Natural Child, Natural Society

Who to Vote for in a Warring State?

"The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children. We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world". ~ John Holt

Peace is more than the absence of War

Who to vote for?

John Holt, a world renowned educator and author, makes a pertinent observation of the power dynamic of Schools in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

“School tends to be a dishonest as well as a nervous place. We adults are not often honest with children, least of all in school. We tell them, not what we think, but what we feel they ought to think; or what other people feel or tell us they ought to think.

The fact is that we (the adult world) do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children. We are like managers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking and Paris and all the other capitals of the world.

We think it is our right and our duty, not to tell the truth but to say whatever will best serve our cause – in this case, the cause of making children grow up into the kind of people we want them to be, thinking whatever we want them to think.

We have only to convince ourselves (and we are very easily convinced) that a lie will be ‘better’ for the children than the truth, and we will lie. We don’t always need even that excuse; we often lie only for our own convenience.”

- 1964, from a talk by John Holt who carried out thousands of hours of acute observation of children in schools across America.

How much does this still resonate, in 2017, in the UK?

I think the public and official discourse around War (and much else besides) as it exists in the UK 2017 General Election - or any national election, and even each bye-elections - for Parliament reminds me somewhat of this “dishonest and nervous place.”

Who to vote for in a warring State?

One way of placing the election in context, I would suggest. For any democratic election, any time, anywhere when States wage war as a 'last resort' tool of 'foreign policy'.

Rather focus’s the mind, don’t you think?

The fact that this is not a central question in this General Election, given that the powers of ‘defence/offence’ and ‘foreign policy' (keep the diamond mines British!) are being handed over to an elected person in this Election is troubling. It’s irrational, though those who would, for whatever reason, wish to avoid the issue, it might appear a rational avoidance.

How can you vote for that?

Indoctrination is the very dark 'art' of convincing someone that the external value presented is intrinsic, internal, part of the person.

It requires that the target loses touch with what ought to be emergent, the natural sense of self, and replaces that with an externally driven identity through which loyalty and submission to the indoctrinating system, are assured.

It's rude, and it is also a toxic mime of 'Education'.

In a healthy Society such abuse would be impossible, unthinkable.

Warring States. The unthinkable, the intolerable, the unacceptable.

The USA, UK, France, Russia and their allies The Saudi’s, the Qatari’s and the Israeli’s.

2017. The UK General Election.

War Policies?

What are the war policies of the active candidates?

More importantly, what are your (my readers) War Policies, and will anyone support those?

This democracy is a veil.

It looks good, and yet the wind of honesty passes right through it, does not fill it's sails, and the fantasy ship is but a barge of mechanised death, decorated like a General’s breast pocket with gaudy baubles and pomp, going nowhere, because it is aground.

The mist is strong, and the tide is out. And its return is inevitable.

The tide will come back in.

Nature cannot be dominated indefinitely by anything that emerges out of it’s mystery of Life.

Healthy Internalisation?

I think that the natural healthy version of internalisation is honesty and living practice, experience and learning gained by observing healthy adults and being respected and treated humanely at all times..

I feel that it is innate, that it is a default setting of the natural child. It is a sensitivity to be able to learn, and it is also a vulnerability.

The art of learning through time and experience, sense and environment... the natural child who is secure will recognise aspects of self in all areas of life and living things, which can then meet the externals, the content of the child’s habitat and make sense of them, and then model them and internalise them so they are in RAM mode available, so to speak.... once internalised they do not have to think using the intellect to grasp the meaning of what is being observed or interacted with in their world.

This is also useful for anyone living closely with plants and animals, in a dynamic environment, as part of a co-operative collective.

It is a evolved mode of information gathering, data acquisition and storage as part of optimal human biological health.

Mirror Neurons existence and operation supports this view: what we see we can also sense, we can imagine within our minds, we can learn from the actions of others, we can practice in our minds.

We feel into the world, we model it and we move it within ourselves.

