Natural Child, Natural Society: David Smail

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Behavioural characteristics of Hierarchy cultures and Egalitarian Cultures.

The Cultural Behavioural Characteristics of Hierarchy Cultures and Egalitarian Cultures. Take a look.

source : http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf

We are living within a bully hierarchy culture. A culture based around artificial power disparities that are used to abuse people, with minimal regulation of the harms caused.

It is not inevitable, and it is not The Human Condition.
It is obviously unhealthy.
It doesn't have to be this way.

It is this way, yes, that is glaringly obvious and likewise it is obvious that doing anything about it to heal or correct that situation is going to be difficult, we know this. Difficulty is not necessarily a barrier to taking action.

It's no secret that those who hold power and deploy power disparities in their favour are unwilling to relinquish those advantages.
Nonetheless, our bodies and our psyches are biologically evolved for egalitarian behaviour and we know that hierarchy of power behaviour is biologically unhealthy. That suggests to me at least that our biology is a potential leverage point in articulating the potential to alter the culture.
Most of human distress originates in the cultural dynamic of power disparity and hierarchy, rather then in the human psyche.

The cultural obsession with enforcing and maintaining socio-economic status is a highly stressful and disease generating behavioural dynamic.
Established practice of Psychology, Psychiatry, Religion and New Age magical thinking are all deliberate mis-directions.

The person is not the problem. Yes, it is true that some people are dangerous to others. Dealing with the dangerous people is a health and safety issue for the community, where robust prevention of harm is the core dynamic, and punishment is rejected as irrationally judgemental and ineffective.

The Culture is the problem. In a culture of power abuse, it is obvious that it will generate people who are dangerous to others.
Change and heal the culture, reduce the incidence of emergent psychopathy - again, an obvious approach.
Deal with it. We all need to deal with this. The issue here is that we can never fix a social system that is a bully system.
It is by definition beyond repair. The bullying must cease.
Power Hierarchies with artificial power disparities are pathological systems built by bullies.
They cannot be repaired. The power disparity must be disabled, dismantled.
This is very difficult for those people who have been habituated to power disparity to appraise.
The psyche habituated to power disparity thinks that this is the Human Condition.
It is not.
It is a culture, nothing more than that.
The body and psyche is biologically evolved for the egalitarian behavioural dynamic as it's healthy normal state within the environment. We are social organisms. Our sensitivity is all about connection and co-operation, empathy and creativity, loving nurturant relationships with ourselves, our communities and our environment
If the body and psyche is subjected to chronic bullying, it will become distorted, and disease will emerge more frequently than it would otherwise do,
Bullying emerges from unresolved trauma, as a coping mechanism. It has become institutionalised over time.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find,and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is easy.

Environment, social power and biological influence.

Every living organism on Earth that we know about is influenced by, and e influences, the environment from which they emerge.

"One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society." David Smail

The degrees of influence vary… and all participation matters.

There are networks of living influencers all across biology, in webs, networks, layers, currents, flows and interfaces. From bacteria to fungi, from ants to elephants, with wolves and beavers, flowers and trees.

All of life..

They all are active participants in life, rather than passive. We are too.

We are born both as influences of that environment, and as influencers of that environment.

There is a feed back loop built in that feeds into balance, that enables recovery after occasional trauma, solves problems.

A healing mechanism.

Every child on Earth will be influenced by, and will influence, the social environment.

Natural Child, Natural Society

I see both as cause and effect at the same time.

A natural society observes the nature of the child and responds to the child as a person, with dignity and respect, interest and support and a deep trust in the child’s abilities to cope with life, to develop the natural skills required for thriving in the environment, social and biological, in which they all live.

It’s should not come as a surprise to learn that the more that balance is disrupted, the more likely adverse behaviour and disease states will emerge in significant numbers.

Mad States make for maddened people.

Sick States make for a sickened people.

Happy States make for a happy people.

Bully States make for a bullied people.

“Given the kind of society you were born into, and all that you have experienced and lived through, it’s no wonder you feel the way you do.”

No man is an island.

David Smail puts it eloquently:

“Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called psychiatric 'disorders' are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning). Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society.”

