The dangers with calls for strong leaders – and hearing tramp of boots in the distance...

The Swedish professor in religion psychology Owe Wikström writes at page 44 in his book “In praise of the slowness – or the danger of driving moped through Louvren”(2001) that the age in which we live is formed both by collective (I hardly dare to write this word!!) and personal factors: with a coarse simplification you could say that the divided society is playing together with individualistic personalities. These two processes strengthen each other.

If they are brought together breeding grounds are created for the relativism that appears, the ad hoc* attitudes that often characterizes religious as well as political ideology. Nothing has the obvious' strength. The collective values and Christian interpretations have eroded (and when collective values have eroded many go back to religion; as is the case in for instance a big country like USA?? A strict, moralizing).

Each person has become more deserted to her/himself, to find her/his own way in life. My addition: And an enormous burden can be (and is) laid on the individual's shoulders.

But if the manifoldness becomes confused and straggly you can soon have presentiments of tramps of boots in the distance. The calls for strong leaders, clear command(ment)s and simple solutions can be attractive sooner than we can anticipate.

At least a couple of Swedish bloggers are writing about returning Nazi and fascist tendencies in the society not only here in Sweden...

But see the American neurologist Jonathan H. Pincus on the underlying causes for fascism in the chapter "Hitler and Hatred" in his book "Base Instinct - What Makes Killers Kill."

*From the Swedish Wikipedia: “Ad hoc kan även användas om ett felslut, där man anpassar sitt argument efter situationen genom att lägga till premisser som inte ingick i det ursprungliga argumentet. (Exempel: 'Jag har aldrig druckit alkohol.' 'Men du tog ju ett glas vin till maten.' 'Ja, men jag har aldrig druckit mig redlös.') Jfr ingen sann skotte, generalisering.”

Alexithymia is increasing in the world... Why? And what is this about?

More on identification with (the) power...

[Updated June 30]. Yes, why do we? And why do we tend not to question it? Why do we tend to look up on people in power and have small and sometimes non-existing demands on them? And at the same time have big demands on those under, those with no or little power? Why don't we question (high) demands on those latter (but on the former)? Where are the roots?

How can we make fair and justified demands on ALL people?

Do we even sometimes have the right to make higher demands on those in power? The more demands the more power they get? At least if they have power over our lives!? But as fellow human beings we should have the same demands on all people, no matter their position in the society, rich or poor!?

Why aren't we capable of making those distinctions? On justified demands that has nothing with people's position to do.

Why don't we see clearer than we do? because I think many of us are more or less blindly admiring.

Is it because we weren't allowed to really see how our early caretakers were, what they did, question what they did etc.?

Are we doomed being forever incapable in seeing things through (seeing the power through for instance every time it's needed, as the child in The Emperor's New Clothes)?

I don't think so. We can recover.

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus has written about the roots for racist ideas in his book “Base Instinct – What Makes Killers Kill” in the chapter “Hitler and Hatred.”

And Alice Miller has also written about Hitler.

Read "Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?" by Alice Miller and "The Emotional Life of Nations" by Lloyd deMause Chapter 4--Restaging Early Traumas in War and Social Violence and "The Political Consequences of Child Abuse" by Alice Miller and “See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics” Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker.

And at last a quotation:

"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think"

- Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Joachim Fest.

Addition June 30: Sigrun wrote about class in a blogposting yesterday, the class you belong to and what this class-belonging means.

She had read a couple of comments on an article in a Norwegian newspaper about a right wing politician retired because of sickness. She complained that the social insurance becomes reduced with five percent because she receives compensation as representative in the board for the community where she lives.

Sigrun doesn't think that the few crowns it's about in this case is any problem. She thinks it's even worse when people with such tasks don't become paid at all, but maybe even have to pay from their own purse.

But after this comes what I thought was even more interesting:

Sigrun thinks it's probably much easier for unable to work coming from a middle-class background to become recruited in resource-strong organizations as political parties, than for unable to work with a less resource-strong background.

Journalists (as those on this Norwegian paper) probably don't understand this, because they are identifying themselves easier with middle-class people.

I think she is right. But there are exceptions??

