After recently re-reading Part One of Martin Buber’s I and Thou (one of the greatest books ever written), and observing interactions with progressive-minded Americans, Canadians, and Europeans here in Guanajauto (I’m unable to communicate much with Mexicans so I can’t comment on this aspect of their culture), I’m struck even more strongly with the superficiality of most communication in the industrialized world.

Objectification is so endemic it’s not even a word in most people’s vocabulary. The women’s movement highlighted certain problems with sexual objectification. The early Marx discussed alienation. Michael Lerner and others on the margins talk about how we use each other as objects.

But in terms of how progressive-minded people relate to one another, all that theorizing has made little practical difference.

I thought that maybe it was me, my friends, or something about the scene in San Francisco. I thought that maybe people who know me relate to me in certain ways because they know me and know what kind of person I am.

But no, I notice the same patterns here, among progressive-minded strangers who don’t know me, even when I’m like a fly on the wall merely observing. In more than one month here, I’ve had one or two really good encounters.

Most conversations fall into one of three categories: story telling, gossip, or intellectual discourse (like most political discussions).

What these conversations usually have in common is that the speaker uses the audience to be heard. Being heard validates one’s existence. People reassure one another that they are important (and in some cases overcome loneliness) simply by politely listening. So conversations become a series of monologues, often with a competitive undercurrent.

What’s missing is depth, authenticity, and mutuality. These conversations lack:
real engagement,
genuine concern,
curiosity in the other,
wanting to learn from the other,
deep listening,
probing below the surface to understand a little more deeply,
asking questions,
paying attention,
being present,
speaking from the heart spontaneously,
sharing feelings,
responding to what the other says rather than just saying what was on your own mind to start with,
not worrying about wanting to be top dog by winning a debate point, getting the most laughs, or giving the wisest advice.

Relating authentically is not difficult. Children do it naturally. But as adults we learn other habits.

I’m not sure why, but it’s not simply a matter of people being too busy. If one cares, one can be fully present and responsive, regardless of the duration of the interaction.

I suspect that a major factor is fear. To paraphrase Dylan, most people don’t ask nothing about nothing because they’re afraid they might hear some truth that will upset them. People get stuck in comfortable ruts, avoid questioning their habits, and avoid deep emotional experiences, aided and abetted by tranquillizers, booze, and television. But like in a David Lynch movie, the fear lies underneath, fed by a mass media that profits from stoking fear.

Another factor is despair. People lack confidence that they can still grow, change, and become healthier or more mature.

But I suspect that the main factor is ego-centeredness, ambition, and being hung up in the analytical mind – with all three factors being inter-related.

America is afflicted with a serious double-bind, or Catch-22, that drives Americans crazy. On the one hand, we are told, “You can be anything that you want to be.” You can have the world and have it now. Heaven on earth is achievable. On the other hand, below the level of consciousness, reality insists otherwise.

Consciously, however, we chase the dragon, looking for the ultimate [fill in the blank] (when the ultimate is right under our feet). We become preoccupied with our careers, our projects, our efforts to prove ourselves (to others and to ourselves).

Other ego-centeredness, however, is simply derived from selfishness, which is another double-bind, for the harder you try to find happiness, the quicker it slips away.

But the primary barrier to authentic encounters is the “rationalization” that emerged with the Industrial Revolution. We’ve developed our analytical skills to the point that the analytical mind has taken over our inner experience. So in pre-industrial cultures, or in countries that haven’t been thoroughly industrialized like Mexico, one sees a much different style of relating that is more open, warm, responsive, and radiant.

This consequence of industrialization points to a weakness in European social democracies. Their social support systems are much more advanced than in America, but they lack soul.

This death of the spirit in the West highlights the importance of art, both in our schools and throughout society. Art can inspire when words fail.

Regardless of how or why it happens, however, the Western epidemic of ego-centeredness undermines dialogue. Egocentric people are too full of themselves to allow others to enter their soul.

Being in Mexico has helped to clarify these matters. Being in Mexico is like backpacking: it illuminates what is important. I’ve learned for example that I can easily do without hot water in the kitchen sink, but being without any water for three days is a pain in the ass.

One thing I don’t miss is television. Television is probably the single most debilitating aspect of modern civilization. It would be interesting to see what studies have been done on the negative physiological impact of television since Jerry Mander wrote Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. But several points strike me. In addition to the narcoleptic effects, television seems to activate the analytical mind and deactivate more primordial, deeper, more emotional experiences. Unlike the cinema, which expands consciousness, television constricts awareness. By definition, television isolates facts and removes them from their context. But my main problem is with television news, which exploits and inflames fear and conflict, rather than inspire hope, imagination, and unity.

So to all of you back in the civilized world, my main word of unsolicited advice is to unplug your television and leave it unplugged for one month and listen to music (music heals), read a novel, or surf the Web every time you get the urge to turn on the TV. The Web has its limitations, but at least with the Web, one can engage in spontaneous free association, one is active rather than passive, and one can learn more in three minutes scanning the headlines on Google News than by watching PBS for an hour.

Then after one month, see if you feel differently. I bet you will.

…I want community. I want a lover. I want to participate in a real revolution. I want to experience more authentic encounters with others.

In the meantime, I’m available, actively waiting, doing some online activism, and doing what I can to plant seeds and engage people in a healing way as best as I can, constantly reminding myself, quite apart from the manufactured crises hyped on television, that more than 40,000 people die every day due to American political and economic policies.

They say there’s trouble in Iraq. They say that global warming is a threat. Well, I say that Manhattan and London under water pale in comparison to 40,000 needless deaths every day.

What can we do about that? We must try to do something.

As Stevie Wonder said:

You have to have a place of love just for humanity and that has to stay consistently throughout whatever you do…. The key for us as people of this humankind and obviously of this country is that we must begin to place every single person equal. When every man or woman, boy or girl, matters to you as much as your mother, father, or your son and daughter matters, no matter what color or ethnicity that you are, that we all matter to each other that much, that is when we will really find the true purpose of what commitment is all about. Until then we are just playing with life. When we begin to really feel those things that real and that consistently is when we will ultimately be doing God’s work.