Activism : keeping it human and humane.

Keeping it Human and humane.

The questions before us all as we move into 2015, unexplored time as yet, a future we have some plans for, a future that is certain to contain challenges, set-backs, discoveries, new experiential learning’s, insight and much else besides that is the stuff of life, will remain questions that are largely concerned with optimal human biological health.

Be it ‘the Economy’, ‘The War Against Terror’, ‘Austerity’, The Environment, or any number of other serious problems current in today’s world, there are two generalised approaches open as we seek the answers to the problems facing ‘ordinary’ human well being.

The first approach, which currently dominates the way Governments and other power Institutions behave, which is associated with adversarial political alliances and far right/religious based political action and mainstream media is largely ideological – that is to say it is coming at the problems with a sense of ‘destiny’ that seeks to impose a certain value system upon the people, irrespective of the adverse outcomes for many people, and as such is void of the concept of optimal human biological health, which is quite willful.  

It is the systems ‘health’ that dominates this discourse. And by this I mean to say that it is the status, power and ability of the system of power to project itself into every area of our lives that is considered the ‘health’ of the system. If a majority appear to do ok, and a minority are oppressed, that’s the ‘price’ that power deems acceptable.

In as much as this approach reflects systemic thinking and tends to ignore, deny, dismiss, misinterpret or obfuscate on any area that exposes the ideological values as being hypocritical whereas the lived experience tells the truth, this approach tends to compound pre-existing problems, thus making matters worse. Lacking empathy it tends to make things worse as it shores up the failings of Power as a modality for human relationships and a caring community.

The second approach, which is emergent from peoples lived experience and it’s meanings, is empathic – in that we seek to understand a problem at it’s true roots, from inside the lived experience, taking into consideration what it is like to be that person or community going through that experience and clearly identify that which is truly unacceptable and to confront Society with that as the basis of it’s challenge.

“Enough! This (whatever experience is being described) must cease because the pain in the lived experience is unacceptable. It cannot be called a ‘price’ for some which then assumes a ‘gain’ that has value for others.

When the peoples trauma, pain and distress is so intense,  that in and of itself ought to be enough reason to cease whatever it is that is causing that trauma and pain, immediately. No ifs or buts.

The second approach takes optimal biological human health as its base, because that speaks to the lived experience, the ‘real’ real world.

The second approach allows that resolution of that confrontation will be a matter that develops, once the abuse of power has been stopped in it’s tracks, that cannot be imposed or predicated by ideology, because it is a response to an immediate situation that will also clear a learning ground that comes from each of us, as individuals and as communities as we tell our stories in all honesty and gain insight.

The material answers will emerge from honesty, and nothing else, because it is through acknowledging the truth we will set ourselves free to act as humane beings in a difficult situation, and this process will be all the more creative in the sense that the drivers of the solutions will be the people ourselves, and our own emergent sense of who we are, what we share, as we acknowledge an awakened sense of each other as people.

Whilst recognising who we are as people in experience will be a commonality, I expect to see a natural diversity that fine tunes solutions to local conditions.

That way the differences of Religion, language, currency, typography become irrelevant because they are not the problem.

The problem is abuse of Power: within that the co-opting of natural differences, natural cultural variations and so on by power in order to generate oppositional, adversarial behaviours at the grass roots, and the horrific outcomes for those people who are most adversely affected by such division and other abuses of power that are amongst the symptoms.

Charity aimed at symptoms is no longer a valid response on its own.

This must be articulated, again and again, in clear terms.

Irrespective of creed, ideology, skin colour, language we all bleed red. We all hurt in pretty much the same manner. And the solutions to the problems we face must reflect that understanding above all else. That must be at the very core of our activism.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Herod, Christ and the Evolution of Empathy.

Jingle Bells, and all that - 'tis Christmas, a time of good cheer to all men.


Logos of the companies exploiting parents and children to make profits whilst polluting our Earth home.

So here's a thought I present as a present to all readers.


Survival is not the same as Thrivival

These are two images I have crafted express the difference I sense that lies between thriving as a human community and merely surviving. Modern consumer culture is clearly not thriving, and it is close to not even surviving. Egalitarian cultures have thrived for many, many tens of thousands of years across this Earth. I know which state I would prefer we were living in. It is possible to live well, to be comfortable and truly happy as a community, to thrive without causing intense damage to our shared habitat. It is not thriving to live comfortably, worried, stressed out, dimly or acutely aware that we are causing irreversible long term harm and irredeemable short term harm.