I think that’s pretty clear.

"One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."
read that again. reflect on it. it will deliver much useful insight, and provide a guide through the current power establishment.

Biology, being the source of intelligence, has crafted a basic functional element, which I call optimal biological health, to ensure the relatively smooth functioning of living systems within a dynamically changing environment.

Hierarchies of power and violence undermine that balance.

Hierarchies of power and violence tend to impose chronic stress.

Balance is, in human terms, a question of how we respond to the evidence, rather than rely upon a reaction to get us out of trouble. The evidence is this.

We humans have embodied within us, within every cell and organ, a state of optimal biological health.

It does not include mass violence, abuse of power, loss of empathy, bullying, stealing or hoarding, self alienation, the generation gap, religious or ideological shame and guilt, addictions, obsessions, compulsions.

These are all symptoms of a state of dis-ease, a state of chronic stress.

These are also interwoven with symptoms of unresolved trauma that remain unresolved over many, many generations, and emerge as chronic stress related disease and socially accepted prejudice, nationalist hatreds, othering in general.

The emergence of so many adverse symptoms across all populations is a clear sign that the social and institutional environment is not a healing space, and is in fact creating a blockage to reaching a state of optimal human biological health, individually and as a species.

Sustainability is impossible if the current power culture persists in this psychological dysfunction.

It’s not about left/right, it’s about health and the people, now, today, and it must also encompass our long term responsibilities to future generations of humanity. Optimal human biological health.

Power, psychological and economic distress, recovery.

David Smail has written some of the most scientifically honest and insightful writings on the psychologies of power in the UK, and how they afflict ordinary people's lives ..... how the effects of distal power percolate down into the lives of ordinary people who have little power by comparision to change the behaviour of that distal power. The lived experience of people subjected to political and economic adversities. and their relations within a society that maintains the disparity inherent in that distal power relationship.

"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called psychiatric 'disorders' are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society. Such an understanding is the focus of the work of David Smail."

He observe that many influential elements within the medical and political establishments look at the symptoms, the distress that people present with, and refuse to look at the whole social context, and thus they limit their examination, diagnosis and prognosis to the individual. And therefore they cannot resolve nor can they heal the situation.

He says that is a faulty approach. I agree.

We must include the social setting and context as part of the examination, diagnosis and prognosis of the individual. The evidence matters, all of it.

In this short video, he goes over the general thesis, in clear easy english, and so gently, yet firmly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ByF_0HV5w

A must view, and I urge readers to follow up his writings, they are easy to read, simple straight language and spot on, evidence based.

www.davidsmail.info - his writings.... if you disliked Thatcher, you're gonna love Smail, and still be challenged.

Evidence, David Smail and the facts before us.

I have just completed my first reading of 'The Origins of Unhappiness : A New Understanding of Personal Unhappiness' written by David Smail. It is an astounding work, and I must say, I now believe that it is essential reading for anyone interested in psychological distress, justice and economic equity.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27133657-the-origins-of-unhappiness

"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."

What I got from this book : realism and honesty.

I live in England where poverty is deliberately maintained and the poor are dehumanised in media representations, where the symptoms of that distress are used as signs of a flawed nature in order to blame the impoverished for their impoverished state, which protects the Wealth Extraction systems, externalising the cost of low wages and inadequate social care provision.

"We need to realise that, rather than the patient being a problem for the world, the world is a problem for the patient. We are embodied products of environment space-time. To make a difference in our lives we need to be able to exert what little influence we have on the environment, to make it, from our perspective, a little more benign. It is not we who need to change, but the world around us.Or, to put it another way, the extent to which we are able to change will always depend upon some material change in the environmental structures of power which envelope us (and insofar as these cannot be changed, for example because they are in the past, neither can we be wiped clean of their effects).

The difficulty with this is immediately apparent: how do we, relatively powerless creatures, bring effective influence to bear on the environment?"

David Smail (goes to wiki page on David Smail) wrote this :

"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called psychiatric 'disorders' are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning). Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society.

Such an understanding is the focus of this web-site. "

You can go to David Smail's Website here via wayback web archive.