See the British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in "Equality of What?" I have blogged about this in Swedish in "Jämlikhet till vad? Eller att ge alla en jämlik chans att bli ojämlika - att bara ha sig själv att skylla..."

Identification with power and contempt for weakness...

The first Pippi (picture taken from here).

Something caught my attention, and got stuck, in a blogposting about the professor in philosophy Harald Ofstad, six core components on Nazism he had identified were described. And the second one was (in my amateur translation):

"Identification with power and contempt for weakness”!!!

And I came to think on what Sunder Katwala wrote in “When is inequality unfair?” the other day:

“Just over a fifth of people take a 'traditional egalitarian' and primarily needs-based view of inequality, which is sceptical about the claims of the rich and supportive of the claims of the poor.

A similar proportion support a traditional free market pro-inequality argument that both the better-off and the poor have broadly got what they deserve. So redistribution is rejected as unfairly taking from the deserving (rich) to the undeserving (poor).”

Which means that those latter (not the former??) are supporting that demands are made on the poor – but not on the rich!!! Something I have been confronted with! And haven't understood. I was just taken aback with astonishment and became totally speechless.

Shouldn't we AT LEAST make the same demands on both, and/or ALL??? And Pippi Longstocking said something in the style:

“If you are very strong you have to be very kind.”

Anna Luise Kirkengen (among many) are talking about power imbalance and what sort of responsibility that comes for the one with more power.

And I also wonder where do such attitudes come from where you associate with the strong, powerful on behalf of the weak, powerless? However, I have my thoughts about this...

Also see this comment to Paul Krugman's posting "Kings of Pain."

Another commentator writes:

"This is part of a general pernicious belief that can be summarized as 'no pain, no gain' - that we are where we are because we are degenerate and we need to toughen up. The idea that we can work together to get gain with no pain, or even pleasure, does not compute for these people. Of course, these people are only suggesting sacrifice for others."

It lies in the profit's interest that stress becomes individualized...

af Chapman, Stockholm, with the Royal Palace in the background.

[Updated July 28]. The Swedish professor in religion psychology Owe Wikström writes in his book “In praise of the slowness – or the danger of driving moped though Louvren”(2001) in my quick amateur-translation from Swedish that:

“Laying the blame for exhaustion on the individual solely is directly devastating, especially in times when fewer people has to do more things on a shorter time.

It lies in the profit's interest that stress becomes individualized [and that people start to blame themselves!!! Who are blaming themselves and who are not? The ones that ought to?? Or? We are punished for other people's doings???].

Structural reasons are momentary more expensive to take care of, but cheaper in longterm for the [whole] society.

That's the reason why it's important that the slowness' culture isn't made banal or becomes reduced to the private individual's task. It's also about politics and society.”

But of course each individual has a responsibility for her/himself, what she/he does to other people, to and for the society too!! But those two things, each individual's responsibility and the responsibility those with more power have, doesn't have to exclude each other or how you shall express it. There ARE things (structural) you can't master on your own!

Addition in the evening: Read Sunder Katwala (Guardian) in "When is inequality unfair?" And Paul Krugman in "Kings of Pain."

Addition July 28: When I read George Montbiot in "Politically Transmitted Disease" I had to smile a little. He ends his article with:

”When Unicef compared teenage pregnancy rates in different parts of the world, it found that the Netherlands had the rich world’s lowest incidence – five births per 1000 girls – and the US had the highest: 53 per 1000(16). Unicef explained that the Dutch had 'more open attitudes towards sex and sex education, including contraception.' There was no 'shame or embarrassment' about asking for help. In the US, however, 'contraceptive advice and services may be formally available, but in a ‘closed’ atmosphere of embarrassment and secrecy.'

Obama’s new budget aims to change all this, by investing in 'evidence-based' education programmes(17). The conservatives have gone ballistic: evidence is the enemy. They still insist that American children should be deprived of sex education, lied to about contraception and maintained in a state of mediaevel ignorance. If their own children end up with syphilis or unwanted babies, that, it seems, is a price they will pay for preserving their beliefs. The denialogues are now loudly insisting that STDs and pregnancies have risen because Bush’s programme didn’t go far enough. The further it went, the worse these problems got.”

