Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace is a total cultural shift.

The within all studied Hierarchy of Power Cultures the lived experience of child abuse is more common than rare. This is a true statement - a significant portion of our population, generation after generation, in homes, schools, institutions and in the community, experience chronic  abuse as children, and many people as adults live with a constant background of abuse.

Racism, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Structural Poverty, Able-ism and other layered socially instituted  generic hatreds are very much common behavioural characteristics of this culture into which I was born.  

When we study the evolution of the human neuro-endocrine system and how it functions we discover something.

Egalitarian life was generally peaceful,  beautiful, healthy, grounded in solid attachment and mature affective state self regulation which reduced incidence of lost tempers and general violence

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This will trigger some people within a culture where self regulation is dysregulated more often than not.

Those abusive behaviours are exceedingly rare and more usually unknown in healthy egalitarian pre-conquest cultures. They do emerge in previously egalitarian cultures post conquest, as an outcome of the trauma of collision with conquest, hierarchy cultures.

These abuse behaviours are common to all Hierarchy cultures, apart from Racism which is specific to Euro-Christian White Colonial Slavery Culture and which persists to this day. "White People did not exist before 1681!"

This chart reflects the compilation and statistical analysis of a wide ranging surveys of many hundreds of different cultures that looks at a spectrum of behaviour from Egalitarian to Hierarchically Violent. A key variant that is found to be a predictor of the nature of any given culture is the way the culture relates to children.

This chart, prepared by James Prescott, is in large part drawn from the work of Robert B Textor in "A Cross Cultural Summary"

"It presents a series of some 20,000 statements, grouped according to a list of standard cultural categories, that describe which of a large number of variables (all more or less conventionally dichotomized) are associated beyond chance expectations with which other dichotomous variables, in the 400-culture sample assembled by George P. Murdock for the Ethnographic Atlas. 

The variables examined and intercorrelated in this largely computer-written survey are all those employed in 38 published or completed cross-cultural studies, plus those that have been coded for the Ethnographic Atlas. 

The volume is, I would say, easy to use. The compiler has carefully and explicitly described all of his procedural decisions, as well as providing a brief but thoughtful introduction to some of the principles of statistical cross-cultural research.

In short, as Harold Driver says in a dust jacket blurb: “There is no longer any excuse for tossing around unconfirmed and impressionistic generalizations, when thousands of sound propositions, based on world-wide samples, are now available in this impressive compilation.’’ 

I would put this injunction even more strongly: any ethnologist who assumes a correlation between two variables that have already been the subjects of cross-cultural study will henceforth be professionally remiss if he does not check his assumption in the pages of this volume.

But useful as such checks will be, particularly to exploratory comparative studies, the reader of this volume should remember that failure to find statistical support for some assumed causal relationship does not necessarily mean he should abandon his assumption."

Review by Melvin Ember, Hunter College, in American Anthropologist 1969 p.918

In other words, this is a serious compilation and survey of cultural characteristics. The charts are accurate representations of social or cultural behavioural characteristics. This is solid, grounded evidence. 

The recent work of Robert Sapolsky,  Behave : Humans at our worst and best and previous work by E. Richard Sorenson from the book Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology and the work of Allan Schore in the neuroscience of emotional self  regulation and development in the first two years of life, all confirm this overview - the default state of the human species is trust, we are egalitarian by our evolutionary development. There are many others whose work confirms this thesis. 

The following assertion is no longer in the realm of hypothesis.

Our Human bodies, brains and minds are perfectly evolved for love, connection, trust, creativity, bonding, healthy attachment with grounded individual autonomy, as a core part of a functional collectivist socially nurturing dynamic, not in spite of it. 

Because we are evolved to adapt to a wide range of habitats, and because we are as infants sensitive and vulnerable, and thus ready to learn about our new world, it is the case we must learn the behaviours that function best within the egalitarian trust default state, from our parents, siblings and wider community without direct instruction, (our brains are evolved to learn by experience, rather than being genetically programmed to generate behaviour) and it is the case that these fundamentals are distorted by childhood trauma that remains unresolved and/or chronic stress that afflicts a culture that persists over generations.

