I watched this video last night and woke up thinking about how it is that collectivism would be on the other side of integrity, not on the same side. Authoritarianism, I get. Rigidity, dogma, I get. But collectivism? That one made me go "hmmm..." Maybe part of it is a semantics issue, that Chris means something other than what I am thinking. But setting that aside for a moment. The thing I keep noticing is that over and over again there is a way we end up being at odds with or cut off from the thing we actually need.
I see it in relation to the pandemic. What we need is a way to counteract the devastation of the disease in our lives and society as a whole. Yet the vaccines are adulterated, a risky strategy, whether you know it or not. And the actual treatments are denied. Either way we are cut off from what we need.
I also notice it in relation to climate change. What we need is real leadership to use the time, and more importantly the energy, we have left to transition to *some* other way of living in the world that is more in line with the balance of nature. Yet the "Great Reset" comes with these authoritarian overtones, along with a denial of the energy predicament, and again we can't just accept it at face value. Even Chris is like, "I agree with the definition of the predicament, but NOT with the HOW..." We are cut off from what we need.
Once is an accident, twice....
And now this. Collectivism is at odds with integrity. How can that be? Especially when, in all the years I've been following Chris, I've seen him offer real leadership around stepping outside of our stereotyped roles (especially the ones that perpetuate the infinite growth on a finite planet model) and band together, across all different stripes/spots/zigzags/whatever so that we can actually help each other. Because it looks to me like Chris is going gangbusters in the direction that no one person is going to survive in isolation. He's trying to build a village. Helping your neighbor. Interdependence. That's how nature works. How can that be at odds with integrity, except for enemy action?
Looks to me like the very thing we need, in countless ways, is being perverted and distorted so that we are cut off from what we need. It's a set-up. And we don't have any hope of changing that dynamic it unless we can recognize it in action.
One other thought to throw out here, and I am drawing on both my background in social science and also folks like Charles Eisenstein, but force and control got us into this mess, so more force and control (the "Great Reset") cannot possibly get us out. The idea of dominion over nature. Domination. To me, that is the opposite of integrity. Because it is the story of separation. And all we do to find our place in the whole, to tend the land where we live, foster the bees, and to re-integrate ourselves into community and into nature is acting against the entrenched idea of domination/separation.
The seeds of its own destruction are built into that system. We are watching it play out. There isn't enough energy or resources to sustain perpetual growth of a debt-based system. The old way is crumbling while some are building the new, or are returning to the ancient understanding that preceded the force/control/domination mindset. Whether you call it building resilience or call it de-colonization (as some on the left would), you might actually be talking about the same thing. The linear thinking is part of the domination/separation mindset anyway, in reality those two ends of the spectrum bend around and meet on the other side. Kind of like a medicine wheel is round, with all things being in relation to all else, nothing above or below anything or anyone else, or for that matter, left or right.