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.  

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.

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.

2017 and the centrality of bullying in all our lives.

Donald Trump and Miss Universe, DAESH and Jimmy Savile and are indeed part of a wider problem within our Society, our world culture of Power and State.


They are not the problem, it must be said; their behaviour are symptoms of a problem.

The problem is bullying.

From within an Imperial culture still heavily invested in 'Christian Ideals' even as it lays claim to a secular grounding; from within a 2000 year old culture that has undermined egalitarian and empathic relationships in all areas of life in favour of the relationships demanded by hierarchies of Power who see themselves as involved in a struggle for 'survival' (that is to say, a struggle to preserve their power at any cost); in that paradigm a key dynamic is the ad-mixture of sexuality and power.

The poor are ugly. The rich are beautiful.

Christians are beautiful, Pagans are ugly.

Primitive Peoples vs Civilised Peoples.

Gods view on sexuality is Law.

The unspoken line is that one must use one's sexuality as a tool to get something, as proof of one's power and potency, as a marker of who one is, as a sign of loyalty and conformity.

Marriage as a political tool.

The dynastic model.

Fucking for power.

Fucking for security.

Fucking for money.

Pleasure and Power.

When our innate, emergent and natural sensing of self is assaulted by forces we are unable to confront, specifically those forces of power that indoctrinate a people's children, a force that defines who we should be, then a wounding occurs, a wound to the emergent sense of self, and in order to survive that wounding and 'get by' on the terms power has set out, (a thriving healthy peaceful egalitarian society at all levels is but a pipe dream) within that woundedness, we are forced to 'adjust' to the status quo.

It is not that sex sells, it is that the illusion of power that sells.

You can be more attractive. Buy this product, subscribe to this belief. Gain power.

Rape is about power above all else.

Strict gender roles emerge in societies that are hierarchically and institutionally violent. Adherence to these self limiting roles is demanded by power. Seeing oneself as merely a man or a woman as defined by power.

Such societies repaint Nature, and create Gods in their own image.

Hierarchical, vengeful, domineering - and they love us!  God loves us?

Our leaders and our Power Establishments love us.

They ‘serve’ us. It is an honour and a privilege, they acclaim.

And when our children are sacrificed, that too is an honour.

Yeah, right.

2017 onwards - can we end single issue political activism?

Or at the very least join the dots.

It's yet anoyther way the system has of dividing folk, of diluting and preventing a solid critical analysis of the situation, a way of undermining solidarity amongst our many strands of struggle. Fund and promote one above others. Create a climate of competition for funds and attention. Let the unresolved psyches of activists do the rest.

Homosexuality allowed openly within the Military is touted as ‘progress’.

"We will accept anyone who wants to enlist as a trained killer and help us bully other States!"

Gays for Trump! Fathers for Justice! Feminists for Clinton! Blacks for Obama?

How about Gay people for Heterosexual people against war and the bullying of women?

How about Climate Change activists against Bullying?

There is one issue.

It is called bullying. Power exerted over others.

Rape is bullying.

War is bullying.

Bribery is bullying.

Misogyny is bullying.

Sexism is Bullying.

Religious indoctrination is bullying.

Ideological indoctrination is bullying.

Usury is bullying.

Mortgages are a mass bullying device.

Debt is bullying.

Aspirational Marketing is bullying.

Mountain top removal is bullying.

Sex trafficking is bullying.

Uranium Mining is bullying.

Bullies always discount the costs others bear for their behaviour.

Fake News is bullying.

Every US President is a bully in Office.

Every Home Secretary is a bully in Office.

The Christian/Muslim/Jewish missionary is a bully.

And so it goes.

To cast any adverse judgement on a person's sense of their sexual self and their desire to live that sense openly where it does not involve any abuse of another is bullying.

It's not that people are homophobic, it's that they are bullies and they seek 'approved' targets, set by Higher Authorities, to vent their own frustration, pain and rage, again, and again (because their wounds remain unhealed) in the service of Power.

Bullying. Bullets. And Bombs.

