We are wounded in relationship and we heal in relationship.
Shame says, “You are alone. Your problems are unique. You are broken. You are bad.”
As we sink beneath the surface explanations, the blame, the constant stories and analysis and begin to touch the heart of the pain and wound, we find a river feeding into the collective pain of our family, our communities, our larger circles.
As we claim and name this pain, we break the bindings of shame. We discover, “We are together. Our problems intersect. Our healing and freedom is bound together.”
We will not fully love ourselves so long as there are people we consider unlovable.
We will not find safety if we live in fear of others.
We will not feel security so long as there is hunger.
Image of a circular crossroads, surrounding which are trees of various colors. In the center is a person laying as though wounded. Image by Martin Riesch.
These thoughts might engender despair and anger, for how can we ever find happiness if the world must be made right first? It’s easy to feel not enough. And yet there is a flaw in this, the idea that happiness is a destination at which we arrive when the circumstances are right.
Happiness and joy arise from living what we value, accepting what arises. Our wounding leads to our work.
When I grow tired of making myself smaller and putting my “bad” parts in cages—when I find that bringing those parts to consciousness and finding what is beautiful and worthy about them feels so much more empowering—then I look out and wonder, why do we put people in cages?
As I uncage myself, I realize if I want to continue to grow, I must also work to uncage others. There is no single, correct way to do this, but it is the work.
Humans are strange creatures, not solitary like a turtle but not social like a bee, existing somewhere in the in-between of needing solitude and connection. We are interdependent, having our own private struggles and gifts but needing each other to fully do what is possible.
At a certain point, we get tired of nursing the private pain of being told we’re worthless, unattractive, and we realize the problem is not us but those forces that keep telling us these things. At a certain point, we notice that being divided from each other, made to compete with colleagues at work, allows our employers to keep heaping more work and expectations on us without resistance.
Being in community is hard and sometimes exhausting, particularly when the geographic and economic terrain of living seems so hostile to allowing the time and energy necessary to do that work effectively. Yet being in solidarity is a choice that helps us to transcend the shame and suffering of personal struggles. We experience a greater sense of power and love when we allow our struggles to interlock. We break out of the stifling sense of personal responsibility, that somehow I have to fix all the problems in the world.
Of course you feel you’re not enough for that task. It’s not meant to be a one-person job.
“Take one pint of water.
Add a half-pound of sugar,
the juice of 8 lemons,
the zest of a half lemon.
Pour the water from one jug
then into the other
several times.
Strain through a clean napkin.
Grandmother, the alchemist—
you spun gold out of this hard life.
Conjured beauty
from the things left behind.
Found healing where it did not live.
Discovered the antidote in your own kitchen.
Broke the curse with your own two hands.
You passed these instructions down
to your daughter, who then
passed it down to her daughter.”
-from Lemonade
“The Great Work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will, assuring him… full power over the Universal Magical Agent.” – Éliphas Lévi
In my reading of Beyoncé’s work through the lens of psychospiritual alchemy, I traced the trajectory of her solo albums through Adam McLean’s analysis of the sevenfold alchemical process. The first three albums (Dangerously in Love, B’Day, I Am… Sasha Fierce) correspond to the “involutionary arc” of the spiritual impulse descending, meeting opposition in the inner world, synthesizing the opposition into a whole, and then manifesting. After the fourth step (4), manifestation, the work moves into the “evolutionary arc” which parallels the involutionary arc. The fifth stage (Beyoncé)shows the experimental steps at manifesting the new energies, which then leads to the sixth stage meeting opposition again, this time in the outer world: Lemonade.
In Lemonade, the Artist delves into her personal pain as a spouse betrayed by infidelity and then goes even deeper, into the collective pain of Black women and Black people in the United States. Thefilm is rife with images reminiscent of sites of Black suffering and liberation: the plantation, a flooded New Orleans, mothers holding images of their children killed by the police, a Black boy in a hoodie confronted by a line-up of police in riot gear. Alchemy turns lead into gold, and the alchemy of Lemonade transforms bitter fruit into a sweet, golden drink.
Betrayed by her lover through infidelity, the Artist begins quietly singing her suspicion and pain until leaping from the top of a building—her anxiety and self-doubt—into the watery unconscious. Here the Artist gazes upon herself, drifts in numbness, recites a litany of denial and realization, and suffocates before emerging as a beautiful being of power, joy, and destruction—not only does she emerge with a flood of water, she is then surrounded by fiery explosions, blessed by a gust of wind, and takes the wheel of an enormous and heavy monster truck. Thus she is blessed and empowered by the four elements.
Beyoncé emerges in the form of a water power. Still from Lemonade.
