Cosmologies and the social material reality - a conflict of interest

On Cosmology in the context of these difficult times, all difficult times.

"The grooming (gaslighting) of human vulnerability is one of most vile things any human being can do to another."

The Garden Path

I hold the view that every person has the ability, and thus the natural right, to craft their own Cosmology. We are all imaginers even as we imagine entirely different things...

After all, that is a function of autonomy, as a living human being, as a person, within a family or community. One's own imagination is both tool and gift, and a pleasure - and yet if it is distorted, it can become a trap. cPTSD reveals to us some of the ways that the imagination can become distorted. 

Thus it follows that no person has the right to extend their cosmology to others, beyond themselves as an imposition. We can share our imaginings, explore their ways out of interest and variety and at the same time there is no  natural right to indoctrinate others, no right to demand resources or money for 'lessons' in any given cosmology, and certainly no right to create, maintain a following of believers.

All of that is manipulation, it is exploitative. These are all ways of accruing power over others.

I set that in the context of the shared space between us, the Common.

This is the ground upon which we walk, it includes the air we all breath, the water cycle pathways from which we drink, which water our foods,

The Commons is shared by and includes all creatures as neighbours, even the ones hunted for food.

And of course, the Commons includes the psycho-social material space between us as biologically aware intelligent social organisms and that requires an evidence based approach on all matters that affect that shared spaced. 

There's a fundamental balance in this. This is the space within which entire forests thrive. It is how complex ecosystems function - accurate information flowing through the commons. The Oceans are another commons.

In matters of the shared commons, I respectfully suggest that nothing less than all the evidence available can stand as the basis for action. 

Where we don't know, we must acknowledge that and then we study to know honestly, for only then can we answer those questions and take appropriate action. Which can include doing nothing at all. Leaving a forest to it's peoples is a way of doing something genuinely nurturing by doing nothing.

Therefore I suggest that belief and personal cosmology are inappropriate and unsafe a foundation in the domain of action within any  shared space, within the commons - a belief might pose a question:  even so, that can only be answered by direct evidence.  Until then, it remains an unknown.

I suggest then, that we keep our personal cosmologies as part of our art-imagination-play, a colourful hue, a filter if you will allow, within the white light of the whole - the family, community, culture, our shared environment.

That is the Egalitarian way. 

Personal Autonomy, Collective Evidence based action.

We now understand that a large part of the continuity of this balance is, in social bio-behavioural terms,  maintained primarily out of the conditions of parenting - from conception then birth through the first 18 -24 months of  life, where the fundamentals of emotional self regulation are formed and learned, in the brain to brain relationship between infant, toddler and primary care givers. 

Under what conditions, social and material, is early years care conducted?  Do they distort the default states that our biology clearly mandates for healthy behavioural learning and personal growth towards self mastery?

These are cultural behavioural markers, bench marks if you will of the prevailing relationship dynamics.

What are the cultural relationship dynamics and how do those reflect knowledge or belief - in essence, the question is do they conflict with biological defaults.?

The new brain meets a mature brain which nurtures and protects the new brain until that brain is ready for wider associations and participation. That is a default, a biologically mandated process.

We see the body, we do not see the internal organs, we do not see the inner workings of the clock. 

Allan Schore's work, following on from Prescott and Bowlby, with much improved scientific tools, and a vast body of work, describes the biology of emotional development, of self regulation and mastery of one's self - these are essential for autonomy and effective community 

He describes the carer brain to infant brain dynamics that we do not see :  what happens neurologically, what hormones, what cascades of proteins, what linkages are growing within both carer and cared for - all mediated by the security of the shared space between them.

Robert Sapolsky describes the wider unseen biology, beyond the carer to cared for, the world of truama, stress, hierarchy, 'human' behaviour and culture.

A baby that is set aside, crying itself to sleep, as a regular occurrence will develop and habituate a neurology and endocrine state as if that trauma state of feeling abandoned is normal - over a lifetime that distortion creates stresses on the body, that emerge as disease.

This is, of course, a simplification of the work of these intelligent, diligent Scientists and writers. Their work is, to a degree, a simplification of the carefully, honestly observed biological level complexity of how we develop into healthy mature organisms or not - they describe that level of biology in order that we see the evidence, that it informs us more accurately.

