THE ART OF UNLEARNING #2

“What fresh hell is this?” ~ Dorothy Parker

Democracy Diverted / 2018 / Paper collage / Russell C. Smith

If we’ve ever lived through a time where unlearning is essential, well, this is it. Most of us who lived through the upheavals, assassinations, and societal transformations of the1960s and 1970s, are appalled at watching this distorted and through the twisted Looking Glass version of those times echoed in our extremely dangerous cultural now. If we’re on the right side of history, our minds are already unlearning, questioning, reconfiguring. For one thing, we’re unlearning how we thought our system of government worked. Whatever we learned in our early school years, we can toss it out the window. Practically none of what we learned in Social Studies, or Civics, applies to this autocracy where laws have routinely been ignored, the constitution has been trampled, and oligarchies have taken over. None of those lessons are true, in this dictatorial moment in history in the United States. To call these states united is harder to do, since it’s also so far from the truth. All we’d been told growing up – checks and balances, can never happen here, democratic fundamentals, three co-equal branches of government, peaceful transfer of power. Every bit of it is now seen darkly through the historical window. Every single one of these “how our government works rules” seems like a retroactive lie told to our younger, far more gullible selves. In recent weeks, we’ve witnessed people being disappeared. Forcibly removed from their work lives, home lives, and walking down the street lives. In America! Are we supposed to unlearn the social contracts we were taught, the laws that were supposed to be enforced, society’s forms of civility all people were supposed to abide by? There’s an ugliness and a cruelty in the current culture in the United States. A rotting from the inside-out. It crept up on us over time, and now it took this current administration five months to break democracy. Ripped from Orwell’s pages, turning naturalized citizens into unpersons. We’re unlearning what our government, truth, and reality are. Unlearning how much (or little) we can trust our government and corporations. We’re using the skill of unlearning as a way to become invisible while living in a surveillance state. We’re using unlearning to figure out exactly how much we can trust this current version of our culture. We’re using the tools of unlearning to become more resilient and hyper-focused. We’re creating networks of unlearning and teaching advanced classes. Ready to begin unlearning? There’s no time like the present.