trebali na sebe preuzeti da budemo ubojica. Lao Tzu upozorava, "Uvijek postoje krvnici. Ako preuzmete njihovu funkciju – to je kao da pokušavate zamijeniti majstora drvodjelju – vjerojatno ćete si prerezati ruku." A Biblija kaže, "Osveta je moja, veli Gospodin" (tj. osveta nije tvoja, samo Božja).

I opet, ja ne kažem da nikada nije vrijeme za borbu. Sve stvari na ovom svijetu imaju svoje mjesto: srndać se bori protiv vuka i ponekad se izvuče. Stvar je u tome da zbog naše ideologije mi mentalitet sukobljavanja, borbe i ratovanja primjenjujemo puno šire od njegove prave domene. Neću pokušavati da ocrtam principe po kojima se određuje "opravdanost" sukobljavanja; odlučivanje ovisno o principu dio je stare priče, a osim toga, principe je lako iskriviti u opravdanja za skoro svako nedjelo. Samo ću reći da, ako je sukobljavanje popraćeno mržnjom ili samosažaljenjem onda je vjerojatno izvan svoje prave domene.

Treća točka otvara drevno teološko pitanje o svrsi zla i patnje u svijetu. Zašto nevini pate? Ovdje je odlomak iz dugačke diskusije o ovom pitanju u poglavlju "Veličanje i iskupljenje" iz knjige Uspon čovječanstva (The Ascent of Humanity). Cijelo poglavlje (i cijelu knjigu) možete čitati online.

Mi o nesreći često mislimo kao o nekoj vrsti kazne za prošla zla, tema koja se provlači kroz religijsku misao Istoka i Zapada. Na Istoku je to ideja da sadašnja patnja predstavlja negativnu karmu nastalu zbog prošlih zlodjela; na Zapadu imamo sliku boga Jahve koji udara po Sodomi i Gomori zbog njihovih grijeha prijeteći Ninivi zbog njihove "pokvarenosti". Međutim, bjelodana činjenica da su često nevini oni koji najviše pate, zahtijeva razne vrste teoloških akrobacija, od prošlih života do Prvobitnog grijeha, od reinkarnacije do Raja i Pakla. Kako drugačije objasniti ljupke, nevine bebe na dječjem odjelu za rak? Ako ne pribjegnemo slijepoj, bešćutnoj, besciljnoj slučajnosti, tada trebamo drugo objašnjenje za nevinost naših žrtava. Možda su one velike duše koje utažuju ogromnu potrebu za nevinim žrtvama koje su djelo naše civilizacije. "Ja ću ići," kažu one. "Ja sam dovoljno velik. Spreman sam za to iskustvo."

Čovječanstvo je na putu Odvojenosti tisućama godina, i svaku pukotinu tog teritorija treba istražiti. Zločinci i žrtve svih onih koje nazivamo zlim istražili su najdalje dosege Odvojenosti. Čak bi se zlo moglo definirati kao odvojenost: potpuno odvajanje (othering) od druge osobe, nacije ili prirode, kao i prirodna posljedica toga što smo bačeni u tuđi svemir odvojen od nas samih. Prisjetite se vježbe na radionici: "Želio sam nešto ubiti." Značajno je da je etiketa "zlo" i sama duboki oblik izdvajanja drugih (othering). To je još jedan način da se vidi da je koncept zla dio i paket fenomena zla.

Srećom, istraživanjem krajnosti teritorija Odvojenosti sada imamo mogućnost krenuti na put povratka. Ako je zlo dio vaše Priče o Svijetu, bilo kroz direktno iskustvo ili kao fundamentalna ontološka kategorija, možda biste željeli istražiti kako vam služi ta priča i koja je to povreda koja vas uvlači u nju. Zbog toga jer, ponavljam, dokazi i logika neće razriješiti pitanje da li je zlo stvarno. Ja sam iznio opširne argumente crpeći iz situacijske psihologije, psihopatologije, metafizike i brojnih anegdota, ali svaki od njih se može pobiti, a ja bih mogao pobijati pobijanja ad infinitum. Kako ćete odabrati svoju priču? Kako ćete utjecati na to kako drugi biraju svoju? Ostavljam vas s pričom Christiana Bethelsona kao konačnim primjerom otkupljenja od zla i kidanja priča.

Moja prijateljica Cynthia Jurs upoznala je Christiana Bethelsona dok je bila na mirotvornom radu u Liberiji u kojoj je bjesnio užasan građanski rat 1990. godine. Bethelson, vođa pobunjenika pod ratnim imenom General Leopard, bio je ozloglašen u miljeu masakra, djece ratnika i mučenja. Ako je ikoje ljudsko biće zlo onda je to bio on: bio je, prema vlastitim riječima, čovjek "bez savjesti". Na kraju je rat završio, a s njim i Bethelsonova sredstva za život: on nije imao drugih vještina osim ubijanja. Odlučio je otići u najbliži rat, u Obalu slonove kosti, gdje bi moglo biti potrebe za njegovim jezivim uslugama. Putem se njegov automobil zaglavio u blatu. Tko bi očekivao da će se na istom dijelu puta, u isto vrijeme, drugi auto zaglaviti u blatu i da će u tom autu biti članovi mirovne grupe zvane Svakodnevni Gandiji (Everyday Gandhies)? Zaintrigiran njihovim razgovorom on se predstavio kao bivši pobunjenički general. Mislio je da će ga oni napasti, možda čak i fizički, no na njegovo zaprepaštenje grupa se okupila oko njega, zagrlila ga i rekla mu da ga vole. Odlučio je da im se pridruži i svoj život posveti miru.

Hajde da i mi ustrajemo u težnji za jednakim čudima širom planete. Hajde da prihvatimo poziv u viši smisao mogućeg, koji nam ona nude.