Knowledge is the base from which accurate intuition emerges. 

With all that in mind I wrote a short piece in 2017, when I was hoping for a shift in parliamentary power from the Oligarchs to the people via Momentum, Corbyn with what I believed the large sector of the electorate being decent human beings would want

What are the metrics of healthy Governance?

https://dwylcorneilius.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-metric-for-governance-uk-election-2017.html

In this piece I lay out some very simple principles, which are the requirement for an evidence based policy formulation by any group of people concerned with the shared commons, the spaces between us.

 

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe, in a Buckie sort of way....  you know what I mean."

Basic Human Optimal Biological Health. and Trolls.

Basic Human Optimal Biological Health.

When one looks into modern endocrinology, for example, which can now describe the differences between a healthy functioning endocrine system and one that has suffered shock or is dysfunctional in some manner and plot a correlation with the health of the individual,we begin to see something else as well.

This evidence suggests that a healthy state of empathic, autonomous, connected extended family into community relationship is the base line of optimal human biological health.

That is when the hormonal cascading within the human being is working at its optimal state. The specific chemical interactions, messaging, outcomes of healthy functioning are known.

This basically happy state is the baseline of optimal human biological health, for another reason : it contains within that the ability to deal with sudden shocks, occasional illnesses, accidents and direct threats in productive, creative and healing ways. We live in a dynamic bio-space, the surface of Earth.We are elastic, we must flow with regard to those dynamics, or we make life more difficult and more complicated for ourselves.

Conditions are always, always, moving.

There has to be room for mood variation, for sadness and anger, rage and fear.

What we find is that space, that recovery ability is much reduced if stressors become chronic, unending, inevitable. Then we see the breakdown of endocrine system function, along with a host of other symptoms.

In other words we are already perfectly adapted for Peace, and like all organisms, we need a nurturant environment as Mothers, infants and children to develop those qualities through experience, into adulthood.

We are not adapted for chronic stress. I think that is made rather obvious by the massive size of the NHS and the relative health of our Society, both physically and psychologically.

Indeed there are no organisms that we know of that are adapted TO chronic stress.

Trolls in the Public Domain  - a healthy approach to a common problem.

Be it muslim people, christians, jews, germans, disabled on benefits, unemployed, out of favour foreign leaders or attention seeking celebrities, facists, anti-facists, conspiracy theorists, covert agents, or mad, angry, frustrated, desperate people, when ad hominems are deployed in the media, it's a mirror of 19th Public School Boy behaviour, hazing, joshing with intent, pecking orders, corporal punishment for the mind, etc ......

And with actual military power in the hands of the Governing bullies, (political realism does not forget that aspect of power) that makes things a little more complicated. 

For everybody. It's a bio-psyche-social issue.

When trolling infiltrates political and policy discussions,matters of ethics, war and corruption, everybody loses. We are all dehumanised by trolling  it is nasty, agressive, disturbing behaviour and profoundly immature.

Nonetheless......

Trolling is a form of bullying, it is a tactic of intentional emotional abuse and it is ultimately a weakness..  one has to understands that, and utilise it.

When there is no viable substance to the ad hominems, no mention or rational discussion of the policies, the principles, the ethics or the corruption. Just the insult. That is all useless information. The only information contained in such assaults is that the writer is a bully.
That's ALL it is.

And how best to deal with trolls? How do you undermine the bully?

This is my take on this. This is how I say 'No!'. and how I try to turn it onto a 'Yes!'.

I ignore the insult and treat it as a bit of information; depersonalise it. I do not let it get to me. It's all in the bullies head. All over his keyboard.

Then, I respond if I wish to engage, and use the incident by identifying the bullying as such, point out that  it is a known and rather obvious tactic that to maintain a false narrative in the face of facts by disrupting a discussion and initiating or antagonising an aggressive argument to derail the discussion. I then dismiss that as immature behaviour, in polite terms, of course.

"It ain't working, Buddy! These fish are not biting on that bait!"

