Natural or Civilised?

Taking is not receiving. That is one way to describe the difference between civilised processes and natural processes.

Civilisation, takes; most often by force, whatever it ‘needs‘/ ‘wants‘, irrespective of the cost to others, irrespective of the natural continuity of the community from which it takes.

Nature gives; everything is provided by processes in which each participant entity simply by being what it is, by it’s unique and precisely adapted metabolisation of nutrients available in the habitat it lives in.

Civilisation is organised rape and pillage. Survival and Power. Survival is Fear driven.

Nature is organised abundance. Thrivival.

These are the stark facts.

These are the facts of life on Earth. Not the facts of Civilisation. One of which, for example, is if you refuse to ‘work’ you must starve. Not only that but you also become the pet kicking object of a load of people who have sold their souls so as to ‘survive’ in that Civilisation. Another fact of Civilisation is Slavery. War. Child Abuse.

Thus when Scientists speak of the ‘struggle for survival‘, they are projecting their Civilised doctrines , their Indoctrination, onto nature….. Civilised Humanity has to struggle to survive, never mind thrive, to remain in place on Earth precisely because it is so anti-Nature, and cannot therefore easily survive in Nature, as it does not abide by Natural Processes, in fact it actively undermines those processes. It is also resisted by Indigenous peoples up to the point where they are all but annihilated, extirpated, erased.

Let me tell you something about Darwin. He was a Racist. He stated that the inter-breeding of ‘good stock’ with ‘bad stock’ would lead towards an inevitable degradation of the ‘good stock’, his example being the English inter-breeding with Irish. Implicit in this is the understanding that indeed there are some human beings, who by birth and race, are superior to all others. That’s a fundamental premise of Civilisation. And for them survival of the fittest and natural selection were merely ways to ‘scientifically’ prove their assumptions regarding superiority. Making it all to easy in their minds to extirpate that which does not ‘comply’. Compliance.

Darwin was, as it happens, from an extremely wealthy ’landed’ family, a man who socialised with European Royalty, a man who was part of that same class. A member of the Elite. With an agenda. And an enormous budget. He was a propagandist. The one who got there first. As in his books were published, promoted and given support. Before Wallace. Who saw that Nature is co-operation.

Civilisations come and go, and so too will this one which we find ourselves born into.

The question arises : with whom, or with what do I or you most identify?

Civilisation or Nature?

Only when I/you have answered that gritty question, can I/you start to deal with the problem of Civilisation…..

Look at it this way : our entire body is produced and sustained by nature. Every cell is wild, self organised, and getting on with it without any need for direction from our thinking selves. The only civilised part is the thinking, and the lack of empathy that arises from that thinking. We ARE nature. We only THINK we are civilised.

Only when one recognises that one is of nature, rather than of civilisation, can one start to deal with the problem of civilisation. The civilised cannot, by definition, deal with this problem in any meaningful way. They cannot see it. They see other problems, which are symptoms, and will attempt to suppress the symptoms rather than seek the root cause.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe




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Awards, Medals, Life and Death in the 21st Century

I choose to spend my time learning as much as I can about the 'civilisation' I was born into simply because I don't want ANYONE to go have to through what I went through, as an infant, as a child, as an adolescent, as an adult .... the years I have spent struggling with the trauma, the abuse patterns, the low self-esteem, the anger, the fear, the confusion, have not made me any stronger; they have been a waste of my precious time here on Earth. I am not alone in this.

That is not to say that my life is wasted, it is to say that oh so precious time will never return. The joys of being a loved child, in a loving family home did not happen, and will not happen. The scars and wounds are slowly healing. I am not alone. That comforts me as much as it horrifies me. And that's quite weird.

And so I study Civilisation, and it's psyche because Civilisation metes out much, much more trauma than it heals or delivers 'peace'. To human and non-human alike. Wars. Clearfells. Dustbowls. Poisoned rivers. Pesticides in Breast Milk. 200 Toxic Synthetic Chemicals Coursing Through The Veins Of Every Foetus. Global Warming. Global Warring. Global Vaccinations. Pandemics. Wealth amassed by a few. Poverty for the vast majority. The balance is tipped towards the dark side, big time! Running out of fuel. It is slowly collapsing. Let it go.

