Within the Western Educated Industrialised Wealthy Democratic (WEIRD) world we stay in what thinker Man Debord tried to explain as The Society of the Spectacle. The truth introduced to us by way of the media and public social media has been engineered to suit the exacting requirements of Homo Economicus®. All of the folks alive right this moment in Westernised nations, i.e. all of the folks in WEIRD nations and within the nations aspiring to WEIRD requirements, have been born into The WEIRD Spectacle of internalised ableism.
Internalised ableism
The much less WEIRD a rustic, the decrease the constancy of The Spectacle, and the extra there may be nonetheless some room for all times past The Spectacle. I’ve lived all my life in The Spectacle, within the ruins of the WEIRD empire. I additionally name it the WEIRDT empire: Western Educated Industrialised Wealthy Democratic Theatre. The whole lot in this theatre is about notion – there may be little or no substance or connection to the biophysical and ecological context outdoors the theatre.
The establishments of the WEIRDT empire fake that each one features of life will be categorised and understood when it comes to normality – by the hump of the bell curve.
However the residing planet doesn’t conform to anthropocentric normality, it’s chaotic, it’s fantastically and awesomely various. Like many neurodivergent folks, I’m extremely sensitised to the language folks use, specifically to the semantic risk house that’s created and bounded by means of particular phrases and by the aware avoidance of different phrases. In WEIRD politics the language of financial progress and struggle dominates. Progress economics is a euphemism for neocolonialism, genocide, and ecocide. Solely 100 years in the past, barely anybody was writing concerning the “want” for “financial progress”.
Essentially the most lethal wars right this moment are financial wars. Social inequalities, specifically unequal entry to top quality healthcare and lack of entry to wholesome methods of life end in an increase in power illnesses, a several-fold enhance within the dangers of world pandemics, and within the untimely demise of thousands and thousands.
My Autistic thoughts compels me to scale back cognitive dissonance. If I depart cognitive dissonance to fester, it promptly generates migraines or different signs of bodily illness. By way of my work, normally within the transdisciplinary context of small teams of individuals with complementary area particular experience, I’ve discovered to ask clarifying questions and to ask for examples, and nil in on potential misunderstandings and ambiguities. This co-creates bridges of shared understanding throughout self-discipline and area boundaries, that are important for anybody who makes an attempt to do something that (re)connects us to Gaia, i.e. to the sacred residing world past The WEIRD Spectacle.
I used to be lucky to have been uncovered to the foundations of logic, i.e. the foundations of philosophy, after which studied mathematical pondering instruments for 4 years earlier than turning into uncovered to the business world of The Spectacle.
Indoctrination
By the point I used to be born, the anthropocentric WEIRD Spectacle manifested when it comes to neocolonialism. It’s fascinating to look again and mirror on how efficient the indoctrination is. I grew up as a WEIRD alien, immersed in much less WEIRD cultures inside the ruins of the British Empire. This left cracks in my WEIRD indoctrination, and later it helped me to place my training to good use when it comes to crucial pondering instruments and habits.
George Orwell had a considerably comparable background to mine in an earlier time. The above biographical clip is worth it listening to – ignore the embedded cringe-inducing business promotion. The conclusion is immediately related to our instances.
As soon as we respect that even our “educated” Western scientific worldview will not be free from ideological bias, we will develop a greater conceptual mannequin of how particular person and collective human perception methods and associated our bodies of data evolve. It’s useful to tell apart the next classes of beliefs and associated data:
- Beliefs primarily based on scientific theories backed by empirical proof that we’re intimately conversant in. Such beliefs could also be affected by paradigmatic bias and the standard or bias inherent within the supporting proof. We should be cognisant of corresponding blind spots in our understanding of the world when making use of such beliefs in our reasoning. Solely a small minority of our beliefs fall into this class.
- Beliefs primarily based on scientific theories backed by empirical proof that we’re not intimately conversant in. Such beliefs could also be affected by paradigmatic bias and the standard or bias inherent within the supporting proof. We don’t know of the potential blind spots in our understanding of the world when making use of such beliefs in our reasoning. Within the few instances the place the theories have been developed by trusted pals and colleagues inside our private competency community, we will resolve to depend on their understanding of the boundaries of applicability and potential blind spots. If we’re “educated”, a sizeable minority of our beliefs fall into this class.
