I am a human being, a biological organism. That is my first
identity.
We human beings are in the first instance biological organisms. We have emerged
from the biological processes of life on Earth. We are part of those processes.
We are defined by those processes. We are alive courtesy of those processes.
The biological processes of life tend to increase the fecundity and diversity
of life. This is reflected in the behaviour of all natural organisms, and is
the outcome of all natural biological behaviour. All these living processes are
connected and interdependent.
It follows that healthy natural human behaviour is a part of
this reality.
All unhealthy behaviour is at odds with this reality.
When we look carefully, scientifically and honestly at the nature of the mother
child bonding process, we see biology operating from the molecular level to the
level of discrete organisms in ways that nurture both mother and child, in ways
that nurture true humanity as part of the biology of Earth. We also see that
the father is nurtured in the womb. In the womb we learn some the lessons of
nurture, and in early childhood.
Oxytocin is no accident. It is a statement of intent.
In the case of Oxytocin, the intent is to bond mother and child during the
intensity of childbirth, in ways that support each as separate, individual and
conscious beings, living and growing within a community, a community which itself
exists within the biology of Earth. The intent is to establish self awareness
and awareness of others, in such manner as to enable empathy, understanding,
care and love for one another. To nurture is our nature.
In biological terms this makes perfect sense. We are imbued with sense, with
sensitivity, both towards ourselves – self awareness - and to others, including
all that exists within the habitat into which we are born.
What this means is that our environment will play a large part in our emergent development and behaviour.
This sensing of life enables us to understand and work with the living
biological processes that govern life itself, in ways that nurture more life.
The urge to power has it’s roots in the disruption of those processes around empathy
that are the biological expression of love and care. The urge to power is not a
natural outcome of biology. It is the outcome of the disruption of biology. The
disruption of the child mother bonding process is central to the continuation
of the urge to Power.
Evolution is not random, nor is it a question of programming, as some
geneticists would have it. Evolution is governed by the ability of any organism
to respond to a changing environment; all habitats are subject to change, to
fluctuations of their constituents, and be it a bacterium, a human being or a
rain forest, so too organisms respond to those changes to maintain the
biological processes of life.
Evolution is the resolution of problems that arise for organisms as the habitat
and conditions of life change over time.
Inability to resolve those problems leads to a dead-end.
In nature immense or sudden catastrophic changes can and do make it all but
impossible to resolve certain problems, for certain species, in certain
situations.
For example, a volcanic eruption is lethal to all life within the reach of its
immediate outcomes. Species local to that event may indeed be wiped out. Yet in
the long term, the volcanic eruption releases more material that supports life,
and the habitat that is lethally affected by the immediate outcome of the
volcano is always repopulated over time by living organisms, and brought to
life once again.
The urge of life is to create more life, to nurture more life.
However the urge of Power, as a process amongst human beings, is to nurture
itself alone, to retain Power, always at the expense of all which falls under
it’s influence, and in particular all that cannot be manipulated to meet the
demands of Power.
The urge to Power is the result of an unresolved problem. The urge to Power
always avoids natural resolution of the problem it represents, because the
problem is fear. That fear is related to the loss of self empathy inherent in Authoritarian Parenting, which is the predominant mode of parenting across the Dominant Culture.
That fear that drives the urge to Power, the desire to exert so much control, exists because Power
does not trust the processes of life; this is an outcome of unresolved trauma.
Nature always seeks to resolve problems and stands in direct confrontation with
Power.
Bacteria learn about anti-biotics and can circumvent their use, because
bacteria are problem solvers rather than problem creators. Likewise the natural
mind and heart of the human being. We all know of stories of people who somehow
see through the veil of conditioning, who survive great trauma and yet retain
humanity, empathy and human kindness.
This is why Power seeks always to inculcate the children of those over whom
Power has agency. Education by Power is not designed for genuine learning, it
is a form of social conditioning, a question of programming prescribed
behaviours based on the knowledge of how a traumatised person or child responds
to a trauma situation that they cannot control.
This can take can take the form of Religion or Ideology or Fantasy
(consumerism) and always reflects the psychology of fear. It seeks to inject
fear into the heart of all those who fall under it’s agency. Fear of God. Fear
of The Devil. Fear of Poverty.
And this process starts in utero, for the mother, living as she does within a pre-existing
structure of Power, is
most often ‘informed’
by the dominant psychology of Power. Part of this ‘information’ comes from her
parents and grand parents childhoods, and what they were conditioned to, and
may have generated unresolved issues which were passed on, most often
unwittingly. I feel that most parents do love their children, yet are limited
by the degree to which each generation can resolve what they lived through.
And it’s clear that Power inhibits the resolution of these issues.
The fears of the mother, fears that are injected by Power, replace her
confidence in her biological body, which ‘knows’ how to nurture, to give birth,
to care for and relate to the child she has borne. This is also true for the
father.
The fears of the community that survives under the influence of Power, fears
that are injected by the situation that Power determines, replace the natural
communities humanity, strength and beauty and reduces community to the
necessities of mere survival.
To resolve the problem of Power is the central task ahead of us.
Paolo Friere suggested that the process of liberation is in fact a process of humanisation:
he wrote that both those who exercise Power and those they oppress are equally
dehumanised, and that the contradiction of the oppressed lay in the need to
humanise those who exercise power as much as their need to break the chains
that bind them.
He pointed out that attacking, killing, destroying the oppressor dehumanises
the oppressed as much as the Powerful are dehumanised by their oppression. He
called for a deeper analysis, a praxis of liberation that seeks to humanise the
dehumanised.
Religion, personal salvation, the accrual of wealth at the expense of others,
are all the outcomes of living within a dehumanising situation, where Power
dominates relationships. They are usually related to the individual’s own mere
survival, rather than the nurturing of all.
Spirituality, personal growth and the sharing of resources so that all may
benefit are the outcomes of a fully humanising situation. They are inextricably
linked.
And it is this that I work towards and with in my life.