Education and talking openly about those things seem to be preventive!! Even though some maintain that other programmes with worse results didn't go far enough.

He starts it as follows:

“All of us are in denial. Without it we couldn’t get through life. Were we to confront the implications of mortality, were we to comprehend all we have done to the world and its people, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. To engage comprehensively with reality is to succumb to despair. Without denial there is no hope.

But some people make a doctrine of it. American conservatism could be described as a movement of denialogues, people whose ideology is based on disavowing physical realities. This applies to their views on evolution, climate change, foreign affairs and fiscal policy. The Vietnam war would have been won, were it not for the pinko chickens at home. Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaida. Everyone has an equal chance of becoming CEO. Universal healthcare is a communist plot. Segregation wasn’t that bad. As one of George Bush’s aides said, 'We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.'

Collective denial has consequences. A new study by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that during the latter years of the Bush presidency, America’s steady progress in reducing teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases was shoved into reverse(2).”

Why don't neoliberals love public health?

[Updated in the text July 27].

“... I think this is an important question at issue!”

the former director-general for the Swedish National Institute of Public Health Gunnar Ågren writes in the last blogposting from his time at the National Institute of Public Health.

He thinks the first cut-off point is about whether you shall look upon health as a human right or as a commodity. If you see health as a human right this also implies an obligation to see so all get this right through common measures.

Unfortunately it becomes more and more common with a market-thinking around health where we buy more or less qualified achievements to improve our health in the same way as we, depending on income, can choose to buy shoes or shirts of different qualities and prize-levels.

The second cut-off point is about the view on the market and its ability to solve basic distribution problems and thus health problems too.

This is not a new discussion. Already in the childhood of industrialism dogmatic market advocates were inconsistent with prohibitions against child workers, industrial welfare (safety) and sanitary reforms because this would disturb the supply of labor.

Luckily there were sensible politicians, often influenced by a pressure from below, realizing that protecting laws and a better hygiene in fact was something that promoted both social and economic development.

Unfortunately the blind faith in market forces has come back in today's more globalized world, even though it has gotten a certain blow the last weeks (the financial crisis).

The National Institute of Public Health (in Sweden) is seen as a trade barrier or disturbing element in the market Ågren says.

Reform politics [today] is sometimes synonymous with lifting welfare and protection legislation away.

There is a blind faith in that (parts of) the market wealth shall trickle down on the poor and sick too.

As has become clear for instance by data presented in the Marmot Commission report there is no indication that this theory is right.

On the contrary the evidences for the opposite connection is valid.

Basic welfare, a good education system, basal health care and a good public health means that more people can work, leads to that the productivity increases and the international competitiveness increases.

The third and last cut-off point is about the individual contra the society and the state. A row of health risks lies beyond the individual's control and possibility to take responsibility for. Air pollution, poverty and income inequality are only a few examples on health risks lying beyond the individual's control.

The Institute of Public Health has been seen as something implying guardianship from authorities and something that deprives people from their possibilities taking responsibility for their own life and health.

My comment: But – this institute has never forced any individual to anything?? Maybe forced public authorities? Just come with advices to individuals to which they can take whatever attitude they want?

Ågren continues: Of course the ones representing the public health interest have nothing against that people are taking responsibility, on the contrary, this is praiseworthy (fantastic and something great) but there are limitations in possibilities for taking responsibility for the health.

My comment: Yes, there are things lying beyond individuals' possibilities, but there are also a lot of things we CAN do!!! Something I think Ågren agrees to too. As the Institute does.

And I also wonder, why are some people paralyzed in these respect? And why are some don't caring and taking all sorts of risks, even enormous, challenging risks? However I have my ideas about this.

What can we do about this? What shall we do about this? Shall we do something about this?

I don't think any of those attitudes are irreversible though. We aren't born in this way. We CAN recover from this (but sometimes with a lot of hard work and struggles - and pain). But the best would be if we could prevent them in the first place, by treating our kids with greatest respect! Listen to them and meet them respectfully.

