Internalised Values.

I was born in 1959, in Catholic Ireland, a system of Religious and Political control rooted in unresolved trauma.

A PTSD Culture. Intergenerational Trauma describes how children born to traumatised parents grow into that PTSD psychology, because children must as the environment presents.


The 'phrase' : "One must sometimes be cruel to be kind" ..... as opposed to "it is cool to be kind".

 
Having internalised the values of the system into which I was born, (as is 'normal' ) I adjusted to shame, I became guilt ridden, fearful, grasping, envious, angry, spiteful; I behaved like a bully and tried to exercise control over those 'close to me' on a minute by minute basis to meet my unresolved need, the need for self empathy, a need I did not understand.

Thus it was a need I could not meet. 


I tried to 'fit in'. I wanted to 'survive'.

The concept of 'thriving' was unknown to me.
 
Because in internalising those values I became less human, less humane. I learned to mimic love whilst feeling only fear, whilst burying the fear..... 

I carried off the illusion by 'being nice', by conforming, even though I had a ferocious temper, an irrational spark that ignited from time to time.

I became firstly religious, then ideological.. Then I became a technocrat, and even an 'atheist'.

All the while I rejected any exposure of this internalisation, accidental or intentional, as an attack on my very psyche.

I ran from love because I could not love myself. I could not love myself because those who had 'reared' me could not provide a living example of what they themselves did not know. Self empathy.

What love I thought I felt was in reality an insecure attachment to a projected image, a fantasy I nurtured within which was mirrored in the fantasies, stories and mythology of the system into which I was born. I adapted and adjusted.

I bought the products, I read the novels, I watched the movies. These reinforced the internalisations of the system. I thought I was safe.

Then I broke down. I did not understand why I broke down and thus was frightened, terrorised by my own need to grow more human, more humane.

I broke down a number of times before I was able to start finding myself, through understanding what had happened to me as a child, and how I had reacted to that, how I 'adapted' unconsciously to 'survive', to 'fit in'.

It took a long time, with many pitfalls and many tears, many nightmares and many dead ends, to examine what I had internalised and to let those internalisations fall away, to die to the system, to compost my trauma, to begin to nurture my own present, and my children's present, my own future and the futures of my children and their children in turn.

I did not do this by challenging the system, by protesting, though these are indeed necessary actions. Quite often my protest was incoherent, my challenges based on 'morality' rather than insight.

Fracking is inhumane.

Fracking is a symptom of a disease state.

Fracking is all about profit and power as substitutes and toxic mimes for being truly human, being truly alive; a toxic mime of natural self mastery.

'Progress' is a toxic mime of nurturing life. Civilisation is a toxic mime of the fecundity of the natural world.

The frackers are dehumanised people. To end fracking they must be exposed, somehow, to a humanising experience, largely of their own choosing. An aware choice is the only means to break free from the dehumanising situation they are in.

Protesting is a first step in that direction, it is an invitation to become more human. It is a gift.

The toxic mime of self mastery that is 'progress' involves mastering others through coercion. This is what war is all about. This is what teachers are taught as teaching. Policemen as policing. Politicians as Governance. Priests as Spirituality. Coercion can be psychological as much as physical.

The pathological will always ignore the costs others pay for the pathological behaviour in order to protect themselves from full awareness of themselves, to preserve the illusion they live within. I did. For a long time.

The system will not change voluntarily because it IS a system, an unconsciously built construct, a box, a thing which has no real life, that is not truly living for it cannot nurture the world which it fears, and tries to control. It will not respond to protest other than to broker a deal for it's own survival, and it's reactions are lethal.

Iraq, Libya, Egypt. All in the name of 'democracy'. The War on Terror, the War on Drugs. All in the name of protecting the people. Lies. Santa Claus.

The necessary lies of those who have internalised the values of the system. The Daily Mail. The Vatican. Myself.

When I lied to myself I was trapped. When I let the truth in, my escape was made more likely, though not inevitable.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

10 PREMISES


THESE ARE 10 BASIC PREMISES BASED ON EVIDENCE WHICH INFORMS MY WRITINGS.


1. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANY GIVEN SOCIETY, COMMUNITY OR FAMILY IS BOTH REVEALED AND PERPETUATED IN HOW THAT SOCIETY, COMMUNITY OR FAMILY RELATES TO AND TREATS THE CHILDREN. CHANGE THAT AND YOU CHANGE THE ENTIRE SOCIETY.

2. OUR BIOLOGY IS MANDATED TOWARDS EMPATHY, AUTONOMY, SENSITIVITY, CONNECTION, SELF MASTERY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NURTURING RELATIONSHIPS THROUGH OBSERVING, LEARNING AND EXPERIENCE, IN LINE WITH OPTIMUM BIOLOGICAL HEALTH OF THE HUMAN ORGANISM AND SPECIES, LIVING WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT, AS PART OF THAT ENVIRONMENT.

3. BEHAVIOUR IS LARGELY DETERMINED BY EXPERIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT. BOTH HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT DEVELOPMENT, TO TRIGGER EITHER OPTIMUM HEALTH OR PATHOLOGY. DNA OR GENETICS DOES NOT DETERMINE BEHAVIOUR AS MUCH AS ENVIRONMENT OR EXPERIENCE.

4. IF A CHILD IS PRESENTING SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC DISTRESS THAT TELLS US THAT THE BIOLOGICAL MANDATE GOVERNING THE NATURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THAT CHILD IS BEING DISRUPTED.

5. RESOLUTION OF THE FACTORS CAUSING CHRONIC DISTRESS HAS TO BE THE TOP PRIORITY BECAUSE THAT LEADS TO PREVENTION AS WELL AS SYMPTOM ALLEVIATION. MOVING TOWARDS PREVENTION MUST ALWAYS BE THE GUIDING PRINCIPLE. EACH CASE IS UNIQUE, AND MUST BE RESPONDED TO UNIQUELY.

6. INSTITUTIONAL SOCIETY TELLS US TO MONITOR, LABEL, CONTROL AND SUPPRESS CHRONIC SYMPTOMS OF DISTRESS, AND IN SO DOING WE ARE INADVERTENTLY DIRECTED TO AVOID ADDRESSING THE CAUSES. THIS RESULTS IN CRUELTY. THIS IS WHOLLY AVOIDABLE.

7. INSTITUTIONAL SOCIETY PERMITS THIS CRUELTY (BY AVOIDING RECOGNISING IT AS CRUELTY) BECAUSE IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT THE CAUSES OF DISTRESS WHICH ARE TRACEABLE TO INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES AND ACTION REMAIN HIDDEN, IN ORDER TO PROTECT INSTITUTIONAL IMAGE, STATUS AND POWER.

eg: THE VATICAN. TONY BLAIR. JIMMY SAVILLE. ETC.,  - IN  OTHER WORDS, THIS CRUELTY IS DEEMED ACCEPTABLE BECAUSE IT PROTECTS THESE INSTITUTIONS.

8. GRASS ROOTS ACTION IN TAKING ON PARENTING WITH CURRENT AWARENESS AND UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENTIFIC AND COMMON-SENSE FACTS CONCERNING CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT WITH A VIEW TO PROVIDING THE NURTURING ENVIRONMENT OUR BIOLOGICAL MANDATES IS POSSIBLE.

9. GRASS ROOTS ACTION, BEHAVIOUR AND LOBBYING ON THIS ISSUE IS ALSO POSSIBLE. HOMESCHOOLERS HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES TO BE EXTREMELY EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE LOBBYISTS, WHEN THEIR CULTURE WAS THREATENED WITH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTIONS WHICH WOULD HAVE UNDERMINED WHAT THEY ARE DOING AT THE GRASS ROOTS. THEIR ACTIVISM LED TO THE LARGEST NUMBER OF PETITIONS PRESENTED TO PARLIAMENT EVER RECORDED. ALL PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN CAN BECOME PART OF AN EFFECTIVE LOBBYING MOVEMENT WITHIN SOCIETY.

