THE SOCIAL AND PEACE DIVIDEND THAT RESULTS FROM CULTURAL SAFETY: UNDERSTANDING WHY SOCIAL DISTANCING SOMETIMES INCREASES ANXIETY

INTRODUCTION

In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic the impact of social distancing is readily understood as an infectious disease prevention measure, but it is useful, from an analytical standpoint, to consider how and why social distancing impacts on close-knit familiar communities that rely on social proximity with extended kin and families as a cultural safety net and way of maintaining social cohesion and resilience.

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In a broader sense, I write about the importance here of viewing culture as a resource in overcoming anxiety at a personal and global level, both as an anthropologist and a concerned citizen interested in finding pathways to peace and prosperity. I posted another Blog Post recently on Peaceful Co-existence: Dreaming Big. In that post I digressed to consider the global pre-conditions for peace, however, from an anthropological point of view, it is just as important to appreciate how social distance creates barriers to communication and makes communities less safe by reducing the effectiveness of what might be called protective factors from a social and emotional weel-being standpoint.

I have a simple rule of thumb that I use as a guide in overcoming the anxieties and fear we all experience in the modern age. Underlying this simple rule is a complex story around human psychology, about how we project the cognitive and physiological dimensions of anxiety by finding things in the world that reinforce and confirm our worst fears. We don’t do this by choice or deliberately, but we do have choices to make about the kind of world we would like to live in and how we create the preconditions for our own well-being. It is also important to underscore the clinical dimensions of anxiety as an important starting point, although I don’t have the prerequisite knowledge or understanding to fully explore the medical or cognitive behavioural aspects of anxiety. I am an anthropologist, not a specialist in cognitive or medical matters, so I write within a framework that takes diversity and difference as a fundamental pre-condition of all societies in a contemporary sense. Fundamental to this subject position is a belief that fear, and anxiety are common in a behavioral sense, not just psychologically as an integral part of our flight and fight response to natural threats, but as a condition of life that needs managing in separate ways, and considering the social, cultural, and environmental contexts that cause us concern or make us worry.

Like most people I would like the world to be a peaceful place and people everywhere to enjoy prosperity. I hope that our leaders also share the same aspirations. From a psychological viewpoint our leaders need to be well, cognitively, and physically, to overcome their own fears and anxiety to achieve these outcomes in their communication and decision-making.

If, as psychologists assert, anxiety can generate fear projections it makes sense that a precondition for peace and prosperity is overcoming any feelings of impending doom and encouraging wellness for all.

CULTURAL DIMENSIONS OF WELL-BEING

People achieve wellbeing in diverse ways. Some go fishing, some surf, some swim, and exercise, some seek counselling, some enjoy gardening, some seek happiness, some believe in God and seek spiritual guidance, and many others view nutrition and general health as important, but the general idea is that human beings find many ways of overcoming fear and anxiety from a mental health and physiological standpoint. All this is good. But the challenge is to transcend the personal dimensions of well-being to embrace the global and transpersonal dimensions of anxiety to reduce the stressors that seem at times overwhelming.

A brief word on fear projections.

According to one source:

Projection is a natural occurrence where humans press their feelings and emotions on to other people or sometimes even imaginary things. Humans project their emotions into theoretical things because they want to try and make their fears less scary by projecting ideas and stories that pre-empt threats and imagine scenarios in which things happen.

From here it is easier to understand how people in their everyday lives conflate their own fears with an imagined reality, or try to control others’ perceptions, to deal with their own fears by creating stories or threats that don’t exist. The power and authority to divide and conquer has a personal dimension, an indulgence on the part of leaders who suffer fear and anxiety in their own lives and project these fears, creating the very problems they dread. In a very real sense, they become less frightened and less scared by projecting intent and creating the preconditions for their own power to deal with their own fears. Without self-awareness there is no pathway to understanding how anxieties create narratives to justify actions that deny peace and prosperity for some or all of us.

I would say this is the supreme indulgence, often at the expense of others. It would be simpler if they simply dealt with their own fears and anxieties, focused on strengthening their own well-being and began imagining a world of peace and prosperity.

This is where our story begins in relation to peaceful co-existence. It begins with the question: how do we create the conditions for personal and global peace and prosperity by focusing on the personal and global dimensions of fear projection and anxiety? This is a different proposition from discounting or criticizing individual ideas or thinking around what might happen, more about understanding the psychological and cultural pre-conditions for peace-making.

