Original post from /december 12, 2020
People generally think an animist vision for our culture is wildly impractical. They want to see a plan of what such a large-scale society would look like and how could we make the transition. This is not actually a reasonable request; collective changes never happen according to plan. At most we have a direction and some principles that serve as a guide to start with, and then things unfold in unexpected directions..
But beyond that, even those of us who fervently wish our culture were more animist often think it’s unrealistic. Even those who see that it’s impossible to continue as we are, don’t see animism as a practical alternative. I again draw on the writings of Charles Eisenstein, this time to contend that this is because we are under the influence of habits of separation. An animist view is the complete opposite of separation – it embodies what Charles calls interbeing, a concept coined by Thich Nhat Han, which points to the very existence of each of us as dependent and intertwined with the existence of all.
We alone in the history of humanity have grown up in a society that sees separateness as undeniable. We are so used to it that we don’t notice it’s just a perception. It’s worth getting to know what Charles calls habits of separation, and in the following weeks I’ll address them one by one: their different aspects, where they come from, what strengthens them, what they do, and what is possible when we transcend them.
These are not behavioral habits, like smoking or watching the news or brushing our teeth. Habits of separation are habits of perception, of how we perceive and interpret reality, of what we take for granted. Charles enumerates three types, each of which takes many forms. They are:
- scarcity
- judgment
- struggle
These are our basic assumptions. We assume their existence a priori and see the world through them as if through permanent lenses. They determine how we react to any situation, which solutions we can consider and which we will rule out in advance, what we see as possible, and how we treat ourselves, others, and the world. I would venture to say that even those of us who have done a fair amount of inner work still find ourselves adopting them without noticing, and are forced to shed one or another of their expressions anew. (I invite anyone who thinks this does not apply to them to look deeper, or perhaps to come by and help me out with a few sticky problems of my own, since you surely have the resources to lend a hand.) It’s not our fault. This is a flaw of our society, which validates and reinforces them constantly. This is our ontology, meaning we learned from infancy that this is how the world is.
Despite the magnitude of the task, the process is not frustrating but rather full of wonder. Because when we shed separation, what is revealed is connection, communication, and support – at levels beyond what we who were raised in a regime of separation begin to imagine.