an interview with Chellis Glendinning photo by Lindsay Holt, II
Chellis Glendinning, Ph.D., is also the author of Waking up in the Nuclear Age and the Pulitzer Prize-nominated When Technology Wounds. Her newest book, Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Imperialism, the Global Economy, and Other Earthly Whereabouts, was published by Shambhala Publications in the fall of 1999.
Lorraine: Does the title of your book My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization imply that Western society is in an unhealthy state? Chellis: We all know that something is wrong. There is violence in the schools, children are killing children, illegal and immoral acts are rampant in our government, there are constant wars. Everywhere, families are dysfunctional. Children are being raped by their own parents. Look at the natural world: the technology of contemporary society is destroying habitats, even altering the biosphere itself. If you look at the situation from any angle, you see that things are not going well. So I ask: "What is a human being? Who have we evolved to be?" The answer is that humans evolved to be creatures who live in unmediated participation with the natural world. About ten thousand years ago, at the start of the Neolithic era, something very unusual occurred in the Far East, Southern Europe, China, and Mesoamerica. People began to separate themselves from the natural world. At first, this domestication process happened so slowly that it was unnoticeable, but over time, people literally fenced themselves off from the natural world economically, culturally, psychologically, and philosophically. What they depended on for survival came under human control, under human management, and they began to exert an unnatural power over both the natural world and themselves. That was the beginning of dysfunction. Today's Western society — with all its psychological suffering, violence, injustice, and unsustainable technologies — evolved from this process, and this is its end destination. Lorraine: You mention post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in your book; does this describe the unhealthy state of human society? Chellis: What has taken place as a result of this domestication process is a slow-rolling, collective case of PTSD that has become literally institutionalized into Western society. Interestingly, the process of fencing ourselves off from the natural world socially and economically mirrors the process that began to happen within the human psyche. "Fencing off" is the very basis of PTSD: it's dissociation. Before, all experiences were in a kind of a Möbius strip of consciousness where all things and experiences were available to us and linked to each other. We can see this unity of experience and perception in the philosophies of indigenous people. For them, everything in life is connected. There is no polarization of good and bad, difficult and easy, light and dark. But when the human psyche experiences trauma, it becomes dissociated, split, and fenced off. Some aspects of the experience are thrown into a state of unconsciousness and are no longer available. They exist, but they show themselves only as symptoms that are metaphorical for what has occurred or been lost. In the development of Western thought, we find the Greek notion that the mind is separate from the body and that humans are separate from nature, and such ideas form the very basis of Western philosophy. Yet, if you really think about who we are and where we belong, such notions are preposterous. Lorraine: Are you saying that the literal fences that were erected to keep people separated from the wild world outside created fences in the psyche? Chellis: Yes, and that fact says something really important about the psyche. The psyche was created to mirror the natural world, and so if the world has fences that announce, "Stay in here! Keep your food close by! Don't go out! There are wild animals!" then a parallel perception is mirrored within the human psyche. Today, there are actually people who live in a psychic world torn apart and fragmented into acceptable worlds and lost worlds, "safe" places and "dangerous" places, who believe that reality is steel and concrete, that food comes from stores, who don't know anything about the moon, water, rain, or animals. Lorraine: Where does addiction fit in to this process of fragmentation? Chellis: Psychotherapist Terry Kellogg says that "trauma is the freeway to addiction." As a result of the traumatic experience, one loses the ability to get one's needs met. Addiction, therefore, is based upon an attempt to satisfy primary needs with secondary sources. For instance, when people abuse substances like heroin and alcohol, or activities like overworking or sex, they are usually blocking the pain of having lost what is most important: nourishment and connection. Where there is disconnection and lack of nurture, we tend to find desperation and the knee-jerk lunge for secondary sources of satisfaction. Sadly, such behavior only perpetuates the already socialized fragmentation of the psyche. The relationship between humans and the rest of nature continues to be one of division and separation. When some people of the Western world moved away from connectedness and participation in the natural world, many of the evolutionary needs of the human organism were no longer met and traumatization set in. The process wasn't always as dramatic or instantaneous as combat, rape, or