Said about the Swedish rock poet Stefan Sundström in a local Swedish newspaper:
“He pursues his own resistance movement in an era of commercialized idol ideals. He uses words set to music as the primary mean to tell about the lives and dreams of those who are made invisible [and whose voices aren't heard, voices that are maybe taken from them].”
Has the individualism made people lonely? And invisible?
What would good “individualism” be about? Respect (deep, genuine)for each individual?
we are celebrating Walpurgis Night this evening.
People are reacting at conditions at their workplaces… How do they deal with them? How do different people solve such problems?
Some go out like heroes, trying to rescue all and everyone? Try to point to the bad conditions. But how many of those succeed to change the situation? Or what happens with them?
Whistle blowers use to get into real troubles.
The advice is to not trying to change things on your own, but try to get together with other people. And if there is nobody to get together with try to "live" with things in some way anyway or look for another job.
Can one cooperate without obliterating oneself? In good conditions you can I think. In worse or bad this can be difficult. And this is even more difficult if you have things in your backpack you haven’t gotten help or been able to deal with. Then it can really be difficult acting constructively.
What about caring about other people, caring about another person?
Wikström writes further about that the philosophy of life-enjoyment has in turn become idealized, commercialized and exploited. What follows from this is that the one that cannot afford or feels unfairly treated and therefore evidently becomes tired and unenterprising or weak, disappears and is seen as a deterrent example on a human being who isn’t successful.
But the happiness or success myth means that aging, destruction and death are made invisible.
The existence’s fundamental tragic is at risk of becoming denied and concealed by too simple diagnosis made by the speedy answers' prophets; the success ideal can create a despair that becomes twofold heavy because lack of success is described as the individuals own fault.
The individualism is disregarding structural or political factors behind this lostness. Factors like class, ethnicity, and gender – social injustices – are almost vanished in the popular culture’s images of the good life – not to talk about the insight about the need for common forces for changes.
Wikström writes that the more he looks himself around the more he sees a lack. In the strong confidence to the individual’s own ability – the American dream – there is an equally big leaving the weak individuals social and economical needs and justified demands out of account. It is as if weakness and fragility has become on equal footing with stupidity, dumbness. See Alice Miller on contempt for weakness. This means that instead of a common fight, opposition and revolt, many turn their disappointment inwards:
“I have to blame myself. It’s probably my own fault. I ought to think more positively, attend a course, and learn how to style my personality.”
When the solution on gigantic social problems, the lack of equality and political questions are individualized by the popular culture’s the looking in the mirror increases.
More and more people are trying to repeat the mantra:
“I AM happy, I WILL become successful, I AM consciously present, I WILL get through well, I WILL become slim!”
He thinks he can suspect the weeping behind the tight smiles.
When he reads newspapers and is surfing on the websites on the net it is apparent that the spirituality’s interpretors as well as the feel-well-psychology’s self-appointed experts both are an expression of and are exploiting a lost culture.
In parallel with highly normal and serious channels for psychological care in the health care a more and more miscellaneous market has grown. There a lucrative line of business has become created, a profitable niche both creating and profiting on the present age’s confusion.
Cherry Bird at my work place, picture taken with my cell phone camera.Apropos punishments… What we regard as punishment? And what we maybe deny being a punishment? Thinking further on ”See No Evil -- A political psychologist explains the roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics,” the pschologist Michael Milburn interviewed by Brian Braiker in Newsweek,
Miller writes in her book ”Breaking Down the Wall of Silence” (“Riv tigandets mur”) that she experienced the Wall of Silence already in her childhood. Her mother used to meet her with silence whole long days on end for to demonstrate her absolute power over the small girl and force her to obedience, "for her own good" of "love for her small child." She needed this power to mask he own insecurity to herself and to others, but also to withdraw from the relation with her child, a child whom she had never wanted (though maybe denied both to herself and to the environment, not actually knowing what love is probably, because she hadn't experienced true, genuine, real love herself from HER caretakers when she grew up. No excuse though).
And the mother didn’t have to defend her sadism surrounding the small girl with silence, as if she didn’t exist.
The mother saw her attitude as a fair and well deserved punishment for offences the small girl had committed, as her duty giving her a lesson.
This was awful (we can probably not imagine how it feels) for the child. The small girl Miller was couldn’t feel this really then probably, but these feelings (or most parts of them) became suppressed. And so she in turn became insensitive to HOW awful this actually feels, not only to grown ups but not least to a powerless and helpless child. See Berit Ås on the Master Suppression Techniques, where "making invisible" is the first she mentions.
But what was even more painful, Miller writes, was the child’s hopeless efforts to get to know the reason(s) for this punishment. In this omission, negligence a message laid she writes: If you not even know for what you have deserved this punishment you have no conscience. Search (look for), ransack yourself and do your utmost till your conscience says what sort of guilt you have brought down upon you. Not until then you can TRY to exculpate or excuse yourself and dependent on the mood of the one in power you can, if you are lucky, MAYBE be forgiven.