... and then I attempt to reframe the narrative, articulate the policy, the principle, the ethic in the context of all the evidence available, and bring it back on subject, and suggest the resolution of the matter.

And I ensure that I keep each expression as clear as I can, irrespective of the reaction.

It's never just the few who are writing, it's all those who also read, and observe the discourse.

Amongst the readers who read that will be some who are on the edge of understanding and who will learn from this. Others will find reassurance. Some will be enlightened.

That way I USE the troll to clarify the issue, in public, for the benefit of all. Call it performance art, call it a waste of time, call it what you will.

I do it without reacting to the insult, or being drained by it.

I learned the hard way, slowly.

I aspire to do it with an optimally functioning endocrine system, to do it with LOVE!
 
And it doesn't always work.

We must lead.

We have to lead.

We have to become the directors of Government, local and national, by doing both we become truly international. 

I call for The Resolution. 

Not a revolution, not a repetition of a cycle from a fixed point. A resolution of the problems that are resolvable, that are problems in human relationships, that are subject to choice, volition - these are all resolvable matters.

I pray for the healthy resolution of conflict, pollution, corruption, bullying. That is where I am headed. A healthy humane society. We have been there before and it was good. We have it in us.

And when I write the word 'we', I am thinking of many cultures, languages, accents, shades and this includes all the decent people, whatever our belief systems and experiences are, we are good people who can work across diversity to find the common humanity in all matters, and we must engage .... the genuine lovers of life must unite as a Governing force. It's a miracle that we still retain that immense humanity in the face of what we are born into, what we are presented with.

Let's use that miracle.

From the grassroots, from the bacterial populations within our guts that make our lives possible, from the deepest of our humanity, the bottom of what you might call my soul, as a biological species standing for itself.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Nurturing life is our primary biological directive. Austerity, Corbyn and Mhairi Black

Nurturing life is our primary biological directive.

However, the facts are that we are born into a Hierarchically Violent Power System that consistently disrupts this mandate. It suggest our mandate is to dominate, conquer and alter the living world to meet the needs of 'Civilisation', by which it means maintaining the distal social and material power over all.

Because the conditioning by the behaviour of Distal Power and the outcomes of that behaviour are ubiquitous, everywhere we turn we face the adverse outcomes, the chronic stress induced upon parenting, fathering and mothering,  is ever present.

The grooming of children and electorates by Power Institutions is constant. The threat of destitution and war ever present. No child left behind. No tribe left untouched.

Thus the recent media led discussions about the 'Tax on Tampons as a Luxury' did not bring up this: that women and men learn or are taught to hate menstruation, to relate to menstruation as something disgusting, a taboo subject. We are taught to dislike a key aspect of the way the human body functions, to distance from the embodied wisdom of our creative response ability in nurturing life itself.

That men and women internalise the 'rules' of the social and political systems into which we are born, in order to sit within them is obvious. And that reliance on external definitions of who we are and what is truly healthy is what generates an internal conflict,  which in turn leads to a subtle self loathing and an undermining of the natural emergent self.

From flags to parades, from statist identity to religion  the internalisation is obvious to me, and many of us. It happens easily as children assume the world they grow into is normality, naturally enough. If the social material constructs and the biological world are not congruent, then that can become a problem.

Nurturing life is our primary biological mandate.

Some people feel I go too far.

Obviously, I do not.

I see and understand what is called 'rape culture' aka misogyny as part of the same overall cultural power dynamic of hierarchy of resource and power that undermines natural parenting, fathering and mothering. I understand this as a dynamic that disrupts the evolved optimally  healthy child bonding attachment processes mandated by our very biology as the basis of long term psychological and physical health. 

I understand that any system that treats children as economic units to be conditioned, bodies to be trained and constrained for the work place to serve the economy, and that launches war as a policy enforcement tool is a toxic system.

I can defend my position with scientifically examined evidence, insight, compassion and clarity.... and I will every time.

Nurturing life is our primary biological directive.

I quote Nina Lopez here....

