More on the ban on corporal punishment in Sweden 30 years...

See the article "No spanking, please!" on the site "Sweden.se - the Official Gateway to Sweden."

Also see earlier posting "The ban on corporal punishment of children in Sweden celebrates 30 years this year..." A law that was implemented July 1, 1979.

Addition May 30: First the committee asked Astrid Lindgren not to hold the speech below, just recieve the prize at the prize ceremony. But then Astrid Lindgren said she wouldn't come at all. The committee changed its mind and Lindgren held her speech. Links to the speech in Swedish and German are at the bottom of this posting.

Never Violence!

Delivered upon children's author Astrid Lindgren's acceptance of the German Booksellers Peace Prize in Frankfurt, Germany, October 22, 1978

Dear friends!

What I must do first is thank you, and this I do with all my heart. The German Booksellers' Peace Prize has such a luster around it and is such a great honor to receive that one almost totters when it is put into one's hands. And now I stand here, where so many wise men and women have stood during the years, putting their thoughts and hopes forth about the future of humanity and about the eternal peace that we all are longing for. What can I say that hasn't been said already in a better way than I can?

To talk about peace is to talk about something that doesn't exist. Real peace does not exist on our earth and has never existed other than as a goal that we evidently cannot reach. So long as humanity has lived on this orb it has dedicated itself to violence and war, and the fragile peace as it now exists is constantly threatened. At this moment the whole world is living in fear of a new war, a war that will destroy us all. At the prospect of this threat more people than ever are working for peace and disarmament—that is true. This could be a hope. But it is difficult to be hopeful. The politicians gather in large crowds at top-level meetings and talk so warmly for disarmament, but the only disarmament they desire is that of someone other than themselves. “Your land shall disarm, not mine!” No one wants to start with oneself—no one dares to start—because all are so afraid and have so little confidence in other's will to work toward peace. And while one disarmament conference replaces another, the most insane rearmament in humanity's history takes place. It is not strange that we are all afraid. Either we live in the East, North or South; either we live in a great and powerful country or a small, neutral one. But we know that a big new war would hit the whole of humanity, and whether it is in a neutral or not neutral heap of ruins that I lie dead can make no big difference.

Mustn't we, after all those thousands of years of constant wars, ask ourselves if it is because of some kind of construction fault in the whole species of man that we always take up violence? And ask if we are doomed to come to our end for our aggression's sake? We all want peace. Isn't there a possibility then that we can change before it is too late? That we can learn to dissociate ourselves from violence? Simply try to become a new strain of human beings? But how should that come about? And where should we, in that case, start?

I think we have to start from the foundation. With the children. You have given an author of children's books a peace prize; you must not expect any big political views or suggestions for international solutions to the problems. I want to talk about the children, my worries for them and my expectations for them. Those who are children now shall take over the handling of the world, if there is anything left of it. They shall decide between war and peace and what sort of society they shall have; if they prefer one in which violence continues to escalate or one in which human beings live in peace and community with each other.

Is there on the whole any hope that they shall be able to create a more peaceful world than what we have succeeded with? Why have we failed so badly in spite of all good will? I recall what a shock it was for me when, still very young, I suddenly realized that those who governed countries and the world's destiny were no Gods with a superior outfit or clear, divine sight. They were human beings with the same weaknesses as I. But they had power, and they could in each moment come to the most ill-fated decisions by the impulses that ruled them. If things were against us, it could be war because of one single human being's desire for power or revenge or vanity or triumph or—what seemed to be the most common—blind faith in violence as the most efficient aid in all situations. And in the same way, one single good human being filled with consideration could ward off catastrophes, just through being good and filled with consideration and through repudiating violence.

The conclusion from this could be: it is individual human beings who determine the destiny of the world. And why aren't all good and filled with consideration then? Why are there so many who only want violence and power? Is there an innate evil will in some? I couldn't believe it then, and I don't believe it even this day. The intelligences—the gift of reason—are innate, but in a newborn baby no seed lies within from which it will automatically grow good or evil. What determines whether a child will become a warm, open, trusting human being with the ability to commune with others or a cold, destructive loner is decided by the ones that welcome the child into the world and either teach it what love is or leave it to be shown.

