Excellent. It always lifts my spirits to see a piece from you in my inbox. I've been opposed to the pandemic response from the start and have always been an outspoken activist, but even now it is incredibly difficult to speak my truth to friends and some family. I say a few gentle things and they look at me with fear in their eyes - I watch their hearts close - caught in the Narrative and holding on tight. I am incorrigible but how to approach people without alienating them when they're so brainwashed?
Jul 25, 2022·edited Jul 25, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
I'm so glad I discovered your writings. When the covid crisis began, the only people speaking against it were diehard Republicans. I have viewed myself as a Progressive for my entire adult life, and I counted on my Progressive friends to speak out against this madness. To my horror, some of the folks who'd been my cohorts during Occupy were amongst the fiercest proponents of Pandemania. I watched them transform into diehard adherents--one by one, like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Radical socialists joined forces with Big Pharma to coerce people into getting the shot. One of my closest friends pulled a stun gun on someone on a Seattle city bus because the individual refused to put on a mask while he sat near her. The fact that the person appeared to be mentally ill did not deter her from threatening him (she, of course, viewed it as protecting herself).
Full disclaimer: I received the first two rounds of the Moderna vaccine. At the time, my husband was dying of cancer, and I did what I felt was necessary to protect him. He had faith in the medical system because he was completely dependent on chemo and other medications to keep him alive. Those "medicines" caused him to develop severe neuropathy and kept him in a state of excruciating pain and nausea for nearly two years. I often wonder if he would've lived longer had he chosen to forgo the medical route. The pharmaceutical corporations make a fortune from the suffering of cancer patients, but for some reason, this isn't considered a crisis.
I never once castigated my unvaccinated friends for their choices. In fact, when the mandates came on strong at the end of last year, I urged them to stick to their principles. I refused to patronize any establishment that required proof of vaccine, due to my deep convictions about the evil wrongheadedness of such rules. I will continue to do so. I have been so outspoken about this matter on social media that many people assume I must be unvaccinated and (gasp!) anti-vaxx. I just smile at their delusions. Such is the power of propaganda, its ability to put folks into easily identifiable boxes.
It's worth pointing out that, like most people (vaxxed and not), I got covid anyway. So did my thrice-vaxxed adult daughter (who is totally bewildered by the vehemence of my opinions--I'm vaccinated, after all!! Why the hell don't I want to just show my vaccine card?!) It felt like a bad cold. I spent some time indoors, writing and doing yoga. I actually look back fondly on the experience. And no, I don't think the vaccine prevented me from getting even sicker (really, how can anyone know?)
Anyway, I'll quit rambling now. Again, I want to emphasize how much I appreciate your voice, Charles, as well as the many sensible voices of other people on your threads. Heartfelt thanks to all of you.
Thank you Charles. I love being incorrigible and am so proud of my sons for being incorrigible in their own ways. Some things I worry about, are people actually creating the next catastrophe/food shortage by stockpiling and predicting it? Are we being realistic or are we just ultra focused on the negative?Will my sons (17 and 21 be able to navigate this world without having the vax? How? We still cannot even travel to certain countries? Foreigners who are not fully vaxxed cannot enter the US. And children in certain US states are denied public and private education if they do not have the required vaccinations. Sometimes it feels like having a target on one’s back that no one can see but that affects everything. Your essays speak to me and encourage me to face my part in creating division. Your readers bring me hope. I must acknowledge that I have an underlying grief for what has happened over the last few years (or maybe I just became more aware) and grave concern for humanity because I see ill health everywhere. I am usually the glass half full type, but there is this sense of hopelessness hiding inside ever since Covid.
Timely piece. Was just listening to a discussion between Desmet and Brett Weinstein on the latter's podcast. Desmet noted that the conditions for mass formation - atomization and loneliness, free-floating anxiety, and so on - were actually strengthened by the coronavirus episode, since the lockdowns and the rest of it hit our social networks like a neutron bomb. Thus, while the pandemania has receded, the ground has been made fertile for an even worse manifestation to come.
With the economy collapsing, and what really looks like a manufactured food crisis on the horizon, it's easy to imagine what that next version could look like. Those events can't be predicted, so it's absolutely essential that a widespread understanding of this sociopsychological mechanism be disseminated as widely as possible in order to at least try to forestall it when the beast slouching towards Davos rears its ugly head again.