They are the signal that something is out of balance and dis-eased.

I applaud everyone who engages in the work of confronting the issues within their own lives, I praise the disabled who campaign against cuts and discrimination, I delight in the peaceful who campaign against the weapons/war industry, I love the environmentally aware who campaign against environmental abuse, I admire and laud the Survivors who campaign to demand accountability from their abusers and the Institutions within which they are protected, I sing for the local folk who campaign against the imposition of fracking.

I understand the need for focused, evidence led campaigns, and I understand that they can be effective. I cannot dismiss these on any level. I can only praise these efforts.

It is the combinations of a one behaviour - bullying - across many areas of life that is the central issue.... the symptoms are not the central issue.

I hope more activists and others can make this connection as we move forwards with our struggles.

We need to see a focus on the central issue, Bullying, within and across all single issue campaigns.

We need to see that in our homes, schools, work places, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples, and across all areas of Civil Governance.

We need to see that in relation to imposed taxation.

The urge to Power.

An origin story. A paper I wrote on the origins of Hierarchically Violent Religions and Cultures as an unresolved trauma-behaviour pattern that has become institutionalised over time, and thus deeply embedded within the modern industrial cultural psyche.

A short video on one aspect of the origin of the behaviour patterning that leads to the urge to exert power over others so that they meet one’s perceived needs.

Empower.

It never strikes back.

Listen to the child.

Hear the Child.

Adults Don't Heed my Distress.

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.

Politics, Governance, Corbyn and Bullying

There's a difference between Politics (which is the strategies deployed to gain, retain, enhance and project Power) and Governance (the administration of shared resources for the equal benefit of all the people).

We need to find ways to remove politics, the power struggle, the adversarial dynamic of seeking dominance, which is based on hierarchies of violence, aka bullying, from ALL systems of Governance, which would be more correctly based on equity - the value and meaning of what we share.

This is not an easy task, yet it is a necessary one, and it is a collective task that cannot be led by any individual or grouping - it's a task for all of us,  who seek healthy human social systems. This is not so much about rebelling as it is about robust healing, with all the practical, material details that that task entails.

Corbyn.

The mainstream narrative attacks the person and ignores or trivialises the policies which he is standing for, which are largely informed by the party membership and the evidence.

What other behaviour does one need to make a behavioural diagnosis on institutional Power occupied by bullies?

Bullies you say?

Just to re-iterate : there's a difference between Politics (which is the strategies deployed to gain, retain, enhance and project Power) and Healthy Governance (the administration of shared resources for the equal benefit of all the people).

We need to remove politics, which is based on hierarchies of violence, aka bullying from ALL systems of Governance, which are more correctly based on equity.

Corbyn:

He stands as a representative of a grass roots who have decided that enough is enough, we pay their wages, we decide policy, we want oversight of implementation and we want the shared responsibilities of power across the grass roots.

He stands for a GENUINE democratic process of engagement, where power rests in the people, not an executive.

It was Tony Blair's strategy to strengthen the executive, which enabled him to send the State to war, illegally, amorally.

British Democracy died the day Parliament voted for a War of Aggression. 

That decision to go to war had a vast parliamentary majority, one sixth voted against it, and the rest abstained (stained, they were, nonetheless, by that avoidance of their duty of care)

"At 10 pm, the motion  was passed by 412 to 149 votes, authorising the invasion."

A Demoracy cannot wage a war of aggression, and retain the definition. Not in my view. The amorality undermines the very essence of Democracy.

It is the NeoLiberal's within Labour who are protecting the power establishment by attacking Corbyn.

The old 19th century concept of leadership as some person in Authority convincing the electorate to vote along certain lines using grooming tactics is out of date, yet still in use, and effective.

In essence, I view the 21st Century as the emergence a healthy system of Governance, where the people are the leaders, the people are asked to choose who will represent our insight, our concern, our creativity and intelligence, our vulnerability, our human frailty and love, our family, our community by carrying forward policies the people have deliberated upon, across all levels of Governance.

