Desensitization techniques for the 21st century (and beyond!)

Friend of mine once said to me, "If you have a distaste for the smell of shit, force yourself to smell it until it doesn't bother you anymore." I doubt he meant this in a literal sense, although the image of a Sufi master literally forcing the student to eat hir excrement for the sake of desensitizing the pupil to the corrosive elements of the world and hir own personality- (and primarily for what I would imagine to be shits in giggles, pardon the pun!) is an appealing one for comedic value alone, this is something I wouldn't take literally if I were you.

Many cultural biases or triggers we share collectively seem to provoke irrational fear, anxiety or to trigger the "panic button" response in human beings. It's somewhat of a hardwired physiological phenomenon that has basis in our evolution- That which causes pain or discomfort is to be avoided. The child is burnt by a stove, he or she learns not to touch it again. We associate with individuals who are perceived by us to be untrustworthy, and due to our past experiences we establish barriers or walls towards people who seem to be of the same disposition in the future. If you have a bad experience with any element of life, you will tend to avoid it to prevent yourself from being put through the same pain or burden you have suffered before.

Which is fine, until this rational biological response to one's environment becomes a form of irrational reactive conditioning. Human beings should not behave like robots, and after millions of years of evolution should be a bit further along in the rat race than Pavlov's dog. Unfortunately, most of us aren't. I am not exempt from criticism but rather far from it. We all react to stimuli with preconditioned responses on the daily without ever so much as taking the time to question why. If this is the case, until we learn to break these automatic routines and forms of entrainment, can we ever truly consider ourselves to be free?

And now, for the flip side of the coin, there is the matter of our culture's fascination with the darker aspects of human psychology and what is perceived to be taboo. Here, I woud like to append an article written originally for alteri.net by the curator of this blog entitled "The Dark Side of a Culture: A Post Modern Analysis of Bad Porno." The entry in question was in reference to a hardcore pornography website which simulated, among other things, the Abu Ghraib prisoner of war atrocities with a pornographic spin.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my raunchy pornography as much as the next guy, but does this not strike anyone else as a bit odd? On one hand, in "polite conversation", on the bus, in church, and even in public office discussion of political exploitation and manipulation like sexual slavery, mind control and war atrocities is considered to be taboo. On the other, there very obviously is a market for someone out there who actually masturbates to staged pornographic depictions of Abu Ghraib war crimes.

Which brings us to the issue of desensitization. It is entirely possible there are what could be construed as "positive" desensitization techniques that empower the individual to overcome taboos and fears by confronting them head on. Most therapeutic techniques such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and techniques such as tapping and eye desensitization center around the patient envisioning past traumatic experiences while the instructor helps them to cut off emotional response to this through rapid eye movements, tappings or visualization. Undoubtedly, the techniques at work are 1. visualization of traumatic or painful memories, physical or sexual abuse, fear or anxiety and 2. desensitization to these imprints through prolonged exposure and physical techniques designed to dissociate fear and anxiety from the memories or experiences themselves.

To a greater extent, the entire body of left hand tantric or initiatory practice tends to force the candidate to confront hir personal demons through prolonged exposure to fears, anxieties, taboos and often through provoking hir to act upon these fears in order to master them. The idea is that after you let it out of your system (and hopefully in somewhat of a safe and controlled manner,) the demons are no longer demons and what once were considered to be fears or anxieties are mastered and harnessed as sources of personal empowerment.

And that's all well and good- but what of our culture's fascination for these skeletons in the collective closet? Do society and mass media on the whole attempt to work with these energies to transform them or to further distance us from one another, to empower fear mongering and to impose control on the individual through dehumanization and desensitization? The question is one of essence. Take note of the average American's response to the buzz word "9/11" post WTC Attacks, and you will have a good idea of what I mean by conditioned physical and mental response. I have noticed in myself and in others I meet routinely a certain disposition towards the fear of being naked, open and vulnerable. What if the "other" hurts us? Isn't it "easier" to remain in a shell or behind the walls we build for ourselves, forever out of reach of the "other"? This provides us with an illusion of "safety" and "control." We have "control" over "our selves" when we refuse to let down our protective barriers that we build out of fear of being hurt. The fear that stems from the same sort of past conditioning that allows us to respond physically and reactively to concepts like death, sex and violence as they are depicted in the media. The kind of conditioned responses that cause us to salivate when we see a commercial with a burrito in it or crave a drink when we see an advert for our favorite scotch.

I don't mean to come across as paranoid, but if you look at who stands to benefit from keeping us afraid, isolated from one another and perpetually in a low-grade state of emotional "emergency", the question answers itself.

We are taught at the same time that our bodies are somehow shameful, our natural propensity for being soft and loving and open is a source of pain and that we should be careful just who we let in. Only some of this is biological imperative. Of course if our perceptual filters weren't operating with some regularity we would be overwhelmed by the never ending bombardment of sensory stimuli. We have to filter what is relevant to us from the rest or else we lose it, but how much of our fear of the "other" and being just who we really are unconditionally stems from our past experiences and the desensitization of media stimuli? We are trained to fear each other, and most of all, our selves.

While we are taught to stand in line, to obey and to react to stimuli routinely and predictably, we are provided with a steady stream of desensitizing media. We see people beaten on television daily. In the last decade, an ever increasing abundance of films depicting ritualistic torture, murder and human degradation such as the Saw franchise, the Hostel franchise, and the Human Centipede have emerged.

Which brings us full circle to the shit eating anecdote. Two things to take away from this story: One, be very careful about the words you choose to take literally. Two, desensitization to fear and to taboo can be something that functions to help us transcend our limitations, but can also serve to further distance us from ourselves and the Other. Like anything, it is all in the hands of those who choose to use the tool. A hammer can be used to build a house, or it can be used to beat someone's head in.