Goethe has said “Überall lernt man nur von dem, den man liebt”, and then it must be true. A child that is lovingly met and who loves its parents learns a loving attitude to its surrounding world, and keeps this basic attitude throughout life. Which is good, even if he or she comes to belong to those deciding the world's destiny. And should, contrary to expectation, he or she happen to become one of those deciding the world's destiny, that's good luck for us all—if their basic attitude is love and not violence. Future statesmen and politicians are formed in their character before they are even five years old—that's horrible but it is true.

And if we now look back at how children have been treated and raised so far as we can follow it through the times, hasn't it too often been a question of breaking their will with violence of some kind, either physical or psychological? How many children haven't gotten their first lesson in violence “von denen, die man liebt”, their own parents—and then passed this teaching on from generation to generation? “Spare the rod and spoil the child” you can read in the Old Testament. This, ever since written, many fathers and mothers have believed. They have diligently swung the birch and called it “love”. But all those “ruined boys” of whom there are so many at this moment in the world—the dictators, the tyrants, the oppressors, the tormentors of human beings—how was their childhood? That you ought to do some research into. I believe that behind most of them there is a tyrannic father or other raiser with a birch or a rod in the hand.

Mustn't you then become despaired when there are voices screaming for retrogression to old authoritarian systems? That is what is going on in many places in the world. Those who blame “too much freedom” and “too little strictness” in upbringing for youthful “misbehaviors” now want “harder grips” and “tightened reins”. This is to use Beelzebub to drive out the Devil and will only lead to more violence and bigger and more dangerous gulfs between the generations in the long term. Those much longed for “harder grips” would possibly “achieve” a superficial effect that its advocates could interpret as an improvement. Until, that is, they are gradually forced to notice that violence breeds violence—as it has always done.

Many parents are worried by those new signals and have begun to wonder if perhaps they have done wrong. Is an anti-authoritarian upbringing something objectionable? It is only if it becomes misunderstood.

An anti-authoritarian upbringing doesn't mean that children shall be left to care for themselves or to do precisely what they want. It doesn't mean they shall grow up without norms, by the way, or that they will reject them. Both children and adults need norms for conduct, and children learn more from their parents' example than from anything else. Of course a child shall have respect for its parents, but indeed—parents shall also have respect for their children and not abuse their natural advantage over them. A mutual, loving respect—that one wishes for both parents and for all children.

And for all those who are now screaming so eagerly for harder grips and tighter reins, I would want to tell you what an old lady once told me. She was a young mother when the common belief was “Spare the rod and spoil the child”. She hadn't been fully convinced of it, but at one time her little boy had done something, so she decided he “needed” a spanking—the first of his life. She said to him that he had to go out and find a birch for her. The little boy left and was out for a long time. At last he came back, crying, and said:”I didn't find any birch but here you have a stone you can throw on me.” Then she too began to cry, because suddenly she saw everything with the child's eyes. The child had thought “If my mother in fact wants to hurt me, then she can as well use a stone.” She put her arms around him and they cried together for a while. And then she put the stone on a shelf in the kitchen, and there it laid as an eternal reminder of the promise she gave herself at that moment: “Never violence!”

Well, if we now raise our children without violence or tight reins of any kind, do we then get a new human species living in eternal peace? Only a child book author can hope something so silly. I know it is an utopia. And of course there is so much else in our poor, sick world that has to be changed so that there can be peace. But we have, in the here and now—even without war—so incomprehensibly much cruelty and violence on earth. The children are indeed aware of it. They see and hear and read about it daily, and must think violence is a natural state. Mustn't we, at least in our homes and through our own examples show that there are other ways of living? Maybe it would be a good idea if we were to put a stone on the kitchen shelf as a reminder for children and ourselves: Never violence! It would yet maybe at last be a small contribution to the peace of the world.

[translation from Swedish by me and Steve Thomas. Here you can read the speech in Swedish and here in German].

Putting the student in the center...

just got this cartoon from a friend, click to make it larger.

Quite tiredly, thinking loudly: Something that has been spoken about for the last fifteen years here is “To put the student in the center.” At the same time we teachers shall compete in ways we didn't earlier (or have I forgotten how it actually was earlier, am I idealizing earlier times? But this doesn't mean I want old times back either, because it was probably other things then I don't want back now).

Fifteen years ago individual salary was introduced here too. And there are probably other similar things that was introduced then...

We are played out against each other. And many were skeptical to this and still are, thought many would become ass-kissers.

