New World Capitalism and the Open People

Increasingly the corporate world is concluding that business can’t succeed in a world that’s failing.

There are many narratives emerging in the world.  The negative ones dominate our headlines - corruption, abuse of power, frightening manipulation of the truth, our democratic system, the law, etc.  And of course, war, disease, the Zombie Apocalypse in the form of fundamentalist terrorism.

 

That's the dark winter threatening to overtake us - the collapse of civilization under the weight of its own failings.

 

It's not all storm clouds, though - there is, as always, a silver lining - points of light emerging where you least expect them.

 

What yesterday would have been revolutionaries, trying to burn the system down are today Virtuous Schemers, Hari Seldons of the 21st Century.  Like Irish monks or Islamic scholars of old, they are persevering the best of what came before and experimenting with new ways of thinking, communicating, organizing and thriving.

 

That bastion of stagnation, the bureaucracy, is a petri dish of civic disruption at all levels one finds dedicated, disruptive public servants who view what they do as a calling, but a comfort zone.  They are changing everything in slow fits and spurts, but aided from all corners of the nascent Open Community.

 

Some of the best ideas and most powerful voices for collaboration and shared solutions aren't coming from politicians or leaders of the not-for-profit or even religious sector, but from every day folk uninhibited by old standards of success.  These community catalysts are the Open People - they could be your neighbour, or your colleague, or your employer.  And that's a good thing.

 

It can look awfully bleak, our future - like the only way out is through fire and brimstone.  Such is not the case.

 

But then, it never is, is it?

Catching Fire, Importing Nuts

The agent gave her a signed document which stated that "the system checks" had found she "had a medical episode in June 2012" and that because of the "mental illness episode" she would need a medical evaluation before being accepted.

Quite frankly, this is nuts.  

First, let's recognize the fact that both Canada and the US (and countless other countries, and the private sector) have recognized there is a global mental health crisis, largely because we're doing mental health wrong.  Despite the tools, drugs and practices ranging from workplace accommodations to cognitive behavioural therapy, we still think of people with mental illness as either weak or contagious.

We've been stigmatizing mental health in the same way we used to stigmatize leprosy, causing pain, loss and suffering where it could be easily avoided.

Beyond that, though, does the US seriously want to stop people who have been diagnosed with mental illness from crossing their borders?

Sorry, Russell Brand - no more working in Hollywood.  Too bad, Catherine Zeta-Jones; you don't belong here.  Hey, future Einsteins, you're not welcome in the US - take your crazy notions elsewhere. Foreign leaders are welcome, so long as they aren't hounded by black dogs like Winston Churchill was.

If they disqualify the crazies from entering the country, they surely don't want them in the Oval Office - it's a good thing Abraham Lincoln wasn't diagnosed in his lifetime.

The drivers, the innovators, the leaders in society all have something abnormal about their psychology.  If they didn't, they would be normal and we'd still be questing for fire.  

We celebrate the cognitively disparate just as much as we vilify them.  We eat them up on Homeland and Dexter and Community and Monk.  People with mental illness are our new superheroes.  

You know how Jennifer Lawrence keeps talking about being crazy and weird and craving a diagnosis?  Note the brilliance of thought and performance that comes out of her?  Exactly.

"Mental illness" is a gift, a divergence, a disruption, a catalyst.  Like any naked flame, it can blaze out of control and cause a brushfire, but with a bit of structure and the right fuel, you can get both heat and light.

We want access to these cognitive forces of nature; we want to help them reach their maximum potential safely, not watch them burn out and fade away from afar.  If the US had so stigmatized their exceptional people for the entire course of their history, well, they wouldn't be such a loved/hated power today, would they?

But it gets even worse.  From the same article:

MP Mike Sullivan said what has happened to his constituent is "enormously troubling... How did U.S. agents get her personal medical information?"

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 212, denies entry to people who have had a physical or mental disorder that may pose a "threat to the property, safety or welfare" of themselves or others.

I wonder how they define "threat to property, safety or welfare?"  Through their own ignorance about mental health, US Customs (granted, following US law) have threatened the financial investment Ellen Richardson made for her trip (property) and caused potential harm to her safety and welfare by rubbing salt into her pre-existing, but well-managed condition.

Beyond that - how did they get Ms. Richardson's information?  It's private, in someone else's hands.  They would have had to either do some serious espionage to get information like that on average citizens, or have been provided access to that information by someone else equally paranoid about the masses.  It's obsessive, it's compulsive, it's anti-democratic.

Why would they do such a crazy thing?

It could be the general anxiety about the economy.  Perhaps it's residual fear from 9/11 or connected to the rash of domestic shootings.  It might have something to do with the increased radicalization of their Political Right.  Either way, there's definite paranoia in position.

Either way, it's worth taking a look at symptoms of Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD) - mistrusting, believing others are always out to get them, uncomfortable with sharing information, habitually blaming and distrusting others.

Sounds a bit like the Department of Homeland Security, doesn't it?

Perhaps that's why the US is trying to firewall themselves off from the crazies - they've got enough problems dealing with their home-grown nuts.