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<back | home How People Change (or Don’t Change) An Ongoing Series by Bob Banner I’m in the business of social change. I think about it a lot. I try to figure out what makes people change, what makes people deny inevitable changes, how motivators like shame and guilt may work in the short term but will gradually dissipate and lose their force. A technique I use often in my studies and articles is self-observation. It always helps to see in myself those denying and resisting characteristics so I either have more compassion for others who irritate me for not changing or I am more open to the various methods for social change. One factor I utilize occasionally in this broad sweep of understanding and analysis is the comfort level. If things are 0K, then why fix them, why change? It seems we only start thinking of making changes when our comfort level is threatened, when our personal suffering gets to a level where we can no longer tolerate our misery. Or until it is really obvious that by changing, our personal suffering will be diminished immensely. It is often incredible how long we will tolerate a situation, imagining that our personal suffering is "not that bad." Even though it may be obvious to others, it may not be obvious to the specific individual. I call this the invisible factor; some call it the shadow. The possibility of change does not exist within one’s real world if it is invisible. Now, having that in mind, please stretch with me for a moment and see how this invisible factor is at work with less esoteric matters. If we don’t see a problem, why even look for a solution? And even if people tell you there’s a problem, if we can’t see it then the problem doesn’t exist. For example, years ago I had been going out with a young woman who told me she had EI (Environmental Illness), someone who is especially sensitive to the myriad of environmental toxins and was prone to becoming ill because of it. I was intrigued. Yet I found myself skeptical since I could not see what she was talking about. One time as we walked into a bank together, she turned to me and said, "I can’t breathe in here; they must have new carpets. It’s the formaldehyde!" She then turned around and walked out. I did my banking, feeling I had acquired another friend who was living on the edge, and I started to contemplate simplifying my life by dumping her. And then I asked the teller if in fact they had new carpets. "About two weeks ago," she answered. I was flabbergasted. I imagined I was in the situation so many skeptics find themselves in: they simply do not believe if they can’t see it. But the teller validated my friend’s reaction that I had not trusted. The smell of formaldehyde was invisible to me. It was not invisible to her. How many other things do we see yet don’t see? We look to family photos of 10, 20, or 30 years ago and what wasn’t apparent then is painfully obvious now. Something unseen suddenly becomes visible. We speak of an environmental crisis, yet if it’s invisible it will not be considered a problem. If there is a photograph of a crisis in a distant place, it may have some impact, but if it’s not persistently visible, then the invisibility of the problem will return. If things are OK, if friends are relatively healthy and people can pay the rent and mortgage, why create a problem, why try to fix things that are not broken. Men at the turn of the last century worked in the coalmines or with chemicals, under polluted and toxic conditions (and still do), but since the infections and toxins were invisible there was no connection. No connecting of the dots. Even years later when X-rays revealed the invisible and people died prematurely due to the various toxins, denial is still strong. Even if it a problem is visible, even if the dots are connected, there is no guarantee that it will encourage us to take a different action or reflect on our own monocular vision and alter it. Perhaps it’s in our makeup. Perhaps our design is flawed. Perhaps there will always be a minority of individuals who search diligently for an awakened and authentic life. Perhaps, like an abused son or daughter, we go back to our violent and unconscious parents since they are all we know. Pathologically, that we seek love in the wrong places. Perhaps we have substituted the government and the transnational corporations as our parents and tell ourselves they cannot do any wrong. No matter how often we are informed of their abuses (i.e., Enron, the lies of our government…) and aware of our own personal suffering (43 million people without health insurance), something keeps us battering our heads against the wall in faith that the authorities can not possibly be wrong. Especially when the government and corporations get bigger, then it’ s inevitable they must be better. How could they be wrong if they are so big? Let’s take another example: the addiction to progress and comfort. The signs of progress are visible: the trim lawn, the dream house, the new flashy car, the jet airplane overhead, the meticulously manicured garden. Not only does it look normal and healthy, but since we see in the media its visibility multiplied by some outrageous amount, we are encouraged to believe it’s all wonderful and necessary. Yet the causes and the results of our addiction to progress are invisible. To question — to even question — the unhealthfulness of such a visible photo of progress could be more traumatic than taking a deep look at the origin of our specific personal suffering. It is very difficult to take a stand to alleviate