 
Back to the future, here and now...

Child abuse statistics for England and Wales in 2019

Just a quick glance at the statistics in England and Wales, for example, reveals the following :

 Of the 6,971 convictions for child abuse-flagged cases in the latest year:

• 81% (5,668) entered a guilty plea
• 19% (1,301) were convicted after trial
• fewer than 1% (two) were proved in absence
• Around one in five (21%) child abuse-flagged prosecutions in the latest year were unsuccessful in securing a conviction, equating to 1,843 prosecutions.

Source : Office for National Statistics 2019

To put that that into a more informal perspective, if the details of each conviction were read out in the daily 6pm News, it would average out at 19 cases per day, 365 days of the year. That would jump to 25 a day, for a 5 day working week. A further 20% of cases do not achieve a conviction - that is not to say the defendant was acquitted, proven innocent. One in twenty cases reported lead to a charge, or summons. Even that sorry statistic does not cover the full extent of abuse of children across England and Wales.

In 2019 a total of "around 227,500 identifiable child abuse offences recorded by the police in the year ending March 2019. It is important to note that some of these offences occurred more than a year ago. For example, where data were available from the Home Office Data Hub, 34% of sexual offences against children recorded by the police in the year ending March 2019 occurred one year or more ago. This includes 21% of cases which occurred 10 years or more ago."

Comments by one of the statisticians add weight to the assertion that child abuse is more common than rare across this culture.

"By its very nature, child abuse is often hidden from view and many cases don’t come to the attention of the police or the courts. Of identifiable child abuse offences recorded by the police in the year ending March 2019, 1 in 25 resulted in a charge or summons. Of cases that did lead to a prosecution, 4 in 5 resulted in a conviction. We see similar trends in figures for sexual offences. Of course, both crimes are particularly sensitive in nature and some have occurred a long time in the past making them more challenging to investigate.” Meghan Elkin, Centre for Crime and Justice, Office for National Statistics

Add to these crimes of abuse against children, violence perpetrated against women and other instances of violence between adults that litter our newspapers, fill our courts and cause immense distress. One in five school children in English Schools reported being bullied on school premises in surveys carried out in 2018 - 2019.  The bullying follows the vulnerable online at a similar rate.  Rape and sexual harassment are background threats every women is aware of.

Clearly we have a problem that is being experienced at the cultural level, rather than being a question of few bad apples.

Adverse Outcomes for Survivors

I am a survivor of protracted severe childhood abuse and bullying by adults and other children. In my adult life I have endured poverty, destitution, loss, depression and severe psychological distress. This is typical for many of the people who have endured childhood abuse, bullying and other adverse situations.

I have to and do take a certain amount of responsibility for the choices I have made, the errors I have made, the flaws in my behaviour and attitudes - nonetheless, the  larger part of my distress was caused to me by others, and exacerbated by the lack of supportive or protective structures within this culture.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones.

The trauma of war is caused by a few who launch the war, and the many who endure do so under the greatest of strains, and largely do so unreported, whereas the people agencies that initiate and prosecute war have daily headlines to urge their case.

"Given the situation I was born into, the culture and society as it is set up and everything that I experienced, the things that should have happened that did not, and the things that should not have happened that did, it is no wonder I feel the way I do."

In the process of getting through all of that I have spent a lot of time examining my own life. I could say that I was trying to put together the pieces that were broken, reclaim the parts of me that I had lost. I  have been on a journey survival, a path of self directed learning about myself, in this life, in this culture, for 40 years. I am 61 years old.

My gradual understanding of and the integration of my lived experience has been buoyed up the many decent kind people I have met along the way.  In spite of the culture, most people are pretty decent and I have been fortunate to meet mostly decent people, and to have siblings whose love and kindness have helped me weather the storms of my life. time and time again. 

