The question is not whether I am to respond to the malignant evil steadily engulfing our country: this evil systematically destroying a hallowed system of governance entrusted to our safekeeping, this evil poisoning the hearts and minds of sane and decent citizens in a paroxysm of collective psychosis, this evil driving our planet past a tipping point beyond which its capacity to support the human species becomes increasingly dubious.
I am beyond grateful at you starting with the given “of course we must respond “. As a Canadian, I view our historical stance as differently angled. A placeholder for carving out anew the new world virtues now overshadowed in America. As a vector into multiple middle power relationships that cannot occur from the existing mental structure. And from Teihardian time, willing to bear whatever grinding refinement is required in geologic time.
We had a tragic mass shooting of school kids in BC recently. Our Prime Minister held the hand of the leader of the Opposition at the memorial ceremony. And offered to the heartbroken families, “if we as Canadians can bear some of your burden, we will”. Substituted love by a head of government. 🙏
It's a slippery slope when we take it upon ourselves to judge others as pure evil ("golden calf hierophant"). Certainly, Jesus cast out the money-changers and did not remain quiet about what he saw. But are we even remotely at the level of Jesus? Careful.
Do we have a responsibility? Absolutely, no argument. But it's a matter of scale, and, in this, we must recognise what can be changed and what cannot. You cited Gurdjieff's efforts... "And Gurdjieff risked himself mightily to stay on in occupied Paris during the darkest days of World War II to bring food and solace to his neighbors and an imaginal transfusion of love to an aching world, carried principally through his esoteric work with his most advanced students."
What a beautiful and perfect example. We can make a difference on our scale and must if we are true to the Work.
Consider, though, for a moment... he did not shout from the rooftops about the evil going on in the world. He did not point fingers. Nor did he presume that he could change anything about what was going on on the larger scale. He knew and taught that almost everything in human existence is ruled by planetary forces and that nothing about this could change. Power-possessing beings (a misnomer, really, as they are all just puppets of planetary forces) come and go. But we get caught up with "this" side or "that" side and believe we see reality more clearly than our brothers, even to the point of being willing to take up arms, whether these arms are physical, emotional, or mental.
What Gurdjieff taught was that individual change is possible and that through this - inner change of Being - the world would be helped. Not through setting up "us" versus "them". Not by ascending to the pulpit. Not by shouting from the rooftops. Not through believing that we have the capacity to judge objective "evil" and "good." He was clear that we all get caught up in conditioned morality and that objective morality was something beyond our understanding... until we have worked sufficiently to uncover Conscience.
Even then, though, Conscience does not get up on soapboxes and try to change others' opinions. Conscience does not point fingers. Conscience is our personal lens first and foremost on ourselves... an inner compass given by God, which tells us what is becoming and unbecoming for a human being, starting with ourselves.
With Conscience comes real Compassion for others and the ability to put myself in another's shoes. Can I put myself in Donald Trump's shoes? In Biden's shoes? Do I not see that they are all slaves, just like me? Except that they have even LESS possibility than I do inasmuch as the world and people's beliefs and conditioning hold them in their positions as captives on the global stage. They did not choose. They were "chosen" by the sleeping masses. They succumbed to adulation and promise of power and riches, as we all do. What a terrible fate they suffer. I cry for the sleeping world... for those who are elevated into the maximum security prison of global political status and, equally, for those who blindly "vote" for one side or the other of the collective dualistic illusion.
The message is clear: the masses cannot change. However, as Gurdjieff taught, individuals can change... inner change of Being... and this is the only way to truly make a difference in the world... the only way to true Compassion and Love. Only then can I see that we are all brothers and sisters in the same predicament and that the way out begins with me.
Here's a shocking thought: Can I see Trump as my brother? Can I have a deep Wish for his ultimate welfare? Can I move past my judgments against him and realise that everything I see in him is in me, too? Vanity, pride, self-love, hatred, illusion, ignorance? If so, it changes the lens.
What we need is a new lens... the lens of impartiality driven by Conscience, Compassion, Hope, Faith, and Love. Through this lens, a real Wish is born. The power of such a Wish for the welfare of every man and woman on the planet cannot be overestimated. More powerful than any blog.
But as soon as that Wish becomes partisan - I Wish for this person but not for that one - I'm lost.
I agree with you. However I will add one thing. This point of balance and impartiality offers a pause in space and time for a response to form instead of a reaction. This space needs to bear the tension of responsibility. I think Cynthia is pointing to the need for an inner strength to bear this tension and not give up to indifference, which has nothing to do with impartiality.
