Introspection

Planet Waves essay from Friday, Feb. 4, 2005
by ERIC FRANCIS

Beyond the many disturbing, obvious comparisons between the United States today and Germany of the 1930s is one contrast that I have not heard mentioned yet. True, I was not there when the first torture camp was installed into an urban neighborhood called Ilvers Gehoffen in the liberal city of Erfurt in early 1933. I can't really tell you what the people in the hundreds of apartments that surrounded the camp were thinking as they buried their heads in pillows those hot summer nights to mute the sound of screams. But a few years ago I stood in the vacant lot where the thing once was, looked up at those windows, and wondered. And from those same windows, so many decades later, many people looked down on me with worried faces.

The torture camp, by the way, was located next to a movie theatre. So, right there in the neighborhood, people would be going out and having a good time on Saturday night, while everybody knew what was happening in the old warehouse and yard right next door, since after all they could see and hear it from their windows.

In that time and place we look at through the wrong end of binoculars, people got the idea that the 'affairs of the state' were distracting them from what you might call an inner life. A kind of internal vacuum sucked them out of reality. The way Wilhelm Reich tells it, the government and its doings, people begin to feel, were best left to the experts. One was, after all, primarily responsible for oneself. Qualified people were paid to take care of society. I guess it's always a comfort to let mommy and daddy handle the complicated problems.

America comes at life from another perspective: we gratify ourselves first, and deal with everyone else second. I once worked aboard a ship, as the cook. "The captain eats first and best," the third mate explained to me, in my basic orientation. That's America, only we don't say the words. We just assume it's the way of things, and expect everyone else to get it.

This self-centered frame of reference extends from the supermarkets to the yoga studios. On the supermarket side of the spectrum, we have the people who can respond to a crisis only when something hits home. My favorite moments in Fahrenheit-911 were the interviews with the people in that little town who thought Arab terrorists might blow up their local tire joint or Super K-Mart. "You can't really trust anyone," the tire-fixer guy said. Remember?

On the other end is a massive (for lack of a better word) constituency who has made being self-conscious an ongoing avocation over many decades. This constituency makes a nice spectrum starting with the Beatniks and the Hippies, who were followed by the Back To the Earth people of the 1970s to the Human Potential Movement's students and teachers to the New Age, and onward to the many offshoots and crossovers that today exist. There are communities for everything from tantric sex to co-processing to therapy training. Ammachi, an Indian saint/guru, has a huge following in the States. And so on.

I lump all of this in together because it's all based on the idea of finding oneself, or rather, of oneself.

These movements or groups or ideas have a presence in every town I've ever lived in (admittedly, mostly on America's East or West coasts). Among these groups are a vast number of individuals who strive for, and often succeed at attaining, some kind of actual spiritual awareness, self-awareness, inner awareness, self-actualization, or whatever you want to call it. Many work diligently. It is difficult to focus on your personal growth over a period of years or decades and not get some tangible results. And a lot of people have been at it a long time.

So now, with deeply immoral conduct, war crimes and torture being reported in the news every night, one would think we might be hearing more from the vast numbers of people who are so self-aware. One would think that the self-awareness would have some kind of ethics barometer attached to it, and that the barometer would be sending up a warning.

I'm noticing that those opposing torture and war crimes fall into two basic categories, which must overlap quite a bit, but let's see if the analysis works. There is the traditional political moderate-to-left -- people who were formerly known as liberals, but whose positions now oddly enough sound rather conservative (oppose oceans of government red ink, oppose foreign intervention, favor small government, support individual rights, believe in strict reading of Constitution, etc.). And then there are a lot of people whose motivations are supported by their conscience. Not, in other words, by a political theory or viewpoint. Among the 'conscience people' are some people who have come through spiritual movements, where the main object of the game really is a level of self-understanding; that is, to change the world by changing yourself. But still, given the amount of time and resources that have gone into self-development, the numbers and voices seem somewhat thin.

