The zombies are attacking…

zombie.

Yesterday I watched “Stars on Ice” on TV, and today I read the article "Zombierna anfaller" ("The zombies are attacking") by the Swedish journalist Maria-Pia Boëthius, and I have also started to read the book “Stridens skönhet och sorg” (in English something in the style “The fight’s (or battle’s) beauty and sorrow”) by the Swedish historian Peter Englund, with portraits of ordinary people during the WWI built on real accounts and real people - and what I read, and am reading, made me think. You can read parts of the book here (in Swedish).

Boëthius writes (in my a little free amateur translation):

“That journalists are nasty at work doesn’t mean anything? Hey? Yes, they are only playing their roles. What!? The typical case is Alex Schulman, or we can call him ‘Alex Schulman’. Because he doesn’t exist in real life, he says himself. The bullying style is just a funny gimmick.”

Alex Schulman was invited to the Swedish radio apropos bloggers and that he had become unfairly flown on the throat by another Swedish journalist in a debate-program in Swedish TV because of his nasty style as blogger for one of our biggest evening papers.

Now it was revealed that it isn’t the real Schulman that is nasty in the blog, but his fictive self! He has taken the literary and, as one could understand, the heavy burden on his shoulders being the one flying on peoples’ throats.

Boëthius draws parallels to when she and her siblings were children and her brother had a brilliant creation, namely California, whom was identical twin with her brother, but a twin their parents didn’t know of. Sometimes her brother and California changed places, especially when he was up to some mischief. Then it was of course shown that her brother always was innocent.

Boëthius wonders where all those probably million fantasy-mates people had when they were children have disappeared. She wonders if not many of them have gotten jobs on Swedish newspapers (and on papers, and other media, in the world?).

My reflection, spontaneously, over what Boëthius wrote was:

“...not taking on the responsibility for (what you say or do or who you are)!"

And it also struck me that Alice Miller has written about cynicism and irony in one of or both her last two books.

I also reacted quite a lot at the jury members in “Stars on Ice” and what they said to the ones competing during the competition, their style of saying it and the content in what they said. I don’t think what they were saying and how they said it was fun at all. And not entertaining either. And not interesting. They were just nasty! Nasty for the competing people's own good? But they could probably handle it as they were grown ups. But the young people in "Idol"!?? See Bob Scharf on "Reality TV".

I have only read the first 30 pages (of over 600) in the book “The fight’s beauty and sorrow” and my interpretation so far is that people actually didn’t know why that war started. The conflicts underlying it weren’t so big so they hadn’t been insoluble and the war wasn’t unavoidable at all. But there was an excited rhetoric and a high-pitched worked up propaganda, and all this contributed to making the war unavoidable when it was viewed as unavoidable. Many people seemed to go out into the war with high expectations to fight for their country! And people at home said goodbye with flags and music! Many people didn’t seem to really realize how horrible a war actually is!

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about societal approval unleashing drives in people harmed early in life… See the earlier posting “Evilness and responsibility…” and earlier postings under the label Trent Scaggs.

Alice Miller writes at page 206 in her book “The Body Never Lies”:

“Inability to face up to the sufferings undergone in childhood can be observed both in the form of religious obedience and in cynicism, irony and other forms of self-alienation frequently masquerading as philosophy or literature.”

And at page 139 she writes:

“…feelings (one’s own and those of others), are something to be jeered at [hånad, gjord narr av]. In show business and journalism the art of irony is a well-paid commodity, so it is possible to make a great deal of money with the suppression of one’s feelings. Even if one ultimately risks losing contact with oneself and merely functioning as a mask, an ‘as if’ personality, there are always drugs, alcohol, and other substances to fall back on. Derision pays well, money is no object. /…/

But because these emotions are not genuine, not linked up with the true story of the body, the effect is bound to wear off [avta] after a time. Higher and higher doses are required to fill up the void left by childhood.”

So you need more and more and more until you can face up to the things underlying...

Music videos...

Also listen here.

The sources of terror - and contempt for weakness…

Slightly edited during the day...

Two leaders this morning and a discussion in the morning-sofa on TV made me think and triggered this posting. Here a quotation from the first leader “The Sources of Terror” about the events in Mumbai, India on Wednesday (my a little free amateur translation from Swedish):

“All terror has last of all its origins in social evils [sociala missförhållanden] or political injustices of some kind. Let us hope that heads of the governments in India, Pakistan, USA and Europe are able to keep this in mind even after this incomprehensibly brutal act of violence.”

I think he is right, but this (the social evils and political injustices) is only an explanation no excuse for the use of violence was one of my thoughts. However, it's no wonder people at last start to react.

