GABOR MATE’S HEARTFELT CRITIQUE OF MODERN LIFE
The Need for Personal and Social Transformation
In 1963, the American anthropologist Jules Henry issued a scathing and penetrating indictment of the American way of life. At a time of uncritical celebration of modern technological society and capitalism, Henry brought forward the wisdom he had gained from stays with what were then called “primitive” peoples. By writing about simpler societies as reference points for reflecting on our own habits and customs, Henry helped usher in a short-lived period in which wide-scale social change seemed not only necessary but possible. Experiments in “natural” living abounded. The idea caught on among young people, most of all, that our present society was frustrating in-built needs for sociability, emotional openness, harmony with the natural world, and artistic expression. And our inability to co-exist with those who are politically and culturally different was threatening our continued existence as a species.
These days it seems like we are approaching another period where momentous changes in the way we live are both necessary and possible. As Gabor Mate makes clear in The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture (2022), culture has turned against human beings in alarming and accelerating ways, and the evidence of such dysfunction is becoming too abundant to ignore. Mate puts forward scientific studies, interviews, and personal experience to demonstrate the many ways in which human potential is being stunted while offering accounts of simpler societies which meet basic human needs more fully. Sadly, our nature as humans is not allowed to “naturally” unfold; modern institutions and practices damage our physical and mental health. We are becoming more disconnected from others and nature on the one hand and estranged from ourselves on the other. As we experience greater physical and mental pain, our search for relief leads to addictions that include substance abuse, sex, shopping, the internet, gaming and gambling, work, sports, exercise, relationships, psychedelics, and meditation.
Mate gives a vivid and comprehensive account of the toxic modern culture that surrounds us, the cause of much chronic disease, mental illness, and addiction. The modern outlook downplays our vital need for connection with nature, family, and community. Since health is the outcome of a way of life, it can only be understood in relation to our situations, relationships, and experiences. When we experience great stress, our bodies inform us that our habits and values have led to actions inimical to our wellbeing. By heeding such warnings, it is possible to turn things around.
What Trauma Is
Trauma is a key theme of The Myth of Normal: how we get it, what it does to us, and how we can overcome it. An imperative of our time, as Mate sees it, is to uncover the ways in which trauma leads us to harm ourselves and others through our thoughts and actions. Trauma refers to how we experience and interpret difficult and harmful events. When we are not seen and heard and lose our connection to ourselves, our families, and the outside world, the result is often traumatic. The deepest traumas occur in childhood when we are most vulnerable and defenseless. Although they mostly originate in the family, they may be reinforced, or new ones develop, as we grow older and are influenced by our relationships and education, the popular culture we consume, and economic and political realities.
Mate wants us to keep in mind that trauma does not only refer to momentous events that shake us to the core; more often, we are traumatized by patterns of abuse or neglect that extend over long periods of time. The inability to know how we feel is a common symptom of a traumatized self, and it reveals our disconnection from our bodies. In childhood, the need to be true to ourselves is forced to give way to the absolutely vital necessity to protect our relationship with our primary caregivers. When they demand that we betray our natural selves in order to gain their love and care, we have no choice but to stop relying on the felt knowledge that ensures optimal growth. As a result, we lose the connection with our bodies and our emotions.
Under the sway of trauma in adult life, we feel threatened by situations that remind us of past events, even though we are far less vulnerable now. We do not respond to our current challenges in a rational manner. By continuing to follow old childhood patterns that no longer serve us, we condemn ourselves to ill health. Another way of putting it is that we are out of touch with who we are and the wisdom of our bodies and our emotions. We defend the ego from what we perceive to be threats but which are, in reality, projections of the past onto our present situations.
Healing Trauma
The way out is to first understand how the past is the source of our current difficulties and then to recognize that we now have a choice. If we are willing to change, we can free ourselves from conditioned reactions based on past trauma. Our future is open, not determined by our past, but it takes courage to change, since it means confronting demons and becoming vulnerable once more. Mate emphasizes that the ego defenses that once enabled us to survive have now become obstacles to the development of our human potential and must be relinquished. This is possible because we now have the ability to cope with our life challenges and with adequate support from family, friends, and the medical and helping professions, we can let go of the harmful ways of thinking and the habits that have made us ill.
