The Psychology of a culture is revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat their children and in how they relate to and treat the most vulnerable people within their society. Heal that and we can heal everything.
A demonstration, directed at The Vatican and towards Pope Benedict and his entourage, who were on a state visit to England. I was there as a Survivor. The march comprised a wide range of The Vatican's critics in Society, from Feminists to Anarchists, Atheists to Pagans, Wizards, Witches, Elves and Trolls, Queers, Lesbians, Communists, Philosophers and Physicists, and Protestants. The rally of the angry comprised all ages, all classes, it was colourful and it was witty. The atmosphere was friendly. Then there was David Icke fan-club. Ick.
Survivor groups from across the UK, Ireland and elsewhere participated. There were many representatives of survivors concerns. As one would expect. They have work to do.
Historical Context
By 2010 the Irish State and population had already spent 20 or so years unveiling a sordid history of 'historical child sexual abuse' - so called to discern it from any child abuse still happening- a story of some seventy years of common place child abuse across multiple State and Church operated residential institutions. Somewhat hard to digest.
Incomprehensive.
Four public Inquiries revealed widespread harm, at scale. Patterns of abuse of children, women and men held in 'care settings' where the State handed the operational care of vulnerable children and adults to the Church and their various Orders, paying the institutions fees, taxpayers cash, for the services provided. The State had oversight duties and neglected them. Both State and Church are liable.
The Irish State offered political and economic support for the Church and The Vatican before offering anything to Survivors. "You back me, I'll back you.." and then defend themselves accordingly against living witness testimony?
Those inquiries focused on Industrial Schools, Mothers and Babies Homes, Magdalene Launderies, and the response from Church and Civil authorities to cases of child abuse in some dioceses. The people of Ireland reeled in shock, and attitudes changed swiftly. The people supported the Survivors. The Government was forced to take action, to establish recognition and redress. It drags it's heels still, pulling against the perceived leash of honesty and evidence, not understanding that honesty and evidence is what will liberate the Government and the State from it's burden, and transform it into a work of social nurture, political equity, justice and humanity. Yes, I know. I'm way too romantic, optimistic and naïve.
I am pointing at the healthy place, that's all. I know it's there.
These inquiries revealed that Church and State authorities knew of the abuse, and that they allowed the Church to cover up these crimes, to move offending clerics from site to site, often leaving them in supervisory contact with vulnerable people, only for them to offend again, and again, and again.
This enabled life long repeat offenders to subsist within the Church systems. This caused even more harm, upon harm.
The agenda was to protect the good name of the Church, justification for handling this criminal activity internally, under Canon Law, thus evading Civil and Criminal Law.
They rationalised offering survivors and their families settlement, out of court, with confidentiality agreements in exchange for cash, as an act of Christian mercy, whilst they made sure that it was backed by setting out on an offensive, adversarial stance backed by expensive legal counsel. Nudge Theory in practice.
Impact
The impact on the children and the adults harmed due to all of this evasive action was set aside. Not considered important.
The effect was to enable widespread sexual and emotional abuse, to the extent that abusers recognised that they had a relatively free hand, that the Church convinced themselves and everyone else that the offenders were committing sins, and that was to be taken at face value by Church authorities, and their offences were not therefore treated as crimes, under the criminal code. They had been indicted by God, and absolved. God is merciful.
What that status offered the predatory ones as they operated within the Church Canon culture was real world impunity - they would not face legal, criminal accountability, and the Church's name would be protected. Penance was paid in prayer, and a new location was happily accepted.
That strategy - to protect and uphold the status of The Church and The Vatican, was fully supported, in full awareness, by the Irish State, the Irish Government and the Irish political establishment as an ethnic cultural necessity.
The Impact II
Tens of thousands of lives destroyed by predatory men assaulting vulnerable children. Degrees of repeat offending suggestive of a 'life style choice' embedded in Church mores.
Traumatised children, often over extended periods of time, multiple assaults, who grow up silenced, managed, ignored, abandoned, who somehow found the strength to live well, who succeeded, by degree, and those who did not. Those who suffered in silence or noisily. The suffering as those children aged and became parents, traumatised parents doing their best. And seeing the impact play out into the next generation. Because a true harm was covered up. A harm was not resolved, and the pain perpetuated. A lot of people. A lot of people.
For seventy years.
There's an inquiry or two yet to be had on the matter of historical institutional care of children and predatory abuse in Ireland. It's not over yet.
There has not yet been any public inquiry in Ireland, into the many Church run boarding schools and day schools across Ireland, in which the same patterns of adverse harmful behaviour have been played out, over those seven decades, from 1922 - 1992. This is a serious matter. That is a large population of children, over an extended period. Wow.
A public inquiry is being scoped out, finally - but only after three survivors spoke out on RTE's live Saturday night premium talk show, The Late Late Show, an appearance in public to unveil the story, which flowed from efforts of the past pupils of one elite boarding school, a small group of alumni who sought to listen to the voices of survivors, to hear what they knew, who reached out to the survivor community and to the wider school community to allow people to bear witness to their experience and provided a forum for those involved to share their concerns.
This was part of their process designed to try to leverage a public demand for a formal apology from the school Authorities involved.
Their efforts - and the response of survivors to their efforts, supported by other Survivors advocacy groups and individuals -finally opened to the public discourse in Ireland the reality of seventy years of Irish School systems and Clerical CSA.
