Simon Jenkins, Jimmy Saville, The BBC and The Pope

Simon Jenkins, in today's Guardian, writes an article that tries to typify the public's response, and that of some media, to the Jimmy Saville story as a 'witch-hunt' that feeds paranoia. To him there are other far more important issues that deserve the front page headlines...

"In our rush to apportion blame for the actions of an individual, we risk becoming blind to the real issues of the day" 

And he writes of how other 'issues' or stories have been sidelined due to this stories prominence...

"Is Jimmy Savile and the BBC the biggest story on Earth? Apparently so. Today the British media placed it above Romney versus Obama, above the implosion of Lebanon and above the birth of the world's largest oil company. Savile was bigger than killer drones in Lincolnshire, bigger than Cameron's prison policy, bigger than the sensational Birmingham terrorism trial."

(though the fact remains that any reader or consumer of news might read the entirety of a newspaper, watch innumerable sources of on-line video news and still see all those other stories) and then Jenkins proceeds to say that nothing good will come of this, because a) Saville is dead and damned b) everyone in Institutions will be now driven to ensure no-one is allowed near a child without a chaperone :

"Soon doctors, lawyers and priests will have to practise, like the police, in pairs. Responsibility for our behaviour apparently no longer rests on us as individuals but on anyone whom a lawyer can claim was "responsible" for our contact with others. We are no longer our own masters. This is the royal road to Orwellian hell."

 

Jenkins is using hyperbole to distract his readers from the fundamentals of what the Saville story really means.

FACT : The abuse of power is at the root of most of the really serious problems we face, be it at the personal level or beyond.....

Those who seek power - be it at the personal level, at the political level or in the office or school - are often psychologically damaged (and therefore dangerous) people - while not all will be as harmful as Tony Blair, George Bush or Jimmy Saville, the multitude of those who seek and attain some degree of power and who look the other way, who justify their silence when they have access to evidence that deserves to be revealed, who fear to speak out because they might lose a job or damage their careers are an essential component in the abuse of Power by those prepared to cause harm to others.

Sue Gerhardt's analysis of Tony Blair and George Bush in her book 'Selfish Society' r2010 e-iterates what Alice Miller's 'For Your Own Good: The roots of violence in childhood mistreatment' clearly demonstrated in 1986.

If we really want an empathic, healthily functioning Society in the long term, we, all of us, have to address the way our Society relates to children, to parenting and education, to 'care' and in particular address the fact that Power sees children/people as potential workers, economic units essential for 'growth' and that Power underplays and undermines what we all need for genuine happiness, as we race towards the illusion that wealth (consumerism) generates happiness.

Simon Jenkins unwillingness to admit or acknowledge this is typical of those who prefer to protect the status quo. The tone of his article is dismissive, angry, petulant.

"Those running big organisations, in the public and private sectors, face a lethal pincer movement. On the one side is a rising tide of risk aversion, seeping into every factory, office and profession, stifling enterprise, "reassessing" risk, clogging decision. On the other is a fear of what happens should this process fail. Just as the concept of an accident has slid from legal status, so has the "honest mistake". When Entwistle today admitted and regretted his mistake in not asking in more detail about the Savile programme, his tormenters hardly noticed. Honest mistakes do not exist, being replaced by only the most serious and probably criminal negligence, fit only for the pillory, the stocks or the gallows."

George Entwhistle's honest mistake? ignoring evidence that Jimmy Saville, far from deserving a 'celebratory special' was a nasty, nasty harmful man, and ignoring the fact that the many Survivors of his horrific abuse would be further traumatised by the transmission of that 'celebratory special', and that those who had come forward would once again suffer from being ignored, rejected, not believed.

That was not an honest mistake, that was an act of incredible irresponsibility, and act that demonstrates a profound lack of empathy for all those adversely affected by Jimmy Saville's abuse. The Survivors and their families.

Nothing he has done yet is sufficient to repair this. George Entwhistle has a choice to make. To honestly admit his error, and respond as required or do what so many people in power are prepared to do .... avoid empathy, attend to the status quo, to the agenda of Power.

Just as David Cameron's Coalition Government's actions in cutting funding to services that support vulnerable people, cuts that have caused yet more pain and suffering to thousands of disabled people all over the UK are evidence of a deep lack of empathy for the reality of the lives of other less powerful people.
(I  do not hold Cameron alone responsible - every member of the Government, and all  Parliamentarians are equally culpable unless they counter these particular cuts with all their might, as these particular cuts in funding are 100% un-neccessary.)

Just as the Pope, and many Bishops and Curates, and others around the world who ignored Survivors testimony, or hushed it up to protect their Institutions revealed a profound lack of empathy for those who suffered so much at the hands of predatory priests, at the hands of men and women willing to visit intolerable violence upon children.