I thought the idea behind this was quite insolent too; as if we hadn't done a good job earlier and put a lot of efforts on doing a good job!

How many teachers try to prove how great they are through their students (even more than before)?

These wonders make me think further: to prove they/we are worth, love for instance? The (unconditional) love we didn't get as kids?

To prove our worth through students, in a similar manner as parents use their kids as outer signboards? Fulfilling the parents needs...

So are the students put in the center or are things done for their best?? Yes, for whose best are things actually done?

Has it become more fun working than it was before?

No, I would say.

Team work is a new model too. But do we work better together today than we did? For a good cause?

When I returned from the last vacation I also thought that

“'The state' isn't that actually WE, all people? We together? All human beings living in a country (or society)!? Not the politicians or power people, definitely not more than all we other people!? We are all entitled to raise our voices and call things in question!? And maybe we ought to do this too?”

Politicians, power people, governments aren't more than we grassroots are actually in this respect? They have only gotten our authorization, and nothing more. And actually, they ought to know this and be aware of this!?

Even in today's world we need to cooperate! We are dependent on each other, in similar, the same or different ways as earlier times' people. We are both strong and fragile, no matter if we are rich or poor.

See earlier postings on unequal societies and the connections to the health (not only among the poor, but also among the rich).

Diagnosis...

Came to think about diagnosis, and was curious on what the Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch has written about this in her book "Rediscovering The True Self", so I looked in it (the revised version). Want to make a first posting about this, maybe catching this up with more postings.

But for the first she writes:

“We are adults with a divided consciousness. We don't have a child living inside us that can be healed, loved, reassured etc. We can only heal the effects of the past by allowing ourselves to feel the old pain while we are aware of the present reality.

Conceiving ourselves as being divided into 'me and my child' stimulates disintegration, instead of leading to the integration necessary to heal.

Moreover loving, reassuring, listening to and respecting etc. our 'inner-child' just fuels our False Hope [i.e. fuels a defense that we can get something today we needed then but didn't get then, something that was so painful then that we had to defend ourselves against and deny to survive] (page 242-243).”

In Swedish:

“Vi är vuxna med delade medvetanden. Vi har inget barn som lever inuti oss som kan helas, älskas, lugnas osv. Vi kan bara hela effekterna av det förflutna genom att tillåta oss att känna den gamla smärtan medan vi är medvetna om den nuvarande verkligheten.

Att tänka, föreställa oss som delade i 'jag och mitt barn' stimulerar motsatsen till integrering , istället för att leda till den integration [förening till ett helt] som är nödvändig för att helas [enligt bland andra Bosch].

Dessutom, att älska, lugna, lyssna till och respektera osv. vårt 'inre barn' understödjer bara vårt falska hopp [dvs. ett försvar att vi ska få något vi inte fick då, som vi dock hade behövt då, men som var så smärtsamt att vi måste förneka det och försvara oss emot].”

Bosch writes about “Obsessive-compulsive disorders” (OCD):

“These disorders reveal a False Hope strategy: 'If only I can do this or that in such and such a way, I can ward off the danger'. Of course the danger could never be warded off, since what we are afraid of has already happened. We just haven't admitted it and felt the pain and fear.

Research shows that people who suffer from obsessive compulsive behavior, have the lowest rates of suicide when compared to those officially diagnosed as suffering from other 'mental diseases', especially depression.

This would be in line with the hypothesis that Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (a DSM-IV diagnostic label) is an extreme form of False Hope, which implies that it serves as a very efficient buffer against experiencing the Primary Defense.

The Primary Defense, as we have seen, can often be equated to what is called 'depression', which has the highest correlation rate to suicide (page 245-246).”

In Swedish on "Tvångssyndrom":

“Dessa störningar röjer en falskt hopp strategi 'Om jag bara kan göra det här eller det där på det eller det sättet kan jag hålla faran på avstånd.'

Naturligtvis kan faran aldrig hållas på avstånd, eftersom det vi är rädda för redan har hänt. Vi har bara inte erkänt den och känt smärtan och rädslan.

Forskning visar att människor som lider av tvångssyndrom har den lägsta frekvensen av självmord jämfört med dem som officiellt är diagnostiserade som lidande av andra 'mentala störningar', särskilt depression.

Detta skulle kunna vara i linje med hypotesen att tvångssyndrom (en DSM-IV diagnostisk beteckning) är en extrem form av falskt hopp, vilket betyder att den tjänar som en väldigt effektiv buffert mot att uppleva det ursprungliga försvaret [att klandra sig själv, kort uttryckt].”