Many survivors had long been demanding such an inquiry, but have been rebuffed by Church and State, ignored by the News media, time and time again. Somehow, boarding school survivors remained invisible.
Last November, 2022, as I wrote above there occurred live witness testimony of three survivors, to the Irish nation, presented on live TV in such manner as made it impossible for the nation to evade the matter. This public witness statement flowed from the work described above.
The courage, humility and humanity of the three survivors who presented themselves and shared some of their stories, as witnesses, was abundantly clear, as was their years of suffering, which continues and will continue until justice is fully met, until the unmet needs of the children, and the adults they are now are being materially met.
The things they spoke of, their experiences as they were, appalled the listener, and the nation, to the core. One could sense an audience in shock, upright and angry, and determined to see this through. "How could that even happen? They must find justice to the full!" That was the feeling at the end of that presentation, the feeling from the presenter and the audience, intensely so. The stood and gave the three Survivors a standing ovation, for eight minutes.
Time will tell how this plays out. These matters take time, patience and persistence is our daily fare.
Progress
It is to be hoped that justice, accountability, honesty will flow from this process. Reparations, including end of life support at every level of need, in recognition of the unmet needs of all those children at the time of the assaults, and ever since. Meeting the unmet needs of the children they were, as they present in the adults they are today. That sort of care, in detail.
They deserve no less.
Bearing in mind that this dynamic ran for seventy years, and that many Survivors have passed away, without relief, without recognition, validation or support. Every year of delay reduces the numbers of living survivors, many of whom die earlier than the average.
There is much work to be done, and it is serious work that must stand on evidence, honesty, empathy and a robust justice that allows closure for all concerned.
The reactionary self-defence of the institutions must be mediated and diffused so that justice can prevail, and peace be restored.
Then we can move on.
So, to go back to 2O1O and the Pope
Before the demonstrations, I met with a gathering of people, organising to make placards, preparing leaflets, you know the usual paraphernalia of street demonstrations, to plan our demo, finding people to team up with in smaller groups for the afternoon's action.
I gave a short talk on the story of Irish Survivors recent history from my perspective. I had read The Case of The Pope, by Geoffrey Robertson. I understood the ground I and other Survivors were standing on. Well , at least I knew what I stood for.
I wanted the Vatican to be courageous, to be Christ-like, to be honest, transparent and to open their files - to share what they know - to survivors, to submit all allegations to inspection and investigation, to record the accurate history as far as those records reveal - for The Vatican to stand aside from dealing with such offenses under Canon Law, to allow civil and criminal law process to proceed, unhindered, to make reparations and to make future policy commitments in areas of child protection, reporting etc. Not too much to ask, considering the scale of the criminality, historical attitudes argument set aside.
I made a small placard with the words - Protect The Children, Not The Church - written in bold type. I knew what I was doing. I knew why I was there, and what little impact I would make. I was not there alone. Those numbers held meaning and hope, a route towards correct action. Hope springs eternal in my heart and mind. I do not apologise for that. Far from it. Anyways...
While I was doing that, making my placard, I noticed one group who were making a series of signs, alleging that The Pope was a paedophile. I went over to them, and asked them if they had read any evidence that Pope Benedict was a paedophile, because I had not, and I would be really interested to read such evidence. I mentioned there was evidence of his involvement in maintaining the policy of covering up the reality of predatory men operating within institutions caring for vulnerable populations.
They mentioned various authors, youtubers, notable writers of hypothetical scenarios. They suggested that the allegation was obviously true. 'Just look at him!' They had read no such evidence. Some mentioned 'Illuminati,' and various other conspiracy hypotheses. Others stated the obvious - that The Vatican was corrupt, a political action religion, wealthy and powerful and guilt of many crimes - and therefore the slander was justifiable. Rage!
I told them that they were protesting against the Vatican, as a political attack, rather than demonstrating support for survivors and for the necessary work survivors are seeking help for. Survivors work is not a political attack. Survivors have no need for that. Survivors need justice. Period.
I told them that exploiting Survivors tragedy - packaging the pain, fear, suffering, despair, the lived experienced lives and suicides of so many innocents - as an emotional trigger to make a political point in that way confuses the discourse, introduces hatred as a political utility, makes survivors look like they make false allegations was a profound and dangerous error in their case and a standard tactic of authoritarian regimes.
"All of this undermines Survivors struggle for justice, because it does not help them. It confuses the situation."
I told them that what they were doing was therefore hindering the work of Survivors. I told them that making false allegations of that nature, in public, allegations that were blatantly un-evidenced, directed at The Pope was stupidly reckless.
"Stick to the known, evidenced verified facts or get off the pot!"
When used as a political weapon, such allegations de facto seek to exploit both the disgust of decent people and the lived experience of the harm and trauma and suffering and pain that survivors have endured, leveraging a caricature as a sensational, manipulative and false dog whistle, riding roughshod over the most pertinent people in this matter - the Survivors.
Making false claims undermines survivors efforts, and all survivors know this.
For a genuine survivor activist this weaponisation of child sexual exploitation is an insult to the work they are undertaking.
Exploiting the pain and suffering implicit in the experience, exploiting the reactionary disgust of bystanders as they avoid really understanding Survivors lived experience, exploiting survivors efforts, piggy backing on their struggle, to launch a political weapon, for an entirely different agenda, making no progress for Survivors in the process.