This is learning.... responding to what is changing, availing of new information to meet those dynamics and remain sustainable, nurturant.

Healthy Governance - An Alternative Metric

I think of Healthy Governance as being the practical realities of administering a communities shared resources for the equal benefit of all members of that community and the habitat within which or from which that community emerges.

In the case of developed States, and Governance this relates to taxation, which is collected from all, in one way or another, and is the community shared resource – it does not BELONG to the Government, they hold it in trust.

Apply that metric to policy.

What are the implications of administering a community shared resource?

- it must be evidence based, as a duty of care

- adverse outcomes must be avoided, and where they occur, by accident or lack of foresight, or due to changes beyond human agency, they must be remedied immediately.

- long term health and safety is as much a priority as short term health and safety

- The policies must be proven to nurture the whole community, in a balanced and healthy manner.

This metric applies also to the seas, waterways, lands we inhabit. These too are shared community resources, and not just for us humans of developed societies.

We share this Earth. Fact.

Healthy Governance.

For me, this old politic of competing powers is immature, it is a diseased way of conducting matters, and utterly toxic.

I cannot participate in current political discourse because this fundamental truth is being ignored, denied, avoided across all mainstreams, and beyond.

The system is bullying that has become institutionalised, and I cannot vote for it to continue.

Who to vote for in a Warring State?

Interview with Inger Skjelsbæk who works with PRIO. The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) conducts research on the conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and people.

Researchers at PRIO seek to understand the processes that bring societies together or split them apart. We explore how conflicts erupt and how they can be resolved; we investigate how different kinds of violence affect people; and we examine how societies tackle crises – and the threat of crisis. We document general trends, seek to understand processes, and inform concrete responses.

"We focus a lot more on conflict than we do on what peace actually is. What is it that creates well-being? What is it that makes you feel at ease in your own skin, in your own life, in your own sociopolitical context? What does it take? All narratives about who you are and what your prospects are, and how that impacts your well-being, depend on how these stories are reinforced or challenged by the communities you live in. If peace is just the absence of war, then you have peace lots of places. But if peace is also well-being and resilience to conflicts, then it is more challenging."

Healthy Governance is an immense challenge facing us, and we had best do what we can to ensure our children's children do not have to do what we did not do, when we could have.

Who to vote for in a warring State?

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

*If you like this post, if you found the themes resonant, if you agree in part, would you be kind enough to let others know about it? I would really appreciate that. You could drop a comment too, if you felt the urge. Or not. I will moderate contributions, and block any that are abusive. For obvious reasons. Thank you for reading.

Bio-Logic and Illogorithmic deciet. A new Word is born!

Some Thoughts on Biology, on Life as it emerges.

Bio-logic. The logic of living processes as they are observed at every level of our capability. It works. There is a logic. It was there before we humans emerged, and it will thrive after we are long gone.

Biology does not do 'good and evil'.

Biology does what works, and what works nurtures the entire habitat and maintains optimal living conditions in a dynamically changing environment.

"Either it works, or it doesn't and either way, it's all compost."

Biology is balance in movement.

We are born biological.

What we experience, what we are taught, what we endure, how we are treated is what we learn from. We call that learning from experience within culture and environment.

And there are biological mandates for all of that.

Mandates that if maintained, maintain that nurturant stance throughout life.

Permaculture,

Gardening

The Web of Life......

Because it works, beyond any moralistic judgemental labeling of toxic action and outcome as 'wrong' or 'evil' or 'bad'.

It could be put this way.

“I work for life, rather than merely agitate against toxicity.”

Biology is not concerned with such self limiting perceptions as judgementalism.

"Either it works, or it doesn't and either way, it's all compost. Food for more life!"

I find that thought really perfectly beautiful.

A New Word!

A pun on algorithm, the ghost in the machine, the sleight of hand, the deceit of a predator - a spectrum of behaviour.