Napomene:

  1. Za podrobniji opis ovog događaja vidi časopis Parabola, "Ako želiš biti pobunjenik, budi ljubazan " (“If You Want to Be a Rebel, Be Kind”)
  2. Pancho želi da pojasnim da se ručak na kraju nikada nije dogodio.
  3. Moram spomenuti da je taj odlomak krajnje dvosmislen. Mnogi prevoditelji su odlučili da  "podcjenjivanje neprijatelja" prevedu na konvencionalan način. Mitchell je, oslanjajući se na suptilno, intuitivno i po mom mišljenju, točno razumijevanje smisla teksta, dodao rečenicu s pojašnjenjem da podcijeniti znači misliti da je vaš neprijatelj zao. Te rečenice nema u originalu, ali je uključena u sljedećem retku koji kaže da kada se sukobe armije, pobjeđuje ona koja ima sućuti i empatije.
  4. Neki se zato zauzimaju za ukidanje svih ponižavajućih etiketa iz govora. Ako zamijenimo riječ "narcis" s "osoba s narcisoidnim tendencijama" i riječ "ovisnik" s "osoba s ovisnošću" i "lažljivac" s "osoba s navikom nepoštenja", misle oni, mogli bismo putem načina korištenja jezika braniti dignitet svih ljudi, razdvajajući ponašanje od same osobe. Čak i riječ "heroj", kažu oni, trebalo bi zamijeniti s "osoba s herojskim postignućima" kako se ne bi podrazumijevalo da su oni koji nisu tako etiketirani, kukavice. Mene ponekad ljute borci za lingvističku korektnost – oprostite, mislim ljudi koji imaju borilačke tendencije – iz nekoliko razloga. Prvo, time se ugađa mentalitetu žrtve i ohrabruje nas da budemo lako uvredljivi. Drugo, vrlo brzo novi termini preuzimaju stari pogrdni ili omalovažavajući smisao, što se vidi na primjeru evolucije od riječi moron u riječ retardirani, u mentalno oštećen, u mentalno onesposobljen ili bilo koji drugi način izražavanja. Ljudi mogu zlobne namjere zaodjenuti u sve prave riječi. Na dubljoj razini, mi možemo govoriti sve ispravne stvari ne čineći ništa.

 

« Poglavlje 27: Pravičnost
Poglavlje 30: Priča »

Primary Sidebar

  • Poglavlje 1: Odvojenost
  • Poglavlje 2: Slom
  • Poglavlje 3: Interbeing- – međupovezanost
  • Poglavlje 4: Cinizam
  • Poglavlje 5: Ludilo
  • Poglavlje 6: Sila
  • Poglavlje 7: Znanost
  • Poglavlje 8: Klima
  • Poglavlje 9: Beznađe
  • Poglavlje 10: Nada
  • Poglavlje 11: Morfogeneza
  • Poglavlje 12: Naivnost
  • Poglavlje 13: Stvarnost
  • Poglavlje 14: Duh
  • Poglavlje 15: Ortodoksija
  • Poglavlje 16: Novìna
  • Poglavlje 17: Hitnost
  • Poglavlje 18: Oskudica
  • Poglavlje 19: Činjenje
  • Poglavlje 20: Nečinjenje
  • Poglavlje 21: Pažnja
  • Poglavlje 22: Borba
  • Poglavlje 23: Bol
  • Poglavlje 24: Užitak
  • Poglavlje 25: Prosuđivanje
  • Poglavlje 26: Mržnja
  • Poglavlje 27: Pravičnost
  • Poglavlje 28: Psihopatija
  • Poglavlje 29: Zlo
  • Poglavlje 30: Priča
  • Poglavlje 31: Poremećaj
  • Poglavlje 32: Čudo
  • Poglavlje 33: Istina
  • Poglavlje 34: Svijest
  • Poglavlje 35: Sudbina
  • Poglavlje 36: Inicijacija

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Political Hope with Charles Eisenstein

Recorded in January 2020, this course’s themes of political polarization, narrative warfare, and the breakdown of traditional political categories have become more and more relevant since. And the possibility of a radical shift, a change in our defining stories, has grown as well.

This course is offered by Commune, using recordings I made in their studio. Their business model is a free ten-day course, with paid option thereafter — different from the Gift model on our site. Please go to the Commune course page for more information.

Go to Commune

The Coronation

For years, normality has been stretched nearly to its breaking point, a rope pulled tighter and tighter, waiting for a nip of the black swan’s beak to snap it in two. Now that the rope has snapped, do we tie its ends back together, or shall we undo its dangling braids still further, to see what we might weave from them?

Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless. A few months ago, a proposal to halt commercial air travel would have seemed preposterous. Likewise for the radical changes we are making in our social behavior, economy, and the role of government in our lives. Covid demonstrates the power of our collective will when we agree on what is important. What else might we achieve, in coherency? What do we want to achieve, and what world shall we create? That is always the next question when anyone awakens to their power.

Covid-19 is like a rehab intervention that breaks the addictive hold of normality. To interrupt a habit is to make it visible; it is to turn it from a compulsion to a choice. When the crisis subsides, we might have occasion to ask whether we want to return to normal, or whether there might be something we’ve seen during this break in the routines that we want to bring into the future. We might ask, after so many have lost their jobs, whether all of them are the jobs the world most needs, and whether our labor and creativity would be better applied elsewhere. We might ask, having done without it for a while, whether we really need so much air travel, Disneyworld vacations, or trade shows. What parts of the economy will we want to restore, and what parts might we choose to let go of? And on a darker note, what among the things that are being taken away right now – civil liberties, freedom of assembly, sovereignty over our bodies, in-person gatherings, hugs, handshakes, and public life – might we need to exert intentional political and personal will to restore?

For most of my life, I have had the feeling that humanity was nearing a crossroads. Always, the crisis, the collapse, the break was imminent, just around the bend, but it didn’t come and it didn’t come. Imagine walking a road, and up ahead you see it, you see the crossroads. It’s just over the hill, around the bend, past the woods. Cresting the hill, you see you were mistaken, it was a mirage, it was farther away than you thought. You keep walking. Sometimes it comes into view, sometimes it disappears from sight and it seems like this road goes on forever. Maybe there isn’t a crossroads. No, there it is again! Always it is almost here. Never is it here.

Now, all of a sudden, we go around a bend and here it is. We stop, hardly able to believe that now it is happening, hardly able to believe, after years of confinement to the road of our predecessors, that now we finally have a choice. We are right to stop, stunned at the newness of our situation. Because of the hundred paths that radiate out in front of us, some lead in the same direction we’ve already been headed. Some lead to hell on earth. And some lead to a world more healed and more beautiful than we ever dared believe to be possible.

I write these words with the aim of standing here with you – bewildered, scared maybe, yet also with a sense of new possibility – at this point of diverging paths. Let us gaze down some of them and see where they lead.

* * *

I heard this story last week from a friend. She was in a grocery store and saw a woman sobbing in the aisle. Flouting social distancing rules, she went to the woman and gave her a hug. “Thank you,” the woman said, “that is the first time anyone has hugged me for ten days.”

