Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts

Trump, May, Climate Change and Sex.

Good questions

1. Whether warfare and violence are a necessary condition for humankind to progress - even if we don't like the idea - is the "authoritarian tendency" an evolutionary adaptation inherited from our primate ancestors?

2. Or is it a culturally defined mode of action which we can choose to reject?

3. What evolutionary advantage can be held by societies that reject warfare if their neighbours who don't accept it wipe them out?




My answers:

1. The evidence, biological, archaeological and psychological is clear that the bulk of human existence we have lived as egalitarian societies, ranging from small bands of nomads to large concentrations in villages, towns and small 'cities', built with natural materials and no monumental structures of any kind. Our evidence is that that healthy human behaviour is pro-social, nurturant, connected, sensitive and yet robust, We also know that most behaviours are learned.

2, http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Social-Behavioral_Characteristics.pdf - the research by Textor and others such as Sorensen, Ward, Prescott, Murdock and Demeo and many others since then suggests that hierarchy is a cultural dynamic, rather than a biological mandate.(more on this below)

3. Evolutionary advantage - what are the assumptions behind the phrase, would such a phrase emerge from within an egalitarian mindset, or is it a projection of the hierarchical mindset? Does the culture seek advantage over the habitat or do they 'co-operate' with the habitat and all that lives in it.

We, as individual human bodies, are comprised of a myriad of organisms which we cannot see, and without which we would not survive.

If one looks at it carefully, one can see that seeking advantage (over nature and other humans) is the core dynamic of the bully, or the parasite, whereas working together (with nature and other humans) is the core dynamic of a healthy individual within a healthy group.

Evolution is driven by health rather than dysfunction.

Violent Hierarchy inhibits natural evolutionary processes.

The damage caused by Violent Hierarchies runs directly against healthy evolution, and it is not logical to describe a dysfunctional behaviour as evolutionary - evolved to be diseased - as the terms are mutually exclusive..
An article that explores this in more detail, with references.



Cultural Social Behavioural Variables.

As mentioned above,  anthropologists in the 1920s - 70s were very busy indeed : Robert Textor surveyed 400 cultures, George Murdock looked at 117 cultures , and these were then meta-analysed by Demeo in the 80s, looking at  a number of social-behavioural variables and measuring their incidence, with geographical mapping as an output, to see the world wide distribution of data.

There is another vast written record of first contact with many, many more pre-conquest cultures, contained in the accounts of Christian missionaries during the initial expansions into un-conquered lands...

Patri- and Matri-lineal Cultures.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Histograms-of-Regional-Behaviors-Textor-Data-400-Cultures-63-Variables_fig1_233954702

DeMeo’s work supports the assertion that there is a profound correlation between the way children are related to and the behaviour of a given society. It mirrors what is known about trauma when it afflicts entire communities, not least when his patterns of trans-generational post trauma behaviours can emerge as social behavioural characteristics...

" It is highly significant that strong positive correlations, with only a small minority of exceptions (related to confounding data codings, as mentioned above), exist between infant and childhood trauma, adolescent sex-repression, male dominance, social hierarchy, destructive aggression and warfare."
 
That said this narrative has it's critics.. 

Demeo wrote a book on this in 1998, after many decades of research...

Most seem to wilfully misinterpret what the narrative is saying, and thus their critique is not of that, but of what they think it is.. 

It did not help that his book, produced in the late 90's, had a rather incendiary title, Saharasia, the 4000bc Origins of Child Abuse, Sex-repression, Warfare, in the Deserts of the old world.

Some people have assumed that this evidence neatly explains the 'nature' of the existing North African, Arab, Persian cultures. They fail to see the tragic irony of their own Anglo-Saxon legacy with regard to egalitarian cultures world wide.. They miss the meaning, and seek to enunciate their own values.

DeMeo stated the case, clearly. 

The institutionalisation of violent hierarchies, as a social behavioural pattern, is the issue, not the 'nature' of a given 'people'.  It is learned. It started somewhere. There is nothing natural about power hierarchies, other than as un-resolved post trauma response that has environmental and experiential dynamics.

The dynamic of violent hierarchies also emerged in South America, in areas where desertification occurred, which gave rise to the Inca and Aztec Empires.. 

It also emerged in lessor forms, locally across the globe.. 

