Dear Fellow Leftists,
I love you. I love your commitment to the causes you believe in. You are some of the most motivated, dedicated, and consistent champions of human rights I’ve had the honor of meeting. You’re a force to be reckoned with.
But I am also afraid of you. I am afraid of being ostracized by you for any opinion that may diverge from yours. I’ve catered my thoughts to your ideals or stayed silent altogether to avoid being ripped apart for not following along with the group think. And I’m not the only one that’s lived in fear of your judgment. But I am choosing to speak out beyond that fear today.
On Monday February 26, 2024, I opened Instagram to check in on my favorite artists who were recently married. After clicking through their stories, the next user’s stories displayed the last words of a man named Aaron Bushnell. Curiosity getting the better of me, I continued tapping the side of my screen to find out who he was because somebody else would surely have posted more details. According to other users’ reposts, it appeared he had died via “self-immolation”, a phrase I didn’t yet know the meaning of, and that the act was meant to be a form of protest against the Palestinian Genocide.
It didn’t take long for me to find myself looking at an image of that very man on fire without any warning. I grew livid. Not because of Bushnell’s self-immolation (although I will get to my thoughts on that), but because viewing something so horrific has serious potential to traumatize people and even induce a disorder that mirrors PTSD called Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). This disorder has been known to affect first responders and helping professionals for many years, but more recently has been proven to develop in the everyday person that consumes stressful and violent media. The likelihood of developing chronic PTSD increases with the frequency of exposure to the traumatic event or imagery (Comstock & Platania, 2017). So when every passionate leftist circulates images, videos, and audio recordings of Bushnell on fire and screaming, the chances of other people on the app experiencing repeated secondary trauma increases, in turn increasing the likelihood of them developing STS or PTSD.
Another important thing I’ve learned from my many years in therapy, doing research, and the school of life is that the human brain isn’t built to handle the massive loads of information we throw at it through phones, computers, and televisions today. This is a tremendous contributor to our current unprecedented rise in depression and anxiety in digitally connected humans (Teepe et al., 2023). Our ancestors existed in clans of 25-100 people (Dorey, 2020) and Dunbar’s number posits that we as individuals can only maintain 150 relationships on average. This means that we aren’t meant to be aware of the other eight billion people in the world and all the pain that comes with their lives through the news and social media.
Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about other people around the world. What I am saying is that our brains aren’t capable of maintaining that level of influx of information without psychological damage. When all you see every single day is every horror of the world, your mind is going to adapt and learn that the world is terrible and dangerous and then descend into hopelessness and/or panicked overwhelm. When we become hopeless, overwhelmed, or burnt out, we can’t save the world because we have nothing to give. We all know you can’t pour from an empty cup.
In my rage and desperation to protect people from succumbing further into the compulsive sickness of our society, I posted a PSA on my story asking that you stop circulating imagery of people actively dying. I was shaking and anxious, anticipating fury from all sides, but instead, out of the woodwork of my following of just under 600 users, came seven souls grateful to see their own thoughts reflected. One person felt like a villain for skipping past those posts after they “couldn’t take it anymore”. Another felt crazy for not wanting to see dismembered body parts or hear the screams of a man on fire. And another felt they couldn’t be honest about their thoughts because they run a small business and feared cancellation via “extremist liberals” that are part of their client base. A few more that didn’t come forward with words liked the story post, showing silent agreement. Suddenly, I wasn’t the only soul I knew that felt this wasn’t the path to helping Palestine. And I wasn’t the only one that stayed silent out of fear for your reactions.
My hope is that we can work together to change the current culture to encourage individuals to consume global news and media when it doesn’t feel emotionally burdensome to them and particularly to focus on situations that they can feel empowered to enact change. When we’re told we need to put every ounce of our energy into a cause that we have little ability to make an impact on, it can quickly send us into despair when our efforts result in no change. That helps nobody.
Killing ourselves doesn’t help anyone either. I’ve seen extensive discourse around whether Aaron Bushnell was mentally ill or committed to the cause and whether he was protesting or committing suicide. To me, these arguments are focusing on trying to secure accreditation for his actions rather than acknowledging the uncomfortable truth of the situation. I would argue that it’s likely he was mentally ill (and that him being mentally ill wouldn’t be shameful nor would it devalue the decisions he makes in life) because he was working at a job that evidently directly opposed his values where he felt so helpless that ending his life seemed like the only option. As someone who’s been backed into that corner before and made my way out of it, I can tell you that mental wellness came in tandem with a sense of available choices in life. However, I didn't know him, so I am merely speculating just as all of you that have confidently stated he wasn't mentally ill are speculating. As far as whether what he did was protest or suicide? It was both. The reality is, he is dead now, and that was the outcome he was seeking when he set himself on fire by choice. That’s suicide. And his intention was to commit suicide in the name of protest. What these answers don’t address is the fact that one more person is dead. One more person that cared to help people in Palestine is unable to provide further assistance. One more person’s small universe of people is grieving for him and are now more emotionally taxed. The entire potential for the life of this person has been destroyed and all of you are idolizing him like he was a hero. But he wasn’t a hero. He was human and desperate and afraid of continuing the fight alive. He had plans for his life. He had dreams and desires. He loved people. He wasn’t a single moment of political activism borne to satisfy your needs for a martyr. He was a whole person.