I have also been inspired and informed by the written work of superb researchers in the areas that my experience drew me to - people such as Alice Miller, Judith Herman, Robert Sapolsky, Vincent Felletti, Carl Rogers, Oliver James, Sue Gerhardt, David B Chamberlain, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Allan Schore, David Smail, Suki Pryce, Rutger Bregman, James W Prescott, John Bowlby Colm O'Gorman and many, many others - there is a list on the side bar of this blog, an incomplete list, and it gives a flavour of my 'scholarship' which has been and remains an informal, self directed process of study and learning.

My study has ranged over many subjects including biology, history, geography, anthropology, paleology, neuroscience, endocrinology, biochemistry, economics, studies of civilisations, technology, the history of writing, architecture, agriculture, horticulture, permaculture, behavioural psychology, evolutionary psychology, war fare, medicine, child development, trauma studies, linguistics, religions, shamanism, animism, power relationships, herbalism and music and more..

I have been taken in by a number of cults, and have assumed entire belief systems and lived those until I inevitably came to a point where the real world evidence undermines some aspect of the belief, and I am forced to drop the belief, and return to a confusing, painful reality, sometimes with a bump, sometimes with the greatest sense of relief and liberation.

In the end we all seek liberation from oppressive situations that dominate our lives.

Freedom is not as some would have it taking the liberty to do as one wants, not least as others around us suffer - freedom exists only in entire populations not being oppressed, bullied, hated, shot at, bombed from the air, impoverished, poisoned or polluted by agencies and powers far greater than the individual, greater even than the communities we all live within.

Peace is more than the absence of war.

9 September 2014 - United Nations Statement

Underscoring that peace is more than just the absence of war, United Nations officials  stressed the need for concerted efforts to achieve the common vision of a life of dignity and well-being for all.

“We know that peace cannot be decreed solely through treaties – it must be nurtured through the dignity, rights and capacities of every man and woman,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his remarks to the High-level Forum on the Culture of Peace, convened by the General Assembly. “It is a way of being, of interacting with others, of living on this planet.”

In September 1999, the Assembly adopted, by consensus, a resolution on the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. Since then, it has met annually to discuss the issue, as well as how to advance this noble goal.

Mr. Ban said that peace means access to education, health and essential services – especially for girls and women; giving every young woman and man the chance to live as they choose; and developing sustainably and protecting the planet’s biodiversity."

My 40 years of enquiry, of honest effort and exploration of this lived experience, which we all share, for better or for worse, has taught me much.

Delivering remarks on behalf of Assembly President John Ashe, Vice-President Isabelle F. Picco said the desire for a culture of peace knows no boundaries and is inherent in the hearts of all people.

“It transcends gender, culture, religion, faith and belief, and unites the rich and poor, the old and young, East and West, North and South around a common desire.”

She added that the post-2015 development agenda that Member States are currently working on must be rooted in a culture of peace.

“Peace as an overarching theme must be woven throughout the goals and underpin the targets,” Ms. Picco stated. “And our new agenda must be backed by the political will, commitment, partnerships and financial support to help usher in a new era of peace on a global level.”

This culture - Industrial Militarised Competing Power Culture - is an unhealthy culture.

The invasion of Iraq, the bombing of Libya, the polluting of our air with exhaust particulates that find their way into our beloved babies wombs are all adverse outcomes of absolutely unhealthy behaviour.

Abuse on a colossal scale.

The Industrial Militarised Competing Power Culture can be described as a complex post traumatic stressed disordered culture, as a hierarchy of violence and power culture, and as a trauma generating culture that normalises aspects of unresolved post trauma coping mechanisms as normative behaviour. It is a culture that sustains unresolved trauma as part of its internal engine and it's lurid mythos. The Gods as they are portrayed, behave like vengeful anti-social bullies. They are very much alike human beings with more power than they can safely handle. They are, of course, projections of the bully mind and culture.

One might well say it is an un-natural culture. No baby is born to become a bully, nor is any baby born to be bullied. Bullying is a distorted behaviour that distorts those who are bullied in turn. Chronic stress imposed by the presence of bullying absolutely undermines the natural default development of children and adults.

Allan Schore on the evolutionary biology and psychology of emotional self regulation as it develops.

We are by our evolutionary default egalitarian, bonded, securely attached, empathic sensitive beings/creatures who live as social puppies, in loving relationships that are able to weather the variations of a changing and dynamic habitat. This is our evolutionary default.