Going without hugs for a few weeks seems a small price to pay if it will stem an epidemic that could take millions of lives. There is a strong argument for social distancing in the near term: to prevent a sudden surge of Covid cases from overwhelming the medical system. I would like to put that argument in a larger context, especially as we look to the long term. Lest we institutionalize distancing and reengineer society around it, let us be aware of what choice we are making and why.

The same goes for the other changes happening around the coronavirus epidemic. Some commentators have observed how it plays neatly into an agenda of totalitarian control. A frightened public accepts abridgments of civil liberties that are otherwise hard to justify, such as the tracking of everyone’s movements at all times, forcible medical treatment, involuntary quarantine, restrictions on travel and the freedom of assembly, censorship of what the authorities deem to be disinformation, suspension of habeas corpus, and military policing of civilians. Many of these were underway before Covid-19; since its advent, they have been irresistible. The same goes for the automation of commerce; the transition from participation in sports and entertainment to remote viewing; the migration of life from public to private spaces; the transition away from place-based schools toward online education, the decline of brick-and-mortar stores, and the movement of human work and leisure onto screens. Covid-19 is accelerating preexisting trends, political, economic, and social.

While all the above are, in the short term, justified on the grounds of flattening the curve (the epidemiological growth curve), we are also hearing a lot about a “new normal”; that is to say, the changes may not be temporary at all. Since the threat of infectious disease, like the threat of terrorism, never goes away, control measures can easily become permanent. If we were going in this direction anyway, the current justification must be part of a deeper impulse. I will analyze this impulse in two parts: the reflex of control, and the war on death. Thus understood, an initiatory opportunity emerges, one that we are seeing already in the form of the solidarity, compassion, and care that Covid-19 has inspired.

The Reflex of Control

At the current writing, official statistics say that about 25,000 people have died from Covid-19. By the time it runs its course, the death toll could be ten times or a hundred times bigger, or even, if the most alarming guesses are right, a thousand times bigger. Each one of these people has loved ones, family and friends. Compassion and conscience call us to do what we can to avert unnecessary tragedy. This is personal for me: my own infinitely dear but frail mother is among the most vulnerable to a disease that kills mostly the aged and the infirm.

What will the final numbers be? That question is impossible to answer at the time of this writing. Early reports were alarming; for weeks the official number from Wuhan, circulated endlessly in the media, was a shocking 3.4%. That, coupled with its highly contagious nature, pointed to tens of millions of deaths worldwide, or even as many as 100 million. More recently, estimates have plunged as it has become apparent that most cases are mild or asymptomatic. Since testing has been skewed towards the seriously ill, the death rate has looked artificially high. In South Korea, where hundreds of thousands of people with mild symptoms have been tested, the reported case fatality rate is around 1%. In Germany, whose testing also extends to many with mild symptoms, the fatality rate is 0.4%. A recent paper in the journal Science argues that 86% of infections have been undocumented, which points to a much lower mortality rate than the current case fatality rate would indicate.

The story of the Diamond Princess cruise ship bolsters this view. Of the 3,711 people on board, about 20% have tested positive for the virus; less than half of those had symptoms, and eight have died. A cruise ship is a perfect setting for contagion, and there was plenty of time for the virus to spread on board before anyone did anything about it, yet only a fifth were infected. Furthermore, the cruise ship’s population was heavily skewed (as are most cruise ships) toward the elderly: nearly a third of the passengers were over age 70, and more than half were over age 60. A research team concluded from the large number of asymptomatic cases that the true fatality rate in China is around 0.5%. That is still five times higher than flu. Based on the above (and adjusting for much younger demographics in Africa and South and Southeast Asia) my guess is about 200,000-300,000 deaths in the US – more if the medical system is overwhelmed, less if infections are spread out over time – and 3 million globally. Those are serious numbers. Not since the Hong Kong Flu pandemic of 1968/9 has the world experienced anything like it.

My guesses could easily be off by an order of magnitude. Every day the media reports the total number of Covid-19 cases, but no one has any idea what the true number is, because only a tiny proportion of the population has been tested. If tens of millions have the virus, asymptomatically, we would not know it. Further complicating the matter is the high rate of false positives for existing testing, possibly as high as 80%. (And see here for even more alarming uncertainties about test accuracy.) Let me repeat: no one knows what is really happening, including me. Let us be aware of two contradictory tendencies in human affairs. The first is the tendency for hysteria to feed on itself, to exclude data points that don’t play into the fear, and to create the world in its image. The second is denial, the irrational rejection of information that might disrupt normalcy and comfort. As Daniel Schmactenberger asks, How do you know what you believe is true?

In the face of the uncertainty, I’d like to make a prediction: The crisis will play out so that we never will know. If the final death tally, which will itself be the subject of dispute, is lower than feared, some will say that is because the controls worked. Others will say it is because the disease wasn’t as dangerous as we were told.

To me, the most baffling puzzle is why at the present writing there seem to be no new cases in China. The government didn’t initiate its lockdown until well after the virus was established. It should have spread widely during Chinese New Year, when every plane, train, and bus is packed with people traveling all over the country. What is going on here? Again, I don’t know, and neither do you.

Whether the final global death toll is 50,000 or 500,000 or 5 million, let’s look at some other numbers to get some perspective. My point is NOT that Covid isn’t so bad and we shouldn’t do anything. Bear with me. Last year, according to the FAO, five million children worldwide died of hunger (among 162 million who are stunted and 51 million who are wasted). That is 200 times more people than have died so far from Covid-19, yet no government has declared a state of emergency or asked that we radically alter our way of life to save them. Nor do we see a comparable level of alarm and action around suicide – the mere tip of an iceberg of despair and depression – which kills over a million people a year globally and 50,000 in the USA. Or drug overdoses, which kill 70,000 in the USA, the autoimmunity epidemic, which affects 23.5 million (NIH figure) to 50 million (AARDA), or obesity, which afflicts well over 100 million. Why, for that matter, are we not in a frenzy about averting nuclear armageddon or ecological collapse, but, to the contrary, pursue choices that magnify those very dangers?

Please, the point here is not that we haven’t changed our ways to stop children from starving, so we shouldn’t change them for Covid either. It is the contrary: If we can change so radically for Covid-19, we can do it for these other conditions too. Let us ask why are we able to unify our collective will to stem this virus, but not to address other grave threats to humanity. Why, until now, has society been so frozen in its existing trajectory?