The sevenfold model of alchemy predicts a thematic reflection between complementary stages of the involutionary and evolutionary arcs. Read in this context, Lemonade returns to issues and themes originally confronted in the second phase of the working, in this case B’Day, which was itself an act of emancipation and increased ownership of her career when she chose to break away from her father’s management. Two of the most significant themes have unfolded around the Artist’s relationship to her lover and to her capitalist ambitions, each shaping the other in an ongoing tension, and Lemonade renegotiates the resolution achieved in B’Day.
My previous reading of B’Day suggested that the alchemical working at that stage required the Artist differentiate from the rigid but potent role of the archetypal Virgin Queen and connect in love and partnership with another, both personally and creatively. The Artist at that phase confronts her fears that gaining intimacy will undermine her power, particularly her pleasure in discipline, hard work, and consumption. Self-doubt and an emerging awareness of her vulnerability as a female artist beset her, but by the time she reaches Lemonade her script is fully flipped. Instead the Artist wears, inhabits, and works the guises of the Orisha. The surprise first single “Formation” is a spell, its lyrics chanting in a loping cycle that falls back, leaps forward, falls back. The Artist rests upon a submerged police car before sinking it, and herself, back into Oshun’s territory, the great waters. This is purgation, wielding her powers of art and magic to remix and remake the world.
Two songs show the distance the Artist has come: In B’Day‘s song “Upgrade U,” the Artist promotes her worthiness as an offer, calling upon a figure of nonviolent strength: “I can do for you what Martin did for the people.” In contrast, the Artist in Lemonade takes her worthiness for granted and calls out her partner with a righteous anger in the song “Don’t Hurt Yourself”: “Bad motherfucker. / God complex. / Motivate your ass, / call me Malcolm X.”
At each phase of working, the Artist has increased in consciousness of the strengths and challenges of a black woman’s power within a white supremacist patriarchal capitalism. While she fully owns and celebrates capitalism, Lemonade shows her interrogating patriarchy and racism more explicitly than ever before. In the song “Formation,” the Artist hearkens back to the B’Day stance of power-through-supporting black men by singing, “You just might be a Black Bill Gates in the making.” After a brief reflection, she seems to recognize the old pattern and realize it’s time to think bigger: “I just might be a Black Bill Gates in the making.”
As much as the Beyoncé who celebrates capitalist achievement and wealth energizes Lemonade, increasingly we see the Artist standing outside of patriarchy and white supremacy, identifying with her communities, her culture, her heritage and family. This time she’s not telling other women to “bow down, bitches,” instead she’s inviting those who are up for the task to “get in formation” with her.
B’Day‘s song “Ring the Alarm” presages the rage around infidelity explored with maturity in Lemonade, yet in that song the Artist seems avoidant of challenging her betrayer directly, instead focusing her rage at the other woman whom she imagines exploiting her wealth. In Lemonade, outside of a remark about “Becky with the good hair,” the Artist spends little time thinking about the “other woman” and much of her effort calling out and repairing her relationship with the husband who broke his covenant.
The grandmother’s alchemical recipe of lemonade cited above, passed along the matrilineal line, shows an alchemy distinct from the masculine Self-formation of Lévi. This alchemy is quiet and collective, drawing upon the powers of domesticity and craft. The grandmother possesses power but does not keep it for herself, she passes it to her daughters, she shares her concoction with others. The Artist returns to her queenship, extending power to uplift.
Beyoncé upon her throne. Still from the “Sorry” video.
In my last post, I discussed propaganda as a tool of control and subversion, and observed that the cultural climate has shifted in such a way that it behooves us to engage consciously with the strategies and consequences of it. Instead of bemoaning propaganda or relegating it to one “side,” it seems to me wisest to acknowledge that it exists, it is effective, and it is widely employed.
What to watch for is whether propaganda leads us toward personal and collective danger. The information we take in influences the mind, the heart, the body, and then our actions. Thinking about things that terrify me, I feel fear in my body, and I respond fearfully to otherwise innocuous things around me. When I can calm and defuse that emotional reaction within me, however, my mind is freer to engage rationally with propaganda.
Thoughts and propaganda are similar in that trying to get rid of them is a poor use of energy. What is more useful is engaging mindfully, cultivating the ability to observe one’s thoughts and reactions with some distance and curiosity. Here are some ideas on strategies to do this:
Image of a fist above text: “Keep Calm and Decolonize Everything,” in a poster that evokes British wartime propaganda. From Oppression Monitor Dailey.
Understand you are being manipulated
Objective truth might exist, but there are no objective people. We all have agendas, conscious and unconscious, and we want things from each other. I write this blog post because I want to live in a world of conscious human beings and I believe this is an important contribution to that. I also write this because I want potential clients to read this, go to my website, and sign up for therapy from me so I can make money. Both are true.
These motivations shape the way we communicate information to each other. Effective persuasion offers information in ways to motivate desired behaviors. Ideally, we communicate accurate information in health-affirming ways. Sometimes, however, this motivation comes through deception—knowingly stating something that is false, or stating accurate information in misleading ways. (Much popular reporting on scientific research exemplifies this, presenting the research as much more conclusive than it truly is. See also most clickbait headlines.)
