How to Liberate Minds: A Psychology for the U.S.

The craft of remobilizing demoralized people is about distracting the immobilized from their vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, and shame over immobilization. For that distraction to be distracting enough, it often must be a little silly, funny, crazy, or even outrageous.


Find Meaning
Many other people have discovered how finding meaning can be a powerful antidote to despair and immobilization. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1959) describes a harrowing tale of his survival in Nazi concentration camps. He states that in the concentration camps, “The thought of suicide was entertained by nearly everyone…. A very strict camp ruling forbade any efforts to save a man who attempted suicide…. Therefore, it was all important to prevent these attempts from occurring.” Frankl talks about the help that he provided for two men who seriously talked about suicide. He said, “In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them.”

See the Big Picture
Even when conditions make it impossible for immediate change, great morale builders can inspire people to keep trying. Rabbi Tarfon, for example, during the era of the Roman Empire saw the big picture and reminded his people, “It was not granted you to complete the task and yet you may not give it up.”

Forget Pessimism
In the question and answer period that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized person in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, “Yeah, every evening…. If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what’s the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what’s the point?…. First of all, those predictions don’t mean anything—they’re more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you’re guaranteeing that’ll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism.” Mental health professionals’ focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, those talented in the craft of maintaining morale help others to resist this kind of self-absorption.

Know that You are Creating Your Own Reality
In the early 1960s, when the vast majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of the few U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, “When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that [we] would ever have any effect…. So looking back, I think my evaluation of the ‘hope’ was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read.” A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously.

Be a Human
An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses, pontifications, and the prevailing psychology. Rather the immobilized need morale, healing, and a liberating psychology. An elitist assumption is that people don’t change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist “helpers” think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise.

There’s a link to the source material here. Thanks for the attention. I’m interested in your comments