10. INSTITUTIONAL SOCIETY IS ITSELF AN EXPRESSION OF UNRESOLVED PTSD ISSUES. IT IS A SERIES OF CONSTRUCTS, IMAGINAL, SOCIAL AND MATERIAL, WHICH REFLECT AND PROJECT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A SYMPTOMATIC TRAUMA SURVIVOR - AT SCALE - 

11. AND AS WE SEE THE INSITIUTIONAL POWER SYSTEM IS BARELY COPING WITH THE SITUATION: IT IS PRETENDING TO BE OK. IT IS OVER-CONTROLLING ALL THOSE WITHIN IT WHO ARE DRAWING ATTENTION TO THE SYMPTOMS. IT IS DENYING THE CAUSES. IT IS EXERCISING POWER TO SUPPRESS ANY SIGNS OF A DISCLOSURE OF THE PRETENCE. IT IS EXPLAINING AWAY THE UNDERLYING PAIN, FEAR AND GRIEF, WHICH THEREFORE REMAINS UNRESOLVED. 



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Roots of Empathy: Introduction ... an example of the resolution of loss of empathy

Roots of Empathy is an evidence-based classroom program that has shown significant effect in reducing levels of aggression among school children while raising social/emotional competence and increasing empathy.




http://www.rootsofempathy.org/

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Taboo


I will present to you an example of what I describe as a clear articulation of where responsibility lies for changes regarding what I call a socially accepted unacceptable behaviour. Indoctrination.



This beautiful insight was written by David Smail, in his book "The Origins of Unhappiness - A New Understanding of Personal Distress"

I think this book ought to be required reading for every teenager, before they leave school.

This paragraph is about where the locus of a problem really lies.

It is not that some people make up a story and then claim that they feel gender in their own way, and that this is a problem to be solved - it is that some authority in society determines gender must be felt in a given way, as prescribed, as pre-written by the culture, which is external to the person and that the person must conform.

We  are conditioned, we are expected to internalise the external description and assumptions of the culture as if it came out from us. My true sense of being male or female emerges from within me. It is not what I am told being male or female should be by others. It is what I feel, and it is there before words are used to express it.

Racism is another example.

A blind person of any human skin tone, meeting other blind people of any other tone will notice no difference. Why do those who see, notice a difference? Because they have internalised an external definition. They are no long feeling who they are, they are feeling who they have been told to feel they are.

It's crucial to be very clear in this regard, because there are many distracting threads that lead away from this, that get bogged down in sectarianism, misapprehensions and disinformation.

Racism is an external definition created by one precise group of people who demand that others internalise that external definition, and then believe it to be truly coming from within themselves, as if it were natural.

White people who wish to confront Racism must speak to those white people who promote race as a distinction, and make it perfectly clear that the Racists are the ones who must make the change.

Racism is a problem of white ruling culture, and remaining unresolved, it is a problem for black people, or Romany people. Black or Romany people are not the ones who must resolve the problem.

When the crowds protesting and demonstrating are white majority crowds, demanding that education tells the truth, demanding that systemic racism be outed then the problem is being moved to where it can be resolved.

Here it is in another form.

“The problem of the girl in the city is a male problem.

If she is deprived of her fair share of environmental contact because she has household tasks which her brothers are able to evade, the answer is a more equitable sharing of these task within the family, especially since her mother, too, probably feels oppressed by the same assumptions.

If it is because of a patriarchal religious tradition, the patriarchs have to change.

If it’s for fear of sexual exploitation it is the exploiters rather than the girls who have to change their ways.

And if the liberation of girls brings in its train an explosion of female crime, it is the equation between bravery and anti-social acts that has to be broken.

The environmental liberation of girls, far from implying the girl in the city should become hard and tough in the way that the boy in the city aims to be, demands that the boy, too, should pride himself on those allegedly feminine qualities of care and tenderness.”

Written by Colin Ward, in The Child in The City, pp.136 chapter ‘the girl in the backgound’ 1978

This paragraph demonstrates the kind of clarity that is required when addressing a problem, it’s symptoms and it’s causes. It is that the causes that must be recognised, for only then can the appropriate responsibilities for resolution of the problem be determined and assigned. That last line is the finale. If the liberation of women is to be realised, then the tenderness and care in men must also be liberated from current alpha male dominance.

Compulsion Schooling.

I am concerned with the harms that are caused in Compulsion Schooling (and elsewhere in Society) - one cannot bat them off by pointing at the successes and then use that to minimise the meaning and value of the harms experienced, as people do, reflexively,  to protect the Institution and other 'sacred cows' from accurate and constructive criticism. That is irrational nonsense.