A Madman Speaks Truth

Today, also in New York, Muamarr Gadaffi, the Libyan 'leader'spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. A sort of International State of The Nation adress. He asked some questions many are asking. Who killed Martin Luther King? Who killed JFK? Who protects the Palestinians? Why are the Pharmaceutical Corporations, who are responsible for creating the 'Swine-Flu' virus itself, set to make so much money? Why is Medicine a business? Why is not Medicine free? Why is the Security Council dominated by states with Nuclear Weapons? Is that not a threat in itself? Good questions. Most unfortunate that it is he who asks them in public, before the UN. Quite surreal.


While I watch this I have a fantasy about the impossible. What if Gordon Brown made that speech to the UN? Jaws would surely drop. Hearts would flutter, a few might even stop. Many would cheer!

A Murderer is Honoured

Back to reality. Today Gordon Brown was presented with an award. It was "presented on behalf of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an interfaith organisation which campaigns for religious freedom and human rights, by the veteran US former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.




Rock star Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, and the Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak were among the audience as Kissinger praised Brown for his "vision and dedication" in handling the world economic crisis.
"His leadership has been essential to our ability to overcome the moment of danger," said Kissinger."

High praise indeed from such an ignoble and foul war criminal. Birds of a feather.

The above piece of 'reporting' (propaganda) was culled from The Guardian. The 'reporter' (propagandist)  forgot to mention that Gordon Brown was instrumental, though not alone, in creating the grounds for the financial 'moment of danger'. Deregulation, selling the UK stock of Gold Bullion at knock down prices. The War on Terror. Extending the age of retirement to 'protect pensions'. Promoting Homes, and therefore Mortgages as a method of investment (which can increase or decrease in value).  Thats small print for ya!

The 'reporter' (propaga... you get the point!) also missed the irony of an interfaith organisation (Appeal of Conscience Foundation) which campaigns for religious freedom and human rights presenting such an award for economic reasons, as Kissinger pointed out (as opposed to human rights reasons - Brown is a war criminal, who is presiding over the routine slaughter of Afghans and others, young men from villages, towns and cities across Britain, the dead and the maimed.). The whole thing is utterly surreal, though for those at the front-line, all too real... What can one say of Brown's conscience? Does he have one? Kissinger?

Back to reality.

A searing documentary was screened on the BBC today. Wounded. The camera/story follows 2 young boys, UK Troops who were injured, severely, in Afghanistan. There's shocking footage of one boys incident. He was hit by an IED : Improvised Explosive Device. His right leg was blown off, severe damage to his left, his eyes were also badly damaged by the blast flare (a burn) of the explosion and he sustained many other wounds. Trauma.

Far from new York. Far from Gordon's daily thoughts today, or Bono's. What of that boys human rights? And those of his Afghan 'enemies', his Afghan comrades and the now ubiquitous innocent by-standers. The kill rate in Afghanistan is 100 to 1. In Favour of 'our boys'. So what happened to his and their human expectations to live a happy healthy life? Human Rights indeed!

He was returned to Britian, fighting for his very life and in hospital was kept under sedation for a few months while the surgeons worked on him. His left leg was amputated, as the damage had been too severe. A horrendous trauma.What an ordeal to waken to! We see these boys receive their medals, for their 'tour of duty', for combat in Afghanistan. I found that very hard to watch - Prince Charles voice droning on about 'sacrifice' and 'resilience' in the background - on the same day Gordon Brown receives his award.

I urge you to watch this documentary. See through the propaganda. Some of it is grisly stuff. Look to the human beings caught up in all this horror. Needless to say the boys are portrayed as honestly as such a programme by such an organisation in such a system can. Needless to say they fight back with all they have got, and for each, it is a personal and unique struggle. And one that will in all probability  be endless. They have the support of loving families. Strong families. They will need all that and more. There are those who have no such resources to draw upon. What lies ahead for them? Does any of this bother the people who design, build and make weapons? Does it bother the cleaners and janitors who tend such people?

And none of their trauma was necessary. They did not fight for 'our' freedoms. They fought for the 'freedom' of certain Statesmen and their corporate buddies to 'rule' over the Earth, for Manifest Destiny, for the Free Market, all obnoxious ideologies if ever there was.

