What kind of resistance for American Totalitarianism?

 A lot of quotes by Hannah Arendt have been going around in my online circles in the last few days. (Here's some essays on Arendt by one of my favorite writers on technology criticism, Michael Sacasas: https://thefrailestthing.com/tag/hannah-arendt/)

 

Arendt was one of the great chroniclers of Totalitarianism, through Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and after their downfall. When I think about what is happening in the US, the parallels are very strong, and I think it likely that the lessons learned from fascism and totalitarianism in the past will be very useful in dealing with what is to come.

 

At the same time, when I think about what I know of those who resisted during those times, the story feels so dire and my imagination shuts down. I'm more inspired by the history of civil rights, resistance to the Vietnam war and all the other progressive causes that have been so hard won in the US. There is a dramatic attempt to shut them all down and reverse all of that progress. How do we tap into this history of the US and move forward with courage and pride? We have to think about what we love about the US. If we don't fight for it, it will be taken away, faster than we can imagine. I think one needs to fight out of love, and not out of fear. That's what I'm working with right now. The fear is easy to find, right there on the surface. The love may be more ellusive, but it is also there, and deeper down and more sustainable.

An awful election: reflections

 

Well, another day has passed, and it still seems like Trump won the election. I hate this. I'm not sure I've really understood why people voted for this wanna-be dictator. The most resonant point to me that I've heard is that the US wasn't ready to elect a competent, effective woman president. And so we elected a monstrous man instead. This explanation, mixed with a fractured media environment (TV networks + social media) that could be gamed by bad actors gives the start of an explanation for this awful result.

I've often felt through my life that I would end up involved in some kind of non-violent resistance movement. So here we are. What will it look like? Let's hope this setback leads us forward to create a climate and justice movement of the scale needed to face the new time on this planet we are up against.

 

An idea comes up as I think about how to move forward. I've been reading "The Process Model" by Eugene Gendlin, the creator of the psychological technique of focusing. It's a terribly abstract book, extremely frustrating at times, but also with a large scope of trying to create another way of thinking that includes life and consciousness and first person perspective and pushes back against the Cartesian mind-body split. It fights back against reductionism by starting with fully functioning processes rather than trying to build them up from their parts. Gendlin next introduces the concept of a stoppage in which something prevents the process from moving forward (e.g. a lack of food means the feeding-energy gathering process can't move forward). Out of this stoppage, the process is able to change and evolve. Trump's election is a kind of stoppage in our political process. How can we respond creatively to encompass a larger perspective that moves our world forward?

 

A soft snow fell on us yesterday here in Colorado. Here's a plum tree, its green, yellow and orange leaves dusted with snow. This world is too beautiful to give up on.

 

Who inspires you during this time? I've looked to Gandhi and MLK as leaders of non-violent resistance. Who else can we look to for guidance as we find our way forward through this next challenge?