That pissed them off
I knew in that moment, by their reaction, that they were not here for me, as a Survivor, as someone who had just given a talk on what being a Survivor means. I knew that people like that are not there for the Survivors at all. They do not have our back.
They started to argue with me and I with them. And I stopped. There was no point in this. The outrage in my heart needed a big sky.
I said to them: "You do what you want to do, I cannot associate with what you are doing. I've made my point. You now know what you did not know a few minutes ago".
And with that I left them, and went to the demonstration more or less on my own. I met up some of them later, and the Pope Allegation signs were absent. I noted that, and lauded them for that wisdom, that understanding. Grudges held post resolution are a self dug hole.
Digging Holes
The recent ads crafted by The Labour Party, one of which is featuring Rishi Sunak, implying the smiling Rishi is not at all bothered by convicted child sexual abusers current freedoms, with Labour's empty promise of a land of Law and Order where child abusers will tremble in fear!
Fake slur, appeal to disgust, cite statistic out of context, trigger a reactionary, gain a voter.
Here's another way to look at it, from the perspective of a Survivor - "Labour are deploying a vote chasing tactic - publishing content that exploits the reaction to the trauma of children who have been so profoundly harmed, exploited violently by adults for sexual purposes, using it as a trope to exacerbate disgust, in pursuit of a political agenda. Presenting a manipulative slur that has not one shred of evidence to it, that presents a very different proposition than the one at hand - organised child sexual exploitation is well established and pretty much has a free hand in England because neither the police nor the judiciary are on top of it, and the Legislature is clearly failing it it's core duties and responsibilities in this matter today, as it has been doing for decades.
This is not a partisan matter. Labour does not want to look at this honestly. So let's sling some mud! After all, it's what THEY do"
Actually, it is what bullies do. Period. Bullies do this kind of shite. All of them.
I'm not anti-Labour. I am anti-bullying in politics, local, national and international. It's all bullshit.
The Labour Ad implies that smiley Rishi Sunak, the Asian PM, does not care much about prosecuting or punishing adults guilty of child sexual abuse and incarcerating them - GRRRRRRR! and that New Clean Labour does, and will indeed prosecute and punish all those guilty of child sexual abuse. YAAAY! Vote For Labour!"
Intermixed with this is the Race card, the insinuations prevalent across English political public discourse. Systemic means systemic. Dog Whistles all over the shop.
The ad is a targeted intentional lie. It is bullshit. It has racist dog whistle overtones. It has a light blue background. Red is dead, at Labour HQ!
It's an appalling ad. And it is one of several, a series. All doing the exact same tactic.
Public facing content targeting a known bias, vulnerability, fear, hatred, exacerbating the emotional reaction of the target, in order to nudge the target in to behaviour that can be exploited.
This is truly cruel behaviour.
1. It does nothing to ameliorate and balance the bias, the vulnerability, the fear, the hatred. It stokes emotions and misdirects attention, it does nothing to address the reality of the issue, the problem of child sexual exploitation functioning as a multi-million pound industry across the UK.
2. The it exploits the target, not in the targets best interests, not even in the victimised demographics interest, but in the targeteers interest.
A treble cruelty.
Dodgy. There ought to be a law against this kind of behaviour.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are digging holes for themselves, in their exhibitionist bullying. They have no credibility left, whatsoever.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
Thank you for reading this blog.
"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."
This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.
Sexual Abuse, Power and Men - young girls, women, grandmothers: generations of affliction and endurance, the time for change is always in the present, already.
I have been writing about abuse behaviour dynamics for two decades, from the perspective of a Survivor, a child, a young boy and a teen routinely abused by adults in boarding schools, as an adult suffering from and enduring cPTSD, understanding that my story is one of millions upon millions of cases, and looking carefully and honestly at the culture within which all that happened.
Let me start by making it really clear where I am coming from. I am appalled to my core that there is so much abuse, violence, corruption on-going in within this culture. That so much of it is for profit and to maintain Power over others makes matters ever worse - it is deliberate abuse, choices to cause harm. Honesty is the only way to work through all of this.
A violent culture.
As a man, a male, as a person and as a parent I am appalled at the willingness of governments, corporations and others to extract power and profit at the expense of so many others. War, Air Pollution, Environmental Degradations, Externalised Costs, Imposed Poverty and concentration of wealth as Power, competing to dominate all others, are all costs we all are forced to bear - and they are all wholly avoidable. There is nothing inevitable about these problems.
Together they speak to a culture that is a problem in and of itself, and to me that calls for the need for an holistic and honest analysis that addresses the problems at their very root. I have written about that elsewhere in a number of postings.
I make it very clear that whilst the culture is abusive, our human nature is not. Most of us are decent people, doing our best with what this culture throws in our way.
For now let's talk about Misogyny.
When it comes to sexuality and power, I am horrified by the status quo. I am an adult human being with an acute sense of healthy, happy, sharing sexuality - to introduce or inject power into such an intimate space, to taint shared pleasure and vulnerability with power in any way is to my mind an abomination.
Any abuse of power to sexually harass another - irrespective of gender- is both a dehumanised and dehumanising behaviour.
Power and sex as a commodity has a long history. Misogyny is a historical thread woven into every known hierarchy of power system.
So it is more, so much more than a matter of personal flawed bad attitude.
Establishment 'Feminism': if you are willing operate power as we do, then join in, be our equal. This is the meaning of 'equality'. Bullying is a protected species.
