The German people during the late 1920s and 1930s, as Hitler was elevated into Power, at a time when Eugenics was a respected 'scientific' ideology amongst many, many ruling elites and everyday people across the world. The German people could see what was happening, and yet so many simply turned a blind eye to the growing abuses perpetrated by the movement of which Hitler was a figurehead, and actually worked within that system as the managers, clerks and manual labourers necessary for such a system to function. What had they learned about abusive power in their childhoods that made them so compliant with so obviously abusive Governance?
The 'American' European People during the forced removal of the Aboriginal Peoples of North America and Canada, (and ever since), and the 'Australian' European People regarding the oppression of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. Where did they get the idea that the Aboriginal people were sub-human and could be so cruelly treated?
The Western World in general with regard to the Aboriginal World - the portrayal of those cultures as 'savage' or 'primitive' as a whole, and therefore suitable for
'assimilation' or 'extirpation'. And the denial of that vast historical trauma, as well as the claim that it belongs to previous generations, to the past, while in reality it is still
being practised.
The Irish of the 20th and 21st Century regarding the
political realities of the Irish 'Famine's of the mid 19th Century. The incidence of potato blight was intentionally utilised to depopulate Ireland, and to populate the USA and Australia by mass immigration, in essence to provide cheap labour for the expansionism of the Empires of commerce. This reveals to those with eyes to see the pattern of intentional cruelty and manipulation that led directly to the partition of Ireland, the Civil War and belies the carefully crafted illusion of Ireland's entry into the modern world of statehood and a friendly relationship between the installed Powers in Ireland's State with those Powers that had so cruelly abused the indigenous Irish for so long. Forget about the truth, there is money to be made.
The long term intergenerational trauma of this experience had horrific consequences for hundreds of thousands of Irish children placed in the 'care' of Church and State Institutions. This is still a taboo subject in polite Irish Society. Why?
The Catholic world-wide congregation's
response in the past 30 years as the 'scandal' of widespread, centuries long, child abuse unfolds and as the Catholic Hierarchy continues to
refuse to address the matter honestly and honourably. How can so much be known about this horrific history and so little be done to address it, not least by the people outside of that Institution, whose own family members were victimised?
The Western World post
"Silent Spring'... The 'green revolution' has surged forwards since then, unabated. Birdsong is ever rarer. Bee populations are falling. Monsanto is still pushing GMO crops and Supermarket giants and Pharmaceutical Corporations are determining agricultural practice, whilst the adverse health affects are costing National health Services more every year. How can such an insane and obviously damaging practice prevail for so long?
The Western World in the lead up to, and during the Afghan and Iraq Wars, during the bombing of Libya. There were no WMD in Iraq, there is no solid evidence that 9/11 was planned and executed from within Afghanistan, and the threat of massive civilian slaughter in Benghazi is proven to have been a fabrication. David Cameron sold Military technology and weapons the the Egyptian Military which has been used to oppress the Egyptian people since the 'fall' of Mubarak. Why do people buy these lies about 'bringing democracy' tot he Arab world?
The widespread denial of the
wounds associated with Coercive Compulsory Schooling Systems. 'Our' schools are failing children, punishing them with target based achievement training designed to put the children under intense psychological pressure; bullying is rampant and schools unwilling to admit the scale of the problem, let alone address it's roots in peer pressure that is largely driven by consumer marketing and media propaganda. Ritalin is the tool of choice to control those children whose energy and vitality and frustration threatens the illusion that schools are educational institutions, as opposed to doctrinal training centres. How can so many parents be blind to the problems their own children are faced with every day?
To suggest that it is merely a question of 'comforts' that accrue to those who benefit in some way from the status quo is to avoid a deeper analysis, as to the psycho-dynamics of denial. It might be comforting to some who might claim, in their own minds, to be ready for a down grading of their own comforts, for the benefit of all, which might also be yet another way of claiming the 'higher moral ground', of self aggrandisement. Ruthless self honesty is essential here.
Alice Miller was the first modern writer to look at Germany and to elucidate the psycho-dynamic that fed the situation in Germany, and to source it's roots in how children were treated, and how parents were instructed by societal power in their relationships with children. Her book
"For Your Own Good : The roots of Violence in Child Rearing" is one of the most important books of the 20th Century. She showed that when an adult mistreats a child, telling the child repeatedly that "This is for your own good!" the child internalises the meaning and values associated with the mistreatment and adopts them as her or his own, and that makes it more likely that as an adult they too will mistreat their own children, and that this occurs as an intergenerational behaviour pattern that is oppressive.
The child's natural anger at such mistreatment is suppressed by the child, and emerges in the adult as a diffuse anger that is unresolved and that can and is used by Power to manipulate hatred and anger towards 'others' who are carefully demonised, thus giving permission to a whole generation to attack those defined as 'others' : jews, gays, communists in Hitler's era; protestors, muslims, immigrants and 'terrorists' today in Great Britian.
James Prescott and
John Bowlby researched the impact of the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding processes and to link those disruptions to how societies behave, and provided clear evidence that the disruption of the natural child-mother bonding processes underpinned
the emergence of Hierarchically Violent Societies
Prescott's 1975 paper 'The Origins of Violence' revealed two streams of society: the Hierarchically Violent Society and the Empathic Egalitarian Society.
Here's a
brief outline of the differences he observed.
That research is now corroborated to some degree, though there are some doubts and questions yet to be answered, by
neuroscience, by
pre-natal developmental science and
birth psychology.
The adverse behaviour patterns that have been perpetuated, that lead to the problems of Habitat degradation - of which Climate Change is but one symptom - have their roots in this disruption of natural, biologically mandated environmental and experiential processes that disrupt our natural maturation and development of sense of self, and of connection to others.
The psychology of any given society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that society treats it's children and most vulnerable members.
Change this and we change everything.
Failure to change this, and we will only create new rules with which to oppress each other, thinking all the time that our rules are better justified.
We have many, many examples of this 'revolutionary' approach and the abuses it perpetuates, from the French revolution to Pol Pot.
Healing and Recovery cannot be coerced, they must be chosen. It is also true that healing and recovery benefit greatly from adequate empathic and practical support, and it is true that some few have been able to engage their healing and recovery without much support, often in the face of strong opposition.
Loss of self empathy and the urge to power - a short
video. :
We, all of us, have much work to do, in many areas. And for our children's children's sake it must be, above all, honest.
That honesty is the cleaning up of our internal personal ecology as much as the external.
Who benefits if we demonise the 'racists' whilst power tramples over EVERYONE?
Diane Abbot, and the Editors of The Guardiuan and other Newspapers, (and their readerships) would do well to read Paolo Friere's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed' and actually take some of it in. Though they'd very quickly find themselves unemployed if they did so and acted on what Friere wrote, which is truth and beauty, REAL power.... the power to become fully human.
I am appalled at the craven nature of this discourse.