Others then attempt to debunk DeMeo, in order to maintain public order, to undermine the previous critique, which is seen as incendiary. They want to prove that the Arab, Persian, North African, peoples are just ordinary folk, like us. They are, of course.

The see no need, there is nothing but nastiness there, and I agree with them, to impugn any group or individual people with 'scientific evidence' in that fashion, and because the second set of debunkers misunderstand the misunderstanding of the previous critique, they fire ahead, that complicates matters...  they are debunking the wrong thing.

Then there's the adherents of Monotheism in all it's glory.

They hate this book. The Abrahamic Religions in particular.

Too bad.,

Climate change and Sex!

We now understand that intense climate change occurred in the Saharasian regions around 4000 bc, which co-incides with the emergence of patriarchy as a force majeur in human culture.

Where previously a lush land existed, rainfall vanished,  deserts emerged, and living conditions became very harsh. 

Traumatisingly harsh?

We see too, in the archeo-historical record, areas of desertification in South America and China correlated with aspects of emergent patriarchy. The Inca, The Aztec, etc…

However, the Australian history is different..... 

That group of humans (nearly 1 billion live lived, in total, so hardly insignificant) went through two or three massive climate changes, which involved desertification of previously lush ecosystems, and this has happened within a period of 60,000 years of continuous human culture, and we see that in this experience, somehow patri-linealism, violent hierarchies etc did not emerge.

Instead that group remained largely co-operative, egalitarian, connected to the land base, responsive to it, and developed traditions of respect for and knowledge of food resources available, providing a hugely variable diet, and it might have been that alone that allowed them to survive and indeed thrive.  

They were more at peace with each other, than at war, is I think a fair assumption. I’d call that healthy..

There were, across Australia, at least 250 language groups, with huge genetic variations across the population, when the first Europeans arrived.... and there was no war, clans had minimal hierarchy, men and women had equal standing, children were treated with utmost respect and empathy, although there was degrees of conflict and some violence, they were adept at de-escalation and their connection to the land base and food resource base was peerlesss.

This consciousness can be called pre-conquest consciousness. Before violent expansionary hierarchies emerged...

Thus the history of our species contains the resolution of the current Climate Change issue - co-operation rather than competition enables human societies to thrive in almost any circumstance.

Violent Hierarchy - the competing powers dynamic of the dominant industrial system undermines that ability, and the issue is less a matter of evolution, or revolution - it is a matter of healing.

This is not a question of winning, rather it is a question of balance and healing, and any aspect of that dynamic - winning - will undermine the pursuit of balance and healing, which is the very definition of natural justice.

Sex-economic Theory, Trump and May

Economic power mediated through sex and gender, with men as buyers, and women as sellers.

Reich. And many others, have looked at this.g 

Fuck it, we're all looking at this every ef

The woman as property, the woman placed in a state of dependence, the religious consecration of that dynamic, the woman as breeding ground for expansion, the children as the expansion medium, the shock troops of future cultural hegemony. Children as objects..

These are all still deeply rooted in our culture, in spite of it’s self declared Christian-Secular vision of progress.

There is so much pain in sexual and gender relationships world wide..... so much harm, and that is a symptom of the dominant social power systems, as much as the wounds and flaws of individual human beings under socialised pressure. We are looking at The Vatican, Rugby, Swimming, Schooling, Care systems and seeing widespread sexual assault still being ‘managed rather than directly and robustly confronted. In the 21st Century…

Hello!?

A lot of people may well have moved on, as many claim, and good for them - however  it has not yet altered the fundamentals of the existing social behavioural dynamics of power, economic or otherwise.

Can we see the toxins in the water we are swimming in?

How to meet as true equals, albeit uniquely different, in a culture deeply and historically rooted in this dynamic, when all our social behavioural conditioning has been influenced sub-liminaly as much as consciously by growing up in that environmental experiential dynamic and we are taught to see each other as stereotypes, rather than precise individuals that we are, where value is unmeasured and the price is irrelevant, because it is freely given.

Isn’t this what Feminism, for both men and women alike?

No more bullying.

The pleasure in fully meeting life - that sense of connection is intimate, it is our sensory acuity heightens that intimacy, that sense of connection; insecurity and competitive-ness undermines that, and it is no place for the exercise of power over another.

