On the Road

I’m on my way to a professional retreat. As I enter a more quiet and natural landscape, I have time to reflect upon a critique of my work. It would seem as though some feel that I am vilifying those who love the click of a heel against concrete and prefer a fancy view of the city of lights over a rugged stay in the back country. This misconception needs to be corrected immediately. My thinking about psychology and climate change is not meant to bifurcate nature and civilization. All of civilization is born from the natural world, and the natural world bears always the impact of civilization. I’m a very dialectical thinker. What I am trying to create here is a shared understanding of the fact that our biological and psychological fates are tied to the future of the earth. What I mean is that we have all been intruded upon by our culture's (a small and particular aspect of western capitalism) emphasis on expansion through consumerism. In our rush to grow the economy and to make ourselves richer and more powerful, our nation has violated the boundaries of the earth and its people. The earth now suffers pathologies (like global warming) that have been brought about by the abuse of her resources. People also suffer when their souls and psyches are taken advantage of for the purposes of consumerism. I am a believer in a free economy but our capitalistic enterprises need to restore their partnership with humanism.
This reminds me of Rousseau. Once humans developed the capacity to see themselves as others saw them, they became vulnerable to the influence of interpersonal comparison. The social contract helps us protect our vulnerabilities and to bind our desire in ethical compromises between self and other . . . and between self and earth, or society and planet. If we are of each other our partnership is the security upon which the future is based. Our economy might be better off as the culmination of this partnership, rather than the dictator of it.
These next days will be spent by the sea. I’m spending time with psychologists in a wintery climate by the beach --- with little access to either my cell phone or the internet. I’m wondering what will happen. Let’s see.