Will social distancing policies meant to bring folks back together actually provoke social disruption?

Photo by Austin Guevara from Pexels

Article: COVID-19 recovery plan for N.B. begins with 2-household 'bubbles' but mass gatherings may wait a year

"New Brunswick's four-phase COVID-19 recovery plan begins immediately with the loosening of physical distancing restrictions to allow two-household gatherings, Premier Blaine Higgs announced Friday. 

People can choose one other household to partner with to form a "two-family bubble."

Their choice must be mutual and once they decide, they cannot choose a different household, Higgs told reporters during the daily briefing in Fredericton."

Ok, first off, this is NOT HAPPENING IN ONTARIO YET. So this post is purely theoretical for Ontarians - although of course we could end up doing this.

As a person with insecurity and social anxiety, I feel a cringe factor in this. I think there might be some legitimate mental health implications in asking people to choose one other social unit (I really don't like the use of the term "family"in this title - 50 per cent of Canadians live alone so please, stop with the nuclear-family language, it's invisibilizing and not even statistically the most accurate way of expressing the demographics).

We could be facing a situation where over the course of weeks, you would get a pretty clear sense of where you were situated within circles of intimacy. Now, I know that sounds petty - that love isn't a sugar bowl, as my mom used to say, there's love for everyone - but the fact is, most humans are painfully aware of being lower down on the priority levels. This is a stock feature of adult psychological development for folks who are child-free or single and watch their crew pair up and have children. It's something we all need to deal with and we all find ways to cope, but there are parts of our psyches that live in grade-seven-standing-waiting-to-get-picked-for-teams rejection mode permanently, and feel the pain of the downshift in time and intimacy with friends.

It's not just single folks who experience this. Communities of families all have complex relationships in which families they are closer to. Not to mention within family, where there are sometimes multiple sets of in-laws, children, cousins, partners, friends of family who are basically family, etc, and who is closer to who is an open or undiscussed, but real, question.

Every adult needs to come to terms with "distributed intimacy", that is, the ability to feel accepted and loved across a wider range of relationships that are flexible; getting emotional needs met in a variety of places when either you don't have a core team or your core team can't provide everything for you. And healthy adults do this, and even healthy adults still have the child inside who feels the pain of not being everyone's "number one." Adults struggling with mental health issues have potentially even more of that.

The open secret for adults is that we are all still to some degree managing questions of "Where do I belong?" and "Who loves me?" and when we are busy and working and volunteering or going out with multiple folks or doing clubs and activities, etc., we can keep that little voice of fear comforted and distracted.

These are not normal times like that. Not only are we not in those normal grooves, some people are have been managing intense social isolation for many weeks now, creating more vulnerability to face a situation where imagined or real social relationships hierarchies and priorities may come right to the very visible forefront.

On a logical level, the "expand your bubble concept" is really solid idea and if folks can find ways to work through it, I think it could be effective. On an emotional level, I notice wondering about the following negative effects:

- single folks in isolation not finding another unit because they simply aren't at the top of anyone's list. Or, feeling they have to "beg" (asking can feel this way when you're alone and living with social anxiety or trauma) to join another group or person and then always be aware of that feeling after.

- families that get into conflict and grudges that could last for years over which in-laws to choose, especially if grandchildren are involved. Custody questions.

- friend groups that are asked to splinter along the unspoken but sensitive lines of who is actually closer to who in the group, and awareness of those choices lasting for years after in also unspoken emotional distances, or, outright conflict/relationship ending.

- less-resourced folks being overlooked in preference of folks with more resources - that might include mentally struggling folks or folks with less physical resources

- systemic racism and sexism and homophobia making their way into this as they always do

As I said, I see the logic in this concept, but it's still very much based on our deeply entrenched nuclear family structure. It doesn't take a nuanced understanding of how much more than just nuclear families Canadians are, and how much pain and insecurity lives under the surface of that ideal, both within and outside the actual family unit.

It's very much based on the survival concept of "find the best person and attach to them" which is a very basic human tendency coming out in survival times (and it's possible to see the public school system as a social basic survival system, hence the "grade seven insecurity" feeling of this, with social survival of the fittest, but that's another essay!)

