George W. Bush - and other phenomena in the world…

[Slightly updated January 18]. Some loud thinking, inspired by things I read and have read recently...

A leader writer in the leader "Goodbye to Bush" this morning about George W. Bush and his last speech as president (in my amateur translation from Swedish):

“Yesterday George W. Bush held his retirement speech as president.

It was short, vigorous and – as superficial and petrified as always.

His eight years in the White House has made him to one of USA’s less popular presidents ever, the country’s reputation abroad is worse than ever, he leaves more ongoing wars after himself and on top a budget deficit that in itself has transferred power to financiers in Asia. But he is stuck to the conviction that the policy has been successful and the proof of that is that USA since September 11 has managed to fight terror attacks.

In his speech his fundamentalist revival Christianity revived: good and evil stand against each other in this world and no compromises are possible.

How was Bush possible? That’s the ten-thousand-crown-question, a question the historians will pose once. How could he win a second period as president? USA regressed during the 21st Century, a great deal of the population sank into a right Christian and neoconservative slough that made them incapable of understanding themselves, their country, their time/era.

Maybe Bush became the president that came to administer an American empire that at last passed zenith?

Now he retires. The world can start anew again.”

Can it? Does it? Hopefully it does.

In a local newspaper it was a review, ”The shopping culture rules our lives”, today of Zygmunt Bauman’s book “Consuming Life.”

From the review (in my amateur translation from Swedish):

“You are first and foremost consumer – everything else is of subordinate meaning. Each human being is valued first an foremost for his ability to buy and for his creditworthiness./…/

What happens to the humanity and our abilities when we are reduced to shopping creatures only?/…/

According to Bauman even we human beings are above all [above everything else; not really seen as human beings with feelings and emotions and a lot of other needs!? All needs are reduced to hat of consuming?] transformed into goods or merchandises. /…/ In this information era being invisible is like being dead [does it have to be? If you had been seenby your first caregivers?].

The dream of becoming famous attracts more and more people today. The central motif is being seen in all our medias./…/

The own self is in the center of attention./../

This hyper fast chase on kicks is called development and modernity when it in reality is about rapidly arisen consumption of narcissism and of general gossip./…/

Constantly we have to become convinced that our cars, kitchen fixtures, clothes, accessories have to become changed of different reasons. In the shopping culture the drive to throw things away is as powerful and necessary as to shop. Can we find an explanation to why so many people don’t feel well in this consumption society? Why do so many people have to eat antidepressants? Yes, in parts because this shopping culture needs clear feelings of lack of satisfaction and lack of something substantial./…/

The flight from ourselves enriches other people. /…/ We have to be on an ongoing chase for ideal ideas about our lives. Everything can become changed to something better./…/

Another gloomy consequence is a selfish society and people standing completely indifferent for notions like solidarity and human beings equal values. If a human being merely is valued as merchandise the whole idea of brotherly philosophy falls. The step from a collective society and collective responsibility to an individual and privatized societal system changes the human beings’ attitudes and ability to engage in other people.

The neoliberalism gave the shopping culture free scope more than twenty years ago. This has also in a very thorough way changed human beings attitudes, habits and opinions.”

Why are we valued so much, and sometimes only, for our outer appearance? Why aren’t we seen as living human beings and why don’t we see ourselves as living human beings, with feelings, needs, emotions etc. Or how do we see our feelings, needs, emotions? And why do we see them as we do?

Why is the own self in the center as it is? Is it a sound self centeredness? What is unsound? And from where does this self centeredness come? What would a sound development lead to?

What is real development, what would real development be? Both in the society as in individuals?

What are we lacking and what needs do we try to satisfy in different ways? Some not with consumption either!

But in other ways. Maybe sometimes very subtle and disguised…

Can true, genuine respect for individuals exist in a/the collective? If not why?

Bauman thinks that a mixed economy protects people from the capitalism’s varieties. He speaks about social rights [another Swedish leader writer wrote recently about "Forgotten rights"!!], a feeling of belonging and human solidarity. Simply a more equal society. And of course this includes new goals for politics concerning the climate, with a much more “sober” and planned consumption. He also writes about the individualisation of problems that in their bottom actually are collective [see paragraph 6 in this linked Wikipedia-article]! My comment: Yes, indivuals are blamed for problems that actually aren't their personal. But at the same time other people, preferably in power, escape their responsibilities. Quite ironically: and they are also given freedom from responsibility (liability) from the people and not least other people in power.

