Personal Health And Social Health: One And The Same?

Gandhi:    BE the change you want to see in the world. What does this mean? And what are some implications in terms of mental, moral, spiritual health?

I take it to mean that each person, individually, is required to act in ways that embody the principles of health and welfare, not merely for themselves alone, but for the larger good of the "community" as well. Jesus:   love they neighbor AS THYSELF. This isn't an either/or proposition, but a joint venture. Loving myself - truly, not the version we commonly see that is founded on self indulgence and greed - is a foundation upon which I can hope to built and enact love of other. We're all included.

These principles are consistent with the principles of mental health that I routinely see in my practice, in my clients, in recovery from addictions and from trauma, for example (which includes basically all of us). The importance of community in the healing process is well known and well established in recovery treatment.  Health is not an isolated experience. It occurs in community, in relationship. Social health, the health of society, is inextricably linked to individual health, family health, business health, political health, and cultural health. And vice versa. The notion that I can be healthy and whole, morally, spiritually, mentally, emotionally or even physically, without a direct connection to and with a  larger society is a delusion. In Systems Theory, the health of the individual and the health of the larger "system" within which she functions are recognized to be linked. We see this in stark and often difficult terms in therapy when an individual, for example, attempts to become sober from alcohol or drugs within the context of an actively addicted or drug abusing family structure. It doesn't happen. Imagine a young man of, say 20 years, addicted to heroin, sent to "counseling" by the court, let's say. This young man's family has made their living from the sale of drugs for at least a couple of generations, and still does. His father, let's say, died from a heroin over dose. He remains very closely connected with his family. He will not be able to become healthy within this context. Is this a surprise? It shouldn't be.

Moral health, spiritual health, and mental health, all require consideration of the dynamics of relationship. And not merely the relationships closest to me: my spouse, my children, my extended family. These of course are of great importance, and at the same time they are not sufficient to circumscribe the measure of health. When people come to therapy (voluntarily), it is always because they are in some distress, and they want relief from the symptoms of this distress. Naturally. They often do not make the connection between what they are seeking, and the nature of their relationships. But of course everything we do is within the context of relationships (this includes one's relationship with oneself), and so trying to understand one's own health/welfare/well being without understanding its connection to ones relationships is absurd.

It is not a big leap, in my view, to begin to understand that ones relationships are limitless. I am related to and with everyone else, ultimately, and so in some genuine way these relationships have to be taken into account. This understanding and this consideration is the intersection of social and personal heath.

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The Accumulation Of Wealth As Mental/Moral Illness

Lately I've been thinking, again, and talking more actively, about the fundamentally diseased nature of our capitalist economic structure (E.F. Schummacher talked about small, localized capitalism as viable, and I tend to think he was right; he was also basing this thought on a  fundamentally spiritual/Christian model of values, including justice and service, but any spiritual path worth its salt would, and does, say the same)  based at its core on the exploitation of natural resources and of people, and on the active oppression of people for the direct and exclusive benefit of a tiny elite. This has certainly been the history of the United States from its inception, and of the colonization of the New World before its inception.  The current "affluent" way of life of many North Americans would be impossible without these activities. What we take for granted is only possible at the expense and misery of enormous populations around the world, endless wars and the incalculable suffering that they entail, and the systematic and clearly unsustainable pillaging of someone else's "property", land and culture. It has never been any different under the similar social and economic models of any previous empire's rule. We have historically supported, and we continue now to support, either overtly or covertly, brutally oppressive puppet regimes. We justify this by declaring that otherwise some "socialist" or "communist" or "people's" or "populist" regime would gain power and threaten the sacred American way of life ( by which we mean the obscene profits of American based multi-national corporate conglomerates). Too bad for those folks who may have democratically elected one of those populist regimes.

My focus recently has been on the "ordinary" accumulators/controllers of wealth: the so called middle class. My hypothesis is that - and I thank Howard Zinn for the inspiration for this line of thought - the middle class relentlessly pursues the same set of values and beliefs that energize the  elite, engages in the same self indulgent feelings of entitlement that they do, makes the same kinds of assumptions about wealth and poverty and opportunity and responsibility that they do, and thereby directly supports and actively collaborates with the injustices and atrocities which are consistently perpetrated by the ruling elites. As with any addictive system, denial, delusion, and deception - both self deception and the deception of others - flourish. The usual smoke screens are employed in order to divert attention from the real, and ultimately very personal, issues. It's the politicians' fault. And making any corrections is their job, not mine. My responsibility
is limited to casting my ballots at election time, or to giving charity to those "less fortunate" than I. I see this as no  different from the perhaps apocryphal quote attributed to Marie Antionette regarding the poor of France: if they have no bread to eat, then let them eat cake.

In a just economic structure, there would be no need for charity, for the casting of self-redemptive crumbs to the poor. In a healthy economic structure, with mental and moral development recognized, valued and supported, all would live comfortably and well, poverty and oppression would not be necessary and required components of  the social system, and, recognizing the direct and unavoidable connection between my excess accumulation of wealth and your misery would engender self imposed, internally generated limits on the level of superfluous luxury that I "enjoy".

I'm not talking about entering into poverty. This is not required. It is clearly possible for you or I to live quite comfortably, to get all our material needs met, to enjoy a graceful and fluid way of being in the material world, without the accumulation of excess. My current, admittedly arbitrary number is a quarter of a million dollars. I cannot see why anyone would need more than this. Ok. Keep your house, if you're among the fortunate who have one, and have another quarter of a million dollars besides. If you disagree with this number, please explain to me how you justify having more. Is it fair to say that 90%, or 95%, or more, of the people on the planet could never dream of having this much "capital" at their disposal? Why should you? Doesn't this make you one of the elite, with all that that implies? By doing do, I suggest, you are selling your soul - and your mental and moral health - to the devil of delusion, self indulgence and complicity. Why not keep enough to live well - a quarter of a million, let's say; and you can even build back up to that level as you spend, or not - and give the rest away? Radical, I know. But given the realities as I've described them, what real choice is at all viable?

I'm not so naive, or stupid,  that I think that by doing this an over night miracle would occur in which all economic disgrace and suffering would be eliminated. That's not the most immediate point. More to the point is the personal recognition that one's own current economic/financial circumstances may well be contributing directly to that disgrace and suffering, and that it is within one's power to make a choice for full spectrum health, a concept that includes not only one's personal health, but that recognizes that one's personal health is intimately tied to the health of the planet and that of  "the least of these". Otherwise, certainly one has no grounds to stand on from which to complain, and I'd suggest that the possibilities for well being in general are severely compromised, if not made impossible.

In the Buddhist tradition this way of looking at things may be analogous to the distinction that is sometimes made between the Hinayana (or "lesser") path, and the Mahayana (or "greater") path. In the former, one's concern is for one's own enlightenment/liberation/awakening/deliverance alone, where as in the latter, one vows to renounce one's final liberation until all sentient beings are liberated and delivered from suffering (along with the intention/vow to actively contribute to this liberation and deliverance), thus recognizing that one's own happiness and in fact sanity, is ultimately and inextricably tied to everyone else's. In the Jewish tradition there is the teaching of Tikkun Olam, or "repairing the world". Each of us has a responsibility to contribute, in genuine and meaningful ways, to this repair, again, recognizing the full implications of how our own actions, beliefs and assumptions affect all others.

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