Unfortunately, the support we need is not always available. Many people are socially isolated, lack close family ties, and do not have access to the guidance and care they need. But, even in cases where health care is accessible, there has been little progress in reversing the trends toward increased physical and mental illness and addiction. Mate, a medical doctor, believes the root of the problem is that the medical profession has failed to recognize that mind and body exist in relation to each other. Doctors maintain an outdated materialist view despite studies that clearly indicate our physiology affects how we see the world, think, feel, and act while mental stress may reduce the ability of our immune system to protect us from disease.
In addition, mainstream medicine largely ignores the fact that our health is the outcome of all our relations, not just family influences but also our social status and the stability of the social order. The tendency has been to invoke genetic factors to explain disease but we now know that genes are activated by the surrounding environment. And so, racism, poverty, and urban blight can have a direct impact upon the functioning of our genes; for example, research has shown that the experience of racism and discrimination activates genes that produce greater inflammation.
Mate emphasizes that there is much we can do at the personal level to facilitate healing, even in the absence of social support. But we must first become clear about what healing is. It is not self-improvement through increased consumption but more like self-retrieval, that is, letting go of what we have been conditioned to desire. It is not being cured which only refers to the absence of disease; it is becoming whole. We are being asked to open ourselves to the truth of how we live and to face the discomfort that will follow. Very often, we have to experience much suffering before we are willing to be responsible for the mind that creates our world. However, once we face ourselves, freedom from the wounds that have made us ill becomes possible.
True freedom exists when the personality loses its control over us so that the authentic self can emerge. To experience such freedom, Mate offers “compassionate inquiry,” a method by which professionals can be trained and individuals can learn the practice of self-reflection. Compassion is an attitude in which there is no judgment; in relation to ourselves, compassionate inquiry means examining our personality in an open, patient, and generous manner. We do not search for ways to improve our personality; the aim is to discover which beliefs do not serve us and how they came into being. Such inquiry involves asking ourselves certain questions: In which important areas of my life, am I unable to say no and how does this affect my life? What are my physical symptoms telling me? Why can’t I say no? What stories about myself lead me to deny my own needs and where did I learn them? And, from the opposite direction, what have I wanted to do, create, or say but have held back due to a sense of duty or fear?
Indicting Modern Society
Our thoughts determine how we experience the world, so we live in a subjective reality. Spiritual teachers have focused our attention on the fact that when we change our thinking, we change our experience of reality. But they usually pay far less attention to the equal and complementary truth that culture conditions our minds to think in specific ways. By changing our culture and social institutions, our minds can be programmed to construct reality in ways that are far more in harmony with our natures. Our way of life then promotes health and wellbeing rather than undermines them.
The stress we experience is the product of rapid technological change, for sure, but also due to poverty and inequality, social isolation, the fear of terrorism and war, and, most ominously, the threat of climate change. In Mate’s view, the greatest obstacle to our wellbeing is the belief that how we live is “normal.” As long as we think we are living normal lives, we fail to recognize the ways our culture fails us and do not search for alternatives; instead, we believe that our health problems are solely an individual concern, ignoring the role that political and economic systems and social institutions play in making us sick in body and mind. Mate is an acute social critic, uncovering the lack of fit between the modern way of life and human needs. These efforts remind me of Erich Fromm’s best work which Mate occasionally refers to.
Like Mate, Fromm’s influential books of the wartime and postwar era bridged the gap between psychology and the social sciences. Fromm also confronted head-on the leading intellectual challenge of his time: how to integrate the thought of Marx and Freud in a new social philosophy. Bringing together the neo-Freudian psychoanalysis of Karen Horney and the Marxist humanism then flourishing in Europe, his critique of capitalism and embrace of democratic socialism provided a humane “third way” beyond capitalism and communism. A great strength of Fromm’s work was his ability to clearly identify the many contradictions between society’s dictates and our human needs. In Escape from Freedom (1941), he wrote: “The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.”
In the spirit of Fromm, Mate shows the many ways in which physical as well as mental health is compromised by modern society. And like Fromm, Mate’s special contribution is his practical application of existing theories. In our time, instead of Freud, our guides are the sages, the explorers of the inner reality; rather than taking our cues from Marx’s theory of alienation, we now look more toward research in areas like neuroscience, integrative medicine, and child development as the foundation of a new social philosophy. One of Mate’s many achievements is to bring together both these personal and political strands in a comprehensive vision for a radically different way of living that is attuned to our present-day concerns.
