"Don't feel bad, most species of large mammal die off ... it's just our turn."
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Dr Herb Ruhs is The Compassionate Misanthrope "Don't feel bad, most species of large mammal die off ... it's just our turn." |
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Dealing with the collapse of Everything by Herb Ruhs, MD The one good thing about the economic catastrophe that is unfolding around the world is that it is forcing even the most disinterested and obtuse observer to consider the fact that almost every
As we watch our dreams of economic security evaporate like a morning mist we are collectively, with the exception of those few criminals who are drunk with ill-gotten wealth, entering into a mass psychological grief process. Unlike with an individual experiencing grief, large grieving groups are strung out along a long procession with some segments of the line more advanced in the process than others, but with a common destination of acceptance of loss.
• Denial: Example -- "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me!" • Anger: Example -- "Why me? It's not fair!" "NO! NO! How can you accept this!" • Bargaining: Example -- "Just let me live to see my children graduate."; "I'll do anything, can't you stretch it out? A few more years." • Depression: Example -- "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die ... What's the point?" • Acceptance: Example -- "It's going to be OK."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it." Kübler-Ross' stages were meant for general application to any catastrophic loss by an individual. As our global economic system self-destructs from out of control usury and speculation, not only are individuals entering into a process of grieving as the result of personal catastrophic losses, such as bankruptcy and sudden homelessness and abandonment of dreams, but entire societies are launched along this same road of sequential responses as more and more people come to realize that things will never again be the same. Economically and politically, as evidenced so clearly in the just passed presidential election campaign, a significant segment of the population drawn from all political camps are still in the stage of denial. Let's call them the "Morning in America Again" crowd. Irrational hopefulness in the face of an avalanche of facts is an emotional life jacket for those entering the grief process. Such thinking about our current predicament is represented by these sorts of ideas: "It didn't happen, it's not going to happen, it will never happen;" "This is just a little bump in the road;" "Order and prosperity will be restored after some simple policy decisions are made;" "Everything will be fine after the old New Deal policies are reinstated." Another segment of the grief procession, over-represented in the youngest and oldest parts of the population, expresses inchoate anger about the betrayal they feel at having their futures foreclosed. These people have little understanding of what is happening to them and are, understandably, impulsively lashing out. Some of my young anarchist friends are like this. I suspect that many people about to enter retirement, or already retired, who have seen their retirement investments melt like snow on hot blacktop, are in this group. The next group in line is caught in the stage of Bargaining. They tend to be mid-life folks who have achieved some degree of economic success under the current system. They tend to indulge in fantasies that range from an imagined return to economic primitivism and back to the land self sufficiency, and/or (this stage is relatively insensitive to irony and contradiction) ideas about an abrupt turn to a "green economy" or a "hydrogen economy" as scenarios of salvation that retain established patterns of life. These people tend to be irrationally optimistic about the ability of societies to radically alter long standing power relations yet retain the continuity of life as they have known it. They tend to be acolytes of science and technology and seek salvation in discovery and engineering. Some of the more educated and folks, as well as the ranks of the already disposed, tend to fall into the category of depression. If you consider the percentage of folks on anti-depressant medications, this may be a larger group than we can imagine. This stage most clearly includes most of the folks who have suddenly hit an economic bottom, have lost their homes, are confronting unemployment and impending homelessness. In some ways these people, as deep as their suffering is, are ahead of the game in that they have at least lost confidence in the dying system of exploitation that caused all this mess. The overeducated part of this cohort have been stunned by the facts they have discovered and can not get beyond the valid predictions of climate change, resource wars and depopulation. A few, including some academics in a position to understand the broadest picture, have arrived at the last stage of Acceptance. Examples amongst academically credentialed might include Joe Stiglitz as evidenced in his November, 2008 article in Vanity Fair entitled "Reversal of Fortune" Another such author would be Mike Whitney who, in his recent article "Obama's Little Red Book; Is Redistribution Really All That Bad?" and many previous articles, has bluntly challenged the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel pundits to accept the fundamental failure of the currently dominant world economic system. None of these people have a coherent plan of what to do next, but they are ready to start the work of reconstruction since they have given up on the old system. The fact is, we don't know how all this will turn out. Odds are that many mistakes will be made, and many false paths followed, before a new pattern emerges. The goal of acceptance of loss is not to attain prescience but rather to clear away the fantasies and confusions that leave us mired in the process and unable to move forward to reconstruct our lives. Certainly there will be some good that comes from the impending total collapse and the terrible privations and suffering that will ensue, if only a decrease in the destructive pressures on the environment. The old order of unjust power, of ruthless competition for advantage within and between nations, language and cultural groups will be crippled. Let's hope we have the wisdom to not replace it with a new system of unjust power and reckless exploitation of resources. If we choose the dark path in our reconstruction, it too will soon succumb to our stupidity and we will have yet another, yet more difficult process of grieving and reconstitution. If we consistently choose the dark side after each stage of collapse, we will ensure the extinction of our species, much as the Easter Islanders ensured the destruction of their tribes by a stubborn adherence to tradition (a story eloquently told in the book Collapse by Jared Diamond). It will be an extinction that will be richly deserved by a presumably intelligent species with an apparent inability to learn from its mistakes. In this cultural form of mass grieving the key change that is needed is for people to stop equating their position and identity with the values and symbols of the expiring system. We are not our culture. We are not our economic system. We are not our traditional system of dominance and class. Wealth and power needs to be discarded as a signs of personal and national worth and grace. Hopefully it will be replaced by pride in maturity, character and creativity and a mutual acceptance of the dignity and worth of all human individuals and a protective reverence for nature and man's sustainable place in the natural order. Herb Ruhs, MD PERMANENT LINK  | Latest entry | Recent entries | Older entries |
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