Serious Side-Effects

Like mine, their injuries are a by-product, a side effect of 'civilisation'. And it certainly won't make those boys any stronger than they already were. They found the strength within, so young, to fight through triple limb loss from combat; theirs is a struggle and hurculean task the likes of which our dear statesman of the year, and his buddies, Bono and Henry Kissenger would never knowingly undertake. They know their limits. They could care less about breaking the limits of others.

They are willing parties to a System that does force others to 'endure', and to does so on their behalf. For their Money. For their Power. For their Hubris. They create the conditions of Poverty that leave young boys in our towns and cities with enlistment in the the military as the only decent 'job' option. Join up and train as a soldier AND get a trade, education, travel, respect etc, etc..... can look good if one has no prospects of a decent job ... and one is burdened with aspirations that have been crafted to make one feel inadequate...and especially so if one has no idea what combat is really like....... strangely enough the recruitment of soldiers has seriously gained from the financial 'moment of danger'.

They (the politicians, marketing gurus, industrialists) create the media stereotyping (advertising, movie's) and role models (impossibly rich footballers, mythical retouched cine warriors and 'realistic' computer war games) that set boys up to be tough muscled warriors, Their Military training turns them into professional killers.

Performance Politicians

For an insight into the 'performance' aspect of politicians, I suggest a look at the following : BBC screened a short clip of a Liberal Party shadow minister rehearsing her speech for the Liberal Party Conference. By performance I mean the kind Derren Brown does. The Grand Illusion. The clip shows just how well trained these 'rulers' or 'rulers to be' are. Autocues, rehearsals, re-writes, directors and producers, make-up

These actors actively participate in creating the conditions of state that justify wars. They fund and procure for these wars. With our money. And the same corporations always, always, always make a tidy profit. All of this is coercive, abusive, insane.Criminal.

And the Kissengers, Browns, Blair's and their many colleagues : they receive these get awards, awards that they actually accept; do they believe it all? You can see from some of the photos that Brown is actually enjoying himself! How pleased he must be! (though it might be because he knows he's gotten away with murder and will be well paid for it! A part-time job working with Tony, at Morgan Chase, perhaps?)

How pleased Mr. Kissinger must feel. How smug.

Pleasure

How pleased would how many millions, nay billions of people around the world feel if Kissinger were instead to be sharing the dock with Blair, Bush, Brown, Straw, Cheny at the International Criminal Court? Think about it. That's a heck of a lot of pleasure. And it would go on for a while. What a trial that would be. Saddam was on trial for two years. His crimes were great. Yet no greater than those of Kissinger. Brown is a beginner by comparison. I wouldn't be for hanging them. Or shooting them.

It would be enough to have them see the dismantling of their precious 'civilisation'.

It would be enough to have them see the collapse of Central Government and it's replacement with strong grass roots communities, aware and informed, who were looking after their own land-base, for themselves and all other inhabitants, and for their children.

It would be enough to have Brown see the collapse of the so called 'Free Market' which is neither free nor is it a market in the traditional sense of the word, where real people exchange real goods of real value and everyone wins, as it is in nature.

It would be enough to have Kissenger witness the decomissioning of all nuclear reactors, warheads etc etc....

Guantanamo Holidays for War Criminals?

And if there was a remote Island somewhere, previously used to dump some toxic waste,  I'd build few houses there, all mod cons, lawns, garden space, a natural water filter system, and set the boys up there.I would hand over a few tools and plenty seed for food growing. If they showed good behaviour, and a willingness to do some useful work, I'd give them a permaculture course.They can fend for themselves.On the Island. They would not be welcome anywhere else.

And we, the people of Earth, diverse, localised and deeply embedded in the land-base could fend for ourselves.Quite well. We have done it before, for millennia. We will do it again. It is innate. It would be enough that we are left to get on with the real work of life. Being happy, loving and sustainable on the land we are born to.

Back to reality.

None of this will happen as things stand. The peace/green/change movement refuses to tackle the problems of intentionally adverse psychological conditioning, of psychopathology in Politics and Business which is the root cause, and prefer to cry and protest about symptoms. I conclude that most people in the Developed World, (middle class utopia), are psychologically damaged. Emotionally Blind. Those elsewhere are suffering from PSTD. No-one is talking about this. We are fucked. Seriously. We are.

