For several evenings during the past week I have been eavesdropping in rooms on Clubhouse - the new social-audio iPhone app that seems to be intensifying like Twitter on steroids. In general, rooms comprise people with similar traits and beliefs, attracted by topics that appeal to them. They assume they have privileged knowledge and are smarter than those who would argue with them in a different forum. They pretend gauche expertise in issues ranging from vaccines to the working of government and the real truth behind conspiracy theories. And they are certain their advice is needed by everyone not in the room that should be. Oh, and they talk over each other incessantly in the conviction that their own views are most vital for advancing humanity.
Last night in a room themed as 'Preservation of the Human Race' (I kid you not) I could not remain silent. After listening for about 40 minutes in quiet bemusement, it was clear that the people in this room - mostly males plus a few, extremely vocal, black women from the US, were experiencing a level of fear and apprehension in their lives that was already affecting their mental state. I thought they could benefit from a clear calm voice of reason in putting some of their fears to bed.
The stream of assertions against a prevailing 'they' - I would hesitate to call it a 'conversation' - were excessive opinions concerning the pandemic, the efficacy of the mRNA vaccines, whether scientists and Big Pharma were capable of telling the truth given the current social order, and the affront of authoritarian governments in using George Orwell's novel '1984' as an instruction manual. There was also a very brief yet passionate and hilarious riff from a young man in the north of the UK who was informed by David Icke - controversial guru of conspiracy theories - that the aliens controlling vaccine production were conducting an experiment to control human minds that could well signal the end of Homo sapiens.
At that point I raised my hand and was duly invited onto the stage to speak. In the most sedate voice I could muster at that time of night I described what I had heard and requested the group's permission to suggest an alternate 'lens' on reality. A couple of the most agitated women quietly left and an eerie silence fell upon the room. At least I had their attention - if only temporarily.
I went on to intimate that most of their fears, though clearly of considerable concern to them and to their families were, for the most part, unsubstantiated hearsay and in some cases completely wrong. I suggested that opinion pieces by journalists could not be taken with the same degree of seriousness as peer-reviewed articles in The Lancet. This seemed to surprise them. Encouraged by Michael, the moderator, I then proceeded to explain how the mRNA vaccines worked and why they should be less concerned about the contents of the vaccines, and much more worried about some of the heavy-handed, possibly unconstitutional, government responses to the pandemic, and the pharmaceutical money trail, rather than biomedical solutions to a nasty disease. The room remained hushed. A few questions were raised, but nothing that could not be explained. Surprisingly I left the room to an appreciative though likely unconvinced crowd.
It occurred to me that the lack of trust in officialdom, which is itself a contagion, has been eroded still further over the past two years by governments willfully misunderstanding the scientific method (when scientists are still trying to figure out how best to treat this virus and where certainty is in short supply), changing evidence about the origins of the virus, incompetence in dealing with the supply and demand for vaccines, conflicting advice to the public, and spontaneous authoritarian imposts. All of these have added to the public's sense of foreboding that we are being lied to by officials who must therefore have something to hide.
My parting shot was advice on how to interrogate the information coming from the media. How to find source material and cross-reference it. How to connect the dots by looking for 'sensible' clues in all the propaganda while dismissing gossip. Also of course how to formulate serious questions, a lost aptitude if Fox Media is any indication.
Clubhouse is a fractal of the world community - displaying its fear and confusion. What can be done to restore harmony and faith?
For me there are two fundamentally distressing aspects surrounding the turmoil in which we flounder today. These are best exemplified by an overwhelming sense of futility and trauma felt by so many people, along with our apparent inability to make sense of it all. Both were on display in that room on Clubhouse last night.
The first is the lack of any critical thinking for systemic solutions being displayed across society - most explicitly, and frighteningly, by those we elect to lead who, it turns out, are the least of us emotionally and cognitively. In that context we must point to the failure of educational systems, still firmly rooted in the industrial era, that choose state-mandated curricula, the passive acquisition of information, and memory testing through exams (rather than a more creative interaction with current realities) in what often amounts to structured baby-sitting.
The second is the absurdity of separation into competitive nations, classes, religions and political parties, for any reason other than organisational expediency. We are bizarrely divided into opposing camps, contesting the most trivial of details for how to achieve future prosperity, while ignoring the fact that we all roughly aspire to the same goal: a world in which personal respect, the freedom to self-actualize without harming others, and a joyful, rewarding and secure existence, feature prominently.
Ideological divisions have seeped into every crack in society to the extent that most of us have sold out on any obligations we once had to respect and help each other. The absurdity of political polarization, for example, where progressive, left-leaning parties look to create a more equitable future for everyone, while conservative, right-leaning parties fight to preserve the best of the past, is a hangover from old practices and assumptions. Each has their own blind spot - a crisis of imagination pledging them to legacies beyond which they cannot see. The left still mourn for Marx and Keynes who died decades ago, while the right cannot concede the damage being done to our civilization by industrial economism.
The tension is palpable. A more artful system of governance would allow us to hold this tension in abeyance while we came together to work out how to get to the future we all desire. Instead, we resort to a relentless game of blame, pouring scorn on each other as existential issues deepen and the windows for sensible action slam shut.
Our most life-critical systems need redesigning urgently. But these are the same vivisystems the power elites fight to preserve - energy, industry, governance and economics. And in the space between attempts to escape the planet and schemes to escape paying their fare share of taxes, they listen only to the loudest voices in their own utopian echo-chamber.
Global warming is not denting their consciousness. The pandemic has even been to their financial advantage. Quite possibly the only circumstances that might impel humanity to embrace fundamental change is a global catastrophe of major proportions.
Until we can transcend social, economic and political extremes, in order to act in unison as humans first and foremost, acknowledging that our shared problems can only really be solved through radical cooperation, I doubt we will make the 2nd- and 3rd-order changes now being demanded of us by 'mother' nature.