About religious beliefs, fundamentalism - and collective passivity…

Barbara Ehrenreich.

Ehrenreich said at the Meltdown Forum that “we” have believed that the market will take care of everything FOR us and all poor will eventually become wealthy, that everything eventually will become okay. Like a religious belief.

A belief on a higher power that will take care of everything, a power that’s fair, just and caring about us all. We shall just trust and rely on this invisible power.

She also spoke about a collective passivity in the footsteps of these beliefs (in the market and capitalism). A belief and "reliance" that we don’t have to concern ourselves with all injustices and human poverty we see around us, and following this the invisible hand will eventually come there and smooth everything out (after some of us have suffered a little bit, maybe not really died on the cross, but maybe not so far from, sacrificed for "the sin of man", again an invisible power?). Trusting that everything will eventually become fixed.

We can just lean back and trust that invisible power (and leave the responsibilities to this invisible power). Just like believing in a god (another invisible power) or a father, as small kids?

And see what Owe Wikström has written about the back-leaning indifference and indifference as hidden violence (an indifference that can result in cruelty).

Market and capitalist fundamentalists believe that the market will eventually fix everything for us.

Has this been the way of truly solving problems? Waiting for a higher power (a nature law, the nature in man?) or a (deputy) father to fix everything for us? And why hasn't this model worked so far? Because the imperfectness in man? Not because any imperfectness in this idea?

And this reliance, on a fair power (not God in this case, but capitalism and the market) excludes all true, real, flesh and blood actors? Nobody are sacrificed in the name of the market or capitalism? Or maybe who? The ones causing crisis's? Or the ones with less power and sometimes totally innocent to the crisis's? Who have done nothing but been working hard? Who are punished? And who are not punished? Is this a fair model?

Maybe there are no perfect models, but are there models that are a little more fair, to most people in the population.

How are those religious beliefs handled and by whom? In nobody’s interest? By nobody?

And they, the actors on the market, not least those with most power and money, what are they doing? Working for all our bests?

Are they almost like deputy priests for many of us? However, they aren’t named priests. And they aren’t standing in any pulpits in any churches preaching to people. Meaning that they don’t try to preach and influence us, the not questioning “congregation”? They are not making us join in the choir? And if we sing falsely, then what?

Their (our) “trust” in the market and capitalism as a power that will eventually fix everything, is that a back leaning indifference (even resulting in cruelty sometimes)? And are those relying on this power not active, but how?

Are they maybe saying that they are leaving everything to “the nature”?

And what is this “nature” actually? How is the “nature” of man? A genetic thing? A question of character?

No, I don’t think we are born evil. But there are certainly evil people in this world. And I don’t think we are born with drives for destruction, but destruction and self-destruction definitely exists…

Addition just before lunch: see the blogpostings "The Psychopath Machine" and "Crisis potential"... (both in Swedish).

Krugman on Swedish TV about the financial crisis...

Also read about that "Thousands of Young People Demonstrate at Capitalism" in London. And also see about "Put People First."

Working life in Sweden and market fundamentalism...

“The Culture of the New Capitalism”

From a review of "The Culture of the New Capitalism" by Richard Sennett and a paper for a university degree by Kristina Finnholm here in Sweden (see my earlier blogposting in Swedish about this review here, here is my amateur-translation from Swedish to English of parts of this earlier posting):

“…the new capitalism’s culture creates non-free people.”

Contrary to what we are told.

“…it was long since the state and the capitalism created a common security/safety with long-term relations./…/

…when the big institutions have become fragmented peoples’ lives have become fragmented too.

…Sweden and Norway [can be stressed] as good societal experiments. The social democrat welfare model showed that stable societies aren’t economically stationary or stagnant.

Here a successful combination of relative stability and growth was combined (or shown). On top we had managed to combine a more fair distribution of the welfare and a generally seen higher standard of living, internationally seen, than USA and England.”

I think this is true. And possible to create in other countries too.

“The physical work environment has in many ways improved, but not the psychosocial work environment. A new human being is about to become created. A person that rejects his/her history and lets go of her/his past. A human being living in short-sightedness.”

This felt so good to read, because I think it’s sound, psychologically, to have contact with ones history and past, ad thus confirmed feelings I have. It feels so good realizing one isn't alone in those feelings.

“The market has become the superior norm beyond dispute forming human beings.”

No, we haven't been and still aren’t really allowed to question the market as superior norm beyond dispute!

“However, the sociological research has for a long time shown that most human beings don’t function in this way. We need a constantly continuing life-narrative containing a confirmation that we are clever craftsmen/women (or workmen/women) at the same time as we are glad for the experiences we have gotten [during our lives, both as private people and in working life, glad and proud over them when there are reasons for this. But when we aren't: why is that??].

The new ideal in working life more resemble the dream about the consumer glad for buying. The one whom is prepared to reject everything that is old and replace it with new things - even if these old things are fully functional.”

