The Four Neural States of the Polycrisis
Or: Why Activism Rarely Works
Sometimes seemingly unrelated little details of the microworld can teach us how the macroworld works. This is particularly true when we study processes in nature. I recently had this kind of heureka moment when reading a scientific study dealing with photosynthesis. If you find yourself subject to summer heat, or you live in a hot climate, you might appreciate the deep physical and spiritual joy that comes with walking leisurely in the shade under a plant canopy. The joy of being safe from the unrelenting and destructive, but at the same time life giving power of the sun’s rays above you. Just imagine exposing your naked human skin to the desert sun for the entire course of a day!
In order to turn those rays into useful chemical energy, but also to protect itself from destruction, those plant leaves are full of pigments that absorb or reflect varying frequencies of light. The energy from some frequencies is channelled to two types of large molecules, called photosystems. These photosystems are among the most chemically violent molecules in biology: if they are pumped up energetically by solar radiation, they can literally burn through tissue leaving a path of destruction in their wake. Astonishingly, though, by way of the genius of biochemistry, the same activated state also serves as a protection. When there is too much light, its energy gets safely disposed of in the form of heat.
So how is it possible that the same state can be both destructive and protective? The answer lies in timing, which is the point where we can learn something about our own human biology: plant leaves have evolved intricate techniques to prevent those photosystems from staying in the activated state for too long, and thus cause harm. Something similar happens with our nervous system: we are constantly bombarded with information from all our senses, and we need that information to survive. But it can get too much. The same attention that keeps us safe can be turned against us, when we perceive too much danger and too many threats. Our nervous system gets into overdrive, exhaust us, drive us crazy, or - as a protective mechanism - shuts itself down. This is the conundrum we face when we are confronted with the polycrisis: another war without an end, another human caused “natural” catastrophe, another systemic injustice. It is just getting too much for our own psychic health.
The answer lies again in timing - and in responsiveness. To understand what I mean, consider the sketch shown above. Under normal, every-day circumstances, our nervous system is in what I here call the “inward directed” state. Inward here does not mean introspection, but refers to the perspective of ourselves and our inner circle of family, friends and colleagues. We may be here because we are safe, ignorant, or because our nervous system has simply shut those threats out.
Suppose we are either safe or ignorant, during normal functioning of our nervous system, a perceived threat will cause us to move into the activated state, where more energy is directed towards our senses and our brain’s intuitive and rational cognition. Heightened attention lets us better perceive not only the existence of threats, but also the level of the danger. In a healthy environment, we act and then return to the resting state - this cycle is shown in blue. However, when the danger persists, or is intractable, we may stay in the activated state, it becomes chronic and starts to cause harm. The result is shutdown and denial. Once we are in a state of denial, we are not easily aroused any more, but we can still be triggered if the denial is the result of trauma. In that case, we immediately move to the anxious state.
The problem is that both the anxious and the inward directed state have low capability of threat perception. Climate and other polycrisis activism, when it does not endow people with a sense of agency, most times keeps them in either the red cycle of fatigue, or worse the orange cycle of triggered responses. So how can we keep our sanity in the face of existential crises?
The answer can only lie in a journey of self-regulation and, if necessary, healing. As the plant leaves have found a way of diverting dangerous light energy into harmless heat dissipation, we have to find ways of neutralising the dangerous psychic energy of crisis perception. When the threat is so great that even successful attempts at meaningful action fail in the long-term, we need to become more adept to maintain our flexibility of pivoting between the inward looking resting state and the acute activated state most capable of foresight.
In doing so, we may slowly but steadily approach a new state which I here call “aware”. In this state, we carry with us the insights from the activated state and acknowledge them without falling prey to their impact.Through self-regulation, we prevent the activated state from persisting, and through meditative practices, we become more aware of our nervous system’s states and our bodily and mental reactions to overwhelming threats.Like a martial-arts master, we stay in an energy saving state of awareness and reserve the alert state for brief moments of active combat. Preserving mental and physical energy, we sustain our capability to survive.
These four states are an abstraction of what is in reality a very fluid system. So there are a number of subtleties within this scheme that deserve attention. Different types of people react differently to the polycrisis, some are natural optimists, some pessimists, and some tend towards anxiety. Since natural optimists would be less prone to anxiety, we may think that their views are more balanced, offering a more sober analysis.
