This is a quite excellent essay. Whether it manages to touch the hearts of those that read it is another matter, but the fact that there is one more positive, empathic piece of writing in the world is good enough for me. Thank you.
For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Exactly! Our primitive psychology predisposed by our past experiences, still tells us that banishment is the worst thing that can happen to us. We would stay in the most horrendous relationships just not to be alone. Healthy growth and development helps us transcend that old, fear-based primate conditioning…
Wow, thank you. Robert Burns was so good and of course nothing new under the sun and humanity has never been any different. I wonder if I will see in my lifetime a real turning point, or whether when I die, things are still the same…
I shall be 55 next week. I doubt whether that turning point will come during my remaining years; indeed, I expect the horror of a recrudescence of fascism, which seems already to have begun.
You know, I’ll be 61 in September (neé 1964), and I do think the turning point will come in my lifetime! So if you can’t hold that vision, let me hold it for you for as long as necessary. I am really happy you were born and hope your 55th birthday will be a peaceful and fulfilling day. 🌻
I wonder if you have read Iain McGilchrist's wonderful (massive) book The Matter with Things. He is also a psychotherapist as well as a neurologist and philosopher. There is a great deal of evidence that modern society as a whole has become left-brain dominant, and as a result intuition and empathy challenged. Western countries now treat being bureaucratic, grasping, manipulative, morality-free and power-seeking as a religion, when in fact those are features of a personality disorder.
Thanks Linda, I’m very familiar with Iain McGilchrist’s work. We are both also members of the Scientific & Medical Network. While Iain is completely correct in his theory, there is little useful application for it in therapy or life in general. People will avoid their right brain as long as there is unintegrated difficult material in it from our past.
In psychotherapy, where we actively work to change brain architecture — so that our psychology can change — we focus on vertical integration, which is better integration between Prefrontal Cortex and the limbic systems. As vertical integration improves, horizontal integration (right to left) happens naturally. It is at this stage in therapy that people finally finish ‘unfinished business’ and recover from past trauma. The focus on left brain is a helpful defence, which of course is not great for us as individuals or as societies. But it is necessary for the integrity of our brain until we achieve enough vertical integration (VI). VI leads to profound changes in people even before horizontal integration begins. We become much more regulated and it impacts on everything. Either way, without sufficient VI it is not only impossible, but even dangerous for people—especially those with past traumas—to force themselves into the material that is stored in their right brain. Good integration leads to profound growth, and also to natural and better balance between our right and left brain hemispheres. It means people can be free to engage with their emotions and their cognitions without either one dominating the other. This is what I do in my work all the time, and also in my personal life.
(See my book Therapy Without A Therapist, or my short book on trauma).
Beautifully said, Avigail. I deeply share your belief that empathy and compassion are not luxuries but necessities for a healthy, just world. You probably know by now that beyond naming the problem and trying to address its harms, I try to tackle how to build systems that actually center the values we espouse in solutions. I laid out some ideas in my book (which you already have!), especially starting around page 77 in the section ‘Peace as a Political Movement’. I’ll be digging even deeper into this in Part 6 of my Crossing the Ocean series soon, but you already have the heart of it if you want a sneak peek.
Truth. "You can’t reason with an absence of empathy. No logic or intellectual arguments can convince those steeped in survivalism to care about other people, especially when they see them as an ‘other’ or as an ‘enemy’. Empathy is a higher function that each human being who has the capacity for it must discover for themselves. You don’t need education or knowledge to experience empathy. In fact, education can often train people out of empathy and compassion. I shut the door to my spaces when people spread poison, and I let them go. I quietly pray that something I, or someone else, has said might land somewhere in the hearts and minds of the empathy-challenged, and perhaps stir something."
I note that a couple of school districts in the US have removed “To Kill a Mockingbird” from their reading lists because it makes some people uncomfortable.
In chapter 3 Atticus advises Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."
I am so sorry, albeit not surprised. And no, you/we cannot give up the fight. But fighting is not enough. We have to show an alternatives. We have to demonstrate that living in a world that is cooperative and that rejects tribalism and exclusion is a nicer alternative to the divisive, alienated, fear-based existence we have everywhere in the world.
The US is moving rapidly towards some form of fascism. Whether it will be dominated by Gilead-style, quasi religious rules, or become a corporate dystopia, remains to be seen.
But what is revealed in the US is the human condition, and it’s everywhere. Fighting is not enough, or rather, how we do our fighting or resistance matters a great deal. I think of insisting, as a form of fighting and resistance. Just a thought. My heart is with you.
In looking for how to change humanity’s mind, one idea is to flood the internet with Pep Talks for Humanity. This is a 5-star piece!!! To just add one thing, Marianne Williamson is my go-to as the only person steeped in both political and spiritual reality who is speaking today. God bless that she is speaking a lot!
This is a quite excellent essay. Whether it manages to touch the hearts of those that read it is another matter, but the fact that there is one more positive, empathic piece of writing in the world is good enough for me. Thank you.
Thank you Martin! I think the same as you. We need to maintain vision and idealism, because there is so much of the opposite in our airspace. 🙏🏼
It definitely touched my heart, thank you for writing such a meaningful piece Avigail.