Nonsense and rubbish – more about language and to silence people...

From the book whose title would be something in the style “To the appraisal of nonsense talk” by Viveka Adelswärd.

A relative of mine (younger than I am) once said:

“What is that to talk about?”

when I had written a letter to my aunt and her husband about what I had done when I came back from a trip to them (where I for instance wrote that I had been washing my car). That this relative actually is quite good at talking is beside the point, and much better than I am I think!? :)

In a forum of therapeutic character a new moderator made new rules, where chatting became forbidden.

Both those things made me react and think.

How natural can or will the conversation become if you hear this and there are such rules, at least all of a sudden, with no real explanations on top why those new rules have become introduced?

Can this be (is it) to silence people? And does this support recovery in the end? Of course there are people who never get to the point, so in a way I can understand that you have to intervene as responsible...

I work with people too, and have to deal with these things too. And no, it isn't easy.

Adelswärd writes in my maybe a little free amateur translation from Swedish:

“Think if we only should talk with each other when we had guaranteed important information to come with. The world would be very silent and gloomy then./.../

There are also those who adopt a moral aspect on the 'nonsense talk'. It's considered to steal too much time from more substantial ways of talking and from valuable thinking./.../

It's much we can do with the help of language. Many think that one of the most important functions (if not the most important) is to help the human being to think.

The language helps us to inform, persuade, convince, amuse, influence, affect, describe and awaken feelings and thoughts in other people./.../

A little harmless/inoffensive nonsense can work as bonding agent between human beings.

Some people think that if you don't have anything important to say you can as well stay silent. But we don't always have so many wise things to say. Sometimes it's enough just to strengthen the social community and resort to a little nonsense (page 10).”

And research has found that our apprehension (perception) of how much different persons are talking depends on what sex you belong to too! So that we experience a woman's talk as taking much more space than a man's.

Teachers in a classroom (and all the students) apprehend that when a girl raise her voice she is talking a lot. But researchers have proven that this isn't true, by measuring the speaking time and compared it with how we apprehend boys talking. Even the researchers were surprised over their apprehensions.

I guess this has something with very early experiences to do, where parents treated girls and boys differently because they in turn had been treated differently.

“And sometimes it isn't easy to separate ordinary nonsense talk and important conversations. It can be important to talk nonsense for a while to stumble upon the important./.../

We are talking to get opinions, viewpoints and facts, not just to deliver, supply or provide already ready-thought truths./.../

Opinions and arguments are not always lying there ready-thought and ready-worded in our heads, but are often something we get ourselves through talk.

Through 'nonsense-talking' for a while we can test-drive new models of opinions. We drive on for a while to hear how it sounds, listen to how it's adopted and make changes and improvements together.

Test-drivings sometimes crashes. But they can also lead onto new roads and show us that we in fact are making it gallantly and splendidly on those new roads.

It's [sometimes] not until we have spoken nonsense for a while we suddenly realize what we think, consider, feel.

A little nonsense-talk and chatting can be important to see how the land lies and to 'let the mouth go' till the brain has caught up (page 11).”

“But I am not that naive that I am unaware that there is nonsense-talk that is pure rubbish, things that strengthens prejudices and stupidities or that constitutes malevolent gossip and pompous utterances without substance.

Babbling has a downside too./.../ But first and foremost I want to show that our usual talks around the kitchen-table, in the cash desk or with the dog can be both more important and funnier than we realize./.../ I want to show that exciting things can happen when we simply let our mouths go (page 12).

One of the human being's fundamental traits is the ability to create relations. The newborn baby seeks contact and the life as human being starts when the contact-trials succeeds./.../

The voice's tone or timbre and the rhythmical quality is the emotion's language./.../

...an important ability in a human being to create emotional bonds to other people can be through talking nonsense.

During the last years we have understood that animals can have stronger emotional lives than we have had feelings or presentiments about. Animals can mourn, animals can become disappointed. And they can have their own ways of chatting (page 14)./.../

...glimpses from the monkeys lives. We can see then how they with kind faces devote themselves to picking and taking on each other for hours. This trimming or cleaning behavior is not only to keep each other clean; but it is also a way of acquainting and strengthening relations.