The answer is revealing. Simply, in the face of world hunger, addiction, autoimmunity, suicide, or ecological collapse, we as a society do not know what to do. Our go-to crisis responses, all of which are some version of control, aren’t very effective in addressing these conditions. Now along comes a contagious epidemic, and finally we can spring into action. It is a crisis for which control works: quarantines, lockdowns, isolation, hand-washing; control of movement, control of information, control of our bodies. That makes Covid a convenient receptacle for our inchoate fears, a place to channel our growing sense of helplessness in the face of the changes overtaking the world. Covid-19 is a threat that we know how to meet. Unlike so many of our other fears, Covid-19 offers a plan.

Our civilization’s established institutions are increasingly helpless to meet the challenges of our time. How they welcome a challenge that they finally can meet. How eager they are to embrace it as a paramount crisis. How naturally their systems of information management select for the most alarming portrayals of it. How easily the public joins the panic, embracing a threat that the authorities can handle as a proxy for the various unspeakable threats that they cannot.

Today, most of our challenges no longer succumb to force. Our antibiotics and surgery fail to meet the surging health crises of autoimmunity, addiction, and obesity. Our guns and bombs, built to conquer armies, are useless to erase hatred abroad or keep domestic violence out of our homes. Our police and prisons cannot heal the breeding conditions of crime. Our pesticides cannot restore ruined soil. Covid-19 recalls the good old days when the challenges of infectious diseases succumbed to modern medicine and hygiene, at the same time as the Nazis succumbed to the war machine, and nature itself succumbed, or so it seemed, to technological conquest and improvement. It recalls the days when our weapons worked and the world seemed indeed to be improving with each technology of control.

What kind of problem succumbs to domination and control? The kind caused by something from the outside, something Other. When the cause of the problem is something intimate to ourselves, like homelessness or inequality, addiction or obesity, there is nothing to war against. We may try to install an enemy, blaming, for example, the billionaires, Vladimir Putin, or the Devil, but then we miss key information, such as the ground conditions that allow billionaires (or viruses) to replicate in the first place.

If there is one thing our civilization is good at, it is fighting an enemy. We welcome opportunities to do what we are good at, which prove the validity of our technologies, systems, and worldview. And so, we manufacture enemies, cast problems like crime, terrorism, and disease into us-versus-them terms, and mobilize our collective energies toward those endeavors that can be seen that way. Thus, we single out Covid-19 as a call to arms, reorganizing society as if for a war effort, while treating as normal the possibility of nuclear armageddon, ecological collapse, and five million children starving.

The Conspiracy Narrative

Because Covid-19 seems to justify so many items on the totalitarian wish list, there are those who believe it to be a deliberate power play. It is not my purpose to advance that theory nor to debunk it, although I will offer some meta-level comments. First a brief overview.

The theories (there are many variants) talk about Event 201 (sponsored by the Gates Foundation, CIA, etc. last September), and a 2010 Rockefeller Foundation white paper detailing a scenario called “Lockstep,” both of which lay out the authoritarian response to a hypothetical pandemic. They observe that the infrastructure, technology, and legislative framework for martial law has been in preparation for many years. All that was needed, they say, was a way to make the public embrace it, and now that has come. Whether or not current controls are permanent, a precedent is being set for:

  • • The tracking of people’s movements at all times (because coronavirus)
  • • The suspension of freedom of assembly (because coronavirus)
  • • The military policing of civilians (because coronavirus)
  • • Extrajudicial, indefinite detention (quarantine, because coronavirus)
  • • The banning of cash (because coronavirus)
  • • Censorship of the Internet (to combat disinformation, because coronavirus)
  • • Compulsory vaccination and other medical treatment, establishing the state’s sovereignty over our bodies (because coronavirus)
  • • The classification of all activities and destinations into the expressly permitted and the expressly forbidden (you can leave your house for this, but not that), eliminating the un-policed, non-juridical gray zone. That totality is the very essence of totalitarianism. Necessary now though, because, well, coronavirus.

 

This is juicy material for conspiracy theories. For all I know, one of those theories could be true; however, the same progression of events could unfold from an unconscious systemic tilt toward ever-increasing control. Where does this tilt come from? It is woven into civilization’s DNA. For millennia, civilization (as opposed to small-scale traditional cultures) has understood progress as a matter of extending control onto the world: domesticating the wild, conquering the barbarians, mastering the forces of nature, and ordering society according to law and reason. The ascent of control accelerated with the Scientific Revolution, which launched “progress” to new heights: the ordering of reality into objective categories and quantities, and the mastering of materiality with technology. Finally, the social sciences promised to use the same means and methods to fulfill the ambition (which goes back to Plato and Confucius) to engineer a perfect society.

Those who administer civilization will therefore welcome any opportunity to strengthen their control, for after all, it is in service to a grand vision of human destiny: the perfectly ordered world, in which disease, crime, poverty, and perhaps suffering itself can be engineered out of existence. No nefarious motives are necessary. Of course they would like to keep track of everyone – all the better to ensure the common good. For them, Covid-19 shows how necessary that is. “Can we afford democratic freedoms in light of the coronavirus?” they ask. “Must we now, out of necessity, sacrifice those for our own safety?” It is a familiar refrain, for it has accompanied other crises in the past, like 9/11.

To rework a common metaphor, imagine a man with a hammer, stalking around looking for a reason to use it. Suddenly he sees a nail sticking out. He’s been looking for a nail for a long time, pounding on screws and bolts and not accomplishing much. He inhabits a worldview in which hammers are the best tools, and the world can be made better by pounding in the nails. And here is a nail! We might suspect that in his eagerness he has placed the nail there himself, but it hardly matters. Maybe it isn’t even a nail that’s sticking out, but it resembles one enough to start pounding. When the tool is at the ready, an opportunity will arise to use it.

And I will add, for those inclined to doubt the authorities, maybe this time it really is a nail. In that case, the hammer is the right tool – and the principle of the hammer will emerge the stronger, ready for the screw, the button, the clip, and the tear.

Either way, the problem we deal with here is much deeper than that of overthrowing an evil coterie of Illuminati. Even if they do exist, given the tilt of civilization, the same trend would persist without them, or a new Illuminati would arise to assume the functions of the old.