- Beliefs primarily based on private experiences and observations. We all know that no human can preserve greater than 150 relationships with different folks, and that each one our assumptions concerning the lives and desires of people are primarily based on the very small set of people who we relate to. For many who determine as autistic, a big variety of beliefs held fall into this class. By definition, we don’t perceive all of the people who we “don’t relate to”. Thus, making any choices that probably have an effect on the lives of many hundred to a number of billion folks with out specific consent of all these probably affected (a day by day incidence in authorities establishments and companies), should be thought-about the head of human ignorance.
- Beliefs that characterize specific social agreements between particular folks relating to communication and collaboration. Such agreements will be verbal or in writing, they usually solely scale as much as the restricted numbers of relationships that we will preserve. As wanted we will collectively replace these agreements to mirror evolving wants or constraints within the wider ecology we’re embedded in. For many who determine as Autistic, a big variety of beliefs held fall into this class, particularly agreements with relations, pals, and colleagues. In hierarchically structured societies, agreements reminiscent of legal guidelines issued by regional or nationwide authorities apply to giant teams of individuals, and by necessity have been developed with restricted enter from those that are affected. Such agreements invariably trigger untold hurt that for probably the most half stays invisible to the authorities. People didn’t evolve to stay in hierarchically structured super-human scale societies. Pretending that we will preserve such buildings with out inflicting untold hurt is a type of anthropocentric hubris.
- Beliefs primarily based on what others have instructed us and what we’ve been inspired to imagine by mother and father, academics, and pals, … and politicians and advertisers, together with beliefs that we’ve absorbed from our social surroundings subconsciously, i.e. beliefs for which we will’t recall the origin. For many who don’t determine as Autistic, nearly all of beliefs held might fall into this class.
All classes of human beliefs are related to some stage of uncertainty relating to the validity and applicability to a particular context at hand. A perception within the universally aggressive nature of people clearly falls into the fifth class. When beliefs associated to neoliberal ideology are mirrored in legal guidelines (class 4. above), they’re internalised as cultural norms by giant elements of the inhabitants, and when the externalities of hyper-competitive revenue maximising behaviour hit with full power, Homo Economicus® has develop into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I used to be employed for 13 years earlier than I may not bear to be a part of The Spectacle of the company world, which is an Orwellian world of social notion administration. The Spectacle will not be survivable for delicate neurodivergent people who find themselves unable to keep up “quasi limitless” ranges of cognitive dissonance on an ongoing foundation.
WEIRD indoctrination and enculturation in cruelty and violence goes very deep. I bear in mind being taught at house and at school within the Seventies that animals can’t have “ideas”, and that any emotions or consciousness they could have usually are not in any manner corresponding to human lived experiences. This was taught to us as “science” in biology courses. To high it off, in center college we discovered tips on how to dissect lifeless frogs and we got stay laboratory mice to conduct experiments with. It tells us one thing about so-called WEIRD “normality” that such experiences stay etched into our recollections, and that we will’t ever unsee or unlearn them.
Deep down we all know we’re a part of Gaia. This is the reason we get pleasure from immersing ourselves within the pure world. This is the reason we’re in a position to construct mutual belief with non-human animals, together with wild animals. Residing beings recognise one another as being a part of the sacred cycle of life. We all know that every residing being enjoys being alive and enjoys exploring the world. In fact as people we most deeply relate to animals which can be roughly human scale – it’s at that scale that we will talk, and, if we take the time, construct real relationships throughout species, from domesticated animals to wild birds, octopuses, fish, and mammals of all types.
When animals eat different animals, it’s only to cowl their fundamental survival wants. People have the identical inhibitions. We advanced to know intuitively that each one lives and all {our relationships} are sacred. The human capability for tradition and spoken language advanced on high of this organic backdrop. That is one thing that to this present day will not be a part of the WEIRD indoctrination system – as a result of it clashes with the WEIRD neocolonial narrative of technological progress.
The WEIRD indoctrination system makes positive that each one youngsters are indoctrinated in Homo Economicus® from a really younger age, earlier than we study something substantial about Gaia and the residing world. That is presumably probably the most merciless, dehumanising, and life denying a part of WEIRD cultures.
The tablet of Homo Economicus® is sweetened by punishing youngsters with rewards for compliance. On this manner youngsters study to collaborate solely to compete.
