Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label empathy. Show all posts

Facing the Dominator System : Solidarity, Empathy, Partnership - Crafting Egalitarian ways of living well..

Even in the ruins of their homes, in the midst of a Genocide, they prepare and share food in solidarity.
~
Solidarity, humane solidarity across every variation of our cultures, our faiths, our economic status, our ethnicities is the path we need to walk, as persons, as peoples, as a species.


Solidarity requires empathy.

How would we feel is that was being done to us?

How would I feel if that was being done to me?

Solidarity in social action requires our best efforts of understanding vulnerability.

Solidarity in political action requires knowledge, rather than belief and effort through daily engagement and involvement.

Solidarity requires we examine what we have internalised of the culture that divides us in order to de-colonise our minds so that we can meet with minimal bias each others needs.

Solidarity requires we make an effort to understand that poverty is a weapon.

Solidarity requires we understand that our comfort must never come at a cost to others.

Solidarity requires we humanise ourselves, it requires that we confront every effort at dehumanising others.

Solidarity requires determination, vision and trust. We must trust ourselves to continue until the work is done. The work of solidarity is worth the effort, even if we fail from time to time.

For me, for some reason, the certainty of health as a reality, as a biological standard, optimal health of a species, or a habitat or a living environment is deeper than any sense of hope I have ever felt. That is where solidarity leads me. I stand in solidarity with life asa nurturant process. How is it for you?

Solidarity requires we self-care and work to reduce our rage to redirect our anger about the needless suffering towards active prevention and repair, and it requires we eschew lateral violence. Stop lashing out at each other in frustration...

Solidarity requires we confront Racism, Misogyny, Xenophobia, Ableism as curated, taught hatreds and we must understand that every form of bigotry that is weaponised to maintain the status quo of the Hierarchy of Wealth. Bigotry is unknown in all infants.

Solidarity requires that we get politically active, well beyond merely voting for choices others have made for us. We must learn the skills of shared deliberation and decision making, shared effort to implement and shared accountability.

Without solidarity across the grass roots, the Mad Bull of Hierarchy will continue to eat us, it will shit on us and we will not be able to turn that shit to compost for future nurturing of our grass roots into healthy landscapes.

And that is our evolutionary function - to nurture the shared commons of life.

Every other organism does so. We are not unique.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

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Resolving the problem of School Shootings.

I am appalled at the slaughter of children by children.

It is utterly unspeakable.



War is utterly unspeakable.


What is clear is that the adult world is wholly responsible, in both cases.

Therefore the adult world must be made accountable for all that harm, trauma, blood and guts, maiming, terror. The adults must confront the nature of the power system, which is based on competing powers, and how that afflicts governance and people's lives.....

It has to stop.

It cannot stand as inevitable.

The children are innocent.

The only way to resolve the problem of school shootings is this.

You cannot solve a problem one has created, using the same consciousness that led to that problem in the first place. The radical goes to the verifiable evidence, is ruthlessly honest, and identifies the root of the problem.

Do with it what you will, it changes nothing in terms of the quality and accuracy of this observation of a social power dynamic.

This video articulates the truth. 'A voice in the wilderness', but really it is 'a voice of the wilderness, the natural child'





Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Thank you for reading this blog. All we need to do is be really honest, responsive to the evidence we find, and ready to reassess when new evidence emerges. The rest is praxis.

Abuse : Origins, root causes, recovery and re-alingment with optimal human biological health




 
 
The resolution of the issue of abuse as a common behavioural dynamic lies not in punishment, rather it rests in altering the way our society as a whole relates to and treats children. And indeed, how it relates parenting, and how it supports healthy parenting. It is intrinsically linked to how power is mediated in social and material terms across our economic and political and judicial systems. It is inherently a matter of governance.

Of course, known serial abusers, those who cause intentional harm who operate without remorse in any sphere of human activity must be segregated, isolated from society at large, because they cannot be trusted to act otherwise. That goes without saying. It is a health and safety matter of extreme importance. Punishment is not really effective as a way to deal with this problem. Punishment does not prevent harm, because it always arrives after the harm has been caused. Punishment is always too late.

"The psychology of any given family, community or society is both revealed and perpetuated in how that family, community or society relates to and treats the children".

Chronic stress degrades all known biological systems, and leads to disease. Unresolved trauma leads directly to chronic stress, as does war, poverty and all forms of abuse.

These are not inevitables, nor are they unknowns.

They are all the result of choices made by adults.

Here is a detailed chart outlining the social behavioural characteristics of various societies, which was collated in the 70s.

Research since then into endocrine systems, autonomous systems, in utero development and psychology, trauma studies, inter-generational trauma behaviour patterning, history, anthropology, neuroscience, biochemistry, child development and psychopathology confirm the insights of this survey.

Researcher/writers such as Alice Miller, Judith Herman, David Chamberlain, Oliver James, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Carl Rogers, Derrick Jensen, Gabor Mate, Kitty Jones, Robert Zapolsky, David Smail and many, many others are great resources in this.