Seriously

Abusers run the show. Abusive Psychopaths are running this thing called 'civilisation', and managing it, and labouring for it. The abused appeal to the abusers, who feel even more powerful, and surge onwards with 'progress'. Some abused say 'Stop what you are doing,  I'm frightened you are going to hurt me' and that makes the abusers ANGRY? Some of the most abused fight back, in self -defence, (a natural enough tendency) and they are demonised as TERRORISTS?

I am told that People in pubs talk about Islamic Fundamentalism...or Terrorstorm  or 2012... or .The Bilderbergs or 'Conspiracy Nuts'. and ignore the real and unmitigated horror of  the wars their friends lives are sacrificed in. There are those who are proud of 'our boys', who then have to be proud back, must wear their medals and wounds like warriors, to protect this great lie. The 'public' don't get that the sacrifice was for power and wealth, according to the mainstream media, which is still being consumed. There's a sick dynamic going on here. I for one feel that the mainstream media's current role is to carry on the illusion that most people don't get it. To look like they have a majority audience that believes their lies. To keep the middle class Utopians in line. I feel a lot of people do get it. And they have no mass media voice or presence. The masses are shrinking.

Some of my friends in the 'movement' visibly blanch when the concept of a possible collapse of 'civilisation' is mentioned. They don't get it. Their fear clouds the vision and imagination. This is understandable. However it is not viable. Civilisation is not where clean water comes from. Nor is it a source of clean air. And as for the food..... it's toxic from producer to shop to sewage system. Let it go!

Those who do not deal with their shit, who do not metabolise their abuse, will dump both onto others. In great quantity. Forever. Poisoning all they touch. So let it go. Let the extractive, toxin producing civilisation go.

Of the 6.5 billion people who stands to benefit the most from the end of this conceptualisation of civilisation? All indigenous peoples for a start. All subsistence land users - they would be able to grow food rather than crops for cash. All the rural poor, for they would have more freedom to access land and grow food. All those at the receiving end of civilised armies on the march. The urban poor would fare better than the urban rich, who would be by far most affected. Women, in general, would fare better, for in strong communities abuse is harder to hide or disguise. Children, in general, would fare better for the same reasons.

Let us metabolise what we can from our experience, from our trauma and make it so that we return nutrients to all living processes, between ourselves, and within nature. And that means honestly facing Civilisation. Within and Without.

They won't fix it : We must end it.

We need no more boys blown to bits, to live a limbless life. We need no more wars for peace, democracy, profit, power. We do not need TVs and Cars. We need to be growing food. Recycling all that can be recycled, re-processing all that can be reprocessed or re-using materials.. We do not need international trade in other peoples land bases or 'resources', in other creatures very homes and lives. We need clean water in all our streams, rivers and lakes more than we need Alan Sugar or sugar itself.

We need time to be with our families, our friends, our communities, our beautiful habitat more than we need jobs and careers that keep us away from all that or that are embedded in the cycles of abuse.

The long journey out of abuse starts with recognising that the abuse is happening, recognising the signs of 'normalisation' of abuse, and then with giving the abuser no purchase, no further possibility of abusing, and then with grieving for what has been lost and for what has been endured, and then the healing and new growth can start. All of these run concurrent. It is a long journey, one we must all of us make. We must make this journey if we are to survive, never mind thrive, in the long run. The alternatives are too terrible to be considered as options. We must make this journey for our children's futures, for their clean water, for their peace, for their abundant land-base.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe

some links :




Performance Politicians Exposed : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8268072.stm





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Climate Change Debunked : finally! Weather Proofing Debate!

A way of wasting time.

Arguments about Scientific Data, all of which can and is being interpreted, each according to her or his agenda, or simply reported as it is, tend to go round and round. And round and round. Yada. Yada. Yada.

However, from my perspective, how I see things, there's a few vital assumptions, and some foundational premises, that all involved in this riveting worldwide debate, concerning Climate Change, are not included in the data discussed. Ones that are assumed, (and incorrect - they are beliefs ) and ones that are ignored (and are correct - they are how  it is).

I'd like to share them with you. In a  kind of non-linear rambling sort of fashion.




Let's Get Real!

It's not merely the effect of CO2 emissions as a result of Industrial Society, and the potential consequences as an effect upon the environment : it 's the combined effect of all the changes Industrial Society has made to the environment, habitat, to the way things live and interact. - that is the real for me.

If there is a problem, that's a huge part of the problem.

The element of excessive release of CO2 that is altering the heat dynamics of our atmosphere lives within that context.