“Pay for advantage, pay for what you get, reward efficiency. Sounds nice, can’t be performed. Sadly it cannot be performed, on quick vary. After 10 years maybe, 20 years, sure. The impact is devastating. Folks will need to have one thing to point out, one thing to depend. In different phrases, the advantage system nourishes short-term efficiency. It annihilates long-term planning. It annihilates teamwork. Folks cannot work collectively. To get promotion you’ve bought to get forward. By working with a group, you assist different folks. It’s possible you’ll assist your self equally, however you don’t get forward by being equal, you get forward by being forward. Produce one thing extra, have extra to point out, extra to depend. Teamwork means work collectively, hear all people’s concepts, fill in for different folks’s weaknesses, acknowledge their strengths. Work collectively. That is unimaginable below the advantage score / evaluate of efficiency system. Individuals are afraid. They’re in concern. They work in concern. They cannot contribute to the corporate as they’d want to contribute. This holds in any respect ranges. However there’s something worse than all of that. When the annual scores are given out, persons are bitter. They cannot perceive why they aren’t rated excessive. And there’s a good motive to not perceive. As a result of I may present you with a little bit of time that it’s purely a lottery.”
If we find out about Homo Economicus® earlier than we’re inspired to hear deeply to our instinct, and earlier than we find out about Gaia and collaborative ecological area of interest building inside and between species, then we’re primed to view every other narrative that deviates from or that contradicts Homo Economicus® with suspicion. In the business digital world of Homo Economicus®, the place the very technique of communication have been seized by companies, and the place universities have develop into depending on company funding, it has develop into simple to sideline the rising physique of scientific proof that contradicts Homo Economicus®.
Since we’re immersed in data overload, proof reminiscent of what we learn about the innate collaborative inclinations and sense of equity of human toddlers and concerning the pivotal function of extremely egalitarian societies within the evolution of the human capability for language and tradition doesn’t even should be hidden. It’s fully adequate for algorithms and establishments to deprioritise such proof.
I’m studying that not solely have people lived in extremely egalitarian human scale bands for many of 300,000 years, but additionally that such bands maintained ongoing collaborative and dynamically evolving relationships with different bands throughout giant bioregions, routinely coming collectively for omni-directional studying. Amongst different issues such gatherings additionally allowed new teams to type. Apparently it was widespread for households or people to hitch one other group. Vital to notice the absence of a hierarchical super-structure between teams, and the dynamism of ongoing relationships between teams.
All of this matches effectively with my very own expertise with egalitarian human scale employee coops, and with the curiosity from different small teams of neurodivergent and disabled folks in adopting the same mannequin, together with ongoing collaboration between teams.
We nonetheless have entry to all our innate collaborative capabilities. If we care to take heed to our guts, hearts, and minds, we will (re)study every little thing we want for co-creating ecologies of care past the human.
The ripples of collaborative area of interest building and intersectional solidarity are spreading. An increasing number of small cosmo-local bands of marginalised persons are coming collectively to catalyse intersectional solidarity.
Really, the WEIRD empire will not be in management. Gaia has an ideal 10,000 12 months observe file of clamping down on anthropocentric empire constructing makes an attempt, making room for brand new types of life to emerge from the compost heap. She might be asking herself in some planetary language that’s past human comprehensibility: Can this species get well from cultural most cancers? Information from local weather science and biodiversity analysis provides us a glimpse of Gaia’s language.
Wholesome human scale cultural improvement
No less than among the developmental patterns of cells and organs inside bugs appear to translate to the developmental phases and metamorphosis of wholesome human cultures. The world of insect metamorphosis is wonderful. The massive cycle of life inside Gaia is fractal, very comparable phenomena reoccur at very completely different scale and in numerous contexts. On this case patterns at stage of cells and organs inside a metamorphosing insect appear to reoccur on the stage of human scale cultural improvement.
The extra I find out about this matter and weave it along with anthropological proof, and with experiences from employee coops of neurodivergent and in any other case disabled folks, the extra I get the impression that Homo Economicus® pertains to a most cancers that has arrested the event of human cultural organisms on the larval stage, leading to a perpetual manufacturing of progress hormones.
People must (re)learn to cease perpetuating hierarchically structured methods of social management, striving for infinite progress like a most cancers. We additionally must (re)learn to reproduce and evolve peacefully, alongside the traces of what we all know concerning the ongoing lifetime collaborative relationships and among the wonderful battle decision methods practiced inside and between hunter gatherer bands.
