Cover for less obvious abuse of children…

In the booklet ”Plain talk bout spanking” you can read at page 9 (in the chapter ”Spanking at school”) that:

“…paddling, because it is specifically prescribed and so blatant, serves to overshadow and thereby give cover to less obvious forms of abusive treatment.”

Min snabba översättning:

“…att smiska barn, tjänar att överskugga och därmed täcka over andra, mindre uppenbara former av övergrepp/misshandel, därför att det är uttryckligen bestämt och så påfallande.”

Yes, I think Jordan Riak is right; corporal punishment can be a cover for other sorts of abuse, less obvious. So if you ban corporal punishment of children both in schools and in the home, everywhere, you start to see other forms of abuse underneath, but maybe not immediately.

Contrary to what people against a ban on corporal punishment assert. That people would use oher forms of abuse instead, more subtle forms. Abuse they already have been using however?

Read “For your own good – Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence” by Alice Miller online.

In San Francisco Chronicle you could read:

“If hitting a child is so good for him, why didn’t Charles Manson turn into a model citizen? Or Hitler? Or Stalin?

If there is ‘no harm in a swat on the butt’ for a child why is it against the law to do the same thing to an adult?”

And why are people (women) drawn to spankers and very violent people like a Charles Manson, see what Riak writes at page 8 in his booklet, in the chapter ”Spanking and sexual molestation”:

“It’s time spankers realized that- no matter what else they think they are accomplishing – they are setting children up to be easy prey for predators”

Min något fria översättning:

“Det är dags för misshandlare att inse – vadhelst de än tror att de åstadkommer – att de gör sina barn till lätta byten för rovlystna personer.”

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..."

The significance of childhood for how healthy the politics is that is practised – and is possible to practise…

When I was writing the recent blogposting about solidarity I came to think of something I read in one of the books John Cleese has written together with his therapist Robin Skynner “Life and How to Survive It” (the Swedish edition). I wrote a blogposting in Swedish about this.

First I want to add that I don’t believe in all their ideas on why people get psychologically ill, are having psychological problems or how to come to terms with them.

However, here I want to quote a little freely from the chapter about "changes for everybody."

Politicians dividing people in ”we” and ”them”, whom always need somebody to blame when things have gone wrong, aren’t really psychologically healthy.

They have less contact with the reality and their opinions are less gone through. Instead we are seeing their deep-rooted emotional attitudes (whom they maybe aren’t aware of).

On average they are more polarized, more prejudiced towards political opponents and thus less capable of seeing the whole picture and work towards the most reasonable compromises, as the soundest in every party are capable of.

Both Stalinists and Nazis were very authoritarian and totally paranoiac.

Differences, disunity and debate are important to be able to make proper political decisions, for they show the whole row of possibilities and through comparing and choosing among those we can make changes in consensus (without manipulation or brainwashing or anything: my comment).

See earlier postings about cults.

The soundest politicians have a lot of other interests in life besides the politics.

The sounder have less needs controlling other people. They are less interested in power for its own sake and more anxious or eager sharing it, as far as possible, giving power to other people in the society.

And when changes are desirable they try to bring those about through convincing people, instead of forcing changes on them. But again: not through manipulation. Sooner or less people will see manipulation through. And if they don’t we will see the results anyway; in a less good working society, workplace, family etc.

The people in the current system getting power are maybe the ones that least of all should have it. But the ones who ought to have the power are held back by the others, because that’s how our system is working. You obtain influence in a party by investing all your time and energy on it – something you are more apt to if you are obsessed by it and don’t have any other real interests.

Thus it’s the human beings whom have less on the side of politics, and the ones with the greatest power-hunger, who get disproportionate big influence and force the sounder and more moderate holding more extreme opinions than they should have otherwise. Which in turn increases the polarization further and conjure more extreme opinions up than most people usually would entertain.

The governing in Great Britain has largely consisted of foisting minority opinions on the citizens, with the result that a great part of the population don’t feel represented in the political process(es).

I wonder: Can this demoralize people? Create cynicism in the worst case and create cynicism if it continues a longer time?

The decisions that are working are the ones that are obtained through a thorough and open discussion where diverging opinions are welcomed and listened to, leading to a real and widely spread unity or in the worst case that decisions are taken by a management one feels is acting with the WHOLE systems best for its eyes.

A bit ironic: for our own good!!??

But this sounds a little as the Summerhill school!

One-sided (or badly supported: my addition) made decisions aren’t lasting. Instead of solving problems they maintain the sad processes in the political apparatus that makes so decisions never are what they ought to be, but always are an exaggerated reaction against the last one-sided decision. The result becomes an endless oscillation between extremes giving overcompensation for what you have lost on the earlier decision.

My comment: The ones that are governing are in many cases governing through dividing and ruling.

The result can become a society that is less sound, more authoritarian, more polarized and group-selfish.

My comment: Exactly what we are seeing.

The trick is finding people whom are less one-eyed.

My comment: why are people one-eyed? Why don’t we have healthier leaders? Or healthier societies?

If I use rhetoric people are paying back with the same coin and we don’t get anywhere. Only in the healthiest contexts we are safe/secure enough to encourage all becoming independent and to express what they feel.

Yes, as the meetings at Summerhill!?