True or false, the idea that the epidemic is some monstrous plot perpetrated by evildoers upon the public is not so far from the mindset of find-the-pathogen. It is a crusading mentality, a war mentality. It locates the source of a sociopolitical illness in a pathogen against which we may then fight, a victimizer separate from ourselves. It risks ignoring the conditions that make society fertile ground for the plot to take hold. Whether that ground was sown deliberately or by the wind is, for me, a secondary question.

What I will say next is relevant whether or not SARS-CoV2 is a genetically engineered bioweapon, is related to 5G rollout, is being used to prevent “disclosure,” is a Trojan horse for totalitarian world government, is more deadly than we’ve been told, is less deadly than we’ve been told, originated in a Wuhan biolab, originated at Fort Detrick, or is exactly as the CDC and WHO have been telling us. It applies even if everyone is totally wrong about the role of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the current epidemic. I have my opinions, but if there is one thing I have learned through the course of this emergency is that I don’t really know what is happening. I don’t see how anyone can, amidst the seething farrago of news, fake news, rumors, suppressed information, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and politicized narratives that fill the Internet. I wish a lot more people would embrace not knowing. I say that both to those who embrace the dominant narrative, as well as to those who hew to dissenting ones. What information might we be blocking out, in order to maintain the integrity of our viewpoints? Let’s be humble in our beliefs: it is a matter of life and death.

The War on Death

My 7-year-old son hasn’t seen or played with another child for two weeks. Millions of others are in the same boat. Most would agree that a month without social interaction for all those children a reasonable sacrifice to save a million lives. But how about to save 100,000 lives? And what if the sacrifice is not for a month but for a year? Five years? Different people will have different opinions on that, according to their underlying values.

Let’s replace the foregoing questions with something more personal, that pierces the inhuman utilitarian thinking that turns people into statistics and sacrifices some of them for something else. The relevant question for me is, Would I ask all the nation’s children to forego play for a season, if it would reduce my mother’s risk of dying, or for that matter, my own risk? Or I might ask, Would I decree the end of human hugging and handshakes, if it would save my own life? This is not to devalue Mom’s life or my own, both of which are precious. I am grateful for every day she is still with us. But these questions bring up deep issues. What is the right way to live? What is the right way to die?

The answer to such questions, whether asked on behalf of oneself or on behalf of society at large, depends on how we hold death and how much we value play, touch, and togetherness, along with civil liberties and personal freedom. There is no easy formula to balance these values.

Over my lifetime I’ve seen society place more and more emphasis on safety, security, and risk reduction. It has especially impacted childhood: as a young boy it was normal for us to roam a mile from home unsupervised – behavior that would earn parents a visit from Child Protective Services today. It also manifests in the form of latex gloves for more and more professions; hand sanitizer everywhere; locked, guarded, and surveilled school buildings; intensified airport and border security; heightened awareness of legal liability and liability insurance; metal detectors and searches before entering many sports arenas and public buildings, and so on. Writ large, it takes the form of the security state.

The mantra “safety first” comes from a value system that makes survival top priority, and that depreciates other values like fun, adventure, play, and the challenging of limits. Other cultures had different priorities. For instance, many traditional and indigenous cultures are much less protective of children, as documented in Jean Liedloff’s classic, The Continuum Concept. They allow them risks and responsibilities that would seem insane to most modern people, believing that this is necessary for children to develop self-reliance and good judgement. I think most modern people, especially younger people, retain some of this inherent willingness to sacrifice safety in order to live life fully. The surrounding culture, however, lobbies us relentlessly to live in fear, and has constructed systems that embody fear. In them, staying safe is over-ridingly important. Thus we have a medical system in which most decisions are based on calculations of risk, and in which the worst possible outcome, marking the physician’s ultimate failure, is death. Yet all the while, we know that death awaits us regardless. A life saved actually means a death postponed.

The ultimate fulfillment of civilization’s program of control would be to triumph over death itself. Failing that, modern society settles for a facsimile of that triumph: denial rather than conquest. Ours is a society of death denial, from its hiding away of corpses, to its fetish for youthfulness, to its warehousing of old people in nursing homes. Even its obsession with money and property – extensions of the self, as the word “mine” indicates – expresses the delusion that the impermanent self can be made permanent through its attachments. All this is inevitable given the story-of-self that modernity offers: the separate individual in a world of Other. Surrounded by genetic, social, and economic competitors, that self must protect and dominate in order to thrive. It must do everything it can to forestall death, which (in the story of separation) is total annihilation. Biological science has even taught us that our very nature is to maximize our chances of surviving and reproducing.

I asked a friend, a medical doctor who has spent time with the Q’ero on Peru, whether the Q’ero would (if they could) intubate someone to prolong their life. “Of course not,” she said. “They would summon the shaman to help him die well.” Dying well (which isn’t necessarily the same as dying painlessly) is not much in today’s medical vocabulary. No hospital records are kept on whether patients die well. That would not be counted as a positive outcome. In the world of the separate self, death is the ultimate catastrophe.

But is it? Consider this perspective from Dr. Lissa Rankin: “Not all of us would want to be in an ICU, isolated from loved ones with a machine breathing for us, at risk of dying alone- even if it means they might increase their chance of survival. Some of us might rather be held in the arms of loved ones at home, even if that means our time has come…. Remember, death is no ending. Death is going home.”

When the self is understood as relational, interdependent, even inter-existent, then it bleeds over into the other, and the other bleeds over into the self. Understanding the self as a locus of consciousness in a matrix of relationship, one no longer searches for an enemy as the key to understanding every problem, but looks instead for imbalances in relationships. The War on Death gives way to the quest to live well and fully, and we see that fear of death is actually fear of life. How much of life will we forego to stay safe?

Totalitarianism – the perfection of control – is the inevitable end product of the mythology of the separate self. What else but a threat to life, like a war, would merit total control? Thus Orwell identified perpetual war as a crucial component of the Party’s rule.

Against the backdrop of the program of control, death denial, and the separate self, the assumption that public policy should seek to minimize the number of deaths is nearly beyond question, a goal to which other values like play, freedom, etc. are subordinate. Covid-19 offers occasion to broaden that view. Yes, let us hold life sacred, more sacred than ever. Death teaches us that. Let us hold each person, young or old, sick or well, as the sacred, precious, beloved being that they are. And in the circle of our hearts, let us make room for other sacred values too. To hold life sacred is not just to live long, it is to live well and right and fully.