And that is something that human beings can change, if we really want to. If we cared enough to. I think the vast majority of ordinary people want to change this. Those who hold power, vast wealth and who control and dominate the extractive industries will not want to change much of it.. They will tinker at the edges at best. Deny the problem and exacerbate it at worst.

Let me look at it another way. If, for example there was an asteroid capable of hitting the Earth and creating a 200 year permanent winter, that would not be a problem of culture, rather a problem for humanity. That would be purely a natural catastrophic event, part of the processes of life. That's just life. It's not a problem. That creatures eat creatures is not a problem.  It's how natural life works.

Problems caused by cultures can be solved. Life is what it is.

For example it is demonstrably true that all in biology-nature the combined activity of all creatures improves the habitat for all creature and organisms. Everything eats, everything is eaten and the poop is always food for more life.

That include us humans, as one of trillions of natural inhabitants of earth. Yet, as a culture this does not happen The outputs of this culture are largely toxic. We are a biological anomaly. Unique, not in being human, but instead in being gross polluters. Truly unique. 

That's a problem. This culture - Industrialised Militarised Competing Powers Culture - is out of step with healthy biology and natural balance. 

By choice.

To compartmentalise the components of a whole, each as whole in and of themselves is one of the bottle necks in this discourse concerning climate change and societal change. I say this because the only reason we are discussing climate change is because it is being driven by a political and emotive agenda that demands 'changes' in our society. Those changes do not appear to include stopping war, stopping all toxic production, making profound changes to our 'extractive' processes so that they return nutrients to the environment at every stage. They do not appear to include re-establishing the fundamental of nature : each organism has a direct relationship to it's land base, food base and each organism improves the habitat for all life.

Furthermore the discussions around climate change appear to me to refuse to recognise that Industrial Society is extremely vulnerable due to it's inability to adapt to the way nature works. And that this arises from a  conditioned, and unfounded, fear of the wild. That is the true source of this cultural insecurity. Christianity and others promote this fear of the wild.

Hubris

This, unfortunately, arises from hubris. The fallacies and ideas concerning mankind's Superiority, Manifest Destiny, Chosen Peoples, Higher 'Intelligence' etc., etc., are part of this delusion, one that is rooted in the God Delusion. "God made man in His Image." Merely a delusional belief.

As is the debate about 'climate change' and societal change that excludes war and the urge to power as a factor in this predicament we are in. They cannot be discussed separately. They are entwined.

The real predicament is merely that this Civilisation will not stand, will not survive, never mind thrive. It is not sustainable. The immense energy and power of nature to nurture is far, far greater than anything we can muster to destroy it. Co-operation and Improving the Habitat for all life is the way of Nature. Competition and Destroying the Habitat  for Profit is the way of Industrial Society. These processes are so not compatible.

Humility

Humility, and a willingness to put all the evidence, the data on the table, openly, honestly. and then we can talk about the appropriate changes to make to rebalance. The answers are all around us in Nature. We have to cease projecting what we think we know onto what is and see what is as it really is.

That data must by necessity include a fullest inventory, a telling of the cost to all life forms on Earth of the way of Industrial Society, a full accounting of the abuse we have meted, and continue to mete out to each other.

It must include a full accounting of the toxicity we have introduced, to oceans, rivers, lakes, streams, aquifers, forests, plains, swamps, bogs, and all their inhabitants and of course our own bodies.

That data must by necessity include a fullest inventory, a telling of the known natural world, her processes and inter-relationships, (her because I see Earth as my Mother) from the microbial to the continental, drawing on all traditions that have observed nature for very long periods of times, across several tens of generations, as much as our best scientific examinations. 

The data must show a full account of the vested interests that hold Industrial Civilisation in such a deathly grip of denial.

It must show the methods and extent to which power is bent against life, on behalf of those who dominate. It must show a full audit of the amassed wealth on one hand and the resultant poverty on the other and  that 'balance' be compared to the potential abundance that Earth may bestow in her healthiest state, for all life.

Abundance is when poverty is unknown, nor can hoarded wealth or ring-fenced 'resources' or denying nutrients be countenanced.

The data must include the sensing's, the dreams and observations of our children, our youth, and our elders as much as the admonitions of activists, politicians, pastors and so-called teachers.

These are the data to place the Climate Change discussions in it's true context. These and more.....