(The BBC's sickeningly fawning coverage of the Pope's visit to the UK in 2010 which sidelined the world wide story of intolerable suffering inflicted upon hundreds of thousands, if not millions of children over the past centuries in favour of a celebration  of the Pope parallels the Saville story.... a pattern is repeated..)

We CAN live without Institutions which are populated and controlled by adults who refuse to tackle this behavioural dysfunction head-on. We must.

Any institution that permits this kind of dysfunction for whatever reason, or tries to 'manage a crisis' from the perspective of protecting itself, suggesting that the crisis is the revelation  of abuse, and not the abuse itself - is an inhumane, psycho-pathological entity that does far more harm than good.

If the BBC wants to regain trust, then it must be 100% honest, and man up to the realities, no matter how much it hurts or costs... no matter who amongst the powerful is exposed as an abuser, a facilitator of abuse or an apologist for abusers...

I am furious, yet not at all petulant, when I say:

"Grow up, Jenkins, grow up!"
Let me make something clear here : George Entwhistle is not responsible for Jimmy Saville's behaviour. That responsibility lies with Jimmy Saville - he made his choices. Thus, he removed choice from many young peoples lives.

Entwhistle IS responsible for the BBC, and therefore for the BBC's response to these revelations, and is equally responsible to ALL the licence payers, and to all of those who have survived Saville's abuse. He is in the hot seat, and he elected to apply for that job.

He may well be on a very fast learning curve. So be it. He will not be forgiven for failing in his duty as an adult human being. Nor should he be  given any slack. The same applies to Simon Jenkins.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Reality check : abuse is systemic in Institutional Power.

This has to be said : the issue of abuse of power, especially the abuse of vulnerable people who have little voice or ability to counter the behaviour of Power is linked to the struggle for a decent, empathic society across a range of areas, from politics, to environment to psychological indoctrination to religion.

I see no critical difference between the abuse of children by pedophiles and the abuse of Iraqi and Afghan people as perpetrated by Tony Blair and George Bush et al. Or the abuse of disabled people, which as led to an extra 73 deaths per week, as perpetrated by George Osborne and David Cameron, and by extension, the Civil Service. Institutional Power is mediated by people and cannot abuse without the participation and direct compliance of those people.

In truth the 'system' we were born into is the same dynamic as an abuse family... the abuser, the abused, the scapegoat, the rebel, the cast outs, the appeasers and those who ignore what is going on, who keep their heads down, etc all appear in these situations..

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Jimmy Saville, The Pope, and the 'coalition of the unwilling....'

The issue is no longer one of individual abusers. It is about a ‘culture of abuse’. And that includes, of course, how that ‘culture’ protects itself.

The Jimmy Saville story is all the more revealing because of the commentary on the story. The ‘comments’ sections, where attitudes are nakedly expressed, reveal that many of the arguments offered tend to be a mixture of considered opinion, knowledge, data, unexamined assumptions, bile, wilful ignorance and bigotry.

A cross section of our Society?

Including the trolls, of course...

What is clear is that there is a large constituency who are unable to look at the facts, the objective realities of Survivor testimony, of documentation of incidents and of cover-ups, across a vast range of settings where adults have power and access to children and a cover story. Very much akin to settings where politicians and corporate executives have power, access to cash and a cover story. There is a pattern here.Links to some of what we know....

http://www.express.co.uk/features/view/349976/The-disgusted-captain-who-threw-Jimmy-Savile-off-a-cruise-ship - anecdotal evidence from 45 years ago ....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2213636/Uncle-Jimmy-took-sick-parties-Nephew-tells-childhood-stolen-13.html#ixzz28V6p6JTy - nephew alleges Jimmy Saville took him to 'parties' where other children, men but no women "participated" until 3 or 4 am. Well past the watershed so beloved of the BBC!

http://timesopinion.tumblr.com/post/32804536645/jimmy-saviles-affections-laid-bare-by-jimmy-savile - Jimmy Saville describes an incident that suggests officials were turning a blind eye or that there may have been collusion by way of permitting the assaults, which continued.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/349975/BBC-aware-of-Jimmy-Saville-rumours-and-fears-in-1973 - BBC Top Management were aware of the 'rumours'.. well aware.

Catholic Jimmy Saville page removed from Christian site! - OOOOS! http://offerimustibidomine.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/sir-jimmy-savile-and-his-catholic-faith.html

It is on the record, part of our collective history. Standard practice.

Keep what ever it is, not matter how nasty, anything that might damage our image , keep it tightly under wraps, irrespective the gravity of the crime or the depth of consequence for those adversely affected or the number of people affected. KEEP A LID ON IT!