Yes! “All we need is love” Peace, compassion and humility….Thank you for these life lessons!….
For most humans most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the people we can trust to have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Exactly! Our primitive psychology predisposed by our past experiences, still tells us that banishment is the worst thing that can happen to us. We would stay in the most horrendous relationships just not to be alone. Healthy growth and development helps us transcend that old, fear-based primate conditioning…
Another excellent piece Avigail. We have allowed those without empathy to dictate to the rest of us for far too long👍💚
Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves:
Regret, remorse, and shame.
And man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn—
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
——Robert Burns
Wow, thank you. Robert Burns was so good and of course nothing new under the sun and humanity has never been any different. I wonder if I will see in my lifetime a real turning point, or whether when I die, things are still the same…
I shall be 55 next week. I doubt whether that turning point will come during my remaining years; indeed, I expect the horror of a recrudescence of fascism, which seems already to have begun.
You know, I’ll be 61 in September (neé 1964), and I do think the turning point will come in my lifetime! So if you can’t hold that vision, let me hold it for you for as long as necessary. I am really happy you were born and hope your 55th birthday will be a peaceful and fulfilling day. 🌻
I wonder if you have read Iain McGilchrist's wonderful (massive) book The Matter with Things. He is also a psychotherapist as well as a neurologist and philosopher. There is a great deal of evidence that modern society as a whole has become left-brain dominant, and as a result intuition and empathy challenged. Western countries now treat being bureaucratic, grasping, manipulative, morality-free and power-seeking as a religion, when in fact those are features of a personality disorder.
Thanks Linda, I’m very familiar with Iain McGilchrist’s work. We are both also members of the Scientific & Medical Network. While Iain is completely correct in his theory, there is little useful application for it in therapy or life in general. People will avoid their right brain as long as there is unintegrated difficult material in it from our past.
In psychotherapy, where we actively work to change brain architecture — so that our psychology can change — we focus on vertical integration, which is better integration between Prefrontal Cortex and the limbic systems. As vertical integration improves, horizontal integration (right to left) happens naturally. It is at this stage in therapy that people finally finish ‘unfinished business’ and recover from past trauma. The focus on left brain is a helpful defence, which of course is not great for us as individuals or as societies. But it is necessary for the integrity of our brain until we achieve enough vertical integration (VI). VI leads to profound changes in people even before horizontal integration begins. We become much more regulated and it impacts on everything. Either way, without sufficient VI it is not only impossible, but even dangerous for people—especially those with past traumas—to force themselves into the material that is stored in their right brain. Good integration leads to profound growth, and also to natural and better balance between our right and left brain hemispheres. It means people can be free to engage with their emotions and their cognitions without either one dominating the other. This is what I do in my work all the time, and also in my personal life.
(See my book Therapy Without A Therapist, or my short book on trauma).
Beautifully said, Avigail. I deeply share your belief that empathy and compassion are not luxuries but necessities for a healthy, just world. You probably know by now that beyond naming the problem and trying to address its harms, I try to tackle how to build systems that actually center the values we espouse in solutions. I laid out some ideas in my book (which you already have!), especially starting around page 77 in the section ‘Peace as a Political Movement’. I’ll be digging even deeper into this in Part 6 of my Crossing the Ocean series soon, but you already have the heart of it if you want a sneak peek.
Truth. "You can’t reason with an absence of empathy. No logic or intellectual arguments can convince those steeped in survivalism to care about other people, especially when they see them as an ‘other’ or as an ‘enemy’. Empathy is a higher function that each human being who has the capacity for it must discover for themselves. You don’t need education or knowledge to experience empathy. In fact, education can often train people out of empathy and compassion. I shut the door to my spaces when people spread poison, and I let them go. I quietly pray that something I, or someone else, has said might land somewhere in the hearts and minds of the empathy-challenged, and perhaps stir something."
Again thank you
I note that a couple of school districts in the US have removed “To Kill a Mockingbird” from their reading lists because it makes some people uncomfortable.
In chapter 3 Atticus advises Scout, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it."
We can’t give up the fight.
I am so sorry, albeit not surprised. And no, you/we cannot give up the fight. But fighting is not enough. We have to show an alternatives. We have to demonstrate that living in a world that is cooperative and that rejects tribalism and exclusion is a nicer alternative to the divisive, alienated, fear-based existence we have everywhere in the world.
The US is moving rapidly towards some form of fascism. Whether it will be dominated by Gilead-style, quasi religious rules, or become a corporate dystopia, remains to be seen.
But what is revealed in the US is the human condition, and it’s everywhere. Fighting is not enough, or rather, how we do our fighting or resistance matters a great deal. I think of insisting, as a form of fighting and resistance. Just a thought. My heart is with you.
In looking for how to change humanity’s mind, one idea is to flood the internet with Pep Talks for Humanity. This is a 5-star piece!!! To just add one thing, Marianne Williamson is my go-to as the only person steeped in both political and spiritual reality who is speaking today. God bless that she is speaking a lot!