The obedience culture or "well intentioned" violence…

in the middle of the music.

[Addition February 7: It's quite horrible that people in Sweden, people in a country that was first in the world to ban corporal punishment, are talking about using methods described in my postings about the school politics in Sweden (see recent postings), and that they are using them too! Not only talking about using them, but also using them in the reality.

That "young" politicians here in this country are for harder grips, that they are so neoauthoritarian and neoconservative. That's really terrible. And extremely sad. Stupendous. Even tragic?

I wonder about the reasons for this. Have my ideas...

Has with THEIR upbringing to do. They don't begrudge young people pf today (and weak groups in the society) having it better (or good, living a decent life) than they had (or wee allowed)?

They show contempt for weakness, because they are denying what they have in their own backpacks. Honoring the "strong" ones.

What this "strength" is about?

Is this praised strength about keeping ones feelings, emotions and, certain, needs in check? Actually maybe honoring the most damaged people?? Yes, are we in the society all over the word nactually honring the most hurt and damaged?

What's real, genuine strength actually?

And the most psychologically defended tend to lead. And those now leading (and given the leadership) are approving of those things, making it possible for other hurt and damaged people to join this choir. Horrible.]

Struck me the other day: bosses and leaders (as politicians) just giving orders, expecting that people shall just do and swallow everything, with no explanation why there are new rules, conditions - what is that?

Is that the obedience culture? (Neo)authoritarianism? See earlier postings on the school politics in Sweden of today, with harder grips, limit setting etc.; "The neoliberalism and the school...", "Nanny-methods nothing for a democratic school..." and "About the presumed discipline problems in the school in Sweden…

And the abuse (violence) doesn't have to have with "only" spankings to do, it can be about other sorts of abuse, as emotional, verbal, psychological, too.

"...of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all.”

"Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and protection." (Andrew Vachss)

Arthur Silber uses the expression/notion “the obedience culture” and quotes Alice Miller (in his essay “The Ravages of Tribalism (IV): The Unknown Country: The World of the Uninjured Child”):

“Poisonous pedagogy is a phrase I use to refer to the kind of parenting and education aimed at breaking a child's will and making that child into an obedient subject by means of overt or covert coercion, manipulation, and emotional blackmail.

In my books For Your Own Good and Thou Shall Not Be Aware, I have explained the concept using concrete examples. In my other books I have repeatedly stressed how the mendacious mentality behind this approach to dealing with children can leave long-lasting imprints on the way we think and relate to one another in our adult lives./…/

There is a good deal else that would not exist without ‘poisonous pedagogy.’ It would be inconceivable, for example, for politicians mouthing empty clichés to attain the highest positions of power by democratic means. But since voters, who as children would normally have been capable of seeing through these clichés with the aid of their feelings, were specifically forbidden to do so in their early years, they lose this ability as adults. The capacity to experience the strong feelings of childhood and puberty (which are so often stifled by child-rearing methods, beatings, or even drugs) could provide the individual with an important means of orientation with which he or she could easily determine whether politicians are speaking from genuine experience or are merely parroting time-worn platitudes for the sake of manipulating voters. Our whole system of raising and educating children provides the power-hungry with a ready-made railway network they can use to reach the destination of their choice. They need only push the buttons that parents and educators have already installed.”

Here Silber’s interpretation of this:

"By demanding obedience above all from a child (whether by physical punishment, by psychological means, or through some combination of both), parents forbid the child from fostering an authentic sense of self. Because children are completely dependent on their parents, they dare not question their parents' goodness, or their 'good intentions.' As a result, when children are punished, even if they are punished for no reason or for a reason that makes no sense, they blame themselves and believe that the fault lies within them. In this way, the idealization of the authority figure is allowed to continue. In addition, the child cannot allow himself to experience fully his own pain, because that, too, might lead to questioning of his parents.

In this manner, the child is prevented from developing a genuine, authentic sense of self. As he grows older, this deadening of his soul desensitizes the child to the pain of others. Eventually, the maturing adult will seek to express his repressed anger on external targets, since he has never been allowed to experience and express it in ways that would not be destructive. By such means, the cycle of violence is continued into another generation (using 'violence' in the broadest sense). One of the additional consequences is that the adult, who has never developed an authentic self, can easily transfer his idealization of his parents to a new authority figure./…/

Gibson ... clearly conveyed that his father, his father's goodness, the fact that his father was worthy of deep admiration, and -- above all -- his father's authority were not to be questioned; all of these were immutable facts, absolutes beyond all debate or questioning. It is this mindset, and this refusal to allow even the smallest possibility that his father might be mistaken -- even with regard to a supremely significant issue such as the Holocaust -- that lead Gibson to equivocate unforgivably in his own statements about whether the Holocaust actually occurred. Whatever else is open to discussion, the worth, the authority and the inherent goodness of his father cannot be broached.”

Also see Silber in his essay “The Roots of Horror: The Demand for Obedience”.

We shall only obey and keep quiet!?

Also see his essay "Instilling Obedience and Denial, Continued":

“Another story about one of the U.S. soldiers involved in the Iraqi prison abuse story, and how he came from a military family and ‘knows how to follow instructions.’"

And also "From Mild Smacking to Outright Torture and War: The Lie of 'Well-Intentioned Violence'":

“Some news stories that show how our society commonly accepts violence, and even brutal sadism, toward children. I also examine again the dynamics of the denial in which most adults engage, and I excerpt Miller's article, ‘Why Every Smack Is A Humiliation.’"