The Off-Ramp Project

It's All about Power

When I talk about taking an off-ramp -- from a group, a relationship, an ideology, a way of living, a way of doing anything -- I'm really talking about retrieving yourself and retrieving your power. In this time of end-stage capitalism, an out of control attention economy, and the burden of multiple, abusive "hierarchies of human worth," it seems that everything wants to control our time, our attention, our thoughts, our emotions, our empathy, and our lives. Well, sorry neither. Because each of these things belongs to us. And none of them are for sale when we reclaim our own power. Power is being used in often ugly ways right now, but that has nothing to do with power as a concept. Power is the ability to make change, determine our lives, and choose our responses. Even in a prison-like situation of an abusive relationship, a cultic group, an actual prison, or a country in chaos, we can reclaim our inner lives and find -- or build -- off-ramps so that we can retrieve our authority, our agency, and our sense of self. I have been in all four of these situations, and I've seen people reclaim themselves; I've lived it. So, as you look around at people trapped in rigid ideologies and hierarchies of human worth (and you think maybe they'll never recover), just know this: The time to make up your mind about people is never. Mentioned in this episode: Braver Angels: https://braverangels.org/our-mission/ [https://braverangels.org/our-mission/] Book: The Power Manual: How to Master Complex Power Dynamics by Cyndi Suarez: https://bookshop.org/lists/the-off-ramp-project [https://bookshop.org/lists/the-off-ramp-project]

How to Reclaim Your Emotions

Your emotions belong to you, but they are also for sale in the attention economy and in end-stage capitalism. Many people are making a great deal of money by jacking into your emotions and manipulating your empathy for their own gain. But there are things you can do to reclaim your emotions and yourself. In this time of intentional chaos, emotional and empathic manipulation, and manufactured polarization, reclaiming your emotions is a crucial and life-giving activity. Here are some ideas to help you reclaim your emotions and listen to their wisdom. Mentioned in this episode: Ground News: https://ground.news/ [https://ground.news/] Braver Angels: https://braverangels.org/our-mission/ [https://braverangels.org/our-mission/] Books: https://bookshop.org/lists/the-off-ramp-project [https://bookshop.org/lists/the-off-ramp-project] The Gift of Fear and And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Harm by Gavin De Becker McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality by Ronald Purser The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It by Kelly McGonigal The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You by Karla McLaren: https://bookshop.org/lists/karla-mclaren-s-books [https://bookshop.org/lists/karla-mclaren-s-books]

Embrace Ideas, not Ideologies

Ideas have fluidity; they can change and be added to, and they can be wrong, and that's fine. It's just an idea; we have thousands of them. But ideologies become rigid very quickly, and they tend to become hierarchical (they claim to be the best, such that other ideologies are not worthy), which means that the people who have signed up for them may have a very hard time taking off-ramps from them. Ideologies can also lean very cultic, because they often become transcendent belief systems, which is one of the four aspects of cultic control that make up Janja Lalich's Bounded Choice model (see episodes 3 through 6 in season 1 of this podcast). Understanding the difference between ideas and ideologies is essential if you need to take an off-ramp, or create an off-ramp for someone else. Do you have the freedom to change, to think your own thoughts, and to have your own ideas? If so, the changes you need to make might be difficult, but they won't be overwhelming. Ideas might be hard to give up, but they don't exist to entrap you. Ideologies, on the other hand, are built to be sticky and often controlling. If you or someone you know got caught up in a rigid ideology, you or they will most likely need some support to take an off-ramp, and it's important to know the difference so you know what help you need for yourself (or how you can help others). Thank you for working to create off-ramps in this time of rigid ideologies, cultic control mechanisms, intentional chaos, end-stage capitalism, and emotional (and empathic) manipulation. Your presence makes a difference. Book mentioned in this episode: Missing the Solstice by Karla McLaren: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6TRWRBZ [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F6TRWRBZ]

What About Socialism?

Socialism is a bogeyman term for a lot of people on the right -- just as fascism is a bogeyman term for a lot of people on the left. So let's look at what socialism is, why it was developed, how it contrasts with capitalism and communism, and how it can moderate the most damaging excesses of capitalism. Many countries combine capitalism and socialism in some way. The two systems don't need to cancel each other out (in fact, they can work very well together), but if people are telling you that these two systems cannot exist together -- and that you should hate or fear socialism -- it's time to question what their end game is. There are two thriving, everyday socialist structures in the US that nearly everyone has experience with, and I explore them in this episode. An excellent book about why and how homelessness exists (it's never merely about unsupported addiction or unsupported mental health issues): Homelessness is a Housing Problem by Gregg Colburn and Clayton Page Aldern https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/ [https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/]

But Is This Fascism?

Here in the United States, the word "fascism" is being thrown around a great deal, and when I went to study the history of fascism, I found it being propped up by a large number of "fifteen-dollar words" that are unnecessarily complex. I also found that historians and social scientists are arguing about what fascism is -- to this day -- even though the Italian Fascist government (the original Fascists) and the related German Nazi government were defeated and removed from power by 1945. No one alive today would be silly enough to call their own power fascist power, because it's a failed approach that causes endless pain and upheaval for no good reason. So calling someone a fascist, or calling an organization or structure fascism, is simply an insult. And we can do better than that. In this episode, I look at the multiple fifteen-dollar words that make up fascism, and I also simplify them into things we already know are trouble: cultic mechanisms of control (all fascist governments rely on cultic mechanisms), and hierarchies of human worth (fascistic governments love to sort people into simple-minded good vs. evil categories). And we know what to do with those problems. We can take an off-ramp from them without the need to insult people or learn a boatload of fifteen-dollar words. Book mentioned in this episode: Escaping Utopia: Growing Up In a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over by Janja Lalich and Karla McLaren: https://bookshop.org/p/books/escaping-utopia-growing-up-in-a-cult-getting-out-and-starting-over-janja-lalich/59ceed42511741ff?ean=9781138239746&next=t [https://bookshop.org/p/books/escaping-utopia-growing-up-in-a-cult-getting-out-and-starting-over-janja-lalich/59ceed42511741ff?ean=9781138239746&next=t]