The worldwide mono-cult is an empire that has the developmental maturity of a teenager. A person human that retains consuming like a young person will develop into morbidly overweight, develop power illnesses, and find yourself dying prematurely.
The Pentagon Wars is the favorite film of one in all my former Autistic colleagues who spent a few years in giant authorities departments. This film, which is primarily based on a real story, is an efficient illustration of the teenage stage of cultural improvement in WEIRD societies. Given all of the lethal wars which can be in progress and which were stoked for many years, this film is simply too painfully near actuality for me to genuinely get pleasure from.
We have to learn to deactivate the expansion hormone of Homo Economicus®, which is capital constructed as interest-bearing debt. Gaia is displaying us all of the examples we want for absolutely rejoining the sacred cycle of life.
The problem of deactivating the expansion hormone of Homo Economicus® will not be a brand new one. It’s an occasion of the identical Homo Empire® problem confronted by the inmates of the warring states in what’s now China over 2,000 years in the past. Therefore my appreciation for the timeless knowledge embedded in Daoist philosophy.
All indigenous cultures honour Gaia. All of them function on time horizons that span no less than 7 generations into the long run, and draw on collective data and knowledge that extends no less than 7 generations into the previous. How does this evaluate to the WEIRD habit to quarterly outcomes and infinite progress?
Each human is a uniquely invaluable repository of lived expertise and insights.
Dialogues are uniquely invaluable, they permit us to stroll every others minds, and by way of clarifying questions and different pondering instruments, we converge on shared understanding and shared psychological fashions for particular domains or experiences. Linear language is a poor communication device, however dialogue transforms it into a really highly effective communication and collaboration device.
In fact dialogues solely catalyse shared understanding after we sharing freely and actually, and it fails miserably as quickly as one or each events have any hidden self-serving agenda – which is the default on the earth of Homo Economicus®. This is the reason I’m incapable of shopping for into the aggressive “logic” of markets.
Institutionalised studying incapacity
Institutionalised social energy is the privilege of not needing to study, it results in collective stupidity, it’s a type of collective studying incapacity.
Markets invariably generate collective stupidity, as a result of by definition members have incentives to not share limitless quantities of knowledge. By definition, unconstrained markets are the anti-thesis of collaborative area of interest building.
There are encouraging indicators in some much less WEIRD, and extra communally oriented societies. By WEIRD requirements Japan is an financial basket case, with a shrinking and ageing inhabitants, and a GDP progress that’s most likely averaging round zero during the last 20 years. We have to hear extra tales from the much less WEIRD world to know what fashionable life will be like in a context of shrinking financial busyness, shrinking inhabitants, and correspondingly shrinking ecological footprint.
Such examples illustrate how the expansion hormone of Homo Economicus® will be deactivated. The referenced instance additionally illustrates the importance of small scale autonomous native communal determination making, which is the alternative of the centralised fashions that also function within the ruins of the British Empire. There isn’t any want in any respect for wonderful leaders. Acknowledging the extent of the cultural most cancers goes to be onerous for some folks to swallow. Patriotism and professionalism are key substances of fascism.
Too many professionals have “solely been doing their job” and have been following “orders” or “finest practices” for too lengthy, with out listening deeply to their innate moral compass, which has been systematically and completely suppressed by the WEIRD indoctrination system.
- The most important fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+ and Disabled folks relate to unmet healthcare wants, their work surroundings, their mother and father, and disrespect by healthcare professionals. Information from our participatory analysis reveals the massive overlap and the intersectionality between Autistic communities, and the LGBTQIA+ and Disabled communities.
- Outcomes from our survey on psychological security and psychological wellbeing point out that the most important fears of Neurodivergent, LGBTQIA+, and Disabled youngsters – and particularly those that additionally belong to cultural minorities, relate to classmates, mother and father, and academics. 97% point out usually or at all times having anxiousness, and 80% point out usually or at all times feeling depressed.
Advocating for a “higher” command and management hierarchy isn’t any resolution, it solely sows the seeds for yet one more empire constructing try. Collectively we will work in direction of revoking the social license for sustaining and strengthening life destroying powered-up establishments.
Delicate Daoist thinkers noticed this clearly over 2,000 years in the past. The documentaries by British movie maker Adam Curtis are additionally wonderful instructional sources for many who have the abdomen to face the truth of poisonous cultural inertia.
