We’ve got problems. Global problems. Problems like climate crisis, pandemic, structural racism, and the growing inequality between the rich and poor. Our global problems will not be solved by governments, big business, or even NGOs. Our global problems will be solved by people like you and me, rising to make the changes our times demand of us.
Mass media is a product of our collective consciousness. Mass media is not something “out there,” separate from us, sowing disinformation and division. It is something “in here,” inside each of us, seeking expression. Mass media is the product of our own ideological uncertainty, our fear of our collective vulnerability, and our doing the best we can with what our current mental capacities and communication skills allow.
Viewed from this vantage point, there is a lot we can do to make the changes necessary to solve our global problems. Rather than being fixated on the evil villains out there, (because what we give our attention to grows,) we turn our gaze inward to inquire with compassion, “What in me needs to change?”
Noam Chomsky co-wrote a book last September titled Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet. Speaking about the book in a Vox article last fall he said:
“The problem [of a possible increase in nationalism, and xenophobia, in response to climate realities] is the great mass of the population who are being deluded by constant propaganda. That’s a problem that can be solved by education, by organization, by reasonable forms of activism. That’s the way big changes have taken place in the world.
Just take our own country. We’re a very different country from what we were, say, 50 or 60 years ago. You go back to the 1960s, the United States had anti-miscegenation laws that were so extreme the Nazis refused to adopt them. We had federal laws in place that required that federal housing be effectively denied to African Americans. Women were not legally considered equal peers until 1975. Things that were considered normal at that time would be considered so outlandish now, you can barely even talk about them.
It didn’t happen by a miracle. And it didn’t mean convincing a couple of white supremacist reactionaries. It meant changing the nature of consciousness in the country.”
You may or may not agree with Chomsky’s and Pollin’s assertion that arriving at net zero within thirty years requires us doing so within the capitalist framework we have in place today, (because, as their reasoning goes, capitalism will still be around in thirty years,) and that protecting the livelihoods of the working class worldwide by providing green jobs will be necessary for the success of the whole endeavor. Yet it is pretty hard to argue with the point Chomsky makes about U.S. history showing us that a change in consciousness is what brings about social change.
So how do we go straight to the change in consciousness necessary? We might start by not trying to solve the problem with the same mindset that created it, and by looking to what new awarenesses need to come online to create a change in the nature of consciousness, socially.
This involves vulnerability – admitting we may not yet know what we need to know to solve the problem. What if immediately moving to certainty and logical problem solving is part of the problem? What if our minds and communication processes are actually rather unequipped for the tasks that lie ahead, and that we’ve only just begun, here in what we call the 21st century, to develop the awareness necessary for the changes that lie ahead? (See the Mercury chapter in my book.)
I have seen evidence of this development in the past few years, especially in my work with clients. As many of us began truly facing the imminent realities of climate crisis a few years ago, I watched as our thinking and communication was challenged to expand and evolve. Those baby step changes often involved messy processes. I see that trend continuing daily (which helps me appreciate the messy processes.)
I sense, deep in my bones, that the expansion and evolution of awareness necessary is stirring already, for every one of us. Isn’t that a hopeful thought?
The Noam Chomsky & Robert Pollin interview in Vox Magazine:
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21446383/noam-chomsky-robert-pollin-climate-change-book-green-new-deal