The pandemic is a time of basic survival and many folks have faced much worse questions and deprivations of survival needs in this as governments make laws and rules based on basic survival of the group, rather than individual needs and wants. If we take on this new policy, it will be a continuation of rules that extend from reasonable hardships to threats to our basic civil liberties, and we're all trying to muddle our way through that. While feelings of social rejection aren't the worst thing that can happen to most people (although for some, social rejection, real or perceived, can lead to serious mental health risks) their impact is very real and can last long past, in some cases, economic challenges.

Here are some ideas to consider if this policy comes into effect for us in Ontario (or for those for whom it is already policy):

•  Use the the learning and awareness you've built up over the past weeks and think carefully about the people around you and help them get into a bubble.

• If you can't bubble with someone, take the time to explain why and reinforce that you still love them.

• Have real conversations about how this situation is structurally set up to potentially provoke social rejection feelings for everyone; no one is alone in feeling socially rejected or insecure.

• Check your privilege when talking about it online, ie, be thoughtful about posts and photos describing your new-found social groupings and gatherings so they don't inspire pain in others (it's ok to post about your life, just be considerate how it might land for a person not having access)

• If you're a two-unit group that has a smaller number of people, consider inviting a third into it. For example, two single parents with two children between them could easily add a third single person and still be a smaller unit that two nuclear families with multiple children. I'm not sure what government policy is on this but reason suggests that it's not any worse for social distancing (I could be wrong on this, though)

• If you've a group of friends in an odd number, split into twos but with one three (same as above)

• If you're not sure who you could bubble with, reach out in on social to ask if anyone wants to bubble with you - you may have a friend who is in the same situation and not feeling able to speak up

I honestly wish I had more advice, especially for families dealing with in-laws/grandchildren access needs, and so many other relational situations, but frankly I don't have enough experience with that to comment. If you do, please share your ideas! 

In the end, we're going to get through this, worse for wear economically, physically, emotionally and relationally. I don't see that is as a time for great healing or whatever. It could be that for some, but for many it's survival and just try to come out the other end in a basically functioning way. We may take some major relationship bumps, but if we're lucky, it will open up questions about need, insecurity, love, support, inclusion, honesty and resilience. 

Remember that #WeAreAllLearners and just keep having real conversations with folks and being real with yourself. We're all learning in this together.

A satirical article about Jordan Peterson's recovery from drugs inspires some thoughts on the nature of power

https://thebeaverton.com/2020/02/postmedia-columnists-take-a-break-from-dehumanizing-drug-users-to-humanize-jordan-petersons-drug-problem/?fbclid=IwAR3XE2rbHW0kc0LmCc5951_lg2yRQmAQ_REhvucISgynj2FEqNolszRRslA

I have been reflecting lately a lot on power.

The way in which an action is perceived differently depending on how much power the person has. The very same action can elicit compassion or punishment! Even the legal system is implicated as is sadly obvious from the outcomes of sentencing of black and white folks.

In our culture, money is mainly the way we have power, but power can also be celebrity, as in Peterson's case, or doubly so if the celebrity is aligned with the powerful.

What can we do about this, really? Personally I believe there are two major ways to have power. One, your own personal dignity and two, collective action.

Power isn't even really about beliefs or ideologies. It doesn't matter about left or right, Christian or atheist, etc etc, all the binaries and gray areas between them we can think of. Power is very contextual and very historical, and it compounds through time, resources, incidences and connections.
You can slowly change people's relationship to power in themselves from 'power over' to 'power with' through personal development work and healing. It's a long road but it's worth it.

In the short term, collective action grounded in personal dignity is the only means to stand up to self-interested power.

If you stay grounded in personal dignity, you create a system where you're enacting power that is non-corrupt because dignity welcomes people, including self, to be well, rather than tries to control people for exploitation.

So stay grounded in your own personal dignity power and reach out to others doing same and take the kind of power that changes everyone for the better; power grounded in respect for individual rights with collaboration.

It's a slow process but every moment makes a difference.