I URGE you to access the data, the evidence, and go through the works of the writers listed above if you are genuinely concerned about child abuse....

I say this because I want to help you, and all of us, to understand this dynamic so that we can work together to apprehend abusers, to prevent further abuse emerging as it does in such massive numbers and realign our social systems with optimal human biological health.

I am a Survivor of long term intentional child abuse.

I speak and write with some knowledge of this subject.

Both in terms of addressing my own abusive and destructive learned behaviors and my recovery from the trauma I endured for the best part of 20 years.

This blog is where I join the dots on all of this research by people who literally have saved my life and enabled me to return to a degree of optimal biological health.

At some time it will become a book, a website, an interactive mind map and a documentary.

I do this for myself, I do it for you and I do it for my great grand children and all their contemporaries.


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.

Dynamics of different kinds of societies in a graphic.

Some flows of experiential and sensory societal drivers and behavioural dynamics, related to nurture, trauma, oppression. 

Parts of the puzzle, stand back and try to see the whole.
To be able to perceive the underlying patterns.




Right click, then view on new tab, on this link to view it in large scale.


This is a mind map I am looking at the two poles of Societal Behavioural Characteristics, which can be viewed as an adjunct from my previous article on those two poles of Society, and how we got here....

I am trying to describe flows of experience context as they relate to observed social behavioural characteristics of different kinds of cultures, ranging between Egalitarian and Hierarchically Violent.

It is only a brief outline of the difference in dynamic between a hierarchically violent society and an egalitarian empathy based society. A guide for further questioning and exploration.

It also works with this graphic ...




This outlines a flow chart of what can happen when a trauma or trauma pattern remains unresolved, or is resolved.

Healing and recovery are a core dynamic of all living systems,  accidents happen, and organisms have evolved repair and recovery processes and dynamics precisely because accidents are common in any dynamically changing environment - wind, storms, snow, ice, rain storms, floods, moment of distraction and oopsie!

The difference for existing human culture  is that the harm and stress caused is way beyond accidental, and there are no known mammalian biological processes designed for sustained chronic stress and toxicity.

We are not designed to handle chronic stress.

We need to really understand that that means that we humans are 'designed' to accommodate a degree of occasional stress. We are designed to be able to respond/react from a background of robust health - physiological and psychological.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

*If you like this post, bla, blah, blad.

Passionate about Politics?

Passionate about politics?

We'd all be damned passionate if foreign bombs were being dropped on us to for 'regime change' and 'freedom'.

Passionate, and running away from the violence with our families and a few possessions.

Running for our very lives!

Because that is what this is all about.

There was no pressing situation that demanded an EUref.

It was a set piece designed to trigger, enervate and inflame folk.

The media xenophobia was designed to make the remainers THINK that the leavers were racist or xenophobic. Which in turn triggered the leavers who voted out in protest, and feel, rightfully that that accusation is a smear, and thus deepened the divisions across the grass roots.

And the few nasty racist street thugs who get off on bullying and violence will of course deem it permissable to escalate their abuse.

It was also a set up for the anti-Corbyn anti-Momentum, anti-democratic coup underway, which WILL fail....

And the main driver? Chilcott, anyone?

The THREAT OF WAR CRIMES INVESTIGATIONS AND TRIALS, nor just for Tony Blair, but for about 5000 establishment operatives who made the 'case' and who prosecuted the war.

Including EVERY MP who voted for the war and maintained that position throughout.

Which explains Anna Eagles betrayal.

She voted for the war and against an investigation.

She also
voted against saying that the case for war against Iraq has not yet been established.

Hello?

Our taxes converted into smart bombs, and funding, training and weapons for violent militia across the Middle East and North Africa. Government policy. Did YOU decide on that? Were you consulted as they bombed and bombed and bombed? Was I?

Whose cash is that tax take, in reality?

Who worked their butt off day in, day out to generate an income that generated that income tax?

In good faith?

THAT is what this is all about.

Leadership?

I have all the charisma I need. I have all the evidence I need. I don't need a charismatic leader to convince me. An Obama, or a Reagan or a Blair. No.

I want a political party and a political leader and a government that is willing to act on the evidence, and understands that this cash is our cash.

I do not want to pay taxes to a War Criminal Government, to have the NHS sold off for private profit centers, to enable those nasty feckers to frack and fuck our land and people.

NO! NO! NO!

Passionate because I love being alive, being human and I understand in a very personal way what it is to have those degraded by geo-politics and street level abuse. Not because I hate. I don't hate. I detest, I dissent, I have empathy, I love.

That is why I am passionate about Governance, community and politics.


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.

Basic Human Optimal Biological Health. and Trolls.

Basic Human Optimal Biological Health.