Honesty in Education with regards History is a priority, as is introducing demoracy into schools. as a collective, deliberative decision making process.

With that in mind, I refer the reader to The Power Inquiry, 2006, a project on examining democratic power within the UK with a view to an accurate description of power disparities, and various ways to approach devolution of decision making to local populations where any policy that might impact them is informed by their conditions, their needs.

The Power Inquiry

A constituency of more than two million people active in the Community Voluntary Sector looked at how power can be safely devolved to the grass roots.

In effect the Power Inquiry was engaged in undermining the ability of a power establishment, any power establishment - to dominate Governance and deploy the resources of the State as political weapons with which that establishment retains, maintains, enhances and projects it's power over the people.

Which is why David Cameron, Ed Milliband and others after praising it at the 2006 Conference, suggested only 2 days later that it was 'impractical'. A dismissive turn of phrase. The matter is not worth discussing. No reasons were given. To do so would mean they would have to lie in public. Silence is the better part of valour, in this case, for those in power.

Impractical.

As if the millions of people serving vulnerable people were ill placed to discuss Governance, a key element of their work - from matters of finance to developing evidence based services, from oversight to deliberation, from representing their clients to lobbying for more support and understanding.... that's a LOT of self Governance skill-sets in action, and the bullies declared it is 'impractical'?

And it was about then that the Government's plans to destabilise the Community Voluntary Sector (CVS) under the "Social Care Reform' and the 'Big Society' label were set into motion, by a Labour Government, and continued by a Tory/Lib Dem and now a Tory Government, and now (in 2019) a Tory Tory Majority seeking to enhance it's executive powers....

That's practical to the Rulers... retain their dominance.

Justice

There is no justice without empathy, no justice without prevention, no justice without honesty, no uustice without accountability.

As I wrote earlier:

There's a difference between Politics (which is the strategies deployed to gain, retain, enhance and project Power) and Governance (the administration of shared resources for the equal benefit of all the people).

We need to remove politics, which is based on hierarchies of violence, aka bullying, from ALL systems of Governance, which are more correctly based on equity - the value and meaning of what we share. 

It is also important to look at the tactics and behaviours of those who are bullying Corbyn (and all of us who want a genuinely evidence based just participative democratic governance system). I have another short blog on some of the behaviours of those who bully through the media, etc, that you might find interesting and useful.

I would also suggest readers take a look at this superb blog piece on bullying in politics and how it operates  to obstruct fair discourse,  justice and healthy democratic change... (blog by Kitty Jones). Insightful, evidence based, honest and easy to read an assimilate...

We also need to be able to spot bullying from within our own ranks, and how to confront it, safely, in order to preserve our calm, and prevent provocative people from derailing our work, and possibly help those who are angry and frustrated and hateful to deal with that side of their struggle.

We are all in this together.

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.

EUref I, Remain, Leave, Bullying and Us. EUref II

Here are two videos encapsulating my insights on the EUref, and the bullying of Jeremy Corbyn by the British Media, Tory Party and those within the Labour Party who seek to undermine his, and the memberships, democratic mandate.

The EUref as it was presented and timed was 100% illegitimate and there are many reasons why. I have outlined the most fundamental in this short video.






What ought to have happened, but did not and what must happen next.

The UK government must negotiate a treaty to leave the EU.

Then that Treaty must be put before the electorate as evidence with which to compare the current situation with UK in the EU, for which we have ample evidence.

The referendum would decide whether or not the UK electorate are willing to ratify that new treaty and leave, or reject it and stay.

A referendum based on evidence rather than mere opinion.

There are other reasons.

For one thing there was no pressing need for this matter to be up for a vote.

It was imposed by a Tory leader playing political games within the Conservative party, and within wider society.

Their need to unite their party and to divide and conquer the electorate was the need to which the Referendum was addressed, and within that a desire by the far right of the Conservative to push the party as a whole even further to the right.

These are not sound reasons for any referendum of any kind.