As ever it's never the weather, is it? It's the clothes we wear.

And we, as members of Industrial Society,  as Consumers (Consumer Rights?) are daily conditioned to wear the culture of abuse oh so comfortably, so comfortably in fact that sometimes we can't even see it.

The casually dropped piece of litter, a piece of plastic that will outlive thousands of generations, causing harm in the long, long, long term.

And Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk want to build colonies as their solution to this problem?

Utterly stupid.

...



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe



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Beardyman

Here's two videos of Beardyman, a London based beatboxer, whose originality and spontaneous performances are a joy to behold. He's a real mouth synth.... and behind that is a powerful mind at work and a great heart.

So here's three videos to illustrate the scope and depth of his work.

1. Beatbox Kitchen Diaries.




2. Sanatised Christmas Message




3. BEARDYMAN presents : George W. Bush V. Charles Manson



Hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's your gift to universe






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Beliefs and Behaviour Patterns are Neural Pathways that have Become Hardened.

Beliefs and Behaviour Patterns are Neural Pathways that have Become Hardened.

As the brain is growing and forming in the young child, with each new experience a new neural pathway is created, and as those experiences are repeated that pathway or sets of pathways get used repeatedly. Thus certain pathways will become ‘worn’ or ‘hardened’.

This is necessary, and is how, for example, learning to ride a bike gets to a point where one does not need to think about it. The thinking during repeated training has formed enough of a pathway series to carry out all the various task required to maintain balance, note direction, read the ground and so on.

In this way the child learns and stores vital skills, such as control of her/his limbs, balance, co-ordination. We know that it takes about 10,000 hours of training to become fluent in say a musical instrument so that one is a virtuoso, or indeed any particular skill/talent that is then viewed, in our culture, as ‘pretty damn good’
.
This applies to physical action as much as thought processes. In esence one can become hard wired for any psychological or physical set-up, and there are those who create the set-up, who'd rather  their works remained hidden and unseen. Think of the effect of ten thousand hours of school room politics.....

We know that children learn much quicker when their learning is self-directed, and that the enthusiasm of the child is a major factor in driving what they will learn. We know that when an infant experiences discovery and understanding that their brains release dopamine and serotonin, and that this is part of learning, part of what drives learning fromn within the learner.
 
We know that infants and very young children learn at rapid rate, way beyond what is learned in later life, at university and as ones ‘career’ develops. That rapidity is essential and of course it stands to reason that the biological body is designed to enhance that ability
.
It stands to reason that this learning ability is a biological imperative. The child in nature has much to learn, much that is essential for self-reliance and thus survival or as I like to say ‘thrivial’. and not a huge amount of time to do it in.

Typically indigenous peoples children are fully competent by age 6. That is to say they are no longer utterly dependent and are considered an asset to their community. It is common for older children to care for the younger children, and there is much learning that is passed from child to child, rather than from adult to child. That comes later, as the child approaches young adulthood.

To give you an idea of just how much a typical indigenous person will learn, (through direct experience and communication) I have seen estimates of a comparison of botanical knowledge of a rain forest dweller compared to a European university trained botanist. The estimate suggests that the indigenous forest dweller contains the equivalent of 35 botanists with 15 years experience each!

That goes way beyond anything we in the West now consider an ‘expert’ or’ virtuoso’.

So given this amazing ability and capacity of the natural human being, what are the implications for a western child in a typical western school environment?

First off, how much time does a child spend in a school environment as opposed to the real world (which is where the natural child’s learning is based)?

What does the loss of that real-world learning mean for the western child?

Given the general tendency within indigenous peoples to respect the unique personal entity, to embrace diversity and independence along side interdependence, what does the teaching of ‘belief systems’ imply for the western child?

The Roots of Modern Compulsory State Education

To answer these questions, in the context of a western styled education, one has to go to the roots of that system and seek out the inspiration for it. John Taylor Gatto has done that in his phenomenal work, “The Underground History of American Education”. I will give a brief description here, culled from his book.

The initial inspiration for Western Mass Schooling, or Compulsory State Education, came from observations by the British in India of the Hindi Rote System of education devised for the lower classes within the Hindi system that the British met in the 1600s onwards. The HIndi system was an Empire... 

It was an Anglican Military Chaplain who first observed and understood how this system worked. His name was Andrew Bell.