Jul 25, 2022·edited Jul 25, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
Dear Charles, I was guilty of this early on but I could not for the life of me describe it near as well: "...partly because of a deep-seated instinct to sense the mood of the mob and escape its hostile notice by signaling the correct virtues and professing the correct opinions." I've always been hyper-vigilant and hate in-person confrontation, so I went along with some things to get along. I'm ashamed of that today but I also know I am stronger now and will not be so easy to manipulate again. Thank you.
Hi Charles, Thank you, as always, for your thoughts and perspectives. My sister recently came up with something I hadn't heard or seen before. She accused me of having a persecution complex when I described the ostracism, some of it severe in the early days, experienced at my home in Marin County, California, over not having the injection. I was speechless, which of course was her intention.
Charles, The criticism you get -- "The real cause of all our problems is a psychopathic Satanic elite controlling everything from behind the scenes" -- totally obscures what's really going on by using the term Satanic. Uh oh, red flag -- Satan is a figure from the Christian Bible dredged up by centuries of believers to freak out whoever it is that feels threatened. It's a moralistic term going hand in hand with heaven and hell, neither of which Christ himself mentioned at all. Why not just cut to the chase and point to the driving force behind high crimes and misdemeanors committed in the name of public health: late-stage predatory corporate capitalism. It's capitalism which gives birth to figures like Bill Gates, who may be a monster but is a capitalist success story! Unless we find a way to abandon capitalism and the patriarchy that enables it, any attempt to defeat the tidal wave of greed and corruption drowning us will not work.
Another encouraging piece, a sense of direction, a sense of (approximately) "true north"--we simply must know where we are, how we got there in order to prevent the same thing from happening again. I just had this conversation with a sympathetic friend, i.e., I must have other conversations with family and friends in my life who have given me such a hard time in failing to understand "consent" and "sovereignty" regarding my body. Seems if I explain what has happened that they can be smart enough to see what it means for it all to be unfolding again, should that be the case. D Stark, not sure how we get out of this mess without examining it. Charles could have launched an outright attack on all who have helped to create the pandemania many of us have been living with for the past few years just because we made different choices than others would allow us to make. This is not attack--it is and has always been (from Charles, from so many pro-consent voices) clear examination so that our eyes may be wide open, our stand strong if/when the time comes. Thanks, Charles!
I noticed that Chelsea Green published Mattias Desmet's book as well as The Coronation. I always read permaculture gardening books from them and I wondered if this was a different direction for them. I pulled up a couple articles with people criticizing the publisher for promoting conspiracies and false information. Anyhow, I bought both books and felt glad to support them and grateful that they are publishing these and speaking out in their own sphere. I feel encouraged to be bold and long to join the incorruptible... but I feel like a toddler just getting my legs strong enough. Baby steps. I am not deeply afraid but I dread the social awkwardness and I always feel so emotional that it is hard to speak calmly and communicate facts.
I have just returned from a singing retreat in Sussex, UK in a group of 15 wonderful women. It was amazing to be together closely with people I had not met before sharing all kinds of nourishing and challenging activities after 2 and half years of constrained and oppressed life. I have a small sense of what a more beautiful world can be like! There were no Covid protocols, no tests and as intimacy and safety grew we held each other, hugged each other, massaged each other and made wonderful sounds together. The active Covid rebels gradually discovered each other and talked in free times about our experiences, thoughts and feelings. We also sang freedom songs round the fire. Those of us who have been swimming against the tide for so long need this kind of healing and inspiration to be incorrigible, stronger and more rebellious and yet keep reaching out with love and hope.
Excellent piece. I like how you’re keeping the door open for the “alt middle” or “alt centre” space. Let’s not build a counter narrative that forecloses the bigger task of healing the centre and returning it to dialogue, discourse, dispute and disobedience. Civil society has taken a blow; let’s heal this sacred space.
so welcomed here. You nail the core issues so clearly around the dynamics of mass formation and the deeper challenges facing us if we are not to decend into this madness again. Keep writing Charles and bless you.
An incorrigible here. I was terminated from my (non-healthcare) job in March because I would not get vaccinated. I am thinking I will be gifting the CEO your book. (And he will probably be open to it.). I never got angry, but stood my ground. It was very interesting. And fortunately I was in a position where it didnt cause me any trouble.