I also found this blog about this event, see here.

Each Friday a panel (on three persons) use to speak about the last week’s events in Sweden and the world in the morning sofa on Swedish TV. Today one of them said something about:

“...anxious men [in the higher/highest positions in the society and the world] needing to ‘assert themselves’…”

by competing about who is the most highly (well) paid. Yes, why do they need this – and to that degree as we see? Aren’t they good enough being less paid? Will they ever become satisfied though? Aren't those needs actually bottomless?

The other leader "Martina and I" was about the documentary “Martina and I”, i.e, about the woman Martina with Downs Syndrome, who is working as cleaner at a service flat for elderly people (see earlier posting) since quite many years. In this leader it stood about the notion “normality”…

Martina doesn’t have sense for time. It doesn’t mean anything to her. She lives in the here and now, and this can cause problems for her both here and there. But this job is perfect for her the leader writer thought, because older people don’t care about (the) time either.

“A sharp light is falling over the modern working life. How tiny the space is for the divergent/differing, for things/persons/phenomena not being throughout perfect! All those whom aren’t really that productive are pressed out from the regular working life, and in a world where work is such a central part of the life this implies the most severe marginalization of all.

That Martina managed to get a foot into working life has made her to a stronger human being./…/

All aberrant/deviating we let into the ordinary life contribute to change, yes, to reform the normality.”

Yes, it was this with contempt for weakness… And with productivity and cleverness. We have to earn our right to live?? Observe the irony!

You can find the leaders here too.

Organizations…

Some loud thinking: We had some meetings yesterday at work (as we use to have every Tuesday)… I thought further on them. We have bosses, but they aren’t really leading our workplace. Of course our goal is to teach young people playing instruments, play in ensembles/orchestras, sing in choirs etc. So what’s the problem?

Some of us probably think this is no problem: it’s quite plain and clear what we are going to do. But how are we doing it, and why are we doing this? What do we want to achieve or create? What view do we have on what we do? Is it obvious we have the same views? Is this no problem for the activities?

It’s a risk we are working in all different directions, with more or less different goals. This can cause different things… Can cause what we call “gravel in the machinery”! Problems of different kinds and degrees, probably problems we don’t understand. Because we are so sure everybody have the same view and almost the same ambitions as I do. We don’t understand that we actually have different views on what we are doing, where we are going or striving, because we have never spoken about it.

And we as employed are only going to do as we are told, we don’t need to understand why we are going to for instance fill in questionnaires, why we are going to have to have checking-against-talks all of the sudden with out bosses, when we already have developmental-talks and wage-talks.

People don’t dare to ask loudly and some probably don’t care either. Some manage to just plainly “go their own way”!

However, is this respectful to us, that things aren’t explained more, we jus have to accept things coming from above, just swallow it? As we aren’t thinking and reflecting creatures! We are like a flock of sheep!!! Grazing around!

My strong reactions on this probably have explanations in my early experiences!!! I can imagine what experiences. Biggest sister among a lot of siblings. A role I continue to play easily… I am not sure I know all the details though… But my reactions you can only dismiss with reference to possible early experiences? They are nothing to take seriously?

And on top, what model is this in our contacts and work with out students? I believe in information, in telling the students what is planned and why things are as they are, if needed I try to answer why I/we do as we do…

And I think we ought to become treated in the same way, as thinking, reflecting, living human beings, i.e. who are feeling and sensing things.

Is this about really cooperating?

Working with people can be really “complicated”… And I don’t say this is easy to achieve. But maybe not THAT difficult.

And people with problems with boundaries can have immense problems in unclear structures. And many of those land in exhaustions. More today than ever. But they are rather blamed than helped or understood. Told “You have to set limits!!!”

Hmmmm, is it because they weren’t limited when they were children? Somebody should have limited them? Why? Because it was something in their character that needed this? Something they ought to be ashamed of – and hide in many cases???

An efficient way of silencing them!!?? By blaming them, and making them ashamed. They shall not question the structures?? For instance. And - think positively.

The better tings are anchored (as we say) the more smoothly the work goes!??? And we can use our energy much, much better?? Make an even better job and become less tired (some of us at least)...

I read an article about depression (in MåBra 2008/12), where it stood something in the style that education can be good on many levels, in the sense that studies makes you capable of seeking information and solve problems, something you can have a great help of in trying situations. Studies gives you a better self confidence and more social contacts they meant in this article.

But of course you can wonder what the hen or the egg is?? What came first...

Yes, I have read a lot about those things during a period, because I reacted so strongly at the stupidity around me!