It’s not that we must change the children, it is that we must (because we can) change our behaviours as adults in how we relate to and treat the children; the adult world must change.

In school children are punished or sanctioned when they 'make mistakes', or 'give wrong answers' and so children learn to avoid making mistakes, children adopt a policy of playing safe, children learn very early on to manipulate the situation out of fear.

Twelve years of fear of punishment, fear of public humiliation, conditioned by witnessing the punishment of others, on a daily basis - the top of the class, the bottom of the class - with no let up as such, is quite a fierce conditioning. It has impact at neurological and hormonal body system levels that are invisible, yet no less affecting for that.

The utility of this conditioning to the system of Power, which dominates State Schooling, is that in this state of fear, children will have their brakes on. Rather than seeking their most alive and fullest expression, children seek approval.

That way the Authoritarians can keep up with children, otherwise the child would outrun and outwit them, the children would create better, more reliable and more sustainable outcomes, because that is our true human nature - to share and contribute at peak creativity - and all would share as much as one could, until exhaustion or satisfaction brings matters to rest.

Because it is so much fun, and so rewarding to be fully alive and creative, to contribute one's whole being. Who needs private profit within such a healthy dynamic, the dynamic of the healthy egalitarian?

This is what most terrified the early Industrialists and their inheritors, and still does to this day. What those early ‘entrepreneurs’, those ‘ barons of Industry’ who spent 100 years or more deploying vast resources to the project of bringing in worldwide Compulsory State Education wanted most of all was to ensure that no serious competition could emerge from the working, labouring classes of people.
Justice is portrayed as happy obedience, in a Utopian Industrial World.  The Utopia of undisturbed dominance.

Likewise the so-called 'great Religions'. They publicly declare to strive for the myth, the ideal and yet they justify the morbid reality - the poor will always be with us - as a natural dynamic, ordained by God and fate.

They do not give their money for concern for the welfare of the people of the world. They give charity to assuage our indignation at the very existence of poverty. Their status as paternalistic rulers is to be accepted at face value,  and must remain unquestioned, most often because that status is assumed to be God given.

The Violent Hierarchies gave their support to both these projects - Religion and Educational Indoctrination - which continues to this day, because they wanted to avoid the ‘wet’ business of Empire.

The blood-letting.

They previously found it necessary to deploy extreme violence, but it was also somewhat dangerous, people could and did fight back. It was distasteful to a larger population and very bad for their image, which they cultivated assiduously, through pomp, circumstance, monument and ‘charridee’. 

The Authorities wanted a psychological control to replace the brute force control.

They wanted Statism to become a Religion they could manage.

They sought to shape all the children of the Nation, rather than respond to who those children were.

They sought to shape the mind of the nation, as a homogeneous accepting whole, with permitted dissenters – who will always exist -  reduced to arguing amongst themselves, in a lateral exercise and  thus remaining ineffective. Left/right adversarial politics. What a useless dynamic in terms of generating rapid healthy change.

And it is this toxic relationship between adult and child, where the one with Power sees him or herself as the shaper of the one without Power and uses any and all means to effect that shaping, and discounts the adverse outcomes and costs to the child in favour of the ideal - a compliant citizen.

It is this toxic relationship that permeates racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, the disdain for disabled folk,  the dismissive disgust for the psychologically wounded..

That is the core of The Dominant Culture.

That is the taboo subject of this Culture.

Problems and causes

One of the many long term health outcomes of childhood mistreatment, of childhood's where the child experiences humiliation, neglect and abuse is obesity.

Another is diabetes. there are many health implications in later life for Survivors.

There are other factors too, of course.

And other outcomes. Addiction, heart disease, depression and a variety of chronic diseasee emerge from within a body and psyche that is placed under life long chronic stress.

These other factors cannot be used to mitigate the reality of this link, and it's implications regarding how we treat children and since this affects how our Society matures psychologically, it must be faced, square on.

And another thing.

All that propaganda about 'good food', 'exercise', 'diets' and Government programs to tackle obesity (like some giant rugby ball!) is designed avoid the issue of childhood trauma, and in effect it serves to it punish those who are already suffering.  And it is used to get folks to take their eyes off the ball (excuse the pun).