When interacting with others, it’s useful to consider what agendas are in play and decide how we want to engage with them. Does my agenda match yours? Can I work with your agenda in a way that meets mine? What I do then is an active choice. Even if someone is actively trying to con you, and you recognize it but decide to go along with it, you are now a co-participant rather than a person being manipulated.
Cultivate curiosity about what you know and what you feel
Even when you have a practice of not clicking the obvious clickbait-y titles of articles, it’s hard not to see that “[Celebrity] DESTROYED [this politician] over [controversial issue]” and unconsciously internalize the story. At times, reading the actual article In some cases, reading the article intentionally would be more helpful, as it would help you evaluate for yourself whether someone was “DESTROYED.” You might also attend to the ways the article is shaping the story. Some articles will take one sentence of an actual thing that happened and add paragraphs of speculation and unverified claims.
Dangerous propaganda roots in unexamined assumptions and those Id feelings of lust, anger, fear, vindictiveness, hope, comfort, and pleasure. It finds safe harbor in our bias and bigotry, our assumptions about whomever we perceive as an enemy or an “other.” It is nearly impossible to stay conscious about all of this at all times, but when we feel particularly provoked we might sit with some questions:
“How do I know this to be true?”
“Where did this knowledge come from?”
“What evidence supports this knowledge? What evidence contradicts it?”
“Is there someone I respect with whom I can talk to about opposing views?”
“What feeling does this bring out of me? How strong is this feeling?”
“Who benefits from my thinking and feeling this way? Who gets harmed by it?”
This is largely about curation of the mind and the heart. It’s difficult to make thoughtful choices when I’m ramped up into fight, flight, or freeze. If this article or commercial stirs up panic about the future, is that going to help me effectively navigate it? If this propaganda wants me to meekly accept what’s happening and go along with something that assaults my core values, is doing so in my interest?
It’s easier to engage this practice when we don’t want to believe what something is telling us. It’s harder to do this when we do hope or fear something is true. Doing this practice with both is useful. When something seems to confirm your greatest hope or your greatest fear, take a step back.
Make a list of what matters to you
What do you stand for? How do you think people should treat each other? Who are your allies in this?
I recommend identifying five core values, often one to three words, which could be written on a card you keep in your pocket or posted on a note around your home. Periodically I will revisit these core values in terms of my life or responses. If I say I value kindness, for example, I could spend a week looking at how I am practicing kindness in my interactions with others, and whether the media I’m consuming supports kindness or undermines it.
An image of a fist, surrounded by rays, around which are the words “Defend Equality” and “Love Unites.” Does this align with your values?
In this context, grounding is the act of bringing awareness into the body, the present moment, and our connection to the earth. Simple ways to do this include: focusing on the feeling of your feet on the ground, your butt in the chair, or the weight of gravity holding you to the earth. Look around the room and notice what is there. The body lives in the present moment, and so when the mind and heart get ramped up into intense fantasies, contacting our senses brings us gently back to “what is”.
When I guide people in grounding, I often encourage them to notice the stability of the ground in this moment. When I do this, a part of my mind says, “But there could be an earthquake.” And I acknowledge, yes, that is true, but in this moment I can feel through my feet that the ground is stable. That is the point. I don’t need to deal with an earthquake that’s not currently happening.
Recall this next time you feel stirred up by potential threats to your safety, especially when it’s the hypothetical possibility of violence, or a conflict that is happening miles from where you live. Notice the feelings engendered and how the media you consume invites you into a political “us-vs-them” drama, away from listening and connection.
Then try grounding. Right now, in this moment, is your body safe? Does the ground feel stable? Are you around people you trust? Is anything catastrophic happening? What in your life at this moment could benefit from your attention? You have power in your life, more power than you do in those political narratives. Do something meaningful for yourself, and then revisit the drama. What feels important now?
Most of all, I urge us all to turn away from these grandiose, Internet-fueled feelings toward engagement with what’s in our lives today. When you find your energy being turned against a vague enemy, redirect that passion toward what you value, what you are for.
Last December I was out running errands with my spouse. We noticed a man standing on an island in the middle of traffic holding up a sign on which was written one word, a hashtag. I had no idea what to make of it. “What on earth is he doing? What is the point?” I looked up the hashtag on my phone, learned about a conspiracy theory that seemed pulled straight from the 1990s “Satanic Panic” playbook, and told my spouse about it. My spouse, in turn, pointed out that I had done exactly what the man with the sign wanted. He infected with this meme, this idea. Not too long after that, the hashtag and its associated story motivated a person to go into a business named in the theory with a gun, threatening the workers.
Propaganda utilizes simple, emotionally captivating messages and images, often drawing upon easily recognized symbolism. Image of a white woman wearing an American flag dress, spreading grain on a field. Above her is the headline: “Will you have a part in Victory?”
