This is a wrap-up to Series 3: reflections on, analysis of, and summary on the origin and progression of the StayAtHomeDay movement. To build a social movement requires courage. One must first insert themselves into an institution. After forming a relational position within an organization or institution, the requirement is to subvert (undermine) authority. This is accomplished by speaking one’s Truth. Within this process the task is to create a social network (other relational bodies) with a single and clear target or objective (e.g., ending mass shootings in schools). Relational joy occurs when one moves in the direction of, and through, their own fear. Series 4 will focus on the Games Fascists Play.
Big Tech steals our attention with the con of convenience, personalization, and persuasive tech design. F*#k that. Big Tech wants us to incorporate, brand, and market the self. The user is compelled to continuously offer status updates of themselves. The imperative of the virtual world is to exhibit and broadcast ourselves for monetization. This creates a paradigm of voluntary self-exploitation that leads to burnout. One wears oneself out via hyperactivity and self-optimization.
In the book The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han describes burnout as a form of voluntary self-exploitation. One wears themselves out by being hyper-active and transparent: Liking and Sharing all aspects of one’s life. We are a brand with constant endorsements of others.
Therefore, Western culture is characterized as joylessness: all work and no play. The culture produces burnout for the individual and then sells them back a remedy for the burnout. The remedy is to consume and acquire for yourself (acquisition)as you broadcast yourself: Click and Buy Now. The Westerner is reduced to their head. They are split from the body or Center. They are joyless as they scroll endlessly desiring more of what “I” want.
The answer to our dis-embodied way of being is to return to the body or the Center. Intuitive knowledge is the means for connection. Instead of hitting the cocaine dropper inside our social media cages, we must build Johann Hari’s rat parks to address the loss of connection. As Phillips (1995) notes, “It is a truism that “what we eat we become.” That observation can be extended to other forms of consummation: “what we stare at, listen closely to, inhale, and consort with sensually, we become.” We can choose not to look or listen. The solution is companionship, spontaneity, and full-bodied joy.
References
Han, B.C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Phillips, R.D. (1995). The recovery of the true self: The human animal in and out of therapy. Medicine Wheel Publications: Chapel Hill, N.C.
Steiner, C. (1974). Scripts people live: Transactional analysis of life scripts. New York: Grove Press.
One definition of “education” is the process of systematic instruction such as at a school. Another definition for education is “an enlightening experience”. Here, enlightening means to have or show a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook. Zen has a unique position on enlightening experience. The unique position of Zen is declared in four statements. The first is that there is something apart from the historical records and beyond words or letters. Current “education” is sequential, progressive and digital (Closed System). Learning is facilitated via computers and Artificial Intelligence: children are relating more words from machines than from their own mothers. Students mindlessly compute and comprehend with virtual assistants as “teachers”.
The second Zen statement is the direct transmission of the One Mind or heart-mind. There is intuitive knowledge (true Void) transmitted from Mind to Mind that is not graspable. This escapes conceptualization. The “knowledge” is prior to dualistic thinking, e.g., Delusion and Enlightenment or Good and Evil. Dualism is not-Zen. Enlightenment is interpersonal affair rather than something “achieved.” A teacher and a student or transmission of Mind to Mind.
The third Zen statement implies a seal or stamp that is imprinted on Mind. This transmission evades description: a wordless inscription. Tying this to education, when I was a 20-year-old undergraduate at University of Wisconsin-Madison, my literature Teaching Assistant (TA) told the students how the TA’s were walking out and going on strike due to the lack of wage parity between them and University of Minnesota. The University of Wisconsin-Madison caved to the TA’s demands. The TA’s act of subversion (passive withdrawal from the system) shattered my world views: at the time it was unknowable to me. Collective organization was not foreign, it was an unknown unknown; something I didn’t know I didn’t know. I was forever changed by the sudden perception that was not based on conceptual thinking. This actionistic form of education is intangible and lacks attribution. There are no tracks, yet a path is clearly laid.
Zen acknowledges Enlightenment as akin to an indelible mark that forever changes the person. A metaphysical tattoo for consciousness. You have it or you don’t, but Mind is still the same (ordinary). Thus, Enlightenment cannot be described with letters and words, and it stands outside of the scriptures. A teacher enlightens students by waking them up to what was previously unknowable.
The nature of “reality” is one’s own conscious awareness, which is no-thing. Self-nature is an Open System: trust, friendliness to Other, compassion, trial and error, steady-state of energy. The Zen Master Huang Po said, “I have NO THING to offer. I have never had anything to offer others. It is because you allow certain people to lead you astray that you are forever SEEKING intuition and SEARCHING for understanding. Isn’t this a case of disciples and teachers all falling into the same insoluble muddle?” We must think for ourselves as an Open System (detached from Ego).
In comparison, the boundaries of one’s Ego is a Closed System: our cultural conditioning, parental scripting, and childhood commitments. What I have been experiencing with the Mankato school district and the School Board members as well as administrators is a Closed System characterized by secrets, mistrust, surveillance, suppression, conformity, and authoritarianism. For example, my kindergartener handed out StayAtHomeDay magnets for April 20th and he (and I) were told, “this can’t happen,” i.e., a policy that bars distribution of materials that are a “disruption”. We pivoted to tear sheets (like those you would see on a community message board) with the website (www.StayAtHomeDay) listed in small print. We were told these could not be handed out in the school as well. This outside energy was not allowed “inside” the Closed System.
