How Culture Makes Us Feel Lost [VIDEO]

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Dr. Gabor Maté gives a beautiful speech on human nature and the implications culture has on our ability to maintain it. In this segment of the speech, he discusses four different categories of self-alienation, and provides a sentiment of hope to stay in touch with our true nature as we move forward through the challenging times of modern culture.

This video is transformative in nature and is intended for educational purposes. Therefore, it falls under fair use.
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in the 19th century Kong Marx talked
about alienation which is a separation
of being a stranger to something and
you’re an alien to something and Marx
said there were 14 a4 Ilya nations in
his culture one is related from nature
well at a conference dedicated to
looking at the physical and the natural
environment we don’t I don’t have to say
much to you to show how alien we are
from nature when we’re destroying nature
itself the second alienation is some
other people and that means we have less
contact we have less intimacy we have
less trust we have less of a sense of
relationship and that of course as I’ve
shown you leads to increased propensity
to illness physical and mental we
related from our work a lot of people no
longer do work that has any meaning to
them and that means that and since human
beings are productive creatures we
really are created in the image of God
we’re meant to create when we do work
that’s not creative that doesn’t reflect
who we are that imposes depression
anxiety a sense of meaninglessness and
maybe the sense of meaninglessness we’ll
want to substitute that sense of
meaninglessness or that sense of meaning
that we’ve lost by all kinds of other
activities and then we get all hung up
on how we look or how people feel about
us what we can obtain or we can possess
for successes we can achieve in other
words all the false substitutes which
cannot possibly compensate us for the
lack of genuine meaning and of course
what this society does it sells a lot of
products that substitute for that loss
of meaning in fact much of the economy
is based on a loss of meaning in our
culture finally and most importantly we
become alienated from ourselves let me
ask you a question here
special hands how many of you had the
following experience that you had a
powerful gut feeling about something you
didn’t pay attention to it and you were
sorry after its peaceful you hand up if
you have okay I think the eyes have it
if I asked you the obverse question as
20 people have had a powerful gut
feeling you ignored it and you were glad
about it afterwards
how many would not put your hand up well
I’m not sure I’m seeing very few hands
here
well that means to say now you know what
that you’re telling me you’re telling me
that at some point in your childhood you
got separated from yourself because no
infant is born without gut feelings
they took infants are totally connected
to their gut feelings have you ever met
a two day old who didn’t know how to
express their gut feelings and that
means that in this culture if something
very powerful happens to alienate you
from your true self because the world
couldn’t stand who you really were and
your parents were too stressed
themselves to honor and recognize who
you really were just like as a parent I
did that to my kids without meaning to
and then we become alien from ourselves
we shut down our gut feelings and I’ve
got things are not luxuries you know
they tell us what is right and what is
wrong they tell us what is dangerous and
what is friendly they tell us what is
safe and was dangerous and they tell us
what is true and what is false so Mirena
is from her gut feelings we have no
longer a sense of reality more than a
sense of truth well the good news is the
good news is that human beings can
regain their sense of connection to
themselves just as we can regain our
sense of connection to our nature and
empathy which is genuine human quality
is in us we’re actually wired for
empathy even rats are wired for empathy
when you stress that’s rats in
laboratory by shocking their feet with
electricity they’re more stressed
watching otherwise being shocked than
whenever locked themselves their stress
hormone levels are higher that’s our
nature as human beings so contrary to
the myth in our
culture that was separated individual
aggressive competitive creatures grouchy
wired for empathy wired for connection
wired for love right for compassion so
really to move forward all we have to do
[Music]
all we have to do not an easy task but
it’s certainly available to us is to get
back to our true nature thank you
[Applause]
[Applause]
[Music]
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