Genuine Feminists : we will dismantle the Hierarchies of Violence and Power, together. This is the meaning of Equity. Liberation.
Two opposing movements.
Anyone who says that there's no problem at the cultural level regarding sexual abuse is in denial. Every woman I know has multiple stories to tell of personal experience of sexual harassment, misogyny. There are more survivors dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse than there are abusers facing the consequences in terms of confronting them with their behaviour, justice and incarceration and, by a vast margin.
The majority of abusers walk free. Society is failing the survivors, and is failing in prevention. The abusers thrive as a result.
The Guardian headline and report is inadequate.
'Finally'?
School girls and young women have been voicing their concerns for decades and decades. When one submits "sexual harassment in schools" as a google scholar search term, it brings up 204,000 plus articles and papers in half a second. It's not like the subject is an unknown area. It is remarkably well studied.
From a 1994 paper 'Walking Through Walls' J Larkin - Gender and Education, 1994 - Taylor & Francis"For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. What has not been explored is the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and the way it interferes with young women's education.
Equal opportunity programmes are of limited use if, for example, we urge female students into traditional male courses but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explored young women's experiences of sexual harassment in the setting lauded as their gateway to opportunity: school.
Based on their testimonies I make recommendations for educators who are committed to making high school a more equitable place for female students."
A search on JSTOR using the term ""sexual harassment" brings up 29,085 results. Papers on this subject date from the 1970s. Women and their advocates have been speaking out for many decades. A lot of study has been carried out on this.
The first American Rape Crisis Centers were formed in several states throughout the USA in the early 1970s, largely by women associated with the second-wave feminist movement. Central to second-wave feminism was the practice of consciousness raising, which allowed groups of women to speak openly about their experiences with sexual violence and the shortcomings of law enforcement, health care providers, and the criminal justice system to effectively and constructively respond to survivors.
In every country that has efficient data gathering and statistics, we see many, many sexual crimes perpetrated against women, men and children. The majority of the perpetrators are men. The majority of those victimised are women and children, and we know too that some women also abuse men and children, that there are some women who participate in the abuse with men, and on their own. This is a culture wide issue. A culture that harbours so much abuse.
#metoo
The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke.
Since then there have been successive waves of #metoo attention. The waves pass, the behaviour does not change. The systems of Education, health, policing and justice do not change substantively. Why?
Here's the thing - I know that the culture I was born into is rooted, historically, psychologically and materially in hierarchies of violence and power, patriarchy and property. Women as property. I did not create this culture, and I do not wish to perpetuate it. At all. The idea of perpetuating this pre-existing culture of hierarchy, power and violence appals me to my very core.
The 'stronger' prey upon the vulnerable.
I use the parentheses because as I see things, to leverage power over another human being for personal gain is not a marker of strength of character - to abuse leveraged power of any kind is in fact a weakness of character. It is a dehumanised thing to dehumanise another.
It is also a matter of self regulating one's behaviour, or not. There is interesting research that indicates that stressy cultures undermine healthy self regulation at the earliest ages - the terrible twos is not a biological episode, it is a chronic stress or trauma episode.
If in any given culture the situation of motherhood is subjected to multiple external stressors, then what flows from that is disruption and distortion of key experiential and learning dynamics. Across a population that can lead to a variation in self regulation capabilities.
The kind of people who engage in leveraging power over others clearly lack that ability - healthy self regulation of affective states - or it may be that they choose to neglect it. Either way they are damaged, dysfunctional, distorted. Men who claim the 'urge' overtook them are saying they lack self regulation skills. They are damaged. They need help. Where any person, many or woman, has caused harm, he or she has chosen to act and for that, and the outcome, must be held accountable. At the same time, we now that patterns of reaction, of trigger and reaction operate faster than the mind can think. Some people are out of control.
Out of Control controlling behavioural characteristics.
Those who dominate and operate institutional power systems for personal gain lack the moral strength of mature healthy adults. To exploit others is both immature and inhumane. To rationalise abuse of power as if it were a 'natural' evolutionary alpha male behaviour is projection. It's an example of non-thinking.
This society, this culture, this power system and its institutions are clearly not listening. The News Media is reporting, but it is not really listening. Survivors voices and insights are rarely given the space they deserve. Governments and Education Authorities are not listening carefully enough. Religions are not mute, they are not listening for or hearing the cries of women.
Men (I am a man) are not listening, are we? We are not hearing and we are not understanding the fullness of this story. We are downplaying the pain all around us by allowing 'not all men' to gain traction in ways that distract from the hearing that is necessary. My response to 'not all men' is "we know this! So shhssssh, listen, try to hear and understand what the women are trying to communicate!"
Distraction
Some people will point at women whose behaviour plays into or enables misogynistic behaviour and say 'it's not only men' - look at those women!' They will also point out that women are abusers too.
Which is deliberately missing the point. The point is that no girl or woman should ever need to learn that set of behaviours as a way of coping with or surviving life long misogyny and sexism. At least not within a healthy culture. This is not a healthy culture, is it?
The point is that no boy or man should ever need to learn that set of behaviours as a way of being, or of coping with or surviving within a healthy culture.
For these reasons, this is a problem of men, and the behaviour that we (I write as a man) allow our peers to get away with inevitably becomes a problem for women, children and all vulnerable people. Misogyny is political.
