The Extreme Dysfunctionality of Western Civilization

I was struggling to hone in on a topic to explore this week because my mind has been occupied with preparing for an open house. It really is worth noting that devoting time to political and social analysis can only happen when our plates have enough room. Far too often, real life takes over and takes up the bulk of brain power and space. Like I mentioned in a previous post, my coping strategy for times of stress is to put myself on autopilot and coast through. I’m in the middle of coasting right now.

I had put a call out on social media for topics to write about, and I do promise to get to some of those that were suggested, but I shared a post today on Instagram that I thought might warrant a deep dive.

“Westerners who don't appreciate the extreme dysfunctionality of western civilization are like someone in an abusive marriage who hasn't yet recognized that there's a problem, or someone who had a violent and chaotic childhood who still thinks their home life was basically normal.” - Caitlin Johnstone

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Caitlin Johnstone

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It’s remarkable that so many folks still operate under the assumption that western culture, in all its glory, is the natural culmination of human progression. While I’m relieved that there has been a wider dialogue and critique of colonialism and capitalism in recent years, I still find it staggering that so many of us fundamentally believe that western colonialism is a good or natural thing.

Years ago, when land acknowledgements were all the rage, I remember a new volunteer questioning why we would choose to acknowledge the ancestry of the land on which we were situated before a meeting. He understood the premise but struggled to grasp why the way in which the land had been forcibly taken was considered a bad thing. He argued that almost all land across the globe had “changed hands” under conditions of war, so that conquering land in this way was normal. Natural. Inevitable. I’m sure those weren’t his words, but that was the stage he had set.

I wonder if, after witnessing a genocide in real time, he would still consider this method of conquest as inevitable. I’m quite sure that there are a lot of people who do as it’s the only justification for a pro-Israeli stance that I can drum up.

I remember coming to this understanding, this realization, that people who have beliefs that I find abhorrent aren’t at all put off by those beliefs. Racism. Sexism. Transphobia. They are proud to hold those views. They believe them to be justified. I remember seeing the hashtag #terfpride for the first time and feeling sick to my stomach. I find it challenging to make room for constructive discussion with people who hold these views because there’s common ground to start from. It doesn’t matter that their views are based on faulty logic. Like the person stuck in an abusive marriage or dysfunctional family, they don’t realize that there’s anything wrong with how things are operating.

Now, the volunteer in my example above who questioned the land acknowledgement would never have called himself a racist with pride. He was just a product of his culture: a white man raised in a colonial country that was built on the genocide of indigenous people. There are millions of them around the world. He probably believed those Native Americans entered into treaties with pleasure and happily sent their kids off to be educated by Jesuits. After all, that’s what I was taught in school.

But this is where that story stops, right? Because there seems to be a new generation of people waking up to the bullshit and lies that we’ve been fed in western colonial culture about what is morally okay and what is most definitely not okay. The example in the quote of dysfunctional relationships and families struck such a chord with me because I believe that many of the same people who are waking up to the lies of western colonial culture are also doing the work to heal generational trauma around the child-parent relationship, around what it means to live in healthy relationships with each other.

And just as breaking those cycles of abuse and dysfunction is hard, so is breaking out of western colonial culture. Like capitalism realism, it feels all pervasive, as though there is no other option.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Witnessing a genocide over social media has fundamentally changed us. There are no cover-ups. No rewriting of the history books. We can see the abhorrent nature of colonialism in real time. Westerners can now see how dysfunctional this culture is and the brutality that it is built upon, and are starting to demand something better. There are people coming together, protesting, boycotting, striking, divesting. I want to believe that this is just the beginning. I want to believe that we won’t fall back into the old patterns of existence and will keep pushing forward to demand the end of western imperialism at all costs. I don’t know what is next, but I hope with all of my heart that it’s a continued push in the right direction.