The media tells us mass shootings are a 2nd amendment issue: gun rights. But, we need to focus on the 1st amendment and 4th amendment. The responses to school violence are infringing upon freedom of self-expression and collective organization (1st amendment) as well as surveillance and rights around seizure of digital information (4th amendment).
Our children do not need more guns or safe rooms to “protect them”. The militarization of the schools transforms an Open System of enlightening relational processes to a Closed System of efficient functioning and conformity. As the physical structure and the restriction of information (in and out) become prison-like, the school manifests as totalizing supervision (Closed System).
Totalitarianism aims to restrict personal autonomy and discourage critical thinking (i.e., a form of self-hypnosis). We do not want our children to be monitored by Fusion Centers while being educated inside military bunkers. Fusion Centers utilize Intelligence Lead Policing (ILP). This predictive policing reminds me of the film “Minority Report” starring Tom Cruise. The Precrime unit arrests criminals prior to the crime taking place. Fusion-style policing will soon be AI bots scouring the data of our school children with algorithms that perceive everyone as a threat.
We cannot rid society of war making, e.g., mass shootings, imperialism. We must transform the destructive energy into love. How? Parents need to promote assertive forms of peace-making, de-escalating meditation practice, and social groups as well as group therapy to channel emotional energy into healing and compassion. Zen the f*#k out.
You can view and listen to a video of me and my wife speaking at a School Board meeting in the link below.
Link to School Board Meeting video (I begin at about 14 minutes into the meeting):
There was a New York Times article from April 2nd, 2023, titled “It’s Not ‘Deaths of Despair.’ It’s Deaths of Children.” In the richest country in the world—the U.S.—1 out of every 25 Kindergarteners will die before they reach 40 (four times higher than other wealthy nations). The rate increase is largely due to suicide and gun-related-deaths (Covid was minimal). The tough medicine to swallow is that all of us are culpable in the failure to raise and protect the next generation from destruction. Tyler and I do not want our children to get shot.
You can view and listen to the video of me and Tyler Flowers speaking in the link below.
Link to School Board Meeting video (I begin at about 11 minutes into the meeting):
I free associate about StayAtHomeDay, the school’s resistance to it, social movements, raising consciousness, nihilistic nihilism, becoming burnt out with podcasting, and I refer to a recent lecture in Minneapolis (S3, Part 7, Becoming a Real Person) as well as Series 4 ideas (i.e., Games Fascists Play). The climate activist and co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, Roger Hallam, is mentioned as well. Specifically, this speech:
Prior to this recording, I had never been to a school board meeting. I walked in and sat down for a few minutes and listed some bullet points on a notecard in the few minutes prior to speaking. I had thought very little in terms of what I would say. The feeling in my body was shakiness and fear, which was driven by a moralistic and antiquated sense that I was “doing something wrong.” Speaking truth in the face of fear is an aspect of courage. Moving toward pain and suffering builds courage.
The gentleman who spoke prior to me at the school board meeting seemed angry and agitated (I was sitting directly behind him, so I didn’t have a good vista). So, I told the board I wanted to talk about what he was expressing: despair and agitation. Combing these two things leads to violence, which is the relinquishment of responsibility for dealing with a problem (e.g., what mass shooters do). The U.S. school system is not dealing with the problem of school shootings. Society is utilizing a passivity strategy called Overadapting. For example, bullet proof glass, armed security, mass shooter drills, mental health treatment, and threat assessments appear “active-looking.” However, the goal of the mass shooter is terror, so the behavior is an adaptation to the mass shooter’s goal. Thinking rationally with others (community) and confronting this issue with courage is dealing with the problem.
You can view and listen to the video of me speaking in the link below.
The online user is in a symbiotic relationship with the virtual world, which is optimal for dependency and cultural scripting. Big Tech is our Momma who bounces us on her knee and tells us how to live. The user is Mindless (passive) and Joyless (split from the body): a state of simple consciousness (i.e., Infant). This dependency contract (Mother-Infant) and the technological form holds us in place (e.g., in front of a desk or clutching a device). We brand and curate our online persona to make an Empire of the Self. The script is to become the Top Gun in order to “win” in the entrepreneurial game. To make oneself into a perfected trophy that goes “viral”. YouTube’s slogan is “Broadcast Yourself,” which means track, record, upload, share, and incorporate the self for monetization. The mass shooter is the grandiose reflection of this scripting. Their act is neo-fascistic and imperialistic (i.e., a forced symbiosis for domination). For many of the killers, the Columbine massacre is the model that is remodeled: a performance of exhibitionistic revenge (violence/suicide) intended for online virality. The solution is to meet passivity (violence) with consciously passive behavior (withdrawal, contemplation, meditation). A stay-at-home-day where we connect and love one another.
From the MSSA conference material (description and learning objectives):
In the U.S., 51 people die from mass shootings each year. However, over 100 people are killed by guns each day. What do we know about American culture, violence, and mass shooters in the U.S.? How does online self-promotion for Likes and Friends relate to these phenomena? This lecture will present data on mass shootings, analyses of Big Tech, and illustrations of American culture to comprehend the truth of the present situation.
Learning Objective 1: Learn the statistics on mass shooters and their personality structure.
Learning Objective 2: Explore the U.S. cultural scripting related to competition and violence, i.e., passive means to solve problems.
Learning Objective 3: Examine the connective links between Big Tech, fame-seeking, and mass shootings.
