A Psychosynthesis Perspective on Liberation from White Supremacy
Up until recently, the transpersonal psychology called psychosynthesis has been primarily focused on the individual and has often ignored larger human systems that oppress so many, like late stage capitalism or late stage individualism. Psychosynthesis couldn’t completely disidentify from the cultural context in which it arose. Roberto Assagioli spent years of his life in Italy under facism and courageously developed psychosynthesis in spite of that, studying and incorporating wisdom from Eastern religions and philosophies. However, as far as I know, he didn’t study indigenous teachings from anywhere in the world. More recent students and teachers of psychosynthesis are working to include an even wider range of wisdom teachings, realizing that no individual and no culture exists and flourishes in isolation.
We each exist as a living system within larger systems that are in turn part of even more encompassing systems. On the level of personality, we each take part in and are shaped by cultural systems—political, cultural, economic systems—that are shaped in certain “codes” that maintain and regulate those systems. But those codes may be out of step, out of coherence, with even larger systems—environmental and ecological systems that support all life on Earth.
Perhaps the first step in the disidentification process is to first become aware of these codes. The codes of white supremacy, colonialism, and patriarchy are so deeply embedded in capitalism and politics that they remain largely unconscious to most people. We need to bring them to awareness in order to discern their ill effects—and even their possible usefulness—so we can use our will and choose which codes to use, and which to adapt or transform. They remain in force as long as we ignore them.
So decolonizing our minds means becoming aware of underlying codes – assumptions, world views, beliefs – and then disidentifying from them, consciously choosing what new codes to adopt, and how.
As we come to recognize how we are shaped by our relationships, our community, our culture, our economic and political systems, we realize that we are never independent of them. Autonomy means awareness and will in relationship with the world in which we live.
However, the necessary awareness is hard to come by as long as we remain within the system, without outside input. It's very hard to discern the waters in which we swim. So in the case of the system of white supremacy—arising largely from Europe and America centuries ago—those of us embedded in it need to learn from teachers, thinkers and writers from the Global Majority. And we need to work with other white folks who are also trying to awaken from the white supremacy colonial trance.
Racism was deliberately cultivated in the USA to keep the lower economic class is divided and powerless. It continues to be used by many people in power to divert attention and blame from themselves, and so remain in power. This is fascism. Sadly the Republican party in the USA is being taken over by unscrupulous people who will do anything to stay in power. They seem to be dysfunctional subpersonalities of humanity, or at least of Modernity and “Western civilization.”
Liberation – great term! All of us living in the dominant global culture are enslaved to one degree or another by racism, sexism, and other isms, by white supremacy, patriarchy, and competitive individualism. Liberation means rejoining not only the whole of humanity, but also taking our place within the web of life, rejoining life in all its forms and manifestations. We are liberated from the confines of separation, specialness, superiority, and expectations of who and how we should be, free to contribute to and receive support from the smorgasbord of life in all its diversity and creative possibilities.
Two programs I’m involved in that can help liberation:
For more information and to register, please CLICK HERE.