When one looks into modern endocrinology, for example, which can now describe the differences between a healthy functioning endocrine system and one that has suffered shock or is dysfunctional in some manner and plot a correlation with the health of the individual,we begin to see something else as well.

This evidence suggests that a healthy state of empathic, autonomous, connected extended family into community relationship is the base line of optimal human biological health.

That is when the hormonal cascading within the human being is working at its optimal state. The specific chemical interactions, messaging, outcomes of healthy functioning are known.

This basically happy state is the baseline of optimal human biological health, for another reason : it contains within that the ability to deal with sudden shocks, occasional illnesses, accidents and direct threats in productive, creative and healing ways. We live in a dynamic bio-space, the surface of Earth.We are elastic, we must flow with regard to those dynamics, or we make life more difficult and more complicated for ourselves.

Conditions are always, always, moving.

There has to be room for mood variation, for sadness and anger, rage and fear.

What we find is that space, that recovery ability is much reduced if stressors become chronic, unending, inevitable. Then we see the breakdown of endocrine system function, along with a host of other symptoms.

In other words we are already perfectly adapted for Peace, and like all organisms, we need a nurturant environment as Mothers, infants and children to develop those qualities through experience, into adulthood.

We are not adapted for chronic stress. I think that is made rather obvious by the massive size of the NHS and the relative health of our Society, both physically and psychologically.

Indeed there are no organisms that we know of that are adapted TO chronic stress.

Trolls in the Public Domain  - a healthy approach to a common problem.


Be it muslim people, christians, jews, germans, disabled on benefits, unemployed, out of favour foreign leaders or attention seeking celebrities, facists, anti-facists, conspiracy theorists, covert agents, or mad, angry, frustrated, desperate people, when ad hominems are deployed in the media, it's a mirror of 19th Public School Boy behaviour, hazing, joshing with intent, pecking orders, corporal punishment for the mind, etc ......

And with actual military power in the hands of the Governing bullies, (political realism does not forget that aspect of power) that makes things a little more complicated. 


For everybody. It's a bio-psyche-social issue.

When trolling infiltrates political and policy discussions,matters of ethics, war and corruption, everybody loses. We are all dehumanised by trolling  it is nasty, agressive, disturbing behaviour and profoundly immature.

Nonetheless......

Trolling is a form of bullying, it is a tactic of intentional emotional abuse and it is ultimately a weakness..  one has to understands that, and utilise it.

When there is no viable substance to the ad hominems, no mention or rational discussion of the policies, the principles, the ethics or the corruption. Just the insult. That is all useless information. The only information contained in such assaults is that the writer is a bully.

That's ALL it is.

And how best to deal with trolls? How do you undermine the bully?

This is my take on this. This is how I say 'No!'. and how I try to turn it onto a 'Yes!'.

I ignore the insult and treat it as a bit of information; depersonalise it. I do not let it get to me. It's all in the bullies head. All over his keyboard.

Then, I respond if I wish to engage, and use the incident by identifying the bullying as such, point out that  it is a known and rather obvious tactic that to maintain a false narrative in the face of facts by disrupting a discussion and initiating or antagonising an aggressive argument to derail the discussion. I then dismiss that as immature behaviour, in polite terms, of course.

"It ain't working, Buddy! These fish are not biting on that bait!"

... and then I attempt to reframe the narrative, articulate the policy, the principle, the ethic in the context of all the evidence available, and bring it back on subject, and suggest the resolution of the matter.

And I ensure that I keep each expression as clear as I can, irrespective of the reaction.

It's never just the few who are writing, it's all those who also read, and observe the discourse.

Amongst the readers who read that will be some who are on the edge of understanding and who will learn from this. Others will find reassurance. Some will be enlightened.

That way I USE the troll to clarify the issue, in public, for the benefit of all. Call it performance art, call it a waste of time, call it what you will.

I do it without reacting to the insult, or being drained by it.

I learned the hard way, slowly.

I aspire to do it with an optimally functioning endocrine system, to do it with LOVE!
 

And it doesn't always work.

We must lead.

We have to lead.

We have to become the directors of Government, local and national, by doing both we become truly international. 


I call for The Resolution. 

Not a revolution, not a repetition of a cycle from a fixed point. A resolution of the problems that are resolvable, that are problems in human relationships, that are subject to choice, volition - these are all resolvable matters.

I pray for the healthy resolution of conflict, pollution, corruption, bullying. That is where I am headed. A healthy humane society. We have been there before and it was good. We have it in us.

And when I write the word 'we', I am thinking of many cultures, languages, accents, shades and this includes all the decent people, whatever our belief systems and experiences are, we are good people who can work across diversity to find the common humanity in all matters, and we must engage .... the genuine lovers of life must unite as a Governing force. It's a miracle that we still retain that immense humanity in the face of what we are born into, what we are presented with.

Let's use that miracle.

From the grassroots, from the bacterial populations within our guts that make our lives possible, from the deepest of our humanity, the bottom of what you might call my soul, as a biological species standing for itself.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

The Popes Global PR Tour. Words and action.