I respectfully suggest this as a genuinely useful resource base, to find tools and insights that relate to how power operates and behaves in this culture.

The psychology of power hierarchies. The psychology of people adjusting to this unhealthy social institutional structure and culture. Some home truths. Radicalisation. Grooming. Social meaning. Our lives in all of this.

Evidence based.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Abuse : Origins, root causes, recovery and re-alingment with optimal human biological health

The resolution of the issue of abuse as a common behavioural dynamic lies not in punishment, rather it rests in altering the way our society as a whole relates to and treats children. And indeed, how it relates parenting, and how it supports healthy parenting. It is intrinsically linked to how power is mediated in social and material terms across our economic and political and judicial systems. It is inherently a matter of governance.

Of course, known serial abusers, those who cause intentional harm who operate without remorse in any sphere of human activity must be segregated, isolated from society at large, because they cannot be trusted to act otherwise. That goes without saying. It is a health and safety matter of extreme importance. Punishment is not really effective as a way to deal with this problem. Punishment does not prevent harm, because it always arrives after the harm has been caused. Punishment is always too late.

"The psychology of any given family, community or society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that family, community or society relates to and treats the children".

Chronic stress degrades all known biological systems, and leads to disease. Unresolved trauma leads directly to chronic stress, as does war, poverty and all forms of abuse.

These are not inevitables, nor are they unknowns.

They are all the result of choices made by adults.

Here is a detailed chart outlining the social behavioural characteristics of various societies, which was collated in the 70s.

http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf

Research since then into endocrine systems, autonomous systems, in utero development and psychology, trauma studies, inter-generational trauma behaviour patterning, history, anthropology, neuroscience, biochemistry, child development and psychopathology confirm the insights of this survey.

Researcher/writers such as Alice Miller, Judith Herman, David Chamberlain, Oliver James, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Carl Rogers, Derrick Jensen, Gabor Mate, Kitty Jones, Robert Zapolsky, David Smail and many, many others are great resources in this.

I URGE you to access the data, the evidence, and go through the works of the writers listed above if you are genuinely concerned about child abuse....

I say this because I want to help you, and all of us, to understand this dynamic so that we can work together to apprehend abusers, to prevent further abuse emerging as it does in such massive numbers and realign our social systems with optimal human biological health.

I am a Survivor of long term intentional child abuse.

I speak and write with some knowledge of this subject.

Both in terms of addressing my own abusive and destructive learned behaviors and my recovery from the trauma I endured for the best part of 20 years.

This blog is where I join the dots on all of this research by people who literally have saved my life and enabled me to return to a degree of optimal biological health.

At some time it will become a book, a website, an interactive mind map and a documentary.

I do this for myself, I do it for you and I do it for my great grand children and all their contemporaries.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe"

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

I Don't Fit In!

I am working on a song entitled "I Don't Fit In!"

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts War as a tool of State Policy.

I don't fit into a Society that tells children what to think and applies sanctions against them for dissent against the prevailing ideology.

I don't fit in to a Society that segregates children and elders from the activities of Governance.

I don't fit in to a Society that accepts poverty as a necessary outcome of the concentration of wealth.

I don't fit in, and I am glad of it.

After many, many years of self criticism because I felt that I did not fit in, and was therefore somehow inadequate because so many others seemed to 'fit in', and also because of the frequent criticism from many others, not least people in positions of Authority such as politicians, clergy, social workers, media pundits etc, who use the term 'misfit' all too frequently, which appeared to corroborate and support that self criticism, I can finally say with utter clarity that I know why I don't fit in, and that my knowledge is absolutely evidence based and accurate.

This is not to say that 'the world we live in is rotten or horrid' - it is to say that the Earth has at this time a Dominant human Culture that is abusive, and that the self criticism I and many others experience is an internalisation of the values of that Dominant Culture, and that that internalisation is part of the self policing that culture depends upon to maintain itself.

From my experience and perspective, I say that Earth is a biologically nurturant environment, where natural processes function to improve the conditions of life, for all life, in a manner that can best be described as responsive learning leading to precise adaptations to the variations in the environment.