This I know also from my own experience .... many people have experienced that moment when I refused to accept what I knew about myself that I must change to be more fully human,only because I clung to an image of who I believed myself to be over knowing me. So Society at large clings to it's self image.Well folks, it's time to let go. Relax, make it easy. We can grow through this, collectively.Or is it this?

Don’t rock the boat, or threaten your income/job. This is partly how some of us, as employees who see some of the evidence,are ‘managed’.  Jobsworths. Fear.Whistle blowers are hounded. Bradley Manning. Julian Assange. Within any bureaucracy, within the party structures associated with Power and the exercise of Power, there is a threat implicit in what is called ‘team playing’: “he’s on our team, so we must protect him to protect the team.” That and job security. Workers have families. Mouths to feed. Old age to fear. More masked threats. Don't risk your job.

That unwillingness, that fear, that dependency helps the abuser culture survive. And thrive. By abuser culture I mean ALL abuse. It's a spectrum of behaviour from what some might 'mild' to extreme and lethal. It IS connected at the sociological psyche level. This quietness, this unwillingness,this sense of POWERLESSNESS? does not inspire confidence in Survivors, and I think it is a symptom of the disease with which we have been afflicted : the result of being coerced by situational circumstance into fitting into a diseased, pathological Institutional Power Structure, one that dominates our lives, and has proven that it will protect itself with violence even if in the legal and moral wrong. That twists us all, one way or another.

Power is not easily dislodged by power, as new power most often replaces the old power, and refines its messages so as to mask itself anew. Power can be dislodged when it is ignored, when it’s instructions no longer have any effect. When it’s wisdoms are seen as merely the controlling thoughts that are permitted for a position of relative comfort within the framework of the system, for those who are the ‘ruled’, as long as one is in passive participation with the pathological instructions. For the most part, those who are ruled over in Democracies are passive participants in Power.

When Survivors come forward to tell their stories, and we find that the evidence supports them, those Survivors are first and foremost refusing to participate with the pathological instructions. This takes immense courage. All Survivors experience a deep fear, an existential dread, for the earlier experience of powerlessness they lived through will have scarred them deeply, so deep it is oft written into their bodies at the neurological and cellular level. This is no easy wound to heal. It is one of the most debilitating wounds of all. Thus their recovery to the extent they report the crimes is already a massive achievement .... and it is only the beginning....

We all know that resignation/acceptance is the moment when one says “well, that’s the way it is, and always will be. I can do nothing to alter the situation.” That can be a relief for a survivor or a dysfunctional survival mechanism for anyone born into a pathological Institutional Power System (IPS).

The attitudes expounded in the public commentary reveal that dysfunctional survival is widely spread. This is part of the problem too.

An advocate for Survivors who were in care at Casa Pisa, in Lisbon, Portugal, whose abusers finally went to trial after many years, and the abuser was convicted, said this:

“I hope this day will allow us to show the country that the boys have told the truth from the start.”

That he felt the boys were doubted by so many is clear. That does not make reporting and pursuing justice easy at all. If anything it weights in favour of abusers, whose abuse is often made quite easy by others fearful or wilful ignorance.

Almost 1,000 witnesses were called during the trial, which critics say has exposed the sluggishness and inefficiency of the Portuguese justice system and shaken public trust in the country’s institutions.

The Survivors were not lying nor were they fabricating their stories.

This pattern of witnesses being disbelieved, obstructed, intimidated, ignored, turned away from and otherwise suppressed is being repeated in almost every State on the planet. This is a Societal matter to be reflected upon.Let MORE evidence emerge, and let those who protect and those who abuse and destroy children, condemn adults be revealed. Let's deal with them and at the same time, we can deal deal with our own issues about POWERLESSNESS and human empathy, about children as who they really, naturally are,  as individuals, families, communities, regions, states. I know this can be done, it is so much in the realm of practical material reality.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The meaning of Free Speech is not to be able to blurt out any old twaddle.

The issue of free speech is about enabling a fullest disclosure of all the facts related to any matter so that a critical analysis is possible. Critical analysis reveals that ordinary folk get hurt by how Power operates. People are hurt and

abused on ALL SIDES of War. THAT is the real issue here. Those who refuse a critical analysis, enable War.

I don't believe that the Jewish people as a group of people are behind this,(see Daniel below et al) but I do sense that Power has always used Religious devices to divide people, to mask their true intent.

Nor do I believe that Islam per se is a threat, any more than Christianity is a threat, or Judaism is a threat, or the spiritual practices of America's Aboriginal or Australian Aboriginal peoples peoples is a threat.

These are faiths, and on the personal level can be a guide in life.

Yet when they are allied with Power, they all become something different. It has to be said, based on the evidence, that Spiritual Ideologies that surpress the truth, even if it is accidental, can be a threat when they have access to Power.