Like all fear, the fear around the coronavirus hints at what might lie beyond it. Anyone who has experienced the passing of someone close knows that death is a portal to love. Covid-19 has elevated death to prominence in the consciousness of a society that denies it. On the other side of the fear, we can see the love that death liberates. Let it pour forth. Let it saturate the soil of our culture and fill its aquifers so that it seeps up through the cracks of our crusted institutions, our systems, and our habits. Some of these may die too.

What world shall we live in?

How much of life do we want to sacrifice at the altar of security? If it keeps us safer, do we want to live in a world where human beings never congregate? Do we want to wear masks in public all the time? Do we want to be medically examined every time we travel, if that will save some number of lives a year? Are we willing to accept the medicalization of life in general, handing over final sovereignty over our bodies to medical authorities (as selected by political ones)? Do we want every event to be a virtual event? How much are we willing to live in fear?

Covid-19 will eventually subside, but the threat of infectious disease is permanent. Our response to it sets a course for the future. Public life, communal life, the life of shared physicality has been dwindling over several generations. Instead of shopping at stores, we get things delivered to our homes. Instead of packs of kids playing outside, we have play dates and digital adventures. Instead of the public square, we have the online forum. Do we want to continue to insulate ourselves still further from each other and the world?

It is not hard to imagine, especially if social distancing is successful, that Covid-19 persists beyond the 18 months we are being told to expect for it to run its course. It is not hard to imagine that new viruses will emerge during that time. It is not hard to imagine that emergency measures will become normal (so as to forestall the possibility of another outbreak), just as the state of emergency declared after 9/11 is still in effect today. It is not hard to imagine that (as we are being told), reinfection is possible, so that the disease will never run its course. That means that the temporary changes in our way of life may become permanent.

To reduce the risk of another pandemic, shall we choose to live in a society without hugs, handshakes, and high-fives, forever more? Shall we choose to live in a society where we no longer gather en masse? Shall the concert, the sports competition, and the festival be a thing of the past? Shall children no longer play with other children? Shall all human contact be mediated by computers and masks? No more dance classes, no more karate classes, no more conferences, no more churches? Is death reduction to be the standard by which to measure progress? Does human advancement mean separation? Is this the future?

The same question applies to the administrative tools required to control the movement of people and the flow of information. At the present writing, the entire country is moving toward lockdown. In some countries, one must print out a form from a government website in order to leave the house. It reminds me of school, where one’s location must be authorized at all times. Or of prison. Do we envision a future of electronic hall passes, a system where freedom of movement is governed by state administrators and their software at all times, permanently? Where every movement is tracked, either permitted or prohibited? And, for our protection, where information that threatens our health (as decided, again, by various authorities) is censored for our own good? In the face of an emergency, like unto a state of war, we accept such restrictions and temporarily surrender our freedoms. Similar to 9/11, Covid-19 trumps all objections.

For the first time in history, the technological means exist to realize such a vision, at least in the developed world (for example, using cellphone location data to enforce social distancing; see also here). After a bumpy transition, we could live in a society where nearly all of life happens online: shopping, meeting, entertainment, socializing, working, even dating. Is that what we want? How many lives saved is that worth?

I am sure that many of the controls in effect today will be partially relaxed in a few months. Partially relaxed, but at the ready. As long as infectious disease remains with us, they are likely to be reimposed, again and again, in the future, or be self-imposed in the form of habits. As Deborah Tannen says, contributing to a Politico article on how coronavirus will change the world permanently, ‘We know now that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky…. It could become second nature to recoil from shaking hands or touching our faces—and we may all fall heir to society-wide OCD, as none of us can stop washing our hands.” After thousands of years, millions of years, of touch, contact, and togetherness, is the pinnacle of human progress to be that we cease such activities because they are too risky?

Life is Community

The paradox of the program of control is that its progress rarely advances us any closer to its goal. Despite security systems in almost every upper middle-class home, people are no less anxious or insecure than they were a generation ago. Despite elaborate security measures, the schools are not seeing fewer mass shootings. Despite phenomenal progress in medical technology, people have if anything become less healthy over the past thirty years, as chronic disease has proliferated and life expectancy stagnated and, in the USA and Britain, started to decline.

The measures being instituted to control Covid-19, likewise, may end up causing more suffering and death than they prevent. Minimizing deaths means minimizing the deaths that we know how to predict and measure. It is impossible to measure the added deaths that might come from isolation-induced depression, for instance, or the despair caused by unemployment, or the lowered immunity and deterioration in health that chronic fear can cause. Loneliness and lack of social contact has been shown to increase inflammation, depression, and dementia. According to Lissa Rankin, M.D., air pollution increases risk of dying by 6%, obesity by 23%, alcohol abuse by 37%, and loneliness by 45%.

Another danger that is off the ledger is the deterioration in immunity caused by excessive hygiene and distancing. It is not only social contact that is necessary for health, it is also contact with the microbial world. Generally speaking, microbes are not our enemies, they are our allies in health. A diverse gut biome, comprising bacteria, viruses, yeasts, and other organisms, is essential for a well-functioning immune system, and its diversity is maintained through contact with other people and with the world of life. Excessive hand-washing, overuse of antibiotics, aseptic cleanliness, and lack of human contact might do more harm than good. The resulting allergies and autoimmune disorders might be worse than the infectious disease they replace. Socially and biologically, health comes from community. Life does not thrive in isolation.

Seeing the world in us-versus-them terms blinds us to the reality that life and health happen in community. To take the example of infectious diseases, we fail to look beyond the evil pathogen and ask, What is the role of viruses in the microbiome? (See also here.) What are the body conditions under which harmful viruses proliferate? Why do some people have mild symptoms and others severe ones (besides the catch-all non-explanation of “low resistance”)? What positive role might flus, colds, and other non-lethal diseases play in the maintenance of health?

War-on-germs thinking brings results akin to those of the War on Terror, War on Crime, War on Weeds, and the endless wars we fight politically and interpersonally. First, it generates endless war; second, it diverts attention from the ground conditions that breed illness, terrorism, crime, weeds, and the rest.

Despite politicians’ perennial claim that they pursue war for the sake of peace, war inevitably breeds more war. Bombing countries to kill terrorists not only ignores the ground conditions of terrorism, it exacerbates those conditions. Locking up criminals not only ignores the conditions that breed crime, it creates those conditions when it breaks up families and communities and acculturates the incarcerated to criminality. And regimes of antibiotics, vaccines, antivirals, and other medicines wreak havoc on body ecology, which is the foundation of strong immunity. Outside the body, the massive spraying campaigns sparked by Zika, Dengue Fever, and now Covid-19 will visit untold damage upon nature’s ecology. Has anyone considered what the effects on the ecosystem will be when we douse it with antiviral compounds? Such a policy (which has been implemented in various places in China and India) is only thinkable from the mindset of separation, which does not understand that viruses are integral to the web of life.

