#358 / The Normal Is Coming Unhinged

Charles Eisenstein calls himself an "Author & Speaker." Click the link for his personal statement. 

Click the link below for an essay he wrote, post Trump election, in which he says that "the normal is coming unhinged." 

Eisenstein titles this piece, "The Election: Of Hate, Grief, And A New Story." 

I, personally, think he is on to something when he says:

For the last eight years it has been possible for most people (at least in the relatively privileged classes) to believe that society is sound, that the system, though creaky, basically works, and that the progressive deterioration of everything from ecology to economy is a temporary deviation from the evolutionary imperative of progress. 

A Clinton Presidency would have offered four more years of that pretense. A woman President following a black President would have meant to many that things are getting better. It would have obscured the reality of continued neoliberal economics, imperial wars, and resource extraction behind a veil of faux-progressive feminism. Now that we have, in the words of my friend Kelly Brogan, rejected a wolf in sheep’s clothing in favor of a wolf in wolf’s clothing, that illusion will be impossible to maintain.

I also think Eisenstein is on to something when he claims that "hate" almost always tends to mask the deeper truth of pain, and that we can heal our society, and ourselves, only to the extent that we can get beyond the obvious and visible oppositions that divide us, to find some basis for a deeper connection that brings us together. 

Read his essay to form your own judgment. I think he's right the way he started his essay. The normal is coming unhinged. 

I like the way he ends his essay, too: 

We need to confront an unjust, ecocidal system. Each time we do we will receive an invitation to give in to the dark side and hate “the deplorables.” We must not shy away from those confrontations. Instead, we can engage them empowered by the inner mantra that my friend Pancho Ramos-Stierle uses in confrontations with his jailers: “Brother, your soul is too beautiful to be doing this work.” If we can stare hate in the face and never waver from that knowledge, we will access inexhaustible tools of creative engagement, and hold a compelling invitation to the haters to fulfill their beauty.

Image Credit:

http://charleseisenstein.net/hategriefandanewstory/