We tend to interpret the word ‘propaganda’ as information that is inherently untrustworthy. We refer to “Soviet propaganda” or “anarchist propaganda” with the understanding that those folks likely aren’t telling the ‘truth.’
Historically, propaganda was generally regarded as a neutral force, holding true to its Latin roots. ‘Propaganda’ derives from propagare, meaning ‘to propagate,’ and propaganda was recognized as a powerful weapon that could be wielded in the name of countless agendas. It was only with the rise … of authoritarian governments that disseminated mass propaganda through the means of mechanical reproduction in order to manipulate the public in favor of repressive tendencies, that the word took on a permanently negative connotation.
Once upon a time, I believed that most conflict and bigotry arose because people were not adequately aware of “the truth.” If I could simply, calmly, and rationally explain that truth to another person, I thought, they would understand my perspective and change their behavior. This is a fantasy underlying many forms of liberal activism, from fighting climate change through racial justice, among other causes.
In this worldview, there are arbiters of truth, at least those who come closest to understanding our best grasp of the truth. It is appalling, according to this mindset, that anyone would ignore or deny these arbiters of truth, such as the scientists who affirm that climate change is real and human behavior is causing it. When confronted with that, the response is often to become condescending, dismissive, all the hallmarks of “liberal elitism.”
Now this fantasy seems facile. What is lacking is appreciation for another truth. It turns out rational argument is not enough, there must be a compelling appeal to the heart as well. Marketers and public relations professionals have known this for decades.
During my late teens, I read William S. Burroughs’s essay “The Electronic Revolution”, in which the writer Burroughs discusses human language as a literal virus (a concept that has become mainstreamed in our reference to content “going viral”), and ways by which language becomes weaponized and used in the service of those societal twins, control and subversion. “Illusion is a revolutionary weapon,” he asserted, going on to explore strategies of employing doctored recordings to plant seeds of doubt and rebellion.
Here’s one example:
TO SPREAD RUMORS
Put ten operators with carefully prepared recordings out at rush hour and see how quick the words get around. People don’t know where they heard it but they heard it.
Social media today attests to his theories. I’m scrolling through my news feed and see a provocative headline that suggests something that wants to appeal to my most Id-centered emotions: anger, fear, pleasure, vindictiveness. I see that someone I don’t like got “DESTROYED” on a news show, or a politician got caught out on a scandal that had been long-suspected (or desired). Sometimes I click on the article and, upon reading, realize that the headline is misleading or the story is actually much less compelling than promised.
Other times, it gets its hooks in me. When the topic comes up in conversation, I’m already half-assuming it’s true. “I heard that! I saw it online.” People make a trending hashtag about it, memes about it. I get into arguments over why it matters. I argue about the way people argue about it. Several people write thinkpieces on why we’re misunderstanding the essential reason why the news matters. Maybe I learn later that the story was misleading but the damage is already done.
For those who still value the idea of transcendent, liberating truth, the idea of a war of propaganda is offensive. Sitting with my own discomfort, I take Valkyrie’s point that propaganda is a neutral technology, one that could successfully broadcast one’s own beliefs and opinions as much as opposing ideologies. Memes, for example, are effective at persuasion and consolidation of bubbles because they appeal to both lobes of the brain. They contain language communicating the essential point (left brain) with aesthetically and emotionally captivating images (right brain).
Collage is a visual form drawing upon the same cut-up techniques, taking existing mass-marketed images and re-contextualizing them, generating new possibilities.”The Fire of Your Soul,” amateur collage by author, 2017.
“The Electronic Revolution” was a significant influence on the industrial music scene, which played with the splicing of musical forms with sampled audio content. One of my favorite exemplars of the genre is Meat Beat Manifesto’s Satyricon, a work that explores themes of propaganda, state control, and liberation of the mind through freeing the body. The song “Brainwashed This Way / Zombie / That Shirt” is a triptych that splices and remixes media samples from advertising, film, and political speech over a series of shifting beats to link together marketing and the deployment of pleasure for social control. (I cannot find an officially sanctioned version of the song available online, but a YouTube search will get you there. Or you could buy the album.)
All this said, while a wholly rational appeal is not very effective to motivate change, a wholly emotional and aesthetic appeal is dangerous. Appeals to fear, anger, and pleasure are very effective at getting us to turn off our critical thinking skills. This feature is beyond political orientation.
I woke up on the first day of 2017 feeling energetic and excited. I’d set my intention for the year and I felt eager to start threading it into my day. Making a new change always gives me a rush of possibility, a feeling of pride and competence! For the first few days, anyway!
A long time ago I stopped making formal resolutions of the type, “I will accomplish [this thing] this year.” These days my practice is to set an overall intention, or find a key word to which I can anchor. One year, for example, I chose the word “Sobriety.” I kept sobriety as the state I strove to keep up consciously, and to recognize when and how I fell away from it. Instead of saying “I won’t drink this year,” my goal was to keep my use of intoxicants below the threshold of becoming intoxicated.