Yes, what are we striving for and why?

I think the roots lies in our first twenty years in life…

The roots for violence are not unknown, no.

Why do we have the leaders we have? Why are those persons seeking power?

See the following articles and essays: “Bush isn’t a Moron, He’s a Cunning Sociopath” by Bev Conover, “D.C. Shrink Diagnosis Bush as a Paranoid, Sadistic Megalomaniac”, “George W. Bush’s projection dislocation of self” by Terence O'Leary, “See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics” Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker, “So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad?” by psychologist Oliver James, “The Madness of George W. Bush – A Reflection of Our Collective Psychosis” by Paul Levy.

Solidarity – to oneself, to other people, to the world, nature…

I baked Lucy cats yesterday.

[Slightly edited in the evening and updated December 3]. One of my bosses said on a meeting recently that he had read (or heard about) an investigation about people born in the nineties showing that those people are much more individualistic than any other generation. He didn't describe it as this individualism was something positive in my ears and feelings. My interpretation was that they are selfish and don't really care about other people. But has grown people always thought like this about the younger generations (with a self-ironic smile and a deep sigh).

These young people have a greater propensity for immediate satisfaction of their needs he said I think. They put themselves in the first place/room… If I remember right. They are (only) loyal to themselves.

Sidetrack: I also reacted at colleagues I got in the beginning of the nineties (colleagues coming directly from their education), colleagues who were born in the sixties (as our minister of education, whose ideas I don't like at all), they were so strict and authoritarian towards our students, sounded so totalitarian in their judgments! Yes, they sounded like this at least, it's maybe possible that they weren't really like this in practical work, I don't know.

I reacted at what my boss said, as if we just have to accept that young people are like this... And I also raised my voice on this meeting. Have thought further on this a little, among a lot of other things I have in my mind.

Does the one have to exclude the other? Can’t you be loyal both to yourself and to the community (so long as the community is really worth this of course)? Does the individual exclude the collective or vice versa? Can’t, and shouldn’t, the collective treat or meet, each individual with real, genuine, deep respect? And can't an individual feel loyalty towards a group, a community? So long as it is worth it, yes!?

Are those two opposites? Do they have to be? And if they are, why are they?

I try to imagine; if we managed to meet the child with true, genuine respect from the first beginning, in the first place, respect for its feelings, needs, reactions, expressions etc. wouldn’t that individual be capable of showing true, genuine respect to what is worth her or his respect? And make that person more capable of constructively dealing with difficult people, conditions etc.

I also came to think of John Cleese and one of the books he wrote with his therapist Robin Skinner, about leaders, more and less healthy ones. For instance what they had to say about Hitler and Stalin. I searched the book in my book cases and read quickly that they mean that Hitler belonged to the right-extremists and Stalin to the left-extremists briefly said!?

But I think I have to reread what they wrote better before I write more about it…

And I also came to think about shame again of some reason, as a raising method, even used (by people in the power) to steer adult people into things they otherwise wouldn't have agreed to or would have strongly protested against... Would it be possible steering people with shame if they had become better treated (truly respectfully treated) earliest in life?

The young people growing up during the former decade (the nineties), grew up during a time when the grown up world had less time for them; parents more occupied than ever, and there were less grown up people in school, because of the steel bath in the economy then...

There’s a lot at work now too… This was really quickly written...

Some quick reflections December 3: we have been told (encouraged) the last more then ten years at work to say what we think. Told not to talk in the corridors. But do people really - and if not why? Have they started doing this more? Or maybe even less? And the ones that are speaking up - how are they seen and/or met? Are they maybe exploding over states of affairs? And sensitive to not outspoken things? Is it a little "you shall but you shall not"? Which is one of the Master Suppression Techniques?

Parent’s rights contra children’s…

[Udated June 5 and 6 in the end] In a review over the new book ”Skapelsekonspirationen – Fundamentalisternas angrepp på utvecklingsläran” or ”The Conspiracy of Creation – the Fundamentalists’ attack on the Doctrine of Evolution” by Per Kornhall (picture on him above) it stood that the author points out a somersault in the legislation in Sweden, namely; in it it stands about parent’s rights to educate their children in whatever spirit they feel is right, but this isn’t put up against children’s rights to learn to think freely and make their own opinions. The author means that the children (in religious schools, especially very fundamentalist ones) get democracy deficits or losses; they don’t get equivalent education and not the same possibilities as other children.

