Suzanne, this piece lands for me because it refuses to look away from history.
We did not dismantle the systems that enabled slavery, internment, genocide, and land theft. We renamed things. We apologized decades later. But we did not do the structural work to make sure those patterns could not reassemble. Systems that are not dismantled will reorganize.
That is what feels so urgent in what you shared. The battle for ideas is not abstract. It is about whether we are willing to confront the architecture of oppression, the policies, incentives, and narratives that normalize cruelty, and interrupt it before it hardens again.
If we are going to talk about an uplifted world, it has to include accountability. It has to include a sober reckoning with power, history, and the ways harm is reproduced in plain sight. Refusing to normalize injustice is part of that work, but so is rebuilding institutions, shifting policy, telling the truth about history, and committing to long term structural change.
In my view, it is a human trait, perhaps built into our DNA, to have a morality as a core value. And when morality becomes trashed or eliminated, there is a yearning, an intention, a kind of suffering, to have it be restored. So, my view is that the "collective intent" to advance the "end" is driven by the longing to restore morality in our culture, our politics, and ourselves.
I agree. We are so schizophrenic, though, where, for instance, so many Christians don't practice the tenets of Christianity. Two thousand years with it in our faces, and instead of it being the road to harmony, we make wars in its name.
As always, your critical eye is so appreciated. We are like a team, as is the case with others who are lucky enough to have your interpretive eyes on them.
For getting any movement to happen we build on where we’ve been as to what we move on to. But, also, for action to take we need to rivet ourselves in present time, where we’re not in regrets about the past or fear of the future, but just are staying in possibility for what we can do. Our high wire act! There’s a wonderful Carlos Castaneda quote related to that: “In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for doubts or regrets. There is only time for decisions.” And they do need to be based on an honest reckoning of where we have been and where we are.
I think you’re in the mode of that popular teaching story where the horse runs away — terrible — but returns with a herd of wild horses — great. And so it goes, where each terrible thing creates something wonderful. It’s a cyclical situation, that’s the Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. And the pattern of evolution. There’s also history to point to where civilizations don’t rebound but disappear. So here we are. Which way will we go?.
Our culture considers morality a liability rather than an asset. But you and I have come to realize that, as Elders, we are fundamentally moral creatures. For we understand that morality is also linked to our spiritual nature. And Elders want that spiritual connection in our lives.
Yes, impermanence in terms of our situation. If the collective intent is to cause the end, and the intent continues to expand, it will hasten impermance.
Impermanence is a cosmic reality. Nothing stays the same. If it exists in time and form, it is destined to cease to exist. To increase the speed of impermanence, is an indivdiual and collective intent for a different future than the default future now in place. So the current situation only reinforces the opposing intention. This opposing intention is breaking the spell; we're changing the future, we're causing and accelerating impermanence. Keep doing what you're doing. It's working.
Marc, I’m not clear about your point. Are you saying impermanence in relation to our situation, where extinction is a possibility? And that as we speed up our disastrous journey there is some merit in it, because the breaking point is where we either sink or swim, and of course hopefully we will swim?
Just keep your eye on the prize and do what you can to get us there. That’s the basic advocacy from me and from many others now, too. Also to keep eyes wide open to the danger we are in.
As I’ve reported, more and more I find writers characterizing our situation as needing to change at a causal level, where we wouldn’t just get us back to where we were but would deal with alternatives to the path to doom that the one percenters have us on.
I appreciate what you’re naming here, especially the reminder that systems of repression don’t just “happen.” They are constructed through choices, normalized through culture, and enforced through coercion. That historical lens matters. Patterns repeat when we fail to recognize their early stages.
I also agree that studying the psychological and social underpinnings of totalitarianism is essential. It is rarely only about the people at the top. It is about fear, grievance, propaganda, economic instability, and the slow erosion of norms that allow ordinary people to accommodate what once felt unthinkable.
Where I find myself sitting is in the tension between inevitability and agency. History shows us regression, but it also shows resistance, coalition-building, reform, and transformation. Awareness and will are critical, as you say. But so are organized civic engagement, institutional safeguards, accountability mechanisms, and cross-community solidarity.
It may not be pretty. Structural change rarely is. But clarity about how these patterns operate is one of the few things that gives us leverage to interrupt them.
Everyone individually being gadflies, we get pokes at what’s wrong. The move we need now is for people who are awake and aware to think together about what to do. With my sights focused on this, as I put out idea after idea, I keep moving to more ideas because so far all those I’ve put out have not been responded to in a way that could get them into popular conversation. Help!
Suzanne, this piece lands for me because it refuses to look away from history.