“women are still the poorer sex, doing two-thirds of the world’s work, including growing most of their families’ food. We remain the primary carers everywhere: for children and for sick, disabled and elderly people, within the family and outside, in war as in peace. In 90 per cent of UK families the primary carer is a woman. Seventy-nine per cent of austerity cuts have targeted women – that is, carers and those we care for. While the 1 per cent more than doubled their income in the last 10 years, and the arms trade has grown by 22 per cent, one billion children worldwide live in poverty, 3.7m in the UK and 176,565 surviving on food banks. Society cannot survive without caring, yet carers are undermined not supported.”

She is 100% correct. Nina devotes her time and energy into supporting women who have been abused, traumatised, harmed and maimed in seeking justice through the courts.

Nurturing life is our primary biological directive.

and Selma James, in an article the Guardian commissioned, yet did not publish.

"It is women who have been the target of every attack on the welfare state. It’s not news that jobs women have lost were often waged service and caring work, and that women as unwaged carers have been deprived of the services they need to do their job. What job? Why, reproducing the human race. How did that get sidelined? Austerity attacks carers first of all. In 90% of families the primary carer is a woman. Austerity is sexist. 

We have got used to measuring sexism by lack of female access to the commanding heights of the economy and politics, that is, by the very few women realising their personal ambition. Thus we may not recognise pervasive and even life-threatening sexism when it hits us.

Yvette Cooper, a contender for Labour’s leadership wants the party of labourers to prioritise women’s capability for ‘the top jobs’. As Secretary of State for Work and Pensions she brought in the Welfare Reform Act 2009 which abolished Income Support and extended Labour’s infamous Work Capability Assessment for sick and disabled people.

The money that recognised unwaged caring work, enabled single mothers to leave violent men, and allowed disabled people to live independent lives, is largely gone or under threat. No one knows how many disabled people have died as a result: the government refuses to publish the figures.

Women have been the prime targets of all three austerity parties since it is caring they’re attacking. Women are ‘workless’ according to Tony Blair and his ‘Babes’ unless we do what men are supposed to do, go out to work – not for the top jobs but the zero-hour contracts at the bottom."

and

"Jeremy Corbyn offers women 50 per cent of his shadow cabinet, but with anti-sexist policies, including not only free childcare but the ‘recognition and valuing’ of women’s unremunerated caring work. Women coming in on a rising popular tide, could build on that for the rest of us – we could call them to account on the basis of this programme.

We are told that if Corbyn wins, Labour won’t be electable. Anti-austerity not calls for independence won the SNP its 56 MPs.

The maiden speech of Mhairi Black made it clear that in following anti-austerity she did not leave Labour; Labour left her. It is a kind of political corruption that assumes that his popularity augurs badly for electability."

Nurturing life is our primary biological directive. 

And it depends utterly upon healthy, honest, nurturing relationships at all levels of our Society. Any abuse of power is an intentional act, a corruption of our relationships that will pollute and diminish our lives, our entire social system.

women are still the poorer sex, doing two-thirds of the world’s work, including growing most of their families’ food. We remain the primary carers everywhere: for children and for sick, disabled and elderly people, within the family and outside, in war as in peace. In 90 per cent of UK families the primary carer is a woman. Seventy-nine per cent of austerity cuts have targeted women – that is, carers and those we care for. While the 1 per cent more than doubled their income in the last 10 years, and the arms trade has grown by 22 per cent, one billion children worldwide live in poverty, 3.7m in the UK and 176,565 surviving on food banks. Society cannot survive without caring, yet carers are undermined not supported. - See more at: http://www.bigissuenorth.com/2015/11/why-dont-we-just-pay-a-living-wage-to-mothers-and-other-carers/15383#sthash.nrgkTnJm.dpuf

women are still the poorer sex, doing two-thirds of the world’s work, including growing most of their families’ food. We remain the primary carers everywhere: for children and for sick, disabled and elderly people, within the family and outside, in war as in peace. In 90 per cent of UK families the primary carer is a woman. Seventy-nine per cent of austerity cuts have targeted women – that is, carers and those we care for. While the 1 per cent more than doubled their income in the last 10 years, and the arms trade has grown by 22 per cent, one billion children worldwide live in poverty, 3.7m in the UK and 176,565 surviving on food banks. Society cannot survive without caring, yet carers are undermined not supported. - See more at: http://www.bigissuenorth.com/2015/11/why-dont-we-just-pay-a-living-wage-to-mothers-and-other-carers/15383#sthash.nrgkTnJm.dpuf