Step out of fairness culture: You can be happy that Jess Allen didn't get fired even if you wish Cherry hadn't

You were offended that Cherry got fired for speaking freely.

Then you were offended that Jess Allen didn't.

When you have that reaction, you are using a "fairness and punishment is more important than a value" framework.

If you, who were offended by Cherry's firing, were acting in a values-based manner, you would support Allen's not being fired. If you were truly valuing free speech, you  would say, well, at least some people aren't being fired - let's have more of that. Keep Allen and bring Cherry back.

However, by focusing on firing Allen out of the need for fairness, you are acting against your own original argument in favour of free speech.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think this is because you are inconsistent. I think it is because the human mind is easily prompted towards fairness/consistency over getting what is actually wanted. It's a natural response.

And that urge comes from the fear of having power taken away.

 By saying Allen should be fired when you didn't want Cherry fired, what I'm hearing is "I am afraid that the things I believe will no longer be allowed to be said. If you are going to tell me that I can't hear my own values spoken, then you should also not speak your own values." And on the surface, that sounds like a really cogent argument.

But underneath, it reminds me of myself, when I was a child, when I would rather see everyone punished, including myself, than see one child "get away with it." Once we're in that mode, we're now operating in a system where no one gets what they want.

I know it is scary to feel that if you don't push for "fairness", then you'll get stomped on. But if you push for it, against your own interests, we're all going to lose.

One of the hardest, most adult things to do is step out of fairness culture and into solution culture.

If you feel tempted to respond to this with - "but THOSE OTHER PEOPLE ON THE OTHER SIDE should do this too! They aren't doing it so why should I?" I invite you, again, to step out of fairness culture into solution culture.

What do you want? How will you work for it?

My moment of Buttigieg fangirling leads to Trump voting insight

Last year there was a period of time I was very into Pete Buttigieg. My Google news algorithm still thinks so, since it's still sending me a lot of Buttigeig content, and I still very often click on that content. I've learned a few things since Buttigieg started campaigning that make me more ambivalent towards him - he's rather conservative in some ways, has a less than awesome relationship with the Black community, and clearly Warren is a candidate more aligned with my values.

Those early days of Buttigieg fan-girling - his youth. His open queerness. His seeming progressiveness. Yet he's white, male and comes from "the people." He's downhome. Maybe he will end the polarization by being a gay mid-Westerner.

Pete Buttigieg is going to save the world!

Mm, probably not. I'm not even going to provide links here - if you type "Pete Buttigeig is not actually that progressive" into Google, you can find out for yourself, if you don't already know. This article isn't about my disappointment with Buttigieg, though. Not by a long shot. Unfortunately, it's about the fact that -

I still really like Buttigieg and this morning I found myself thinking, "I'd like to see him elected, even if he does bad stuff. I don't care, I'm curious! He's so charming. I like him so much, I just want to see more of him! Buttieg 2020!"

And, with that passing thought while scrolling my phone on an early Saturday morning, I have developed previously un-accessed insight into Trump voters.

I thought, in classic left-wing hubris, that I was immune to voting by ethos, not logos. I am different, I thought to myself, than those American idiots. I have better values AND I know how to vote with a clear mind, rather than the heart of fan.

Apparently not 100%. Although I pretty quickly shook my head and said, uh, no, Warren please, I am reminded that you can even dislike a leader's platform and still just feel compelled by them - just want to keep experiencing them, feel curious about what they will do, just want to be around them, want them to pay attention to you and love you and be in charge.

Like dating someone who is clearly not great for you, but being so charmed and attracted that you don't care.

What a deluded state of mind that is, but very human, with many examples in history and literature. It caused me to realize that not all Trump voters are stupid racists - most of them probably aren't - but that there is an aspect of charm and curiousity and being tired of the status quo that makes people excited for personality, especially if that personality comes with the promise of change and novelty.

Obviously you need to have SOME values alignment. I love that Buttigieg is young, gay and rural. I love the idea of how that might depolarize things a bit and I like some of his policies. Not enough to want him, really, to be President, but enough to think, huh, if he was, that'd be interesting.