Illogorithm :

: a procedure for triggering tension or escalating dehumanisation, a deliberate wind-up. executed in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation;

: a step-by-step procedure for denigrating a target, using any number of logical fallacies interwoven into a false narrative, and with the intent of setting that target up for abuse;

: an illogical behaviour, using false logic to incite yet more illogical behaviour and action, especially when viewed in the context of Optimal Human Biological Health, both for the species and for the individual;

: any statement that purports to be evidence based, and is presented as such, which is in fact a wild generalisation, and generally false;

: anything composed of a two dimensional, polarised thought process and contains a number of logical fallacies, and which then leads to illogical, irrational behaviour and actions, and is used by populists to trigger reactions in audiences;

: 'if a person xxxx, then yyyy and zzzz and therefore abcd’ is a common format, and is used often enough in typifications or attributions of a generalised and de-humanising nature by populists, pundits and prelates;

: is a self-contained sequence of illogical actions to be performed;

: an emotionally biased negative calculation, a presentation of subjective data processed as a truth;

: a linguistic tool, a motivational device ustilised by populists and bullies alike, to engineer or trigger automated thinking in the target audience, be it an individual or any group in terms of their understanding of their relationship to the denigrated or dehumanised objects;

Sillogorithm – an illogorithm that is just way too silly to be taken seriously;

A game people play, reciting traditional illogorithms, or creating new ones, object of the game is the use of intellect, wit, language and laughter.

Everybody wins.

Which is the opposite of illogorithmic deceit – everybody is hurt by it, even the deceivers, even if they are unaware of how it is dehumanising them, and which underpins the illogic of such behaviour.

Compared to the logic of Bio, Bio-Logic, from which we humans have emerged.

Thou Shalt not Commit Logical Fallacies. A website that examines the detail of logical fallacies. Worth a view.

Optimal Human Bioloigical Health over behaviourally modified organisms.

From a purely biological social observation, one would notice that an optimally biologically healthy human being will express the following attitudes or sensitivities, as evolved for living as an effective or competent and unique individual within a co-operative community that knows how to live in the habitat in which they find themselves, without harming it; and in so doing they permaculture the habitat like all other creatures do.

They will demonstrate these qualities in abundance, and in varying degrees, we are all unique, and it is also true that some days are bad hair days and others quite awful, as moods are a genuine flow of variations in sensitivity. In among all the lovely stuff!

1. Respectful self awareness, and a respectful awareness of others.

2. Self empathy and empathy for others.

3. Sense of self, sense of community.

4. Willing co-operation and sharing of skills and resources for the community,

5. Excellence in areas of adult responsibility, in skills and abilities that suit the individual's temperament.

6. Robust physical health.

7. Egalitarian approach to social organisation, no genderism or hierarchy of violence.

8 An ability to read the environment, accurately.

9. Life long ability to learn, through self motivation and mentoring.

10. Sense of gratitude towards ancestors, sense of duty of care to future generations.

11. Generally adept at conflict resolution, abides with a deep sense of justice

12. Cries when hurting, all emotions are felt and all feelings expressed.

13. Heals well.

14. Laughs and loves much, and is loved and respected by peers.

15. Would learn most of this without any hierarchically mandated instruction. by observing adult communities behaving as above, and working to that model, because it works and everyone loves each other, though some might not like each other so much. They can handle that. Shit happens.

NOTE : A chronically stressed individual will present a symptom set and behavioural picture as far removed from this optimal as the stressors he or she is enduring are distant to the natural biological background levels within which optimal biological health emerges as an evolutionary outcome.

All of the above is supported by a mass of evidence, going back 2 million years, at least.

Domesticated animals are behaviourally modified organisms. So too, in a different way, all wild creatures of all sizes, ever. The difference is that domestication of animals is done to control them as a food source. Wild behaviour is largely learned by observation and testing. A lot like Science.

Here is my base point.

Healthy human behaviour best adpated to the habitat from which we, as a species, emerged. Which just happens to be a complex and dynamic habitat that is constantly changing. Sometimes subtly, sometimes in acute events.