The trimming or cleaning behavior is a sort of social language that gives the monkey society's members a happy solidarity-feeling; it namely stimulates the production of the morphine like endorphines. But the trimming doesn't occur randomly. One preferably and for the longest time trims ones friends./.../

... [However] there's a decisive difference [between monkeys and human beings]. The monkeys can't talk. The question when and why we started to use language has been posed during all times.

The English psychologist and anthropologist Robin Dunbar has come with the hypothesis that the language developed through our ancestors trimming behavior. Through encouraging calls and greeting signals, through chatting and gossip – oral trimming – the primitive man could tie emotional bonds with more and more individuals./.../

When we started to keep together in larger groups it was easier to defend ourselves against enemies. This was one of the factors that laid the foundation for our species spreading [and 'success' in this world].

Dunbar means that it is the language's social function, it's task to help us keep together, that is the primary (page 15). The monkeys maintain their contact with each other and tie social bonds through trimming each other. This can be done if the group isn't too big.

When human beings started to live in larger groups they needed a new way of tying the life important social bonds. Therefore the language arose (page 16).

That the language's social function should be the primary is of course a theory among others. One of the language's important functions is that it helps human beings to imagine/visualize and talk about what's going to happen. The language makes it possible to imagine the next day.

Many of the researchers who has been thinking on the origin of language has earlier thought that the language's most important role is to transmit knowledge.

The human being didn't became unconquerable until language made it possible to coordinate the life important hunting.

Chatting and gossip are probably as original occupations as planning of hunting and strategy talks. Nonsense talk has ancient roots.

The thesis that the language was needed for discussing removal plans and hunting – i.e., planning and coordination – has a manly lopsidedness.

But Dunbar is also interested in the females. They are important for the group's continued existence because it is above all the females whom are keeping the flock together in monkey societies.

...females' friendship and the language as social cement or putty plays a big role for the development of the human being (page 16)./.../

[Many] apprehend nonsense and chatting as unnecessary. I think this apprehension is resting on an usual and as I think, erroneous image on how we human beings function.

The image wants to mediate the idea that we are walking around with a lot of facts, knowledge and opinions in the head which we distinctly and easily can put words on when we are talking with other people./.../

All don't manage sitting and thinking elevated, noble and out of the ordinary thoughts in loneliness. Many, maybe most of us, need other people as sounding boards to get the thoughts going. Chatting can be a way into something important: it doesn't always have to be an expression for that we are idling (page 18).”

See “To create common views – the role of the language in the human beings development.” And a reader's letter to Alice Miller on talking.

Expressions mirrors values, more equal societies almost always do better – mind the income gaps...

The Norwegian blogger Sigrun writes that ”Words (or expressions) mirrors values”, in my amateur translation:

”The researchers and psychologists Hilde Eileen Nafstad and Rory Blakar have counted words that have become used in Norwegian newspapers the last 25 years. They mean that the individualism has exploded since 1984.

The word 'greediness' has increased with 200 percent. But this word is used in criticism of the phenomenon greediness too, so it isn't easy to say what sort of value the use of the word reflects, I think.

Exactly the same can be said about the use of the word 'consumer-society,' which has increased with 100 percent.

That the word 'user' has increased with 60 percent I don't think is strange at all. It has replaced 'recipient of service' in geriatric care, 'client' in social care and 'patient' in psychiatry.

The researchers say that it looks as there is a value change in the opposite direction since 2005. 'Moderation' and 'modesty, diffidence' are mentioned as examples. I would have preferred a renaissance for 'solidarity', which is 60 percent less used today than 1984.

'Moderation' and 'modesty' are individual projects for members of a fat middle class while 'solidarity' has with care of the less fortunate for ones eyes to do.”

Many believe this, but I don't agree. 'Solidarity' is significant for ALL people, in all societies and in the whole world, I think (much) more equal societies (than we have gotten the last 25 years all over the world) are beneficial for ALL people, rich as poor.

See the blogposting “Mind the income gap" about research that resulted in the book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.
Article from TV2 in Norway.

Addition in the evening: Sigrun also writes about "Discourse analysis". That the objectivity conceals the many alternative possibilities for us and are a result of power.

Power is therefore a prerequisiote for to understand the world because it limits a great number of meanings and excludes alternative ways to see the world.

Something a psychiatrists knows she writes.