To get down to specifics, Mate indicts American corporate capitalism for its central role in forming a character type that values self-interest, economic success, consumption, and competition over cooperation. The result is disconnection as we feel alienated and alone, dislocated, and lacking higher meaning and purpose. Conditioned to seek pleasure in instant gratification, the result is often addiction. In so many industries, companies engage in deceptive practices in order to persuade us to act in ways that are harmful to our physical and mental health and damaging to the environment. Mate affirms what law professor Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2003), told him: many corporations that knowingly cause widespread illness and death are acting like sociopaths, without conscience or remorse. He then quotes the psychoanalyst Steven Reisner: “In today’s America, narcissism and sociopathy are strategies. And they’re very successful strategies, especially in business and politics and entertainment.”
Political culture is another part of our world that is filled with toxic falsehoods. As Mate sees it, the problem exists at a much deeper level than the polarization which is so often lamented. Its roots can be found in harsh parenting, resulting in support for authoritarian figures and a notable lack of compassion for marginalized groups. Unprocessed trauma is wreaking havoc in our political life, leading to extreme emotional reactions. And pop culture contributes to our political dysfunction by distracting attention away from the real issues and inducing political passivity. We become political spectators rather than engaged participants. The only hope is for our leaders to start looking within as the indispensable step toward seeing the world with clear vision and an open heart. At the same time, all of us need to become trauma-literate so that a new type of citizen is born, one who brings the real issues into the political discussion: “environmental justice, Indigenous rights, women’s rights, gender justice, racial equity, and police reform.”
The Betrayal of Children
Mate has written books on child development and parenting, addiction, attention-deficit disorder, and the origins of physical illness in childhood trauma. He has a deep understanding of these topics and he is particularly adept in connecting problems in these areas with social trends that need to be addressed.
Early childhood development is the base upon which our future growth depends. If this ground is shaky, then theability to realize our full potential is compromised. Therefore, the emotional relationship between parent and child is all-important. Children who receive unconditional love and feel secure have the best chance of becoming loving and empathic adults. But those who lack a secure bond with their caregivers react more easily to stress and are more prone to be at the mercy of survival reactions like fear, panic, and rage.
The irreducible needs of children in order for them to mature are the establishment of a deep sense of connection with caregivers, attachment security which enables them to be who they are, the permission to experience their authentic feelings, and the experience of free play. When these needs are met, children develop a felt sense of being alive in a nurturing world. Unfortunately, modern society largely fails to support parents so that they can effectively carry out their roles.
The process of child development starts in the womb. In Mate’s judgment, our culture in the crucial areas of employment, health care, and insurance tends to undermine the ability of women to make their unborn baby’s needs a high priority. As a result, women during pregnancy and after birth often experience states of mind that are not optimal; the stressed condition of the mother has a negative effect on the developing brain of her infant. Research clearly indicates that many adult health difficulties, physical and mental, are more likely to occur among those who experience intrauterine stress.
Modern medical practice pathologizes the process of birth, going against Nature and the needs of the body. It is dehumanizing to reduce women to objects of medical care at such a precious time of their lives. And doctors disrupt the natural operation of biological and psychological processes that enable mother and baby to bond and thereby promote the healthy development of the child. Mate states that Medicine should follow Nature, not rule over it. “We need to approach someone in labor as a full person who is experiencing a sacred life passage.”
Our society forces us to cast out the child from the nest far too soon. When a mother goes back to work right away, the infant experiences the sudden deprivation of maternal contact with the mother as a shock. The disappearance of the extended family has resulted in the loss of the circle of affection for the growing child. This is compounded by the lack of social cohesion and community support. Parents are stressed by such isolation and they are not always wisely guided by the medical experts whose advice often harms rather than assists children’s natural growth. When parents are in trouble, the outlook is not good for their children nor for a healthy society.
Mate believes childhood is being sabotaged. As adults exit the lives of their children and family and community bonds diminish, the peer group steps in to become the main source of attachment. But this is disastrous for children’s emotional development, since the peer group can only provide conditional acceptance that makes children insecure. As a result, they often sacrifice their authentic selves in order to gain the approval of their own age cohort. Matters are made worse by large corporations that generate artificial needs in kids. In the pursuit of profit, they produce digital devices and social media that gain the maximum attention of children by rewarding them with dopamine. The digital culture and consumerism remove children from the world of free play, depriving them of an irreducible need. Our society is robbing itself of its future.