What Andrew Bell saw and understood was that by gathering the children into large groups, where they had to learn drills by rote, where corporal punishment was widely used, where there was a number of powerful external imperatives to show that one had learned, (could repeat the scriptures, perform the rituals, read the texts,) the Hindi Caste system had created a solid state and class structure that had endured for thousands of years, and had resisted the British in spite of the British technological superiority in sea faring and in warfare.

Indeed there was meeting of minds in that the elites of both cultures recognised each other, and thus the British Raj, an accommodation of equals, both ruling their respective masses. The older was to refine the younger. And this was driven largely by commercial interests.

The Hindi Class System 

The Hindi Caste system looked a bit like this :
Top 5% of three groups : 
in Order of Power : 
Brahmin’s (priests and the professions), 
Warriors and Administrators, 
Merchants and Land Cultivators
Lower 95% of two groups : 
Menials, and 
Untouchables.

The Brahmin’s ensured that the warriors, administrators and the bulk of the leaderships received a diluted insight into the drivers of this system, so that they alone retained overall control.

The lower 95% received the mass schooling, administered by teachers, who drilled student leaders, who then drilled hundreds of students, in groups of ten or so, all of this in large single rooms. The entire operation of each school was directed by a single Brahmin.

And all this because the belief systems were so entrenched by the time the child was 11 or so, ‘hardwired’ if you will, the overall system of the Hindi centralised power was secure.

“The entire purpose of the Hindu Schooling was to preserve the class system.”

At the time there was no formalised education in the British Empire, apart from the few elite schools and colleges. The peasant yeomanry were to a large degree self educated. Home schooled. The recent move from yeomanry to factory and mine worker had transformed the British Empire, though there was stiff resistance to this move, as the yeomanry/peasant came from a background of self-sufficiency, laced with a sense of liberty and dignity.

The Luddites were literate and clearly understood what the coming factory system implied for their communities and for societal control. The loss of their lands via The Enclosure Acts was a coercive move, designed to drive them into factories. Read E E Thompson’s fine work “The Making of The English Working Class” for a detailed look at who, who and why this process developed.

The concept of a proletariat had yet to be thought of, a concept that was required for maximum efficiency in a mass production economy. Modernising the plebians of the Roman Empire.

The first expression of this kind of schooling arose from a complete mis-understanding , and can be found in the Lancaster Schools of England. Lancaster, a Quaker, was inspired by an account written by Bell in 1797 of the Hindi system. Bell had made it clear that such a system was an effective impediment to learning, and created in it’s subjects a docility perfectly suited to mass production labour. Lancaster missed this, and concluded that it would be cheap way to awaken intellect in the lower classes. A classic case of a genuine do-gooder who missed the point completely.

Sparta : The Legend of the 300

The rest as they say is History… I would add here that the inspiration for Western Military Training came from the legendary Spartan Culture, and within that the concept of the militarisation of an entire culture was perfected. This was what drove the tiny Prussian State from near collapse, to become one of Europe’s most feared fighting machines and thus a mighty Empire. That was where the first ‘kindergartens’ were crafted. The logic was impeccable. And it was the Prussian system that refined Compulsory State Education as we know it. It was American, French, German and English Coal and Steel Barons, and their paid Educators who were most inspired by the Prussian Military success at Waterloo.

I highly recommend J T Gatto’s work. It will reveal much about the history of the project for a world wide state sponsored system of compulsory education, and it has ever since defined the nature of our society and it’s ills and Gattos work will both shock and reward the reader many, many times.

Implications

So now that we have looked to the core inspiration, we can ask what are the implications for a natural child in a typical western school environment? Lets take a look at what happens to that child.

1. They are cut off from the real world experience, from the wider community and segregated from their parents.

2. They are forced into un-natural groupings, according to age and ‘ability’ to conform.

3. They are required to ‘learn’ what they are told to learn, which really means to memorise texts provided by the teachers, who have been given these texts by other unseen administrators of the system.

4. Failure to 'learn' leads to punishment, humiliation, threats of low income for life.

Early schooling is about learning to respond appropriately to authority. Obedience is inculcated in the first three years of primary school. (These days the State wants your children even earlier!)

Thus the child learns that his or her own interests do not matter unless they get approval from the teachers..

They will therefore choose an interest within the scope of what is offered, this in order for the psyche to survive, and become dependent upon external approval.