Activists for any number of 'causes' are taking comfort in the words of Pope Francis.

Memes are proliferating across the interwebs.

This.



Survivors around the Earth are not taking comfort in Pope Francis's words, nor are they impressed by the actions of The Vatican. The same can be said of survivors advocates, lawers, physicians, psychotherapists and close friends.

Actions speak louder than words.

The action that Survivors, survivors advocates, lawers and transcenders and humane decency require is that the Vatican hands over all it's documentation on clerics who have sexually assaulted, bullied, abused harmed defenceless children: from the initial allegations, through to investigations and the response of the Catholic Hierarchy and it's officials acting under it's umbrella in their dealings withe Survivors.

That, and that alone is the missing element in the world wide process of Survivors seeking justice, resolution and probity with regard to their cases. And those that are taking their cases forward are a minority of the total caseload.

Some say this refusal to open up is partly a matter of the Vatican's finances.

Wealth hoarded, concentrated or sequestered is wealth taken away from the wider community.

All wealth is generated from within the community at large. Including the massive wealth of The Vatican and national church organisations.

It is not generated by individuals who are billionaires etc, no matter how the big the egos of celebrity 'entrepreneurs', politicians and fawning pundits waffle on about their 'wealth generation'.

There are people who capitalise on the cheapened labour and the taxes of the grass roots, and they take a bigger share than they need or deserve, and they do not 'create' it. The workers create it, and the shoppers create it, and that service users create it.

The fact is that great wealth has nothing to do with greed; it's a political utilitarian device that enables Political Power to exercise itself over people, in that so called 'economic decisions made by Governments are political, ideological rather than economics based on evidence, and such decision making exists in order to enhance, protect and project political onto others, the electorate and their children, who are seen as objects rather than human beings, with real feelings and experiences that matter.

Private Military Contractors do not come cheap.

The behaviour of The Vatican and The Irish Government towards both predatory clerics, and survivors, and the ECB in relation to Greece, and the DWP in relation to job seekers, disabled people and other vulnerable groups, amongst many others, makes this abundantly clear.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Referendum on 'Austerity' and the implementation of cuts to social welfare programs as they stand

I have initiated a petition to hold a referendum, to give the entire people of the UK a Ggenuinely democratic opportunity to decide for ourselves whether or not the cuts being imposed, and the rationale under which they are being presented, has any standing as a fully democratic mandate.



Petition Link :

Hold a UK wide referendum on to ask if the people of the UK accept the basis of, and implementation of 'Austerity' as it stands.


THE TEXT OF THE PETITION

"The term 'Austerity' is being used to generic label for a series of legislative actions and policy implementations that are causing avoidable harms to real people's lived experience.

From the closure of the Independent Living Fund, to privatisation of probabtion services, ideological interventions in Education, privatisation of our National Health Services, the sale of national long term National properties and resources for short term cash, the privatisation of security based public bodies, the reduction in humane public services provided by well trained, well paid professionals being replaced by for profit companies,  and much else besides, is causing socially unacceptable harms across our Society.

The rationale of these actions and policy implementations appear to be based on a misrepresentation of the situation with regard to Government use of the collective shared resource of taxation, and National Debt and an operating deficit.

The Government that is implementing these policies, taking these actions and that is actively ignoring or denying the harms being caused, does not have a majority mandate within the electorate for 'Austerity' as it is being IMPOSED on the many of the most vulnerable people within the population of the UK, and having been less than forthcoming as to any detail as to what these 'cuts' would entail in practice, whilst assuredly knowing those details, for such matters are scoped out planned many, many months in advance, have not acted in good faith, and with a large segment of society protesting on our streets, online, in conversations at home and elsewhere there is an acute need to now ask the UK's people the question posed above, and to have us, the people provide the answer.

For that is the true nature of Democracy, as the Greek people have just demonstrated. 

Now we demand that the Government become obedient to British, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Democracy, the voices of the people, possibly for the very first time, and cease to play ideological power politics with our lives and our shared contributory resources, our taxes, and our most humane aspirations.

Hold a UK wide referendum on to ask if the people of the UK accept the basis of, and implementation of 'Austerity' as it stands."

Petition link here: Petition


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Working Mothers, Hard Working Families and Power Establishments

Working Mothers and Hard Working Families

"Working Mothers" implies that Mothering is not work worthy of remuneration or reward or support. The mother must also work and pay taxes and contribute to the 'economy'. Otherwise she is a 'shirker'.

Healthy empathic parenting is a profound contribution, not only to our social economy, (albeit a different kind of economy) but also to world peace, human dignity and the creation of a loving society. It is probably the most important contribution of all.

"Hard Working Families" implies putting the children to 'good' economic use... that the children must submit to the demands of the 'economy' as a matter of primary importance. They must be trained, from the earliest age possible, to work hard for the economy.