We are, of course, individual unique and complex eco-systems, with billion of companion species assisting us in every manner. Each of us. Populated by billions of organisms upon whose efforts, minute as each organism is, are at the very base of our body functioning.

Just like Trees. Just like everything else that is alive on Earth, of Earth.

So the health of any individual is webbed in all directions into the community and habitat.

Biologically we are all in this together.

Chronic stressors such as war, displacement, poverty, living under duress,

experiencing long term bullying, debt, lack of services, vulnerability, disease, psychological stress all tend to corrode the optimal biological health stasis for the human organism.

Those stressors alter the endocrine systems of the adults, the youth, the children, the unborn babies in utero. Everyone is afflicted to one degree or another. There is variety in the reaction/response just as we are all unique people, and within any group some patterns will readily emerged, or become visible.

Patterns are merely aggregates, and cannot be safely applied to the individual case, where exact data and evidence is needed, due to the unique person presenting a case that demands a personal evidence based diagnosis and from that then a plan to meet the patient/person as a whole can be created.

I think at core of my perception is the concept of a return to balance, rather than any utopian futurist ideal.

The balance is in our behaviour, our motivation, in seeing our vulnerability and sensitivity as a gift. Work on the behaviour, and the rest will follow, as we bring our minds less cluttered by chaff to the problems we face.

Healing is a recovery. Step by step.

Far better we engineer a genuine recovery than fall for that old seduction of The Revolution’.

Opinions, Evidence, manipulation : the tools of political seduction.

We can argue about opinions. We can disagree, and argue for our opinions from different perspectives.

That is the mainstream media game, where opinions are so often touted as facts or 'alternative facts', where the deliberate omission of key evidence is a central ploy in their narratives and manipulations. One cannot gain a accurate picture of something if much of the detail is deliberately omitted.

We cannot argue about evidence that exists, that is well documented, that is reliable. It is there.

Which is why the Main Stream Media, and the other sources of propaganda and false/fake news avoids this.

The Invasion of Iraq was and remains a War Crime. Fact.

No mainstream media has reported this fact, alongside the various national and international statutes and ratified treaties that prohibit war and make the prosecution of any war of aggression a criminal offence.

The entire political structure of power depends on the electorate and intelligentsia arguing opinions.

Was Saddam a nasty dictator?

Yes, he was, albeit his system was much weakened by decades of sanctions. He was not a threat to any State in the West, or anywhere else for that matter, apart from Iraq itself, and then only in terms of being unable or unwilling to help the Iraqi civil Government deal with it's issues.

Was it morally right to remove him?

The only people who had a legal right, and the moral right to remove him were the Iraqi people. They were not afforded that option. Their rights in the matter did not matter to the international community.

Does Blair's opinion that he did the right thing at the time, bearing in mind all available evidence at the time, and the setting of post 9/11 stand as evidence?

Yes, evidence of either his duplicity or his insanity, or both. But it does not get him off the War Crimes charge.

Opinion being touted as evidence in the media, and in politics, as a tactical weapon used against entire populations, to distract, confuse, divide those populations.

"God told me to do it!" George Bush.

The reason why opinion is given such a status, is because most opinions, lacking the evidence, are reflections of personally held belief systems.

There is a lot of emotional attachment to those beliefs.

This means that when a personally held opinion is challenged, the person holding the opinion feels as if it is a personal attack, and the fight or flight sequence kicks in, and it all gets quite nasty very quickly.

So to rile folk, attack their personally held opinions or beliefs. And to get folk to fight each other, attack each sides opinions, using proxies within each community... to make it look like each community is attacking the other. Fake News.

If I want to 'save the world', or work for a healthier political set-up, then I must study grooming, and I must study my own manipulative behaviours where they occur, and deal with them so that I never manipulate and that will go some way to ensure that I am less likely to manipulated.

Nobody else can do that for me.

This is a task that requires ruthless self honesty and some practice.

A hard road, yet worthy of my best efforts.

