Friday, October 2, 2020

 

Forsaking Mother Nature..?

....Could this COVID be a metaphor for humanity’s rapacious assault upon Mother Nature?  What is it about us, the US in particular, that'sso knowingly assaulting the source of our existence?  We Boomers have had the best of it in so many ways.  Why are we not computing the reasons why we do what we do and in the process seek to evolve and change today’s power dynamic for the sake of all life on our forsaken Earth?  Applying bio-logical hard-data neuroscience is one way —were we to heed it —which can actually help us adapt and maybe survive!

Today,  Washington, Wall Street, Corporate and Big Tech is 80+% men.  And no, this is NOT an attack on all men. Far from it.  But it is tagging the entrenched capitalistic privileged white patriarchy and the self-serving power and status-seeking of the men on top who so effectively and increasingly are ignoring ‘we the people’. In the process perpetuating environmental injustice, diminishing democracy and fueling climate-change so much of which is based on the exploitation inherent in systemic racism. Yes indeed, Black lives matter as do the Indigenous peoples of this continent whose naturally holistic values understand humanity in the context of the source of our existence….spirit and matter. 

Men — biologically built to lead, to dominate, to be strong, to inseminate, to ensure our species’ survival (thanks to how Dr. Sam Keen described it back in the men's movement days: “when we men unzip our flies, our brains fall out”!) are programmed to fulfill their naturally inherited roles as “protectors and providers” vs. women’s biology which makes us more softly vulnerable — built to bleed, to attract, to conceive, to give birth, breast-feed, nurture, care-take and to embody the deep nature of mothering.

Thanks to eons of daring and discovery men’s bold and brilliant exploration, calculation, construction, invention, innovation has given us 'civilization' -- language, the law, engineering, electricity, radar, rockets, cars, trains, boats and planes. And today, AI, and with it a dehumanizing data-driven future.  For better and worse— our accelerated flexibility, mobility, comfort, complicity, complacency and the ease, speed, and luxury and consumption illustrate's today’s fossil-fueled “Petroculture”.

The primal and predominantly masculine drive for power and control has been about fighting for or defending turf, thus to kill or be killed.  Let’s not forget during this time of peace we take so easily for granted it’s a result of centuries of conflict and war when (rightly or wrongly) millions of (mostly) men have, and still do, sacrifice life and limb.  As that basic tribal impulse to attack and divide necessitates the denial of civility and commonality — how else could the patriarchal impulse have been conditioned to undertake eons of historically punishing and lethal tasks which one way or the other — like it or not — women have  enabled and too often played our part.

No surprise then, in innate response to fear, that testosterone-fueled competitiveness, violence and risk-taking is found more in the brains and hormones of men than women and the pro-social, oxytocin-enhanced feelings of empathy and relatedness — and with it more ethics* —- are more predominant in women than men. (*see Dr. Paul Zak). These basic physiological facts offer reasons to forgive ourselves and each other by better understanding the origins of the culturally conditioned patterns of power-dynamics we’ve unconsciously introjected & which neuroscience reflects and which we can learn from, now.

Acknowledging the roots of our limited individual and collective consciousness which has allowed our outdated polarizing political systems to remain so unquestioned is pivotal to encouraging frank and open conversations between women and men, and the young and old.  As women’s 'progress' increasingly threatens the ‘men-at-the top’ status-quo entitlements, it is ours to recognize why patterns of dominance are still rooted in primitive imprints of mammalian history and anatomy.  It is for us all to accept and appreciate our similarities and — thankfully — our differences,  and move on together harmoniously from here.  

Will this pandemic end Trump’s grotesque extremes and trigger the necessary regenerative transition? The predation and arrogance of toxic masculinity that we women (and that many good men) have suffered from for eons must be over. Increasingly, young people today are becoming crucial catalysts for vital systemic change. They deserve our total support and we are leaving them a heavy load. Time’s up for the tiny minority of male oligarchs who monopolize the world and time for more women to speak up and out and forget competing with 7” heels, skin-tight clothes and cleavage, and instead to collaborate and cooperate and keep the faith in the strength of feminine principles and cultivate the best of our common and shared human nature.

So a call to all of us — to good men and women alike — to heed the signals and respect and give voice to the unquantifiable human qualities of love and interconnectedness and caring that exist within us all.  To do it for ourselves, for each other,  for our children — and for Mother Earth — before we have no choice but to escape this little Blue Planet and head for Mars or the Moon again —  Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk’s “Big Fuckin’ Rocket” !

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

DRAWN FROM NEUROSCIENCE, THIS SYNTHESIS 
SEEKS TO TAP ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF 
THE FEMININE PRINCIPLES of CONNECTEDNESS 
 STRENGTHENING THE CASE FOR THE INNATE VALUE OF WOMEN
as well as the very many good MEN WHO — THANKFULLY — GET IT!

With our current humbling of COVID from Mother Nature, which highlights
 the unstable lumberings of national politics, in turn reflecting our skewed priorities re the environment, 
the economy and global inequality,
 how different might this world be if the dominant systems that control us 
were updated to incorporate the Feminine principles of relatedness, empathy and ethics
in every decision made, everywhere, especially here in the chaos of The White House. 