an airplane crash. The fragmentation and trauma started with fencing ourselves off from the natural world, separation through fenced farming and the domestication of animals. Then came a disruption of natural birth control functions, the start of overpopulation, and the expansion of land management to feed the growing populations. The fenced-off area expanded more and more, and the rat race began. The more this system of expansion and fear took over, the more security, connection, and participation were lost, and the more pain there was. The more there was pain, the more there was a need to seek out "substitute good feelings" and to mask the pain. That's how addiction began. The trauma behind Western society's addictive behavior is not always about being beaten up or raped. It's a traumatization that has become imbedded in the institutions and assumptions of our entire civilization. Lorraine: Isn't it ironic that here in the United States, many people are desperately trying to nurture themselves through technology, like air travel and computers, while at the same time these actions are destroying the earth that has the capacity to truly nurture them? Chellis: Yes, good point. Lorraine: So, what would an individual in recovery from Western civilization experience? Chellis: We start with the individual, because we have been fragmented into a society of disconnected individuals. Each person has to take stock. What damaging experiences have caused wounding in your psyche? What destructive patterns and relationships do you perpetuate? Addictions? Denials? Out-of-control problems? And then we can move to questions concerning our collective predicament. How does your community produce food? How does your community solve problems, nurture connectedness, or relate to other communities? The task is for people to heal, but I don't want to stop with the individual. The real answer is a collective answer. The real answer is for people to reorganize our communal relationship to survival. That's where the problem started, and that's where the solution lies. Lorraine: In your book you refer to collective recovery. Chellis: The task of collective recovery is for people in Western society to establish a relationship with the natural world. What I am proposing is that a huge part of the healing process — and one that is too often overlooked — is the need to reorganize ourselves into land-based communities. Such a process brings about healing back into who we are as human beings in relationship to the natural world and to sustainable food production, and also back to the political and social modes that will bring us into relationship to the natural world. I am proposing that we get off the global economy with its Wal-Marts, Viacoms, Nikes, and World Trade Organizations. Lorraine: There's a quote in your book from Leopold Kohr, "When something is wrong, something is too big." Chellis: Leopold Kohr was the Austrian philosopher who inspired E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful. In his book The Breakdown of Nations, he advises that when there's a problem, look for unnatural grandiosity. Lorraine: So what would a healthy state of being look like? Chellis: Most importantly, a healthy state would include a sense of connectedness. The 10,000-year-old fences must come down. Right now, every aspect of our lives is affected by fragmentation and disconnection: everything from the philosophy of individualism to the sense of alienation, from chronic war-making and destruction of the natural world to high technologies and the corporate economy. If we exist in a state of connectedness, every single facet of our lives becomes different. For instance, there is a loss of reactiveness. There's so much reaction that goes on within a disconnected society. Lorraine: That's what war is about. Chellis: Yes, that's what war is about. That's what conquest is about. That's what lawsuits are about. We tend to presume that somebody who has a different idea is against us. We all have something to offer; everybody has a grain of truth. We need to listen to each other. Instead, we want to kill each other, shut each other up, all because some people's ideas and experiences are separate from our own. In a culture that honors and lives connectedness, there is not so much reactiveness. There is more openness to the unfolding of life. Such an experience of connection permeates every level, from how we behave with our neighbors to what it feels like when we plant seeds to how we structure our government. Lorraine: So, basically, a healthy state is about connection? Chellis: Connection and relationship. |
While it is not evident to all that Western society has, in many ways, failed us economically, politically, spiritually, psychologically, and philosophically, many are recognizing the need to reevaluate many aspects of our society. It is no longer viable to point fingers at individual behaviors. Blaming the criminal, the delinquent youth, or the drug addict for their actions belies the underlying reasons why many people do what they do. The recognition that dysfunction is first and foremost a social issue is what psychologist Chellis Glendinning elucidates in her book My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. Glendinning clearly spells out why it is essential that we reevaluate the assumptions, values, and the very structures of Western society. Indeed, a healthy human being is, after all, only as healthy as his or her environment.