Men as activists
I get that this is challenging, and I am not seeking to scapegoat or blame. It is confronting to confront anyone who is bullying another person. It is confronting to challenge 'alpha male behaviour' that men are led to adopt and internalise as 'normal red blooded', competitive, hierarchic archetypes. It's scary.
It is a different kind of scary to that of a woman who feels she must be on guard amongst most men. Throughout her life. The 'democracy of fear'.
Men, healthy, decent, morally clear men need to become the drivers of confronting sexual assault of women. Men, healthy, decent, morally clear men need to become the drivers of confronting alpha male violence in general.
Speaking truthfully.
In June 2020, Soma Sara the founder of Everyone's Invited, began sharing her personal experience of rape culture via Instagram. She wanted to speak the truth, and to create a space for truth to be spoken. Immediately, she received a number of messages from not only those who felt that her experiences strongly resonated with their own, but also those who detailed their own stories of misogyny, harassment, abuse and assault. Within a week she received and shared over 300 anonymous responses, reaching over 10,000 people.
She was intent on creating a space where women felt safe enough to speak, where they were assured they would be heard and understood - they shared the same experience, after all.
2021
The disappearance, abduction and murder of Sarah Everard, in early March 2021 in London followed by the discovery that her murderer was a serving police officer who had committed a sexual offence just days before he assaulted and kill Sarah Everard, became a major news story.
It led to a surge of expressions of grief, rage and anger shared by many, many women. It led to a public campaign to hold Vigils for Sarah, organised by women's group, Reclaim These Streets, as a collective mark of respect and a dedication to confronting the issue of women's safety.
Since then Everyone's Invited has received thousands of testimonies from women and young girls.
It was as if yet another flood gate was opened.
By the time this too became a news story, (see the image at the top of this article) more than 11,000 people had submitted testimonies to EI. No individuals were identified, and some schools were. Some News media reports focused on a few fee paying schools identified in these testimonies, although EI says that totality of testimonies received covers all kinds of schools and universities, private and state funded.
This behaviour - sexual harassment, assault and a culture of misogyny - is happening in every setting where boys and girls, men and women share a common space.
Soma Sara points out that some of the testimonies are from women writing as grand parents who themselves were subjected to such behaviour, who saw their daughters and then their grand daughters endure it too.
The problem is multi-generational.
My position is this is a cultural problem larger than a subculture called 'rape culture': it is a problem of the larger culture and it is for the larger culture to confront, honestly.
EI is seeking to encourage a non-judgemental open and honest discussion and bring to public awareness the scope and nature of misogynistic sexual harassment in order to generate positive moves across the main culture - their approach is not about crime and punishment, naming and shaming as much as it is about achieving behavioural change. Prevention is key here. Punishment is always too late for those who have been harmed punishment of offenders does not undo that harm caused.
Can we get to a place where no more women are being harassed and sexually assaulted? - That is the question they are posing.
Meaningful and lasting change can only be achieved through honesty, through recognising the problem of sexual violence, through understanding the many ways in which misogyny manifests, through understanding it's roots in wider culture and through direct action amongst men and women of all ages, in schools and universities, at home and elsewhere to confront, challenge, reduce and in due course eliminate this behavioural dynamic of sexualised abuse of power from all our lives. It is not healthy, it is not 'natural' and it must cease.
Education
EI believes this is a matter for education, education, education. A good education opens both mind and heart, and develops the focused mind informed by a strengthened heart. A good education is a process of discovery and learning. A good education is not indoctrination.
Education through conversation between young boys as peers and young men as peers talking to each other. Education by parents, by schools, by universities, news media and all other relevant layers of society participating in shifting the cultural behavioural values away from leveraging power and control towards participation and co-operation.
The children of the 21st Century cry out for a humanising ethic, for real social material change to end this dynamic behaviour of abuse.
It is not a pleasant state to be an abusive person. Everyone involved in the sexual abuse dynamic suffers. Everyone is dehumanised by this behaviour. To be the kind of person that sexually harasses another is a dehumanised state of being. It's not good. This is not being judgemental. It is being factual.
There is a profound compassion in the ethical stance of Everyone's Invited.
Here Soma Sara speaks on the issue with a reporter from the London Standard.
Power
In order to understand the role of power in sexual harassment, we do need to consider the level of power, the sources of power, the context of the harassing situation, and the reactions of those subjected to sexual harassment and to what extent their relative power position in society determines what outcomes are deemed possible, what actions are deemed viable, what outcomes are delivered.
Does lack of power influence a persons choices to report and prosecute cases of bullying, sexual harassment or rape?
When some media claimed that the Rotherham Grooming Gang was able to escape investigation due to fears that such an investigation might appear racist, was that the case? Or was it that in general, the witness testimony of the groomed and the vulnerable, the distressed and the broken is treated with less respect and consideration than it should be, across under resourced, under trained, under staffed police forces nationally?
The victimised young girls are way down the power ladder, at the very bottom. Those young girls were, and are, in practical terms totally powerless. It was not concerns about Race that dismissed their their need. They were deemed not important enough to warrant the kind of attention they needed. They were considered unworthy.
Narrative, Optics, Stories
Who turned what should have been a story about criminal organised child abuse as a cultural problem of England, into a story about Race, Immigration and Nativism?