•     In his decades dedicated to researching the Divided Brain (thedividedbrain.com) Dr. Iain McGilchrist stresses while we use the whole of our brains, the world today is paying an increasing price for the ongoing dominance of the brilliant, but blinkered, systematizing, hierarchical proclivities of the brain's left-hemisphere--exemplified by the current status-quo. McGilchrist's lament is the resulting lack of integration of the contextual, flexible, big-picture perspective of our more empathic, lateral, right-hemisphere.

•    Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, author of The Ethical Brain, makes the point that the left-hemisphere “will stick to its belief system no matter what". McGilchrist reiterates in his summation of the rigid left side as “the side that doesn’t know what it doesn’t know!” (Yes, political lefts and rights are the reverse!)

•     Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen’s research described in The Essential Difference and Science of Evil: On Empathy & the Origins of Cruelty differentiates between men and women by tagging "the extreme male brain" to be less empathic and more tending toward autism. According to Gazzaniga, Baron-Cohen’s book “lays the scientific groundwork for a brighter science of understanding of the dark side of the human condition.” 

•    In his book, The Moral Molecule: How Trust Works, Dr. Paul Zak presents his lab's research on the prosocial, bonding, qualities of the neuropeptide oxytocin -- 'the love hormone.' Zak describes oxytocin as inducing empathy which in turn fosters feelings of trust, safety and forgiveness. He applauds the resulting qualities of reciprocity and understanding as what stimulates respect for differences -- gender, race, religion, skin color, tribe, politics, belief, value systems, etc. The Golden Rule at the universal heart of our world's major religions -- now substantiated by science -- bids us 'do unto others what you would have them do to you.'

•  By contrast, Kray & Haselhuhn in Scientific American show in competitive situations (think politics and the corporate culture) men’s more naturally testosterone-driven impulse to win and succeed results in their having lower moral and ethical standards, more inclined to reactionary violence thus making men more inclined than women to sabotage and undermine opponents.

 • Nobel winner Joseph Stiglitz defines economics as America’s #1 religion clearly discouraging competition as he encourages co-operation and collaboration. Recent studies show students of business and economy (more frequently men and characteristically left-hemisphere motivated) to be more inclined to self-interest, competitiveness and sociopathy than those who opt for the fields of Law, the sciences, humanities.

 • Nobel Laureate Professor James Heckman’s work on "the economics of human potential” contextualizes the inherent costs of the 'empathy-deficit' that exists in society's over-valuing of cognitive (left-hemisphere) skills, particularly in the crucial fields of early brain development and education. 

 • Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together, adds research on the impact of technology and social media as significantly reducing empathy activation thus diminishing the ability to relate one-on-one. She makes the point that grounded face-to-face reality enables us to better relate to, and understand, each other’s similar and different experience. 

 • The Atlantic magazine's Lisa Mundy in “Why Silicon Valley is so Awful to Women” quotes Joelle Emerson and others describing implicit and explicit gender bias and sexism in the (very left-hemisphere) world of technology -- initiated and led by a handful of men -- that now dominates the globe. Women working in tech today make up between 15% and 30%. 

 • Decades ago, Dr’s Carol Gilligan, Deborah Tannen, and Riane Eisler's and neurosurgeon, Leonard Shlain's best-selling books focused on the inherent gender imbalance evident in our culture and exemplified in language -- a left-hemisphere strength. Today in Washington, the political Right's narrower, more direct and assertive left-hemisphere message proves simpler to convey in sound-bites than the Democratic Party's more all-embracing right-hemisphere platform. Currently in the US House of Representatives, 19% are women -- 78 Democratic, 26 GOP
*****
(To keep the above, very brief, synthesis simple, my take on how this understanding can change the world is obviously sweepingly general! That said, understanding our common (ok for this purpose, binary) physiological differences as well as similarities opens the door to more easily seeing -- though not necessarily agreeing with -- those who think or act differently. Best scenario--this understanding enables us to better "hold the tension of the opposites" so that an alliance between the left and right -- brain hemispheres and political parties --might be possible. A middle way? At a time when more women are speaking out, the intention here is to expand and extend the concept of Feminism by adding this science-based criteria extolling the virtues of the right-hemisphere's manifestation of the more 'Feminine principles’ of relatedness as defined by C.G.Jung. The 'soft' virtues that he and neuroscience tells us are not exclusive to women (although they may be more innately resonant with women) but also to the very many men who get it, customarily not corporate or political leaders! With particular thanks to the work of the men whose neuroscience is referenced here -- as well as the prescient women -- all have affirmed the blessing of the life-enhancing, consciousness raising, values of empathy. A level of mutual caring which should be a goal for us all to acknowledge and work toward -- if for no other ethical reason, for future generations. For the sake of all life on Earth, we urgently need to awaken from our easy Western complacency and apply this knowledge to how and where humanity goes from here -- personally+collectively, locally+globally. Lets hope…it’ll be soon enough).

We are all in this together....and reminder from Father Thomas Berry:
                                    "The destiny of this planet, is our destiny”