the Issue

A taboo against a subject or activity is a social custom to avoid doing that activity or talking about that subject, because people find them embarrassing or offensive.

Yesterday I wrote about umair haque’s new publication, the Issue. And began discussing the latest issue (of the Issue): Our Civilization’s Melting Down—But We’re Not Allowed to Talk About It.

I got to the part where he began to explain why it is taboo to talk about our civilization’s meltdown.

You see, right now, at this juncture in human history, a New Set of Taboos have emerged. Taboos exist for a reason—to hide truths we’d rather not see the light of day, because they’re too uncomfortable, painful, shameful, difficult, or challenging. As we do that, social bonds rupture. And so taboos, while they hide Issues that We Have to Face, do so precisely because they keep our tribes and hierarchies intact. There’s a form of short-term stability in them, even if the price, over the long-term, is steep, as it has been for so many civilizations before us.

What are the New Taboos of the Age of Extinction? Well, we’re not supposed to discuss How Bad Things Really Are. In what way? In almost any way. Economically—how our economies are sputtering out. Hey, billionaires are getting richer! Whee! Socially—how predators of the human soul and body both are skyrocketing to power, from abusers of women, to Manfluencers leading young men to become…abusers. How our social contracts have been ripped apart by crackpots who think nobody should have anything. Biologically–how life on the planet is undergoing a literal mass extinction. And—hey, what exactly are we going to do about climate change, and do you think the summer a decade from now is going to…be…pretty…let alone…survivable…for many?

We’re not supposed to talk about it. Any of it.
Our Civilization’s Melting Down—But We’re Not Allowed to Talk About It.

He goes on to describe in detail the taboos we are facing and their many profound, negative, consequences. But you get the idea as soon as it is put in the context of taboo.

Just in the last few months, high-temperature records have been broken multiple times, around the globe. Extreme drought has made it hopeless to even plant crops, which means famine will be increasing. Water supplies for cities and states are drying up. Out-of-control wildfires pollute the air for hundreds of miles. Prices of everything are skyrocketing at the same time many people are losing their jobs to automation and artificial intelligence.

To talk about police brutality. Prisons that function to remove Black men and women from society. Structural racism.

The party in control of the US Congress is nonfunctional. The President of the other party is war-mongering. The expansion of NATO increases the threat felt by Russia. We are pouring billions of dollars into Ukraine as a proxy for this country’s war machine. It is taboo to point out that a small fraction of the military budget could completely fund all social programs.

It is taboo to talk about the rapid rise of Authoritarianism.

It is taboo to even talk about the theft of land from Indigenous peoples, the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous relatives, and the horrors of the institutions of forced assimilation of native children.

And just now the widening war in the Middle East. It is taboo to even suggest Israel’s policies of apartheid had anything to do with that.

In our Quaker communities, it is taboo to talk about continued racism, involvement with the Indian boarding schools, the abolition of police and prisons, or allowing conveniences to stop us from confronting our use of fossil fuels. To suggest there is anything wrong with capitalism and hierarchies of power.

The minute you even start talking about any of this stuff seriously? Repeatedly? Urgently? You’re met with the Greatest Wall in Human History. It’s not made of bricks or stone. But of something far stronger. Hegemony and ideology. Power. Conformity and social pressure
Our Civilization’s Melting Down—But We’re Not Allowed to Talk About It.

I often say I don’t know what I’ll be writing when I sit down first thing in the morning. That’s important for me to say, if only to myself. Because writing (and photography) are spiritual to me. Writing and photography are prayers. This viewpoint helps me try to keep my ego out of it and helps me do one of the most difficult things: writing about myself. But I believe we must write our own stories from our experiences.

That is so important that it is one of the principles I’ve developed about creating connections between different communities or cultures. When (and only when) you are invited to do so, speak from your own experience.

The only author I read daily is Umar Haque. “The Issue’s founder is Umair Haque. Umair’s been one of the world’s top 50 thinkers, has published several books through Harvard Business Press, been one of Harvard Business Review online’s top authors for many years.”