For my psychotherapy patients, the structural analysis begins with an abstract example to get them thinking differently about themselves. The Politician is I’m OK, You’re Not OK. I explain this construct to the patient by using President Donald Trump as an example. The former President does not appear to have any relationships that are not based on his own egocentric self-promotion. The media’s pictorial of Trump is that he is a narcissist who borders on sociopathy and psychopathy: a histrionic egomaniac. He projects himself as The Boss. At the extreme, this personality structure acts out sadistically. Therefore, the Politician will prey on sexual objects (bodies) to “get off” or “score” (Bill Clinton?). The ultimate “win” is to dominate the Other sexually, i.e., be a “pussy grabber”. The cure is intimate bodily love, Other-care (as opposed to solely self-care), and a healthy orgasm, e.g., detach from ego rather than reinforce ego, i.e., via objectification of Other. This is what Erich Fromm referred to as the authoritarian character.
For Fromm (1941), the authoritarian character, was one who self-centeredly gravitates toward self-gratification, domination, exploitation, or, overall, to competitively “win” for oneself. The greed of the Politician comes in many forms: wealth, sex, physical attractiveness, status, and power. The form of want is never “enough,” i.e., a sense of lack, which perpetuates craving. As can be seen with people such as Bill Gates or Donald Trump, there is a danger in always getting what one wants. This personality structure of the Politician forces others to be dependent on them in order for them to use and manipulate the other for the sake of, “absolute and unrestricted power over them.” (Fromm, 1941) For the Politician, strength is rooted in the mastery of relationship, so the Other can be ruled. In general, the Politician can only love through domination because love can only be manifested through superiority and control. Love is for those who the Politician feels they have superior power over. (Fromm, 1941)
This social character is the embodiment of competition. The Politician will make counter points to Other’s expressions by saying things such as, “The reality is…,” meaning, “the way I see things is real, and the way you (or they) see things is not real.” This personality structure is trapped in egotistical ways of being, what the sociologist Émile Durkheim (1897) called thedisease of the infinite or egotism. For the Politician, the Adult is contaminated by the Child who wants to acquire for oneself (Adapted Child). There is no conscience which is represented by an excluded Parent.
Americans understand that all Politicians lie and are only in the business of politics for the benefit of themselves. Exclusion is introduced here as the inability to cathect Parent ego state—having a conscience—which would involve nurturing, sentimentality, and empathy for Other (more on exclusion and contamination in the next chapter on meditation practice). For example, despite the illusions of a Barak Obama or Bill Clinton, a conscience is not a characteristic to be found, as they have facilitated the dropping of iron fragmentation bombs on innocent children and facilitated mass incarceration whereby men and women, mostly of color, are caged in worse ways than many animals. American prisons have “restrictive housing” measures, i.e., solitary confinement, unlike anywhere in the world.
Politicians in the U.S. are after the almighty dollar, which is the part of them that craves or wants, i.e., part of the Child ego state. For them, this part is “reality” as opposed to a rare possibility. Therefore, the Adult ego state, which is in accordance with the present reality, is contaminated by the desires of the Child, e.g., to have for oneself. The goal of the Politician is to commandingly protect and dominate within the system perceived as, “reality”. Personal possession, status, and power are the means and end for how to live, meaning there is no other focus outside of their own craving.
The Politician has adapted by analyzing and criticizing others, but not oneself. Michael Jordan in the Netflix documentary series, The Last Dance, represents the quintessential Politician personality structure. From the perspective of ideal marketing, Air Jordan was the apolitical, ahistorical self of Michael Jordan (persona) who constantly presented himself for monetary gain, e.g., Nike and McDonald’s advertisements.
Both professionally and personally, Michael Jordan perpetually needed to “win” at all costs. His methodology was constant, competitive analysis of the Other to dominate them. The brand of Michael Jordan avoided political activity and (arguably) did more in the 1990s to globalize the National Basketball Association (NBA) than anyone or any other entity. However, was Michael Jordan a nice person? Jordan was a decent human being in the McDonald’s or Nike commercials, but not with his teammates. Competition to “win” becomes “reality.”
YouTube’s slogan is, “Broadcast Yourself,” and that is what we do online. We produce and express ourselves as a brand to be procured and optimized for online achievement: Me Inc. We sell this brand to Big Tech (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft) like a contestant on the television show Shark Tank. The show promotes the neoliberal myth of self-determination: only hard workers who push themselves become winners (superiors) and survive (fittest). The recurring storyline is that the Sharks are winners by their own free will (self-made): grit, hustle, determination, triumph over adversity, discipline, etc. Be Perfect and Try Harder. We are scripted to build an Empire of the Self: Be Your “self”, Be Transparent, Never Settle (i.e., never lose your “self”), and Compete (Win)!
Big Tech are the billionaire Sharks, and our online activity is incorporated. But in this digital Shark Tank, we own 0% equity in our digital selves. George Orwell understood that an efficient totalitarian regime drowns the consciousness of the citizens. In the book Nineteen Eighty-Four he notes this as “an act of self-hypnosis.” We are hypnotized by the hype of so-called “artificial intelligence” because the claims are that it is traveling in a direction that will succeed human intelligence, e.g., ChatGPT. As Erik Larson (2021) notes, “The path exists only in our imaginations.” The AI system lacks common sense (intuition) and as these systems are trained for general knowledge (rather than just Jeopardy!), they become more erroneous in their responses. Intelligence includes an inwardness and also goosebumps.
As has been noted, the relationship with the virtual world is symbiotic (psychologically). Now, it is becoming a physical symbiosis. Ferris Jabr quotes Elon Musk in The New York Times Magazine on his ultimate goal for Neuralink. Musk stated that an achievement of “a sort of symbiosis with artificial intelligence” is necessary so that humanity is not obliterated, subjugated or “left behind” by superintelligent machines. “If you can’t beat em, join em,” he once said on Twitter, calling it a “Neuralink mission statement.” Big Tech is after the capture of desire at the neuroplastic level. How do they do this?