That, for me at least, ranges from sexuality to cooking, from child care to elder care, it is an acute sensitivity, a natural sensitivity, a natural tool kit… a responsive modality of living.

Men, women and children - we are all are born into this acculturation, and yet we are not of it, and our liberation can only emerge as we decolonise our minds and our bodies, and allow our natural sensitivity towards optimal health to emerge.

Thus the positions taken on either side of the Men vs Feminist mainstream discourse (if one can call it that, it's more like a competition debate) cannot, by definition, resolve the issue. 

Obviously neither Donald Trump nor Teresa May are Feminists They are bullies.

Bullies cannot, by my definition, be Feminists.

Men and Women alike must understand what they have been born into, as observers and as participants, and be given the option to disengage, by their own choice.... to assert their own most genuine sense of self within a cooperative social dynamic.

As nature intended.

That is my expression of what true liberty means.






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 easy.

Violence Labelling. An avoidance tactic.


I wrote this for a friend, who was articulating her sadness, her 'sombre mood' and I realise I wrote it for me, and for you too.
"Your feeling this way is part of your for humanity, and your feeling is healthy......

Stand as that health where ever you are.

Vulnerability is part of who we are at our very best, sensitive, aware. honest.... from these all kindnesses come.

And when these human qualities are trampled by insensitive government, by media and by any others dedicated to diminishing awareness and veiling blatant corruption, it is such a bigness of it that we can feel a little lost. However, that comparison, for me at least, is inaccurate, because I know we are all backed up by biology, the logic of life, the bio-logic.

Life stands with us, as we stand with Life. The system is tiny by comparison,and we are even tinier that the system. The system is a disease state that has become institutionalised, and this is a healing planet.

The biological mandate for healthy human beings does not include making war, bullying, domination..... these are all disease states emerging from hierarchical institutional violence. On a healing planet.

You are healthy.

We are healers.

That's another reason to write and speak and sing into the world we share.".

That said, I'd like to share some thoughts arising from the media led 'debate' about whether or not the van attack at the Finsbury Mosque was terrorism, and what place, ranking has White Nationalist Islamophobic Terrorism has, and so on... roll on the 24/7 word fest, a pompous parade of people who they believe they are thinking, but are not.

Here's my thinking, laid out.

Violence Labelling.

Islamic Terrorism.

Islamophobia.

British Nationalist Terrorism (IDA, UVF etc..)

Counter-Insurgency.

Domestic Abuse.

Pedophilia.

Kings.

God.

War.

Remove the adjectives.

Take away the labels.

What is in the can?

Violence.

War is violence.

Terrorism is violence.

Armed Rebellion is violence.

Insurgency is violence.

Counter-Insurgency is violence.

Rape is violence.

Bullying is violence.

Indoctrination is violence.

Usury is violence.

Debt is violence.

Psychological manipulation is violence.

Withholding shared resources is violence.

Hoarding wealth is violence.

Telling children WHAT to think, using a reward punishment dynamic is violence.

Cladding a high rise social housing building in flammable material for the aesthetic of the rich is violence.

The issue is violence.

Not merely whose violence.

“Our wars are good wars, their war is terrorism, and therefore it is bad.”

No. Not having that.

All violence.

Violence. Power. Bullying. Manipulation.

All that violence that is fully staffed, professionalised and industrialised.

One cannot talk sensibly about terrorism without examining all the evidence in detail.

Looking at all the evidence, we can say that making policy based on opinions in this area is either intentional or unintentional and therefore nastily dangerous or psychologically unstable, or both.

When States commit to war – the intent is real, emerges from a source and has  a plan and it’s run by people whose unconscious motivations are driven by disease, rather than a healthy intelligence.

To maintain the delusion of ‘Freedom and Democracy’ they avoid aspects of the available evidence, most of which exists in the lived domain of ordinary people’s lives at the bottom of the heap and talk about abstracts such as ‘Freedom and Democracy’.

It’s all drivel.

So how to tackle it? 

Refuse to participate.

Look at the problem, dig into the detail.

Learn from ones own experience as part of that examination.

Were you ever bullied? What was that? What were the outcomes?   

On a scientific, evidential basis we can look at what generates and maintains the cycles of violence at each level: for example (any substantial or diagnostic list or network charting of  actors and influences would be much more detailed than the outlines I give here).