And we treat human beings in this way too! Replacing old people, throwing them away... But of course you can wonder why? Do they deserve it?

”In those days there are no margins or social considerations among the employers any more/…/

…increased economical growth doesn’t automatically lead to more jobs. This mantra – economical growth – stands out like a fundamentalist religion. A sort of natural law you definitely can’t call in question. Many have lost their jobs even when companies have shown record profits.

…many companies ignore their employees./…/

There is also a blind faith in consults. Many industrial managements have no self-confidence and put their trust to this consult whose business concept in fact is both about being salesman and adviser. How many are capable of examining the consults suggestions and recommendations?

In praxis it is exactly those consults that are governing the companies at the market. All are frightened to silence and the treadmill [ekorrhjul] is spinning more and more violently.

Nobody dare to protest. All are exchangeable. The stress is increasing as the social maladjustment. The one not managing the pressure has nothing at work to do. The problem is your own, nobody else’s [that about blaming the victim]. Is this the sort of working life we shall have? Is this sort of working life, and world, a natural law? How far shall the market powers govern? The four-part-alliance closed The National Institute for Working Life here in Sweden. The work environment at Swedish working places didn’t improve by this.”

More voices in Sweden about the current situation in the world...

Martin Luther.

Suddenly the word capitalism was on all our lips. Economy reporters started to pose questions about the capitalism. It’s no longer seen as only an economical system, but also as an ideology.

It was long since. The entire posting written with my amateur English...

The market mantra about the necessary deregulations maybe can be changed against a more moderate, sensible talk about a common responsibility and the policy’s power nationally and internationally at last?

Here is another one reacting at our finance minister (from the moderate party), mentioning his attack against greedy people on Wall Street. A minister advising the need for regulations, not least international regulations. But it would be "becoming" if he made a public confession the writer thinks. The moderate party is namely the party that has recommended market liberalization the strongest and put every trial to creating a balance between politics and market to scorn.

However, the writer appreciates his criticism of the neoliberalism’s ravaging.

Even the social democracy needs self-examination. Hopefully the leader of that party Mona Sahlin and their spokesman for economical things Thomas Östros will be the prime mover of endurable alternatives to the quarter-of-a-year-capitalism.

Avariciousness has always been the capitalism’s intrinsic motor. Already Martin Luther realized this when the city of Wittenberg was stricken by failure of the crop or bad harvest 1537. The prices on grains shoot up. And the grain dealers started to store grain waiting for the prices to grow even more!! In this way the capitalists could gain even more money. Consequently this became a catastrophe for the wage-workers of Wittenberg. They were forced to borrow money to be able to buy their bread (as we say). The banks raised their rates. The poor was starving.

Luther wrote a grinding (??) to the priests to preach against the usury. This was an unprecedented attack on that time’s bank and trade capitalism.

“An usurer is murdering actively. Because it isn’t only that he lets helping the hungry alone. He even pulls (jerks?) the crumbs from the mouth of the starving. /…/ The usurer doesn’t care if the whole world dies if he only gets his money.”

Luther wrote.

The usurer was considered abusing his fellow human beings situation of troubles and (justified) needs. Power abuse. Luther started out from solidarity with the ones that were poor and had least power.

“Who are stricken in first hand when you are practicing usury? Isn’t it the poor whom in the whole is stricken first and foremost?”

Luther continued with his criticism.

Through the economism culture we have all become speculators on the stock exchanges/market (for instance we place our pensions in stocks or shares nowadays!!!). We are raised thinking on biggest possible profit for our own sake. We need to re-establish the sense for a “we”, where we in fact are dependent on each other and therefore need to look so all have it good. From mutuality the solidarity grows.

Oh NO, we are not dependent on anyone!! Observe the irony. Because maybe we are both dependent and independent? We need other people at the same time as we can manage a lot of things on our own (if we aren't totally handicapped). A child who has been truly respected develop a sound (sounder than many of us) relation to dependency/independency? Isn't afraid of being dependent in certain situations, and is independent in other. A sound balance beween dependency and independency?

The capitalism is threatening the right and righteousness.

I can’t help thinking: We teach our children to think of other people and share and at the same time they are learned a contradicting message: to think of themselves. Miller writes about contradictions and confusions… And once again the Dutch therapist Ingeborg Bosch writes about the effects of children being taught to share at a too early age (something she thinks almost all of us are).

I think Martin Luther was beaten as a child by the way... What did that mean to him and to many other people?

Avariciousness…

[Slightly edited October 1]. Quickly written after a long day at work: The Swedish leader-writer and priest Helle Klein writes in her blog that she thinks the economism gets both material and existential consequences.

She wonders how what’s now going on in the current financial crisis will end.

“The greediness digs its own grave – unfortunately many small-savers [??] are drawn with in this crisis.”

In a leader chronicle yesterday she writes about that “The Capitalism Destroys the Love.”