When I look at the mainstream left, I notice that something is missing. There is, basically, next to no inclusion of what I can only call the 'spiritual piece' of the discussion. I notice this on my favorite news pages; from some of my favorite commentators. In the tradition of the Enlightenment, religion is purged from the whole discussion of government and politics, as it should be. With that discussion is purged out the entire cosmic viewpoint, and the idea that opposing war really is about changing something within ourselves. It's as if to say anything about the bigger picture, or taking inner responsibility, negates all the rational grounds for wanting an orderly, peaceful society.

Then when I look at most spiritual movements, I see for the most part both individuals and groups who are not in their political power. To the contrary, I see a lot of willful looking away. I see and hear from a lot of people who are so repulsed they cannot stand five minutes of political discourse. I meet many people who mean well but have absolutely no historical bearings. I hear arguments such as we must not focus on politics, lest we run the risk of 'increasing' it. I hear that 'it's all an illusion'. (A Course in Miracles teaches specifically this; any student will recognize, 'God did not create that war [or stolen election], so it is not real'.)

So, one side of the discussion sees everything requiring change as being out there; the other sees everything meaningful as being internal.

I think there are valid arguments for not immersing one's life entirely in politics -- and usually, when the time comes, those arguments go out the window and one just gets busy. But there are not such good arguments for refusing to be aware, or for refusing to consider that any of this has something to do with you. And right now, awareness, being informed and taking personal responsibility are the most urgently needed forms of activism.

Gradually, I do see progress; the supposedly political and the supposedly spiritual are beginning to merge in some places. More people understand that war is a result of projecting unprocessed shadow material onto the world. There are some churches and spiritual organizations that are encouraging people to take personal responsibility, and that as communities are openly renouncing murder. I heard a while back that some congregations in Atlanta were going from church services to the streets every Sunday. There is the utterly amazing work of Starhawk, a Pagan leader who, along with her affinity group, is openly willing to defy authority -- she is truly passionate.

But I have to say, from where I sit, reading the Internet all day, talking to who I can, and even living in the capital of an anti-war country, for the most part this voice seems rather subdued -- and also like it would really have a place in the world. I get the feeling people are choosing not to speak up, or act up, in order to keep their hands clean; to remain theoretically pure. In reality, if you ask me, it's more about laziness and the desire not to burden one's mind. People ignore the problem because they can. And they ignore the problem because to not do so means stirring the pot. Taking a position or even becoming informed can be rather disturbing within a group of friends which have on some level defined themselves by having a good time and tuning out the worries of the planet.

It is still okay to take yoga class. That is self-improvement. It is still okay to be spiritual. That's in line with non-threatening activity. Yet I would suggest that, having become content with looking into ourselves and letting our lives be about ourselves for so long, we need to look back out at the world, and do something about what we see that is based on who we are.

Now that we've searched for our spirits and our true beliefs for so long, we need to find our bodies, deal with our feelings, address our problems, and realize that we exist outside the neat pecking order of our social groups. More to the point, we need to find our passion, our spark, our sense of raging spirit. I know: it can feel strange to make that switch, and under so many layers, it's a lot easier said than done. There is the necessity to endure some inner conflict, and some outer conflict. Vitality often threatens people who don't embrace it. But it's not so hard to muster, actually. You just need to stay awake. Doing what is right is not about doing the right thing, it's about doing what is real, and you can only do what is real when you come from your center and be real.

Otherwise, how different are we than the people of Ilvers Gehoffen, going to the movies on Saturday night?

I leave you with a few words from Granny D., from her most recent public appearance.
 
"Let our neighbors, who have voted another way or not at all, see what we are made of and what we are willing to do for love, for life, for justice. Only a few more of them need step forward to our side for love and life and justice to win. They will not step forward if we are not full of courage and grace and beauty and most of all love. We will inspire them with awe. For, from this time forward, our courage must rise to end the war and the coming wars, to end the destruction of our land and its people, and of our planet and its life. With love in our hearts, with a vision before us of a better America made visible in our own lives, we will do what history demands of us now. And so say us all."