In the 21st Century, when we know enough about children's psychological development, especially from birth and infancy onwards, when we know biologically mandated empathy requires a suitable nurturant environment for it's fullest expression, when we know so much more than the school texts provide on our collective histories, there is NO EXCUSE for the kinds of behaviour Power perpetrates in it's own agenda of retaining power.

Likewise, once the data - the outcome of true FREE SPEECH - has been presented to a person, they must address it or they are part of the problem.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Greatest gifts we can bequesth our children and descendants

It will take some time.

To change our culture, to bring empathy back to the core as the fundamental quality of our culture.

From the base, from how we frame ourselves as people, as parents and as children.

It WILL build as more people understand the importance of our earliest (and for most of us, forgotten) lived experiences.

The science and biology of empathy is now well established. The understand

ing of how human behaviour is mediated is likewise well established, though the mainstream still ignores it, as do most Power linked Religions.

Who can recall the DETAIL of their infancy - therein lies clues to our behaviours, our unconscious patterns and adaptations?

Vital information is there, about what we learned at the deepest pre-verbal visceral level, about Power, co-operation, empathy, sense of self.

Blaming parents for the ills of Society is a tactic that Institutional Society employs. To let itself off the hook.

That is not to say that abusive parents are to be let presented with excuses for behaviour that causes harm.

Rather it is a call to recognise that helping stressed parents understand their own infancy AND how the pressures imposed on them by work, economics, etc., increases the difficulties they face, is to recognise that helping parents to understand the natural emotional and psychic needs of their children and exploring how Institutional Society thwarts the meeting of those needs through war, indoctrination, poverty/concentration of wealth, media, marketing, coercive competitive schooling, hierarchical power will decrease the incidence of abuse for the majority of stressed parents.

Most parents do love their children, and many struggle with that love because the messages they received, that their grand parents and great grand parents and ancestors received about parenting were mediated by Institutional Society, and by Religion and by the adverse affects of unresolved trauma and there has never been a consistent effort to HELP parents resolve their own issues because those issues are often linked to how Institutional Power operates and thus affects so many lives.

Understanding that we all did not choose our families nor our society and have had to deal with any adverse affects by adapting, surviving, 'fitting in'. Understanding that intergenerational trauma patterns are a reality. Yet they are not written in stone.

We can break the cycle. We can recover our full humanity.

There is no greater gift to future generations.

There is no greater gift to oneself.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Some Adverse Effects of Compulsory Schooling.

The real danger in 'schooling' is in how the child's mind is slowly altered such that schooling appears normal, and as parents these children will send their children to school as if it were natural, normal. Thus patterns of obedience, hierarchical acceptance, peer pressure and bullying endure over generations. These all destroy community. 

This normalisation is neurological and physiological as much as it is psychological. The child's neurology and physicality slowly 'adapts' to the environment of schooling (a natural enough process, it's part of growing and knowing the world through the body as a total sensory entity - yet the schooling environment lacks key experiential learnings related to embodied self knowledge, and this distorts all who pass through it to greater or lessor degree -)

In seeking to address this distortion, regaining a trust of embodied self knowledge and self empathy is vital. 

 That process cannot be predicted, medicalised, therapeuted. 

It cannot be packaged, sold nor can it become an ideological end. 

It can be supported, mostly by honesty, healthful diet, good friends, closeness with nature, and it is truly a process that is the natural base of healthy community - a community that knows itself.

There are many people who assert that humanity is threatened not least by a 'herd' mentality, a 'primitive instinct' that wants to follow, to 'fit in', which has no place in a superior individualistic world-view. 

Well, this is much less a matter of natural instinct, and much more a matter of conditioning. a matter of the distortion of our innate biological mandate towards empathic self awareness; and with that, empathy as a perceptive ability.

Trauma related behaviours such as poverty, war, schooling, marketing, religious indoctrination, ideological indoctrination are all exercised in the most part through the agency of Institutional Power....

The matter is too important to future generations, let alone those who live today, for it to be treated with any degree of flippancy, outside of using comedy to sweeten a rather bitter pill... the pill of truth.

'Herding'  as the term is used most often, is not a human 'instinct' - it is a LEARNED behaviour...it is pure scientific flippancy to assert otherwise.

It is also a a term when used too often is one that dehumanises people, and this inevitably leads to a dulling of any sense of empathy, which itself feeds the system of Power.

It's not surprising so many do feel this way, that there's a human 'instinct' that is problematic since it's what the Christian nations have been telling themselves for thousands of years..  "You must beat the devil out of the child to save the child for God."

It takes time for such a corrosive pathology to heal. It takes, above all, honesty. Scientific honesty. It's time that all 'schooling' be made subject to some Scientific Honesty.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Nature is Nurturant, and in constant communication..