As Erich Fromm pointed out long ago, the family transmits to the child what society asks of them. The outcome is the modern social character where inner emptiness leads to addictions and compulsions. Mate’s description of this process is unsparing. “The social character is seeded when children are deprived of breastfeeding: when Nature-imbued expectations for being held are frustrated; when they are left alone to ‘cry it out’; when they are compelled to repress their feelings; when they are programmed to fit in with the expectations of others; when they are denied spontaneous free play; when they are disciplined by punitive measures such as ‘time-out’ techniques that threaten them with the loss of what they most crave — unconditional positive acceptance; when they are denied a connection with Nature.”
Reflections
Mate’s tone is urgent, since the modern way of life is unsustainable and we are heading toward self-destruction. Our society inculcates passivity and lack of autonomy, making the sovereign people ill-equipped to bring about necessary changes in institutions and values that can put our society on course. The solution is to become aware of our plight and recognize that if we remain like sheep and do not bring about radical social change, we will go down with the ship. Given this dire situation, it is not surprising that Mate has chosen to speak as a prophetic voice and advocate rather than as an “objective” scientist. But he uses much evidence from scientific studies to back up his claims, so he is by no means opposed to scientific research that can help guide us in our decisions about how to live.
The philosophy that underlies Mate’s efforts to promote individual and social transformation is progressive in the sense that he is dedicated to bettering human life through the application of knowledge coupled with a belief that humans are capable of living more fulfilled lives than they do at present. Unlike much Enlightenment thought which relies solely on knowledge obtained through rational inquiry, Mate believes that it is possible to gain inner wisdom through various means such as contemplation, yoga, meditation, and the practice of compassion. In his own case, he was assisted by psychedelic experience that enabled him to get a glimpse of the spiritual realm. He also gives priority to discovering our own creative decision-making ability before embarking on social reform, a departure from much socialist thought.
Mate’s approach in some ways suggests the humanistic social criticism of the prewar and postwar periods. It is earnest and sincere based on the faith that the human world is knowable and that human freedom is attainable. There are signs, though, that he has been influenced by more recent attitudes and ways of thinking. A skeptical, ironic, and relativistic orientation has eroded the seemingly solid ground on which Western thinkers have long stood. No longer are social critics given a free pass; they are asked to apply the same critical methods to their writings that they have used to dissect the lives and thoughts of their subjects. Mate takes up this challenge by interrogating his own thoughts and actions, finding in himself many of the shortcomings typical of our age. He, too, is the product of a dysfunctional culture.
The most impressive instance of such self-inquiry is when Mate recognized in 2019 that he did not embody the state of being that he was exhorting his retreat participants to aspire to. Shamans with whom he was conducting the ayahuasca retreat took him aside and told him that his dense and dark energy could not be penetrated by the ceremony. His energy was disturbing the participants.
Mate was willing to be healed, despite resistance from his ego. He delegated the directing of the retreat to assistants and for ten days did rigorous self-inquiry and intense practices, while every second night a shaman performed a healing ceremony for him. After the last one was over, as he was talking with a shaman, he had a sudden breakthrough, experiencing transcendent joy. He was finally experiencing what he had long sought, no longer burdened by so much grief and such heavy energy. A sense of peace came over him as he rested in a state of spacious awareness beyond the ego and its concerns.
Another way that Mate has been influenced by newer trends is his openness to simple and natural living. He views an optimal life as one that involves a process of letting go of what we don’t need. We need to shed the parental and social conditioning that has led us to feel an inner emptiness while preventing us from being who we really are. Mate has learned much from the health practices and wisdom of indigenous people but he is not recommending that we abandon all our modern ways.
Indigenous traditions are an equal complement to Western science-based medicine. The advantage of Western medicine is its use of high-technology to deal with medical emergencies, whereas for Native Americans healing is a spiritual quest: the condition of the body reflects the state of mind and spirit. To get well, a person must often transform his or her way of life, emotions, and spirit as well as address the body’s ailment.
Mate appreciates what modern research has taught us about the biological, psychological, and social aspects of medicine. But these dimensions must not be kept separate; they form an integrated whole. Our view of human nature is skewed toward individualism and competition, so we do not make good use of what we know. What is truly best for us is to act according to the traditional notion that enhancing our belonging and relationships in the community benefits all. We have built our modern way of life upon a false foundation, detached from Nature and disconnected to others. The science and technology that we have developed can only be put to good use in a very different kind of society based on a more accurate view of human nature. This is where we can learn much from indigenous people.
