As I hunker down and shelter in place, I am set to reflecting on this crisis caused by a new Corona Virus and producing the disease known as COVID-19. The virus will kill hundreds of thousands or more before it is done and before, according to the latest research, it comes again, perhaps annually. In my reflecting I take in the economic devastation that has followed in the path of this virus and the suffering it is bringing to the lives of so many. Whether it infects or not, it is touching most everyone to some degree.

            I hear the idea that we humans are at war with the virus. I hear clamoring that we will win! We always do! Politicians love the war metaphor. It is meant to mobilize resources against the common enemy and to recruit the winning spirit. Hope is energized.

But the metaphor of war, like war itself, enables consolidation of power, further extraction of wealth from the many to the few, while deepening the reach of scrutiny, security, and secrecy.  War is beneficial to the powerful whether as metaphor or as combat.

I don’t resonate with the war metaphor. For me, nature, even at its most difficult from a human perspective, is always a teacher.  If we don’t see this, then we miss the lesson. Simple as that.  Corona Virus is nature doing its thing. What lesson might we learn if we see the virus as teacher? As I write this, I see the Pope say that the pandemic is one of nature’s responses to humans ignoring the climate crisis. This is a good example of a different perspective than “war.”

At the same time, President Trump tweets, “Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must be quickly forgotten. Our Economy will BOOM, perhaps like never before!!!”

As you can see, the hegemony of human exceptionalism turns a deaf ear to nature except to exert human power and engage in unlimited extraction of resources. This is the operation of unbounded greed that has created the conditions leading to the climate crisis, decimating environments, extinguishing untold number of species, diminishing biodiversity, melting the glaciers, raising the oceans, and all such devastation. The unforeseen consequences created are what we are beginning to experience: unpredictable catastrophes, exponential changes that will lead to uninhabitable conditions and likely, very likely, the extinction of the human species.

The Pope says the pandemic gives us time to pause, to lower production, to lessen greed and to find ways to return to being part of nature. Good words. Falling on deaf ears.

The powers that be call for a rapid return to “normal.” This normal is precisely the problem that has so damaged our own nest that humanity’s collective suicide is all but assured. All for the short-term benefit of the few and long-term disaster for the many.

The Corona Virus Crisis is at present saturating attention as the collective event takes over in ever greater degree the center and periphery of most everyone’s attention. This is a natural process and the more so if the “event” is threatening. You probably feel the preoccupation verging on obsession. This too is natural. It is obvious that this crisis is foregrounded forcing other crises into the background—even those that are more threatening.

While the Corona Virus crisis is front and center in most everyone’s conscious experience, the crises we refer to as “climate change,” continue and deepen and become more severe and more threatening. But at present the climate change crises receive scant collective attention.

In addition to the Corona Virus crisis itself, there is of course the “fall out” from the crisis in the form of economic losses, extreme unemployment and collapse in many markets. Governments everywhere are taking unprecedented measures to shore up economies, to rescue collapsing markets, and in doing so generating degrees of debt beyond comprehension. The magnitude of this debt is such that it cannot be repaid and will be causing its own crises further down the road.

Trump councils forgetting about the horror of the invisible enemy even before we discern the full impact of the virus. This head-in-the-sand, feel good idea is wrong headed and dangerous.

What I am seeing in dreams is that the virus is a call to attention, to deep observation and reflection on what we humans have done to ourselves, and to begin preparing not for the next big boom, but for even greater horror.

"Civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets."

Belief overwhelms all, not just belief in God or any other

divinity--divine or human--but everything becomes mere opinion

while mere opinion becomes belief and belief supplants knowing

and unknowing turns its back on knowledge.

No way to test belief, nor any desire to.

Belief marries power and the offspring's smile

sends chills among those who can see what's coming:

the Inquisition reborn, Torquemada lives again!

"Present bias" is thought to be "hard-wired" in the human brain. This was largely developed as an evolutionary necessity. It takes both cognitive and emotional forms. The "future" plays little role in present bias. Thus, present profit outweighs consideration of what longer-term harm may ensue from activities that produce present profit. Present political necessity far outweighs any consideration of the future. "Personal bias" likewise over weights personal gain in relation to gain for the many. The contemporary world has seen these processes escalate to degrees never before witnessed and unless changed, will continue to amass fortune and power only for a very few at the expense of the many. This is the natural outcome of what Bernays understood and projected. The major problem is that little if any of the immense global wealth and political power is being directed toward the catastrophic changes in global environments. Present bias keeps most everyone focused on the here and now, the seeming crucial news of the day, current elections, entertainments, and new gadgets. It is hard to look square into the face of what we have done to ourselves and to other life forms. Not only is denial a problem, but it is also not clear whether, in fact, anything can be done to change what is now in progress.  Again, only an enantiodromia of major degree will change the course of how we relate to this process.  