All of Nature is in communication,  all of what is alive is intelligent and in general all living organisms are engaged in nurturant behaviour, that is nurturing each other. We are aature, more than we are the illusion of ‘civilised’ which we are taught to believe in, which we internalise through the many ways of social conditioning of this culture.

This short video explores some of this concept - nurturant communication - in relation to trees, fungi and forests. There is plenty more evidence of this to be found across the globe, where scientists and others have been engaged in honest exploration.

Our human biology is mandated towards empathy - trust is the default mode of the social being - a form of empathy which is at core an ability to sense the content of the other, because we are experienced. We experience ourselves, and that informs how we respond to the other, in terms of meeting biological needs, in terms of appropriate nurturant behaviour.

This ability is founded on the experience of self empathy - the ability to sense one's own being at all levels and to accurately reflect this outwards = honesty, transparency, congruency. 

Of course this is a skill set learned by the healthy child in the loving embrace of healthy parents, in a health egalitarian mode society. It is not a genetically pre-programmed behavioural dynamic. We learn this.

In recognising the preciousness to me of my life, of my lived experience I recognise that in others, not merely as an intellectual exercise, but as a lived and felt visceral experiential. 

Thus hunting and eating animals, or eating plants can be understood to be part of the processes of life nurturing life for all life, and that these processes can be respected for what they are. Gratitude for the gift of sustenance informs the Natural Hunter, cruelty is generally avoided, and with that respect for the hunted and their particular community, as well as their place in the community of all life.

Hunting is not about dominance, it is not about hierarchy. To interpret natural hunting as such is to project the taught (and internalised) concepts of the 'civilised' onto nature.

The reason the 'civilised' teach this projection with such force is to underpin their error, to make their error seem otherwise and to remove from view any evidence that there is a way of life that emerges from Nature that is empathy based.

Empathy is the experience that Power fears the most, because it can bind people together as they seek to liberate themselves, it can inform people as to the humanity of those Power calls 'the enemy' and it can also inform people as to the psychology of those who hold Power, exposing their frailties and inadequacies in ways that those seeking liberation can utilise.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY : A presentation

‎

NATURAL CHILD, NATURAL SOCIETY

A Talk given on May 23rd 20122 @ Inspiring Minds Forum,  Mango Landin', London

1. The Psychology of any emergent or given Society/Community/Family is both revealed, and perpetuated, in how that group treats it's children, and especially it's most vulnerable people... address that and you can change the whole society. Failure to address this where it is toxic ensures it's continuation.  Eg: Aboriginal Residential Schools were intentionally designed to alter Aboriginal Society forever. Compulsory Schooling has the same purpose.   John Taylor Gatto “Underground History of American Education” www.johntaylorgatto.com

2. Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, David Cameron, George Osborne, George Bush, Richard Nixon, Tony Blair etc  : What happened to these people when they were ‘in utero’, at birth, when they were babies, infants, toddlers, children, teenagers…. that they turned out like they have? This is a crucial question for each of us and for our culture. Alice Miller “For Your Own Good” http://www.nospank.net/fyog.htm

3. The disruption of the biologically mandated child-mother bonding process sets up a chain of events, leading to emergent violence. Attachment ‘theory’ research on primates.
   
   The flow is as follows: if the child is not related to in ways that nurture self-empathy, then the development of a loss of self-empathy occurs. With that loss comes a loss of empathy for others, a sense of disconnection is felt and with that comes more fear, compounding the fear the trauma generated.
   
   The compounded, layered fear leads directly to a perceived (often unconscious) need to control others and to control the environment.
   
   As all natural organisms are autonomous, self directing growing beings, so too they will resist, to one degree or another, efforts to control them. That resistance generates the use of violence or coercion to impose or retain that control.
   
   In human family or society, if this pattern starts, and is not resolved, then each successive generation will impose that control, and those who hold Power will seek to enhance it, learning as time passes, and the children will grow up in an environment that they will 'adapt' to, the situation demanding the internalisation of that psychological need to control. Anthropology – James Prescott - http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html
   
   
4. What baby/child/person would not be angry, confused or frightened at not experiencing the experientials our biology has mandated? Think of the child left to cry him/her self to sleep in a room away from his or her parents, to scream and cry until finally exhaustion brings sleep. Is this not a common practice in our culture? What of the resignation, the suppression of that rage, the loss of self empathy which ensues from that suppression which is a common outcome of such a practice? Adrenaline, Cortisol vs Oxytocin
   
   Thus the need to control then gets transmitted through the structure of that family or society and over time becomes codified, normalised, embedded, institutionalised. Empire, Hierarchically Violent Societies.

             SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS

5.  Why has neither the general public nor the secular authorities not moved to confront the Vatican on it’s record of child abuse within it’s Organisation? Linkage of Hierarchical Power Systems.
6. What does this tell us about our Society? Psychological core or root.
7. Why has natural birthing been replaced with ever increasing utilisation of ‘ceasarian section’ as an elective procedure, as a matter of choice? http://www.birthpsychology.com
8. What does coercion of children speak of?   Insecurity, mistrust, fear.
9. Why is Society left out of the therapeutic process? http://www.davidsmail.info/talk01a.htm

Social-Behavioral Characteristics Of Affectionate/Nurturant And Non-Affectionate/Non-Nurturant Primitive Cultures by James W. Prescott

http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Social-Behavioral_Characteristics.pdf

James W. Prescott is a developmental neuropsychologist and a cross-cultural psychologist who received his doctorate in psychology from McGill University, Montreal, P.Q. Canada. He served as Assistant Head, Physiological Psychology Branch, Office of Naval Research (1963-1966); as Health Scientist Administrator, Developmental Behavioral Biology Program, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH (1966-1980); and President, Maryland Psychological Association (1970-1971). He was the recipient of the "Outstanding Contributions To Psychology Award, Maryland Psychological Association (1977); the CINE GOLDEN EAGLE AWARD for his contributions, as Scientific Director, to the award winning Time-Life film, "Rock A Bye Baby" (1971); and has given expert testimony on the origins of human violence, particularly domestic violence, before the Senate of Canada; the U.S. Congress; and many other legislative and professional organizations.

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

1. Martrilineal

2. Polygyny has low incidence

3. Women's status not inferior

4. Low avoidance of In-Laws

5. Low incidence of Mother-Child households

6. Small community size

7. Low societal complexity

8. Large extended family

9. Wives are not purchased

10. Slavery absent

11. Grand-parental authority over parents is absent

12. Subsistence is primarily by food gathering

13. Low class stratification

14. Political integration at community and family level

15. Metal working is absent

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

16. High infant physical affection

17. Low infant physical pain

18. High infant indulgence

19. High reduction of infant needs

20. Immediate reduction of infant needs

21. Low infant/child crying

22. Prolonged breast-feeding over 21/z years

23. Low child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior

24. Low child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior

25. High smiling, laughter, humor

26. Low anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood

27. High number of food taboos during pregnancy

28. Abortion permitted

29. Strength of desire for children is low

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

30. Premarital coitus permitted

31. Extramarital coitus permitted

32. Post-partum sex taboo less than one month

33. Sex disability absent

34. Castration anxiety is low

35. Low sex anxiety

36. Narcissicism is low

37. Low exhibitionistic dancing

SOCIETAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

1. Patrilineal

2. Polygyny has high incidence

3. Women's status inferior

4. High avoidance of In-Laws

5. High incidence of Mother-Child households

6. High community size

7. High societal complexity

8. Small extended family

9. Wives are purchased

10. Slavery present

11. Grand-parental authority over parents is present

12. Subsistence is primarily by food production

13. High class stratification

14. Political integration at state level

15. Metal working is present

INFANT/CHILD CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

16. Low infant physical affection

17. High infant physical pain

18. Low infant indulgence

19. Low reduction of infant needs

20. Delayed reduction of infant needs

21. High infant/child crying

22. Breast-feeding less than 21/a years

23. High child anxiety over performance of responsible behavior

24. High child anxiety over performance of obedient behavior

25. Low smiling, laughter, humor

26. High anxiety over transition: infancy/childhood

27. Low or no food taboos during pregnancy

28. Abortion highly punished

29. Strength of desire for children is high

SEXUAL BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

30. Premarital coitus punished

31. Extramarital coitus punished

32. Post-partum sex taboo greater than one month

33. Sex disability present

34. Castration anxiety is high

35. High sex anxiety

36. Narcissism is high

37. High exhibitionistic dancing

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

38. Low adult physical violence

39. Low or no warfare

40. Low military glory

41. Bellicosity is low

42. Low or absent killing, torture, mutilation

43. Low personal crime

44. Incidence of theft is low

WAR/VIOLENCE/CRIME CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

38. High adult physical violence

39. High warfare

40. Military glory emphasized

41. Bellicositiy is extreme

42. High killing, torture, mutilation

43. High personal crime

44. Incidence of theft is high

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

HIGH AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

45. High God is mainly absent

46. Low or no religious activity

47. Superordinate justice absent

48. Supernatural are benevolent

49. Fear of humans rather than fear of supernatural

50. Belief in reincarnation absent

51. Low ascetecism in mourning

52. Witchcraft low or absent

53. Religious specialists are part-time

NOTE: The above social-behavioral characteristics of primitive cultures have been derived from: R.B. Textor (1967) A Cross-Cultural Summary, HRAF Press New Haven.