Who did not immediately rebut that false narrative of distraction with available evidence that shows the the vast majority of 'grooming gangs' exploiting minors for sexual abuse are Caucasian, that indeed the prevalence of such abuse reflects the demographic realities? How could such an obvious misrepresentation have stood in the news media for so long, unchallenged?
What did that do for the girls who were victimised? Who was thinking of those young people in all of this? How much more powerless were these young women rendered by this misrepresentation? Media was talking about Race and not about the lives of these young girls.
The truth is that criminal grooming is common, far too common, across this society. It other words it is a cultural or societal behavioural problem at every level of this culture, such that it is almost characteristic. we cannot afford to look away from this.
Who has the power to exercise such systemic reluctance to address this problem honestly, and why would they do that?
Power, Protest and Abuse
Power and the right to protest were yet again highlighted in the statements, directions and interactions of Priti Patel, Cressida Dick, The London Metropolitan Police and the Reclaim These Streets women's group who wanted to host a vigil on Clapham Common for Sarah Everard - as I already mentioned - a young woman abducted and murdered by a serving police officer in March, in London.
In truth the fact that the man was a police officer is besides the point - sexual predators and murderers abide in every profession. That said, the tragic and catastrophic irony of a women's safety put at risk by a man paid to 'protect the peace' is inescapable. It certainly led to more concern and focus among women aware already that the justice system is not very good at delivering justice in regards to sexual harassment and rape cases.
Therefore a public vigil, an act of mourning, grief and respect, made a lot of sense and that is what RTS called for, as representatives of women's voice, as a public ritual and a demand for justice.
This includes the voice of men too, all those men who are listening to and hearing the women, who understand the cultural dynamic, who also demand we approach this matter with justice and prevention in mind.
Official Stance is defensive
"Reclaim These Streets is organised by a group of women who wanted to channel the collective grief, outrage and sadness in our community over the events of the past week. Our plan was to hold a short gathering on Clapham Common, centred around a minute of silence to remember Sarah Everard and all women lost to violence. In light of the lack of constructive engagement from the Metropolitan Police, we were forced to cancel this event."
That the official police response to the desire of the RTS women to hold a vigil was oppositional is a measure of an institutional inability to hear, and an unwillingness to listen to and empathise with women's sense of this that speaks to their insecurity as being understandable. The police have done nothing to secure women's concerns. Quite the opposite.
The High Court Judges asserted that COVID19 legislation could not be used to ban protest, even as the Police tried to misuse the legislation. The police withdrew from the court case to avoid a ruling forcing them to accept the right of RTS to protest thus legally placing the Police in a position where they had to facilitate the vigil.
Following on from the court case, the Police denied support for the vigil, because they could not ban it.
They chose to not facilitate a covid secure vigil, out of spite, and following the orders of the Home Secretary.
The Police asked RTS to use all their publicity channels to call off the vigil. RTS did so.
RTS informed the police that they could not prevent people from gathering informally. The police clearly understood this.
Priti Patel as Home Secretary, a coward and a bully.
Priti Patel ordered the Police to break up the informal vigil, partly on the basis that she promised the Police she would deliver a public briefing instructing the public not to attend an informal vigil, to give the police the cover to take action to break-up the vigil. She did not do that, and left the order in place. People gathered, in much larger numbers than would have had the police worked with RTS.
I call Priti Patel a coward because she did not follow through with her promise, and because she refused to acknowledge her own bad behaviour, an act of personal cowardice which led to a £340,000 out of court settlement. She used tax payers funds to save face, in a very dehumanised manner. Not being able to put your hand up, when you have done wrong, is moral cowardice, it is the triumph of a damaged, abusive ego. It is a sign of weakness, not of strength.
A Respectful Vigil
The vigil was very well self organised, respectful, disciplined. The women gathered expresses their grief, their anger and sorrow, their outrage. The women spoke of the need for justice, the need for change. Candles, flowers, prayers, songs, silences. Women holding space for public emotion, public feeling, public solidarity when in the middle of an epidemic we are all more isolated, de-publicised than ever. A precious moment in time.
The Police waited until darkness had fallen, and then removed some of the vigil holders from the bandstand where some women were speaking from - using 'reasonable force' and thus providing a media story that did them no favours at all.
The response of the women at the vigil was disciplined. A riot did not break out. Police violence was not meet with escalation. The women maintained their dignity as indignity was laid upon them. The women showed true strength. They stood their ground, and stood as witnesses to the women who were being forcibly removed.
All of this, when one of their own, a serving officer, had abducted and murdered an innocent woman, having previously flashed at a female employee in late February.
The insensitivity is breath taking.
Power and the right to protest were also at the heart of the Bristol sit-down protests against the Crime and Policing Bill that is going through Parliament, a proposed legislation that criminalises protests of single individuals, that uses vague noise and nuisance clauses to give police the discretion to arrest and charge protesters on whim, a piece of legislation that criminalises sleeping in a vehicle over night which is aimed at Traveller folk, a bill that is acknowledged to be a direct attempt to pre-empt protest against the policies of a Climate and Environmentally reckless Government, and pushing this through in the midst of an epidemic that the same government is deliberately mismanaging with lethal consequences.
Power and honesty (the lack of it) were also highlighted by the release this week of the Sewel Report on Racism in England which claimed there is no evidence of institutional Racism in England, and that where there is Racism prevalent in the population. The report claimed that other factors, such as economic deprivation, family breakdown and geography were more important factors in discrimination as it occurs in England. This is gaslighting - this is trying to convince us that the evidence of our own experience, what we have seen with our own eyes, is not real.
