Leaders and child abuse…

people lived here 6000 years ago (stone age).

From Bob Scarf’s essay “Leaders”:

"This is consonant with the idea that ‘leadership’ is composed of the most backwards psychoclasses.

Question: Why is that? That is, why is ‘leadership’ composed of the most backwards psychoclasses? /…/

I have written elsewhere (and in previous posts) on the origins of political power [and why are some given power? Why does the people give certain people power, even the highest power in a society, whether formal or informal, on different levels? What do those have in their early history?].

In the gynarchy (female subculture) women restaged their abuse and warded off their annihilation anxiety by emulating their abusive mothers.

In the androcracy (male subculture) men, who did not become mothers, had to restage and combat their annihilation anxiety in other ways. One of the ways they did so was by developing politics and political power [or in anger]. So power is pathological. If you want to avoid using medical terms; power is a defense. It follows then that the people who are more defended (in certain ways) are more attracted to political power.

[and power in general in the society!? I think the ones that would become the best leaders, for instance on workplaces, don’t seek those jobs, because they realize the problems with being a leader. The researchers Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter thought the workplaces and companies were at risk of becoming drained on their best work labor, because either they would become burnout or try to leave and start their own businesses, with all the troubles connected to this and what this would cost for the companies, workplaces, the democracy the society, the societal economy. And so far I have had the incomes so I can buy and read a lot of books. More privileged than many in this world, even though I only have middle-incomes! Grew up and still belong to the middle class, maybe grew up in the somewhat upper middle class].”

See what Alice Miller writes in her book "The Body Never Lies" and what's written about its content (the second half of this posting) concerning child abuse and the society.

I thought further on my maternal grandparents and how they survived the pressure on them (in the working class. Addition: I think I belong to the “working” class too!).

We live in much more complicated societies than our first ancestors lived, in societies with the potential to really destroy everything on this earth; the nature, all human beings.

My great grandparents and their generation, and in the generations before them, didn’t really have those means.

I also came to think how does the history look when it comes power-mad? To money and property mad (having limitless needs, needs that can never become filled, the person never becomes satisfied, is about persons trying to fill needs they can never fill afterwards, because that time has passed, but what does this cause other people, if not the whole society, but the persons nearest to them)?

And societies with many disturbed because of the ways that were in fashion raising children (as for instance in Germany decades before WWII, and probably also occurring in societies in wars and lots of conflicts today too)?

That our grandparents (in my generation), being under and standing with their caps in their hands, bowing for their employers managed their lives (in greater poverty than almost all people today?) how did they? Were they stronger, or what? The illnesses came late in life for them. See about the ACE-study. I think Miller wonders if Hitler had needed his leader role (that much) if he had a lot of children, and been able to abreact the horrible abuse he endured during his childhood on them.

Did they because they could abreact their frustrations on their kids, it was your duty to educate your children, and the method was spanking them and making so they didn’t think they were anybody (by using emotional and verbal violence)?

Men abreacted on their wives and kids if they weren’t in a power position (then they probably mistreated the persons standing them nearest in different ways, more or less subtle), and women in turn on their kids (if they couldn’t react at their husbands, on whom they were dependent)?

Women abreacted the abuse they had endured during their childhood (and their under order in the whole society) and their fear of becoming annihilated by copying their mothers (and/or fathers). Men sought power in the society, and if this wasn’t possible they abreacted their early experiences and latter humiliation they experienced in the society, at work etc. too on their kids (and wives. But women have been abusive too at not only their kids!). As was the case when I grew up.

In this way they survived, didn’t become sick in the first place, and had a feeling of some sort of power and control (the therapists Ingeborg Bosch and Jean Jenson, maybe among others, think you get a feeling of power and control through anger and/or denial of needs) ?

Also came to think: Owe Wikström realized when his heart all of a sudden stopped and during the recovery after this, how totally being at the mercy and dependent he was on his caregivers, and the care and good will he got from them [my addition: that they didn't abuse his situation]. See what his reflections in his book “Sonias goodness”.