Yes, this is true:

"Organizations take on characteristics of the people running them./.../ There's always pressure within groups to conform, anyway. The top monkey exerts the most pressure."

And I think Alice Miller is right when she says:

"She can’t make fun of (or scorn) other people’s feelings, of whatever sort they are, if she can take her own feelings seriously. She will not let the vicious circle of contempt continue." (Alice Miller in my amateur translation from Swedish).

About perfectionism once again, Downs Syndrome - and Nanny programs…

Martina Schaub and Tom Alandh.

[Updated November 23 and 24 with a link to the article "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny" (in Swedish) below, and referrals to some articles from The Pedagogical Magazine here on a new grade system in Sweden and demands on more order in schools from our current minister of education].

A Swedish moviemaker Tom Alandh has made a series of documentaries about Martina Schaub with Downs Syndrome. Tomorrow the last part “Martina and I” is going to be sent in the Swedish Television.

Alandh met Martina 25 years ago when Martina was 5 years old and has followed her through the years. Now she turns 40 and the last part has been made, but Martina continues to be a friend of Alandhs. Martina works halftime as cleaner.

When Martina was born (1968) her mother was told by the doctors:

“Leave her and forget her! An idiot!”

But her mother refused and instead she dedicated her life to struggling for Martina's right to education and development.

Alandh about his series:

“I would want to say like this: of course it is about Martina with Downs Syndrome. But mostly it is about being a human being. One has to allow flaws and handicaps. A good life can look differently.”

But, no, these things are probably not easy…

Yes, this with perfectionism… Even the ones with a lot of talents don’t necessarily feel especially worthy…

Martina has stricken the surrounding with amazement, she can read and write so well that she has published collection(s?) of poems; she has a gymnasium (senior high school) education.

PS. I also read an article this morning in the newspaper "Put a stop to the Super-Nanny" where the Swedish journalist Ulf Lundén writes that:

”Now old ideas about child-raising have come back on a wide front. The Nanny acute [or Nanny ‘emergency center’] or the Super-Nanny has got politicians in the Alliance to swallow the bite about old authoritarian methods./…/

The government has deposited approximately 70 million Swedish Crowns to extend courses for parents practicing punishments as a raising method.

Which in practice is about creating as much bad conscience as possible in the child [!!!!]. The parents shall freeze the child out, refuse answering when spoken to, pretend the child is not in the room [but this is the Wall of Silence!] or to put the child in the corner. *"

Horrible!!! this is actually nothing else than CHILD ABUSE!! If this is true (IS IT????) then OUR CURRENT GOVERNMENT IS ORDERING NOTHING ELSE THAN CHILD ABUSE!!!

How do they spend the money actually?? They should spend it on what child abuse causes instead! And what child abuse actually is! But they don't know what child abuse is!!?? Because they haven't acknowledged it themselves in their own personal lives?? Which is sad (alternatively tragic) for them, and I don't say I have come to terms with things to a large degree. But what do they cause in this power position? How much more damage than other people having much less power cause!

Addition: During the shower I thought further... About intellect and the brain. About control, controlling emotions, reacting spontaneously... I have been auscultator to a colleague in music-classes with children with Downs Syndrome some years ago (maybe ten years ago now).

One thing that has engraved itself in my memory, made an indelible impression on me, is the spontaneous reactions and - maybe not least achievements in those kids! And I couldn't help comparing it to people with a lot more IQ! How we with more IQ can be censoring ourselves and so controlling so we actually don't manage things, as for instance rhythmic things. And most of us don't dance as freely as those kids.

How many of us aren't too controlled? And what can this control cause (depression and/or explosions)? Yes, that about keeping things in check and control...

Addition November 23: see the former posting "The health and the school, Downs Syndrome and politics and young people and genuine respect..."

On the home site for the Swedish TV I read (in my amateur-translation):

“Raising children with rewards and punishments got a broad upswing with the TV-program Super Nanny. The program has inspired politicians and moulders of public opinion in many countries for projects of different kinds to learn parents posing boundaries (setting limits) for their children [see Miller on limit setting]. /…/

The child psychologist and author Penelope Leach says that adults over the whole Western World changed their view on children and upbringing. Many has stopped caring about why children behave as they do. Instead obeying ideals have come into fashion again [and that's really true: WHY are children behaving as they do? That's not interesting!!?? But maybe it ought to be. Yes, I think it ought to be interesting!].

‘Courses for parents and counseling columns are giving advises on how you make the children ‘behaving better then they do.’ In the main it’s about that the children shall not stand in the way for the adult-life, Penelope Leach says.

The journalist Erik Sandberg, dad to three small boys, explores why so many suddenly have become so anxious to making the children obey.”