women are still the poorer sex, doing two-thirds of the world’s work, including growing most of their families’ food. We remain the primary carers everywhere: for children and for sick, disabled and elderly people, within the family and outside, in war as in peace. In 90 per cent of UK families the primary carer is a woman. Seventy-nine per cent of austerity cuts have targeted women – that is, carers and those we care for. While the 1 per cent more than doubled their income in the last 10 years, and the arms trade has grown by 22 per cent, one billion children worldwide live in poverty, 3.7m in the UK and 176,565 surviving on food banks. Society cannot survive without caring, yet carers are undermined not supported. - See more at: http://www.bigissuenorth.com/2015/11/why-dont-we-just-pay-a-living-wage-to-mothers-and-other-carers/15383#sthash.nrgkTnJm.dpuf

women are still the poorer sex, doing two-thirds of the world’s work, including growing most of their families’ food. We remain the primary carers everywhere: for children and for sick, disabled and elderly people, within the family and outside, in war as in peace. In 90 per cent of UK families the primary carer is a woman. Seventy-nine per cent of austerity cuts have targeted women – that is, carers and those we care for. While the 1 per cent more than doubled their income in the last 10 years, and the arms trade has grown by 22 per cent, one billion children worldwide live in poverty, 3.7m in the UK and 176,565 surviving on food banks. Society cannot survive without caring, yet carers are undermined not supported. - See more at: http://www.bigissuenorth.com/2015/11/why-dont-we-just-pay-a-living-wage-to-mothers-and-other-carers/15383#sthash.nrgkTnJm.dpuf

Do not "calm down, dear!"

This matter is way to central to our lives and the lives of our children's children, to whom we, the adult worlds, owes a profound and ultimately liberating, nourishing responsibility.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Working Mothers, Hard Working Families and Power Establishments

Working Mothers and Hard Working Families

"Working Mothers" implies that Mothering is not work worthy of remuneration or reward or support. The mother must also work and pay taxes and contribute to the 'economy'. Otherwise she is a 'shirker'.

Healthy empathic parenting is a profound contribution, not only to our social economy, (albeit a different kind of economy) but also to world peace, human dignity and the creation of a loving society. It is probably the most important contribution of all.

"Hard Working Families" implies putting the children to 'good' economic use... that the children must submit to the demands of the 'economy' as a matter of primary importance. They must be trained, from the earliest age possible, to work hard for the economy.

"The psychology of any given family, community, Institution or Society is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the children and the most vulnerable. Change that and you can change everything."

The question then is what changes does Government policy intend in terms of long term outcomes?

There is a biologically mandated experiential process of bonding between mother and child that is absolutely the core of how the child develops self empathy, empathy for others, and that most healthy sense of self and of autonomy which underpins true co-operation and nurturing, and the degree to which this process - attachment - is stressed or disrupted correlates very strongly with adverse outcomes in later life, often emerging as behavioural issues in youth, dysfunctional relationships or serious health issues in mid life.

This affects both men and women. We are all born of the womb. All of us.

Within the womb, if our mother is subjected to chronic stress or trauma our physiological and psychological development is adversely affected. Mothers are advised by Government Health Departments to quit smoking, to cease drinking alcohol. This is healthy advice.

Research has revealed that any air-borne pollutants the mother is exposed to are concentrated in the developing baby's body by up to 100 times the levels within the mother. The same applies to any pollutant, such as pesticides, additives, colourants and so on.

Why then does Government enact social and economic policies that have been proven to induce chronic stress for mothers rather than enact policies that not only reduce chronic stress but also increase dignity, peace, safety and happiness for mothers, and their children, knowing full well the adverse outcomes of chronic stress on both mother and child?

What is the effect of the Iraq Invasion and war on the mothers of Iraq and their children? Ask this question in relation to any war mongering, in relation to the Arms Industry which is so heavily subsidised by Governments.