The Swedish debater and journalist Dan Josefsson said at the book-fair in Gothenburg recently that:

“Loneliness is a malignant tumour on our society.”

He and a psychotherapist have written a book together called something like “The Secrecy –from glance to lasting relation” (if we just "take ourselves in the collar" as we say here and become the clever girls and boys we will manage it!!! My interpretation from what I read about the book. Of course; all who haven't been so badly hurt will manage this, but those who were more badly treated... What about them?). Addition October 9: the home site for this book, see here.

In the book flood from this year’s fair (mass?) the need of help with relations appears. The human beings of today seem to have difficulties with the love –not with sex, kicks of happiness or enjoyment, but with lasting and deep relations.

Of 9 million people in Sweden 2, 5 million are living in one-person households. Over 1, 5 million of these have hardly any contact with their families. 200,000 say they don’t have any friends.

A lot of people call help-phones. All sorts of people are calling: young, old, people born in Sweden and abroad, men and women. Many carry a huge agony. The dismounting of the psychiatry is shown clearly. Other people are struggling with their addiction(s). Strikingly many women are drinking too much. But obviously many are merely alone. They have nobody to talk with. They are longing for connection beyond themselves.

Loneliness is the Western world’s big problem child. We have everything, but not. The affluence of things has to compensate for broken relations (but more and more people don’t have material things either, we are returning more and more to the class-society again).

However, all those offers of therapy, lifestyle coaching and self-realization say that we have to change ourselves, not the society * (the tendency to blame ourselves is strengthened! Very practical for the ones in power on all levels).

If one topic of conversation in our time is the loneliness, the other is the financial crisis. The bank system in USA is breaking down and the confidence for the societal economies is crashing.

The greediness, avariciousness has dug its own grave.

Maybe these two societal phenomena – the loneliness and the greediness - belong together?

“The capitalism is a condition in the world and in the soul”

Franz Kafka once claimed.

His provoking metaphor hold things together we use to hold apart – the economic and the existential aspects/things.

One of Klein’s teachers at the university, Per Frostin, once wrote an essay with the heading “The Capitalism Chokes the Love.”

He searched for the talk in society and church about the economism’s and consumism’s influence not only on the societal solidarity but also on our ability to maintain loving relations, enter into marriages and devote ourselves to family life.

This essay, published more than twenty years ago, feels more burning today than ever Klein thinks.

Our quarter-of-a-year-capitalism is not only a neoliberal economical system but also an ideology with a view on man which says: go in for, invest in yourself, and seek for the largest profit for your own sake.

Those ideals are the opposite of solidarity and love. The calculated egoism is breaking both the societal economies and human-between-relations down.

What has Alice Miller said about these things?? Is material things a substitute for other things? For instance love?

* In many circumstances quite moralistic - and not least unemphatic.

"I can - why can't you???"

Addition October 1: read this article too (in Swedish). And earlier posts on self-justification (the right to abuse?). And under the label moderators. See the blog Freakonomics on "In the Battle of the Sexes, Partians Outearn Peacemakers."

The American psychotherapist Jean Jenson writes that

"And the best is that the better our mental health becomes, the more we dissociate from power exercise and violence [in whatever form]."

And it was that with perverted needs and substitutes... Denial of needs "I don't need..." And as I don't have any needs I can't get hurt. And see the phenomenon divide and rule. Something we probably learned as children: siblings were played out against each other, more or less deliberately and/or consciously. A power-tool.

Read George Montbiot in "Congress Confronts its Contradictions."

How would we have reacted and resonated and how would the society and world have looked like if a sound development had occurred, i.e., if we had been truly and genuinely respectfully treated as very small kids and up? If more people had been? Because this kind of truly respectful (non-authoritarian) treatment is very rare?

A Swedish journalist said something about conservatism...

Arthur Silber wrote something interesting:

"When people say adults behave and think like children, what they more properly mean is that they behave and think like children who are profoundly damaged -- children who are already made emotionally numb by the typical kind of emotional abuse to which most children are subjected many times a day, children who have been forced to deny their own pain simply to survive, and who are therefore unable to grasp the pain of others. Most adults were once such children; one of the ways the damage reveals itself when they become adults is the denial described above... /.../

Many children believe that 'wishing will make it so,' just as they believe that there are no consequences for their actions that cannot be undone. But again, children who believe this are those children who are already damaged. Healthy children do not think in this manner. But most of us were greatly damaged as children, and most of us deny what ought to be unavoidable truths because we learned to do this in our earliest years of life./…/

…most Americans -- and our entire governing class and almost all commentators and bloggers -- refuse to grasp them. It is as if these ideas are written in a dead language. Certainly, the language is dead to them, for they have made themselves incapable of understanding it. To recognize a truth of this kind threatens the mechanism of denial that lies at the very center of their sense of themselves, at the very center of their identity. So the truth cannot be acknowledged.”