He thinks the society should see more to the children’s rights and he want to defend the secular society. The British writer George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906) coined the term "secularism."

Kornhall himself about his book:

”A book about the Christian fundamentalists attack on the theory of evolution and the open secular society.”

Thought this was interesting, and wanted to safe these text and thoughts here.

When I searched on the author and his book I found that he belonged to the religious sect Livets ord for 17 years. Left it 2000. Here his own words about why he thinks this church is a sect (in Swedish). Livets ord started their first primary and secondary (?) school 1985 and five years later a gymnasium. So earlier pupils and students are now grown up... The Livet ord home site. Here about it in wikipedia (in English). Livets ord is the Swedish based church of Word of life.

Here another interview with him in which it stands that Kornhall called himself creationist earlier. Here his blog (both these sites are in Swedish).

My grandmother grew up in a laestadian family with 16 children born on 21 years near the Arctic Circle. She freed herself fairly a lot, or they weren't extremely strict raised, but I think she was marked by her upbringing and what she experienced during it, probably things of many different kinds. She was extremely self-occupied and now as grown up I have wondered over her behavior and what it actually was a sign of: a constant anxiety making her restless. All of a sudden she went from the dinner-table to her bed, when all others sat there eating, which s one of many things.

She forwarded this. But I think people see me as very calm and down to earth (hmmm, see that test about being practician!).

She was 60 years when I was born, her first grandchild. It's a pity I can't interview her any more. I was 31 when she died and hadn't read Miller at that time. I would have wanted to ask her a lot of things. And I wonder if she had answered my questions, if they had been honest and straight forward? I am sure she experienced both physical and emotional abuse, and I wonder about sexual. The physical and emotional abuse they probably didn't see as abuse, but for the children's own good. They were forced to ask forgiveness, even if there was nothing to ask forgiveness about. One thing of many probably...

I have a former friend who joined Livets ord too... I think she had difficulties with herself and was a seeking soul... That's so sad.

George Jacob Holyoake

Addition June 5: I got a tip about the film ”The Clash Between Faith and Reason.” And yesterday evening I watched the documentary "Friends of God" by Alexandra Pelosi. Read here and here about it.

Addition June 6: Was tipped about this film Jesus camp too today.

Addition June 7: But I came across a blog where the blog-owner wrote about evolution in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable, so I don't mean to advocate evolutionism either I want to underline.

Oliver James - psychologist...

[Updated in the end April 6] I was tipped about the psychologist Oliver James by a friend, see about James at wikipedia. His home-site.

Read the essay on George W. Bush “So George, how do you feel about your mom and dad?” This essay is well worth reading; on the needs for power and its roots... I recommend it!

Addition after bike tour: According to the tipping friend Oliver James recommends Alice Miller in his books!!

In the video James is talking about his book "Affluenza - How to Be Successful and Stay Sane." See extract from the book (pdf-file; in this the Hoffman institute is mentioned, see discussions on this institute here though, where it is seen as a cult) and articles about the book here and here. In the last article it stands for instance:

"Beyond a certain level of material wealth, more does not equate to happiness; indeed, the pursuit of more is positively pathological. Where this pursuit is accompanied by increasing inequality and economic insecurity, the results are even more dire. Add to this the ever more insidious power of advertising, the new electronic circus of celebrity culture, and the workaholism of unregulated economies, and we are, as we know, in big trouble.

Oliver James argues that the spread of the US model of capitalism is responsible for the epidemic of emotional distress that has swept across the developed world, and is threatening to engulf the new China and Russia, among others. The competitive drive for money, status and power results in a profound deformation of the human soul. We end up treating ourselves and others as commodities, as mere means to vacuous ends. Our capacity to form authentic, loving relationships, to feel secure and balanced, is destroyed. Anomie, alienation and addiction await us.

In the face of this pandemic, James offers us a series of vaccines that might inoculate us against the psychological destructiveness of our contorted affluence. From China and its familial Confucianism, he calls for realistic assessment of ourselves and our contexts. In contrast to the insane perfectionism and achievement-only orientation of American life, he finds the importance of knowing when good is good enough, and wisdom in recognising the real social limits of our lives. In Denmark, he finds a more egalitarian society that continues to reject the false gods of fame and brands in favour of solidarity, integrity and authenticity."

Addition April 6: I have translated this blogposting on my other blog. And when I sat here writing my mom phoned and told that Eskil the dog is dead. But I finished my writing...