How to Put "Civil" Back in Civilization

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend that you watch the documentary “The Social Dilemma”. It explains so much of what we’re seeing in our society, from increased rates of anxiety and teen suicide, to increased polarization and the spread of fake news.

In short, the large tech companies such as Facebook, You Tube, Google, Twitter, and such are using machine learning to continually improve on the algorithms whose only goal is to keep us engaged with our screens, thus exposing us to their advertisers. We are now experiencing the unforeseen consequences of this by-design highly addictive technology. Watch the documentary, it explains the issues so well…and even offers up some potential solutions.

But I want to talk with you today about the idea that, since every aspect of your life exerts some sort of influence upon your health, the society in which we live has a profound and often under-the-surface influence on our health. If you are trying to be healthy while living in an unhealthy, dysfunctional society, your efforts are likely to be disappointing. What can we do to improve the health of society so that we all can benefit from that?

We are living at an amazing time where several forces for change are coming to a head. The “#Me Too” movement working for fairness and equality for women, the Black Lives Matter movement working for fairness and equality for black people, and all people of color, the climate crisis where the very earth is asking for us to change. The COVID-19 pandemic where the only way we can control the spread of this virus is by all working together. Trump’s presidency with his blatant misogyny, racism, and favoritism for the ultrawealthy, combined with his disdain for science and reason, his penchant for fomenting chaos and conflict and division, sowing fear wherever anyone will listen, has shown us the kind of society we don’t want. Separatism, isolationism, and “us vs. them” thinking are not paths to a healthier society. So, what kind of society do we want? This magnitude of momentum for change is rare and we need to make the best of it.

I propose that we apply the principles of wellness that we know work so well for the individual to the society at large.

First, “health” and “wholeness” come from the same root word. This suggests that health implies wholeness. For the individual, wholeness implies having access to all of themselves: all the shameful parts, the repressed parts, the wounded parts, the shadow parts, the crazy parts. All of it. For society that would mean diversity. Just like a diverse forest, or a diverse microbiome is healthier than a monoculture, the same holds for society. Our wholeness is greater than the sum of the parts. Repressing women, repressing minorities or people who are different from us makes us all weaker, sicker.

Unconditional acceptance of themselves and of the different parts of themselves is also a critical skill that enables the individual to be healthy. In society, that would look like consensus decision-making, inclusivity, meeting people where they are and attempting to understand why they are behaving the way that they are or making the choices that they are making.

Taking good care of themselves. For the individual, this means following a healthy lifestyle: eating good quality foods in the right amounts, exercising sensibly, introspection-taking some time each day to get to know themselves better, healthy supportive relationships, and right livelihood-finding work that sustains them financially, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. For society, this would mean taking good care of each other. Making sure we all have good nutrition, housing, healthcare; that we educate our children to be humane and strong…and keep their curiosity alive; that we have equal opportunity so that anyone with the wits and work ethic to do so can advance themselves. We need to learn the lessons from history so that each generation doesn’t keep making the same mistakes.

Fostering a sense of compassion for themselves, for all they’ve been through, for all that they are going through is probably thee most important ingredient for individual health that I’ve ever observed. In society, that means having compassion for each other, for all that others have been through, for all that they are going through. Compassion, and thus compassion-informed action, are necessary ingredients for any kind of meaningful health. I don’t see any other way around it.

If we can practice these skills, especially compassion for ourselves, for others, and, eventually, for all of creation, we can put the civil back into civilization. We can make the most of this rare and powerful convergence of several forces for change. We can do this if we put our minds to it.