Snow blizzards, rain storms, sunny droughts, day or night, floods, tsunami's, volcanoes and general natural changes and so on - when we survive we survive largely because of luck and because of our attachment to one another, our intelligence and quick wits, our creativity and our fraternity. 

This is proven to some extent by the story of the Aboriginal people's of Australia, 80,000 years of continued thriving communities. It is the oldest narrative of the human species. Pre-historical. And there remains a core of Aboriginal people who live in those old ways, who retain the social behavioural characteristics of the healthy human culture, in spite of oppression and the conquest culture's denial of their validity. Indeed there are an estimated population of 360 million indigenous, undeveloped people's across Earth and they are all at risk of extinction entirely due to this culture I was born into.

Our default is trust. until we are subjected to chronic traumatising stressors. Then everything becomes distorted. This is the historical narrative.  I have written about this before, outlining a theory that the Hierarchy culture is the result of an egalitarian culture that was traumatised, and for what ever reasons, was unable to resolve the trauma, and remained in fight or flight reactive mode which engendered normalising controlling behaviour patterns.

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-poles-of-society-everything-in.html

Our problem of healing is not an evolutionary problem  - we are more highly evolved for good health and love than anything else.

Our problem of healing is not a matter of personal flaws and failings.

Our problem of healing is a cultural problem. 

David Smail in his book "The origins of Unhappiness : a new understanding of personal distress"  - 

"It is the main argument of this book that emotional and psychological distress is often brought about through the operation of social-environmental powers which have their origin at a considerable distance from those ultimately subjected to them. 

On the whole, psychology has concerned itself very little with the field of power which stretches beyond our immediate relations with each other, and this has led to serious limitations on the explanatory power of the theories it has produced. 

To illustrate this, typical cases of patient distress in the 1980s are examined. The decade when the right-wing of politics proclaimed there was no such thing as society gave rise to psychological distress across social classes, as long-standing societal institutions were dismantled. 

This is as much a work of sociology, politics, and philosophy, as it is of psychology. Fundamentals of an environmental understanding of distress are outlined. A person is the interaction of a body with the environment."

In other words, David Smail understood that the impact of the behaviour of those who wield immense institutional and material power upon those who do not amounts to a disparity such that decisions that cause grevious harm to entire populations are made, with dreadful frequency, and little accountability.

No wonder people are distressed.

As I like to put it "Given the kind of family, community and culture I was born into, and everything that happened to me, it is no wonder that I feel the way I do."

Another way to put it is to say that a lot of human distress is often the outcome of things that should have happened not happening and things that should not have happened, happening - by agency of other human beings.

The Fruedian and Jungian Psychiatric and Psychoanalytical models are all deflections from this fundamental observation.  There are no archetypes of abusive or distressed behaviour lying dormant within the human psyche.  There is no genetic disposition to distress, other than we all suffer when we are chronically bullied, and that chronic state can trigger epigentic changes that alter our biology, that can throw it out of balance.

There is nothing 'wrong' with the person, there are only distressed persons and a distorting culture within which the person is forced to live, a culture that is very distressing. 

Robert Sapolsky in "Behave : The Biology of Humans at our best and our worst"

“The brain is heavily influenced by genes. But from birth through young adulthood, the part of the human brain that most defines us (frontal cortex) is less a product of the genes with which you started life than of what life has thrown at you. 

Because it is the least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. This must be so, to be the supremely complex social species that we are. Ironically, it seems that the genetic program of human brain development has evolved to, as much as possible, free the  frontal cortext from genes.”

It all comes down to culture, in the end.

Sapolsky writes “culture” is how we do and think about things, transmitted by non-genetic means."

A Hierarchy of Violence culture is a behavioural dynamic, not a genetic dynamic.

We need to abolish poverty and end war as a priority for the mental health and physiological well being of Humanity, and that must include a cessation of all invasion of lands occupied by older indigenous cultures, as the essential preparatory steps, even before we approach the issues of pollution, environment and climate change.

Kindest regards
 
Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."