We Are Experiencing A Crucible
My work in transformative teaching has shown me that this sort of deep, lasting learning is predicated by a crucible. A crucible is an exogenous shock to the system that causes one to pause and re-evaluate beliefs and values. At an individual and collective level, we are experiencing multiple crucibles as we grapple with significant shocks from the pandemic and from the Black Lives Matter movement that has gained universal traction as a result of the killing of George Floyd.
Research has shown that there are three reactions to this sort of trauma to the system. The first is where the person looks to protect themselves from this type of trauma ever happening again. And, in doing so, they make their world smaller and more insular, reducing the potential exposure to risk. A popular example is a person who has their heart broken and declares (and maintains) that they will never fall in love again. They figuratively wall themselves off by not engaging in meaningful relationships that might expose them to potential heartbreak.
The second is where the individual works just to get back to the baseline that existed before the crucible. Think of this as striving to regain the status quo. An example of this is when a person has unexpectedly lost a job. Their status quo might be finding a position of comparable title or pay. In effect, what they are trying to do is to quickly put the crucible (the lost job) in the rear-view mirror and continue on as though it hadn’t happened.
The third is where the person uses the crucible as an opportunity for deep reflection and evaluation. The crucible may enable them to see themselves and the world around them in a new way. It’s not necessarily that the person is glad the crucible happened, but they are grateful for the course it has set them on. An example of this is when a person receives a serious medical diagnosis and, as a result, reprioritizes the impact they want to have on those around them.
For those endeavoring to use this experience to grow, I would encourage you to pause and spend some time reflecting on the assumptions that you’ve made (whether consciously or subconsciously), and how those are being called into question given the current circumstances. I’ll use myself as an example. The thing I have grappled with the most these past several weeks is the denigration of someone’s humanity. I struggle with this, in part, because my mom and her parents came from Greece, my grandfather having been released from the German prison camps at the end of the war. I was taught from an early age to value the human being in front of me. My grandfather talked about how he fought for that. Additionally, my Buddhist practice speaks to the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. If I were to denigrate someone else, I am denigrating myself.
My own reflection has included lengthy dialogues with my husband where I have come to understand how my response to violence had been to make my world smaller and more insular. I am the person who will catch and release a bug in the house. I won’t watch boxing. Heck, I even walk out of the room when a fight erupts in hockey. I wouldn’t let my son have video games with violence in them. I stopped watching the news because of the negativity and brutality that it perpetuated. In other words, unknowingly, I had chosen to try and protect myself from exposure to this type of trauma.
Now, however, it is inescapable. Whether on mainstream media, social media, or the internet, we are confronted with images of vitriol based on intractable positions of difference. This is my crucible. I am forced to recognize that it is only by reckoning with our current reality that I can hope to create a more peaceful world.
My work here begins with me. It begins with me identifying the ways in which I may be perpetuating this denigration (actively, passively, or through my silence), to learn from this, and to choose to address it in my life. I need to engage myself in these honest and hard dialogues if I am to help others navigate these complex and substantive matters for themselves.
