Authoritarianism And The Lost Nobility Of Soul, By Carolyn Baker, Part 2 In The Series: “Reclaiming Inner Authority In An Authoritarian Age”

Authoritarianism And The Lost Nobility Of Soul, By Carolyn Baker, Part 2 In The Series: “Reclaiming Inner Authority In An Authoritarian Age”

Our nobility of soul often erodes as we under-value or ignore our own self-care. A toxic culture does not value physical, emotional, or spiritual health because it is a culture of death. In that milieu, our “health” either becomes equated with status, youthfulness, sexual attraction, and control, or it becomes yet another avenue for cultivating and feeding narcissism. However, as we increasingly value life and our deepest humanity—our nobility of soul, we find ourselves taking better care of ourselves through diet, exercise, adequate sleep and rest, and space for reflection, solitude, and spiritual practice. Not only is self-care “good for us,” it flies in the face of a culture of death.

Reclaiming Inner Authority In An Authoritarian Age: An Essay Series By Carolyn Baker: Walking And Chewing Gum Simultaneously

Reclaiming Inner Authority In An Authoritarian Age: An Essay Series By Carolyn Baker: Walking And Chewing Gum Simultaneously

While the milieu of industrial civilization with its worship of technology, has always sent us engraved invitations to regard external forces as the final authority and minimize or disparage our inner authority, I believe that not since the 1930s in Europe have we seen such blatant burgeoning of capitulation to external authority as we are currently witnessing.

Blithely Ignoring The Heart Of The Matter, By Carolyn Baker

Blithely Ignoring The Heart Of The Matter, By Carolyn Baker

As I have said many times, for me it matters because how collapse unfolds is just as important as the fact that it unfolds. A fascist dictatorship in any country will cause collapse to unfold in unique ways. My work has always been about educating and fortifying others emotionally and spiritually to cope with collapse more resiliently than we might without specific psycho-spiritual tools. The tools we need to navigate the protracted degradation and destruction of the natural environment where there is little authoritarian repression are different than the tools we need to live in a society where food and water might be rationed or we are imprisoned in a work camp or we are living in a constant state of domestic terror.

One Week, Two Massacres: America’s New Wave of Home-Grown Right-Wing Terror, By Umair Haque

One Week, Two Massacres: America’s New Wave of Home-Grown Right-Wing Terror, By Umair Haque

Why is it that the average American can’t say the word “fascism” to describe a country of concentration camps, gestapos, kids in cages, organized supremacist political wings controlling government…and now political terrorism? One obvious answer is that they’re scared. And one obvious candidate for what’s scared Americans into submission — into being incapable of saying the word “fascism”…is fascist terrorism. Increasing right wing violence has caused a kind of chilling effect. The worse the fascists do…the less likely Americans are to call it fascism. Don’t you think that’s baffling? Upside down? The world does. I do. Only Americans don’t. And yet there must be a cause.

Fears About The Planet’s Future Weigh On Americans’ Mental Health, By Victoria Knight

Fears About The Planet’s Future Weigh On Americans’ Mental Health, By Victoria Knight

“Most of the kinds of pathologies that we’re accustomed to treating in psychiatry, they tend to be out of proportion to whatever is going on. But with climate change, this is not inappropriate,” she explained.
“The goal is not to get rid of the anxiety. The goal is to transform it into what is bearable and useful and motivating.”

Americans Are In Denial That Fascists Took Over The United States, By Umair Haque

Americans Are In Denial That Fascists Took Over The United States, By Umair Haque

America’s not just in danger of having a fascist collapse. It’s having one. It’s bang in the middle of one. It’s not in the early phases — but in fact, beginning the later ones. The ones where concentration camps rise, and hatred spews from the head of a state, and papers are checked on public transport. How much more obvious could it get? How many more data points do you need? If this isn’t enough…what could be?

What Kind Of People Are We Becoming? By Umair Haque

What Kind Of People Are We Becoming? By Umair Haque

Maybe some of the answers you’ve come up with are things like: terrible people, moral weaklings, disgraces, and so on. Moral answers, in other words. That’s a start — and yet there’s a much simpler and more straightforward answer, that some part of you is still defending against, preventing you from saying or thinking. That answer is this. What kinds of people build camps and commit torture and genocide? Fascists do.