"Survival of The Fittest" is in reality a meme created by the philosopher, economist, sociologist, writer and  academic, Herbert Spencer, in a book he wrote, Principles of Biology,  after having read Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life  which Herbert, and the majority of his class took to reflect their cultural assumptions in regard to their comparison between African, South American, Asian and Indian cultures and the White European Imperial culture from which the Industrial Revolution and their wealth and status emerged. Spencer was a white supremacist seeking to justify his stance.

It became a common re-interpretation (misinterpretation)  or re-positioning of Darwin's central thesis, and was never used by Darwin in the manner most commonly attributed today, aka that the strong (the most favoured races) naturally prevail over the weak in 'The struggle for Survival' - a phrase so beloved of Malthusian enthusiast David Attenborough and others less savoury, whose sense of the phrase is probably better articulated in the term 'might is right': people such as George Bush, Dick Cheny, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Jimmy Savile and others.

Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" alongside "natural selection" in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1869, intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment"

Darwin was referring to the evolution of life enhancing traits in response to environmental changes, which he observed in some detail.

It turns out that empathy is one of those traits or capabilities that has emerged in the human organism, as well as many others, as a life enhancing trait that facilitates and sustains long term existence really, really well.

Optimal Human Well Being is an Evolved Default.

Empathy, and indeed love, lies at the base of both effective co-operation and accurate responses to environmental changes. It is a bio-logical mandate.

It is also true that this behavioural trait is vulnerable, and under chronic stress can be undermined. The architecture is genetic, yet the development of active empathy is experiential, it is cultural...

Some cultures are more empathic, egalitarian, others are hierarchically violent. James Prescott's research reveals this dynamic spectrum and shows a correlation  between egalitarian societies who demonstrate high nurture of babies, infants and children, and hierarchically violent societies where typically there is a disruption of biologically mandated child mother bonding processes.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is another diligent researcher who has looked deeply at the evolutionary biology of the egalitarian cultural human. 

Her work has been presented in books such as 
The Woman that Never Evolved, selected by the New York Times as one of its Notable Books of 1981, Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection, chosen by both Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal as one of the "Best Books of 1999" and, her latest, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding.

Hrdy has challenged, and transcended, many of the flawed assumptions that biologists have held dating back to the Victorian era. It is a body of work that continues to provoke and inspire a new generation of scientists..

Her key insight is that alloparenting - where parenting was a task distributed throughout the group - was a key shift in pre-hominid primates, and in early hominids that drove the evolution of a larger brain, the brain that can manage the detail of layers of co-operative relationships, that can manage self regulation that is required for peaceful, effective conflict resolution and bond building over generations.

Disruption of the biological default for optimally healthy behaviour changes behaviour.

Which is the logic or reason why torture (topical subject these days) and politically and ideologically based economic pressure upon vulnerable communities and people remain consistently utilized  tools of Hierarchically Violent Power - the bullies understand the effect, and it's utility.

Herod and Christ, and the people they have been portrayed as.

I am not at all religious, nonetheless I find their stories instructive. The crucifier and the crucified.

What was Herod's childhood like? We can only guess!

But we do know something of Hitler's infancy and childhood, as we do of Pol Pot, George Bush, Tony Blair, Stalin and many other leaders who exercised power that deployed massive organised violence and caused untold harms to largely innocent people (Herodianesque) and none appeared to have had the kind of nurturing experience that would have laid the foundation for caring empathy.

Alice Miller's book 'For Your Own Good'  touches on this subject, with regard to Hitler, Stalin and 'traditional parenting' in European culture, and is a classic in this regard.

No excuses, yet understanding the roots is essential.

This is not to suggest they - Hitler, Stalin, Bush, Cheny and any other abuser - are thus excused from accountability and responsibility for their actions and the harms and consequences imposed on others by their actions. Far from it, as there are many examples of people who had dreadful childhood experiences who emerged to become kind and caring adults.

It is to suggest that there is a way to understand, and thus prevent the abuses of Power we see as a fundamental pattern of what is known as 'civilisation'. And that lies in how we parent, how we as a society related top and treat our children, and the most vulnerable people within our Society.

Abuse and bullying are, at heart,  cultural problems. Some cultures avoid those problems by the way in which they parent and relate, others do not. The choice is ours, as we have the information, and the responsibility.

The choice is yours. It is mine.

Let us all make that choice as our daily Christmas present to ourselves, our families, our communities and our culture.

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.

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Questions every social worker, every civil servant, every carer and every parent (to be or active) ought to wrestle with




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.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Pedophile Next Door : C4 'Documentary'? I don't think so!