In reality the break through for democracy in Sweden largely was about that representatives for non-governmental movements conquered seats in parliamentary congregations on local, regional and national levels and forced through social protection legislation, a restrictive alcohol policy, ban on child labor, basic industrial safety – mostly in opposition to those in power who used to refer to the individual's freedom because they in their privileged position didn't have any greater needs for protection laws.

How well said! How many with money and power in this world havent' been interested in NOT loosing their power position, even though they retorically speak about freedom? What would actual freedom be? Freedom of choice etc. be?

Ågren thinks that this antagonism still holds.

Just as well as there shall be individual freedom there shall also be rights to create a loyal society with the democracy as tool where people don't have to become exposed to unnecessary health risks and where all have the same rights to best possible health.

There is still a lot to do. Our era's great health risk is the unequal distribution of power, nature resources, access to health care, education, money and influence/ascendency, something we see globally AND in our own country and that deprive many human beings from many healthy years that could be used to pet cats, see grandchildren, read good books, grow roses or why not fight for social justice.

Yes, can all people do this in this world? Do all people have those choices? Does it always have with their lack of responsible taking to do? Or with things beyond the possibilities that are presented for them in the society where they live? Can all people do this in our own western societies ether? Who can and who can not, and why?

Ågren retired last fall and here is his farewell speech (in Swedish).

And here a blogposting by Ågren on "The Globalization Board – a neoliberal think tank.” About the Globalization Board.

Also read the article "Equality of What?" by the British researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett and Paul Krugman in "Why markets can't cure healt Care."

Perfectionism, performance anxiety, stage fright – and unconditional love...

Some loud morning thoughts triggered by an article in the Swedish magazine “Opus" number 23/2009.

The Swedish musician, the trombonist, composer and conductor, Christian Lindberg in an interview:

“Jan Sandström [the Swedish composer] has taught me a lot about performance anxiety. For example, in his concert Don Quixote it is included to 'do wrong'. All those things people are taking beta blockers to avoid are there.

To me he said: 'You shall write a piece and if it becomes bad it shall be bad.' It's about the art of not being faultless.

A five year old kid drawing a drawing isn't thinking on what he is doing. But at six somebody says: 'How nice you are drawing' and after hearing such a thing he starts trying to draw nice.

I try to quit this.”

Do all kids react in this way? Yes, many do (most do?). But why?

Research has found that women tend to suffer more from stage fright than men. Why is that? They have higher demands on themselves and from the environment (on certain things at least, or no expectations on being able to achieve, even though they could make very good achievements in this special area). Girls and women are taught to think on all and everyone (usually)?

All those things belong together; perfect achievements, performance anxiety, stage fright!? You haven't become loved for the one you are/were, but for what you do/did and achieve/achieved (and if you was taught this early you continue being anxious and insecure, whether you admit to it or not, hide to yourself or others or not).

Therefore achievements becomes so tricky for many? Either you under achieve or over achieve, or switch between those two.

Because you had to achieve to get “love”, whether it was outspoken or not.

But that “love” was conditional, not unconditional.

Our conception of “love” is more or less crippled (in some people more, in others less) because we haven't experienced what love actually is?

It's too hard for a child to realize:

“But this is not love!!! My parent(s) don't love me!!!”

So he/she has to believe her/his parents love him/her. And put the blame on itself, because somewhere he/she feels something is wrong, without being able to put words on it (probably occurring so early in life so the child had no words for his/her emotions and feelings).

There is a say in Sweden

“The one you love you punish.”

You want to cause the person you “love” pain? Why is that?

Thus causing a person you “love” pain is a sign of ”love.”

“I do it for your best!”

To save and rescue you, and teach you how to behave...

About Christian Lindberg on Wikipedia, his official homesite.

The home site of Jan Sandström. Read about is "Motorbike Odyssey".

PS. The Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström

"...is a former member of the faculty at Indiana University Bloomington's Jacobs School of Music where he taught for ten years. At Indiana University he is known for casually sauntering across the stage rather than taking a bow after one of his works is performed."

Cowardice shown by the authorities...

from the country side in USA.

Sigrun writes on her blog about the authorities cowardice apropos an article worth reading in a Norwegian paper about the abuse of children in the Catholic church on Ireland and protecting the perpetrator (the Ryan report).