JUSTICE/RELIGIOUS/SUPERNATURAL CHARACTERISTICS

LOW AFFECTIONATE/NURTURANT CULTURES

45. High God is present

46. High religious activity

47. Superordinate justice present

48. Supernatural are aggressive

49. Fear of supernatural rather than fear of humans

50. Belief in reincarnation present

51. High ascetecism in mourning

52. Witchcraft highly present

53. Religious specialists are full time

Matrilineal cultures are those where inheritance follows the female line; Polygynous cultures are those where men have several wives and is a measure of sexual exploitation and control of women by men; High desire for children is a measure that reflects exploitation of children: high value of male and female fertility; and use of children as economic resource, thus, its linkage with abortion being punished. Presence of a Supernatural (High God) with high religious activity in low affectionate/nurturant cultures reflects the need for "divine love" when human love is absent or significantly diminished. Similarity, God is made unto the image and likeness of man — violent cultures have violent Gods; peaceful cultures have peaceful/benevolent Gods.

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BIOLOGY

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN NATURE AS A WHOLE?

FALSE LOGIC OF THE ‘EXCEPTION’?

H.ORMONES - THE HEART AS  HORMONAL REGULATOR, OCYTOCIN, ADNERALINE, CORTISOL, DISRUPTION OF NATURAL STRESS MECHANISMS

THE HEART AS A COGNITIVE ORGAN OF PERCEPTION – HOW THIS WORKS, BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY.

ADAPTATION AS A LEARNING PROCESS:  NOT ‘HIT AND MISS’, NOT ‘RANDOM’, BUT EXTREMELY PRECISE.

NEUROPLASTICITY – WHAT DOES THAT TELL US ABOUT ‘ADAPTATION’?

BEHAVIOUR

TRAUMA CYCLES AND BEHAVIOURS – COPING AND RECOVERY.

SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR PATTERNS – HOW THEY EVOLVE.

INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA PATTERNS – WHY THEY PERSIST.

INSTITUTIONALISATION – GLORIFICATION OF WAR, POWER, HATRED, PROPERTY.

ANTHROPOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL EMPATHY – PARENTING, MEMORY OF CHILDHOOD, EXPERIENCE OF CARING IN EMPATHIC ABORIGINAL SOCIETIES, BACTERIA, EMPATHY AS A BODY-SENSORY EXPERIENCE,

WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT? WHAT ARE WE DOING AND WHY ARE WE DOING IT?

CHILD ‘REARING’ – POISONOUS PEDAGOGY, ELITE PRACTICE.

TRADING ON PARENTS FEARS – WHAT ARE THOSE FEARS?

JAMES PRESCOTT’S WORK WITH JOHN BOLWBY,AND BEYOND …

RESURGENCE IN ABORIGINAL MOTHERING, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE.

SOLUTIONS

PARENTING – TRUST IN OUR BIOLOGICAL MANDATE.

IF PARENTS CAN UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION THEY ARE PLACED IN AND HOW IT CAN HARM THEIR CHILDREN, WILL THEY ACT ON WHAT THEY KNOW?

WILL THEY ACT CONSTRUCTIVELY OR DESTRUCTIVELY?

COMMUNITY – HOW NATURE FUNCTIONS.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATION WE ARE IN – AVOIDING THE COMFORT OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FANTASY OR IDEOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS, STICKING TO RELIABLE PROOFS.

EMPATHY AND SELF EMPATHY IN SELF GOVERNANCE.

RAISING CHILDREN WHO WILL RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT.

REALISM : START WITH SELF, EXTEND OUTWARDS LOCALLY.

TIME AND PROCESS, NATURE AS A CUE, AND AS A SOURCE OF CLUES.

CONFRONTING ‘RECEIVED WISDOM’ WITH DATA, EXPERIENCE, EMPATHY.

NOTE : Another component of the heart-brain communication system was provided by researchers studying the hormonal system. The heart was reclassified as an endocrine gland when, in 1983, a hormone produced and released by the heart called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) was isolated.

This hormone exerts its effect on the blood vessels, on the kidneys, the adrenal glands, and on a large number of regulatory regions in the brain. It was also found that the heart contains a cell type known as 'intrinsic cardiac adrenergic'' (ICA) cells. Theses cells release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters, once thought to be produced only by neurons in the CNS.