Big Tech and the new semiocapitalism in general, play the Game called Happy To Help! Digital platforms, applications, and enthusiastic bots (“How can I help you?”) are always Happy To Help! Apps dutifully remember our tasks, memories, documentation, bank records, calendars, social lives, transactions etc., all while having an ulterior motive. If Big Tech is the user’s parent, it is saying to us, “Don’t think what you think, think what I think.” These monopolies exploit the user’s behavioral surplus data to sell it to third party entities for ad revenue. Yeah surveillance!
The smartphone, smart home, smart vacuum, and smart bed are all collecting data for what Byung Chul-Han (2022) calls the “information regime.” Han notes that this is how “Surveillance creeps into daily life by way of convenience.”Therefore, the real “value” of Big Tech is its ability to surveil the populace as it is in a symbiotic relationship with governments, intelligence agencies, and militaries.
The solution is subversion. Undermine the authority of internal and external cultural conditioning, i.e., artificial system (ego/ideology). Don’t be your “self”, be authentic (Martian). This implies having the naïvest possible frame of mind (talk about FOMO) for observing earthly phenomena, thus “leaving the intellect free for inquiry without the distraction of preconceptions.” (Berne, 1966) We must be clueless, an idiot, in order to “set aside preconceived notions and allow oneself to not know what the hell is going on.” (Lennox, C. Ed., 1997; p. 62). As Martian (Zen) we access intuitive knowledge for an appropriate response.
Martian is direct experience (simple consciousness), while humans have been trained to identify themselves as separate. This sense of separation provides the capacity for reflection, i.e., ego-consciousness. For example, “I am me.” In a nutshell, humans are conditioned through socialization to believe they are separate entities, i.e., the sense of a permanent, autonomous, and constant “I”. The faith is that each one’s fundamental purpose in their bodies over a lifetime is get what they want regardless of how their cravings and acquisitions impact “the world” around them. The delusion of a solid separate self is best cared for through the establishment of an “all about me, and others like me” culture.
The notion of a chronological and separate “you” across time is a convincing fabrication. Humans have the psychic capacity for identification (Parent ego state function): we create an “I” that is independent in order to ground and express ourselves. Analytical psychotherapy and meditation are the means to undermine or overthrow the power and authority of our cultural conditioning (the artificial system or Ego). To be Martian. Subversion is the prerequisite. One must unearth core psychic material that is an echo of parental figures and the adaptations we made within the roles we played and identities we constructed. As one disobeys the identification process (e.g., Parent ego states) through analysis and contemplation one can begin to dismantle internal and external conditioning.
For example, the morals of American culture center on self-determination by any means necessary, i.e., compete for acquisition to “win.” Selfishness is an ideological value and prescription to be happy or mentally “healthy,” so the story goes. Optimize and get more for my “self” to be content. Delusion. If one abandons this pursuit of happiness in favor of non-attachment to desire, then you are letting go of the delusion of separation. This means to alter or detach our perspective from the dominant cultural messages. To be Martian or no-thing. One looks at what they want and the delusions about what it would mean if they received “everything” they wanted. What is the practical approach to this form of renunciation? Simple: meditation practice.
Therefore, everyone as teacher-student, but a conscious, relational symbiosis dissolves the concepts of teacher and student just as zazen is nonduality. The Parent ego state is a hindrance to zazen and as Berne (1972) notes, we need a friendly divorce from the Parent. Suzuki (2003) described direct experience or emptiness as actualized with zazen. This is when there is no conceptual, gaining or knowing idea for the self. All characteristics of the dualistic Parent are emptied, and you are one with activity. Emptiness is the suspension, via zazen, of the dualistically conditioned Parent. This is a personal form of subversion: undermining the existing power and authority that was borrowed from parental figures.
The mass shooter is imperialistic in their demand for the dominance of space-time. They research other mass shootings and targets to create a simulation, e.g., using the Columbine school shooting as a model. The virtual world is the “real” audience for their final [suicidal] act. YouTube says, “Broadcast Yourself” and that is what the mass shooter does: a performance of exhibitionistic violence/suicide intended for online virality.
In the movie Top Gun, Pete Mitchell (played by Tom Cruise) decided he would Never Settle for second place. He would be the Best of the Best. Maverick would always be himself. Meaning his persona, Maverick, who was competitive, arrogant, and manipulative. In the U.S. celebrity culture, self-centeredness and selfishness are virtues. The aerial dogfighting of Top Gun is the perfect metaphor for Social Darwinism: the strong achieve through violence and the weak perish.
The mass shooter is the ultimate Maverick, but they do not follow “kill or be killed”, because in the mass shooter’s case it is killed and be killed. The mass shooter is the loser of neoliberalism. Their bound energy (agitation) is a mobilizing passion to be a winner (for the moment). The mass shooter gains situational power from a gun (Top Gun) to enforce a relationship with Others. Therefore, the mass shooter uses violence to inflict a fascist relationship (forced unity) to relieve their despair. The agitation ends in violence (murder, incapacitation/suicide). The act is imperial in its magnificence (as a spectacle), but now the media is numb to the event.
There are approximately 2 mass shootings (4 or more people shot) per day in the U.S. (despair). We escape into the virtual world where we are exploited by Big Tech (craving by design). We are Mindless (passive) and Joyless (split from the body): a state of simple consciousness where we are increasingly dependent. We track the self and make it into an Empire of the Self. In this recording, Andrew is lecturing in Mankato, Minnesota on February 8th, 2023, for an annual alternative education conference. Andrew’s lecture was titled, “Mass Shootings & Simulation.”
