An honest look at where progressive advocacy has failed.

This post was originally published on Substack. Join the conversation HERE!

It feels like the absolute WORST time to be teaching Dialectical Thinking and Mindfulness right now. It feels completely tone deaf. 

We are in the midst of collective poly-crisis and collapse. We are living through late stage capitalism.  There are very clear direct harms that some groups and systems are perpetuating on people, systemic racism, rolling back on women’s rights and rights of marginalized groups. There is a genocide happening right before our eyes, and we’re being told that we are supporters of terrorism if we speak out against it. Fascism is here in the USA, it’s not on the doorstep, it’s fully inside the house. There are internment camps, people are being snatched off the street by masked vigilantes and deported without trial to other countries that aren’t even their country of origin. Church and state are merging, corporate control and government surveillance is escalating. 

We are past polarization, people are living in totally different realities. And we are MAD – for very good reasons.

Nobody wants to learn about mindfulness, emotion regulation, flexible thinking, viewing multiple perspectives, negotiating, reducing conflict etc. when we are already so far past the line. There is a burning building, and I’m teaching fire prevention.

So let me just say this, now is absolutely the time to focus on putting out the fire. AND I think we have to remember that there are also many fronts to this. Some people need to be throwing buckets of water directly onto the fire.  Some people need to run and call for help, to inform people living next door that there is a fire and help is needed.  Some people need to provide care and soothing for those who are actively burned.  Some people need to hold back those wanting to run into the fire, else they will be consumed. Some people need to work on creating a back burn around the building to prevent spreading of the fire. You get my point.

Dialectics teaches us – there are many ways. And this current reality is equally BOTH urgent AND a long haul.

There are a million issues and causes that I wish I could spend my full time advocating for, I can’t even list them all (environmentalism, feminism, social justice issues, mental health awareness etc.). I struggle to find the balance between wanting to inform people about all the different problems that we need to solve, when what I have to offer is a framework that can be applied to more effectively solve any problem.

Collapse is part of the cycle of history (and all of Life and the entire Universe). Grief is a phase we must all face on this planet. Revolution and rising is an eventual response, and rebuilding is inevitable. Dialectical thinking and Mindfulness are the tools that can help us through – that can help us begin to rebuild and form larger coalitions as progressive advocates and change makers.

Is what we’re doing working?

Even with almost 2 decades of study and experience working in Mental Health and Social Justice, I’m scared to advocate sometimes. Scared I’ll get it wrong. Scared the progressive advocates will come for my throat because it wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t fast enough. It wasn’t angry enough. It wasn’t calm enough. It wasn’t informed enough. Or that I forgot to also mention the 10 OTHER issues at the exact same time.

And I can only imagine how it must feel for people who have not made a life’s study of these issues feels, trying to understand and speak up about them. As progressive advocates we have to remember where we are meeting people at. And I have absolutely been a part of the problem sometimes.

Our progressive and special interest groups have become so fractured that we’ve lost a lot of ground as well as potential allies.  And one part of growth and expansion is being able to honestly look at where we have been ineffective. Being able to acknowledge errors, critique ourselves, groups and systems, with a non-judgmental approach is REQUIRED for progress.  This means looking at what is not effective, and being able to hold capacity for the emotions that can be triggered by acknowledging this (guilt, frustration, shame, fear), so that we can then make needed changes.

All of our progressive advocacy groups, even our mental health systems in the United States, have grown up in a society that is polarized into the following:

1. Hyper-Individualism: This means we place full responsibility for… everything… onto single individuals.  As activists we feel more isolated and think we need to do it all.  As activists, we believe other individuals ALSO need to be capable of holding and doing it all.  And when they can’t, we cancel them.

2. Purity Seeking Frameworks: The USA grew up on Puritan religions and it seeps through every aspect of our culture whether or not you grew up in a religious home or not.  Perfectionism, being ‘good’ and ‘right’. As activists we demand this of ourselves, and then we also demand it of others.  And if someone can’t be a perfectly pure activist in every single area, we cancel them.

3. Punishment Oriented Frameworks: This also stems from religious foundations that teach change is best created through punishment. Canceling is exactly this.  We refuse to tolerate someone’s imperfections and become highly punishing of people who don’t immediately comply or understand deeply enough.  We have canceled our way into all these isolated little groups that can no longer collaborate and work together. This isn’t to say there is no need for consequences – there absolutely is – however channeling this energy towards SYSTEMS rather than individual PEOPLE will lead to more coalition building and less fracturing.

There is an endless stream of issues and concerns that justify anger right now. And anger is an emotion that we can channel to create positive changes, however we have to do it effectively if we don’t want to alienate anyone who could potentially be an ally.

I know! I know! Here’s what I often hear: ‘They don’t deserve compassion. They don’t deserve for me to be effective with them. They don’t deserve for me to regulate my anger and respond in effective ways.’