To understand the point about ground conditions, consider some mortality statistics from Italy (from its National Health Institute), based on an analysis of hundreds of Covid-19 fatalities. Of those analyzed, less than 1% were free of serious chronic health conditions. Some 75% suffered from hypertension, 35% from diabetes, 33% from cardiac ischemia, 24% from atrial fibrillation, 18% from low renal function, along with other conditions that I couldn’t decipher from the Italian report. Nearly half the deceased had three or more of these serious pathologies. Americans, beset by obesity, diabetes, and other chronic ailments, are at least as vulnerable as Italians. Should we blame the virus then (which killed few otherwise healthy people), or shall we blame underlying poor health? Here again the analogy of the taut rope applies. Millions of people in the modern world are in a precarious state of health, just waiting for something that would normally be trivial to send them over the edge. Of course, in the short term we want to save their lives; the danger is that we lose ourselves in an endless succession of short terms, fighting one infectious disease after another, and never engage the ground conditions that make people so vulnerable. That is a much harder problem, because these ground conditions will not change via fighting. There is no pathogen that causes diabetes or obesity, addiction, depression, or PTSD. Their causes are not an Other, not some virus separate from ourselves, and we its victims.

Even in diseases like Covid-19, in which we can name a pathogenic virus, matters are not so simple as a war between virus and victim. There is an alternative to the germ theory of disease that holds germs to be part of a larger process. When conditions are right, they multiply in the body, sometimes killing the host, but also, potentially, improving the conditions that accommodated them to begin with, for example by cleaning out accumulated toxic debris via mucus discharge, or (metaphorically speaking) burning them up with fever. Sometimes called “terrain theory,” it says that germs are more symptom than cause of disease. As one meme explains it: “Your fish is sick. Germ theory: isolate the fish. Terrain theory: clean the tank.”

A certain schizophrenia afflicts the modern culture of health. On the one hand, there is a burgeoning wellness movement that embraces alternative and holistic medicine. It advocates herbs, meditation, and yoga to boost immunity. It validates the emotional and spiritual dimensions of health, such as the power of attitudes and beliefs to sicken or to heal. All of this seems to have disappeared under the Covid tsunami, as society defaults to the old orthodoxy.

Case in point: California acupuncturists have been forced to shut down, having been deemed “non-essential.” This is perfectly understandable from the perspective of conventional virology. But as one acupuncturist on Facebook observed, “What about my patient who I’m working with to get off opioids for his back pain? He’s going to have to start using them again.” From the worldview of medical authority, alternative modalities, social interaction, yoga classes, supplements, and so on are frivolous when it comes to real diseases caused by real viruses. They are relegated to an etheric realm of “wellness” in the face of a crisis. The resurgence of orthodoxy under Covid-19 is so intense that anything remotely unconventional, such as intravenous vitamin C, was completely off the table in the United States until two days ago (articles still abound “debunking” the “myth” that vitamin C can help fight Covid-19). Nor have I heard the CDC evangelize the benefits of elderberry extract, medicinal mushrooms, cutting sugar intake, NAC (N-acetyl L-cysteine), astragalus, or vitamin D. These are not just mushy speculation about “wellness,” but are supported by extensive research and physiological explanations. For example, NAC (general info, double-blind placebo-controlled study) has been shown to radically reduce incidence and severity of symptoms in flu-like illnesses.

As the statistics I offered earlier on autoimmunity, obesity, etc. indicate, America and the modern world in general are facing a health crisis. Is the answer to do what we’ve been doing, only more thoroughly? The response so far to Covid has been to double down on the orthodoxy and sweep unconventional practices and dissenting viewpoints aside. Another response would be to widen our lens and examine the entire system, including who pays for it, how access is granted, and how research is funded, but also expanding out to include marginal fields like herbal medicine, functional medicine, and energy medicine. Perhaps we can take this opportunity to reevaluate prevailing theories of illness, health, and the body. Yes, let’s protect the sickened fish as best we can right now, but maybe next time we won’t have to isolate and drug so many fish, if we can clean the tank.

I’m not telling you to run out right now and buy NAC or any other supplement, nor that we as a society should abruptly shift our response, cease social distancing immediately, and start taking supplements instead. But we can use the break in normal, this pause at a crossroads, to consciously choose what path we shall follow moving forward: what kind of healthcare system, what paradigm of health, what kind of society. This reevaluation is already happening, as ideas like universal free healthcare in the USA gain new momentum. And that path leads to forks as well. What kind of healthcare will be universalized? Will it be merely available to all, or mandatory for all – each citizen a patient, perhaps with an invisible ink barcode tattoo certifying one is up to date on all compulsory vaccines and check-ups. Then you can go to school, board a plane, or enter a restaurant. This is one path to the future that is available to us.

Another option is available now too. Instead of doubling down on control, we could finally embrace the holistic paradigms and practices that have been waiting on the margins, waiting for the center to dissolve so that, in our humbled state, we can bring them into the center and build a new system around them.

The Coronation

There is an alternative to the paradise of perfect control that our civilization has so long pursued, and that recedes as fast as our progress, like a mirage on the horizon. Yes, we can proceed as before down the path toward greater insulation, isolation, domination, and separation. We can normalize heightened levels of separation and control, believe that they are necessary to keep us safe, and accept a world in which we are afraid to be near each other. Or we can take advantage of this pause, this break in normal, to turn onto a path of reunion, of holism, of the restoring of lost connections, of the repair of community and the rejoining of the web of life.

Do we double down on protecting the separate self, or do we accept the invitation into a world where all of us are in this together? It isn’t just in medicine we encounter this question: it visits us politically, economically, and in our personal lives as well. Take for example the issue of hoarding, which embodies the idea, “There won’t be enough for everyone, so I am going to make sure there is enough for me.” Another response might be, “Some don’t have enough, so I will share what I have with them.” Are we to be survivalists or helpers? What is life for?