"The psychology of any given family, community, Institution or Society is both revealed and perpetuated in how they relate to and treat the children and the most vulnerable. Change that and you can change everything."

The question then is what changes does Government policy intend in terms of long term outcomes?

There is a biologically mandated experiential process of bonding between mother and child that is absolutely the core of how the child develops self empathy, empathy for others, and that most healthy sense of self and of autonomy which underpins true co-operation and nurturing, and the degree to which this process - attachment - is stressed or disrupted correlates very strongly with adverse outcomes in later life, often emerging as behavioural issues in youth, dysfunctional relationships or serious health issues in mid life.

This affects both men and women. We are all born of the womb. All of us.

Within the womb, if our mother is subjected to chronic stress or trauma our physiological and psychological development is adversely affected. Mothers are advised by Government Health Departments to quit smoking, to cease drinking alcohol. This is healthy advice.

Research has revealed that any air-borne pollutants the mother is exposed to are concentrated in the developing baby's body by up to 100 times the levels within the mother. The same applies to any pollutant, such as pesticides, additives, colourants and so on.

Why then does Government enact social and economic policies that have been proven to induce chronic stress for mothers rather than enact policies that not only reduce chronic stress but also increase dignity, peace, safety and happiness for mothers, and their children, knowing full well the adverse outcomes of chronic stress on both mother and child?

What is the effect of the Iraq Invasion and war on the mothers of Iraq and their children? Ask this question in relation to any war mongering, in relation to the Arms Industry which is so heavily subsidised by Governments.

The Dominating Society - the Ruling Elite, Corporate, State and Religious Institutions - feel threatened by that natural process of empathic development because it is also part of the development of the clearest sense of justice, and it is part of the development of personal autonomy, and empathy and it is clear that the intent behind Government policy (and much Religious Indoctrination) is to deepen the Governments ability to exercise control over people by inducing chronic stressors that will reduce empathy, making people more susceptible to psychological manipulation and further atomise communities, thus reducing the perceived threat.

Mothering is a critical role in human relationships, and deserves full evidence based support, which should include support for empathic fathering and parenting in general.

We do not need to work more and parent less.

There is more than enough wealth  in our systems to go around to cover all living human beings true needs, and then some.

The then some is the intentional creation of a kinder, more empathic and robustly just social reality where people are nurtured, given dignity, enabled to live lives that are peaceful, loving, co-operative and nurturing, even across variations in culture, faith, outlook, mirroring the natural diversity and creativity and fecundity we see in biology, in nature.

What's not to like about that?

Power and languaging.

"Under Disability Living Allowance, applicants who could not walk 50 metres unaided qualified.

But as a result of David Cameron's benefits cull, the threshold has now been reduced to 20 metres."

Those alterations were made by accountants, financial advisors and statisiticians suggesting that a reduction in the test length would create savings in expenditure which is the bottom line of the Governments actions.

The effects on real human beings is omitted from that analysis.

When those effects become apparent, the refusal to adjust the limits becomes an act of Institutional Cruelty.

The psychology behind this is known as 'Scientific Management', a factory based management approach that is wholly unsuited to real human beings. Hence the language of 'benefits units'.

In Nuremburg a new wording was heard - 'office language' aka bureaucratic language - which the German bureaucracy used to ignore the human realities.

"In Hannah Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, Eichmann was asked, “Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people to their death?” And Eichmann answered very candidly, “To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy.”

His interviewer asked what that language was, and Eichmann said, “My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache – ‘office talk.'” When asked for examples, Eichmann said, “It's basically a language in which you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, ‘Why did you do it?' you say, ‘I had to.' ‘Why did you have to?' ‘Superiors' orders. Company policy. It's the law.'


The Nazi's won WWII. The ideology won, in spite of the rhetoric.

The same psychology, languaging and approach dominates Government in the UK and the US, and in many other places.

As this example reveals....

Changes to benefits rules mean Kayleigh Haggo, 16, no longer qualifies for her car - because she can walk 20 metres unaided.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

Empathy and a sense of justice : the true threat to hegemonic Power.

I think that Empathy is a biologically mandated ability, a complete embodied sensory capability, that enables an organism to read the world, the environment that is lived in.

It is learned,through experience, initially, in human beings and primates, and probably all mammals, through the experience of being treated with empathy as an infant...

Self empathy in human beings is self understanding in a complete, embodied and pre-verbal way that can also be verbalised or expressed or articulated, as well as projected into others as a sensory capability. The feeling comes first, before the words.

Very useful indeed in the bush, jungle, desert etc in terms of discerning what is useful, nurturing or harmful.

Absolutely necessary for healthy human relationships.

Hunting demands empathy and calm.

Parent demands empathy and calm.

The core of empathy is in self empathy, from which empathy for others develops out of the acute sensitivity that self empathy is.

With that sense of self comes a sense of autonomy and of course, a sense of justness (or justice).