The 1999 Columbine massacre was televised live for the country to see in real time. Students inside the high school watched their own tragedy on CNN as they searched for answers to what was happening. To watch oneself, by oneself is the hopelessness of American despair. The fuel for this American despair is the reigning ideology of hyper-individualism: constructing an Empire of the Self. This requires the forever updating and remodeling of the self: Me Inc. Both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had absences of hope: neither had found love and both wrestled with ideas about god and death. Eric’s sense of God-like superiority was paired with sadistic nihilism (absence of god), while Dylan’s sense of inferiority and depression was one of hopelessness. They could not see themselves or the world as ever changing. They took an absolutist reading of social Darwinian logic to legitimize their actions and it was meant to be televised for the whole world to see. Their despair manifested as powerlessness and agitation. They relinquished any responsibility for their actions and transformed themselves into violence (murder) and incapacitation (suicide) for self-aggrandizement. They were building a sadistic brand and media empire in order to fulfill the Top Gun script (to be the Best of the Best). The scripting was promoted through Games they played: Kick Me, Cops N Robbers, Now I’ve Got You, You SOB!, I Can’t Stand It, etc. In the moment, Columbine was a personalized form of colonialism, Fascism, and imperialism. Harris and Klebold forced a symbiotic relationship with the people of the U.S. in order to dominate space-time (on the airwaves) through an act of revenge. This was performative crime exhibited on TV for the masses in order to instill fear and impotence.
Americans are dualistically siloed from one another (urban versus rural; liberal versus conservative; Republican versus Democrat) in echo-chambers of self-noise. Now, rather than “social media,” the social **is** digital media, which is used for the vindication of the self as the optimizable project for achievement. The 20th century breakdown of social bonds (“anomie”) has transformed into compulsory social bonds (intoxicating communication with digital Others). We make a project of the self to avoid despair. Meanwhile, neoliberalism equates social relations with economic imperatives, which means humans invest in self-referentiality (Me, Inc.) to the negation of Other. Instead of transforming despair into joy via relational dialogues, despair is informationalized by way of creating an Empire of the Self. Everyone is a media mogul (YouTube channels and Podcasts). This requires the forever updating and remodeling of the self via digitalization. This Top Gun ideology means everyone is encouraged to “be yourself,” “don’t lose yourself”, “find your true self”. This is perpetuated by the mythical doctrine of “survival of the fittest,” i.e., kill or be killed, winner-take-all mentality. The strongest are naturally selected via evolution. Social Darwinism is the prerequisite for the mass shooter who morphs this notion into kill and be killed. Ironically, humans are all mass shooters in the sense that they are building an Empire of the Self (hyperactivity and agitation for space-time online) that leads to incapacitation, e.g., burnout, panic attacks, depression, suicide. What Han (2015) calls the burnout society is due to an excess of positivity, e.g., time of the self. Forever trying to be the Top Gun, i.e., be the Best of the Best. In this recording, Andrew is lecturing at Minnesota State University, Mankato on October 25th, 2022, for an annual mental health conference. The title of the conference was “Role of Social Determinants in Prevention, Trauma, Crisis, and Recovery.” Andrew’s lecture was titled, “American Despair: Cultural Forms of Passivity & Violence.”
Andrew is interviewed for a local television news station on “Mental Health Awareness Day.” The full interview is juxtaposed with the brief news clip, so the listener can experience how the “news” gets made.
A lecture by Andrew Archer lecturing at the 58th annual Nobel Conference in St. Peter, Minnesota (at Gustavus Adolphus College) September 28th-29th, 2022. The title of the conference was “Mental Health (In)Equity and Young People.” Andrew’s breakout session was titled, “Craving: What the Virtual World is Doing to Us & What We Can Do About It.” This episode is a recording of the second of two 50 minute lectures Andrew did. He stayed for an additional 30 minutes to do Q&A (at the end of this recording).
To live in the U.S. is to live in simulations of real war. American mass shootings are, in many ways, “imperial.” The act is both magnificent conquering and expansion of place with utter disregard for human life. The random Walmart or grocery store, a center of worship, an inconspicuous employer, or, an otherwise irrelevant “place,” becomes the disgusting spectacle of highest notice. The mass shooter is a domineering emperor who meticulously researches and plans an attack, while desiring online notoriety (content, engagement) that comes in the form of going viral. A mass shooting itself is a simulacra of the U.S. genocide of Indigenous people: this land is my land, this land is [not] your land. The American empire is a manifestation of these acts over hundreds of years, e.g., land grabbing. In toddler language it is the imperial “Mine!” The current form of individualistic imperialism is best represented by the movie Top Gun: Maverick, which itself is a simulation of the original film, Top Gun: one must be the Best of the Best in order to possessively “win”. Relationally, this imperialism is the competitive exaltation of self as superior power over the Other. Survival of the fittest: kill or be killed. For the mass shooter it is kill and be killed. Using data from The Violence Project, Andrew analyzes 21st century mass shootings through the lens of Franco Berardi’s work and the late French sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s books, Simulacra & Simulation, and The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.
References:
Baudrillard, J., & Glaser, S. F. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Baudrillard, J., & Patton, P. (1995). The gulf war did not take place. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Berardi, F. (2015). Heroes: Mass murder and suicide. New York: Verso.
Berardi, F. (2021). The third unconscious: The psycho-sphere in the viral age. New York: Verso.