Excellent. It always lifts my spirits to see a piece from you in my inbox. I've been opposed to the pandemic response from the start and have always been an outspoken activist, but even now it is incredibly difficult to speak my truth to friends and some family. I say a few gentle things and they look at me with fear in their eyes - I watch their hearts close - caught in the Narrative and holding on tight. I am incorrigible but how to approach people without alienating them when they're so brainwashed?
I'm so glad I discovered your writings. When the covid crisis began, the only people speaking against it were diehard Republicans. I have viewed myself as a Progressive for my entire adult life, and I counted on my Progressive friends to speak out against this madness. To my horror, some of the folks who'd been my cohorts during Occupy were amongst the fiercest proponents of Pandemania. I watched them transform into diehard adherents--one by one, like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Radical socialists joined forces with Big Pharma to coerce people into getting the shot. One of my closest friends pulled a stun gun on someone on a Seattle city bus because the individual refused to put on a mask while he sat near her. The fact that the person appeared to be mentally ill did not deter her from threatening him (she, of course, viewed it as protecting herself).
Full disclaimer: I received the first two rounds of the Moderna vaccine. At the time, my husband was dying of cancer, and I did what I felt was necessary to protect him. He had faith in the medical system because he was completely dependent on chemo and other medications to keep him alive. Those "medicines" caused him to develop severe neuropathy and kept him in a state of excruciating pain and nausea for nearly two years. I often wonder if he would've lived longer had he chosen to forgo the medical route. The pharmaceutical corporations make a fortune from the suffering of cancer patients, but for some reason, this isn't considered a crisis.
I never once castigated my unvaccinated friends for their choices. In fact, when the mandates came on strong at the end of last year, I urged them to stick to their principles. I refused to patronize any establishment that required proof of vaccine, due to my deep convictions about the evil wrongheadedness of such rules. I will continue to do so. I have been so outspoken about this matter on social media that many people assume I must be unvaccinated and (gasp!) anti-vaxx. I just smile at their delusions. Such is the power of propaganda, its ability to put folks into easily identifiable boxes.
It's worth pointing out that, like most people (vaxxed and not), I got covid anyway. So did my thrice-vaxxed adult daughter (who is totally bewildered by the vehemence of my opinions--I'm vaccinated, after all!! Why the hell don't I want to just show my vaccine card?!) It felt like a bad cold. I spent some time indoors, writing and doing yoga. I actually look back fondly on the experience. And no, I don't think the vaccine prevented me from getting even sicker (really, how can anyone know?)
Anyway, I'll quit rambling now. Again, I want to emphasize how much I appreciate your voice, Charles, as well as the many sensible voices of other people on your threads. Heartfelt thanks to all of you.
Thank you Charles. I love being incorrigible and am so proud of my sons for being incorrigible in their own ways. Some things I worry about, are people actually creating the next catastrophe/food shortage by stockpiling and predicting it? Are we being realistic or are we just ultra focused on the negative?Will my sons (17 and 21 be able to navigate this world without having the vax? How? We still cannot even travel to certain countries? Foreigners who are not fully vaxxed cannot enter the US. And children in certain US states are denied public and private education if they do not have the required vaccinations. Sometimes it feels like having a target on one’s back that no one can see but that affects everything. Your essays speak to me and encourage me to face my part in creating division. Your readers bring me hope. I must acknowledge that I have an underlying grief for what has happened over the last few years (or maybe I just became more aware) and grave concern for humanity because I see ill health everywhere. I am usually the glass half full type, but there is this sense of hopelessness hiding inside ever since Covid.
Excellent, thank you. I feel less alone reading your articles.
One of my favorite quotes. "If you have yet to be called an incorrigible, defiant woman, don't worry, there is still time."--Clarissa Pinkola Estés
There is time for all of us to stand up & clearly, calmy say what should be said about any injustice.
Timely piece. Was just listening to a discussion between Desmet and Brett Weinstein on the latter's podcast. Desmet noted that the conditions for mass formation - atomization and loneliness, free-floating anxiety, and so on - were actually strengthened by the coronavirus episode, since the lockdowns and the rest of it hit our social networks like a neutron bomb. Thus, while the pandemania has receded, the ground has been made fertile for an even worse manifestation to come.
With the economy collapsing, and what really looks like a manufactured food crisis on the horizon, it's easy to imagine what that next version could look like. Those events can't be predicted, so it's absolutely essential that a widespread understanding of this sociopsychological mechanism be disseminated as widely as possible in order to at least try to forestall it when the beast slouching towards Davos rears its ugly head again.
