Systemic fuckery (as well as capitalist alienation in general) cannot be overcome by individual will. Not by 'meditating' or whatever else. We do not choose to get cancer from living close to a place of industrial production (and the poluting toxins released fromt that). We do not choose to be born in marginalized communities. I hope we can become more aware that there our current system rewards Elites, and the existing propertied clasees. We are exploited by them.<p>Nora Bateson writes beautifully about interdependence of systems and communal wealth in a post called "<i>My Health Is Not My Own</i>".<p><i>"Vitality or life, is created through relationships that build relationships that build relationships and so on. Think of soil, and how soil becomes a forest or meadow where birds and insects find their homes, and where lovers walk hand in hand. The most important aspect of a healthy body, or healthy family or a healthy community is not the health of the individuals, but the the relationships between them. A family is several generations of relationships in multiple directions, within a culture, within history. The relationships matter and each communication within them also matter, this relational process is what life is made of.<p>Beyond the din of people arguing about the binaries of incomplete research around masks, transmission, lockdowns and going back to how things were- beyond all of that mess… there is a meta message that has a nasty bite to it. The deeper disease, the one that many of us have been pointing to for decades, has shown its rash, again.<p>The meta message is that the era of the 'individual' is going to be hard to get out of. There is something like an addiction taking place, and cold turkey is scary as hell. Going from individuality and personal freedoms to recognition of interdependency is an invitation for all the trickery of the addiction. What is more comfortable is to be selfish. So, the array of justifications not to change that individualistic image of self is fantastic. Have you ever had an addiction and heard yourself make contortions of logic to make it not-wrong to have one more cigarette, or just on the weekends, or to find that shred of research that proves that some people show no signs of illness from smoking? The acrobatics of addictive logistics are spectacular. The human mind has an unmatched capacity to reason that which is unreasonable. There is no lack of imagination, it is just placed toward the project of keeping the addictions in place, rather than living differently. The world of industry, distribution, banking, advertising, consuming — is what feels familiar, and even if it is killing us and the planet, it is what we know. The pull to return is strong.<p>The meta message is that most of us are not habituated to recognize the health of others as our own health, and therefore to consider this interdependency is an unacceptable course of action. After all, what good will it do me? This is not how the soil builds richness.<p>My health is not my own. My health is the whole community’s, it belongs to the elderly, the youth, and even to the biome of organisms that live in my body and in the soil. This, is the opposite of everything that the last centuries of manufacturing, education and politics have forged into societal infrastructure and even the making of identity.
It is easier to identify myself by my profession, my address or my car than to recognize that I am a living system in relation to other living systems. I am not me, I am a vessel of the past and the future. In this moment what is asked of me is that I recognize the harms the systems of the past have wrought, and make radical changes so that the future is not burdened with the same destructiveness as the past."</i> [1]<p>Also the term Magical Voluntarism is relevant here:<p><i>"The radical therapist David Smail argues that Margaret Thatcher's view that there's no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, finds "an unacknowledged echo in almost all approaches to therapy". Therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy combine a focus on early life with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. The idea is "with the expert help of your therapist or counsellor, you can change the world you are in the last analysis responsible for, so that it no longer cause you distress" – Smail calls this view "magical voluntarism".<p>Depression is the shadow side of entrepreneurial culture, what happens when magical voluntarism confronts limited opportunities. As psychologist Oliver James put it in his book The Selfish Capitalist, "in the entrepreneurial fantasy society," we are taught "that only the affluent are winners and that access to the top is open to anyone willing to work hard enough, regardless of their familial, ethnic or social background – if you do not succeed, there is only one person to blame." It's high time that the blame was placed elsewhere. We need to reverse the privatisation of stress and recognise that mental health is a political issue."</i> [2]<p>[1] Nora Bateson, <a href="https://archive.is/n6gOj" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/n6gOj</a> // <a href="https://norabateson.medium.com/my-health-is-not-my-own-ec824c463cb" rel="nofollow">https://norabateson.medium.com/my-health-is-not-my-own-ec824...</a><p>[2] Mark Fisher, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental-health-political-issue" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/16/mental...</a>