Well stated. Especially: "We need a new lens." I imagine that new lens would be a multi-focus lens, like professional photographers use to switch from one focal power to another to another as they compile a record of the complexity of what is before them. And then afterward carefully sort through them all, sometimes with even higher magnification, in order to see the whole and the parts, the obvious and the hidden - to get as close to the truth as possible.
In rereading Beelzebub I was a bit surprised to see suggestibility so high up on G's list of human failings. We are certainly being tested as a nation as to how suggestible we are. And the rapidity of the visible rise of "followers" in the current conservative cult is proof that many can be told what to believe by the loudest voice or the one that pushes their anger buttons and their need to blame someone. But. yes, we must look at it and name it, like the surgeon who rids us of the infection. I'm happy you put your boots on. I'm happy to see the monks marching. I'm happy to see the young people and the families standing against violence without violence. I remember the sixties well and recently have been listening to Bob Dylan again, just to remind me of the fight we waged then and all the things we changed.
Cynthia, I appreciate the candid struggle between the prophet and contemplative voice.
Once again, your post hits a raw nerve as I struggle with the realization that my habitual modes of "knowing" and "doing" no longer work in the face of what I feel in my heart is "malignant evil." (edit to add) Yet, the Rule of Charity pulls me toward seeing this not as a specific person or "golden calf," but as a "discordant vibration", a malignant fear that has overtaken the collective heart.
Last week I returned to the reflections on Letter XI (Force), where the "Virgin" subdues the lion not through a clash of wills, but through her heart’s direct contact with the lion's heart. It is a triumph of harmony over friction; an "activity in repose" that refuses "muscular" reactiveness to instead offer a superior resonance.
In this moment of history, I’m not sure what actions I can take other than inviting in that "Virgin" presence... It feels like the "higher resolution" you are calling us toward: a prophetic stance that eschews the "din" of collectives to stand in the "jagged particularity" of historical time, with a heart anchored in the Teilhardian whole... To hold the lion’s jaws while our own hearts are pierced is the ultimate "costly discipleship." Thank you for the courage to engage with the transfigured force of the heart.
Thank you for this deep validation of my own sense of conscience in these times. I cannot exist above the fray, outside of the duality if I am truly a human being incarnated on physical Earth. The whole point is to be deeply engaged with Matter. That said, I am watching my motivations carefully, attuned to where I get sucked into the us-them discord and want to "other." My deep desire to speak "truth to power" is not succumbing to the duality, but trying to name and amplify the higher substances of the One as a counterbalance. We can't be on the sidelines as contemplatives, and we can't be fully immersed in the morass. It feels like walking a middle way of sorts.
Jesus may have thrown out the money changers; but he never challenged Rome. He couldn’t have been less concerned with imperial power, or with the liberation of the Israelites from the iron rule of the emperors. He was concerned with liberation from the world, not from Rome, from bondage to desires, not to temporal powers. Shaw said, and I don’t know if it’s true, that “Love your enemy” was the only truly original thing Jesus said. (See Introduction to Androcles and the Lion.)
Obviously, we must resist. We must do what we can. But we must not succumb to hate in the battle, or we lose something much worse than our cherished liberties. Gandhi, before he began the famous Salt March, wrote to the English Viceroy,
“I hope it will not be considered impertinent on my part if I say that I regard you as a friend… I hope it won’t come between us as men.”
I will go to the marches, for sure, but I will pray for the President and his enablers. There but for God’s grace, go I. There is no “evil” that is ever done,of which I am not capable myself.
My comment to you Bill is the one response I see the Jesus I know that did stand for truth and held people accountable for their actions. He also did not protest, yell and make turmoil and fear a priority. The Jesus I know said. Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser's, and to God what is God's. He followed the law, even though He didn't agree with politics or the opinionated Pharishes that thought they were superior.
He even healed the ear that was cut off
in Gethsemane of one of his enemies that came for Him to put him on his Cross. The Jesus I know also held people accountable and wants us all to look at ourselves
Bill, Yes - "Love your enemy" (..."do good to them that dispitefully use you," etc.) was profound and unique. And notably he also said: "Resist not the evil one." Perhaps it is our response for, instead of our resistance against, that is called for today.
Thank you for your courage. We desperately need to hear from those like who have the combined spiritual and academic depth to help us navigate these troubling times.