In terms of optimal human biological health for individuals, families, communities and societies, these qualities are core components, essential in all respects.

In terms of Hierachically Violent Societies and Institutions, these qualities represent a direct threat to the psychology of Power that Rules over the people.

It is this that lies underneath the exclusion of Aboriginal peoples from any decision making process on matters that affect their lives enacted by conquests inheritors who rule today across the Earth, and it lies behind the careful manipulation of selected assimilated Aboriginals to push for deeper assimilation.

The 'good indian' vs the 'bad indian'; 'hard working families' vs 'benefits scoungers'. We are at 'war'; they are 'terrorists'.

And it's also why so many so-called Democracies refuse to move towards a truly participative Democracy that empowers the shared responsibilities of Power across the grass roots.

Empathy and a sense of justice : the true threat to hegemonic Power.

And with the emergence of the internet as a forum for exchange and dissemination honest experience and insight, as well as leading research formerly locked away from public view within Academia,  the democractisation of information has led to a surge of empathy and a greater articulation of the felt sense of injustice.

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

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"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

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Gaza, and the truth about the world-wide culture of Power.

Empathy is a strength. It requires a unique human strength  to maintain empathy. It's also an expression of optimal human health.

It is true that in this Society, if one is not fairly robust, if one is in any way vulnerable, marginalised or discriminated against, for what ever reason one is exposed to being manipulated, exploited mistreated and abused. 

That has more to do with the kind of Society we live in, the kind of society we were born into than it has to do with human nature. This is a Bully Cult. The  outcomes of chronic stress induced by this cult lead to adverse behaviour patterns.

Our society is predicated on Power, and Power maintains itself by stressing each lower ranking, in effect trickle down of  structured abuse that alters peoples endocrine, autonomous, emotional, neurological, psychological and behavioural systems over time leading to chronic adverse behaviours - all 'adjustments' to fit in, to survive.

It's a trauma survival technique, very well understood. They call it the stress position. Childhood resilience often masks the painful reality.



Children playing in the ruins of their homes is Gaza 2014


And as to strength, moral strength, that comes in the first instance from a sense of self empathy, coupled with empathy for others, and is reflected in a sense of autonomy and responsive connection,  in a holistic expression, with one's community, family, land and language. Solidarity. Clean food. Loving, vibrant extended families. Libertarian Education. Trusting children and giving them space.

 "Our children do not need us to shape them; they need us to respond to who they are." Naomi Aldort

Question :

"What about the actions of Israeli Politicians who are now famous, who once engaged in 'terrorism' and are known to have murdered 'enemies' in overt and covert combat?"

or

"Is the cost, 500,000 children have died, of the embargo and no fly zone over Iraq, worth it?!"  to Madelaine Albright,who replies "Yes, I think the cost, the cost is worth it." and proceeds to rationalise that sentence. A professional denial. All our leading Politcians are trained in the art. They all, the front men, receive this training as a critical component of their work. Staying on message. Keep it Professional.

The Israeli State's answer is typical of an abusers rationalisation of the abuse within an abuse family dynamic. In fact this probably applies to the majority, if not all, of those who take to violence in pursuit of ideological or political power objectives - so include the UK, USA, China, Russia, France, etc etc etc in this world wide culture.

Here's the News!


A Palestinian family amidst the destruction wrought by Israeli War Planes, 2014

The 51-day offensive in 2014 left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, including at least 1,462 civilians, a third of whom were children, according to the United Nations. Human rights groups reported that numerous Palestinians went missing during the war. Some were later found, either alive or dead, although the fate of 19 others has remained unknown.

Spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza Suhair Zakkout said in a statement that the ICRC had made efforts since 2014 to try and find the location of the missing Palestinians; however, the organization has not received any responses from Israel.

from : 
https://palestineupdates.com/icrc-still-no-news-on-palestinians-missing-since-2014-gaza-war/

Here's the Prime Minister....!

The Foreign Minister.....!

Here's  Bob, with The Weather!

Here are the techniques :

Explain it away with false arguments. Outright Denial. Switching the goal posts.

Avoiding answering direct questions, by redefining the context, asking another question.

Manipulate peoples conditioning with populisms.

Blame the victimised. They made me do it!

Assert that what we see is nit what we see but merely what we perceive due to bias - gaslighting.

False claims to a moral higher ground based on ideology, ignoring the actual behaviour and outcomes.

Religion vs Democracy right?

Dehumanising dissenters.

Attacking whistle-blowers.

Creating favourites who support the abuser because they get 'benefits'.

Benefits and Sanctions.

The similarity between the abuse family dynamic (which is well known, understood and defined) and the Abusive Hierarchical Power system and behaviour set we call 'politics' is obvious.

In Israel, all children - teens are children - are coerced to enlist for a minimum of 3 year. Then there are various social rewards for serving as reservists. On call. Those who reject that call due to moral or conscience are chastised for dissent. Refusal to participate in the violence of the State practically ruins each Israeli child's future life in Israel.

