“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker
More people are withdrawing from conversations about politics now. Some say, “It doesn’t do any good.” Others whisper, “It’s too stressful.” I get it. We have to take breaks in order to do self-care.
But our America matters. And as James Baldwin wrote, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Here’s my question: are we complicit in allowing serious problems in front of us by turning our heads? What if there is a part of ourselves, and of society, we hide from, or don’t want to see? Do we ignore destruction and pain right in front of our faces? It’s tricky, like trying to catch your shadow on the sidewalk. Carl Jung and Marion Woodman, famous therapists, talked about this, calling it our shadow.
I see the shadow often in my work as a psychotherapist. Once the client and I recognize what is unconsciously blocking progress, we move through these obstacles into positive change. And sometimes the parts inside us do battle. What I see inside one humble room is our personal and political dilemma. Will the damaging addict inside us reign over our desire to be healthy? Will our anger win out over our wish to be kind? As most of us know, this gridlock is never easy. Can we be engaged, as a nation, in our democracy and as mature humans, both assertive and caring? This evolution of our species is necessary. As Terry Patten wrote, “We are in a race between catastrophe and consciousness.”
Perhaps the only good news about the precipice we are on now is that we might wake up, just before we fall off the cliff. In his brilliant book, “The Web of Meaning,” Jeremy Lent wrote, “The future is not a spectator sport. It’s not something constructed by others, but by the collective choices we make every day: choices of what to ignore, what to notice and what to do about it.”
Woodman discussed the patriarchy in our collective psyche, which she defined as power-hungry and controlling. She said that when the patriarchy would eventually need to be integrated with feminine values – such as compassion and empathy – it would rear its ugly head in a huge way. She described the onslaught of vengeance, the Darth Vader of the psyche.
There’s never been an election in our lifetime as important as the one approaching now. What can we do? Do no harm, but find something that’s do-able or calls to you. Make art, write or call, demand local and Congressional officials adopt new resolutions and reject ugly politics. The 5Calls.org website offers easy ways to contact politicians with daily requests. Scott Galloway’s Resist and Unsubscribe campaign can help us resist corporate foul play. And Erica Chenoweth, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, has exhaustively researched protest results and concludes that nonviolent protest is twice as likely as violent protest to achieve results. And she concludes that movements successful in mobilizing 3.5 percent of the population in sustained, nonviolent action have historically succeeded.
Atlantic magazine staff writer Jamie Thompson uses the Uvalde, Texas school massacre in 2022 as an example of the tragic price of doing nothing when confronted with the urgent need to act. Thompson interviewed Chris Walsh, author of the Uvalde book, “Cowardice,” about the tragedy where 19 children and two teachers died while police failed to act. Thompson writes, “In Uvalde, we watched dozens of cops standing around, waiting, doing nothing. We condemn them, it gives us someone to blame for the failure to protect innocent children. But our judgment of those officers is ironic, Walsh told me. Because as a society, as citizens and legislators, we are those officers: equipped, well meaning – and paralyzed. Standing around, doing nothing, while children are slaughtered.”
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