Power, toxicity, and the new dinosaurs

I’m having a great conversation by PM here on InkedLin about toxic culture with a person working to eliminate ‘it’. This is a worthy enterprise. My question to this person was how something that cannot be defined can be eliminated.

I have expanded upon this question by positing that the experience of psychological and emotional unease is personal and temporal. What, and the extent of the effect of this variable, will materially upset different people, and even the same person at different times, is impossible to pin down to an absolute definition. My interlocutor countered with evidence-based trends. To this, I suggested that trends are generally identified by people searching for something, and these people must have their own biases entangled within. When enough people organise themselves into groups and begin awarding each other academic badges for the consistency of discovering these biases… well, regular readers will know my views on the silly idea that psychology is a science…

My correspondent is well-meaning and engaged in important work. However, I maintain that the aim of eliminating ‘toxic culture’ is a bit like punching steam. It’s a poor analogy, but I hope the point is made. What is toxic for one person can easily be the pinnacle of logic for another. Unreasonable and upsetting demands that one person makes upon one, or many, and how they deliver them can be absolutely fine for others and in a different situation. There is no absolute to toxicity, but there is to abuse of power.

Of course, there is a problem here, too. Often, those in a position of power-over feel that they have a right to such power and see no reason why it should be moderated. Such a person could easily and reasonably feel that requiring them to moderate their behaviour is an abuse of power by people who hold a different view.

It's tricky, huh.

My solution, which I proffered in our exchange, is to help individuals understand how to accumulate their own power because power is what we’re talking about here. ‘Toxicity’ is the adverse experience of power being exerted. This adverse effect is prominent when it could cause one’s situation to be adversely affected if one were to argue against it. Thus, if a person has a polarising position on matters of life, which includes work and the experience of people around them, and they express this in such a way that others feel their own position or prospects are diminished, here we have isolated the issue.

Unfortunately, the accumulation of power is achieved at least in part, but access to money and its accumulation. If you inherited $1m, would someone whose MO had an adverse effect on you have the same power over you? It depends on who and what that power can do. I’m talking about it at an individual level, and more precisely, as it concerns work and business.

The accumulation of money does not need to mean making more money, and actually, that’s the trap. “We” have been conditioned to conflate consumption with meaning and worth. We have accepted that we “need” things that we really do not. We have become addicted. Addiction is the compulsion to continue doing something we know is harmful. Denial and obfuscation are two of the main tools of addiction. We know we are destroying the planet for human habitation, yet we continue to do it; we are required to do it; monopolist consumerist consumption demands it, and this is the game we’re all in.

The dopamine hit that comes from the repeated activity of addiction diminishes over time, and more and more of the addictive thing is required as a result. This is called habituation. Consumption, and moreover, conspicuous consumption, is the opium of the people – Marx was nearly right. The consumption levels required increase as the ability to impress with the outward demonstrations of “success”. It’s addiction, plain and simple. As with all addiction, it becomes all-consuming. As consumerism has normalised, people’s consumption levels have increased, and what was before a luxury becomes a requirement. Debt and the constant scrambling for ‘more’ is always the result.

Some addicts figure out how to control the supply of consumptive activity and amass fortunes for themselves. Most people who think they are such a “boss” are usually more trapped than they can imagine in their wildest dreams – including some eye-wateringly ‘wealthy’ people.

In my work with individuals, which is generally done under the “financial therapy” title, I intervene. I carry out a consumption intervention with my clients and help them understand their situation. It is NOT their fault. They didn’t cause it. The way out is to get the dopamine hit from NOT complying with the all-pervasive advertising and marketing and NOT to be concerned about the taunts of those still deep in their addiction and unable to countenance any other way. This method of getting your dopamine never habituates.

A war chest can be accumulated by reducing consumption and working toward eliminating debt. Bit by bit, as it’s added to, the more ‘bomb-proof’ we become. With that comes a way of being that increasingly comes to realise the value of things for themselves, to us, rather than the display of apparent wealth to others. Just beginning this process is liberating, and we realise that the job we have, the career path we’re on, and the clients we have CAN ALL BE CHANGED for people and situations that suit us better. We become less trapped, and with that, we become increasingly impervious to those who exercise power over us.

Thus, my solution to the unsolvable goal of defeating the undefinable “toxic culture” is to help people move away from what doesn’t suit them. The effect of this is to isolate the ‘dinosaurs’.

There is a problem here. As Paulo Freire wrote, “The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.” With a little twist, I would add that one person’s dinosaur is another’s saviour, and vice versa. I do not doubt that many people who have achieved greater “success” regarding hierarchical status and living standards could rightly regard those they consider “woke” as the new dinosaurs. I think they have a valid point, too. People who can demonstrate their apparent wealth will understandably feel that their way is the right way and all who think otherwise are entitled and feckless.

Here's the thing. The more debt we carry and accumulate, and the more we feel we “need” things and experiences and that we are diminished without having them, the more we are playing into the hands of consumptive addition, and the more miserable we become there is never… ENOUGH! So, in liberating yourself to the plane of choice, where you can cheerfully just plot your way out and into a more suitable situation, rather than feeling trapped and angry and trying to force things to your liking… don’t become a new dinosaur.

When people in a state of addiction cry out within themselves in a state of anguish, “Is this it?” they are truly the most miserable of people. They know they are enslaved, and they feel wretched because they are told they’ve only got themselves to blame. Often, in recovery, it is necessary to get the addict into a new situation, away from their former users, and into a new way of life. With the addiction to consumption, as it relates to the experience of so-called toxic cultures – which is really the adverse experience of power-over, the answer is to be able to do this for ourselves.

The way to do this is to experience the kick you get from F..K YOU – you didn’t get me this time, I’m not buying, and I’m not buying into the endless doom spiral of showing off either. This has two effects – the increased appreciation of value and quality and the decreased power others have over us.

I’m reminded of the Daoist story of the rock in the path. Great effort can be wasted trying to move it. It is better to go with the natural way of just going around it.