-    Individual : Damage in Utero, disrupted development, stress induced by not     being understood, adult controlling reactions to that stress

-    Family : Addiction, bullying, child abuse, domestic abuse, Hierarchy of Power

-       Community : Fear of the other, maintenance of a hierarchy, disruption by conquest,
-        
-       Language group : Fear of the other, disruption by conquest
-        
-       Religion : Fear of the other, fear of self, shame, guilt, sin.
-        
-       Historical Trauma : Patterns of wounded behaviour become normalised
-        
-       Criminals : Can only operate within a property owning culture. For example, by decriminalising weed, and granting folk the right to grow their own, and to consume it, but not to sell it removes the criminal income stream. Why would a Government not do that?
-        
-       Institutions : Holding power, they defend themselves, even as they are hurting innocents.
-        
-       States : War Capability, Corrupted Justice and Police Systems, Wealth control
-        
-       Ideology : Belief, omitting evidence, indoctrination,
-        
-       Environment : Lack of a healthy environment, chronic stress, unresolved trauma, street violence, neglect, divide between rich and poor,
-        
-       Genetics : no evidence that violence is a genetic predisposition
-        
-       Biology : no evidence that we, as a species, are naturally violent,
-        
-       Internalisation : all evidence points towards internalisation of external values and beliefs, via indoctrination, manipulation and spin, has a huge association with the permission for violence.


… and we can try to see how they interact, what the dynamic flows are, how do these levels of action and interaction synergise and materialise.

Of course, this is just a short list, and the web is far more complex – yet the basic core is simple, and when it is disrupted, violence emerges.


What are the common themes?

Every outcome related to an event has meaning, is evidence.

All hidden outcomes are part of the product, from sourcing material to final product, use and it’s discarding.

Opinion might be a useful guide, at times, as to what might need some examination; the opinion itself, it is not evidence, and cannot take the place of evidence.

As the British public are slowly discovering with regards to Brexit, and Fire Safety for Social Housing.

Violence is the issue.



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 easy.

Dave and Alice, TWAT or Peace? Through the looking glass.



It matters that this conversation is happening. ~

It's not an easy conversation.

It has to be evidence based, or it will go badly.

This is the core discipline required.

Opinion now, in this conversation, is truly dangerous.

Look it as a genuine health and safety issue, along with belief, faith, hope or ideology - none of these can be allowed to trump the evidence (no topical pun intended...) in seeking to resolve this situation.

It will not be resolved overnight.

It can be resolved.

It is not the Sun.

It is us.

David Smail.

David Smails take on ‘reality’ is closest to what I feel :

“Hardly any of the ‘symptoms’ of psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters.

The so-called psychiatric ‘disorders’ are nothing to do with faulty biology, nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or other personal failing.

They are the creation of the social world in which we live, and that world is structured by power.
Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the control of meaning).

Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in motion.

It may be used for good or for ill.

One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society.

Such an understanding is the focus of this web-site.”

His website…

http://www.davidsmail.info/introfra.htm

Alice Miller.

Alice Miller wrote about how the institutional violence of the adult world afflicts all our children.

She traced the psychology of power through society, into human relationships, and how the influence of violent political power permeates society. Miller looked at the history of education in Europe, leading up to World War II, and examines the industrial powers influence on it to prepare each generation of children for participation in that violence, as workers or as fighters, as if it were something normal.

Something Patriotic.

Heroic.

Fighting for a Cause.

See where this is going?

FOR YOU OWN GOOD : The Roots of Violence in Child-Rearing.

Dip in.

https://www.alice-miller.com/…/the-roots-of-violence-are-n…/

She is not talking about individual parenting, (a common misconception of her intent) she looks at cultural parenting, which is often subject to belief, faith, religion, ideology or mere opinion rather than the evidence about, and of children themselves.

She explores how repeated war trauma fosters socialised violence when entire populations are subjected to violence, over time, to the extent that that history is seen as glorious.

Internalisation. Very much part of radicalisation.

A very strong book, a disciplined read required.

That said....

Some Steps Towards an End to TWAT And a Start to Peace. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*This is of course an incomplete list, with only the briefest of pitches, and very little supporting, referenced documentation to substantiate the points raised.

It’s more to a thought smorgsabord on the issue of TWAT And Peace.

Here goes :

Actions that Western and all Governments can take that might lend towards a long term peace.

