Outlook on mankind…

from the site about The Woodwose

[Slightly updated May 24 in the end]. Went out onto the balcony with a letter from a friend to read it, enjoying the evening-sun. She had written things that together with other things I have read recently in a local newspaper triggered thoughts and feelings. I just HAD to go in to write, even before I had finished reading the letter!

She wrote about (inner) demands on being “useful,” or rather “of use/service to” (nyttig), and “successful,” which she doesn’t think she is at all. And all this has grown to a high mountain, making her even more paralyzed (my maybe a little free interpretation, angry on her behalf), even though this person has a lot of resources really of many different kinds. In a very long paragraph she also succeeds mentioning demands on “effectiveness” and “cleverness” too. Oh, I can vomit on it! I can recognize myself in this, a little silently? But it takes other expressions in me?

For the first it can certainly be too much of that!! And for the second this is high fashion now everywhere in society (and in the world)? I googled on “högsta mode” or “highest fashion” and got a lot of hits. One was that it is highest fashion to manipulate - in the advertising branch. In an article with the heading “Now it’s highest fashion manipulating” you can read (in a one year old article, in Swedish) that the campaigns of the future will have their ground in new biological and psychological discoveries!! Be about how to reach the subconscious. People are talking more and more about how we can manipulate others with knowledge about the body and brain. Used already??

But that was actually a sidetrack.

What I thought out there on my balcony was that today’s (right, conservative and bourgeois) politicians believe that one change people with punishments!

We use to talk about using “whip or carrot” (piska eller morot). These politicians' method is using the whip, not carrots (what are they playing out? In fact I wonder!). And this spring from their view on man strikes me, as if this was a new thought! A tired smile. There is a lot of talk about misusing the systems. I wondered their on my balcony quite ironically, sarcastically

“Do people? How many? And if people do – why??”

And I wonder too - who do?

And could and should one do something about that instead? Or is this impossible? Very naïve of me? And if we spoke about these things openly…

No, I definitely don’t like what politicians are doing now – at all. And I DON’T like the politicians who have the power now, at all.

Words that come for me: moralizing, contempt for weakness…

It stands in the Swedish part of wikipedia about “människosyn” or “view on man”:

”Människosyn kan sägas stå för de föreställningar om människan, såväl teoretiska idéer som praktiska antaganden, av allmän natur som vi antas omfatta. Dessa består då i föreställningar eller teorier om hurdana människor faktiskt i allmänhet är.”

Translated it would be something in the style:

“One can say that 'view on man' stand for the notions and ideas on man, both in form of theoretical and practical assumptions; of general nature we are assumed to embrace. These then consist of notions or theories how human beings in fact are in general.”

But when I studied pedagogy, we learned that "view on man" is different for different people and also changes from time to time (as can "view on society" or "samhällssyn"), all don't embrace the same views on man thus. But from where does the view on man originate in specific individuals? I have my ideas...

Also see this article “More whip than carrot” or "Mer piska än morot" (in Swedish though). And here a posting on “Natives and savages – on arrogance, ignorance, overweening confidence, intolerance and all people’s equal worth (or value?).”

I have practiced with four pupils/students this afternoon for a little more than two hours, for a concert in a little more than a week, a concert that is going to become filmed for a DVD we have been filming (with "professional cameramen") since New Year. Phew! I accompanied them on piano. Tomorrow and on Friday I am sitting in a jury listening to candidates to a course where the students get extended education, a course with our cleverest (!!!) pupils thus.

Maybe I should practice half an hour more myself and then take a bath before bedtime?

Addition May 24: Naomi Klein said that "Information is shock resistance" and that's true not only what concern the sort of politics she writes about. One can try to inform oneself... TRY to raise ones awareness and ones clear seeing. And hopefully protect oneself in that way, and avoid contributing to damage done?