🏛️ TREE 498: Thinking aloud about institutions
Today’s FIELD GUIDE guest postponed at the last minute, so I’m going to fill the awkward space with some thinking aloud, which may make it more awkward.
Today’s FIELD GUIDE guest postponed at the last minute, so I’m going to fill the awkward space with some thinking aloud, which may make it more awkward.
The UK is on its third government of the year with no elections having been held.
US democracy is going through… shall we call it a rough patch?
Last week, historian Valorie Clarke wrote to us about her professor begging her not to go in academia because “even the best schools in our country are so focused on making money that even Ivy Leagues are basically just degree mills now”.
I heard this week from a trustworthy source about a middle school that joined an academy group. The group promised resources and savings. What they gave was extra meetings and branding, then they shut down the middle school because it was cheaper to put all the kids in one big school.
The UK’s health and education infrastructure is designed to keep deaf kids from knowing about and learning sign language.
I’ve seen from the outside and inside how social services harms so many of the people they are asked to help.
I watched the Hillsong documentary. I listened to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. I’ve personally been told so many stories of the damage institutional Christianity has done to people.
My son is a wild land firefighter. He told me how the Forest Service won’t look at the evidence about firefighters and lung cancer because then they would have to do something about all the firefighters dying young of lung cancer.
This list could be miles longer. I didn’t even mention social media companies.
My point is that institutions which were created by people for people are destroying people. The people who seem to get most destroyed are the ones who don’t fit the mould of what is chosen to be acceptable. I’m writing to you about this because non-mould-fitters also happen to make up a large proportion of FFOREST folk.
Institutions crush people who don’t fit or are inconvenient. It’s always been this way. But also, it seems like we are at a part of history’s cycle where our institutions are so stiff and geriatric and obsessed with self-preservation that they are consuming and crushing people at a higher rate than usual. It seems like ‘normal’ people who have been good at squishing themselves into the mould are feeling the pain that the ‘weirdos’ feel all the time.
I’m using the word ‘seems’ because I don’t have hard evidence. I’m writing about things I’ve experienced and heard.
That felt gloomy.
So what’s the uplifting point here? Where is the beautiful insight to bounce you out of bed and into a glorious Friday of joy?
I’ll have a go…
If things are feeling extra broken to you, it’s not just you. You’re not alone.
Institutions promise you the most horrific consequences if you remove yourself from their control. Sometimes they are correct. Sometimes the consequences are there but they aren’t horrific at all. Sometimes the institutions are flat out lying. You can figure out which are which, especially if you get some help from the outside.
Institutions are failing and will continue to fail, not all at once, not apocalyptically, here and there, sometimes partially. This will affect the way you live. What can you do to be ready for it?
Inside or out of an institution, Relationships matter. More than anything else. Work on those.
You are a human, living and working as part of the life of this planet. This means the things you already do matter. The odds are that the things you do matter in the direction of goodness.
If you need to, have a cry or a rant about the state of the world, then get back to mattering in the direction of goodness, you beautiful glorious FFOREST human.
You are surrounded by goodness. Remember to look around and see it.
That was the last time Mrs Basslingham let little Angela do Build-a-Bear on her own.
Pixey doesn’t care if it’s 2022, she’s making Britpop (Spotify).
Grow slowly
Jeff
I think this is one of the most important things that can be talked about right now. I see so many people still locked deeply within these institutions. The White Evangelical church in America has turned into a propaganda machine and I see genuinely good, kind people fighting to withhold truly horrendous systems.
For instance:
I live in the Dominican Republic and we had some friends visiting on vacation. They were talking about the types of crimes that they take very seriously here and one of the things that came up was crimes against women and children. I feel safer here than anywhere I have ever lived. Busses will stop traffic if they’re worried that there’s a kid that might run into the street. I go for jogs by myself in the dark. I know if my three year old somehow found herself alone running around in the streets someone would gather her up and very carefully bring her back to me.
These kind, smart friends of ours responded to this that it was really terrible that they took those kids of crimes seriously and Ben (my husband) should be worried because he could get falsely accused and thrown in jail.
It made me so sad because I know that’s the narrative of institutional Christianity and their political party. They had no idea that they were automatically spouting off a narrative.
I think these types of conversations are important because they chip away little by little at the brainwashing these institutions put people through.
I strongly believe that nearly all people are kind and good and if you strip away this institutional conditioning, they will look out for each other and create good, kind things in the world.
Awwwww totally loved this xx ar y dot!!! Spot on!!! Xx