I also wondered: real equality, real freedom, (that all people have the same say, are equally worth, get the same respect as everybody else) in the society and the world is that the real prerequisites? How do we create this? The best and probably only method is changing childrearing methods even more than we have already done? There’s still quit a lot to do there I would say.

Interview with the author Henning Mankell.

A new leader style…

Yes, is it time for a radically new leader style? But are we going to get one, and not only trials in that direction in USA?

There has been a LOT of talk in the media about the election of a new president in USA, and here is something you could read in a local newspaper here yesterday about Barack Obama and his leader style:

“According to co workers Obama is known for his calmness and has therefore been called No Drama Obama. The coming president is expected to bring a leader style characterized by discussions and deliberation (betänksamhet) about. It’s a large contrast to Bush who is known for going on gut feeling.”

In the posting “Brave New World” the blog Do nothing day also wrote about leaders. That politicians with honest intentions (genuinely honest), i.e. those who aren’t out for the power in itself and for their own purposes of whatever kind, strive for agreement, to bring about cooperation, not to polarize or divide and rule. Something Obama seems to be more interested in than the leaving president. Obama seems to want to unite rather than to split.

But do we need saviors? And if so why? Is this a healthy sign that we have such needs?

I came to reflect over things yesterday in another blogposting "Capitalism and lack of freedom..." about a review of for instance a book by the professor in sociology Richard Sennett, and wonder if the reason to why more men are conservative and neoliberal is that more men (than women) are served by “the order of things” at least in short-term, an order we have had for thousand of years more or less. They don’t want to change this order, and definitely not as radical as would be needed? They would rather want to set the clock back many of them? Push the responsibility on someone else; their fathers and mothers in symbolic forms? Even if one asserts something else and does this with great emphasis. The greater the emphasis the more you have to convince yourself? But men looses on this, because they loose themselves in this deal!?

And “the market” is something many people in power positions want to push the responsibility on?? Very practical.

Because many don’t want to take responsibility for anything and not for themselves either? On the other hand they want to have power and rule the roost (vara herrar på täppan)?

Yes, it is as the psycho historian Bob Scharf writes in his essay "Leaders," the more defended tend to lead. And this is about leadership on all levels, from the micro to the macro level. From the family to being president for the United States of America???

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-Martin Luther King Jr.

Neoconservatism, neomoralism, perfectionism…

There's a wave of neoconservatism and moralizing over the whole (western) world is it? Ideas that weren't really opportune twenty years ago you express openly today with no shame at all!

Loud thinking around and about things I have read recently, I don’t have any real solutions to these things though, am just wondering, thinking, reflecting over things:

A Swedish journalist about Susan Faludi’s last book “The Terror Dream – Myth and Misogyny in an insecure America” (misogyny is hatred of women, though covered up in today's world as much as earlier?? And, yes, there is a backlash in the society in many respects!!! And I have actually started to read this book!) in the article “My Home Is My Sorrow – Ira Mallik About the Dream That Cracked – and Gender Equality”:

“…September 11 became the starting shot for a medial idealization of the housewife, the family, childbirth and the man as provider.”

She compares what Faludi writes concerning USA with the state of things in Sweden; calling it the building of the home (isn’t it a form of regression we see, regression in an insecure world? People are seeking comfort in idealizing the family, because that early family had “flaws” and they can't admit to that, when this image is triggered we people regress. The more flaws the family had and the person hasn’t processed this or come to terms with it, the more he/she regresses to earlier stages? And this also occurs on societal levels, when a whole society is in crisis, then many become more conservative for instance, we can see a neoconservatism and a new moralizing? Sometimes harsh?):

“With the renovation, the weekend cottage summerhouse and the upkeep of the private house, the parent generation’s traditional gender role division is maintained. Dad cuts the grass and does the joinery; mom works hard, potters about and decorates [see the Swedish painter Carl Larsson whose wife, Karin, also was painter originally, she let her artistic talents and interests out in the family, in the shadow/shade of her husband]. The common prison is decorated with Italian glazed tiles. The dream wasn’t to spend all free time renovating. The dream wasn’t either to look after the kids when the husband was renovating.

