Subversion: Who Are We Overthrowing?
How we cannot have a “good guy” without simultaneously creating his opponent.
Originally published at EverybodyIsPEOPLE issue on SUBVERSION. Or listen to the audio version / podcast version.
Recently I’ve arrived to the conclusions that my subversion can no longer take a form of Sisyphean rebellion — the times that we find ourselves in allow us none of this luxury. These times require more. They require deliberate focus on where we direct and to whom do we give our energy, in a world where one shock replaces another one, where our attention is captured and directed into a perpetual state of fight, flight , or freeze. I do feel a sense of urgency.
Whilst writing about subversion I came across a book called “No Is Not Enough” by N. Klein. It didn’t help to soothe that sense of urgency, but it did validate it in a way:
“…while our branded world can exploit the unmet need to be a part of something larger than ourselves, it can’t fill it in any sustained way: you make a purchase to be a part of a tribe, a big idea, a revolution, and it feels good for a moment, but the satisfaction wears off before you’ve throw out the packaging for that new pair of sneakers, that latest model of iPhone, or whatever the surrogate is. Then you have to find a way to fill the void again. <…>
But it’s always worth remembering: at the heart of this cycle is that very powerful force — the human longing for community and connection, which simply refuses to die. And that means there is still hope: if we rebuild communities and begin to to derive more meaning and sense of the good life from them, many of us are going to be less susceptible to the siren song of mindless consumerism.”
I can recognise conscious rebellion as an act of infiltrating an already existing system. To jump onto an inertial pendulum and loosen the screws that are holding it together. It means that my energy is directed towards changing, transforming, moving, shaking up, loosening, and lightening. My energy is used deliberately, knowing that I can make changes with the help of the privilege that I carry (or that carries me) through life. I can capitalise on the existing system, and I can find loopholes through which I will thread a new form. A new, different type of line can be woven into the history of “the way things are done”, and it might just change the pattern within this tapestry of Humanity that we are all collectively weaving.
I can join my threads with those, who like me, found the loopholes. I connect and I build friendships with those who are ready to create the change together. Like a new neural network firing together, we expand and construct our reality, we wire together. As in the external world, where segregation is still used as a tool to undermine our humanity (2020 et al.), more than ever, a presence of collective and community is excruciatingly needed.
As we have moved away from communities into independence, we have built wealth so we do not have to rely on others to provide for and help us. Because we don’t need to depend on others, we lose our ability to perceive others’ realities, as there is simply no more need for that.
We pacify this enormous fear of being powerless to someone else and unfortunately with gaining personal independence we abandon interdependence. We discard our ability to trust and rely on others to take our best interest as their own. We take roles in the zero-sum game, personally and universally; we allow an emotional chill and distance to permeate; we spend our time building precautionary inventory; we buy a false sense of freedom in the currency of connection, and no one actually wins in this transaction.
A lack of community and connectivity is unfortunately the norm, and this false sense of freedom is an institutionalised and official ideal of the western world. And because these ideals belong to the mainstream thought, gathering and facilitating people into an inter-connected unit where everyone shares the same experience is in itself an act of subversion — a seeming silent revolution which untethers the fabric of separation and allows our vulnerability to each other be restored.
To provide each other with presence, warmth and honesty. To extend and invest our energy into people. To build and solidify secure relationships. To become more transparent to ourselves and others. To offer our vulnerabilities as a gift to those who see us for who we are. To take the other’s best interest as our own. To rehabilitate our chronic loneliness and separation. To surround each other with connection, appreciation, and belonging.
However, as individuals and as a community, engaging in any type of change, we cannot disqualify the thought that our oppressors do, to an extent, reside within us, acquired and internalised throughout life experience. At some point, aware of it or not, we all have been the oppressor, the victim, the liberator. Our human condition enables us to hold those polarities simultaneously within us, providing with an opportunity to move into a deeper comprehension of those characters that we see as the antagonist.
This malleability of our consciousness: to be able to inhabit these completely divergent states of being, can teach us how to engage in subversion as a process which ultimately becomes a transformation of all polarities, being internal or external.
If we radically delved into the perspective of an oppressor, we can usually find and see how that type of character originates. But I do want to make a disclaimer, that those of us who have been victimised, are still completely valid. In this case I want to lift up the veil and see how us humans end up in a position where oppressing someone can bring us relief and fulfilment. I believe no oppressor thinks they are one.
Rebellion is built on premise of me against them. Me against those who are asserting their power over my universally inherent freedom. With an act of rebellion we first must recognise and accept that there is an oppressor. We place it above ourselves, accepting the struggle of limitation and constant recycling of the revolutionary narrative.
If we believe in oneness as a concept (us being connected to one another), me on some higher level being you, and you being me, then why do we exclude the unwanted from that picture? By closing our eyes to the reality of external oppression we close eyes to re reality of our internal oppression. As above, so below. Above — in my psyche which is divided by simply living and having a human experience. Divided into acceptable parts of me, and the parts of me that I am ashamed of, and that are unacceptable. Parts that must be “nice” and parts that cannot feel anger or aggression, because they are socially demeaned. As I grow, I internalise voices that I am essentially powerless to: my parents, my teachers, my authority. They become a part of me, designed to regulate my ability to adapt and remain in this society and social group that I am growing up in.
If I can tune into the perspective of my own internal oppressor/authority, I can suddenly see it as a moderator, the one who looks after my “wellbeing” and fitting in into my familial and social circumstance when I’m a child. It can foster itself as shame, as self hate, self denial and doubt, self-deprecation or deprivation.
Any type of chronic negative focus directed at the self will be originating from exactly that point in life. Of course, it’s the most maladaptive way to adjust, but from this perspective I can see that at some point it saved our lives at some point. Because we are one the most social species, it makes us the most vulnerable and dependant on each other, especially early on in life.
I can see how this oppression within me plays a role, that probably has expired years ago, but it is still running wild. The subversion becomes a process of alchemising these parts of me when I have courage to step towards them: empathise, explore, understand their origins, feel them, notice what triggers them and when they come up the most.
And because these parts hold my most limiting beliefs and inhibitions, accessing my own oppressor through the back door allows me to subvert my own limitations, allowing a deeper integration of my own psyche, and ending the war between me and me. And if I end a war inside me, the whole world at large is a little bit closer to the state of peace.