Berne, E. (1972). What do you say after you say hello?: The psychology of human destiny. New York: Grove Press, Inc.
Durkheim, E. (2006/1897). On suicide. Penguin Classics: New York.
Han, B.C. (2015). The burnout society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Han, B.C. (2022). Non-things: Upheaval in the lifeworld. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
Peterson, J. & Densley J. (2021): The violence project: How to stop a mass shooting epidemic. Abrams Press: New York.
Schiff, A.W. & Schiff, J. L. (1971). Passivity. Transactional Analysis Journal. 1(1), 71-78.
Solomon, C. (2003). Transactional Analysis Theory: The Basics. Transactional Analysis Journal, 33(1), 15–22
On this episode you’ll hear a recording of an online lecture by Andrew Archer. The topic is “mindfulness”: as a state of mind, as a principle, and as a social movement. The commodification of an individualized form of mindfulness promises to relieve stress, lower blood pressure, reduce chronic pain, improve sleep, alleviate GI difficulties, improve mental health and self-control with enhanced flexibility, equanimity, and improved concentration as well as emotional intelligence. The self-focused list of individualized benefits goes on and on. However, Ron Purser’s book, McMindfulness, sheds light on what happens when a contemplative practice is stripped of its ethical origins, i.e., the Buddhist Eightfold Path. Divorced from its historic and cultural roots, secular mindfulness has become a capitalist spirituality for social control, i.e., maintenance of the political-economic status quo, via self-tracking and ultimately self-pacification. Just breathe and don’t judge as the world burns.
References:
Purser, R.E. (2019). McMindfulness: How mindfulness became the new capitalist spirituality. Repeater Books: United Kingdom.
The British science fiction anthology, Black Mirror, depicts a world where the distinction between “real” and “virtual” is no longer relevant: people live as a totalizing symbiosis with digital technology. In the episode titled, “White Bear,” participants at the White Bear Justice Park are given three instructions: no talking, keep your distance, and enjoy yourself. These are the attributions and injunctions of the virtual world. Talking now means writing and texting, while relational bodies are separated, and everything online is for our own, selfish entertainment: 1. No talking 2. Keep your distance 3. Enjoy yourself. Across the series we find a thread line: consciousness, e.g., memory, is dis-embodied: the ego or self is solidly constructed and able to be downloaded and uploaded without a body. This is where the first-glance subversive appearance of Black Mirror collapses into conformity with the dominant ideology of hyper-individualism: a metaphysical “me” that acquires, possesses, and dominates “the world.” Zen offers a not-two perspective of body-mind: consciousness and physicality are not one, not two. The ego as an object with subjectivity cannot actualize its own inherent lack (manifests as craving) as the subjective agent of itself (as an object). Forever grasping for the reification of itself and the denial of its own life-and-death, the ego wills itself to exit the body. A will to virtuality.
We enter the virtual world because we are bored and want to escape the body (dissociate). The virtual world gives us what we want, but it does not eliminate the feeling of boredom that is inside the body: the feeling is suspended in a digital space of non-time. When we exit the virtual world, we realize that the feeling (boredom) hasn’t gone away, so we cyclically return to the machine. The Japanese writer, Izumi Suzuki, wrote Terminal Boredom, just before she killed herself in 1986. The subversive and dystopian short story is set in the future where feeling good and pleasure are the pathos of the culture described. The main character is a misanthropic young female who is unemployed and living with her mother (who is divorced from her father). The tale begins as she meets her ex-boyfriend at the subway. Neither she or the ex-boyfriend have a sense of smell or taste, which is why the narrator believes that kids these days do not care to eat and why their “everyday lives feel like a scene from a TV show.” Franco Berardi (2015) writes about the extended exposure to virtual flows of information in the context of mass murderers and suicide. The virtual world stimulation “produces the effect of desensitization to the bodily experience of suffering and of pleasure” (47) Therefore, like the individuals in Terminal Boredom, the “virtualization of lived experience” or the virtual world both assuages the pain “resulting from rejection, isolation and mockery” and also, exaggerates “the inability to relate to others, and to distinguish between fantasy and reality in the social sphere.”
References:
Berardi, F. (2015). Heroes: Mass murder and suicide. London: Verso.
Suzuki, I. (2021). Terminal boredom: Stories. Verso: London.
Han, B.C. (2018). The expulsion of the other. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is neither “artificial” nor “intelligent.” AI, and the tools as well as production of the virtual world, are made of real-world, three-dimensional resources: the raw material of Earth. Kate Crawford (2021) makes it clear that AI is “an extractive industry,” based on “highly energy-intensive infrastructures,” from the production and labor to the surveillance measures of corporate and governmental actors, aimed at total social control: “our sense of the cloud being out of sight and abstracted away, when in fact it is material, affecting the environment and climate in ways that are far from being fully recognized and accounted for.”In our minds, the digital space is immaterial. However, for example, Crawford notes that “Data centers are among the world’s largest consumers of electricity.” She continues, “Thousands of people are needed to support the illusion of automation: tagging, correcting, evaluating, and editing AI systems to make them appear seamless.” Illusions regarding automation and AI provoke fantasies of a progressively liberal, democratic, and safe future based on the will to virtualization. Public relations campaigns have manufactured this utopian vision. What has been disguised is the maltreatment of labor within the supply chains of high-tech production. A case in point is the relationship between Foxconn and Apple. The Chinese manufacturer Foxconn, assembles iPhones, iPads, Macs, etc. for the largest and most profitable corporation in the world: Apple. Foxconn has one million workers. The labor practices and management systems of these factories for technological supply chains reads draconian. Specifically, in 2010, a dozen factory workers committed suicide based on the horrendous work conditions. The political suicides were largely completed by the individuals throwing themselves off upper levels of dormitory buildings they resided in. The working conditions of Foxconn and the stories of individual laborers is documented in the book, Dying for an iPhone:Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers. What has been learned is that “our beloved high-tech gadgets are not produced in a Silicon Valley paradise. Indeed, while designed in Silicon Valley, they are not produced there at all.”