I want you to ask yourselves what message it sends to the world when you put suicide, or self-immolation, on a pedestal. Because all I can think about is the impressionable children and teens on social media and the fellow desperate idealists that want to make a difference reading that ending their lives is how they can save other people who are dying and be celebrated for it. All I can see is beautifully intricate human lives, young and old, with endless potential, setting themselves ablaze in front of Israeli consulates in the name of perceived glory. All I see is you deciding for Palestinians who are dying without a choice that the people who care about them will save them by picking ourselves off one by one instead of actually doing something tangible to help. What good are we dead? In what world is the solution to death more dying? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense to me.
I think one of the most difficult parts of the conflict between Israel and Palestine for us is how helpless it makes us realize we are. I believe the excessive sharing and idolization of violent imagery reflects a valid desperation for positive change and for our voices to be heard. But the unpleasant truth is that we aren’t running the show and even the loudest screams fall on deaf ears when it comes to the politics of war in America. Unless you are a professional activist, politician, or journalist, you’re unlikely to have access to the resources required to capture and sustain the attention of the people that could influence decision making for a war happening over 5,000 miles away.
However, if you want to influence even a smidgen of truly impactful change, there are options that don’t involve harming yourself or others. You could donate money to relief causes. If you don’t have money, but you have time and energy, you could start a fundraiser to gather donations. If that doesn’t feel feasible to you, you could contact your political representatives by email or snail mail and hope that they take your words into account (I’m a cynic when it comes to our government caring what we think, but I implore you to engage in our political system if you feel agency in doing so–It can’t hurt). If you have the time, you can visit local town halls where you can ensure you’ll have the space to speak your mind. And ‘tis the season, go vote! Don’t just vote for the names you hear and see the most, research the candidates for all levels of office, and make your vote count. Finally, have conversations with the people in your life. Real people that can sit in front of you with flesh and blood and hold you when you need consolation, not usernames on an app that can hide behind crafted facades. Find community, listen to the thoughts of the people around you and ask yourself not only what they can learn from you, but what you can learn from them. Change starts on a micro scale before it butterflies into the macro and if we all move towards the same page one meaningful conversation at a time (rather than a placeholder post with no original thoughts or need to analyze whether we truly agree), it has a fighting chance of falling into the laps of the people that can utilize it.
I want all of you to know that I believe deeply in your intentions. I share your desire for a free and flourishing Palestine. I’m a pacifist and an idealist; I always have been. I dream of a world without war and anguish at the knowledge of unnecessary suffering and death for any human being. What I don’t believe is that your impact is always congruent with your intentions.
At the end of the day, my priorities lie with the health and wellness of people while acknowledging individuals first. I’ve never cared about anything more than using my available resources to ensure each person feels content in this harsh world. I know, because I’ve seen it in my own life, that when we are mentally healthy, our hope spreads to the people around us. And hopeful people improve the world, whether or not they’re trying to. Imagine what we could do if we became healthy along with intentionally trying to improve the world instead of peering into upside down empty cups and wondering why nothing is coming out.
I hope that this letter will foster a desire to critically analyze what you share with the world and why you share it. Even more so, I hope you will ask yourselves if your actions will actually impact lives in Palestine or if they will only serve to ease a guilty mind that is grasping for a sense of success in enacting change to gratify yourself.
I care for you. I hope you will walk with me on the journey of independent thinking, radical change, and compassion for the imperfections in those around you along with yourself. I want only the best for you.
Your loving friend,
Grace Madonna
References
Comstock, C., & Platania, J. (2017). The role of Media-Induced Secondary Traumatic Stress
on Perceptions of Distress. American International Journal of Social Science 6(1). https://docs.rwu.edu/fcas_fp/252/
Dorey, F. (2020, October 16). Homo sapiens – modern humans. The Australian Museum.
https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/homo-sapiens-modern-humans/
Teepe, G. W., Glase, E. M., & Reips, U. -D. (2023, April 7). Increasing digitalization is
associated with anxiety and depression: A Google Ngram analysis. PLOS ONE 18(4): e0284091. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0284091