Thank you Cynthia for continuing to share your wisdom with us. You speak with clarity and courage. In this turbulent time we certainly need your voice. I look forward to your next posts.
Blessings!
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced".
Perhaps alongside historical time, Gebserian time, and Teilhardian time there is yet another dimension: biblical time.
If we allow the thought that the Bible has never really ceased to exist – that its content continues to unfold before our eyes – then we find ourselves not only in a politically and culturally turbulent process, but in an ongoing spiritual movement. The biblical dynamics of hardening, erring, judgment, and repentance would then not be completed events, but present reality.
Taking sides becomes necessary!
Yet taking sides does not mean rejecting the “Other” as its “opposite” with full harshness. That would lead to splitting. What is “split off” tends toward autonomization and exists outside the law.
In taking my stand, I place myself on one side. I would only no longer remain in the bird’s-eye perspective if I were to exclude the “Other.” Then I would be participating in a division. I can therefore stand, position myself, and say so aloud – and still understand the “one standing opposite” as part of the whole.
Perhaps this is precisely one of the spiritual challenges of our time – to take a stand without separating?
If contemplative prayer requires a new operating system, Aurobindonian time - to comprehend it - requires a vastly dimensionally different understanding of what it means to have a version 823409572 update of our operating systems.
Time as we know it, far beyond anything Gebser or de Chardin conceived of, will be transformed.
It helps to keep in mind that in the early 1970s, Gebser wrote that his entire vision, primarily articulated in terms of Western civilization, was solely due to his having “come into contact with the force field of Sri Aurobindo in 1931.”
Think about that for a moment. This extraordinary vision, which for Gebser to realize was only an Infinitesimal fraction of the vision of Sri aurobindo.
Sri Aurobindo’s vision has been repeatedly misunderstood - profoundly so - as something “eastern.” (Even then being confused with Advaita Vedanta, which he spent his life deconstructing!)
So it may help to consider how he consistently, from 1914 right up to the time he left in 1950, insisted that his partner, Mirra Alfassa, had the same consciousness as he. And he intentionally left, according to his own account, because he saw her as more capable than he of bringing down the supramental Consciousness (far far beyond anything described by Gurdjieff, my Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, de Chardin, Gebser, or Wilber - even though Wilber appropriated the term and like all the rest of the terms Mirra used, provided wildly confused definitions of them)
Mirra was born to an Egyptian mother, Turkish father, born and raised in Paris, and apart from a few years in Japan where Roshis recognized her as fully enlightened, spent the last 50+ years in Pondicherry, India, where she helped create the city of Auroville which was to be the home of a new spirituality utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling a ‘religion.”
Yes! Me too! Esp looking at Gebserian and deChardin time. It occurs to me, especially after spending time trying to understand the Epstein story, of how interdependent the global oligarch class is—how deeply interwoven in the power structure—that practicing and living its opposite is subversive and resistant. Providing food, donating money, showing up for each other. Yet is this ever enough, I wonder.
I'd like to add a name to the list people who spoke Truth to power and were killed because of it - Thomas Merton. Strong evidence suggests he was 'removed' by the CIA and it was covered up by the authorities and made to look like an accident.
Thank you for the clarity of this post that names an extraordinarily deep evil and makes clear that a response is needed . To add to the environmental and social destruction, we now have the stirring flames of a nuclear arms race.
When speaking to others I most often encounter the "you can lose objectivity if you get involved" or the "what difference can I make" rationales. To both I would respond that is why we do inner work. I had a teacher who was extensively involved in peace work and tirelessly emphasized the importance of letting go of attachment to results. He also emphasized the difference between personality-based reactivity (including unforgiving judgment) and being called to action by conscience to stop profoundly destructive conduct.
To the "what difference can I make" challenge is the recognition (coming from both spiritual work and science) that we are not isolated ""I's" but cells of a whole---a whole with a a collective consciousness we can affect, albeit usually in. I personally believe that it is the collective awareness that has held in check darker impulses and spared us an atomic holocaust. I believe that the chillingly effective efforts to cloud awareness of environmental destruction and to "other" classes of human beings have to be resisted with our thoughts and voices and with a clear-eyed acceptance of our history. However small, we need to unflinchingly witness and then act from a deeper place. I hope in your next post, you will help us further understand how to most effectively act. I believe it is a collective task.