References:
45 and 219, Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. New Haven: Yale University Press.
195, Chan, J., Selden, M. and Ngai, P. (2020). Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the lives of China’s workers. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books.
The aim of Transactional Analysis is social control, whereby one retains control of themselves despite others who may be consciously or unconsciously attempting to trigger emotions or moralistic beliefs. (Berne, 1961; p. 91) Transactional Analysis deals with what actually happens (interpersonally) rather than just what is going on in the minds of the individuals concerned, i.e., bird’s eye view (Berne, 1963; p. 143). Transactional Analysis “provides a system for awareness of and control of the unconscious and automatic in a person’s behavior.” (Childs-Gowell, 1979; p. 204)
References:
Berne, E. (1961). Transactional analysis in psychotherapy: A systematic individual and social psychiatry. New York, NY: Grove Press.
Berne, E. (1963). The structure and dynamics of organizations and groups. J.B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia.
Berne, E. (1964). Games people play: The psychology of human relationships. New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc.
Berne, E. (1971). Sex in human loving. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Berne, E. (1972). What do you say after you say hello?: The psychology of human destiny. New York: Grove Press, Inc.
Berne, E. (1976). Beyond games and scripts. Grove Press, Inc.: New York.
Berne, E. (1977). Intuition and ego states: The origins of Transactional Analysis. Edited by Paul McCormick. Harper & Row: San Francisco.
Childs-Gowell, E. (1979). Reparenting schizophrenics: The cathexis experience. North Quincy, MA: Christopher Publishing House.
Schiff, A.W. & Schiff, J. L. (1971). Passivity. Transactional Analysis Journal. 1(1), 71-78.
This episode is a recording of a free public lecture that Andrew Archer gave in Mankato, MN (3/24/2022). The advertised description is this: We love our smartphone. It is part of our body. We sleep with it and fear we will lose it. We touch it 3,000 times per day by pushing, swiping, and tapping with our fingers. It thinks for us and gives us what we want, but to no end. We become passive. We can’t live without it. Americans average 12 hours of digital electronic media per day. We are dissociated from our body as computer algorithms reflexively predict what we will want in an endless cycle of craving. This presentation will utilize Transactional Analysis to teach you (1) how to better understand yourself and (2) the virtual world as well as (3) what we can do about it.
Intuition is a form of knowing whereby the person does not have the factual or empirical knowledge for how they know something. Intuition is a common sense guess or conjecture. To put this in terms of the Transactional Analysis personality structure, intuitive functioning is based on the Adult ego state within the Child. This state is referred to as the “Little Professor.” When this ego state is free from Parental programming, it operates creatively and intuitively based on bodily senses versus analytical and prejudicial “knowledge.” For example, the way a 3-year-old can read a group of people in a room without “knowing” what everyone is talking about. The user of the virtual world is fundamentally dissociated from the body and operates from a place of wanting or craving. The analytical and algorithmic-based frames of reference have rendered the process of intuition obsolete. We begin to think like machines. But, computers do not have awareness of a body as a referential object, and therefore, do not have this faculty of common sense. Erik Larsen (2021) proclaims that computers cannot think the way we do and never will. Byung-Chul Han states that computers are able to count and calculate, but they cannot recount a narrative. The virtual world is constructed and runs on a binary language of 0’s and 1’s, i.e., data and code, which does not require bodily contact. Digital communication is sending and receiving “information” and not the “noise” that is intuited between relational bodies.
References:
Berne, E. (1977). Intuition and ego states: The origins of Transactional Analysis. Edited by Paul McCormick. Harper & Row: San Francisco.
Berne, E. (1976). Beyond games and scripts. Grove Press, Inc.: New York.
Han, B.C. (2020). The disappearance of rituals. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
Han, B.C. (2015). The transparency society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Larson, E.J. (2021). The myth of artificial intelligence: Why computers can’t think the way we do. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Han, B.C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power. Verso: New York.
Han, B.C. (2021). Capitalism and the death drive. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
The theory of the 18th century panopticon prison was meant to impose physical discipline on its prisoners by the perception of an omnipresent gaze from a central tower. The Digital Panopticon feels free of coercion because it lacks a centralized perspective. The camera is for selfies and not surveillance. In the virtual world, we are voluntarily constructing a digital prison whereby we illuminate ourselves and the Other. Our behavioral data is rendered transparent with all of our personal, interpersonal, financial, and therefore social political processes (transactions, relationships, etc.) available to advertisers and governments. We have become warden and inmate of ourselves. The Digital Panopticon is the tool of “psychopolitics”, according to Byung-Chul Han. Freedom and coercion meet as we voluntarily exploit ourselves through the compulsion to self-express and self-present. The power of the virtual world is that it has mediated our internal experience rather than an external agent imposing rules; the compulsion to say an emphatic Yes!to self-exploitation, which feels freely chosen by the user. The inner need to put oneself on display feeds the Digital Panopticon.
References:
Han, B.C. (2017). In the swarm: Digital prospects. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Han, B.C. (2015). The transparency society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Han, B.C. (2018). The expulsion of the other. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
Han, B.C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power. Verso: New York.