Dear Charles, I was guilty of this early on but I could not for the life of me describe it near as well: "...partly because of a deep-seated instinct to sense the mood of the mob and escape its hostile notice by signaling the correct virtues and professing the correct opinions." I've always been hyper-vigilant and hate in-person confrontation, so I went along with some things to get along. I'm ashamed of that today but I also know I am stronger now and will not be so easy to manipulate again. Thank you.
Hi Charles, Thank you, as always, for your thoughts and perspectives. My sister recently came up with something I hadn't heard or seen before. She accused me of having a persecution complex when I described the ostracism, some of it severe in the early days, experienced at my home in Marin County, California, over not having the injection. I was speechless, which of course was her intention.
I always feel a bit saner and safer while reading your thoughtful words, Charles.
Charles, The criticism you get -- "The real cause of all our problems is a psychopathic Satanic elite controlling everything from behind the scenes" -- totally obscures what's really going on by using the term Satanic. Uh oh, red flag -- Satan is a figure from the Christian Bible dredged up by centuries of believers to freak out whoever it is that feels threatened. It's a moralistic term going hand in hand with heaven and hell, neither of which Christ himself mentioned at all. Why not just cut to the chase and point to the driving force behind high crimes and misdemeanors committed in the name of public health: late-stage predatory corporate capitalism. It's capitalism which gives birth to figures like Bill Gates, who may be a monster but is a capitalist success story! Unless we find a way to abandon capitalism and the patriarchy that enables it, any attempt to defeat the tidal wave of greed and corruption drowning us will not work.
Another encouraging piece, a sense of direction, a sense of (approximately) "true north"--we simply must know where we are, how we got there in order to prevent the same thing from happening again. I just had this conversation with a sympathetic friend, i.e., I must have other conversations with family and friends in my life who have given me such a hard time in failing to understand "consent" and "sovereignty" regarding my body. Seems if I explain what has happened that they can be smart enough to see what it means for it all to be unfolding again, should that be the case. D Stark, not sure how we get out of this mess without examining it. Charles could have launched an outright attack on all who have helped to create the pandemania many of us have been living with for the past few years just because we made different choices than others would allow us to make. This is not attack--it is and has always been (from Charles, from so many pro-consent voices) clear examination so that our eyes may be wide open, our stand strong if/when the time comes. Thanks, Charles!
I noticed that Chelsea Green published Mattias Desmet's book as well as The Coronation. I always read permaculture gardening books from them and I wondered if this was a different direction for them. I pulled up a couple articles with people criticizing the publisher for promoting conspiracies and false information. Anyhow, I bought both books and felt glad to support them and grateful that they are publishing these and speaking out in their own sphere. I feel encouraged to be bold and long to join the incorruptible... but I feel like a toddler just getting my legs strong enough. Baby steps. I am not deeply afraid but I dread the social awkwardness and I always feel so emotional that it is hard to speak calmly and communicate facts.
You bring water to the thirsty.
I have just returned from a singing retreat in Sussex, UK in a group of 15 wonderful women. It was amazing to be together closely with people I had not met before sharing all kinds of nourishing and challenging activities after 2 and half years of constrained and oppressed life. I have a small sense of what a more beautiful world can be like! There were no Covid protocols, no tests and as intimacy and safety grew we held each other, hugged each other, massaged each other and made wonderful sounds together. The active Covid rebels gradually discovered each other and talked in free times about our experiences, thoughts and feelings. We also sang freedom songs round the fire. Those of us who have been swimming against the tide for so long need this kind of healing and inspiration to be incorrigible, stronger and more rebellious and yet keep reaching out with love and hope.
Excellent piece. I like how you’re keeping the door open for the “alt middle” or “alt centre” space. Let’s not build a counter narrative that forecloses the bigger task of healing the centre and returning it to dialogue, discourse, dispute and disobedience. Civil society has taken a blow; let’s heal this sacred space.
so welcomed here. You nail the core issues so clearly around the dynamics of mass formation and the deeper challenges facing us if we are not to decend into this madness again. Keep writing Charles and bless you.
An incorrigible here. I was terminated from my (non-healthcare) job in March because I would not get vaccinated. I am thinking I will be gifting the CEO your book. (And he will probably be open to it.). I never got angry, but stood my ground. It was very interesting. And fortunately I was in a position where it didnt cause me any trouble.