"Other ways of knowing," aka Different Cognitive Styles

[tama]

38. Sorry, I'll try, and thanks for asking

Basically just thinking on level of societies and cultures instead of their individual members and applying the same criteria you suggested: harmful and dangerous to themselves and their environment.

If you need to ask how our consumerist culture is dangerous to itself, the answer as simply as I can put it, by destroying the capacity of it's environment to carry and sustain it.

So by very simple logic and criteria, if the culture we live in is insane, so are we who are brought up into this insanity of which we are parts of, not outside it. And as they say in AA and elsewhere, first step of getting better is admitting that you are ill.

If you haven't already stopped reading and turned away in disgust, or don't do it right now, next phases that may be useful are recognizing and admitting that mechanisms of denial and projection are not just what others do. And recognizing those mechanisms in one's self can become a constant practice, and awareness of those mechanisms can help to act accordingly, but less mechanically and more creatively.

Also, not denying one's own insanity as member of insane culture can help identify with empathy and compassion with those individual members who react to this insanity in their various ways, including reactions and symptoms that this culture normatively defines and externalizes as insanity. Of course it can be wise to learn to live in way that you can cope with the insane system and avoid being labelled insane and outcast, but that wisdom does not come at the cost of abandoning and not listening to your conscience.

To tie up with this group, the kind of "awakening" I'm describing is not dissimilar to religious awakening. And can be in many cases very painful process, as the knowledge does not stay at purely intellectual level, which can be always easily rationalized away from guiding actions, but becomes more and more fully embodied knowledge.