And if I was facing a vote situation where the only other candidate was someone I'd been taught to, or authentically, had no alignment with, and I felt that Buttigieg was the only candidate who even approached aligning with my values, then I'd likely vote for Buttigieg with enthusiasm and when called an idiot for doing so, just liked Buttigieg all the more (because at least he and his supporters weren't calling me an idiot). And shut my eyes to anything wrong he did, because it was too late and anyways, it didn't effect me that much and it was depressing and it was more fun to just pay attention to the great and powerful object of my affection.*

Again. Like dating the high school hero and overlooking that they were a bully, because at least you felt powerful and oh, they are so cute and fun when they like you.

Voting from ethos is stupid*. I feel very confident saying that. It's a dumb idea. Don't do it, and don't date people who are charming bullies that don't have your best interests at heart.

But don't judge other people for doing it like you're immune to it. At least I won't be.

PS: I'm not really surprised this happened. What I liked about Buttigieg WAS his ethos - that folks would overlook his progressive values and vote for his midWestern charm and then we'd have some real social progressive stuff happen in the US. Presto: depolarization! Turns out that he was not quite so progressive but the ethos is still working a bit on me, in the other direction, pulling me towards the right. Lol.

PPS: I can't vote in the US anyways. Sometimes we forget that in Canada.


*I'm not saying that I think Buttigieg and Trump are alike in values or even capacity. But they both have a strong ethos, attractive to the type who will be attracted to them.

Is our culture capable of changing the date of a major holiday?

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/halloween-petition-date-october-trick-or-treat-costumes-a9022551.html

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/growing-push-to-move-halloween-over-forecasted-rain-1.4662466


Our culture has a growing sense of flexibility. I think something like this would not have even occurred in my youth. Like the thought to even be able to do it wouldn't have occurred.

One could see it as a culture where everything is altered to be more convenient, a sort of snowplow parenting, a putting of convenience over tradition and dealing with adversity.

Or one could say we're letting go of the old limits on our thinking, going what makes sense instead of what we've always done, loosening up our minds to fully live our best lives.

I wonder how it affects social cohesion and inclusion. When decisions get made emergently and creatively, unless you have a rock solid communication system and the population is very socially and idealistically cohesive, or has some sort of meta-decision-making scheme that puts everyone on the same page, you're going to end up having two Halloweens.

I see this working best in a very small town!

Emergent decision making works best in populations that are very cohesive and in clear communication. Outside of that, it can be chaotic. We have all have the experience where a plan is in place and one person asks about a change at the last minute and everything goes a little sideways.

If populations are resilient to complexity, both emotionally and logistically, not minding if things happen twice, don't happen, get delayed or people get left out, then emergent thinking is very workable. Populations like this must have a bigger picture goal beyond the immediate logistical results. They must also have a strong capacity to hold their own experience without blame and be willing to learn and respond constantly from a place of curiousity and fear management. I have seen this happen in subcultures and it can be very energizing and rich.

Our current culture does not have this capacity. We are half way to emergent decision making, in that our minds have opened up to question social forms and traditions that don't always serve us. How liberating this is!

We however still lack of the other side of it, the emotional capacity to live in this more fluid world without fear. In some ways we have more to fear, since instead of one authority figure to be afraid of, we have a billion authority figures, in the form of the people all around us, each with our own desire and beliefs, telling us who we should be and what we you do, even (and perhaps ironically) within this culture of freedom.

I mean, this completely makes sense. We've only known the authority model, so we still use it, in both aggressive and passive aggressive ways. Even while we try desperately to be accepting of diversity, our habits of judgment and control are strong. We're like children raised by unreasonably judgmental, fixed mindset parents who have to figure out how to grow ourselves up on a different model.
What does it look like to have a mind willing to be truly emergent and flexible?

Maybe this year, two Halloweens?

Is that a scary thought to you, or a cool one? Our culture is changing and we don't really know who we are becoming. Some people feel really good about these changes; other people are scared. I'm somewhere in the middle, like most of us, I guess.

