Democracy is the best mode of governance that we, as humans, have come up with so far. For all the flaws of Capitalism, Capitalist Democracy has provided pathways for success to non-white skinned humans better than Socialist Democracy has. Compare the US, the UK (with Indian origin top govt candidates) and say, Sweden (ask any Chinese tourist who has been there how blatant the racism they experience is).

Democracy seems to require large interest group advocacy to bring about change. The US has a huge number of special interest groups that advocate for change — there’s many historical problems with these groups (look at the story of the Nickel Lobby for an example of what I’m referring to).

When it comes to creating space in democratic society for spiritual work in service of releasing trauma, this creates a perverse incentive. It requires a stronger identification with a mode of suffering in order to bring about change in society to accommodate humans suffering under that particular mode of suffering. Opening up the gateways for promotion of suffering modes as a “natural” aspect of human identity and in doing so, opposing any societal attempts to address those modes of suffering.

I was engaged in a social media back-and-forth recently with someone who seemingly advocates for Autism as a “natural” aspect of the human condition that doesn’t need to be “fixed” and seems to conflate any desire to “heal” Autism with a desire to eradicate all Autistic humans, citing Nazi attempts to eradicate disabled humans in concentration camps — I understand the slippery slope fears here and yet I’m quite struck by the the tightly protective constellation of thought here. Once I identify with a condition and believe it to be an aspect of who I am right from birth, any attempts from the outside world to help me release suffering that might be associated with the condition are seen as attempts to kill me. It seems like a classic Protector technique, when observed from the IFS lens. With the awareness I have around the widespread presence of repressed and unaddressed childhood trauma, I wonder what would happen to these strong beliefs that these humans hold if they were to realize an aspect of their repressed trauma and how it contributed to that particular mode of suffering that they’ve now adopted into their Identity.

I wonder the same about adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse whose body dysmorphia has reached a level where they now believe they were just born in the wrong body — please observe my language here, I’m not claiming that all humans are born in the right body or that trans identity doesn’t exist or that (ridiculous that I even need to clarify this) trans humans need to be eradicated but I’m wondering on behalf of those with repressed childhood sexual trauma (like myself from over 2y ago, and many many other humans I’ve spoken to) that have gender and body dysphoria, where the suffering brings them to a level of agony that hormonal injections with unclear long term side effects or surgeries that involve numbing removal of body parts becomes a necessity that can only be accessed by rooting oneself in the idea that this is just who they are because the alternative of looking at the repressed trauma is even more painful.