My dear friend, Darren Abrahams* wrote this to me last week
and has given me permission to share a part of it with you.
“Often I feel like I’m grieving for something authentic.
I think this feeling is what you’ve been calling Solastalgia.
I really get it now. It’s a real thing.
It is something that must be endured and processed
so that on the other side there is the energy to continue regenerative work.”
His response has led me to several thoughts.
First is his self-questioning about what is authentic to actually grieve for?
This is something more than an overwhelming sadness
that could be suffered by a lachrymose romantic.
It is about what I believe so many people are suffering long bouts of:
a sense of on-going sadness, loss, despair,
a lack of hope, seeing no way forward, becoming dreamless,
but not really knowing why and is it just themselves suffering in these ways?
What is this all about?
The wars and all of that horror and suffering,
the climate crisis,
corruption,
unjust and unnecessary inequality,
high suicide rates,
endless assaults on innocent immigrants,
racism,
sexism?
I believe it is all these things and more,
and it speaks well of our humanity
that we can emotionally engage with the pain of others.
I see no essential difference between my being and a Palestinian’s
or a black farmer in sub-Sahara Africa.
It is just that we need to admit that we too care for those people,
that we know, deep in our souls
that they are a part of us.
For people with energy to see beyond their own struggling lives,
to have a modicum of care for others,
the world is crazed, out of hand,
controlled by huge forces beyond our imagination.
I have in the past used Glenn Albrecht’s invented word ‘solastalgia’**
in the context he invented it
regarding the distress produced by environmental change affecting people
while they are still connected to their home environment.
He speaks about how in those circumstances,
whether climate change
or, for instance, mining corporations
taking over an area and destroying it for profits,
people feel utterly helpless and overwhelmed.
Referring back to Darren’s comment,
it seems to me that his using the word ‘solastalgia’
in the broader context of life
makes sense in these days of despair and unidentifiable loss.
To the psychoanalyst Karl Jung, ‘home’ was everything.
“It provided both a map of our collective evolution
and a description of the individual psyche.
In Jungian psychology, what happens inside a house happens inside ourselves.”
Wikipedia
I want to refer to something I believe most people are unaware of.
For the last 40 years we have been ruled by politicians and rich people
who believe:
•that social welfare should not be a responsibility of government,
•that government (and therefore the people) have no right
to have oversight or regulate the methods of the ‘free’ financial markets
and all other industrial sectors
(hence the banking crisis of 2008
and the slowness with which corporations have responded to the climate crisis),
•that all aspects of life from transport to education to medical care
should be in the hands of private enterprise,
•that the permanent arms economy, and therefore the need for wars,
is central to the economies of the US and the UK,
•that the wealthy corporations and individuals should pay less taxes
with the slack made up by greater contributions from the middle and working classes,
•and that planned obsolescence is essential to profits,
meaning deliberately designing products to fail prematurely,
in order to sell a replacement product or an upgrade,
is fair in business as it makes way for the re-selling the same junk.
The worst of this is that two of the original philosopher/economists***
who gave birth to neoliberalism,
this ideology which almost invisibly dominates our lives,
also believed that governments should not be run
by those elected in democratic elections,
but by a coterie of business people
(and probably security service leaders
although they didn’t say that).
As Trump so clearly manifests,
business people, inexperienced in public service,
will default to one man rule,
serving their own hateful egos.
The philosopher, Theo Mayer wrote
that it has been the failure of the (neo)liberal order
to socially embed the 18th century liberal ideals
of liberty, equality and democracy into society.
But of course they haven’t
when their secret desire is the creation of an anti-democratic oligarchy.
Thus, hidden from us for almost 40 years has been this working behind the scenes
to destroy the welfare state,
and to impoverish the middle and working classes
by using tax laws, interest rates, wage repression and austerity
to transfer as much wealth as possible from the people
to the corporations and the rich.
Today, those questions of liberty, equality and, in particular, democracy
should be returned to the foreground of public discussions,
because it was the now destroyed working-class and other movements
which led those debates in the past.
Last week I read this in the Guardian
(the only newspaper that does not rely upon advertising
and therefore corporate approval).
“Children in England are at risk of diabetes,
heart disease and other serious health problems
because ministers have shelved anti-obesity policies
until 2025, according to a damning report commissioned by the government.
The independent report says that ultra-processed foods (UPF)
and products high in fat, sugar and salt (HFSS)
have become “normalised” in children’s diets,
with poorer parents powerless to curb them.”****
Is this cruelty, lack of care, irresponsibility, outright disdain
if not to say hatred of the poor
not a crime against humanity?
For me it is totally unacceptable.
This, in the 5th or 6th wealthiest country in the world?
What kind of sense can we make out of this,
that future workers will be exposed to illness
neither of their or their family’s fault?
It is because of low wages,
zero hour contracts,
and poor education
inside a hollowed out culture
which does not help most children to aspire
towards ideas and knowledge.
Here is where Darren’s broader definition takes hold.
We live in a world of moral outrage after moral outrage.
I believe it is getting to the point
when we either find ways to challenge the politicians,
the rich and the corporations
or we accept that it will all go to hell
and we will be damned by the next generation, and rightfully.
Finally, Darren’s fulsome reference “to continue regenerative work”
is so positive and hopeful.
To my mind the best and only way
is to gather communities and to find ways together to say ‘no’
while continually challenging our politicians to represent us
and not the corporations or their political party.
As for corporations,
it is vital to embarrass them,
to call them out about quality, wages, prices and anti-green practices.
Culture, music, theatre and the other arts can play a huge roll in this
as they have in other countries
where their own philosophers, poets and musicians
found voice to offer people inspiration.