The Dominating Society - the Ruling Elite, Corporate, State and Religious Institutions - feel threatened by that natural process of empathic development because it is also part of the development of the clearest sense of justice, and it is part of the development of personal autonomy, and empathy and it is clear that the intent behind Government policy (and much Religious Indoctrination) is to deepen the Governments ability to exercise control over people by inducing chronic stressors that will reduce empathy, making people more susceptible to psychological manipulation and further atomise communities, thus reducing the perceived threat.

Mothering is a critical role in human relationships, and deserves full evidence based support, which should include support for empathic fathering and parenting in general.

We do not need to work more and parent less.

There is more than enough wealth  in our systems to go around to cover all living human beings true needs, and then some.

The then some is the intentional creation of a kinder, more empathic and robustly just social reality where people are nurtured, given dignity, enabled to live lives that are peaceful, loving, co-operative and nurturing, even across variations in culture, faith, outlook, mirroring the natural diversity and creativity and fecundity we see in biology, in nature.

What's not to like about that?

Power and languaging.

"Under Disability Living Allowance, applicants who could not walk 50 metres unaided qualified.

But as a result of David Cameron's benefits cull, the threshold has now been reduced to 20 metres."

Those alterations were made by accountants, financial advisors and statisiticians suggesting that a reduction in the test length would create savings in expenditure which is the bottom line of the Governments actions.

The effects on real human beings is omitted from that analysis.

When those effects become apparent, the refusal to adjust the limits becomes an act of Institutional Cruelty.

The psychology behind this is known as 'Scientific Management', a factory based management approach that is wholly unsuited to real human beings. Hence the language of 'benefits units'.

In Nuremburg a new wording was heard - 'office language' aka bureaucratic language - which the German bureaucracy used to ignore the human realities.

"In Hannah Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Eichmann was asked, “Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people to their death?” And Eichmann answered very candidly, “To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy.”

His interviewer asked what that language was, and Eichmann said, “My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache – ‘office talk.'” When asked for examples, Eichmann said, “It's basically a language in which you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, ‘Why did you do it?' you say, ‘I had to.' ‘Why did you have to?' ‘Superiors' orders. Company policy. It's the law.'


The Nazi's won WWII. The ideology won, in spite of the rhetoric.

The same psychology, languaging and approach dominates Government in the UK and the US, and in many other places.

As this example reveals....

Paralympic teen to lose mobility car because she's not disabled enough

Changes to benefits rules mean Kayleigh Haggo, 16, no longer qualifies for her car - because she can walk 20 metres unaided.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Mother's Day, and the ultimate political challenge!

Christianity dis-empowers the Mother. So too most Political power systems active today.

God is male and has no partner. 'He' has no Origin, no birthing, no Mother. He does not 'need'.

This is the idealised psychopathic male - total control over all, impervious, invulnerable.

I strongly feel that these kinds of Religions or ideologies are outcomes of unresolved trauma, a form of PTSD that has become the 'norm' over time, and has been Institutionalised...

If ten people with unresolved trauma issues create a social structure, it will have that psychology built into it and it will express or articulate that psychology by it's processes, in it's aims and intent, and in it's outcomes.

ALL the structures of Power that we have today have their origins in psycho-pathological social structures that have emerged over history.
The Department of Defence. We have no Department of Peace, no ministry of conflict resolution.
The Vatican is a Power structure much more than it is a spiritual structure, or a temple...

If those ten people who have unresolved trauma issues start families and they have children, then aspects of the adults psychology will be taken up by the children, to greater or lesser degree.. this is intergenerational trauma patterning.. the trauma remains unresolved, the patterns continue to be passed on as 'normal'.

If the children are put through a rigorous conditioning process known as 'State Education' or 'Private Education', both of which are social structures created by people whose unresolved trauma issues permeate those systems, and they fail to recognise and then deal with the unresolved trauma issues, then the patterning will go deeper, because the experience of 12 years in such a social setting will leave it's mark, and one of those marks will be the neurological pathways associated with the assumptions, and the internalisations of the systems values, which are mostly PTSD based.

These children will become adults who see the unresolved trauma state as 'normal'. They will continue to build this into their lives, and they will continue to support  the normalisation of PTSD values...