Rape Culture is a dynamic within a larger culture of abuse of power, gross dishonesty, imposed hierarchy, state violence, patriarchy, misogyny, maintained through political grooming and manipulative persuasion. I think it is not possible to separate the two themes.
Power, Honesty, Justice
Everyone's Invited and #metoo, and the thousands of organisations of women globally are asking us all to do the right thing. The women who are speaking out, who are speaking truth to power, are asking us to be honest about this, to do the right thing. The school girls who are 'finally finding their voices' are asking us all to do the right thing. Stop it. It's not complicated. You do have the power to stop this behaviour. Just do it.
Honesty is speaking truth to power, justice is power changing as a result.
I think that unless the two meet, and are reconciled, then we will be caught in the crossfire of what I can only describe as a toxic cult.
Just do it
I think that social change can be achieved when the majority of the population are united in understanding, action and solidarity to confront, challenge and dismantle these behavioural structures and dynamics, the systems and methods of maintaining power and control. Sexual harassment and abuse is all about power and control. It is not about sexuality.
I think that means we must understand those structures accurately.
I think that means we must understand what we have internalised as values given to us by those structures.
I think that means we must understand how the structures influence so many people and thus enable the behavioural dynamic of control to mitigate and ultimately ignore the voices of women who speak out.
I think that means we must find ways to build bridges of human understanding across our different groups, identities, beliefs and positions so that those internalised values no longer impede us.
I think that at the very least just being consistently honest, decent, kind, loving humane beings is enough of a challenge under the current circumstances, and worthy in its own right. That's where we start with this.
From there, activism can flow.
That is what Everyone's Invited presents. An end to the war, a start to and continuation of the conversation that heals the behaviour. That is what #metoo really means.
Primarily that healing and recovery is as much a collective response, as an individual response: the whole matters. There is much about trauma is relayed through the ways in which power is mediated across this culture.
"I argued then that the study of psychological trauma is an inherently political enterprise because it calls attention to the experience of oppressed people. I predicted that our field would continue to be beset by controversy, no matter how solid its empirical foundation, because the same historical forces that in the past have consigned major discoveries to oblivion continue to operate in the world. I argued, finally, that only an ongoing connection with a global political movement for human rights could ultimately sustain our ability to speak about unspeakable things." ~ Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery
So looking again at healing and recovery, we can start with the individual and look at mindful body work, that is to say working with the body, understanding the mind-body emotional biology, the workings in the relationship between experience, feeling, thought, understanding body chemistry and adaptive experience, with the intent to support healing through understanding what happened, what happens and through rebuilding healthy, stable neurology and endocrine balance through direct experience, exercise, dance, movement, massage, herbs etc....
Just accurate understanding, and caring support.
If the choice to use pharmacological tools is made, then at least let it be honest, informed consented and evidence based rather than as a management tool - it is useful to use such medicines as short term management, and worth finding ways to avoid usage that tends to become long term, to move from management of presenting symptoms towards healing and recovery, as much as possible.
Paying close attention to mindful body work processes so that they are more responsive to each unique case, and so that they can hand the power, share the responsibility to heal to he individual, building the trust that self healing, as much as professional expertise, can work together...
Using thought and action, movement, breathing, diet and other modes to rewrite traumatised neural networks, to allow old hyper alert routes to fall into non-use: aware that this is best completed within a safe environment, and assuring that other material support is made available as a proven route towards recovery.
Dealing with what's happened, and what is, and looking to the future, at the same time
It is critically important that as part of our shared future that we also deal with societal power dynamics that induce chronic stress - ordinary folk to not initiate war, poverty, famine, corruption, abuse of power. The power of institutions, and ruling networks are a source of much harm.
This is what happens when nurture is removed from the centre of human affairs. Power and it's maintenance undermine nurturant psychologies.
A culture that listens to children, that hears and engages with the heart of the child, that affirms the child's experience of self as her or his own, distinct and yet bonded, in what we call healthy attachment.
That has to be at the centre of treatment and social policy...
The inter-generational situational epi-genetic thread of trauma altered behaviour across entire populations is real.
A child can relax into true self, when she or he feels understood, received and cared for.
A child who is 'acting out' is not being heard, nor understood.
If that becomes a pattern, if the child's experience with adults maintains that trajectory, if it is also part of a cultural trauma behaviour pattern that becomes institutionalised, then of course, in that social environment it is clear that some will become bullies, kings, and others will break, many will survive, some will thrive, some will try to hack the system to create personal and familial security, others to give bullies the finger, and then there's the artist.... most will do their very best to live as decently as possible within those constraints.
So I look again at populations, and patterns, and I see that compassion informed by science - close observation, honesty - is merely common sense...
Judith Herman wrote that there were two things about the study of trauma that struck her, because they are so infrequently mentioned in mainstream discourse.
The first was that more study must be done of the vast numbers of people who have lived through trauma, and who have recovered, independent of any professional or institutional assistance. A missing statisitc, and a really critical database.
Natural healing needs to be understood, forensically.
The second was that the study of trauma is necessarily a political enterprise, in that it brings one's attention to the experience of the oppressed.....
I think she was correct, and it may be some time before that insight informs the grass roots - the status quo will seek to co-opt both these areas with whatever tools it has.... Standard practice.