I’m not saying this to suggest everyone should do this specific practice, but the approach helped me to use the intention as a practice of staying conscious while not setting myself up for failure. Failure, in fact, wasn’t failure, but rather information that helped me better understand my relationship with my intention.
What I’ve learned is that when I start a change or set an intention, initially I will enjoy the period I’m enjoying right now—”This is awesome! I feel so great!” This wears off. Sooner than I’d like, everything that resists this intention or change makes itself known. The river gets rockier and more rapid, harder to navigate. For many of us, our resolutions do not survive this period.
A white flag with the word “Explore” written on it, against a backdrop of dark wood. Image by Andrew Neel
What interferes with keeping intentions or resolutions, whatever they may be? Here are some:
Lack of knowledge or competence – We may set bold, inspiring goals that fill use with passion and enthusiasm, only to discover on the early steps that the actual work leaves us feeling confused, lost, humiliated, or in pain. We had no idea it would be this hard, or we had no idea all the things we had no idea about with regard to the process.
Trying to do too many things at once – This is related to the first bullet, in that we can get so eager to revolutionize that we take on way too much. Quitting smoking, taking up regular exercise, and cleaning the house weekly are all admirable goals, but trying to do all three at once is at best an exercise in self-torture and at worst a set-up. Better to pick one goal and hold one’s self to it with diligence, then take up the next once that first pattern is more or less set.
Life happening – After a few great weeks of staying consistent, little things crop up that seem like reasonable exceptions, then more reasonable exceptions, or maybe we reward ourselves for doing such a good job and take a break that starts to drag on.
Lack of support or encouragement – Maybe our friends and loved ones aren’t supportive of the changes we’re trying to make. When we change, it often pushes those close to us to change as well. If our loved ones aren’t willing to change, they may respond in ways that encourage us to go back to the old patterns. Even if they’re not actively interfering, sometimes the lack of encouragement undermines enthusiasm and follow through. It’s hard to keep eating salads and drinking water when everyone around you keeps getting burgers and beers.
Parts of self threatened by the change – This underlies everything. Perhaps the pattern we’re trying to change served a need we weren’t conscious of, like comfort or safety. Perhaps parts of us are afraid that if we’ll succeed life will change in uncomfortable ways. Maybe the old patterns are comfortable and we return to them in times of stress.
Whatever the reason, it’s almost a guarantee that any time you try to make a change something or someone will resist and try to stop the change. We have to contend with discomfort, conflict, unpleasant feelings, and doing things when we “don’t feel like it.” We might have to accept that the goal was too lofty, too far ahead on the path from where we’re at.
This year, instead of being discouraged when this happens, my hope is that we can approach this as life giving us the material we need to work with to truly make this change permanent and lasting. It is feedback, internal and external, showing us what in ourselves and the world caused us to keep to the old pattern in the first place.
Slipping up or making a mistake with our own intention does not have to be a sign of personal failure, a sign that the goal was wrong or we’re broken. It’s an opportunity for self-study, to look honestly at the obstacles and take stock of what other changes need to happen to sustain our intention.
In times of crisis, much becomes possible. Structures and patterns that once held a livable, or at least stable, status quo suddenly do not serve. Fear and panic arise, along with anger.
When faced with the intensity of these feelings and urgency of the situation, all of our fight/flight/freeze tendencies come to the fore. It’s easy to fall back into older, more established patterns of protection, though they’ve failed to serve us in the past. We want to stick our heads in our shells and wait for the storm to pass. We want to attack any and every apparent threat, unable to pause for a moment to relax, constantly on guard. Or, for some of us, we completely shut down, dissociate, or simply feel frozen on the spot.
Of course we miss even the illusion of safety and stability, and long for it to return. Some of us would do nearly anything to get it back, make any sacrifice, commit to any responsibility. It is one of the reasons that so much political and advertising language fosters a mentality of crisis. Whip up enough fear and urgency, stimulate that survival drive to flood your brain, and before long we find that we’ve permanently lost rights and opportunities we’d before taken for granted.
An image of a person, blurry, against a snowy backdrop, holding a sparkler that is burning down to their fingers. Photo by Jakob Owens
All of this happens in the personal world, too. The urge is to do whatever it takes to end the crises, even at the cost of our health and deepest values. Years ago, during the Great Recession, I spent months fixating on applying to jobs and freaking out about being forever unemployed. That was an old career, one I didn’t even like that much, but one that generated a modicum of stability and kept me from facing all my fears. I tolerated abusive behaviors from a boss because I didn’t want to lose even the minimum wage job I had. I felt about two days away from utter ruin.