But pretty sure the bitching about snowplow parents or inflexible thinkers on the internet ISN'T the solution. I'm going to sit back and just see what happens, trying to be curious but probably also being fairly judgmental towards everyone, mainly by habit. And since it is Halloween (officially, although apparently some towns in the US celebrated it LAST night) I'll be wearing my Star Trek uniform and looking forward to social utopia.

Dealing with billionaires: Choose to not participate in a power-seeker's control drama (personally and politically)

When a person is a billionaire, where actually is their money? I mean because it's obviously not just piles of gold in a vault, but moving around a system. I think it would be more accurate to speak of a "system of wealth" than point to any one billionaire, right? A system of billionaires are working alongside millionaires, high earners right down to minimum wagers. It's just that the billionaire has more leverage in the system.

So the metaphor isn't exactly hoarding so much controlling. It's not about keeping money out of the system by hoarding it, but controlling the system in your own interests by excessive leverage.

Taxing the wealthy is a way of hacking that system.

Unfortunately, the value of being a billionaire is that you have so much power (collectively with others like you) that you might be stronger than the government, and that's why it's harder to tax the wealthy.

Asking a person to give up a level of control they are used to is somewhat of a losing strategy. Forcing them is better, though it does then become a sort of war (in this case, class war) in which the powerful help each other find ways to hide their money or shift the system back.

That's why it's hard to make progress in economic justice.

I've always thought the only tool the working classes have is resistance and non-participation.

Workers: strike. Consumers: boycott.

What powerful people know, deep down, and what makes them insecure (and thus, addicted to power) is that ultimately, they rely on the people they have power over. I know that strikes and boycotts are not always possible, but whenever they can be used, they should be. People who seek "power over" others are always vulnerable, but people who discover the energy of "power with" can be successful in ways that are both psychologically and economically stable.

There are just so many, many ways you can choose to not participate in a power-seeker's control drama. This applies in your personal and political life. Especially if you have privilege.

Comment: Don't protect the aggressor

Conservative MP: rainbow pride flags at schools ‘diminish the dignity’ of the Maple Leaf flag

https://pressprogress.ca/conservative_mp_rainbow_pride_flags_at_schools_diminish_the_dignity_of_the_maple_leaf_flag/?fbclid=IwAR3NdIdGvbxtpNl2jjpYXO5lEKyYs-MgNTE8dCBxsVtpqhPN73ARbqvLvtU

I have no source for this, but I read in an article last year about the logic of the Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust. Official SS party line was that since Jewish people were being aggressed on by the German people in their daily lives, for their own protection, Jewish communities should be kept in a separated ghetto. Of course, these ghettos were anything but healthy, protective spaces. They were prisons.

And of course, any reasonable person could see that the Nazis were looking for ways to limit the freedom of the Jewish people; they didn't care at all about their safety.

When Albrecht suggests that the Pride flag creates division and should be removed, he's using that same bully, gaslighting logic. I'd like to say any sane person could see through it.

What would a reasonable person do if someone is being attacked - and in fact, what does our justice system do (at its best)? We remove the attacker from civic society to (ideally) rehabilitate them or, if that isn't possible, keep them away from the vulnerable.

Imagine a world where every person who was attacked, robbed, raped or harassed was put in jail "for their own protection" while murders, rapists, and thieves ran free? What a horrible society that would be. And in fact, that is what Germany and Europe became during the Holocaust.

I know this is a very different incident level situation. But the logic is the same. Because queer kids get beat up on, Albrecht thinks that we should hide all signs of them so more division isn't created! If we just stop talking about those homosexuals and stop giving them space to be, they'll be safe from those otherwise decent people who just can't seem to stop beating them up.

Know what happens when you do that? You get a culture of bigots. And that's what Albrecht's attitude creates - a place where no one is safe because the criminals are running the show.

I don't believe than any human can't come back from bigotry and ignorance. We're all fairly easily influenced by our communities. We need to keep flying that flag, and everything it stands for, keeping talking, share, being, to make this a just and content society. We need to protect the victims, not the aggressors.

We won't let the bullies pervert the basis of social ethics; they can't gaslight us. We see how irrational they are and we keep pushing forward with our clear thinking and true civic spirit.