That said the process of healing through understanding the roots of a given problem is underway, has always been and always will - I remember every day that I am really an aboriginal human being, and that my ancestors lived peaceably, and thrived for hundreds of thousands of years... we were a healthy species, and we have been subjected to an unhealthy culture of bullying, and it will pass, and we will return to healthy social behaviour.
When I say 'we' I do not expect myself to see this materialise, and I am happy to work towards it in my own small way, as a participant in the work.
There has to be reliable ways to record and analyse mass anecdotal evidence of those who recover, even as it remains silent to the professional and institutional world.
The suggestion of the inaccuracy of self reporting is not enough on it's own to avoid the problem of how to 'measure' or assess that unspoken experience....
There are layers to how trauma 'informs' our biology, to how chronic stress alters our biochemistry and behaviour : the phrase 'trauma informed' reflects greater understanding in this area emerging into the clinical and practice level, and we need to see that understanding disseminated across the grass roots, at pace.
Power.
The 19th Century Ruling class, the persistent descendants of the Normans, and their modern acolytes and rivals are also trauma mis-informed, in that they represent a mass retraumatising institutional pattern that is deliberate, mediated and intentional.
We are trying to heal within the environment dominated by that mass traumatisation, and that suggests to me that the issue of healing society is a valid exercise, a confrontation with the honest and most truthful history and I think that this is necessary to advocate for, the healing of the individual is not enough - we must heal the culture, we must end the culture of abuse.
It blows political struggles for power out of the water in terms of being a truly valid human exercise. Those who 'seek Power to do good' all too often become protectors of Power at the expense of people.
Only accurate information that can truly counter the ability of the mainstream to trigger reactions in known vulnerabilities as part of the manipulation of 'opinion' and 'public perception' - when across the grass roots we do understand the wound-trigger-reaction process, the conspiracy theorists, extremists, fundamentalists will all fade into obscurity....
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.”
“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.
Some flows of experiential and sensory societal drivers and behavioural dynamics, related to nurture, trauma, oppression.
Parts of the puzzle, stand back and try to see the whole. To be able to perceive the underlying patterns.
Right click, then view on new tab, on this link to view it in large scale.
This is a mind map I am looking at the two poles of Societal Behavioural Characteristics, which can be viewed as an adjunct from my previous article on those two poles of Society, and how we got here....
I am trying to describe flows of experience context as they relate to observed social behavioural characteristics of different kinds of cultures, ranging between Egalitarian and Hierarchically Violent.
It is only a brief outline of the difference in dynamic between a hierarchically violent society and an egalitarian empathy based society. A guide for further questioning and exploration.
It also works with this graphic ...
This outlines a flow chart of what can happen when a trauma or trauma pattern remains unresolved, or is resolved.
Healing and recovery are a core dynamic of all living systems, accidents happen, and organisms have evolved repair and recovery processes and dynamics precisely because accidents are common in any dynamically changing environment - wind, storms, snow, ice, rain storms, floods, moment of distraction and oopsie!
The difference for existing human culture is that the harm and stress caused is way beyond accidental, and there are no known mammalian biological processes designed for sustained chronic stress and toxicity.
We are not designed to handle chronic stress.
We need to really understand that that means that we humans are 'designed' to accommodate a degree of occasional stress. We are designed to be able to respond/react from a background of robust health - physiological and psychological.
There is a genuine need to protect society from some people whose
behaviour is dangerous, by incarceration, and not as a 'punishment' or
‘revenge’ or 'paying the price' but as a safety of the community measure, and this must be
done as humanely as possible.
There is also a need to see where rehabilitation can be efficacious, and what best facilitates this.
Abuse does not answer abuse, and violence tends to be cyclical......I have
NEVER come across a Survivor who would urge violence against abusers.
It horrifies me the way Survivors voices and insights are brushed aside by
people who claim to be supportive yet also declare they'd be happy to 'hang
'em'.... those people are making life for Survivors harder rather than easier
because they are clouding the discourse with their rage and hatred.
I do
understand that there are reasons why so many people react in this manner.
Social conditioning,
inter-generational trauma behaviour patterns .....
How
many people were flushed with stress hormones whilst in the womb? How
many mothers are subjected to stress by external events?
How
many fathers have been trained to be 'tough'..?
How
many men return from war, with wounds they mask, that their children are
affected by?
How
does chronic stress (12 years of schooling, relative poverty, religious
indoctrination) alter the growing child, in schools, where bullying, peer
pressure and submission to authority are constants?
These
are not excuses for adverse behaviour, but an attempt to understand that
dynamic that flows through time within Hierarchically Violent social systems
where Power has a massive influence on peoples lives, and the emergent
psychology of society, at the grass roots.
How
many 'leaders' learned bullying as a power transaction in private boarding
schools?
Is
Social Services, as a State Institution, concerned with regulation over healing?
These are all questions EVERY social worker, every civil servant, every carer
and every parent (to be or active) ought to wrestle with... as by taking that
role on, they also take on a response-ability to those the intend to serve, and
more so to the children yet to be born from those they serve....
Where
is the nurture?
And importantly, the question of what best represents optimal human biological
health must be tackled with a back ground in science, anthropology, history and
personal growth..
These are the questions that Survivors have had to answer in their path towards
resolution.
The State has yet to step up to the plate on this, as is the case for the
mainstream media.