A case in point. Imagine you’re a teacher in the classroom. You have a fear that students may misbehave. Your fear may seem justified. There will be some students who, for one reason or another, behave in ways that justify your anxieties around the potential for chaos, or losing control in the class, or simply not being able to manage the situation. You identify risks and start observing behaviors that confirm your worst fears. To deal with the situation you divide the classroom into good and bad students. This binary logic and division reinforce perceptions that there is an us versus them. The bad students are true to type. The good ones are less of a problem, but they are victims of a situation whereby the bad students get unwanted attention, distracting the whole class and threatening positive learning outcomes. The targeted interventions appear justified, but the situation degenerates if the teachers’ projections relate to emotional or irrational behaviors within the complex dynamics of the classroom. The teacher reacts because they want to try and make their fear of losing control less scary by adopting solutions that make matters worse. Teachers that are well versed in conflict resolution do not react. Moreover, very few students want to be the teacher’s pet, and those in the bad camp may give the teacher what they want; evidence that they can be bad or behave in ways that make the teacher feel better and justified in establishing their interventions. Some students may simply feel that any attention is better than no attention. From a transactional perspective, getting attention affords opportunities to negotiate, but it also runs the risk that the teacher and the so-called bad student will seek to confirm their worst fears through interactions that reinforce their own perceptions of cause and effect.

Fear creates its own momentum. Little wonder that people defend their past actions, as our egos become attached to a certain line of reasoning or past decisions; a kind of self-reinforcing commitment to being right or justified. The projection of fear in a physiological sense also rewards our flight and fight response by making things predictable, or by imagining all sorts of scenarios that do align with our taken for granted assumptions or past thoughts and behaviors. That is why critical thought and changing behaviors is so difficult. The social construction of reality ensures there are plenty of reinforcing constructs and responses from significant others that soothe our egos, giving us further justification for maintaining a particular line of reasoning or behavior.

All this can be fertile ground for deepening divisions in conflict situations. This is also why some people say the only solutions are bad solutions in the middle of an entrenched conflict. The good news is that circuit breakers are well known in negotiation and conflict resolution theory. Diplomats and peacemakers look for win-win situations, suggest compromises, or at the very least try to see things from different points of view in a mediation process.

Beyond self-awareness, mindfulness, and personal development, there are cultural resources we need to find and rediscover. It is not surprising that social connection and culture are important resources; they can provide you with happiness, security, support, greater empathy, a sense of purpose, lower levels of anxiety and depression, higher self-esteem, and more trusting and cooperative social relationships. These benefits can make individuals and communities more resilient in the face of stressful situations and reduce your perception of stress.

There is, in fact, a relationship between the emergence of a cancel culture and social distancing behaviors. Cancel culture is a term that refers to the practice of withdrawing support from or ostracizing public figures or individuals who have said or done something that is considered offensive or unacceptable. Social distancing aims to reduce physical contact between people. As we saw through the COVID 19 period, both cancel culture and social distancing can have social and psychological impacts on individuals and groups, such as isolation, anxiety, stigma, or loss of cultural connections and identity. Similarly, cancel culture and social distancing can be influenced by cultural factors, such as perceptions of collective accountability and responsibility or individualism. These influences affect how people perceive and respond to specific norms and expectations in each situation. And both cancel culture and social distancing can be seen, more generally, as forms of social control or resistance, depending on one’s subject position and response.

My own understanding of belonging to a Group is a product of my own lived experience as an anthropologist and community worker. My given Anangu name, as an anthropologist who spent many years out bush with the Spinifex mob in camp and community, is Wari Yalta (viz. cold wind i.e. from the south). I learned from the Spinifex elders, that Anangu Tjurta Nyinanyi Tjungaringanyi (meaning: a lot of Anangu sitting all together) is a comfort zone and the safest place to be. Cultural respect in this sense requires subordination to the collective will and cultural authority or hierarchies that are specific to Western Desert law and culture. Elders are the custodians of the Tjukurpa (the Dreaming Law) and have the authority to teach and guide the younger generations in their cultural practices and language. They are respected and honored for their wisdom, knowledge, and experience. This is why Indigenous cultures are often referred to as egalitarian: egalitarianism is a principle that values equality and fairness among all people, regardless of their gender, age, or status. We know these definitions gloss over many important cultural distinctions and practices, but it conveys, in comparative terms, a difference between hierarchy and authority from a Eurocentric perspective and the systems of cultural authority that continues to exist in most Indigenous communities across Australia. In traditional Pitjantjatjara society, for example, men and women have distinct roles within the community and between kin, but Anangu prefer to make decisions by consensus at community meetings in the open rather than by the less transparent means of coercion, delegation or domination that create conflict and division.

This is why the loss of the cultural authority of elders can have a large negative bearing on personal and community safety, as we found out with the death of many older Spinifex elders over the past 5 to 10 years in Tjuntjuntjara. I am personally traumatized by that loss, as many of my Marlpas (friends and companions), language teachers and mentors have passed. I am now called a Tjilpi myself, a respectful term for someone who has grey hair and reached an age where seniority is valued.

To be continued ……….