Around that time, I decided I could use the energy of that crisis to “become more awesome.” I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by that, only that it felt more productive than letting the crisis eat me from within. Therapy and daily spiritual practice supported me, as well as my partner and community. I realized that my old patterns of work, job seeking, money and self-management no longer served. Whether it was a temporary thing or permanent, the options either seemed to keep repeating unworkable behaviors or embrace the terror and instability to create something new. So I committed to the customer service job I had, and decided to go to school to get a new career.
In times of crisis, structure loosens and becomes flexible. Those who have the will, the resources, or the support can make significant changes. Those who are the most effective seem the ones who are least hindered by clinging to what no longer works, who accept the instability and imminence of change and have a strong vision to promote. For these people, the emotions engendered by crisis become fertilizer and fuel.
Now is the time. Now is the time to root into your deepest values. Now is the time to branch into your most inspiring vision of possibility. Now is the time to stop spending your energy fighting on their terms, and speak boldly in your own words.
A woman with the dog. In the foreground is the poem by Deena Metzger: “There are those who are trying to set fire to the world. / We are in danger. / There is time only to work slowly. / There is no time not to love.”
Reading Carl Jung introduced me to a word that I love: enantiodroma – the tendency of things to change into their opposites. I find references to this tendency throughout literature, psychology, and spiritual writing. The Taoists in particular deeply explore this concept, and it arises even in Taoist-informed texts like The Art of War in which Sun Tzu uses oppositions as strategic approaches to conflict.
One such piece of advice is “When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.” The implication, as I understand it, is that an enemy driven too far to desperation, where defeat is certain and all hope of escape denied, has the potential to become a powerful nemesis. Too much weakness suddenly gains a strength and power that could cause severe damage to your forces.
A silhouetted surfer riding a wave. Photo by Tim Marshall
Too much strength, then, has the potential to become fragility. I think of this often when working with highly masculine clients. In our culture, what epitomizes masculinity is the hard muscle, the erect penis, the commanding presence, hardness and strength unyielding and unending. It is a lie, of course, an archetypal Masculinity which no one could wear indefinitely, and yet so many masculine and male people think they must.
Excessive exercise is harmful to muscular development. What helps us to become stronger is the time of rest after exercise, after tearing apart the muscles with effort—allowing them to rest and rebuild, reknit with greater strength. So too is it with all kinds of strength. We need places of rest, of vulnerability, places of comfort and ease. We cannot be in constant effort, strain, and growth.
Even more fragile is that form of power which insists upon itself and demands all recognize it, the kind of power that measures itself by how much people obey and yield to it. By this I speak of what Starhawk called power-over. It is power that cannot tolerate dissent, disagreement, or allow others to behave as they wish. It is the kind of power that would waste its energy attacking or incarcerating someone for an insult out of fear that if one person “gets away with it” then no one will respect it. It is the kind of power that would punish someone for failing to find him attractive rather than work to become a desirable person.
This power is brittle because it demands constant, unyielding obedience. It is inflexible. It cannot adapt and learn. Any crack in this illusion of control annihilates all of it. It must force its vision of reality upon the world and punish whatever does not cohere to the vision; and not learning the truth about the world and learning how to work with it.
There are attributes of masculinity worth cultivating within the wholeness of one’s Self: resilience; follow through; strength; setting aside pain to do what must be done; setting aside one’s interests to labor for the benefit of one’s family, clan, or community. But taken to excess, masculinity is fragile. It damages bodies and souls. It does not allow tears, intimacy, vulnerability, unguarded moments of connection. It does not allow recovery periods or being comforted. Unbalanced strength that becomes weakness.
I’m writing this post primarily for US citizens who think of themselves as white. In the past several weeks I’ve learned a lot of white citizens are excited for a political climate which is no longer controlled by “political correctness.” In these conversations, my understanding is that this means they feel safe to say what’s on their minds without worrying about unwanted consequences.
To some extent I think I understand the problem. These days it seems like a lot of folks get “called out” and “corrected” as though the only problem with saying certain words and concepts is that you’re not supposed to say them, or you have to use the correct language. What I want to write about today is about some of the underlying premises that get lost in Internet arguments.
Let’s start with a classic text, Huckleberry Finn. I was a precocious reader and read this novel a few times in my late childhood before being required to read it in high school. On my third reading, I believe I was about fifteen, I finally noticed a strange and unsettling subtext in this excerpt in a conversation between Huckleberry Finn and Aunt Sally (I censored a racial slur that refers to Black folk. The slur matters but still not one I feel like having on my site.):
“It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a n*****.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”
Did you notice? The text doesn’t dwell on this point at all, it moves into a comical and unrelated speech by Aunt Sally. If you didn’t notice, go back and think about Sally’s question and Huck’s response. Who counts as a “person”?
Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of the excellent Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome, provides an in-depth analysis in her talks about how cognitive dissonance was necessary for the United States to keep up the abominable practice of chattel slavery, and how the long-running practice of repairing cognitive dissonance continues to this day.