one’s personal suffering let alone connect the dots between one’s personal suffering and the political/cultural landscape. Why is it that we are often at a loss at focusing on the origin of our personal suffering? It can be so obvious, yet we actually will defend those who are causing us so much misery. We find ourselves defending capitalism, the Bush administration in its gung-ho Empire parading in the thin disguise of liberation, democracy and freedom, . . . . All at the expense of economic and health care systems that could alleviate so much personal misery and unhappiness. Why are we so stupid? Why can’t we see the invisible? Why can’ t we connect the dots? I saw a bumper sticker on a huge SUV that said, "Go Green for the Planet." Is this some type of oxymoronic joke? Have we really fooled ourselves into imagining that we can have our cake and eat it as well; we can rape our environment, destroy the finite resources and live a lifestyle that is unsustainable while seemingly living in a natural environment. This is called major disconnect or dissociative behavior. As the industrialist photographer Edward Brynszinski is quoted in the Fall 2003 issue of Granta, "... our society has become disconnected from our industrial roots. We don’t know where our food comes from any more, where our cars are made, or where our jets get fixed, so a whole part of our experience appears abnormal." This goes along with eco-designer William McDonough’s mantra that there is no such place as "away," when we imagine we can simply throw things away. "Waste equals food" has become a paradigm-shifter mantra and a wake-up call to all manufacturers as well as dwellers in the First World. Before I finish I wish to add some more invisible modes that need to become more visible so we will change our behavior or at least become conscious of how they intricately affect our levels of being (Can we really be truly happy if others are living in abject misery?). Chemical pollution, whether it smells bad or good, is toxic. It affects the health of our bodies. Plain and simple. And more and more people are spending more time in their houses, but are our houses safe? We now know more about toxic odors and radiation from inside our homes. With all the toxic building supplies, we are slowly killing ourselves. Again, because it’s invisible we think everything is hunky dory. Or is it a matter of karma? Are we reaping what generations have sown unconsciously yet with so much deliberation and energy? How could people rightfully complain that their comfort now (which was paid for with much pain and suffering from their ancestors) could actually be a major contributor to a much larger suffering? Now I also discover that another element to be cautious of is electricity. It’s estimated that 2-3 percent of our population is "electricity sensitive," which means that people get sick when they get around certain electrical appliances: computers, printers, phones, . . . . And the cell phone industry is the biggest manufacturer of techno gadgetry ignoring the research that is showing the dangers of not only cell phone radiation but the radiation emitted from the towers. But, hey, it’s invisible, cheap and so important and vital. How did we ever get along without it? Cell phones are inevitable and they are part of our society whether we have a debate about it or not. Somehow the actions of corporations are so subtle, with so much consensus and cheerleading from the media that it becomes like the air we breathe, invisible. When will we as a society ever conceive of the democratic possibility of actually deciding what technology we will have rather than simply being a dumping ground and cheerleading for the fastest, most efficient, most available communication devices? If we had one inkling of what democracy is, we would simply have a voice when it comes to the overwhelming technological fundamentalism that has swept this nation. But it’s not just a democratic issue. Do any of these technological gadgets even come close to healing the gap we have in our need for genuine community, teamwork, cooperative ventures, a health system that actually works for people rather than the bottom line, and work that is more conducive to a livelihood and purpose rather than manufacturing, selling and designing more crap at sweat shop prices (not caring a hoot what country you need to go to get the lowest costs possible) only to see it end up on the landfill? We need to wake up to what is invisible, to connect the dots so we can align our personal joy and genuine happiness levels to a dynamic, cultural and political context, rather than defending abusive powers that grow at the expense of our humanity. Sometimes it takes a really cruel leader (or father, mother, CEO or priest…) to make things visible enough for us to awaken from our slumber. Perhaps seeing the Palestinian homes illegally bulldozed and the Iraqi civilians blown apart and the newborn Iraqi children looking like alien monsters because of the depleted uranium our government used during the war(s) . . . , perhaps seeing them will shake us up. Perhaps seeing our loved ones go off to a war that is illegal and coming back in coffins. Perhaps seeing a relative of 50+ years (who had a successful carpentry livelihood) getting laid-off and now working at MacDonald’s might just wake us up. Let’s hope the cruel and wicked leaders who have come to wake us up do not get the chance to visit more havoc and misery upon the world before we act to stop them. Bob Banner is publisher of HopeDance and can be reached at 805.544.9663. <back | top^ |