It will go some way towards ensuring that trolls, bullies or seducers, liars, cheats, thieves and political demagogues have less purchase on my conscious and unconscious choices.

I do not watch tripe such as East Enders, Neighbours, X-Factor, Big Brother, The BBC News, etc as I find it deeply uncomfortable to watch dysfunctional behaviour normalised.

I am not 'moved' by puerile movies or triggered into unconscious reactive behaviours by tabloid headlines.

The hero kisses the girl in the midst of a battle.

American troops are scarred by their activities, whilst the deaths of the 'enemy' are relatively consequence free.

Spies are good. etc. it's all dodgy as...

The choice is mine, for I can alter my behaviour far easier than I can attempt to alter another's behaviour.

That is my primary sphere of influence.

Start here and work outwards.

In terms of professional manipulation of people through access to their often unconscious behaviours, I have written in previous blogs about the Behavioural Insights Team, originally attached to the British Government Cabinet, now a private enterprise drawing a steady earner from the public purse for advising Government on psychological tactics to 'nudge' folk into 'better behaviours'....

The assumption behind this 'nudge' is that some people are in a better position or are better 'qualified' to tell others what they should and should not be doing, but becausthose lessor able people are so 'resistant' then they need to be manipulated into behavioural changes. For their own good.

Another area of professional manipulation of electorates is big data, psychographics (psychometrics) and targeting known vulnerabilities to be triggered by 'messaging'.

Big data is a useful tool, and has many applications that will prove to be very valuable in terms of improving people's lives. But, like all tools, it can be used in benign or malign ways.

Brexit and the 2016 US election were new in that a highly sophisticated use of user data across a variety of platforms, apps, media, devices was used in real time to track and locate targets, and then that information about the target was used to designed specific 'messaging' to tap into their vulnerabilities, insecurities, prejudices.

This targeting was aimed at supporters, potential supporters and the other side.

It was coordinated in real time with media outlets and blogs etc with the intention of influencing the electorate, way, way, way beyond any potential that the Russians might have been able to affect. There is plenty of evidence of real time trolling by the media, of issuing reports designed to inflame anger and escalate hatred.

If anything the Russia influence was a distraction, a sleight of hand to hide the real hidden influence. It is basically an advanced high tech form of bullying. A beating that leaves no marks...

Russia aside, none of this would be possible if people in general were less susceptible to being manipulated, if critical thinking and evidence based policy making were core subjects of secondary schooling.

That is one of the key problems the world and all people's face as we slide into 2017.

2017 and the centrality of bullying in all our lives.

Donald Trump and Miss Universe, DAESH and Jimmy Savile and are indeed part of a wider problem within our Society, our world culture of Power and State.

They are not the problem, it must be said; their behaviour are symptoms of a problem.

The problem is bullying.

From within an Imperial culture still heavily invested in 'Christian Ideals' even as it lays claim to a secular grounding; from within a 2000 year old culture that has undermined egalitarian and empathic relationships in all areas of life in favour of the relationships demanded by hierarchies of Power who see themselves as involved in a struggle for 'survival' (that is to say, a struggle to preserve their power at any cost); in that paradigm a key dynamic is the ad-mixture of sexuality and power.

The poor are ugly. The rich are beautiful.

Christians are beautiful, Pagans are ugly.

Primitive Peoples vs Civilised Peoples.

Gods view on sexuality is Law.

The unspoken line is that one must use one's sexuality as a tool to get something, as proof of one's power and potency, as a marker of who one is, as a sign of loyalty and conformity.

Marriage as a political tool.

The dynastic model.

Fucking for power.

Fucking for security.

Fucking for money.

Pleasure and Power.

When our innate, emergent and natural sensing of self is assaulted by forces we are unable to confront, specifically those forces of power that indoctrinate a people's children, a force that defines who we should be, then a wounding occurs, a wound to the emergent sense of self, and in order to survive that wounding and 'get by' on the terms power has set out, (a thriving healthy peaceful egalitarian society at all levels is but a pipe dream) within that woundedness, we are forced to 'adjust' to the status quo.

