For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. — Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde helps us understand the challenge that lies before us as a nation and planet. In this country, our way of life is organized on a master narrative which is based on a set of false premises that include white supremacy, disconnection from nature, endless consumption and a lack of commitment to the common good.
This model impacts us all, and we find ourselves held in the grips of its runaway materialistic greed and abuses of power in far too many of our communities. And it has created our lack of connection to one another, which has led to massive loneliness, violence, addictions and many other mental health issues.
Catherine Meeks
Our capitalist model that supports continuous consumption by any means necessary has not helped us. The notion that a “good life” can be bought if one has enough money and power has not proved to be true, but too many of us are left believing the problem is that we need to consume more in order to have the “good life” that seems so elusive.
The master’s economic tools that rule us all have us in their grip, and we have not arrived at much of an understanding about how to free ourselves from their rule.
We have been socialized to believe all our problems are caused by forces that are external to us and that when we deal with those troublesome external forces, we will be all right and then we can continue our endless consumption and have the good life that keeps eluding us.
Since we hold this view of where the problem lies so tightly, it is difficult to find the path to wellness that lies within us. And the truth that might begin to help us lies in the fact that we cannot buy our way to inner healing because that path requires us to live our way into it. The resistance to searching for a new way to see continues to keep us bound in the old cycles of misappropriating power grounded in greed. Thus, the next politician or product that claims to have the answer for our inner ailments will get our attention until we realize their promise of healing cannot be realized.
“The next politician or product that claims to have the answer for our inner ailments will get our attention until we realize their promise of healing cannot be realized.”
In the weeks to come, we will experience a lot of rhetoric and some actions that are not helpful to us as a nation because we have an incoming administration that seems to have no clue or interest in building a better world. A world that seeks to make space for all the Creator’s children to live the best lives possible for them. As we move forward, all of us are likely to have an opportunity to interrogate ourselves and explore what our inner communities are made of and to reflect upon who we want to be as a human being living in this era.
I have been interrogating myself for quite some time in regard to what really matters to me and how much disruption I am willing to bear in order to stand in my personal commitment to freedom, integrity and hope. Thankfully, I never have believed the master’s house could be renovated; I always have believed it has to be dismantled and rebuilt in order for all of us to be included as equal humans.
What can help us dismantle the master’s house? This is an important question to ponder and as I read Becca Stevens, Robin Kimmerer and Charles Eisenstein — who are exploring this question — I am inspired and believe as they do that the development of new economies that help us be more generous and grateful will help us. These authors’ ideas about “gift, sacred and love economy” would require our lenses to be refocused so that communities where authenticity, reciprocity and connection to nature can be born. This would create hope for a better way forward.
In such a world, the runaway greed and consumption we have at the moment would be checked by shifting that energy toward generosity that supports caring about the common good and sharing. It would help us turn our attention to gratitude instead of being on the path of constantly looking to fill our emptiness with more goods. A new commitment to generosity and gratitude could help us to create a much-needed new respect for this very wounded planet we inhabit as we learn to respect all life forms as being worthy of their life.
I believe kindness and moving toward generosity and gratitude can help to dismantle the master’s narrative and master’s house because this kind of energy shift can help us find a new path to genuine change. But we have to find the courage to dismount the status quo horse and to select a new way to travel.
Our country and planet need us to engage this thought of dismantling the house that is holding us hostage as we seek release from the negative energy dancing around us, daring us to have hope and to believe we can change things.
We can. We have before and we can again. We must.
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is an author, community and wellness activist and mid\wife to the soul. She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.