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John's avatar

Thom, this is the piece. Salvationist/ Cartesian thinking is probably the cornerstone upon which our walls of smoke are built. In this mindset, we are not participants - we are spectators.

Everyone believes someone else is doing the thing that will "save" us, and further, someone else is doing what will doom us. It is a total extraction of the self from the story of why things are the way they are.

We think we're seated in the Colosseum, but it is they, the few, who attend our performance of this futile and fatal self-fulfilling belief.

No one is coming to save us from ourselves.

Just yesterday I found myself deescalating a fairly hostile situation. One of the parties involved stated "None of this matters. It's the Apocalypse. Jesus is coming soon to save us - don't you feel it too (to me)?". I don't use a lot of words in these encounters - just soft body language and listening. I didn't offer a verbal response to the question. There's just nothing to say to that in the moment. I simply acknowledge with my eyes, that yes, you are saying words and I do hear them.

No, I do not feel it too. What I do feel is we're coming to save ourselves or nothing at all. End of thought.

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AndyWAWG's avatar

Hi Thom, This reminds be of the two worldviews revealed by the research of Professor George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist who wrote Don't Think of An Elephant. His research stemmed from watching a Republican convention to nominate Ronald Reagan and not understanding why this group supported a specific set of policies, and why he, as a progressive, supported a different set of policies. He combined his knowledge of language with the works of neuroscience and funcional MRIs to conclude there are two worldviews that start with the family and are reflected in our politics and economics. There is the Strict Father (authoritarian) family model and the Nurturent Parents model.

The authoritarian Strict Father model includes an imaginary social hierarchy to justify inequality, severe punishment as the main tool for teaching contradictory ideas that maintain inequality, which also requires suppression of our innate ability to empathize. Add to that a lack of understanding of systemic causation that leads to believing the individual is totally in control and individually responsible for one's survival, which also supports their idea of inequality as morally right.

On the other hand, Nurturent Parents understand systemic causation, believe in equality, use critical thinking as their primary teaching tool, and amplify our ability to empathize.

This two worldviews lead to two oppositional sets of political and economic policies.

Becuase these two world views represent either end of the political and economic spectrums, there are a miriade of views and associated policies spread between them. Here is a website that helps pinpoint where an individual stands with respect these two spectrums:

https://politicalcompass.org

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