Seymour, R. (2019). The twittering machine. London: The Indigo Press.
Han, B.C. (2021). Capitalism and the death drive. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
On this episode you’ll hear a recording of a lecture by Andrew Archer. The event was part of an annual social services conference in Minneapolis, MN (3/16/22). The title was, Craving: What the Virtual World is Doing to Us & What We Can Do About It. The audio begins with the title slide that has three separate writings continuously scrolling across the screen (i.e., an algorithm): “Americans average 12 hours of digital electronic media per day,” “Human-Machine Symbiosis,” and “Algorithms reflexively predict what we will want to hook us into an endless cycle of craving.”
In this episode we return to an overview of the personality structure and the idea of relational symbiosis as it relates to the user and the virtual world. For example, the power and possibility of the virtual world controls the choices for the users. This amounts to the analogy of a parent following around a young child and telling them, “Don’t think!” and “Don’t remember!” Some of the trivial consequences are that the Parent in our head tells us to wear wearables and carry a mobile phone on our person at all times. Additionally, we do not use the Adult to remember, e.g., birthdays or phone numbers, or to think, e.g., the ability to use a map for destinations. But, who made these decisions and what are the consequences of a Mindlessness Script?
Our phones and wearable devices are now part of the body. Did “I” make that decision? We don’t remember birthdays, places, or phone numbers. Who made this decision? The injunctions of the virtual world are Don’t Think! and Don’t Remember! According to Byung-Chul Han, “power” is based on a level of internal mediation. We say “Yes!” to the virtual world and feel free and autonomous in doing so. With intense forms of mediation, power is most efficient when it is invisible: we believe it is our own determination guiding our decisions. We do what the holders of power, i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, etc., want based on their selection of choices for us. Meanwhile, we believe we are free and self-determined with the possibility of choices.
In this final episode of Series 1, Andrew responds to a question from a listener. Brian asked about meditation practice: “I’m reminded of my brother who told me years ago when I asked him if he meditated, “I tried but I can’t sit still like that and not think”.” The answer: Zen meditation practice (both as teacher and as student) with real world people in order to decontaminate the Adult ego state.
An understanding of our sense of self and the relationship we are in with the virtual world, i.e., two non-existing things that feel like reality, produces despair. This existential emotion requires relational attention. The final section of the podcast is the Zen concept of teacher-student relations. An example is given from Andrew’s experience teaching meditation in the Wisconsin prison system.
In part 6, Our Mindlessness Script illustrates how we adapt to cultural conditioning by not thinking. The 1998 film, The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, is an exaggerated cinematic example of a pre-conscious life plan based on a decision made in early childhood. Using the film, we can understand how the part of us that craves (Psycho) operates based on the directives of the script. The parallel with the virtual world is, like Truman Burbank, we are following a Mindlessness script with a “Don’t Think!” injunction: algorithms control the possibility of choice and frames of reference based on the potency of user data.
Who are we becoming in the real world? This episode comprehends the dominant social character of the moment. The ideology of hyper-individualism is outlined as a means to depict how the non-rational and self-centered behavior of the virtual world is inverted in the real world: we operate in a sober, rational, analytical manner to preemptively avoid emotions in order to always stay-in-control. We are a Manager of ourself. The dystopian Japanese novel, The Memory Police, is a metaphor for this individualistic way of being and its passive, conformist consequences. Zen understands the attachment to what we want is misunderstood lack. The attachment to lack (craving) is an adaptation to our conditioning. It is from this part that we play Games and produce karmic activity in the form of greed, hatred/ill-will, and delusion.
In this episode we discuss a fictional story as metaphor for a livelihood based on adaptive behavior or craving. The 2013 novel, The Circle, by Dave Eggers paints a picture of a symbiotic relationship with the virtual world. The main character’s Psycho part competitively manages herself online with the TruYou application, which consolidates all your user profiles into one: your true self or TruYou. The character in the novel finds herself completely dependent upon the virtual social network, which brings out the worst in her. In The Circle, to disconnect is tantamount to non-existence.
The symbiosis of infant and mother is analogous to the user and virtual world. As a relationship, the user is hyper-connected as a means to get what is wanted, while the virtual world provides the power and possibility to function as control and choice for the user. Here we can describe with more detail the part of the personality that craves or wants: the Psycho or psychological part that adapted to our cultural conditioning. This part that is promoted and appealed to in the virtual world is based on competition and greed. The Little Donald Trump in our heads.
Here we discuss the development of each aspect of the personality structure: Parent, Adult, and Child. The corresponding characteristics of Parent, Adult and Child are the three P’s: power (critical/nurturing), possibility (rational/objective), and potency (psychological/natural). The functions of the three states of mind are reduced to three C’s: control, choice, and connection. We can understand and describe an example of a consciously symbiotic relational process: the mother and newborn infant. The function of the mother is the power to condition (control) the infant based on the provided frames of reference and in this case the literal environment. The mother makes rational determinations for the possibility (choice) of what the infant objectively needs and wants. The infant is suspended in the moment as she develops a psychological process through her connection with mother (potency).
Americans average 12 hours per day on electronics in the virtual world, or, less than half their life in the real world. Tech platforms are using artificial intelligence (i.e., computer algorithms) to extract our behavioral data in order to reflexively predict what we will want based on what we wanted in the past. The more accurate the prediction, the better we become at wanting, i.e., craving. The introduction charts the path of the podcast series: what can Transactional Analysis and Zen Buddhism tell us about our sense of self and our relationship as a user with the virtual world?