Here is an essay by David Smail (short video of David Smail speaking about psychological distress and depression) entitled "The Experience of School: Empowerment or Oppression" that looks at this, and contains some valuable insights into the dynamics of 'not fitting in', the aggressive attitude directed towards those who 'don't fit in', by both friends and family, by co-workers, and by Institutions and how to counter it....

What kind of human being would even want to fit it to such a Society?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

David Smail on Depression in 1989

Here's an insightful video, of David Smail, speaking of depression and the woundedness of those who have suffered from circumstances not of their own making.

I urge everyone to view this, to listen carefully to the fullness of what David says. His words are dense with meaning, with empathy and understanding.

Note especially that he says the most sensitive are often the most perceptive. The wounded see Society for what it really is. They are more wounded because of that perceptual ability.

This piece of video was made in 1989, during the height of the Thacherite years... and it has special resoance for these times of 'austerity' for the distressed and wounded, and bonuses for the wealthy....

This video outlines what Alice Miller has shown to be the dynmaics of abuse that are most common, that underpin much of the Dominant Cultures realities, the things that do harm, the kinds of adults those who have not faced their childhood woundings who later inflict those same woundings on others.

This is not to excuse those who cause serious harm, but to understand the dynamics of intergenerational abuse patterns.

Tony Blair can only get away with what he has done, David Cameron is getting away with what he is doing, because so many of us are wounded, blocked and in denial about the nature of our Society.

We must face these truths in order to change the patterns.

Remember what Judith Herman wrote:

"The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told.

Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.”

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

Trauma, Society and the work we must do, all of us.

It is very important work to understand how this society, the one we (Europeans etc) have all been born into, industrial society, is built upon trauma, subtle as much as gross.

We all have two aspects to deal with in this : the personal (ones own story) and the trans personal (the institutions that are built by dysfunctional people to control other people - police, army, banks, education, prison.

Both aspects must be understood, and worked on. And especially in terms of the various movements and campaigns for change, if this work is not done, the those campaigns are de-facto limited to dealing merely with symptoms, and not root causes. This is the kind of dissent the system likes and tolerates because it does not threaten their position, merely asks them to be 'nicer'.... which they are adept at making it LOOK as if they are being 'nicer'....

Just to pass on some links for anyone who wants to follow their own research.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com - history of education set-up and back ground on those who made it so, and their ideas

http://www.naturalchild.com/ - dedicated to promoting awareness of the natural child, and how societal misunderstanding of the natural child affects us all

http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php - Alice Millers, whose main work, "The Roots of Violence in Child-rearing : for your own good" is one of the best on how society treats children, the history of written child rearing texts and societal compliance.. it's a translation from German so fairly challenging to read - more recent works such as "the drama of the gifted child" and "the body never lies" are a bit easier... but all are so worth the effort...

http://www.holtgws.com/ - John Holt, author of "how children learn" and "how children fail" .... this and more on how children naturally learn ... inspired, and one of the best!

http://www.suepalmer.co.uk/ - Sue Palmer, research on children's development, on how early schooling, TV, foods, media affects children's, plenty of research from neuro-science to support her observations...blows the use of 'genetics' as a source of distress out of the water

http://www.selfishcapitalist.com/ - site for writer Oliver James, author of "Affluenza", details the psychological impacts observed in adults, which arise from early childhood, common in the industrialised world. Suggest parents of very young ought to be free of encumbrance to devote time to their children, funded by the state to avoid the depression and psychological distress common in industrialised society. Severe critic of profit/consumerism. Good research, blows the 'genetics' as a source of distress right out of the water...

http://www.davidsmail.freeuk.com/ - David Smail,probably one of the best writers on 'Power Over Other's as trhe root cause of all human dysfunction. The way power is expressed is the problem, the rest is symptom. Great essay on Thatcher are the rise of the 'new age' healing business! Lots of his work is available on-line..

That's enough to get started.... all the best m8.

