Escapism is Possible. Escape is Not.
How can we cultivate the mental attitudes essential for alerting people to threats to environment while instilling the mental balance and hope required for taking action against our mounting environmental crises? In her new book, The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture, psychologist Mary Pipher insists that it is helplessness, not apathy, that leads to inaction. Most people are stuck in a state of knowing-not/knowing, a form of willful ignorance that prevents the mind-shift that precedes remedial activism. Pipher's approach to the need for coping mechanisms that lead to reform is summarized in the following paraphrased quotes:
THE CRISIS: "Escapism is possible. Escape is not."
THE CONDITION: "We have Paleolithic impulses, Neolithic brains, Medieval Institutions, and 21st century technologies. Our coping skills have not evolved."
THE PROBLEM: "We are in a race between human consciousness and the physics and chemistry of the Earth."
THE CORRECTION: "Despair must be crucible to growth."
THE STRATEGY "Moral imagination is imagining conditions from another species point of view."
Pipher demonstrates “actionable intelligence” by spearheading group actions to prevent shipping tar sands sludge through pipe-lines, a policy of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline across the Nebraska Sandhills. Her strategies included tractor brigades and poetry readings.
I do not know whether she was instrumental in inspiring the following action that was reported today in the Guardian, but it seems to confirm her principles:
Hundreds of activists are going into the heart of Canada’s tar sands this week – not to protest the destruction of the local environment, but to pray for the ‘healing’ of land and the people. Native elders from all over North America will lead people past lakes of tailings wastewater and massive infrastructure of the tar sands industry along the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Organisers say the event, dubbed the Healing Walk, will be a spiritual gathering focused on healing the land, air, water and all living things harmed by the expansion of what is already the world’s largest industrial project. More than 100,000 are active and planning a summer long series of actions in Canada and other countries, he said.There will be no protests or protest signs allowed on the Healing Walk.