I am beyond grateful at you starting with the given “of course we must respond “. As a Canadian, I view our historical stance as differently angled. A placeholder for carving out anew the new world virtues now overshadowed in America. As a vector into multiple middle power relationships that cannot occur from the existing mental structure. And from Teihardian time, willing to bear whatever grinding refinement is required in geologic time.
We had a tragic mass shooting of school kids in BC recently. Our Prime Minister held the hand of the leader of the Opposition at the memorial ceremony. And offered to the heartbroken families, “if we as Canadians can bear some of your burden, we will”. Substituted love by a head of government. 🙏
Thank you! I look forward to your next post!!
It's a slippery slope when we take it upon ourselves to judge others as pure evil ("golden calf hierophant"). Certainly, Jesus cast out the money-changers and did not remain quiet about what he saw. But are we even remotely at the level of Jesus? Careful.
Do we have a responsibility? Absolutely, no argument. But it's a matter of scale, and, in this, we must recognise what can be changed and what cannot. You cited Gurdjieff's efforts... "And Gurdjieff risked himself mightily to stay on in occupied Paris during the darkest days of World War II to bring food and solace to his neighbors and an imaginal transfusion of love to an aching world, carried principally through his esoteric work with his most advanced students."
What a beautiful and perfect example. We can make a difference on our scale and must if we are true to the Work.
Consider, though, for a moment... he did not shout from the rooftops about the evil going on in the world. He did not point fingers. Nor did he presume that he could change anything about what was going on on the larger scale. He knew and taught that almost everything in human existence is ruled by planetary forces and that nothing about this could change. Power-possessing beings (a misnomer, really, as they are all just puppets of planetary forces) come and go. But we get caught up with "this" side or "that" side and believe we see reality more clearly than our brothers, even to the point of being willing to take up arms, whether these arms are physical, emotional, or mental.
What Gurdjieff taught was that individual change is possible and that through this - inner change of Being - the world would be helped. Not through setting up "us" versus "them". Not by ascending to the pulpit. Not by shouting from the rooftops. Not through believing that we have the capacity to judge objective "evil" and "good." He was clear that we all get caught up in conditioned morality and that objective morality was something beyond our understanding... until we have worked sufficiently to uncover Conscience.
Even then, though, Conscience does not get up on soapboxes and try to change others' opinions. Conscience does not point fingers. Conscience is our personal lens first and foremost on ourselves... an inner compass given by God, which tells us what is becoming and unbecoming for a human being, starting with ourselves.
With Conscience comes real Compassion for others and the ability to put myself in another's shoes. Can I put myself in Donald Trump's shoes? In Biden's shoes? Do I not see that they are all slaves, just like me? Except that they have even LESS possibility than I do inasmuch as the world and people's beliefs and conditioning hold them in their positions as captives on the global stage. They did not choose. They were "chosen" by the sleeping masses. They succumbed to adulation and promise of power and riches, as we all do. What a terrible fate they suffer. I cry for the sleeping world... for those who are elevated into the maximum security prison of global political status and, equally, for those who blindly "vote" for one side or the other of the collective dualistic illusion.
The message is clear: the masses cannot change. However, as Gurdjieff taught, individuals can change... inner change of Being... and this is the only way to truly make a difference in the world... the only way to true Compassion and Love. Only then can I see that we are all brothers and sisters in the same predicament and that the way out begins with me.
Here's a shocking thought: Can I see Trump as my brother? Can I have a deep Wish for his ultimate welfare? Can I move past my judgments against him and realise that everything I see in him is in me, too? Vanity, pride, self-love, hatred, illusion, ignorance? If so, it changes the lens.
What we need is a new lens... the lens of impartiality driven by Conscience, Compassion, Hope, Faith, and Love. Through this lens, a real Wish is born. The power of such a Wish for the welfare of every man and woman on the planet cannot be overestimated. More powerful than any blog.
But as soon as that Wish becomes partisan - I Wish for this person but not for that one - I'm lost.
I agree with you. However I will add one thing. This point of balance and impartiality offers a pause in space and time for a response to form instead of a reaction. This space needs to bear the tension of responsibility. I think Cynthia is pointing to the need for an inner strength to bear this tension and not give up to indifference, which has nothing to do with impartiality.
Well stated. Especially: "We need a new lens." I imagine that new lens would be a multi-focus lens, like professional photographers use to switch from one focal power to another to another as they compile a record of the complexity of what is before them. And then afterward carefully sort through them all, sometimes with even higher magnification, in order to see the whole and the parts, the obvious and the hidden - to get as close to the truth as possible.