I think that excerpted dialogue illustrates it well: Aunt Sally is asking if any person got hurt. Huck knows that she means “white people” and says no, but he goes on to acknowledge the killing of a black person in the same breath. His mind appears to recognize both are actually people, but he has to deny it inwardly and out loud to perpetuate the systems of white supremacy and slavery that are in place. He and Aunt Sally collude on who they consider human, whose suffering counts, whose death matters.
Photo by Caju Gomes, courtesy of Unsplash.
Dehumanization is necessary for any form of oppression, violence, and human rights abuse. If the oppressing group did not make the victims inhuman then they would risk feeling empathy for them, would risk recognizing that their treatment is unfair and unjust (dare I say inhuman), and would become uncomfortably aware of how personal comfort and success hinges upon this maltreatment. When that conflict arises, as Dr. DeGruy notes, the oppressors learn to mask it, ignore it, justify it, but we can’t completely annihilate it.
Some years ago, I was working at a coffee bar downtown while also finishing my Master’s degree. I did a practicum working with homeless youth, many of whom would hang out near my coffee bar either asking for money or socializing because those were the few places available to them during the day. One day, I was taking my lunch and noticed that some of the youth I’d gotten to know were asking for money outside the window. They had a dog with them. Another person who worked in the store sat next to me and bemoaned, “I hate it when homeless people have dogs. I feel so bad for the dogs having to live like that. I wish I could adopt [the dogs].”
Did you notice? Who is a person to that coworker? Whose suffering matters? Not the human beings whose parents had thrown them out of the house, who had to ask for money on the street. In this case, it was the perceived suffering of the dog—an animal who is better suited for outdoor living due to having fur, an affinity for packs, and a scavenger palate that can survive on lots of different kinds of food. Perhaps this teaches us another dimension of cognitive dissonance—this person might have recognized and had momentary empathy for these humans, but instead directed it at the safer target of the dog. She could make the homeless people villainous by blaming them for making the dog live on the street, and not wonder about a society that does not protect and house all of its people.
My coworker was not a horrible person, just as Aunt Sally is not depicted as an evil shrew. Repairing cognitive dissonance actually makes people seem much happier and easier to hang around with. As long as you don’t challenge them and make them risk rethinking their dissonance, they seem quite lovely, generous, giving people. Instead it’s the people who call this out, who point to the dissonance and note that what we’re rationalizing is really awful—they bring up things we don’t want to face, so we don’t like them as much.
What gets excoriated as “being too politically correct” is the effort to make everyone a person and root out these dehumanizing tendencies in our culture. When we call people slurs, describe them as animals, dismiss their needs and pains, or justify their suffering, we make them less than human and thus easier for our society to continue oppressing. When the people we think of as our protectors kill unarmed Black teenagers, we look for ways to make that teenager a “thug”, less than human, and thus okay to kill.
The “exceptional minority” is no less rooted in this same tendency, by the way. If you assume everyone in a particular class is sub-human, but you point out and elevate one in particular as being “a credit” to their group, that remains complicit in the dehumanization and continues to prove it. “If only you acted like this one particular person we like, then we’d take your feelings seriously.”
If you’re wondering why I’m writing about this in my therapy blog—I do not believe we can separate out larger patterns of dehumanization from inner patterns of shame and worthlessness. I see, moreover, how dehumanization adds stress and emotional trauma to the lives of people of color, queer people, disabled people, and poor people. We need other people as mirrors, and if those mirrors constantly treat us as subhuman, then the effort it takes to keep up my sense of self is tremendous.
When I’m the one dehumanizing others, I add tremendous stress to my ability to comprehend and deal with reality. I make it harder to give and receive support, and limit those potential sources of support. I learn how to deny and repress toxicity in my world, which means I’m doing it in me as well. I become less strong, less resilient, more fearful and guarded. I contribute to a world in which everyone’s personhood is in question, which means on some level I know mine to be as well, and those questions are only definitively answered by whomever is in power at any given time.
What makes you a person? If you were applying for a job, and the interviewer asked you that question, and you knew that your answer determined whether you were even a candidate for the job, how would you answer?
Continued Work
Identify a group or category of people about whom you feel fear, disgust, or anger. Think about what behaviors or qualities arouse these feelings in you.
Imagine yourself as a person who is behaving in that way. What would be necessary to get you to that point? Under what circumstances would that behavior or those qualities seem necessary, useful, or the only options available to you?
Do some reading about the group, particularly journalism or writing that is sympathetic to the group. Note what qualities or justifications these works highlight, whether they contradict or are simply different from your familiar associations. Notice what questions and conflicts arise in you. Notice when you want to make one group all good and one all bad—even if you attempt to switch categories.
For the next month, notice when you observe dehumanizing language or discussions about groups of people—any people. At least once a week, think about one particular group and the dehumanizing stories and images associated with them.
Ask yourself, “What gets hidden or dismissed when I view these people as not human?”