A must listen...

The response to the first phase of any collapse (whether in markets or anything else) is always an attempt to do whatever it takes to return to "normalcy." For the powers that be in capitalism's corporatocracy, this is essential. Hence, we see the drums being beaten by the Secretary of the treasury: Mnuchin predicted the economy will roar back with a"gigantic" fourth quarter, saying "we are going to kill this virus" and return to a "normal world." All these efforts (bailing out businesses, checks to consumers, Fed's expansion of multiple credit facilities and pouring trillions into the markets) are likely to fail. The markets will indeed rise on these "hopes," but hopes are for the headlines, not for the factors that drive the markets. All these efforts are counter to the"corrective spirit “of genuinely free markets. The markets are not free under the conditions we see at present. Genuine corrective factors are not allowed to work. If they were, such as was the case in the Great Depression, then would follow, not a return to "normal,” but to a deeply different way of doing things. Hence the many new programs of the "New Deal" introduced by President Roosevelt. Only a few of his proposed programs were enacted and survived legal challenges. Social Security was one. The corporatocracy is relentless and never let’s equitable conditions become normal. Hence, the increasing degree of inequality. This hubris invites correction. We will likely be seeing more and more of Nemesis and her retributions for hubris.

Humans have always been good at extinguishing one another whether accidentally or intentionally. The general extent and efficiency of this process has increased over time and the range of objects (other life forms) of this process have increased as well. Now included in this process is the potential extinction of humanity itself, a kind of self-inflicted process of destroying our nest. Our efforts have led to positive feedback loops which are irreversible in ever increasing number. We are destroying our own habitat and the habitat of many non-human life forms at an accelerating pace. The political and financial will in the face of denial is weakening. Aside from slogans, pink-cloud optimism, and passive hope, little is being accomplished in reality to "do" anything about the unrelenting destructive processes humans have set in motion. What is in progress, undergirded and nourished by the greed dynamics of money, can at this point be "changed" only by an enantiadormia of major degree. There is increasing potential for financial, political and cultural collapse. Only something on this level would have the capacity to curb and transform the hubris of the present conditions.

Paco and I would like to suggest that readers of Dreams, Bones & the Future: Queries & Speculations (Vol 2) re-read the last 38 pages of text beginning with Q& S Twenty-Nine "The Triage of Risk in a Risky World" (p. 140). We feel this may provide a much-needed perspective as our everyday lives become impacted by the CVID-19 pandemic, the economic fallout, collective fear and panic, and unseen and unknown consequences that will unfold.

Here is a taste:

"The unknown future will always excite the psyche at its deepest levels. One of the ways of attending to the deep psyche’s process is to take up a deep recognition of the values of dreams. I have argued elsewhere that dreams are always about the future. It follows then, that when dreams are ignored, we are ignoring one of our richest resources in relating to the future—whatever the nature of that future will be. Like so many realities that get ignored that will bring us greater harm, we must realize, at some point, that ignoring our dreams may be the costliest mistake of all." (p. 147)

Now more than ever...with Grandpa Eliott, Clarence Bekker, and the original Playing for Change performers...still my favorite version that launched a movement.

Here is the link:

Pass it on....

In the Red Book group on Face book, Lewis Lafontaine asked an important question: What is the demarcation line where "Modern" ends and "Postmodern" begins?

Here is my response.

Thanks for your question Lewis. Large cultural movements rarely can be pinned to singular time points. Such movements manifest in many different cultural dimensions and the time lines for each of these can be widely different. As a general rule, a new “wave”of cultural dynamics (what Jung called dominants) will appear first in the arts, later in science, and later still in politics. The critical origins of cultural dynamics become clearer as time passes. For this reason, the “birth” of modernism is now pinpointed to July 17, 1789, when French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille. The “dream”of modernism was the supremacy of the rational in producing ever greater progress of human good in all departments of human activity. Modernism suffered a major blow with World War I. By then “irrational” art had been evident for some time, the “irrational” had hit Jung (The Red Book), and things in general had begun moving to extremity, such as later seen in the holocaust, World War II, and the atomic bomb.The combination of “progress” and “death” had reached an apotheosis. For this reason, the death throws of modernism are now seen as taking root with the atomic bomb, and the birth of wide ranging post-modernism began. The spirit of post modernism is various forms that de-legitimize standards of any kind, including truth, values, and ethics. We are now seeing the ruinous effects of post-modernism everywhere as we head into very dark times for humanity. We are now seeing calls for “something else.” What this is likely to be is unclear. This, I believe, is what Jung referred to as “the coming guest” And that it would be art and artists that would serve as the mouthpiece for welcoming this portentous spirit.