As a sociological or social critical notion (Foucault) discourse refers to an institutional thought out (??) way of thinking. The discourse idea brings out that it is a context between the forces in the society as they are materailized in institutions, in the language and in the individual's acknowledgement.

Discourse in such a meaning is closesy allied (bound) to different theories about power, where to be able to define discourse often is placed on equal footing with to define the reality itself.

About discourse analysis in Wikipedia.

See “Community and care work in a world of changing ideologies.”

Where's the wrath? Keeping silent of shame, not allowed having just and righteous demands, justified anger stifled - empathy deficits in the power...

[Updated May 22]. In a news item in a local, Swedish newspaper you could read

”Where's the wrath?

We are waiting and waiting and waiting...

But nothing happens. Where's the wrath, the ardour, the passion and the hot engagement in the political opposition?

Where are all the human beings who have been kicked out from the jobs and who once again have an unsure future before them?”

Are they blaming themselves? Brainwashed for such a long time that people are cheaters, misusing systems?

And, quite ironically, who wants to be a cheater? So people are clenching their teeth instead?And keeping silent of shame?

”People are lowering the wages to avoid new notices to quit.

The government's own finance expert gives the government mark below the pass standard.

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation are you taking tranqullizers?

It's time to start mobilizing the last powers we have – or are we all waiting for Godot?”

Yes, why are so many young unemployed feeling so bad? A survey made by the Swedish National Institute of Public Health shows that young people without work feel less well than those who have works. They are less social and experience a lower emotional support and are at risk of psychological ill-health.

One of six young unemployed women have tried committing suicide and one of four young unemployed men have had thoughts of committing suicide.

They have problems with headache, tiredness, anxiousness, and troubles sleeping.

A job is important for factual issues with the economy and worktasks that are developing (for you as a person), but also because you become part of a social context and get the feeling that you are contributing. And most people want to do this. Most people don't feel well not doing this, at least not in long term. Shown in the fact that people who have been unemployed for a long time dies earlier. See earlier posting on that more equal societies almost always do better.

But we have been brain-washed with that people don't want to work but just want to live on grants and subsidies. And - does this say more about those upholding such things than about people in general?

I wonder how deliberate this has been from certain groups in the society?? Playing on peoples' tendencies to feel shame and blame themselves? In the same manner as we were treated as kids many times, and played out against each other!??? The reason why this propaganda has been so efficient??

They, the power groups, have succeeded in making people feel bad and ashamed and guilty!!?? Their purpose!? So people don't have any just and righteous demands?? The righteous anger is stifled and swallowed.

What our politicians in the government show is empathy deficits, see earlier posting in Swedish!! To say it straight!? And too many people in power positions suffer from empathy deficits???

And people haven't been allowed to really call the power in question!!! Paul Krugman actually writes about this today. People have been kept down! And played out against each other (divided and ruled). Probably exactly as we were treated (read manipulated) as small kids early in life (the reason why it's so easy to manipulate people in the same way when they are adults! And thus a justified anger is stifled).

Addition after lunch: See the review "Inequality makes us ill. And depressed. And violent."

Addition May 22: And if shame isn't enough, you use other means? Threats of punishments for instance?

George Monbiot writes in ”The Barbarians at the Gate- Why has policing in Britain gone so mad?”:

”The principal cause of man’s unhappiness is that he has learnt to stay quietly in his own room. If our needs are not met, if justice is not done, it is because we are not prepared to leave our homes and agitate for change.

Blaise Pascal ('the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his own room') couldn’t have been more wrong.

We do not starve, we are not arbitrarily imprisoned, we may vote, travel and read and write what we wish only because of the political activism of previous generations. Almost all MPs, when pushed, will acknowledge this. Were it not for public protest they wouldn’t be MPs.

Yet, though the people of this country remain as mild and as peaceful as they have ever been, our MPs have introduced a wider range of repressive measures than at any time since the Second World War.

A long list of laws – the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act, Terrorism Act 2000, Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the 2005 Serious Crime and Police Act and many others(1) - treat peaceful protesters as if they are stalkers, vandals, thugs and terrorists.

Thousands of harmless, public-spirited people now possess criminal records. This legislation has been enforced by policing which becomes more aggressive and intrusive by the month. The police attacks on the G20 protests (which are about to be challenged by a judicial review launched by Climate Camp) are just the latest expression of this rising state violence.

Why is it happening?”