More recently, it was discovered that the heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the 'love' or bonding hormone. In addition to its functions in childbirth and lactation, recent evidence indicates that this hormone is also involved in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviours, learning social cues and the establishment of enduring pair bonds. Concentrations of oxytocin in the heart were found to be as high as those found in the brain.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Mitt Romney : Cycles of abuse, Remorse or Denial, and Power

In The Rumpus, Steve Almond wrote a wonderfully clear piece about Mitt Romney, a Republican Presidential Candidate in the USA, concerning Romneys abusive behaviour (high school pranks) as a teenager. It is called THE WEEK IN GREED #6: To Behave Like the Fallen World

This piece is not so much about Romney as about the lack of empathy which we see all the time in those who assume or take power into their hands, be it national, international or at the local level or even within our own families, and the great difficulty the rest of us have when it comes to dealing with this, and the adverse outcomes for so many people of this dynamic.

Alice Miller wrote many books about how, if as  child, one is bullied or mistreated by parents, by Institutions, by society, or by circumstance and one is unable to resolve the situation, that suppression of one's true feelings becomes a mechanism of psychic survival, and this leaves the feelings anger, grief and sadness still alive, yet masked, buried, hidden from awareness.

These hidden, buried feelings then start to colour how one behaves towards oneself and others. The anger can be directed against oneself (shame, self loathing) or against the next generation, or against one's own children or against some 'other': the enemy 'created' by those in power as the receiver of these unresolved feelings, especially the anger and rage.

The problem is compounded by the fact that until these feelings are resolved, they remain alive within, and that even if a person acts out that anger, it will remain available for re-stimulation, again and again.

Alice Miller showed how this experience of mistreatment, abuse, trauma can become an intergenerational pattern, (the children of traumatised parents will grow up within that PTSD psychological environment, and whilst not all turn out with such adverse behaviours, many do, usually due to the lack of an ameliorating presence, what Miller calls an 'enlightened witness', certainly enough to populate systems of power and oppression, to fill the ranks of armies and paramilitary groups, often claiming 'it is for your own good') and others have written about Historical Trauma to show how any community that is traumatised can find itself traumatising it's own children, or each other, in a cycle of abuse and neglect.

This is akin to Lateral Violence, where violence erupts between those who have been subject to abuse from a more Powerful source which they cannot counter. Lateral Violence also occurs in hierarchical bureaucracies, in care systems.

Others have shown how Power can utilise that distressed behaviour to lay blame on those who show the signs of distress in addiction, obesity, psychological distress, inability to conform to 'standards' - people who are used as examples of how not to behave in conformity with 'a fallen world'.

And then there's the history of Power creating enemies to bind the people over whom Power has traction.

This is a very large part of what drives politics and power.

The writers own admission and remorse is the healing of all this, and is the kind of response required to lead towards ending the intergenerational re-traumatising cycles.

It is based on self-empathy.

For to feel the pain of another, beyond mere intellectual comprehension (compassion), is based on one's own sense of pain. And to feel remorse for hurt caused, is to understand that the others pain is real and visceral; it is a living sensation that pain has the same effect on the other as it does to oneself, and that one would not wish that upon any other any more than one would wish it upon oneself.

Expecting those who seek Power to have empathy is folly. Recognising this, it becomes essential to heal this dynamic in oneself as a personal praxis and study of power and oppression, and where it truly matters and where it can be extended is at the grass roots, in one's own life, one's own family and one's community.

If this can be done, then Power will find itself without the necessary accomplices, without which it cannot act.

From the comments on the piece (and elsewhere when such matters are raised), we can see that some people are yet willing to minimise what happened in Romney's case as being in the past, as being high school bullying, as being minor in comparison to the larger issues.

This is not the case. These events are linked in the lives of so many Power leaders, from the Kings of England, the Emperors of Rome, from Hitler to Stalin. And they are linked in the lives of the many people who populate bureaucracies of power.

The Vatican's 'response' to the testimony of courageous Survivors or clerical abuse is another example of this dynamic.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Letter : We should be grateful to Survivors who have spoken out.

A Chara,

The recent arrests of three men accused of sexual abuse of children at Carrignavar Boarding School reveals what has been studiously avoided by so many, that abuse was just as prevalent in fee paying boarding schools as it was in Industrial Schools. I know, as I attended five 'elite' fee paying Catholic boarding schools for 12 years.

Perhaps the reasons for this avoidance are two fold.

There are some who went to those schools, who were abused, though not sexually, and who to this day would claim that the experience made them the men they are today.

The second reason might be that some of these alumni of the 'better sort of boarding school' have been or are still in positions of power and prestige, and their lack of self empathy might affect their willingness to face the truth of their own experience, let alone the truth of Survivors testimony.

Perhaps it also affected and still affects their decision making in other areas, especially with regard to Governance, in that a lack of self empathy runs concurrent with a lack of empathy for others.

It is clear to all and sundry that Irish Governance has demonstrated a clear lack of empathy for the people of Ireland for a long time.

Perhaps the courage of Survivors who have spoken out, even when others have refused to accept their testimony, might be seen as part of the healing of Irish society, leading us all towards greater empathy.

We should be grateful.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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