They will have to become devious, self-limiting and external cue driven because they are expected to NOT MAKE MISTAKES, (such is the nature of rote learning) and making a mistake, observing it and correcting it, (an internal feedback loop) is an essential part of the natural learning process. Once that is disabled, then self motivated learning is all but impossible. University offers a mime of this, as the context and texts are limited to what is required for the student top pass his or her exam.

Further Educational and Academic success are dependent upon fitting into the system.

Conditioning and Control

All of this conditions the child in ways that make them ‘ideal’ for working in factories and bureaucracy’s.

Their teachers and their parents have all been through and accepted this system, and this isolates the child, for there is no-one to talk to who understands what is happening.

Those that ‘do not fit in’ are then channelled towards unskilled labour or the military and police. And then finally there’s those who rebel, who become severely damaged by this system and become ‘drop-outs’ , whose chances of getting a ‘good job’ are diminished … they are demonised, and held up as a frightening example to the others.

Officers and Political Leaders are drawn from the better schools and colleges, or from a carefully screened few who work their way up the ranks.

For a more in depth understanding of this whole subject, the works of John Taylor Gatto, John Holt and Paolo Freire are among the best resources you can find. Alice Miller and Carl Rogers have done some of the best work on the psychological nature of this process and how that leads inevitable towards distress and dis-empowerment. Both point to ways in which this can be healed and undone. All these writers are all but ignored by the Educational Elites, and you will be hard push to find a student of Education or Psychology who has been given access to these learning’s within the confines of established academia.

Meaning

In essence this is all about the control of meaning, of replacing inner meaning with received meaning ,and shutting the gate on the possibility of inner meaning arising as a threat to the established meaning. What this means is that the children develop belief systems about their abilities, about their place in society and indeed about their society itself (these beliefs are embedded in the texts of the subjects they are taught/forced to learn in school) by constant repetition. These beliefs become hard wired, neural pathways, and become a sort of ersatz identity, one that is defensive and quite resistant to alteration – held in place by fear.

And that is the nature of belief systems, state and commercial control, in a nut shell.

That is why 20 million taxpaying adults will allow a Government to rip them off, time and time again, to send their sons and daughters to war, to manufacture and then drop bombs on other peoples who have been demonised, all this in spite of a nagging sense that somehow it’s not right!

This is why some people will read one newspaper and others another, and they will sit in a pub, or on a TV panel, or in a Legislative Assembly and debate the issues, repeating what they have read, thinking all the time that their debates are genuinely based upon their own unique understandings and particular viewpoints, rather than share experienced knowledge culled from the wider world and information they have gleaned for themselves so as to enlighten each other. In debates, the winner takes all!

This is why the ‘new age’ leads to ideologues, fantasists and sectarian divides, because of this mode of reading and repeating what one has read. Original thinking is all but obliterated, and where it exists, it is limited to ‘invention’, ‘fashion’, ‘art’ and literature and corralled into a world that is carefully structured by this whole process. Thus the majority of people become mere repositories of belief.

TV and Advertising work because of this very fact.

Processed and less than optimum foods don’t help matters either.

A Violent System

What has to be understood is that this system was imposed and is inherently violent – as is the nature of the city state and industrialism. The natural child is robbed of his or her innate sensory acuity, and is practically blinded by this process, made emotionally blind because the child has to suppress his or her natural anger at this imposition in order to survive.

On top of this, parenting practices handed down over the years, from the elites, have made violence an acceptable mode of training. As Alice Miller points out a child who has been beaten or humiliated all the while being told by those they are dependent upon, those whose love they require for their own psychic development,’that this is for your own good’ must believe that admonishment, and will in turn do the same to their own children.

It was in 1986 that corporal punishment was outlawed in English State Schools, and 1996 in private Schools. At the same time, to counter that, increased testing was introduced – and we know that this increased testing has not led to an increased intellectual ability in our children. Schools were driven to meet targets in order to secure funding, and so the teachers role become that of a trainer for testing, rather than an educator. The system is designed so that tinkering with it appears to bring novel change, yet the core underlying dynamics remain in place and the power structures retain their over arching power.

If all this seems a bit too much or unlikely, than don’t take my word for it. Explore the issues I have highlighted, do your own research, check in with your own experiences and inner sensing, and decide for yourself.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it’s your gift to universe



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