Umar now writes on The Issue, an independent, subscriber-supported publication launched in August 2023. https://www.theissue.io/

Our Manifesto

Here are a few things we believe.

The Issue’s mission is simple. We bring you deep insight and fresh thinking, 3-5 times a week, about one of the Big Issues. The ones that matter most. Why?

This is a critical juncture in history. Our world is being rocked by crisis after crisis. Democracy’s declining. The climate’s changing. Extremism’s on the rise. Our economies aren’t delivering. Pessimism’s swept the globe. Institutions aren’t trusted, systems are failing, and polities are shattering.

Everyone deserves to understand the Issues at stake in this age—this critical juncture in human history—with clarity, rigor, and reality. Not just fall prey to disinformation, misinformation, and false notions of balance. The stakes are too high for that.

Our mission is to help you understand the Issues that matter most. We keep it real, raw, and razor-sharp. Like an expert would. We’re not here to play games. The Issues today are too big and urgent for that. Our goal is to take you one step closer to becoming you an expert—not just a passive consumer of news. Someone who understands The Issues that matter, with depth, resonance, and focus.

The news end of journalism covers the Big Issues well—sometimes. But the analysis end of news—op-ed pages, opinion sections—doesn’t. Reading it, you’d get the impression that climate change might not exist, or that democracy’s not in trouble, or that the future’s not in question. That’s not good enough.

The Issues that matter belong to all of us. They concern all of us. And we deserve better when it comes to them, than we’re currently doing. It’s up to each of us to understand them well—with a little help. That’s our job at The Issue. Welcome.

This morning, I feel unmoored. There are so many crises that are spinning out of control. And no one seems to have an answer for any of them.

Indigenous People’s Day brings attention, yet AGAIN, to settler colonialism capitalism. Reminding us White people that we are living on stolen land. And of the horrors of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. The genocide at the institutions of forced assimilation of native children where all kinds of abuse occurred, and tens of thousands died.

We have become desensitized to this country’s endless, global military incursions. The declaration of war by Israel just seems like one more military operation. Why aren’t we saying War is Not the Answer?

And the greatest threat of all, rapidly accelerating environmental chaos, leading to social, economic, and political collapse. Threatening our possible extinction.

To give you a sense of what the Issue is like, the latest article is Our Civilization’s Melting Down—But We’re Not Allowed to Talk About It.

There’s a strange and baffling thing happening these days.

On the one hand, people are…wrecked. The stats reveal a portrait, globally, of sweeping, pervasive pessimism. Trauma, in rising rates of anxiety and anger and stress. Despair, in skyrocketing depression and suicide and loneliness. People are the walking wounded these days.

And yet…we’re all staggering around pretending like none of this is happening. OK, not you and me, and those like us—we’re a little different, and I’ll come back to that. But by and large? It’s as if this fatal tide of despair, grief, and trauma isn’t…happening…at all. We’re not supposed to talk about it. Write about it. Discuss it. Think about it. Maybe once in a while, we read an article in a newspaper, and are supposed to nod, stroke our chins—and then go right back to pretending that none of this is happening.

It’s not something we discuss much, is it? Think about it. Look at social media, which is where, unfortunately, we spend most of our lives. Smile for the camera! Glance at our culture. Take a look at the kinds of discussions which animate our societies—the ones we’re supposed to respond to and be involved in. This catastrophic state of affairs, the status quo of the human world and soul, if you like, isn’t even on the list of priorities of our civilization, societies, countries. We’re just supposed to walk along merrily and…what? Buy stuff? Fake a grin? Grin and bear it. Ignore it.

That’s a taboo.

Our Civilization’s Melting Down—But We’re Not Allowed to Talk About It by umair haque, the Issue, Oct 9, 2023

This is just the introduction to the article, which deserves a reading. The monthly subscription is $5.00. https://www.theissue.io/