The perfection which, as soon as the putty has dried, is completed, seem to be the explosive paste which transforms the love relation to bloody rags and bitter wars, about leases on the place to live and the weekend cottage summerhouse.

All which shall manifest our selves in the home [instead of our true selves??]/.../

Ironically enough it is the same homes that shall manifest the middle class status and the

successful self [being good enough!?] which threatens to become transformed into a prison.

You have to pay money for interests each month and this demands a high and steady income./…/

Hopefully we can start to talk about all peoples’ rights to a decent living instead of fancy and cool kitchens and the right making a good bargain on ones living.”

Yeah, we have to have perfect homes, be perfect, look perfect, express ourselves perfectly (if you don’t you can keep quite) and have perfect lives… Being perfect partners, lovers, workers... So those having problems with perfectionism gets problems too in such a society, problems which had been smaller in another society?? No wonder burnouts, exhaustions – and broken relations!??)

Another article yesterday in a newspaper I bought “Should we get divorced more often?” with representatives for both the outer alternatives “Yes” and “No”. Where the woman Cecilia Gyllenhammar (daughter to the former CEO for Volvo, Pehr Gyllenhammar) said

“Yes! Follow your heart.”

(I didn’t find this article on the web but another one on the same theme).

She says:

“Dead marriages create a milieu without dynamics and beliefs in the future. It makes me crazy thinking of how other people ave answers on how our lives are. Don’t let outer pressure and moral rule. Follow your heart; allow yourself a rich sex life.”

The journalist asks her:

“Do you think more people would divorce if they could afford it?”

Cecilia G. answers:

“Yes, I know from my surrounding that people having it damn [economically] well have to change living area or even to one with a lower status. They are cowards and don’t dare to break up from old patterns and ideals [on top it's great shame not succeeding - or maybe even being left]. The society has to be there and see so people aren’t forced to stay in marriages. We have to prevent so the right [right wing people] doesn’t let our moral govern our lives once again, so the marriages aren’t strengthened in the society.”

We ought to wonder what healthy and sound relations are, and how to create them?? Because even if we are entirely independent we need other people!! Even autonomous people need other peoples in their lives. And a truly autonomous person doesn’t even think or reflect over this, but just has other people around, in healthier relations than many other people have?? And if they don't have people around they don't blame themselves, as if this is their fault?? And shouldnt't become blamed...

A sound, autonomous person can admit to her/his needs, wishes, and desires?

A man, Marcus Birro, has a different view on if it is too easy to divorce.

“Of course there are people feeling very lonely in a relation, but it is nevertheless a defeat with a divorce [yes, something to grieve!?]. Giving up is a loss [yes, and you have to grieve a loss].

The love is stronger than the self-centered cynicism that is rewarded in the society. The ultimate proof of this is that people can marry four times and really believe that it shall function each time, despite that all knows that it can go to hell.”

But he also wonders:

“Is it better being stuck in an emotional desert just because you want to continue driving a golf-car during the weekends?”

Yes, there has been a lot of hypocrisy, and selfishness… How it looks on the surface…

People stayed together earlier who should have divorced!?? Or who should have worked their problems through and gotten help with it too. But because of the moral and taboos people couldn’t talk openly about their problems, maybe at all! And many also became scorned:

"Oh yeah, now you are coming here and complaining! You should have listened to me/us in the first place!"

Or something. So instead of helping people solving mistakes, people became punished, and many times didn't really work anything out. Didn't work things ot that could have been worked out, or in the worst cases didn't work a divorce through for all involved parts best... Or was stuck in a bad relation.

I think it was like this not more far away than in my parent’s generation, where nobody is divorced… Were/are their marriages better and established on better grounds?

Alice Miller has written a lot about traditional morality in the society and its results in her last books... No, what she talks about,and have been talking about for the last 30 years, isn't quite appropriate any more? Not as it was 15-20 years ago??

Are we dealing with the most painful things here though? I.e. our relations with our parents from the first beginning? Betrayals, disappointments, making our lives more difficult than they had to be, maybe far more difficult and painful than they ought to be??