You can find the last two last newspaper-articles here too.

Addition November 24:

About the demands on order (from our current minister of education)… And even more on neoauthoritarianism and neoconservatism:

In the pedagogical paper “The Pedagogical Magazine” number 4/2008 there was an article about “A New Grade School” where a school researcher wrote about “Order in the grade-question.”

He writes that the new inquiry (investigation) “A New Grade-School” has been the one that has been best received among all inquiries on the question of grades (and evaluations of school activities) in modern time. But this is remarkable he thinks, because it’s the poorest founded of all investigations of grades ever made!!

The suggestion from this investigation (made only during one year, compared to earlier, which took between two and four years) has been very well received by the general public and people in school!!!

However, in this investigation there are no evidences that the new scale of grades (six grades) promotes learning, there is no connection to a view on knowledge in the curriculum, and an analysis on society, including a relevant analysis of consequences of a new grade system, is lacking.

The suggestion from the investigation is unhistorical he writes and it has no future-horizon (view on the future).

He continues with describing the history behind the grade system we have today, how the discussions have been during the last four decades and the decisions that have been made according to those discussions.

Yes, some people have looked for more order in the ones in power who are making decisions for us all today (in our current government, but people are also critical to the former government) as a quite ironic reply to the demands on more order in school from our current minister of education.

There was another article in this magazine too with the heading “Modern solutions are needed,” where you can read about that the liberal school policy (politics) has developed to an absurd antagonism between a “fuzzy-muzzy”-school and a swot-school. But Sweden needs a modern education-politics grounded on research and well-tried experiences, not based on personal memories from the own time in school.

However, another article writes about “What do the researchers have to do in classrooms?” There you can read that the evidence based research is at risk of simplifying the practice it wants to study. The reality is reshaped and adjusted to prevailing ideas. A critical perspective is looked for.

Thus the decisions that are made are based on lack of knowledge!!! Actually quite fuzzy-muzzy, something the school here in Sweden has been accused for by not least our current minister of education, and has been applauded by many others too, needing to avenging their own early experiences I can't help wondering quite ironically and angrily) and on top not based on understanding OR capacities to compassion, empathy or real, genuine interest in young people (my addition)!

* Struck me when I was making lunch: how would adults react being frozen out, met with refusals to answer when spoken to, that the environment pretends he or she isn’t in the room, to being put in the corner? How do we see such a treatment on grown ups?

But treating a child in this way is nothing to react at?

Sidetrack about the wall of silence again: Hmmmm, and that again being surrounded by silence on lists and forums… Being silenced (met with a wall of silence) by moderators for instance. What has that caused in people exposed to this? What can it have been causing?

Maybe 'only' "doubts on themselves", becoming "blocked in expressing things and writing freely"? Have these persons "gotten any opportunity to speaking up for themselves", to the moderator, on the list (forum), to "free themselves from the destructive impact of this treatment and to reclaim their voices and their truths"?

Yes, that with revictimization again…

Children are always innocent…

children from the Noisy Village.

From a leader with the title “Children are always innocent” this week in a local newspaper here I want to translate the content, and then add some comments and brief thoughts on this leader. So here is my amateur translation to English first:

In the beginning of this millennium we suddenly started to talk about apathetic refugee children here in Sweden. Small children from former Yugoslavia and from Central Asia were lying there beyond contact and had to be fed with probes or tubes. Suddenly they emerged in media and released an endless amount of reactions, not only compassionate but unfortunately also more or less racist.

At last the Swedish Migration Board reported some parents to the police, parents whom they suspected were manipulating their kids to resignation so they should be allowed to stay in the country. A Government investigation was appointed which fantastically enough asserted that the phenomenon was Swedish and at least indicated that the parents could be the guilty ones to the problem.

What sort of children was this? Now a proper medical investigation of 33 of these children has come. And the picture that is emerging is exactly as horrible as one could fear: here are children whom have seen their mothers being group raped, who have been raped themselves, and been exposed for severe threats of violence during the earliest years. Pictures from the hell shortly said.

How can a child handle so traumatic experiences depends on many different things, among them are the parents’ attitude.

But one thing is clear: the talk about that the apathetic children should have been made sick by their parents can become dismissed: the apathy has its roots in experiences so horrible that most of us can’t even imagine them.

The investigation also shows that apathy isn’t a specific Swedish phenomenon: it can be sorted medically under the stress reaction PRS, pervasive refusal syndrome.

So what can we learn from this? the leader writer wondered.

