Posted by Timne on July 7, 2009, at 10:33:45
In reply to Re: would I do it when I'm happy? ***triggers*** » Timne, posted by SLS on July 7, 2009, at 6:27:38
Thanks for a thoughtful and experienced reply.
The "place the individual in contact with a social outreach program" suggestion seems reasonable and proper advice, but that's where my friend seems to get the rhetorically bruised forehead typical of repeatedly running into a brick wall. This person is located in one of the healingest places you can imagine. If you asked 100 people where to go in the U.S. for psycho/spiritual healing, the largest plurality at least would likely pick this person's location. And there's nothing there. Lot's of middle-class people and wealthy retired movie stars teaching self-help and "follow your bliss" but nobody who will sit down with someone and concur that modern life in the Western world alone was enough to traumatize this person to death, and then assist them in planning and executing a plan for survival.
In such a milleau, decisions to leave stressful environments for cultural and social reasons are seen as evidence of decisions made during emotional downpoints rather than as likely reactions to untenable environments. Because the person doesn't slobber on their shirt enough to appear disturbed and at risk, these coiffed healers tend to see the person more as a borderline sociopath rather than one who sees the folly -- and inherent egotism -- of so many self-help plans, which, like AA, tend to demonstrate no better odds than chance (in controlled studies) that they actually improve the lives of most who take part.
Conventional social outreach doesn't have anything to offer this person. The comparison that comes to mind is that of Sophie Scholl, the Berlin student and White Rose member whose one flamboyant excess during a leafleting operation in Nazi occupied Germany cost her life. It was practically suicide. She could've not pushed the leaflets off the balcony in the Psych building and not made the scene that got her caught and killed. She would then likely have survived to leaflet another day, and potentially, could have survived the war. But where in hell (I mean that rather literally, in her case) could she turn for "social outreach?" She had enough sway over her peers to turn them back toward the Psych hall for more leafleting when they all otherwise had a clear chance to exfiltrate safely. Those peers couldn't reach her, and the next tier of social outreach would be too close to the other side for her to take seriously at all. I mean, who's she to turn to for guidance -- the Nazi Youth counselor?
Had she survived, she might've been unknown. From the West, we might've said "our fathers/brothers/sons gave their lives and all you gave was a few leaflets?" She didn't do it with the intent of getting killed when she tossed the handful of leaflets into the air in the halls of the by-then crowded Psych building as classes let out, but she certainly had lost most appreciation of any value in a life where she could not pursue that which mattered for her. Was she emotionally disturbed, a hero, or both?
I fear the only thing that will save my friend's life is economic and social mercy at the personal level -- and that's not exactly widely available, if at all -- for that person, in this capitalist culture. Instead, the person finds "mercy" in the form of "mentors" and "healers" who would convert the person to Zen Buddhism (along with Asian authoritarianism) or New Age mysticism (along with Western-style spiritual authoritarianism) - or to Christianity, with good-old-fashioned European-style authoritarianism.
What the person really needs -- probably all the person needs, is a place to spend life, with some ground around where the person can appreciate non-human life -- life not so mediated to reflect the image or ego-interests of humankind. But that seems exactly what this credit-oriented occupying culture seems intent on imposing -- life in a primarily human-mediated environment at the expense of any other natural order.
Short: there is not social outreach program for dissidents. Maybe it's just my ego, but I believe our world would be better off with this dissident alive than dead, but I feel it slipping - nay, I see it slipping away.
So, with that follow-up in mind, do any "social outreach programs" come to mind that don't involve referrals to the state mental health system or the national social-security disability system, and that are capable of treating social dissidence as something other than a pathology?
poster:Timne
thread:905409
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090624/msgs/905448.html