In rereading Beelzebub I was a bit surprised to see suggestibility so high up on G's list of human failings. We are certainly being tested as a nation as to how suggestible we are. And the rapidity of the visible rise of "followers" in the current conservative cult is proof that many can be told what to believe by the loudest voice or the one that pushes their anger buttons and their need to blame someone. But. yes, we must look at it and name it, like the surgeon who rids us of the infection. I'm happy you put your boots on. I'm happy to see the monks marching. I'm happy to see the young people and the families standing against violence without violence. I remember the sixties well and recently have been listening to Bob Dylan again, just to remind me of the fight we waged then and all the things we changed.
Cynthia, I appreciate the candid struggle between the prophet and contemplative voice.
Once again, your post hits a raw nerve as I struggle with the realization that my habitual modes of "knowing" and "doing" no longer work in the face of what I feel in my heart is "malignant evil." (edit to add) Yet, the Rule of Charity pulls me toward seeing this not as a specific person or "golden calf," but as a "discordant vibration", a malignant fear that has overtaken the collective heart.
Last week I returned to the reflections on Letter XI (Force), where the "Virgin" subdues the lion not through a clash of wills, but through her heart’s direct contact with the lion's heart. It is a triumph of harmony over friction; an "activity in repose" that refuses "muscular" reactiveness to instead offer a superior resonance.
In this moment of history, I’m not sure what actions I can take other than inviting in that "Virgin" presence... It feels like the "higher resolution" you are calling us toward: a prophetic stance that eschews the "din" of collectives to stand in the "jagged particularity" of historical time, with a heart anchored in the Teilhardian whole... To hold the lion’s jaws while our own hearts are pierced is the ultimate "costly discipleship." Thank you for the courage to engage with the transfigured force of the heart.
Thank you for this deep validation of my own sense of conscience in these times. I cannot exist above the fray, outside of the duality if I am truly a human being incarnated on physical Earth. The whole point is to be deeply engaged with Matter. That said, I am watching my motivations carefully, attuned to where I get sucked into the us-them discord and want to "other." My deep desire to speak "truth to power" is not succumbing to the duality, but trying to name and amplify the higher substances of the One as a counterbalance. We can't be on the sidelines as contemplatives, and we can't be fully immersed in the morass. It feels like walking a middle way of sorts.
Jesus may have thrown out the money changers; but he never challenged Rome. He couldn’t have been less concerned with imperial power, or with the liberation of the Israelites from the iron rule of the emperors. He was concerned with liberation from the world, not from Rome, from bondage to desires, not to temporal powers. Shaw said, and I don’t know if it’s true, that “Love your enemy” was the only truly original thing Jesus said. (See Introduction to Androcles and the Lion.)
Obviously, we must resist. We must do what we can. But we must not succumb to hate in the battle, or we lose something much worse than our cherished liberties. Gandhi, before he began the famous Salt March, wrote to the English Viceroy,
“I hope it will not be considered impertinent on my part if I say that I regard you as a friend… I hope it won’t come between us as men.”
I will go to the marches, for sure, but I will pray for the President and his enablers. There but for God’s grace, go I. There is no “evil” that is ever done,of which I am not capable myself.
My comment to you Bill is the one response I see the Jesus I know that did stand for truth and held people accountable for their actions. He also did not protest, yell and make turmoil and fear a priority. The Jesus I know said. Give to Ceaser what is Ceaser's, and to God what is God's. He followed the law, even though He didn't agree with politics or the opinionated Pharishes that thought they were superior.
He even healed the ear that was cut off
in Gethsemane of one of his enemies that came for Him to put him on his Cross. The Jesus I know also held people accountable and wants us all to look at ourselves
Thanks, Marianne. I’m just saying, for me it is always best to avoid judging and to avoid hating. Judge not, lest you be judged. Etc.
Bill, Yes - "Love your enemy" (..."do good to them that dispitefully use you," etc.) was profound and unique. And notably he also said: "Resist not the evil one." Perhaps it is our response for, instead of our resistance against, that is called for today.
Thank you for your courage. We desperately need to hear from those like who have the combined spiritual and academic depth to help us navigate these troubling times.
Thank you Cynthia for continuing to share your wisdom with us. You speak with clarity and courage. In this turbulent time we certainly need your voice. I look forward to your next posts.