The following ideas around nature are my own, in that I originated the following concepts, independent of my reading : 'nature does not do stupidity', our 'cells are wild, so are we', 'nature works, so why are we so different', we 'project our concepts and ways onto the natural world, and cannot see nature the way nature experiences self, so we are lost in a country whose language we do not know - which is why industrialised society projects it's own power structures on to nature..."everything in in nature gets what it needs to thrive, bar being eaten"... "THRIVIVAL" ... "all living creatures have the innate learning ability to learn what they need to learn to master their being and to thrive in life"...

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

POWER, Psychological Distress and Society

"Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called 'neuroses', 'psychoses' and related forms of suffering are nothing to do with faulty biology; nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.

Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).

Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion. It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society."

From David Smail......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Smail_(psychologist)

My Comments :

That adverse POWER, when exercised over any other living being, is at the roots of psychological and much physical distress should be blindingly obvious.

Recent events in Gaza are surely evidence enough, given the bland platitudes of political leaders, the cowardice of mainstream media, the bigotry of various citizens and the willful ignoring (verb) of human suffering by these various actors, not to mention what we know of our history and of the genesis of and use of so-called 'scriptures' as tools of control, rather than inspirational texts.

Yet all too often that is not the case!

What in the name of all that is good and beautiful that is of life is going on here?

Education, Psychiatry, Religion, Economics and Ideology as we know them in our society all share this quality of the exercise of adverse power over others. Of ignoring the true and terrible consequences of adverse POWER.

The process of denying a child the responsibility for and expression of her or his true feelings is the basis for all of the above, and in my mind, is the basis for all that is corrupt in our world. Corrupt in this context means isolated from the dynamic equilibrium inherent in what we call nature.

That dynamic equilibrium is at the core of the adpative ability of natural beings - an ability to read intelligently the multiple changes of any environment so as to retain optimum living balance. This implies an innate feedback process of cognitive understanding in order to function. That this exists and permeates all living systems is understood by science (at last), has been understood by indigenous peoples for millenia and is probably understood by all life forms - the indigenous peoples have said time andf time again that their knowledge of herbs, of plant and animal life comes direct from those life forms.

We know, for example, that there are 14,550 natural varieties of apple indigenous to England - that speaks volumes to the specificity of adaptation to locale, precise adaptation to subtle changes in environemnt that occur as the land flows. Similar variations account for the immense bio-diversity of the rain forests etc etc and that variety also affords these living systems their fundamental resilience.

Adverse POWER by it's very nature is an impediment to that feedback process. De-forestation as opposed to harvesting what has fallen. One cannot eat the fruit of a felled tree or nor the berries of a burned bush.

And that is at the core of the problems we are all faced with. POWER most often assumes that because others do not speak POWERS language that POWER is somehow superior. That is the meaning of 'experts' such as Lawyers, Priests, Rabbis, Imans, Psychiatrists etc etc. When in fact it is POWERS inability to empathetically connect and integrate feedback that is the problem.

We learn at home, in school, in our temples and at work that feedback is not appreciated - don't talk back! - and that such honest feedbcak can in fact be life/career threatening. And so we shut down that process within ourselves, and that leads directly to distress. Blocking our own internal flows of sensory information is deeply harmful.

The solution to this problems is so simple that it is overlooked by most of us. Certainly those in POWER, denigrate this approach in favour of over-complicated jargonised instituionalised narratives that are designed to "blind us with brilliance of baffle us with bullshit" and thus retain that adverse POWER. Psychiatry, Pharming, 'Experts' etc etc......... all wish to justify their positions......

The solution, as I see things, is ruthless self-honesty in the personal, familial and societal arenas of our lives and within our culture, founded upon an understanding and experience of Love as a joyful awareness of the wonder of being a living creature. Such an awareness can also be described as an expression of sensory acuity. It would naurally extend itself to all life.

Sensory acuity based around joyful awareness will always be sensitive to even the most subtle changes in the environment, and that in turn enables cognitive intelligent responses to those changes - sensory acuity is 'de facto' a neccessity so that this essential feedback loop process can function.

Here's a link to an article that I found useful, regarding the basis for a thankful life, written by Dr. Peter Breggin...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/fifteen-principles-of-lif_b_34782.html

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe