Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism

Tool 6: Generative Disillusionment and Exiled Capacities

Continuity: Seeking the perpetuation (and perhaps expansion) of the existing system and its promised securities, certainties, and entitlements.

it may be useful to evoke a distinction between problems (things that can actually or potentially be fixed) and predicaments (things that must constantly be dealt with, won’t be solved, and won’t go away).

unconscious affective feedback loops and emotional forecasts wherein people predict and then try to avoid feelings of embarrassment, shame, guilt, worthlessness, or powerlessness.

Unrestricted autonomy: Placing primacy on one’s free choice and independence at the expense of honoring interdependence and responsibility.

Tool 3: The Bus within Us

the ways we think about problems shape the questions we ask, and limit both our horizons of possibility and the scope of approaches we can take.

For example, if something prompts defensiveness or resistance, you can pause to “check your bus” and instead of embodying resistance, you can take a step back, see this resistance expressed by a passenger on your bus, and pay attention to what this passenger is teaching through what they are saying or through their interactions or conflicts with ot

Modernity also conditions us to avoid, escape, or want to be rescued from discomfort and to gravitate toward what validates our ego-logical desires for the