Vision For The Future
Let's imagine that the current political situation is behind us - that all of the bad faith actors threaded throughout the government who are currently working to actively destroy the entire apparatus that the U.S. has worked within since it's founding are held accountable for their actions and thrown out of office in disgrace - how do we move forward?
Do we work to encourage personal growth or collective progress in our citizens or do we continue to support the system that currently keeps people focused on the short-term gratification of material goods, entertainment, and consumer products, encouraging a society of perpetual distraction and disconnection?
Do we work to create spaces that allow our citizens the opportunity to explore their full potential as creative, empathetic, or spiritual beings, or do we continue to enforce an economic system that encourages individuals to think of themselves as mere cogs in a machine, narrowing their sense of purpose to work and consumption?
Do we work to strengthen bonds between people in order to build strong, healthy communities that work toward collective well-being and progressive change, or do we continue supporting the system that pits individuals against one another, undermining familial, local, and national ties?
Do we embrace philosophy, spirituality, and deeper self-reflection within the ranks of our society, or do we keep turning everything into a transactional or utilitarian activity?
Do we do the work to become emotionally resilient and conduct ourselves in honorable and kind ways, or do we continue to support the system that defaults to us echoing our own experienced trauma out at everybody we interact with?
When we Win - how do we FLOURISH?
Things are VERY scary right now, but these are questions we MUST ask ourselves, otherwise we risk slipping back into the broken nominal state that keeps people in grinding poverty and suffering the indignities that come with our current caste system.
Safety.
Dignity.
Belonging.
These are basic human needs, and without them we experience trauma. Untreated trauma can lead to mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. It can also cause physical health problems as trauma often lives in the body.
How do we create a society that allows everybody to THRIVE, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually?
Here are a couple of books that might help us in our contemplation of that new world:
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg's On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in a Unapologetic World is a fantastic resource
“If we want to build a world that determines appropriate consequences for harm, that centers the needs and healing of those most impacted, and that helps the perpetrator transform into an agent of healing, repair, and ongoing renewal, we have tremendous cultural and systemic work to do.” ― Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Kitty Stryker's anthology Ask: Building Consent Culture
Have you ever heard the phrase “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission?” Violating consent isn’t limited to sexual relationships, and our discussions around consent shouldn’t be, either. To resist rape culture, we need a consent culture—and one that is more than just reactionary. Left confined to intimate spaces, consent will atrophy as theory that is never put into practice. The multi-layered power disparities of today’s world require a response sensitive to a wide range of lived experiences.
In Ask, Kitty Stryker assembles a retinue of writers, journalists, and activists to examine how a cultural politic centered on consent can empower us outside the bedroom, whether it’s at the doctor’s office, interacting with law enforcement, or calling out financial abuse within radical communities. More than a collection of essays, Ask is a testimony and guide on the role that negated consent plays in our lives, examining how we can take those first steps to reclaim it from institutionalized power.
Paul Raekstad's Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today
The way things were was built on the back of worldwide imperial and colonial tyranny. The way things were also had major inequalities between rich and poor, a majority of the world impoverished and powerless, rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and more. That’s not something we should hope to get back to. Our societies don’t need resistance; they need reconstruction.1 This is a book about what that can and should be like.
Staci K. Haines' The Politics of Trauma : Somatics, Healing, and Social Justice
The Politics of Trauma offers somatics with a social analysis. This book is for therapists and social activists who understand that trauma healing is not just for individuals—and that social change is not just for movement builders. Just as health practitioners need to consider the societal factors underlying trauma, so too must activists understand the physical and mental impacts of trauma on their own lives and the lives of the communities with whom they organize. Trauma healing and social change are, at their best, interdependent.
Charles Duhigg's Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
In Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg begins by categorizing conversations into three distinct types: “What’s This Really About?”, “How Do We Feel?”, and “Who Are We?”.
These categories form the foundation for his argument that effective communication is rooted in understanding others’ perspectives. He posits that anyone can learn the skills necessary to become a “supercommunicator”—someone who excels at connecting with others on a profound level.