Look how much power it can be in young people who are given opportunities to develop their talents and strengths:

The responsibility for the society is shared by all...

my student playing and singing.

In the report ”The responsibility for the society is shared by all” you can read:

”The conception that the individual's independency increases if the political decisions are thrust back in favor of the market is false; even 'the market' is built on societal structures posing limits for the individual.

It is on the whole no matter of course that the individual's freedom increases because the politics is drawn back. If the void after the politics is taken care of by other organized interests, or if inequal power conditions makes so certain groups can increase their manouvre space on behalf of other people, the netto result may well become decreasing freedom for many.”

Normality, politics, alienation, and status quo...

Anja on the blog Do nothing day wrote that she almost got tears in her eyes when she heard a young (Swedish) former politician, Alexander Chamberlain, on the radio, who has left the Green party, for instance because the party has become too mainstream and forgotten its radical molding of public opinion.

In the radio programme he spoke about when he was trained for media. For instance concerning what clothes to wear. Clothes that don't put out too much. She became so glad to hear what he had to say, because she is so heartily sick of media trained politicians.

In this way we only get sellers, not human beings representing other people in a representative democracy she writes. How well said!

The whole idea of democracy is hollowed out by the seller strategy and the seller idea.

Anja thinks politicians apart from representing the people, also ought to challenge and inspire people – to thinking “political thoughts.” Politicians ought to be good pedagogues who explain their train of thoughts in an honest and sincere manner, consequently the very opposite to the political slogans we are mostly served today. And the best way to be a good pedagogue is to live as one learns. To try and strive doing that.

That those media/spin doctors governing the politicians and thus the politics today have a normative basic outlook (how it ought to be, i.e. an ideal standard or model) is nothing to become surprised over she thinks.

If we try to make a deep analysis of the thoughts underlying media training we discover that they are deeply conservative (we shall remain with things as they have always been). And shall movements that actually aren't conservative really make use of conservative forces to help promoting their messages she wonders? Yes, you can really wonder!

The way you are thinking when you try to sell:

If you are a clever seller you can sell everything under what circumstances whatsoever, but why start in a uphill slope? Give yourself the best prerequisites to get your message through as you can.

And what are those prerequisites? Yes, one of them is looking as “normal” as possible and behave as “normally” as possible, but also (as a politician) be a hetero-man, white, talk without accent etc.

Things we CAN'T have an influence on how mediocre clothes we even wear.

Is this fair? NO! Anja thinks.

And continues asking: If we don't challenge peoples' images or pictures on whom that is “allowed” to be politician, and who we on the whole shall listen to, this will never change!!

And if we deepen the analysis even more we discover that the reason for media trainers/spin doctors wanting normal, white hetero-men without accents in the telescreen when talk is needed for five minutes, is that it is these groups whom are watching these programme. And why is that? The reason is because these programme addresses this group!

Anja is sure that if Alexander wore a lot of necklaces and pink clothes what he has to say would be heard by those who want to hear what he says.

Unfortunately it's not those that are looking at the news, because those sorts of programmes have already alienated these categories!! How well said! So you see! A perfect circle reasoning. We can't change anything in the society because nothing has changed! It's fantastic!

Research on why more equal socities almost always do better...

See the book "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Socities Almost Always Do Better" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett .

They have also created the site The Equality Trust.

A review of this book and a seminar with the two authors on their findings:

Or listen here.

Addition May 14: Also see the publication "Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities":

"Joint report with WHO Europe which demonstrates how poor mental health experienced by individuals is a significant cause of wider social and health problems, including:

• low levels of educational achievement and work productivity

• higher levels of physical disease and mortality

• violence, relationship breakdown and poor community cohesion

In contrast, good mental health leads to better physical health, healthier lifestyles, improved productivity and educational attainment and lower levels of crime and violence.”

Addition May 15:

"When a big kid hits a little kid, we call it bullying.
When an adult hits another adult, we call it assault.
When the adults in a family hit each other we call it battering or domestic violence.
When an adult hits a child we call it discipline."

On snobbishness or using what talent you possess…

[Slightly edited May 6]. Inspired by an article in the local newspaper.

Culture makes man human the author writes. All despite class, sex, ethnicity, shall already from the beginning get an honest chance to practice and acquaint themselves with creative ways of expression; as writing, painting, drawing, acting, filming, playing an instrument and so on. I would add: and be allowed to continue doing this and develop those skills throughout life if she or he wants and feel a joy and lust in it.