I watched the 'documentary' , The Pedophile Next Door, yesterday, and I thought it was more about 'normalising' pedophilia as a genuine biological sexual attraction, than anything else.

Here is what C4 says : "This brave and thought-provoking documentary sets out to discover why legislation to protect children from sexual abuse has failed, and explores radical and controversial alternatives"

It does none of this.

It does not deal with the failures of reporting, policing or the cover-ups we know have taken place, orchestrated by Powerful Institutions to protect themselves.

Within the first ten minutes, the program quoted dubious research and then made the claim that pedophilia as a sexual orientation 'probably' emerges from brain damage within the womb. 

a) This is speculative theory at best

b) Child Rape is not a sexual orientation. It's a devious and abominable criminal act.

The inclusion of that meaningless theory is willfully missing the point.

It's the action taken that harms a child that is the issue, nothing else.

In terms of prevention, it ignores the reality that authoritarian parenting AKA traditional parenting, sets child and adult against each other, the former to seek autonomy and freedom, the latter to curtail the child's freedom based on false fear and authoritarian 'rights' and that this 'style' of parenting's origin lies within the Judeao-Christian tradition with it's hierarchical and judgemental ethos.

In terms of prevention it ignored Mandatory Reporting as an immediate legal necessity.

In terms of prevention it ignored solid research that links childhood trauma, stress and abuse with dysfunctional adult behaviour, research that suggests that parenting counselling and relationship counselling in Schools could prevent abuse by helping parents maintain close and open communication with their children - it is when this is not present that pedophiles knowingly groom children. Even within a single family.

In terms of prevention it ignored the reality that current sentences handed down by courts, for sexual assaults and violence against children, are way inadequate.

In terms of prevention it ignored the deceitful and intentional manner in which powerful institutions have sought to, and continue to attempt to protect themselves rather than the children.... as in the current non-going inquiry into pedophile rings within Political power circles...

Some more thoughts after sleeping on it.

The program ignores issues such as Mandatory Reporting, the adverse affects of Traditional Authoritarian Parenting, the adverse affects of Religious Indoctrination, the validated research that shows that sexual abuse is a social behavioural marker of Hierarchically Violent Societies; the program does not confront the intentional manner by which powerful institutions have sought to protect themselves rather than the children... a behaviour that is still extant.

All of which I covered above, though it is the case that all this needs repeating.

It ignored the lack of training of police and other services in how to deal with Survivors. Rotherham.

In the 80s a massive 'scandal' occurred when it emerged that state run foster homes were rife with child abuse. Thousands of children were victimised by hundreds of adults. What the Government did was arrange to have a few abusers sent to trial, and then closed down the entire system, thus freeing many hundreds of abusers from further investigation, and destroying evidence. A cover up.

And of course, those who were victimised were abandoned.


When all of these points have been dealt with in the manner they demand, then perhaps we can go back to the issue of people who find they are sexually attracted to children and have not acted on their 'attraction'.

Being sexually attracted to children? FFS!


Being sexually aroused by a weaker, more vulnerable non adult person? Is that not indicative of a core power psychology issue - is the attraction more a question of maintaining a position of relative power?

This is a question that is valid and is not addressed.


And the program had very little to say on preventing anything other than peoples ire at pedophilia in general.

The 'cause' is not in the attraction - that's way in the background. And I say this - any adult who cannot control themselves when it comes to this kind of behaviour is 100% responsible for that lack of control.

The 'cause' is in the details of why one person with more power would assault and manipulate another with little relative power.

Which is THE primary issue facing Western 'Civilisation' across the globe as we speak. The willingness to abuse Power and to justify the abuse of other more vulnerable people.

Now let me address the self declared pedophile, Eddie.

We need more information. We have only his word, and his absence from the Criminal Records Bureau to confirm that
that he has not offended. None of which is proof positive. I am not accusing him. I am saying the program does not present anything that confirms his claims.

We have his claim that he is sexually attracted both to women and to young children, as young as five.

Can this be checked in any way?

Who is he, what is his background?

We need more, much more detail as to his acknowledgement of his 'attraction' to small children.

Are there diaries where he records his concerns?

Has he ever spoken to anyone of these concerns, professionally or otherwise, who can corroborate his claims?

Why has he emerged? How did the program makers find or make the connection with him?

Is he in counseling at present?

What is his claim truly representative of?

Can we interview any of his adult partners? What do they have to say?

Is he genuine?  How did the program makers test his case?

I do understand that any adult who feels such an attraction will feel a certain jeopardy, will be inclined not to acknowledge it to others out of a reasonable fear that such an acknowledgement might lead to action against him that would hurt him, or cause him harm. I also acknowledge that to come out with this is, to a degree, courageous. It would be more courageous for him to submit to analysis and to undergo therapy to address the issue. Tackle the issue head-on.