And in all of this it is considered 'normal' that Mothers work is unpaid, unmentioned in economic scales, ignored in political power plays and undermined by primary economic assumptions such as both parents need to be in debt and need to be working to pay of the debt to fit in to the 'home ownership demographic' - the 'value' to the system of that indebtedness supersedes the value of mothering. This is blatantly an insanity. It's profoundly unhealthy.
 
Nurture is the only pathway through all of this.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Let's make it more than a once yearly, coy, sly nod to Motherhood. Let's put mothering at the centre, with the welfare of the children , now and for generations to come at the VERY centre, the core of our culture.

It's EASY to wish Happy Mothers Day, and so many cards, flowers etc make it a commercial venture - yet to do the HARD WORK of mothering, or to bring THAT to the core of our Society whether one is male or female is to challenge EVERY THING we are given, every ideology and religion, every known economic system, at the most profound level of all - the reality of nurture. The lived experience. The day-to-day life.

Who has the 'balls' for this work?

Who is mature enough to stand with ALL the mothers in daily action?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Power or the children's best interests?

If mothering was truly respected in our Society or Culture, and recognised as the central crucible of the psychology of the adult world, which it is, then the concept of a 'working mother' would not exist : mothering (and all parenting) would be seen and valued and understood as a primary, not a secondary activity, at the very centre of our Society..... or in other words, the children's welfare would be our primary Scoietal concern, in both the short term and long term.

The phrase 'the working mother' would be seen and be understood as an oxymoron.

The various Government initiatives to 'get mothers back to work' are not designed for the best interests of the children, the parents or our society : they are designed for the best intersts of 'the economy'. This always means the best interests of profit, power and great wealth.

Irrespective of peoples lack of knowledge, the degrees of social conditioning we all endure and the all too common reflexive, reactive objections to the central point I am raising, which others such as Sue Gerhardt and Oliver James and James Prescott have examined in great detail in their work, the fact remains that the psychology of the adult world is both revealed and perpetuated in how the adults relate to and treat children.

Adults whose natural needs as children have not been fully met will express that loss in many ways, not least in repeating aspects of the behaviour that lead to their own loss when they too become responsible for children, either as parents, or teachers or celebrities... and punishing them or 'correcting' them or nudging them is not the way forward.

Recent events demonstrate quite clearly that The BBC and The Vatican quite obviously do not hold the welfare of children at the centre of their deliberations, as is the case for many of the 'great institutions' of our Society...

It is the way Institutional Power is mediated to protect it's power and self image that most needs to change. David Smail pointed this out in a cogent essay, "there's no such thing as Society". Well worth reading.

I say this because the messages Institutional Power(s) transmit to parents are a huge determining factor in how parents organise their lives, and to date no Institutional Power has supported Natural Parenting to the degree our innate biological psychology demands, as to do so would lead to the demise of the POWER of the Institution. This is clear to any who examine their own lives, let alone the lives of the Powerful, with any degree of honesty and empathy.

It is the Power that is protected, time and time again. And that is a psychological immaturity. To see Power as more important than function is deeply dysfunctional.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Mothering in The Dominant Culture and Social Services

Reading "Until our Hearts are on the Ground" a study of Aboriginal mothering, and the oppression Aboriginal Mothers and Families have endured at the hands of The State, in Residential Schools, in Australia, Canada, North America and Africa, and susbequently through the action of 'Social Services' aas those progams were shut down over the past 20 years, I noticed that the 'Social Services' approach to the Aboriginal Mothers (most of whose parents were survivors of the Residential Schools)  AFTER the Residential Schools were shut down mirrored the approach of 'Social Services' inthe UK, Ireland, Australia, and Europe as they operate amongst the poorest sectors of Society, and various Minorities, such as Roma, Gypsey, Traveller and others like them.The sense that certain classes of people are 'targetted'.

http://www.demeterpress.org/untilourhearts.html

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/24/national-post-editorial-board-divorce-granted-justice-denied/ - newspaper article on how Aboriginal Mothers are discriminated against by Social Services and mostly Male Band Leaders (many of whom are 'appointed' or legitimised by the State)

I was struck by the clarity of that mirroring. I realised that 'Social Services' operates as a form of Societal Oppression, blaming those the Instutuion seeks to help, effectively masking those Power influences on peoples lives that do cause distress, deprivation, poverty and that do lead to the emergence of further dysfunctional behaviour.