It is not that sex sells, it is that the illusion of power that sells.

You can be more attractive. Buy this product, subscribe to this belief. Gain power.

Rape is about power above all else.

Strict gender roles emerge in societies that are hierarchically and institutionally violent. Adherence to these self limiting roles is demanded by power. Seeing oneself as merely a man or a woman as defined by power.

Such societies repaint Nature, and create Gods in their own image.

Hierarchical, vengeful, domineering - and they love us! God loves us?

Our leaders and our Power Establishments love us.

They ‘serve’ us. It is an honour and a privilege, they acclaim.

And when our children are sacrificed, that too is an honour.

Yeah, right.

2017 onwards - can we end single issue political activism?

Or at the very least join the dots.

It's yet anoyther way the system has of dividing folk, of diluting and preventing a solid critical analysis of the situation, a way of undermining solidarity amongst our many strands of struggle. Fund and promote one above others. Create a climate of competition for funds and attention. Let the unresolved psyches of activists do the rest.

Homosexuality allowed openly within the Military is touted as ‘progress’.

"We will accept anyone who wants to enlist as a trained killer and help us bully other States!"

Gays for Trump! Fathers for Justice! Feminists for Clinton! Blacks for Obama?

How about Gay people for Heterosexual people against war and the bullying of women?

How about Climate Change activists against Bullying?

There is one issue.

It is called bullying. Power exerted over others.

Rape is bullying.

War is bullying.

Bribery is bullying.

Misogyny is bullying.

Sexism is Bullying.

Religious indoctrination is bullying.

Ideological indoctrination is bullying.

Usury is bullying.

Mortgages are a mass bullying device.

Debt is bullying.

Aspirational Marketing is bullying.

Mountain top removal is bullying.

Sex trafficking is bullying.

Uranium Mining is bullying.

Bullies always discount the costs others bear for their behaviour.

Fake News is bullying.

Every US President is a bully in Office.

Every Home Secretary is a bully in Office.

The Christian/Muslim/Jewish missionary is a bully.

And so it goes.

To cast any adverse judgement on a person's sense of their sexual self and their desire to live that sense openly where it does not involve any abuse of another is bullying.

It's not that people are homophobic, it's that they are bullies and they seek 'approved' targets, set by Higher Authorities, to vent their own frustration, pain and rage, again, and again (because their wounds remain unhealed) in the service of Power.

Bullying. Bullets. And Bombs.

They are the signal that something is out of balance and dis-eased.

I applaud everyone who engages in the work of confronting the issues within their own lives, I praise the disabled who campaign against cuts and discrimination, I delight in the peaceful who campaign against the weapons/war industry, I love the environmentally aware who campaign against environmental abuse, I admire and laud the Survivors who campaign to demand accountability from their abusers and the Institutions within which they are protected, I sing for the local folk who campaign against the imposition of fracking.

I understand the need for focused, evidence led campaigns, and I understand that they can be effective. I cannot dismiss these on any level. I can only praise these efforts.

It is the combinations of a one behaviour - bullying - across many areas of life that is the central issue.... the symptoms are not the central issue.

I hope more activists and others can make this connection as we move forwards with our struggles.

We need to see a focus on the central issue, Bullying, within and across all single issue campaigns.

We need to see that in our homes, schools, work places, Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples, and across all areas of Civil Governance.

We need to see that in relation to imposed taxation.

The urge to Power.

An origin story. A paper I wrote on the origins of Hierarchically Violent Religions and Cultures as an unresolved trauma-behaviour pattern that has become institutionalised over time, and thus deeply embedded within the modern industrial cultural psyche.

A short video on one aspect of the origin of the behaviour patterning that leads to the urge to exert power over others so that they meet one’s perceived needs.

Empower.

It never strikes back.

Listen to the child.

Hear the Child.

Adults Don't Heed my Distress.