There is certainly truth in that. However, from my own experience, it is the activated state that gives us the most accurate and useful “feel” for the situation we are in, even if it borders on anxiety. For example, it has been in states of light anxiety when I most acutely felt the enormity of the experiment we as humanity are currently conducting with planet Earth, the unfathomable evil and cruelty of current world affairs, or the mortal threat to the fabric of mutual and intergenerational trust posed by greed-driven deployment of artificial intelligence. Often it has been observed that there is wisdom in the shutdown of our nervous system, leading to trauma. But there is also wisdom in the anxious state, if contained and accompanied by wisdom.
What this means for activism is that we need to act in small enough groups where members are able to regulate themselves and each other. Groups that are conscious of the challenges to maintaining psychic health, dividing up the work so that most group members can be allowed to rest in safety. This is a concept of activism that counters the common approach of mass arousal, where everybody is meant to feel the same, concentrating energy on the movement’s goals. It is a model resembling more tribal societies than civic movements. But it may still be the most appropriate in the face of overwhelming crises.
Appreciating the enquiry as well here and finding myself both inspired by your perspective and it's implications as well as challenged by it which is good. Sounds like a recipe that's asking to take a look at an ingredient for health that may have been prematurely tossed into the rubbish bin. Anxiety: might be nourishing in small bites.
I immediately think of another ingredient, grief. Could tapping into grief, when counterbalanced by grounded action be the most embodied, long-term way to maintain contact with what we're calling metacrisis- what we could simply be calling life as it is now and the depth of what's been unraveling due to human ignorance and our solutions to problems that perpetuate more problems over centuries?
Following Joanna Macy's lead, I like this quote, "The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal."
Polyvagal gives us a great map, so do you, yet they don't speak much of blended states which I've recognized as both resourced and socially engaged while simultaneously sympathetically activated. This can occur with or without anxiety. With or without agency. The motivator is subjectively dependent. And if I'm taking in the chart correctly, you're proposing an exposure therapy type approach with the 'healing' vector, which at its nexus, would be a blended state- one of maximum learning. Cool. Or better yet, cooling.
I'm with you on the underrated potential of short-term activation leading to increasing wisdom. As uncomfortable as it can be, it does seem to sprout benefit in it's force to generate action in the short-term and learning. In the realm of activism, this may work well to get a gamer up off the couch. I wouldn't want to make it a habit without incredible fluidity and flexibility because it requires a strong and healthy NS for repeated exposure to activation.
A question that arises for me, could motivation by fear undercut masculine wholeness and development in the long run? I might be conflating your proposition with the question. I ask because I never experienced a socially engaged state until I was an adult, constantly activated, constantly anxious. The response was to numb- the other dorsal vagal/parasympathetic response: shutdown/freeze/collapse.
When we're collapsed, we must become activated to move toward social engagement. This is your 'inward directed' to 'alert' vector.
In my experience it's a risky recipe because not everyones subjective experience is going to map cleanly onto the chart. When it comes to trauma, high anxiety can lead to radically different outcomes due to subjective nervous system responces to stress relative to "trauma".
I'm recalling Al Gore's speeches about the climate and how they weren't received because people shut down in overwhelm even though he was spot on.
For some, leaflets of anxiety can send people to the ground or running in the streets like squirrels. Containment seems an essential prerequisite in what you're proposing (safety), internal or external or both (resource). I like it as a sprint, as you're proposing, and want to be careful because I feel concern that the throttle could easily get stuck leading to crashing into a tree or getting run over, like a squirrel.
The canopy protects us from the sun, it's a container. Too much and we're cooked. We also need sun to live. The heat is the anxiety, and could it also be blended without anxiety? Sounds like the same thing with activation toward alert//awareness and its resulting aliveness.
Great to see you developing this enquiry in real time following our dialogues in Resonant Man. More to reflect on this: I think the key distinction for me is that the activated stated is extremely pertinent in the short term eg. in a regular crisis situation it can 'slow down time' and allow you to see and move quickly to an emerging threat. However, in trauma parlance, our predictive processing can be maladaptively coded to threats which are not relevant.
As you rightly point to, one of the great risks in metacrisis and under technological overwhelm is that we neither land in deep rest or enter a useful short term crisis, but spend a long time in the orange zone in a way that diminishes our capacity for either the red or the green.
I like how you've started to identify a new synthesis that somehow taps into the knowledge or awareness of the activated state, whilst staying deeply grounded and calm. I would say this is also the optimal masculine posture in the world as it affords the capacity to be aware of threats in the environment whilst also being 'the most grounded nervous system in the room'. To be actively diminishing the possibility of conflict and confusion through that grounding. I do also believe that in my most grounded state I have access to a much more expansive perception and information which goes away when my threat system narrows my perception.
There's more to explore on how our nervous systems are interconnected collectively and well grounded or activated nervous systems can impact others in way that develops or diminishes the capacity for collective thinking.