And people don't get proper help dealing with this from their therapists, counselors, helpers! Because it isn't only about understanding those things on an intellectual level! But understanding it on an emotional - to some degree...

What is the eager glorification of the family about? How are the actual experiences of the early family actually for the biggest promoters of the family? Because they are promoting it in a quite moralizing way? How sound are those people?

And that about power, the needs for it and leaders again... See earlier posting with the label "backward psycho classes" and the essay "Leaders" by Bob Scharf, that the more defended psycho classes tend to lead!!! Yes,so it is!? This is what we see in the society and world!!?? With some (few) exceptions!?

Guruer, helbrägdagörare och ledare...

from a walk January 23, 2007, taken with my cellphone camera.

Slog mig plötsligt vad Alice Miller skrivit om guruer och ledare, se bland annat sidan 157 i ”Vägar i livet”:

”Med ledare och guruer är det svårt att säga var det medvetna upphör och det omedvetna börjar manifestera sig. Mången guru drivs av krafter som han själv inte är medveten om. Annars behövde han inte bygga upp ett så komplicerat system åt sig att han endast med destruktiva medel kan vidmakthålla det. /…/

Bland sekternas grundare finns många paranoida och megalomana [storhetsvansinniga] psykotiker som i mängden av anhängare söker skydd mot den egna ångesten, i det att de erbjuder sig som hjälpare eller helbrägdagörare./…/

…de vill undkomma sin barnsliga vanmakt och bekämpa denna på det symboliska planet samtidigt som erbjuder de sig som räddare, eftersom de genom sina anhängares lovprisningar äntligen känner sig mäktiga istället för vanmäktiga. Men så fort de fruktar att bli genomskådade tvingar de med hotelser sina lärjungar att tiga. Självmord är en extrem form av tigande.”

Tänker på vad Ingeborg Bosch skriver om hjälp- och maktlöshet (dvs. om vanmakt). Om försvaren falsk makt vrede och falsk makt förnekande av behov (False Power Denial of Needs)… Försvar som ger oss en falsk känsla av makt och som är verksamma även idag som vuxna i den mån vi inte har bearbetat det som var upphovet till dessa försvar.

Tidigare postningar under kategorin powerlessness, power, power abuse, the need for power och the need for power and control. Se också om backward psycho classes.

Tror vi kan möta detta hos både ledare av olika storlekar (dvs. på lika nivåer), hos terapeuter och andra hjälpare (både profesionella och även på det privata området) m.m.

Men försvaren mot hjälplösheten då kan också yttra sig på andra sätt, helt motsatta mot (den oemotståndliga) driften och enorma behovet att skaffa sig makt tror jag...

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Struck me yesterday all of a sudden about what Miller has written about healers (of all kinds, in form of therapists, both educated and not) and about gurus and leaders of all kinds, and quoted a passage in Miller’s book “Paths of Life” from page 157 in the Swedish edition. A passage where it stands that gurus and leaders of all kinds (even in the form of helpers) at last feel (or can feel or are given the opportunity to feel) powerful (potent) instead of powerless (impotent!?) when and if they get power (over a "weaker")... But as soon as they fear being seen through they force their disciples to silence. And suicide is the extreme form of silence Miller writes.

Above I have linked to earlier postings about these topics and connected topics.

On Miller's web it stands about "Paths of Life":

"How do our first experiences of pain and love affect our future adult lives and our relationships with others? This is the key question which runs through the seven 'life stories' collected here. Each scenario is a fictional account of a damaged past and the repercussions it has in later life. The narratives explore the suffering and loneliness felt in the individual's formative years. For some, the pain and inner isolation has dominated their adulthood and prevented them from enjoying fulfilling relationships despite the desire and need for contact and communication. For others, old fears and defensive patterns have been conquered, enabling them to enter into healthy relationships and find contentment."

from one of two places where I use to write.

I just got the message that a friend and former colleague of mine, a 46-year old (jazz-)pianist has died! He was rehearsing in Stockholm on Tuesday and got a bleeding in the brain. And died yesterday. He left a family with a 5-year-old son.

I haven't quite understood this!?

See here, here and here.
What a birthday present...