This comment was by Jed Diamond, in response to Dr. Adam Sheck’s article Men Helping Men: Can We Help Reduce the Suicide Rates Among Males?
Adam, good article. You cover a lot of ground in a short essay. Well done.
I would add a few thoughts on how to prevent suicide. I think we have to recognize that the human race is going through a major transition. A 6,000 year old system is dying and something new is being born. David Korten calls it the end of Empire and the re-emergence of Earth Communities. Men are the canaries in the coal mine telling us all that the old system is broken. We won’t prevent suicides by focusing solely on individual men. We need to heal the larger fabric. That’s why the Mankind project and other organizations are expanding their focus.
It’s significant that 50 year-old men are killing themselves in record numbers. 50 year-olds are often most deeply connected to the old system. We have either reached some level of success or have been working hard to move up the ladder, to be a “good man,” bread winner and protector. But the rug has been pulled out from under us, the world is changing. Only by coming together as a community of men (and women) can we address these larger issues. I’m happy to join in the dialogue. It’s the most important thing we can be doing at this time in planetary history.
All men, and 50 year-old men in particular, need to recognize that staying on the old ladder of success is like getting a better seat on an upper deck on the Titanic. It’s time we supported ourselves and each other to get off the sinking ship of the Empire of Civilization and lead our brothers, sisters, children, and grandchildren to the new world of Earth Communities. Older man have always been the trail-blazers, the ones who recognized it was time to move. But this time, the move isn’t just to a new village or a new part of the country, it’s truly to a new world.
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photo: woodhead / flickr
I appreciate the comments and find them engaging. The old system of trying to control and dominate nature is over. What we’ve done to nature, we’ve done to ourselves. We dominate other people, other countries, and cut ourselves off from our deepest needs and knowing. I think people are “getting off the ship of domination” and returning to Earth Communities. Its the hope for the future. Don’t know how many will make the shift, but everyone is feeling the stress of staying with the old and also the excitement of joining others to “localize, evolve, and reconnect.”
Do you think it will take the collapse of modern civilization (Empire) first before people revert to a tribal Earth Community?
I guess what I am trying to ask is: do you think it is possible for enough people to willingly and completely give up personal ambition and devote themselves to others to make an Earth Community possible, or do you think it will take an apocalyptic crisis scenario?
All men, and 50 year-old men in particular, need to recognize that staying on the old ladder of success is like getting a better seat on an upper deck on the Titanic.
I may be reading your analogy wrong so let me ask.
Do you mean this to imply that being a man is like getting a better seat on the upper deck of the Titanic and that to be male is to be successful?
I believe what he’s saying is that for men to continue to evaluate themselves within the structures of the old system is like getting a seat on the upper deck of the Titanic.
Okay I think I’m having an off day today because that is not quite clicking with me.
I believe what he’s saying is that for men to continue to evaluate themselves within the structures of the old system is like getting a seat on the upper deck of the Titanic.