On Staying Sane in a Suicidal Culture

[chervilant]

It was February 2005, and after several months of front-line reporting from Iraq, I'd returned to the US a human time bomb of rage, my temper ticking shorter each day.

Walking through morgues in Baghdad left scenes in my mind I remember even now. I can still smell the decaying bodies as I type this, nearly a decade later. Watching young Iraqi children bleed to death on operating tables after they had been shot by US military snipers has left an equally deep and lasting imprint.

My rage towards those responsible in the Bush administration bled outwards to engulf all of those participating in the military and anyone who supported the ongoing atrocity that was the US occupation of Iraq. My solution was to fantasize about hanging all of the aforementioned from the nearest group of light poles.

**SNIP**

In one of her books, Macy addresses, precisely, how the corporate consumer culture we live in works to propagate the message that everything is fine: "Even if we have inklings of apocalypse, the American trance functions to discourage our feelings of despair and, if they persist, to reduce them to personal pathologies. Though we may respect our own cognitive reading of the signs, the spell we are under often leads us to imagine that it is we, not the society, who are going insane."

*****************************************************************************


This article is old--published in June of last year--but still relevant. In fact, it's ever more relevant, considering the pernicious ennui that keeps most of us frozen in denial. Written by Dahr Jamail, the article is a paean to Joanna Macy--eco-philosopher and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology--whose anti-nuke activism is legendary; and an acknowledgement of the futility of "saving the planet" from our species' relentless and rapacious greed.





For the rest of this essential article, go here.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

1. Thank you so much for posting this.

I picked up new vocab and concepts from the article and a sense of one of the most conscious people on the planet.

[chervilant]

4. You're welcome,

I hope more people will read this article and Ms. Macy's books.

[Canoe52]

2. In response to

"and an acknowledgement of the futility of "saving the planet" from our species' relentless and rapacious greed. "

Personally I believe the planet is in the process of saving itself from our greed.

[chervilant]

5. Hence, the quotation marks,

because this incredible planet will be here long after our species is gone.

[Admiral Loinpresser]

7. As a humanist and a father,

I think we should do all we can to survive as a species and that implies evolving back into harmony with the world ecology. Wouldn't you agree?

[lostnfound]

3. I'm so glad Dahr Jamail found Joanna Macy

His reporting was a steady diet for me years ago (on FSRN or DemocracyNow?), and Joanna's book Widening Circles is deeply beautiful.

[chervilant]

6. I'll be looking for that book.

And, I'll have to find more articles by Jamail.