Full financial eclipse
In-depth discussions of Adam Curtis’ Hypernormalisation and Century of the Self ought to be a part of each highschool curriculum, and they need to be necessary menu objects within the curriculum of medical colleges and all different establishments entrusted with any facet of human wellbeing.
Acknowledging actuality is simply step one. Financial eclipse is a product of many a long time of WEIRD indoctrination and propaganda. Gaia is nowhere to be seen:
Financial eclipse has been inflicting untold hurt for many years, and it inevitably ends in financial collapse. As we’re collectively transferring out of full financial eclipse, the fantastic thing about Gaia in addition to the delusion of hypernormality is revealed. Sobering up goes to be painful for the addicts who stay in denial.
We want dedication, we want group. We have to create areas of belief. However for that, there’s large work that we should be doing. However I don’t suppose that any of that work can be attainable, ought to we not have that dedication–that dedication that irrespective of how difficult and tremendously troublesome it will likely be to reckon with these narratives and to dismantle these narratives. As a result of seeing the horror within the eye of all these narratives that we stay by comes with large understanding. It should depart us very fragile, very weak, and most, after all, usually are not prepared to try this, as a result of we don’t really feel protected. But when we’re in a position to stand the warmth and create these areas, if we decide to do this sort of work for the advantage of the planet, then we could possibly study that we will fly.
That is the voice of Gaia, exposing the life denying doctrine of Homo Economicus®:
Realizing a bit about the entire above might assist you to stay sane, and to see, get pleasure from, and the place attainable, nurture the rising cracks in The WEIRD Spectacle. Most significantly, we should acknowledge that we cannot regain sobriety alone, in self-isolation, and we will solely relearn to be absolutely human at a scale that’s appropriate with our organic cognitive and emotional limits, neither at smaller scales, nor at bigger scales.
Therapeutic
Wholesome cultural organisms don’t include:
- Remoted people
- Atomised nuclear households
- Incomprehensibly advanced teams and establishments
The world in actuality is a fantastically interconnected world, and it’s interconnected by means of many many layers. It’s interconnected by means of consciousness, which is why we’re religious beings in human type. However the crops outdoors my window are religious beings in plant type. However the plant of the lychee is in lychee type, and the tree of the mango is in mango type. They’re simply completely different expressions of 1 religious interconnected consciousness on the earth.
I’ve studied quantum idea. We realised that the particles on the earth are actually not the fundamental actuality. The essential actuality is potential and power, and it’s solely once you try to measure it, then it reveals up as a particle, or it reveals up as a wave, however the actuality actually is that which connects, the non-separability downside. My PhD thesis was on non-separation, non-locality, and quantum idea. We knew [this] 100 years in the past in physics, and but an out of date physics of greater than 100 years in the past is getting used to form and and divide a really interconnected world. So dualism right this moment is not only epistemologically so fallacious, it’s not simply ontologically so fallacious, it’s spiritually simply not the precise manner to think about the world, however it’s now turning into a risk to human life, stopping folks from residing with one another in range with love. And that’s why we’ve to unfold the message of non-dualism, of interconnectedness, of oneness by means of love, and we’ve to be the observe...
All cultures had economies however it wasn’t the primary organising precept, it was a byproduct of fine residing… The place did that wealth come from? It was an financial system, however it was not an financial system of extraction. It was not an financial system of domination, it was an financial system of residing. If you happen to go to the roots of the phrase financial system, financial system in accordance with Aristotle is the artwork of residing. Our civilisation has very deep religious foundations, and thru spirituality you recognize that the range on the earth is actually completely different expressions of the identical oneness… Let all of the beings flourish…
– Vandana Shiva
The relational nature of the large cycle of life is obscured so long as lengthy as we try and outline cultural organisms as teams of individuals and even teams of residing beings past the human.
Wherever you’re, many of the inmates on the grassroots stage are people making an attempt their perfect. Respect those that are in a position to see and try and widen the cracks in The WEIRD Spectacle, and tread fastidiously when confronted with the institutionalised internalised ableism of Homo Economicus®.
The extra we assist one another to query in methods we in any other case wouldn’t – and correspondingly uncover new insights concerning the world and ourselves, the extra we’re in a position to study from one another, and the extra we begin to perceive one another. The reward that all of us convey to the world is the (re)generative potential of all of the trusted relationships that we co-create.