Compared to children exposed to abuse in their own homes with the blessings of the authorities; there it's entirely quiet.

Emotional manipulation, emotional incest...

[Updated July 10]. Emotional incest is more common than we believe Pia Mellody thinks.

I have just read ”The Confrontation” from the book ”The Way of All Flesh” by Samuel Butler and got some spontaneous thoughts.

This text is about a mother being spokesman for her husband to their child.

I can recognize this I think:

“He loves you anyway!”

Which means the mother thinks (knows) that even if he is screaming and yelling, has problems showing his love, he loves his kids. For the first: why can't he say this to his kids directly himself (shouldnt' he be able as a grown up, and if he isn't; why isn't he)? Is it the mother's (wife's) duty to talk for her husband, the children's father?

“He doesn't think you love him!”

What does a statement like this cause in the child? Deep guilt feelings maybe?

I also came to think about passing confidences on... About absolutely having to know the child's inmost; that he child isn't allowed to hide anything to its mother. And what does Miller say about this? What this means and causes for this person not least later in his/her grownup life? For instance that you have to hide things for yourself!?

And I think all this is expressions of violation of boundaries. Not respecting boundaries or integrity in another person. And this sort of boundary and integrity violations are even worse when a child is exposed to it, than when an adult is exposed to them, even though a grown up can have big difficulties handling them. The child has no escape or alternative than to stay in the relation. An adult usually have even I it doesn't feel so (depending on her/his early and successive history).

And the child would most likely not get support for complaints about such things, and got even fewer when this book was written more than hundred years ago. Because you shall honor your father and mother.

Today it's more possible to refuse to answer questions than it was back then (and when later generations grew up). But still children opposing and refusing their parents things feel a lot of guilt and badness. It's easier to submit.

And all those demands from the mother (and father) are about fulfilling the mother's (parents') unfulfilled and denied needs.

But – a grown up has alternatives, unless she/he isn't entirely paralyzed by help and powerlessness (feelings) stemming from her/his childhood. And - you can't blame that grown up for those feelings and inabilities (contempt for weakness).

Miller writes:

"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." (in my amateur translation from Swedish).

See also what Kirkengen for instance has written about revictimization.

To deal with this you ought to get help with the underlying, early things... But too often you don't get this help (from so called helpers). Maybe the sort of help that is offered usually can last short term... But not long term!??

But I also think that you shall be really careful with Primal and regression therapy. In wrong hands it can be dangerous...

Addition July 10: Read about "Butler's unhappy youth" by a person in modern time critisiszing what Butler did, a person who in general seem to be quite moralizing!!! Surprisingly moralizing. And neocomservative. Ideal for neoliberal currents and their propaganda!?

Corporal punishment of children and other forms of abuse are prohibited by law...

picture from Stockholm.

The Swedish ban on corporal punishment celebrated its thirty year existence yesterday.

The Swedish Children's ombudsman writes on his blog about the ban and its anniversary:

A politician said in the debate preceding the ban:

”In a democracy as ours we use words as arguments, not blows. We talk to people and don't beat them. If we can't convince our children with words we can never convince them with violence.”

Thirty years ago, just before the ban, almost 50 percent of the children in Sweden were beaten by their parents. Today one of ten children are beaten. This is a revolutionary change. More and more countries follow in Sweden's footsteps and introduce prohibition against corporal punishment.

At the same time we can't be satisfied until ALL parents have insight, understanding and knowledge to avoid violating and abusing children. Still many thousands of children experience violence in the family, directly or indirectly.

Therefore the best way to celebrate these thirty years, with the law against corporal punishment, is to remind ourselves and others about why the law is there and that it is of an enormous interest today too, ie., it's very important today too. And will always be important.

Parents in exposed situations have to get support and methods to manage their parental responsibility. Children have to get knowledge about their rights. And we have to remind that the law is prohibiting physical violence, but ALSO that other forms of abusive treatment, as imposing shame on the child or isolating the child on its room, methods that sometimes are maintained in 'Nanny-program'' also are prohibited.

See the facebook-cause "To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Swedish ban on corporal punishment."