The most important lesson is that the one seeing a really sick child in front of her/him, who has lost all its interest for the surrounding world, has to realize that what one then sees is the end station in a long row of events. No child can play sick in this way. And no normally functioning parent would bring her/himself to cause such a state in her/his own child.

When I was writing this I came to think a phone talk I had the other evening with a now middle age woman. Where she revealed her life story, of which I have got pieces earlier. This woman is born in one of our Scandinavian countries to parents who were socially functioning, members of a church.

She was spanked and sexually abused, but managed to study at the University and was quite successful I think. But has never managed to work after those studies. And never gotten proper help from therapists or the psychiatric care to process (all) her traumas.

In her twenties she got a child but landed in a deep depression and sought herself to a psychiatric ward. She could never be there for her child and feels extremely sad over this. She lay in bed apathetic. Couldn’t enjoy being mother.

When her daughter was around five years she divorced her father, but she couldn’t take care of her daughter herself (or at all) because she had no powers doing so, still in depression and emotionally handicapped. Her father took care of her, and it looks like the daughter has grown up to a healthy individual! This is something fantastic! But her mother wonders what her daughter has been through and maybe keeps inside her. Experiencing such a mother so earl in life and actually being abandoned by her so early (how many dads have similar concerns strikes me when I am writing this).

I think there are things happening much closer than we believe. Things we can’t imagine in our wildest fantasies, with people seemingly living normal lives. With people living in a country who is not in war, like our Scandinavian. Children experiencing horrible things. I am not sure we can beat our breasts!

Yes, I agree that the children are always innocent... But, there is a but... About parents, and their behaviors...

You find the leader here too.

A different view on ADHD...

When I was writing about the school and health I came to think about hyperactive children. Some children react with hyperactivity (like ADHD) and others with being noisy and in some cases they even react with violence.

See the posting about the Swedish documentary "The Scapegoats" (with a letter to Alice Miller on this documentary) and also here about his documentary on how children behave in school due to being (in this case in first hand) spanked at home. About children directing things at other people than those who originally abuse them.

A quiet thought: and this easily triggers abusive counter reactions from responsible in school, making the bad even worse... So we dealing with kids ought to have a lot of self-knowledge! And being interested in developing it. Many of us ought to be interested in this, not only a few. But I as a single teacher maybe can't create miracles in the whole milieu? In the best cases for single students.

And there are probably also kids being silent and clever, hiding things (maybe even carrying heavy loads, of abuse, maybe subtle, on their shoulders, pretending to themselves everything is fine at home) managing to reach adulthood and enter into it quite successfully, but who later end in smaller or bigger crisis of different kinds, in important relations, with people close; people they live with or are having close relations with, or with troubles at work (as being too clever there as they have always been, maybe managing everything on their own, not asking for help, afraid of being a nuisance), landing in what we call the 40-year crisis. But what are those crisis about in the bottom?

On ADHD see this question on ADHD in a preschool kid about alternative treatments and the replies to it, especially the fourth reply which I thought was great!

Earlier postings on ADHD, see here. And about hyperactive children. There you can for instance read:

"Alice Miller writes about “hyperactive” children in her book ”The Body Never Lies – The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting”. She writes at pages 176-177:

“With support of the enlightened witness represented by such a therapist, a hyperactive child (or a child suffering from any other disorder) can be encouraged to feel its perturbation [förvirring eller oordning in Swedish], rather than acting it out, and to articulate its feelings to the parents, rather than fearing them and dissociating from them. In this way the parents can learn from the child that one can have feelings without heeding to fear disastrous consequences, that, on the contrary, something can develop from this which gives support and creates mutual trust.

I know of a mother who was actually able to escape from the destructive attachment to her parents thanks to her own child. After several years of therapy, she was still concerned to see the good sides of her parents even though she had been severely abused in her childhood. She suffered greatly from the hyperactive and aggressive outbursts of her little daughter, who had been under continual medical care since birth. The routine had been the same for years. She took her child to the doctor, gave her the medicine prescribed for her, went to see her therapist regularly, and went on seeking justifications for her own parents. At a conscious level, she never suffered because of her parent’s treatment of her, only because of her daughter.

One day, however, she finally flew into a rage in the company of a new therapist and was finally able to admit to the extreme anger at her parents that had been pent up inside her for thirty years. And then the miraculous thing happened (although it was anything but a miracle): in the space of a few days, her daughter played started to play normally, lost all her symptoms, asked questions, and was given straightforward answers. It was as if the mother had emerged from a dense fog and was seeing her daughter properly for the first time. A child who is not being used as the object of projections can play quietly without having to run around like a mad all the time. She no longer has the hopeless task of saving her mother, or at least of confronting her with the truth by means of her own ‘disorder’.