On a larger scale, people are asking questions that have until now lurked on activist margins. What should we do about the homeless? What should we do about the people in prisons? In Third World slums? What should we do about the unemployed? What about all the hotel maids, the Uber drivers, the plumbers and janitors and bus drivers and cashiers who cannot work from home? And so now, finally, ideas like student debt relief and universal basic income are blossoming. “How do we protect those susceptible to Covid?” invites us into “How do we care for vulnerable people in general?”

That is the impulse that stirs in us, regardless of the superficialities of our opinions about Covid’s severity, origin, or best policy to address it. It is saying, let’s get serious about taking care of each other. Let’s remember how precious we all are and how precious life is. Let’s take inventory of our civilization, strip it down to its studs, and see if we can build one more beautiful.

As Covid stirs our compassion, more and more of us realize that we don’t want to go back to a normal so sorely lacking it. We have the opportunity now to forge a new, more compassionate normal.

Hopeful signs abound that this is happening. The United States government, which has long seemed the captive of heartless corporate interests, has unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars in direct payments to families. Donald Trump, not known as a paragon of compassion, has put a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Certainly one can take a cynical view of both these developments; nonetheless, they embody the principle of caring for the vulnerable.

From all over the world we hear stories of solidarity and healing. One friend described sending $100 each to ten strangers who were in dire need. My son, who until a few days ago worked at Dunkin’ Donuts, said people were tipping at five times the normal rate – and these are working class people, many of them Hispanic truck drivers, who are economically insecure themselves. Doctors, nurses, and “essential workers” in other professions risk their lives to serve the public. Here are some more examples of the love and kindness eruption, courtesy of ServiceSpace:

Perhaps we’re in the middle of living into that new story. Imagine Italian airforce using Pavoratti, Spanish military doing acts of service, and street police playing guitars — to *inspire*. Corporations giving unexpected wage hikes. Canadians starting “Kindness Mongering.” Six year old in Australia adorably gifting her tooth fairy money, an 8th grader in Japan making 612 masks, and college kids everywhere buying groceries for elders. Cuba sending an army in “white robes” (doctors) to help Italy. A landlord allowing tenants to stay without rent, an Irish priest’s poem going viral, disabled activitists producing hand sanitizer. Imagine. Sometimes a crisis mirrors our deepest impulse — that we can always respond with compassion.

As Rebecca Solnit describes in her marvelous book, A Paradise Built in Hell, disaster often liberates solidarity. A more beautiful world shimmers just beneath the surface, bobbing up whenever the systems that hold it underwater loosen their grip.

For a long time we, as a collective, have stood helpless in the face of an ever-sickening society. Whether it is declining health, decaying infrastructure, depression, suicide, addiction, ecological degradation, or concentration of wealth, the symptoms of civilizational malaise in the developed world are plain to see, but we have been stuck in the systems and patterns that cause them. Now, Covid has gifted us a reset.

A million forking paths lie before us. Universal basic income could mean an end to economic insecurity and the flowering of creativity as millions are freed from the work that Covid has shown us is less necessary than we thought. Or it could mean, with the decimation of small businesses, dependency on the state for a stipend that comes with strict conditions. The crisis could usher in totalitarianism or solidarity; medical martial law or a holistic renaissance; greater fear of the microbial world, or greater resiliency in participation in it; permanent norms of social distancing, or a renewed desire to come together.

What can guide us, as individuals and as a society, as we walk the garden of forking paths? At each junction, we can be aware of what we follow: fear or love, self-preservation or generosity. Shall we live in fear and build a society based on it? Shall we live to preserve our separate selves? Shall we use the crisis as a weapon against our political enemies? These are not all-or-nothing questions, all fear or all love. It is that a next step into love lies before us. It feels daring, but not reckless. It treasures life, while accepting death. And it trusts that with each step, the next will become visible.

Please don’t think that choosing love over fear can be accomplished solely through an act of will, and that fear too can be conquered like a virus. The virus we face here is fear, whether it is fear of Covid-19, or fear of the totalitarian response to it, and this virus too has its terrain. Fear, along with addiction, depression, and a host of physical ills, flourishes in a terrain of separation and trauma: inherited trauma, childhood trauma, violence, war, abuse, neglect, shame, punishment, poverty, and the muted, normalized trauma that affects nearly everyone who lives in a monetized economy, undergoes modern schooling, or lives without community or connection to place. This terrain can be changed, by trauma healing on a personal level, by systemic change toward a more compassionate society, and by transforming the basic narrative of separation: the separate self in a world of other, me separate from you, humanity separate from nature. To be alone is a primal fear, and modern society has rendered us more and more alone. But the time of Reunion is here. Every act of compassion, kindness, courage, or generosity heals us from the story of separation, because it assures both actor and witness that we are in this together.

I will conclude by invoking one more dimension of the relationship between humans and viruses. Viruses are integral to evolution, not just of humans but of all eukaryotes. Viruses can transfer DNA from organism to organism, sometimes inserting it into the germline (where it becomes heritable). Known as horizontal gene transfer, this is a primary mechanism of evolution, allowing life to evolve together much faster than is possible through random mutation. As Lynn Margulis once put it, we are our viruses.

And now let me venture into speculative territory. Perhaps the great diseases of civilization have quickened our biological and cultural evolution, bestowing key genetic information and offering both individual and collective initiation. Could the current pandemic be just that? Novel RNA codes are spreading from human to human, imbuing us with new genetic information; at the same time, we are receiving other, esoteric, “codes” that ride the back of the biological ones, disrupting our narratives and systems in the same way that an illness disrupts bodily physiology. The phenomenon follows the template of initiation: separation from normality, followed by a dilemma, breakdown, or ordeal, followed (if it is to be complete) by reintegration and celebration.

Now the question arises: Initiation into what? What is the specific nature and purpose of this initiation?The popular name for the pandemic offers a clue: coronavirus. A corona is a crown. “Novel coronavirus pandemic” means “a new coronation for all.”

Already we can feel the power of who we might become. A true sovereign does not run in fear from life or from death. A true sovereign does not dominate and conquer (that is a shadow archetype, the Tyrant). The true sovereign serves the people, serves life, and respects the sovereignty of all people. The coronation marks the emergence of the unconscious into consciousness, the crystallization of chaos into order, the transcendence of compulsion into choice. We become the rulers of that which had ruled us. The New World Order that the conspiracy theorists fear is a shadow of the glorious possibility available to sovereign beings. No longer the vassals of fear, we can bring order to the kingdom and build an intentional society on the love already shining through the cracks of the world of separation.

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