The shame, that same feeling noted above which arises in the child when children's mistakes are responded to with anger, shaming, derision, disapproval and so forth and so they remain unresolved, becoming internalised over time, the child begins to believe he or she is worth less than others.

All of this is avoidable, all these negative experiences are avoidable and it is the greatest tragedy of criminal negligence.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Proposal for a Curriculum and Assesment for Michael Gove.

It's a Long Question:

I don't want to be a 'leader' or a 'politician', yet I desire -  my very soul and body demands, craves, endures to experience - that the exercise of State Policy, that the operations and outcomes of State Policy - if there is to be a such an Institution as the State, (which remains a pertinent line of investigation at all times on matters like these and many others, as to it's validity) it must manifestly nurture all the people, and the environment within which we all live, which we share as biological equals, though vastly diverse. The evidence is real! It always is... painfully so.

In truth, I don't want anyone to be a 'politician', or a 'leader'.

I'd much rather support administrators who willingly, transparently, happily take on the various roles required and available within State Institutions, that they would exercise their chosen roles professionally, with joy, and if in stressful situations, behave calmly with a view to resolution, all guided by fluid and continuous policy and decision making directly from within the grass roots of Society, informed by expert advice as required as much as by common human empathy and kindness.

I'd be more than happy to support such a Nurturant structure. A Nurturant Society is my bag!

I see no impediment to such a happy state, other than the status quo, learned helplessness, and other stuff ... no need to list it all.

No impediment as such. because it is our biological mandate, it is a seriously ancient mandate,  a deeply biologically material basis, it is the expression of a proven biological asset, that lies at the roots of genuine democracy, which is nothing less than that more or less empathic, and therefore disciplined, mature, playful and adaptive self organizational processes of any given human society, family or community, or self motivated children playing and learning together, across all age groups, that lives the Biology of  Nurture Webs.

What we are getting is clearly not working. The History books are littered with much the same, just lower numbers... Their take, the official historians, on pre-history serves to distance us from our native ways through which we humans thrived prior to History... which is like .0001% or less of the time we have been around as human mammals.

So what do I do?

AHA!


Proposed Curriculum for Education Minister, Michael Gove...



A 6 month course.

Modular or Webbed/Networked.

No Further Ministerial work that changes anything or alters any Laws is to be carried out until course completed. Think of it as a Public Audition.

So openings and press briefings, speaking events, constituency work will all continue.... plus ceremonial duties... This keeps the study in context with the experience of many students who have to work ti supplement thier Education, which Gove's generation got for FREE! How nice for them!

All materials to support the students learning are to be freely provided, a reasonable concession and Student Gove may collaborate with other students, colleagues and any other relevant party.

Course Overview.

STUDY AND INTEGRATE THE CURRENT UNDERSTANDING IN THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING BY COMPLETING THE FOLLOWING TASKS.


- Work through the writings on Education, Children and Society of John Holt, Alice Miller, Paolo Friere, Ivan Illych, Colin Ward, : all about natural learning, the problems of the 'schooling' system that disrupts natural learning. Also demonstrates ways to recover and change. : TEST: a 10 minute video briefing on the over view of these writers, and their data.

- John Taylor Gatto, on The History of State Education : TEST : Create a large mural/wall chart of the History of State Education aas outlined by Gatto, as a mind map or along the lines of the RSA Animate projects, or in some other graphic manner.

- The Biology and Anthropology of Empathy - cutting edge Science: Write a 10,000 word essay on the current state of awareness and understanding and both academic and grass roots, the potential outcomes of the current state of awareness at the grass roots and in Governance, and examine what needs to be done to facilitate a widespread in-depth dissemination of that information such that it informs both the Public and Institutional Policy Making, and that it is seen as a key element that prioritizes according to the real needs of children as people, rather than workers in an 'economy'.  Include all references.

- Homeschooling, democratic schooling, anecdotal evidence, historical 'greats'.... : TEST: Conduct a Radio Interview with three leading exponents in each case, total length 30 minutes, including credits.

- Each TEST is a project. It will not be marked. There's no need. the candidates work will simply be left, archived as a public record of the candidates experience and outcomes.

It will be peer reviewed by the Nation, the Public....

A good result might get the guy a really, really decent job!

And a change in the outcomes for the current and future generations of children, and with that our entire Society.

I wish!



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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