-caveat : there's more that I don't know than I do about all of this. A lot more. This analysis is not to be relied upon. In any way, shape or form. It is a list to things I think could alter the situation in useful ways......

1. Acknowledge the War Crime of Iraq and Afghanistan which is the responsibility of the US /UK Coalition of States that invaded and occupied both countries.

2. Arrest the War Criminals.
3. Full public accounting. Convictions.
4. Formal economic, political and cultural sanctions regime against Saudi Arabia, and it’s Wahhabist intervention in Government.
5. Cease all support for Saudi military, including ban on weapons sales. A total ban.
6. Cease all military operations against the Syrian Government. Immediately.
6.a Destroy all DAESH supply lines. No exception. Ensure no funding, arms, munitions, food, oil, petrol, diesel, medicine gets through to their fighting units. If States are involved, then they must be dealt with. International effort in good faith and honour.
7. Allow the Syrian State and people to confront DAESH in Syria, and with respect to language groups and ethnicities, enable autonomy for those as part of the political resolution of other matters. Allow the Syrian State to invite chosen allies to assist with this operation.
8. Abandon the US-UK-Russia-China competing powers behaviour which is the active dynamic in international relations. That behaviour is toxic, irrational and utterly cruel.
9. Excise all incitements to violence from all recognised Religious Texts. These are in breach of Human Rights, and cannot be countenanced.
10. Total separation of Religion and Government, and Legislation. World wide. Governance MUST be evidence based, rather than belief, faith, sectional interest or mere opinion
11. Close down Saudi funded Wahhabist Maddrassa systems, total removal. World wide. Such systems are institutionalised child abuse. No negotiation. Full records of all students to be provided.
12. Demand Saudi excise all incitement to or justification of violence from Wahhabist Texts and Teachings, and remove corporal punishment from the Saudi penal code, as an olive branch, or a carrot, a way to avoid actions 4., 5,
13. Ban Saudi Oil. Last resort.
14. Stand down all international military alliances in favour of a United Nations based resource, resourced from those competing military alliances. The UN treaties provide for a military force that maintains peace, enforces sanctions as a policing action, supporting a diplomatic, political, economic and cultural conflict resolution drive, which must, of course, be equally well resourced.
15. Detain all known participants in militia in their home countries. Process these the weed out those who are reliably dangerous, prosecute those for crimes committed and incarcerate them for Health and Safety reasons.
16. Tear apart the media cabal, and liberate the press, to articulate solid critical analysis of matters of Governance, based on evidence rather than alignments with belief, faith, ideology, bias, opinion.
17. Arrest Murdoch. Close down all media that spin, that present opinion as information, that are aligned with any political party, that are lobby tools for power interests.
18. Public Parenting information must be based on evidence rather than alignments with belief, faith, ideology, bias, opinion. Parents must be legally made to comply with the child’s Human Rights in full. Parents do not have any right to tell their child what to think. Ever.
19. Rebuilding, reparations. We must devote the resources we have to help rebuild what has been destroyed, and restore people and society to a healthy sustainable state.
20. We must also build Systems of Deliberative Democracy, rather than representative Democracy, which is obviously a failed experiment. Power as a shared responsibility.
21. Rekindle old language groups and environmental ethnicity’s, the thriving variation of healthy human culture.
22. In all, evidence based action must be the standard. All evidence must be appraised, no piece omitted, neglected, dismissed, mitigated or denied.
23. End Competing States/Warring States as an accepted political dynamic.
24, Decriminalise mind altering plants and their usage as sacred tools, and medicine.
25. Pay close attention to the Australian Aboriginals people, for they have a well of lived experience for which there is no other comparable population, listen to them and hear their message. 

They are the polar opposites of the Jidhadist/Competing Industrial Powers insanity.

They truly know how to live on Earth as fully human beings in sustainable cultures. : TWAT = The War Against Terror.

They have survived an attempted Genocide, and are here today, offering wisdom, love, nurture and peace to the culture that tried to wipe them out.

It doesn't get any tougher, in terms of diplomacy and negotiation than that. If they can, anyone can.

Yes, it's not going to be easy.

Just a reminder, Alice Miller, The Roots of Violence in Child-Rearing.

Get hold of a copy..

A Peace activists must-read.

Again and again.


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.