Blaming the victim(s)…

Who has to pay (most) for the current gigantic economic crisis? The ones that caused it? And what (or who) caused it? How has it been through history, with people causing crisis and sometimes even catastrophes and the ones who have had to pay for them?

Thought on responsibility and guilt. On civil wars.

Are we directing the anger at the true or original sources? Or at other, (much more) innocent, who maybe had nothing to do with this crisis, people who have been working and taking responsibility for themselves maybe their whole lives?

Yes, each person has a responsibility for her/himself as single unit, citizen and human being, but, there’s a but…

In Owe Wikström’s last book “In defense of longing – or the melancholy in Finnish tango” he writes at pages 92-93 (referring to Albert Camus and what he has written about Sisyphus) that the human being has come into his world with the capacity (ability) to think and plan, to chose and take responsibility. Thrown into the existence and endowed with a freedom we hardly can carry – not to talk about the other side of this freedom: the responsibility and the guilt, we are standing there quite unable to act before the strange that nobody knows – and this is Camus’ point – nobody CAN know either about what this existence/life is about. Camus talks about trials running away from those ontological and moral questions – through leaning on scientific models, political ideologies or fixed belief systems.

The struggle not fleeing to the seemingly secure systems demands courage. This struggle remains the human being’s nobility mark. Why do we need those easy answers and quick fixes?

The last fifteen years (since we got a right government the first time on more than ten years), at least, we have spoken here in Sweden about “freedom under responsibility” (the power’s idea!?), for us employed for instance (and not least). And also about loyalty to the workplace and its ideas or programs. Hmmm, loyalty to what and what not??

When I was reading Wikström and thinking on other things at the same time my thoughts went this way:

Responsibility: for ourselves, but as a separate individual what’s reasonable doing? The ones taking on bigger tasks HAVE a greater responsibility and have more power (because they have more power through their position, have taken more power on them. And many people don’t want to have all those responsibilities following with a lot of power, because they can imagine how it would be, how this is. Maybe we don’t get the ones hat would be the best in leader and power roles, but this is another discussion?).

But the small human being can’t accordingly disclaim ALL responsibility! The small human being has still a responsibility, but one can’t put responsibility on her for conditions (structural for instance) she as a separate individual have no possibility (or maybe slightest power) to change. We “must” condemn the right thing or person.

We ought to direct the anger and fury at those who deserve it. As Miller says; if we direct the anger at scapegoats (and not the true sources for our anger) nothing will become dissolved (we won’t really recover).

The leader also needs to have the courage to condemn systems he/she can’t beat! Because even for the one with a lot of power there can be conditions he/she can’t master or cope with, because they are beyond his/her human capacities.

Unless we don’t live in a totalitarian regime we are never totally helpless (even if it can truly and genuinely feel like that) though. Saying like this can really become misused and become a source for moralizing… And yes, it can maybe be a little dangerous.

It’s important to put the blame right and where it belongs and the responsibility where it belongs actually. And it’s probably easier blaming certain people (people with less power and societal status)?

Once again: who have to pay for what other people have caused and done? If those who have to pay (and because of this suffer in different ways, economically for instance) at least were honored and confirmed!!!

Interview with the daughter of Camus.

A different view on ADHD...

When I was writing about the school and health I came to think about hyperactive children. Some children react with hyperactivity (like ADHD) and others with being noisy and in some cases they even react with violence.

See the posting about the Swedish documentary "The Scapegoats" (with a letter to Alice Miller on this documentary) and also here about his documentary on how children behave in school due to being (in this case in first hand) spanked at home. About children directing things at other people than those who originally abuse them.

A quiet thought: and this easily triggers abusive counter reactions from responsible in school, making the bad even worse... So we dealing with kids ought to have a lot of self-knowledge! And being interested in developing it. Many of us ought to be interested in this, not only a few. But I as a single teacher maybe can't create miracles in the whole milieu? In the best cases for single students.

And there are probably also kids being silent and clever, hiding things (maybe even carrying heavy loads, of abuse, maybe subtle, on their shoulders, pretending to themselves everything is fine at home) managing to reach adulthood and enter into it quite successfully, but who later end in smaller or bigger crisis of different kinds, in important relations, with people close; people they live with or are having close relations with, or with troubles at work (as being too clever there as they have always been, maybe managing everything on their own, not asking for help, afraid of being a nuisance), landing in what we call the 40-year crisis. But what are those crisis about in the bottom?

On ADHD see this question on ADHD in a preschool kid about alternative treatments and the replies to it, especially the fourth reply which I thought was great!

Earlier postings on ADHD, see here. And about hyperactive children. There you can for instance read:

"Alice Miller writes about “hyperactive” children in her book ”The Body Never Lies – The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting”. She writes at pages 176-177:

“With support of the enlightened witness represented by such a therapist, a hyperactive child (or a child suffering from any other disorder) can be encouraged to feel its perturbation [förvirring eller oordning in Swedish], rather than acting it out, and to articulate its feelings to the parents, rather than fearing them and dissociating from them. In this way the parents can learn from the child that one can have feelings without heeding to fear disastrous consequences, that, on the contrary, something can develop from this which gives support and creates mutual trust.

I know of a mother who was actually able to escape from the destructive attachment to her parents thanks to her own child. After several years of therapy, she was still concerned to see the good sides of her parents even though she had been severely abused in her childhood. She suffered greatly from the hyperactive and aggressive outbursts of her little daughter, who had been under continual medical care since birth. The routine had been the same for years. She took her child to the doctor, gave her the medicine prescribed for her, went to see her therapist regularly, and went on seeking justifications for her own parents. At a conscious level, she never suffered because of her parent’s treatment of her, only because of her daughter.

One day, however, she finally flew into a rage in the company of a new therapist and was finally able to admit to the extreme anger at her parents that had been pent up inside her for thirty years. And then the miraculous thing happened (although it was anything but a miracle): in the space of a few days, her daughter played started to play normally, lost all her symptoms, asked questions, and was given straightforward answers. It was as if the mother had emerged from a dense fog and was seeing her daughter properly for the first time. A child who is not being used as the object of projections can play quietly without having to run around like a mad all the time. She no longer has the hopeless task of saving her mother, or at least of confronting her with the truth by means of her own ‘disorder’.