We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, January 4, 2013

Late Stage Capitalism and the Shame Haunted Life

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh from Dissident Voice

The author explores the shame that infiltrates the souls of many Americans in a class struture social system in which people are judged by outward signs of wealth or the present state of the economy that that has little use for them. He recalls from his childhood the many ways that he as a member of a poor family experienced this shame. He looks at the many ways people, especially men, cope with this shame.
Anger dwells as deep as the pain leveled by being shamed and humiliated. From road rage, to internet trolling, to the compulsion to humiliate women in certain forms of porn, to right-wing radio ranters, to violent video games, to gun-sown episodes of mass murder — the shame-besieged psyche of the American male, in vain, attempts to mitigate a psychologically devastating sense of powerlessness.