We did not dismantle the systems that enabled slavery, internment, genocide, and land theft. We renamed things. We apologized decades later. But we did not do the structural work to make sure those patterns could not reassemble. Systems that are not dismantled will reorganize.
That is what feels so urgent in what you shared. The battle for ideas is not abstract. It is about whether we are willing to confront the architecture of oppression, the policies, incentives, and narratives that normalize cruelty, and interrupt it before it hardens again.
If we are going to talk about an uplifted world, it has to include accountability. It has to include a sober reckoning with power, history, and the ways harm is reproduced in plain sight. Refusing to normalize injustice is part of that work, but so is rebuilding institutions, shifting policy, telling the truth about history, and committing to long term structural change.
In my view, it is a human trait, perhaps built into our DNA, to have a morality as a core value. And when morality becomes trashed or eliminated, there is a yearning, an intention, a kind of suffering, to have it be restored. So, my view is that the "collective intent" to advance the "end" is driven by the longing to restore morality in our culture, our politics, and ourselves.
I agree. We are so schizophrenic, though, where, for instance, so many Christians don't practice the tenets of Christianity. Two thousand years with it in our faces, and instead of it being the road to harmony, we make wars in its name.
As always, your critical eye is so appreciated. We are like a team, as is the case with others who are lucky enough to have your interpretive eyes on them.
For getting any movement to happen we build on where we’ve been as to what we move on to. But, also, for action to take we need to rivet ourselves in present time, where we’re not in regrets about the past or fear of the future, but just are staying in possibility for what we can do. Our high wire act! There’s a wonderful Carlos Castaneda quote related to that: “In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for doubts or regrets. There is only time for decisions.” And they do need to be based on an honest reckoning of where we have been and where we are.
I think you’re in the mode of that popular teaching story where the horse runs away — terrible — but returns with a herd of wild horses — great. And so it goes, where each terrible thing creates something wonderful. It’s a cyclical situation, that’s the Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. And the pattern of evolution. There’s also history to point to where civilizations don’t rebound but disappear. So here we are. Which way will we go?.
Our culture considers morality a liability rather than an asset. But you and I have come to realize that, as Elders, we are fundamentally moral creatures. For we understand that morality is also linked to our spiritual nature. And Elders want that spiritual connection in our lives.
Yes, impermanence in terms of our situation. If the collective intent is to cause the end, and the intent continues to expand, it will hasten impermance.
“If the collective intent is to cause the end”???? Where does that come from?
Impermanence is a cosmic reality. Nothing stays the same. If it exists in time and form, it is destined to cease to exist. To increase the speed of impermanence, is an indivdiual and collective intent for a different future than the default future now in place. So the current situation only reinforces the opposing intention. This opposing intention is breaking the spell; we're changing the future, we're causing and accelerating impermanence. Keep doing what you're doing. It's working.
Marc, I’m not clear about your point. Are you saying impermanence in relation to our situation, where extinction is a possibility? And that as we speed up our disastrous journey there is some merit in it, because the breaking point is where we either sink or swim, and of course hopefully we will swim?
Just keep your eye on the prize and do what you can to get us there. That’s the basic advocacy from me and from many others now, too. Also to keep eyes wide open to the danger we are in.
I see you are aware. But now what? How about my ideas for what to do?
I don't know what you’re talking about.
Sounds like a movie. Are you a scriptwriter?
As I’ve reported, more and more I find writers characterizing our situation as needing to change at a causal level, where we wouldn’t just get us back to where we were but would deal with alternatives to the path to doom that the one percenters have us on.
I appreciate what you’re naming here, especially the reminder that systems of repression don’t just “happen.” They are constructed through choices, normalized through culture, and enforced through coercion. That historical lens matters. Patterns repeat when we fail to recognize their early stages.
I also agree that studying the psychological and social underpinnings of totalitarianism is essential. It is rarely only about the people at the top. It is about fear, grievance, propaganda, economic instability, and the slow erosion of norms that allow ordinary people to accommodate what once felt unthinkable.
Where I find myself sitting is in the tension between inevitability and agency. History shows us regression, but it also shows resistance, coalition-building, reform, and transformation. Awareness and will are critical, as you say. But so are organized civic engagement, institutional safeguards, accountability mechanisms, and cross-community solidarity.
It may not be pretty. Structural change rarely is. But clarity about how these patterns operate is one of the few things that gives us leverage to interrupt them.
Everyone individually being gadflies, we get pokes at what’s wrong. The move we need now is for people who are awake and aware to think together about what to do. With my sights focused on this, as I put out idea after idea, I keep moving to more ideas because so far all those I’ve put out have not been responded to in a way that could get them into popular conversation. Help!