And this is where we get stuck.  No, they probably don’t. And it’s actually not about them DESERVING.  It’s about reaching YOUR goal for positive changes and taking the most STRATEGIC and EFFECTIVE route to get there. 

Life is not ‘fair’ (that’s an unhelpful subjective judgment that will have you walking in circles looking for it). When we can drop looking for what’s ‘fair’ or ‘right’ (oh how I wish the world was my version of right), we can start working with the world AS IT IS in this moment, which is a far more effective place to create change from than simply shaking a magic wand and demanding the world be ‘fair’ and ‘right’.

Our own willfulness to use strategic approaches is often what gets in the way of progress in any area (ask me how I know).  Willingness is the opposite to willfulness.  Willingness is surrendering to what works, however difficult or unpleasant it may be.

Building A House In A Hurricane

Right now, we don’t have the luxury of willfulness. For those of us who are privileged enough to develop at least some of the skillset for self-regulation and impulse control – we must employ them.  We must summon all our self-control and focus – so that we can engage our dialectical thinking, mindfulness and collaborative skills.  We are obligated to do so.

If we want to gain the numbers of support needed to enact change in this world, we have to be willing to do the paradoxical work of grounding, slowing down, accepting, listening, connecting, understanding, and yes, strongly advocating and working towards change- even while we’re in the midst of a storm.    

This requires nervous system regulation, understanding your own triggers and doing your own shadow work so that unconscious programming (like hyper-individualism, puritanistic mindsets, and punishment oriented change work) don’t sabotage the ultimate goal. I’ve done this so many times, we are all human here.

As Audre Lorde, a Black feminist writer and activist wrote, ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.’ We have to subvert the current power structures, not fight against them using the same exact mechanisms.  It will feel like losing control, but resisting oppressive systems simply entrenches them more deeply.

What you resist persists. If we want to create long term, meaningful change – to build a world that is more equitable for all – it will take a new approach.

‘But Katy, isn’t it OK to punch a nazi? Aren’t some people beyond collaboration?’ This is the question of our planet that has been asked by all major philosophers and religions throughout history.  I would never presume to tell anyone that there is one single way to approach problems (that wouldn’t be dialectical).  Each individual has to do their own work to determine what their inner wisdom guides them to in their own unique situation. 

From my many years of work in public service working with some of the most marginalized groups who have experienced generational trauma and systemic oppression – I absolutely understand that there are psychopaths out there simply on a path of destruction without empathy. Dealing with that problem requires a specific approach, and one I’m not addressing here.  

The truth is only 1.2% of people are estimated to be actual psychopaths with legitimate brain differences – that leaves us with a lot of other people who still have semblances of potential for empathy, receptivity and collaboration. We have to nurture those things effectively. And we have to get un-stuck from the binary of ‘good people’ vs. ‘bad people’, another ‘all or nothing’ perfectionistic approach, which only enables our ineffective approaches. Humanity is much more complex than that.

Where I would invite you to consider is the SPECTRUM of intervention, and particularly the people who may be on the edge of receptivity. I’m not talking about trying to reason or collaborate with someone entirely unreceptive. Save your energy.

If we want to build larger coalitions and increase consciousness in humanity, we as change makers have to catalyze ourselves into something new as well. This is a point for evolution of consciousness – for everyone. 

Dialectical Thinking and Mindfulness Practice are both energetic work. They are alchemical.  They are tied to the principles of Ahimsa (non-violence) and learning how to divert and subvert, rather than contradict with brute force. While brute force may at times be needed, it’s easily overused and is what most of us in Western Culture have been socialized in (thanks patriarchy and supremacy culture!).

Dialectics and Mindfulness are entirely different ways of approaching change that we’re rarely taught in the USA.

If you are someone who wants to enact positive changes in the world, my suggestion is to join me in taking your own honest look at where you too may have integrated some of the harmful norms of Western Culture mentioned above. At where you (like me and many others) may have brought hyper-individualism, supremacy mindsets, puritanism and punishment oriented frameworks even into your advocacy with good intention – so that we can stop demanding perfection from our fellow allies and coalition members. To stop demanding that everyone advocate for everything, everywhere, all at once. To stop using punishment oriented frameworks with people on the edges of receptivity. That, is how we fracture and lose momentum.

…So, is poly-crisis the worst time to be teaching these practices? Maybe. Maybe nobody wants to hear about conflict resolution, grounding, mindful presence and flexible thinking while the hurricane rages around us. 

That’s OK. Because I know the practice of catalyzing change, and I know that there are many fronts to the process. I know that these tools are needed to build us shelter in the storm. Because if it’s not this storm, it will be another one. 

Eventually people are ready to build, they get sick of standing in the rain. And eventually we recognize that there is no time like the present. I’m glad you’re here.

These are things I will be unpacking further in the book I’m currently working to pitch to writing agents, so I hope you’ll stick around to follow along. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments below! Remember, there’s room for MANY perspectives. Be well.

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