Ask yourself, “Who benefits from me seeing these people as not human?”
The following meditation arose during a book group I and a colleague led discussing Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. In her chapter on cultivating calm and stillness, she defined calm as “creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity.” We thought it would be helpful to include an experiential exercise, and so I developed the following meditation.
An image of a hill, reflected very clearly in the water below. At the edge of the water are gathered some vehicles. Photo by Ivars Krutainis
As with many things, I think we often misunderstand concepts like calm, peace, stillness, and serenity as the absence of trouble. Instead, I think of all these things as emerging when we cultivate presence amidst our troubles.
Practicing calm and finding spaciousness is empowering and allows us to see possibilities where we might have only seen our worst fears. This practice helps us to be more pragmatic.
Some important caveats:
This is harder for some of us than others, and the difficulty is particularly contingent on whether we have any sense of safety or stability in life. Find it, wherever that might be, and build upon it.
At no point does this practice require dismissing the importance and reality of your troubles.
Calm is a surprisingly loaded word, as it is one often said to others as an order. “Calm down!” This is rarely helpful, often expressed in a way that’s dismissive. It is exceptionally unhelpful when what one really means is “I feel uncomfortable when you do or say that and I want you to stop.”
When we feel distressed, angry, or panicking, we instinctively want to pull others into our crisis and sometimes react very poorly to people who are able to keep themselves out of it and show calm. Yet we need that so much. It is a model and inspiration that helps us to disconnect from the panic and re-examine the conditions on the ground.
Emotions are contagious, and as a highly anxious person can stimulate anxiety around them, so too can a calm person help bring more calm to a situation, as Brown notes in the same chapter. When you feel a need to tell others to calm down, I invite you to practice calming yourself first.
When we’re really trying to step up and be our brightest and most powerful, we’re going to experience resistance. Parts of me love being bold and visible, and parts that absolutely hate it. While I continue to learn to be more outgoing and friendly in my public, there are days when I need to sit at home and read a book or play video games and not talk to people.
I like being kind and understanding others, but some days I feel cranky, sad, or despondent about the state of the world. I’m less gracious and forgiving of my own and other people’s stumbling. My old patterns of acting like a superior know-it-all threaten to step out. At times the cultural conditioning that I work against slip through, and I find myself saying something offensive and oppressive. All of these skills and perspectives I discuss in this series are in danger of going out the window, subtly or overtly.
Image of an owl who appears caught by a human hand. Photo by Zachary Bedrosian.
The thing about personal power is that we can offer both grace and accountability to these slippages. I take responsibility. I said or did something that goes against the person I want to be. I hurt someone and will make amends. I must also look at what lead up to that moment and sense what I needed that could have helped me to be my best self.
When we’ve been disrespected, pushed against the wall, given one too many excuses, or once again we’re getting criticism when we asked for help—that’s a time to step back and go to trusted allies. Those parts of us that are hurt and angry need time to speak and get their feelings out so we can go back into the situation in integrity.
In her classic book on behavioral psychology, Don’t Shoot the Dog, Karen Pryor discusses the phenomenon of tantrums that occur during training. When animals are struggling to learn a new skill, and not quite getting it, they will sometimes engage in erratic and frustrated behavior that looks to us like a tantrum. After clearing the anger, however, the animal is soon able to take on the skill. It might be that this is necessary for learning—my suspicion is that the anger both clears out long-building frustration around failure, as well as pushing our nervous systems to make the new connections.
For our purposes, we simply need to accept that our feelings exist, and matter, and sometimes we need places to indulge them so we can hear the deeper needs. We might need to let ourselves be sarcastic and say the awful thing, but in private, with people who know us and who will let us vent and then set us back on track. Otherwise we risk saying these things in public, with greater potential consequences. This is why people in marginalized communities need spaces for themselves, free of people from the dominant culture.
One of the problems of online discourse is that it blurs the boundaries between public and private. People might think that commenting on a friend’s blog or a locked Facebook post is an appropriately private place to do this venting, but this creates its own problems. We’re not always mindful about who can see our online posts, and we may think we’re talking to a small group of people who “get it” only to learn that folks are seeing our words without knowing the larger context. We look like assholes, instead of people venting during a difficult situation.
Less loyal “friends,” moreover, can easily screenshot these conversations and send them to the people from whom we were trying to keep these feelings. Email, as we increasingly know, is a similarly private communication that is no longer so private. Some might be willing to leverage these moments of rupture to cause damage and discredit enemies. Those of us who strive to be diplomatic need to be mindful when and where we do our necessary venting.
Diplomacy is not an easy road, and sometimes quite lonely. We bond with others through shared outrage and enmity against another group, yet it is the kind of bonding that is facile and requires regular feedings of anger and provocation. Diplomacy is a path of integrity, contemplation, and bridge-building. It is not for everyone, but I honor those who step into that role or try on some of these approaches in their communities.