Blessings!
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced".
James Baldwin
Perhaps alongside historical time, Gebserian time, and Teilhardian time there is yet another dimension: biblical time.
If we allow the thought that the Bible has never really ceased to exist – that its content continues to unfold before our eyes – then we find ourselves not only in a politically and culturally turbulent process, but in an ongoing spiritual movement. The biblical dynamics of hardening, erring, judgment, and repentance would then not be completed events, but present reality.
Taking sides becomes necessary!
Yet taking sides does not mean rejecting the “Other” as its “opposite” with full harshness. That would lead to splitting. What is “split off” tends toward autonomization and exists outside the law.
In taking my stand, I place myself on one side. I would only no longer remain in the bird’s-eye perspective if I were to exclude the “Other.” Then I would be participating in a division. I can therefore stand, position myself, and say so aloud – and still understand the “one standing opposite” as part of the whole.
Perhaps this is precisely one of the spiritual challenges of our time – to take a stand without separating?
You left out Aurobindonian time.
If contemplative prayer requires a new operating system, Aurobindonian time - to comprehend it - requires a vastly dimensionally different understanding of what it means to have a version 823409572 update of our operating systems.
Time as we know it, far beyond anything Gebser or de Chardin conceived of, will be transformed.
It helps to keep in mind that in the early 1970s, Gebser wrote that his entire vision, primarily articulated in terms of Western civilization, was solely due to his having “come into contact with the force field of Sri Aurobindo in 1931.”
Think about that for a moment. This extraordinary vision, which for Gebser to realize was only an Infinitesimal fraction of the vision of Sri aurobindo.
Sri Aurobindo’s vision has been repeatedly misunderstood - profoundly so - as something “eastern.” (Even then being confused with Advaita Vedanta, which he spent his life deconstructing!)
So it may help to consider how he consistently, from 1914 right up to the time he left in 1950, insisted that his partner, Mirra Alfassa, had the same consciousness as he. And he intentionally left, according to his own account, because he saw her as more capable than he of bringing down the supramental Consciousness (far far beyond anything described by Gurdjieff, my Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, de Chardin, Gebser, or Wilber - even though Wilber appropriated the term and like all the rest of the terms Mirra used, provided wildly confused definitions of them)
Mirra was born to an Egyptian mother, Turkish father, born and raised in Paris, and apart from a few years in Japan where Roshis recognized her as fully enlightened, spent the last 50+ years in Pondicherry, India, where she helped create the city of Auroville which was to be the home of a new spirituality utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling a ‘religion.”
Yes! Me too! Esp looking at Gebserian and deChardin time. It occurs to me, especially after spending time trying to understand the Epstein story, of how interdependent the global oligarch class is—how deeply interwoven in the power structure—that practicing and living its opposite is subversive and resistant. Providing food, donating money, showing up for each other. Yet is this ever enough, I wonder.
Bravo Cynthia! I’ve been waiting for your wisdom on this fateful moment in time where Trump has become the great destabilizer.
🍀 🕯️ 🫶
I'd like to add a name to the list people who spoke Truth to power and were killed because of it - Thomas Merton. Strong evidence suggests he was 'removed' by the CIA and it was covered up by the authorities and made to look like an accident.
Thank you for the clarity of this post that names an extraordinarily deep evil and makes clear that a response is needed . To add to the environmental and social destruction, we now have the stirring flames of a nuclear arms race.
When speaking to others I most often encounter the "you can lose objectivity if you get involved" or the "what difference can I make" rationales. To both I would respond that is why we do inner work. I had a teacher who was extensively involved in peace work and tirelessly emphasized the importance of letting go of attachment to results. He also emphasized the difference between personality-based reactivity (including unforgiving judgment) and being called to action by conscience to stop profoundly destructive conduct.
To the "what difference can I make" challenge is the recognition (coming from both spiritual work and science) that we are not isolated ""I's" but cells of a whole---a whole with a a collective consciousness we can affect, albeit usually in. I personally believe that it is the collective awareness that has held in check darker impulses and spared us an atomic holocaust. I believe that the chillingly effective efforts to cloud awareness of environmental destruction and to "other" classes of human beings have to be resisted with our thoughts and voices and with a clear-eyed acceptance of our history. However small, we need to unflinchingly witness and then act from a deeper place. I hope in your next post, you will help us further understand how to most effectively act. I believe it is a collective task.