2. The mistreatment of Jeremy Corbyn by the British Media and the Blairite NeoLiberal cuckoos in the Labour Nest.

Bullies pick on the strong in order to dominate the rest. Because the strong show the others that resistance to a bully is feasible.

Bullying is the core problem behaviour of politics.




The psychologies of the by stander and of how bullies manipulate the less strong is something we also need to look at, in ourselves and across society.

We must talk about this with honesty and clarity, based on the evidence and deal with it and excise bullying from Governance, policy making and media discourse on politics.


We must also know where we are coming from.

It is less than being about a revolution than it is a matter of recovery, a return to optimal health.






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.

Mossak Fonseca: Management of The Panama Papers

This information contained in the 11 million documents that are 'Panama Papers' will be carefully 'managed'.

The prime directive of Power is to retain, enhance and project that power and to defend it with all the might and tools available to it. Everything a power establishment does meets these criteria. It's what bullies in the home do.So too with bullies in political, government and corporate office.

Our political power system is a mirror of the behavioural dynamics of an abuse family, a mirror that has become institutionalised over time. Take ten people with an anti-social psychology, get them to build a social structure, and that structure will express their core psychology.

It really is that simple.

What makes it complicated is the secrecy, the violence and the social conditioning, because these are all crutches that are repeatedly rebuilt to shore up that edifice of hierarchical bullying, which is constantly 'reformed' as people emerge and resist in order to mitigate that resistance, or to co-opt it.

Each reform creates yet another layer of bureaucractic rules and limitations, dependency and obfuscation.

Jobs for willing compliers in an insecure jobs market.

We pay their wages.

We let them off the hook.

Because we live in a bully system, and few of us are able to confront bullies with any clarity, because schooling and religion are inherently a bully system, and 12 years of schooling ensures we normalise to that shituation such that we don't see it anymore for what it is.

I don't blame the people for that = I hold those who design and implement Government Education Policy the most accountable, just like I hold the Catholic Church responsible for it's followers indoctrinated stance which supports The Vatican, (even as evidence of The Vatican's criminal mendacity in their cover-up emerges) more than I blame those followers for the crimes of The Vatican.

Of course it is easy to be angry AT those people who follow such obviously toxic Institutions.

Yet that is all too easily manipulated and turned against the people. "You are either with us or against us."

The emergence of the term 'sheeple' within the Conspiracy Theory community as a catch all phrase that embedded hatred and disdain for others at the same level of society. What is that all about?

Lateral Violence is when people who are stressed from above, pass on that stress to those around them or under them.

It's a displacement activity, and people on left/right, Rep/Dem dualist sides are playing that game out - they attack each other rather than confront the bully system itself, mostly because they have internalised aspects of the bully system.

Such as the concept of 'just war' to 'protect our values' carried out by poor young men wearing 'our sacred flag' which people on all sides seem to accept as a 'natural' and therefore a moral stance.

We will not resolve this until we stop fighting amongst ourselves and confront our own social conditioning,and that of those around us, and act with a degree of empathy rather than venting at each other...

Mossack Fontseca Papers :

Local action. think global, act local.

That is the declared logic behind the release; it's way bigger than the Snowden release or anything else like it, so they say.
.

When the information for each country, that relates to each countries elite Governing, Commercial and Criminal layers is available to the people in that country...... they know whose doors to be knocking on.

The doors of those who Rule them. And their companions in the business and criminal world.

But the information was handed over to the Guardians of the system, the Corporate Press, so how is that going to work out?

 Of course they will 'manage' the release via media and legal processes.

That is a given. Jimmy Savile. Highbury Disaster. Iraq War. The Vatican on predators within it's ranks, high and low.

So the data has to get out to the wider public, for us to investigate and chase.

Local solutions to local problems, globally.

Name the individuals, name the behaviour, out them and confront them.

That is how one must address a bullies behaviour.

Corbyn should be calling for this, he should be directing the resources available in the grass roots to this end, and not asking the Government to act, when he and we know they are complicit, they are actively involved in these money laundering scams.....

They are the people, or class, wot invented them for fecks sake!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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