Social Services as an Institution NEVER effectively confronts the System of Power with regard to deprivation and it's intergenerational effects - why would they, the system pays their wage.

Ther ARE many good Social Workers in the system, yet those who see the truth find it very dificult to organise a movement within the Institutional setting to bring about that confrontation. None of what I am writing about here is to be taken as judgement; this is an assessment of the facts.

In any Institutional setting it takes immense courage and strength to confront the Institution with the truth. And it puts one's carreer at risk.

As Bradly Manning is discovering right now, as he sits in a US Military Jail, having been shopped to the Military by a 'colleague'.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/conscience/

That masking, even it if turned out to be an accidental outcome of the work Social Serivces Policy and Practice as determined by Govrnment and think tanks, rather than personal failures of the Social Workers themselves (which in 99% of cases it isn't)  protects the Middle Classes who also happen to make up the bulk of 'Social  Services' trained professional staff and management and the Powers that influence peoples lives across society.

Those Powers that originate at some distance (distal) from those people most adversely affected by the exercise of that power refuse, of course, to accept any responsibility for the distress they cause.

Tony Blair on Iraq. "I did what I believed was the right thing to do at the time, knowing what I knew then." Chilcott Enquiry February 2010

It's VERY easy to judge others by what we read in the media because it is portrayed in a manner to serve that masking. I do not want to my words to be taken as if I am being judgemental in any way. The matter is far to serious for that.

You rarely hear about the childhood background and lived experiences of those mothers, nor the history of their parents, all of which form part of the whole picture. You certainly will not hear the stories of deprivation, generation after generation, that much of what 'Social Services' handles...

You do not hear about the ACE study, or the roots of deprivation, trauma or the true histories of the Aboriginal and the poor and how Society relates to these groups.

None of  this is to give any abusive parent an excuse or get-out clause. It is to point out that the responsibility is partly, largely down to the way Power is transmitted throughout our society. Both the individual AND Society share responsibility. A parent CAN accept responsibility and change that much easier if Society handles it's responsibilities in the matter. If ALL those responsibilities are laid at the Parents feet, then that change is far less likely.

And the hypocrisy of doing, of laying ALL the blame onthe Parent, that ought to be obvious to anyone with a rational mind and honest heart reading this material.

If, instead of pillorying or demonising the mothers who are reported as abusive in headlines, (often the MOST extreme cases are used, and then held as typical of a certain class or minority) the media and the general public were prepared to ask the questions and engage with the answers, the data that would outline where responsibility lies, and if those parents who are under stress were practically and materially supported in learning more empathic parenting practices (which would go a long way towards helping them recover) then progress would be made in reducing abusive parenting.

That is clearly NOT happening. Why?

And furthermore, in a Society that wards off the wisdom of Mothering, that ensures that Mothering wisdom does not enter into the discourse of Boardroom or Parliament and instead ensures that Mothering remains unpaid, minimally supported (more money is spent on early child care by the state than on maternity leave - the state pays for poor Mothers to work rather than support the Mother as a Mother) and to a large degree defined not by mothers, but by Society (Power), as an overbearing and limited frame of reference (Nurturing is for the home and early years, if at all; nurturing is deemed successful if the child becoems a worker, a consumer) women are under extreme pressure.

A double bind exists - join the corporate world and get a career, and if you become pregant, become a surrogate Mother by virtue of the committment one has to make to 'succeed', and all this to gain access to Power on the same basis as men, using Power in pretty much the same way.

It's extremely clever, and extremely unjust. And absolutely stupid.

Usefull resource on Social Services reform, from people whsoe research proves that supporting the whole family, parents and children, leads to much better lonr-term health outcomes for the families and the chidlren AND saves huge amounts of tax payers money at the same time!

National Coalition for Child Protection Reform

www.nccpr.info

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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