The Israeli State teaches that military service is a good thing, refusal is treason. The British state celebrates the 'sacrifice' of 'our brave boys', mourns the loss of 'blood and treasure'.

The Abuse family dynamic. Coercion to conform. Manipulation and indoctrination.

These dynamics feed into each other. A vicious cycle is created, that runs from generation to generation - who will break the cycle that is funded by the State?

Yet, in spite of this, the fundamental human spirit of decency is the norm between people at the grass roots

Human Kind.

When we are not under chronic stressors, in a situation of relative powerlessness, we get along, across cultural and religious differences because, at the end of the day, we are families like each other. Babies, infants, nappies, disrupted sleep patterns, dirty dishes, birthday celebrations, marriages and funerals..

The Israeli childhood, leading inevitably to combat 'duty' disrupts this perception - it has to. The 'enemy' must be identified and made into a bogey man.

The Gaza childhood, leading to mere survival in a war zone at best. No jobs. No University. No prospects.

And yet people in both communities, a majority in all Societies many, many people emerge from this with their basic kindness and empathy intact, qualities that are crucial elements of optimal human health.

Essential for Gross National Happiness.

And it must be recognised that we at the grass roots of Society have relatively little power by comparison, as individuals, when it comes to confronting Political Power that is enforced by arms.

Some people mistake this for weakness. They side with the abusers when they they blame these  ordinary people by claiming their individual inaction is equivalent to complicity with what the State does. This is more bullying, and does little to foster freedom or liberty. Gaslighting afflicts all of us, on all sides, It becomes a normal behaviour pattern.

The reason  the abuser objectifies (dehumanises) the people he or she targets, is because that isolates the abuser from any connection, empathy, concern or constraint when faced with another person. One can do anything to an object. It has no value other than it's use.

Sheeple

Palestinian lives have no intrinsic value to the Institution of the Israeli Military other than as objects to be abused.  Iraqi lives had no  intrinsic value to the Institution of the Invading USUK Military or the Occupation Government, other than as objects to be subdued and controlled.

Israeli lives have no intrinsic value to the Israeli State Apparatus, other than as tools to be utilised - there is a massive bureaucracy the State funds and maintains in the operation of it's civil oppression of Palestinians, and that's a good earner for a bureaucracy of Israeli officials and clerks.  Many mortgages depend on that work.

That kind of side effect is rarely mentioned in 'the news'.

State or Public or Civil Service Employment programs enrols many, many people in the day to day banality of oppression.

An object can be bought and sold. It can be 'secured'. An object can be discarded. The State objectifies it's own officials. Kissinger's 'dumb animals', the front line police and troops who are often traumatized, and discarded.

And for the front men (Politicians, pundits, etc) a carefully crafted persona, an act, a script, a mask... a toxic mime of character, a toxic mime of intimacy (it LOOKS like......) is a professional requirement. Mark Negev.

This is a world wide culture and Gaza is revealing in real-time on Social Media, the real human cost at the darker edge of the spectrum is being captured in moving image and sound like never before. It's right outside your door, it's seeping in through the official media and is made more obvious by the denials of scores of insane officials. 

To turn away now, or to maintain the illusion of 'sides' and 'justifications' is to betray oneself, to betray one's family, one's children, one's ancestors, the future.

We must look, we must be honest, vulnerable and we must understand what we are faced with and we must act on that.

I trust this more than anything else, that the natural biological drive towards optimal human health cannot be extinguished. Once that is stimulated, once that plant receives enough light, space, nutrient, IT WILL GROW. And if the situation is conducive, it WILL THRIVE.

I feel a little uncomfortable to be articulating these hopes at a time when others are enduring horrors in real time, whilst we witness from a distance, powerless to STOP IT NOW, which our hearts cry out, all day, every minute....

It's the very least we expect 

Grass roots people to Power :

JUST STOP IT!

It is that easy? One order. Job done.

I hold this dread, this fear and disgust and and I the hope, the trust  in my heart. Together.

The beautiful people living in Gaza, in Israel, Ukraine, Congo who are there by accident of birth and are being so brutalised by Political Power struggles they have no part in - all those lives, birthdays, births, marriages, joys, sadnesses, laughter, warmth - I hold you in my heart, I stand with you, I tell myself. At a safe distance. My standing with you is not much use, is it?

The damaged, the hurt and the abusers - these are my family too, and my response ability is to stop the abuse, by stopping the abusers. That is why our votes in lands distant to the happening now trauma and abuse matter. The abusers are getting support from our Government, they are buying weapons from our firms. 

We all share a responsibility to help nurture back to health the hurt, the damaged and to see, if we truly understand the roots of it, how such behaviour can be prevented or reduced across our entire Society. 

