Responding to Cruelty, Bullying and Chaos

On March 17, 2025 Aspen Initiative (Wisdon From the Top of the World) offered a free webinar with some of the foremost non-dual thinkers (Tom Shriver, Marianne Williamson, Cynthia Bourgeault, Matthew Fox, Cyprian Consiglio, and Sherri Mitchell, moderated by Heather and Nicholas Vesey), addressing to the question: How do we respond to the time we are living through?

During the webinar they asked the question ‘How do we respond to the time we are living through?’ Some of the take-aways are:

• We have to prepare ourselves in the inner world, so that we can act in the outer world.

• We need to ‘show up’ in confronting the circumstances we find ourselves in.

• It is in community that we find our strength, therefore join something!

• We need to be ‘Spiritual Warriors’, coming from love rather than violence and fear.

• How we take action individually is important to the evolution of consciousness.

• Courage will be needed.

• And we need to be grounded in our hearts as well as our minds.

Timothy Shriver pointed to the Dignity Index which scores phrases along an eight-point scale from contempt to dignity. Level one escalates from violent words to violent actions. It’s a combination of feeling the other side is less than human and calling for or approving violence. On the other end, a person at level eight "sees themself in every human being and refuses to hate anyone.

Aspen Initiative has put aside the weekend of June 7-8, 2025 to revisit in greater depth: Rediscovering generosity in our community.

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The March 21, 2o25 PBS Newshour conversation of Brooks and Capehart offers a contrast in repsonse to the cruel, ruthless bullying by the current Administration between persuasion and standing up and fighting. Can progressives effectively reason with those who voted for and continue to support President Trump and persuade then that his incompetence is causing them direct harm?

David Brook also made an interesting insight that this is not a populist fight, but between two eletist groups - the libertarian DOGE graduates and well-educated liberals. "The argument about a battle between elites refers to the idea that much of the conflict in politics today is driven by those who are already powerful, rather than being a struggle between the elites and the working class. Musk, despite his background in elite education and industries, often positions himself as an outsider to traditional power structures. His political and social views have ranged from libertarian to a more contrarian stance, which doesn't fit neatly into a populist or elitist category."