That he has not is worrying. Does he feel that his attraction is somehow valid, even if he refuses to act on it,
out of a moral consideration?

Was he paid for his 'appearance'?

There is too much in this program that is questionable, too many unanswered questions. It does nothing for Survivors, and it does nothing in terms of a robust examination of the failures of both legislation and Government services in terms of reporting, investigating and confronting child rape.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Politics, Arguments, Debates and Institutionalised Emotional Blindness

Politics, arguments, debates and the abdication of responsibility.


The Power Inquiry Report 2006.

If you have not heard of it, then I suggest that you need to know more about it. We all need to read the report and understand it's full implications, not least because it emerged from the grass roots, rather than a think-tank. And it challenges a number of assumptions about the ability of grass roots folk to engage with shared responsibility, robust governance and detailed policy deliberation.

The Power inquiry, an independent investigation into the condition of democracy in Britain, was set up in 2004. The members of its commission (chaired by Helena Kennedy) hosted meetings around Britain and heard submissions from a wide variety of interest groups, professionals, and concerned citizens. The commission published its report on 27 February 2006.

"After eighteen months of investigation, the final report of Power is a devastating critique of the state of formal democracy in Britain. Many of us actively support campaigns such as Greenpeace or the Countryside Alliance. And millions more take part in charity or community work. But political parties and elections have been a growing turn-off for years.

The cause is not apathy. The problem is that we don't feel we have real influence over the decisions made in our name. The need for a solution is urgent. And that solution is radical. Nothing less than a major programme of reform to give power back to the people of Britain..."

Examine it.

D. Cameron, E. Milliband and Menzies Campbell paid lip service to the report and initiative at the time. Cameron said, in public, and it's on video, that The Power Inquiry was the 'most important initiative in Democracy in the UK' in a long, long time.

I was there. I heard them speak and mouth hearty support for the report, as they stood and spoke before the assembled crowd of more than 500 people. 

Less than a week after attending the launch of the report, at a conference in Queen Elizabeth Hall, Parliament Square, after praising it during that weekend conference, after saying how important it was, after speaking about it in glowing terms to the attendees, they dismissed it as 'impractical.'

'Impractical'? Well, yes. Ceding power to people is always 'impractical' to the Ruling Class.

Here's an outline of the recommendations:

http://www.lgcplus.com/give-citizens-power-to-make-laws-urges-inquiry/513437.article

Here's the full document, PDF download, very much worth a reading.

http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/power-people-independent-inquiry-britains-democracy-full-report

Power without accountability or shared responsibility is always going to be a serious problem, and open to abuse.

Quite a lot of the comments flying around about Russel Brand, UKIP, and politics in general are antagonistic 'debating' style, rather than mature deliberation or critical analysis. Trying to win or batter the other side down as opposed to learning enough to develop a win-win solution.

What's that phrase they use about the Court system?

Adversarial.

I find that appalling. An abdication of responsibility. Politically immature. Psychologically immature. An adversarial Parliament is immature, and unworthy, easily corrupted - a collegiate parliament would be mature and worthy and would repel corruption.

Because the issue of power and legislation is really about us, we, the people who form the community and how we work together (or not) to create a society that nurtures, that cares for the vulnerable.

The issue is about relationships based on kindness, rather than power.

Healthy discourse is about sharing, exploring and growing together.

Debate is about power, it's about who wins.

The Power Inquiry emerged out of the Community Voluntary Sector, which has decades of providing services at the local community level, dealing with amongst other things : finances, governance, research, best practices, transparency, service provis
ion, understanding their 'clients' needs, overcoming institutional obstacles, overcoming Institutionalised Emotional Blindness, campaigning, fund raising, discourse on policy formulation and much else besides. These are real life skills.

It was these people that David Cameron's BIG SOCIETY was aimed at, as a direct institutional assault. And it was their clients, the vulnerable who suffer doubly as a result.

And it's working.

Speak to any disabled people currently being denied benefits on the false basis of 'austerity'?

Use your voice to nurture the active grass roots, as well as to chastise the powerful.

In another comment, elsewhere, I pointed out how appalled I was at the sniping that is so common.

Instituionalised Emotional Blindness. There's something here for everyone to consider.

The immaturity of the debating style of the discourse, as opposed to an effort to share, learn and grow in order to create a more nurturant society.

An abdication of responsibility. It's really quite ugly.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

"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.

Thank you for reading this blog.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received