If more and more people in new generations (and in the old ones too) dare raising their voices and express themselves, breaking silence, re-establish and rehabilitate a little of their self-esteem a lot is won.

Not pushing people away or thrusting them aside but letting them in. Rather not discourage people when they try to express themselves, no matter how developed their ways of expression are, whether in written words (even in a foreign language) or in artistic expressions. Even if these expressions aren't "perfect." People should be encouraged instead. More people should raise their voices.

And, once again, it's by training you become more and more skillful in what you are doing, depending what your starting point was.

Yes, no matter what voice a person has she or he should be encouraged to use it. Not discouraged.

You can use your language in all those expressions as a way of excluding other people (for instance in the way you use language and how you resonate about it and how you react to other people's imperfect ways of using it).

From where does this snobbishness come?

"Use what talent you possess - the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best"

(Henry van Dyke).

Medial dictatorship or societal approval – the spirit of the time as a devastating weapon, shit tastes well…

one of the participants in the Swedish version of Big Brother.

A female Swedish journalist Maria-Pia Boëthius wrote in a chronicle yesterday about humiliation and mobbing programmes on TV, programmes that are very popular today. These programmes (or their critics?) had been up in a debate programme on Swedish TV recently.

The basic idea and conclusion from the programme leader, Janne Josefsson, was that people criticizing those programmes also allege that people watching them are stupid. These programmes have many viewers and all people can't be wrong.

In a way Josefsson puts himself in a loyalty situation with the ones who watch those programmes and what he did was stirring people up against the snobbish critics she thinks.

Boëthius writes that she has seen those programmes at least once, but has had to tie herself up to her TV-sofa, and the watching was a prolonged torture. I agree with her, I have felt tormented when I have been forced to see them, when I for instance have been visitor in other peoples’ houses and they have watched them.

She quotes a Spanish author who said something in the style:

“Maybe you aren’t only guilty to what you are doing, but also to what you are listening to, what you see and read.”

But maybe one needs to see to be able to judge and condemn?

Exactly so, Boëthius writes, we live in a viewership’s dictatorship; each programme with a lot of watchers is per definition “good”, just because it gets a lot of viewers. In what way, one can’t help wondering? she writes. Yes, they are good because they get a lot of viewers.

But this logic doesn’t hold, she thinks, and comes to think of the device

“Hundred millions flies can’t be wrong. Shit tastes well!”

I am perfectly convinced that a lot of intelligent people are watching idiotic programmes and that it’s not possible drawing equal signs between “watching shit-programmes” and being “unintelligent” she writes.

The spirit of the time allows those programmes, so people are watching programmes where people in the purpose of entertainment are humiliating themselves and/or bullying each other.

Similar spirit of times have occurred during history, where millions of people watched and enjoyed things we regard as horrible and worth condemning: public executions, the Nazi mass meetings, lynching etc.

Were all those spectators, who let themselves be drawn with and entertained, stupid?

Are the Swedes watching those programmes some day going to regret that they “made themselves guilty of” watching humiliation-TV? Maybe they will realize that those programmes are a sort of propaganda for a loathsome outlook on man?

In those times civil courage is demanded, from for example people like Josefsson, she thinks. Either you can put yourself on the side of the viewers by exhibiting the critics of the misery as “snobs”, by this legitimizing even more programmes of this type, or by standing up and saying that this is humiliating and dangerous for us all; producers as well as viewers.

I am totally sure that if one decided to send an American execution with poison directly on TV one would get more viewers than any previous programme before she writes. Does this mean that this is a “good” programme?

According to the logic of Josefsson the answer is “yes”. Because a billion people or something like that would choose watching, the ones criticizing the programme are despisers of man, according to the Josefsson vocabulary.

The spirit of the time is a devastating weapon.

How big the numbers of watchers even are the programme can be totally objectionable she means. She can hear the objections: you can’t compare those!

Yes, I can, she asserts. Consenting to letting oneself be entertained with humiliation, bullying and expelling, is to humiliate oneself, and maybe that’s the meaning as a matter of fact?

“We are all assholes!”

the producers are chuckling.

But we aren’t she maintains. Thinking independently, walking against the spirit of the time is one of the greatest gifts we have gotten.

It’s a question of daring to take possession of this gift and ability she concludes.

See earlier posting on reality-TV.