Those without remorse, who are a constant danger, must be isolated, made safe, humanely but without question placed where they cannot cause more harm This is an essential. A necessity. I must participate in this as well as all the rest. We all must. 

There will be practical material elements, and psycho-cultural elements to the prevention.

In the long term, this is where we are headed. We have to.

And it hurts, to acknowledge this. There is no freedom from this wound. No anaesthetic. 

I must bear that pain, and do the work. To get there. To make peace inevitable.




Kindest regards

Corneilius

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

We Are a Violent Species : I don't think so!

An article floated by, via the interwebs, when I searched on the phrase "we humans", and it carried the following headline : We are Not a Peaceful Species. It wasn't what I was looking for (as is so often the case) yet it offered me something useful.

The author points to the prevalence of violence in  human history to prove the assertion of the headline. This is such a regular argument it merits some attention because it is inaccurate. Her aim in this article is to counter arguments that say that watching Mixed Martial Arts sport makes people more violent, often made by those who watch Boxing (a gentleman's sport) and look down on MMA or cage fighting etc...

I understand the thinking behind this article. I see her point about the hypocrisy of those who enjoy boxing and deem MMA somehow worse or of less merit.

However the logic, of both, is flawed. Let me explain.

Current stats (CDC) suggest that the number of noninstitutionalized American adults   with diagnosed heart disease is 26.6 million... that cannot be used to imply that human beings are a species prone to heart disease. It can be used to say that the biological drive towards optimal health is being thwarted by any number of factors in the adult population of America. One would have to dig deeper into the data to identify what those factors are.

The CDC also states that 1 in 10 Americans are clinically depressed. That is not to say that Americans are a depressive sub-set of the species of humanity... It does suggest that there are factors which exist in American that contribute to the prevalence of depression in adulthood (which might be greater that which is diagnosed... it could be 20%...)

Likewise the propensity towards violence.

Violence is understandable, we all get angry from time to time, and for a multitude of 'reasons'. We are sensitive beings, and life is replete with challenges to that sensitivity.

Some of us get angry when our computer is too 'slow' or if we lose a piece of text we have been editing and we will swear at our screen. Very few of us will actually tear the screen off the wall or off desk and throw it out the window or assault it with a heavy, blunt instrument whilst screaming expletives... that would invalidate the warranty at the very least....

Some people get angry because others are different (eg: some Christians hatred of gay people), and some of those people will choose violence. We know that not ALL Christians harbour a hatred of gay people, and we know that not all who do harbour such a hatred will choose violence as their response. We cannot use the incidence of Christians beating up a gay person to say ALL Christians are violent or that ALL Christians hate gay people. Christianity is quite a wide brush, ranging from fuming fundamentalists to peace and love Jesus freaks. Humanity is likewise a wide brush.

We do know enough to say that those Christians who harbour that degree of hatred that they choose violence will have serious psychological and developmental issues, that they are expressing a pathology, a serious pathological issue which needs to be addressed. It would be better if it were addressed BEFORE they actualised the violence. Punishment is most often too late for the person who was assaulted.

We also know enough (developmental science, neuro-biology, neuro-chemistry, endocrinology, anthropology) to say that aspects of the societal and individual propensity towards violence have a strong pathological element, that is to say they represent an unhealthy state, a diseased state (colonisation, empire building, rule by coercion, bullying, wife beating, rape) and that our fundamental nature as a species is towards peace and empathy (these are markers of optimal human social health and well being) and that the tendency towards optimal health explains our long existence (2 million years) whilst at the same time it is obvious that a peaceful culture is more vulnerable to a violent culture.


www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Profiles_Peaceful_v_Violent.pdf - a one page chart outlining social behavioural characteristics of different cultures as outcomes of child care within those cultures.

www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html - a much more detailed paper on the origins of violence as an outcome of disrupted biologically mandated developmental processes.

It would be more correct for the author to write that she lives in a Society where violence is common, where violence is ritualised (made relatively safe) in sport (MMA, Boxing, Fencing), and where violence is deliberately chosen and actualised in Military adventures abroad, in the presence of Nuclear Weapons, in racial and other stereotyped hatreds and bigotry, in Organised Crime, Gang 'Culture' and that the State which claims a legal monopoly on Violence mirrors the pathological violence of the God of the Judeo-Christian-Abrahamic Religions, and that this is a pathological situation which causes more harm than good.

And that she enjoys watching men beat the living daylights out of each other.... especialy when they demonstrate respect for each other...
"And let’s look a little further into these professional fighters. Let’s look at how they high-five and touch gloves before they start swinging those fists. Let’s look at how, when the last round is over, they are shaking each other’s hands and giving hugs. Take a second to appreciate that pattern: respect, violence, admiration. Because that right there best encompasses the beautiful dynamic of what it means to be a human."

Oh dear!

This is a very useful article on how to counter commonly occurring falsehoods, deceptions, misinformation and outright lies...


Kindest regards

Corneilius

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