Miller thinks she was exposed to a totalitarian regime and that she was despised (looked down upon) and sadistically treated.
She had to believe that the fault lay in her that her mother didn’t’ speak to her but surrounded her by silence day after day, it must have been her meanness (see Bosch on the Primary defence) that made her mother behave like that (not that the mother was mean!!). That her mother didn’t answer her questions, didn’t care when she wanted an explanation, avoided her looks, so the chikld understood what she had done and change her destiny, being included again in the community, so she could understand her mother (and her strange and very mean behaviour in fact, a fact she should have needed help seeing, a behaviour she should have needed help questioning and seeing as wrong).
As the actual truth was so brutal and unbelievable she had to deny it. For this she had to pay a VERY high price: namely her full awareness was limited and she has been obsessed by guilt feelings since then (for her inherent badness, for which she has to pay her whole life, the rest of it?). Probably reinforced by other people she has had around her to whom she has been drawn?
She escaped this truth by searching the fault in herself, blaming herself (see later how we blame the victims here and there, and meet them with contempt - for weakness!! And for having drawn things upon themselves), and getting blind for her mother’s mendacity (förljugenhet) and thirst for power.
Later she tried to weigh this loss and truth up by philosophical speculations about “the unbelievable truth.”
PS. I will probably update this later. A lot at work this time of the year… But I need to reflect upon things too, even if I don’t really have the time.
Concert this evening with our piano-pupils, with rehearsal before it. Now 12 pupils first!!
A lot to organize here; informing all and everyone, practicing with students, I can’t name it all.
And it is over 35 ears since I read English. I didn’t read it the whole gymnasium. I regret it! But I wonder if I was prepared then either…
A church-concert Thursday May 29 in the evening with a group I am co-responsible for and I am accompanying many of them. In June we are going to have a teacher’s concert too, where I am involved. With only a handful of my colleagues.
But what is she doing??? (the first meeting?)[updated January 21 in the end]. Now in the morning I came to think about the topic limit-setting of children of some reason. And thought further on boundary violations and Kirkengen.
Boundary violations take place everywhere!? And have different expressions? Some are visible right away and others are very subtle?
How do we handle them when we meet them, if we meet them? For instance: how do we as grown up protect ourselves? I believe we aren't as helpless and powerless as children are concerning this... Except if we don't land in a deep crisis... Then it can become tricky... I have the book by Marie-France Hirigoyen on mobbing and stalkers. It stands about her that she is (was) nun and that she is psycho-analyst now.
And that you see in her book I think, that she is psychoanalyst I mean. She hasn't shaken this off. Is so brain-washed with Freudian concepts. My gut-feeling is that I doubt she can really contribute to solving what's actually the causes to mobbing and stalking.
I see some parallels to the American neurologist Jonathan Pincus and his research on serial killers, he hasn't shaken all old ideas off entirely either.
But he feels less moralizing than Hirigoyen?? And reading him feels better.
But none of these two say that the criminal, mobber or stalker don't carry responsibility for what they do or have done.
Now back to the original thread: There’s a lot of talk here about limit setting of children… And among grown ups the ones with for example exhaustion-troubles are said to have to learn to pose boundaries… And to learn to know their limits… A bit ironically... (Things are made individual problems. But that’s another discussion). Why do people have problems with boundaries? To pose them (and thus protect them,selves) and/or stepping over others boundaries?
I came to think of the Norwegian doctor Anna-Luise Kirkengen and that she has written about boundary-violations and their effects (if not immediately so later), and the concept revictimization.
There were several references to boundary-violations in her book “Inscribed bodies”, and in the first the concept bio-medicine was mentioned too.
At page 2-4 she writes (my italics):
“Those human conditions which are embedded in interpersonal relations, societal values, and culturally constituted meaning, are, through the very logic of biomedical theory, made invisible. The logic of the dominant methodology also renders them incomprehensible. Finally, they are deemed ignorable or irrelevant since values and meaning are non-issues according to objective science. The result is that the power implicit in social rank and the humiliations of human beings due to abuses of power are turned into non-medical logics, making medicine, inevitably blind to the adverse effects which abuse has on human health [the results of abuse isn’t ‘only’ psychological ill-health to different degrees!]. This becomes even more the case whenever the practice of such abuse is either societally legitimized or culturally taboo./…/
As medicine is a respected societal institution, and in its guise as a science, the normative character of biomedical epistemology accrues crucial influence. It effects central decisions with regard to what is, and what is not, to be considered relevant in drawing medical conclusions. Purporting to apply objective scientific knowledge while actually applying societal norms, medicine as a practice maintains the mandate to define the categories of ill health and malfunctions. By defining these categories, medicine has the right to include any conditions which meet the categorical criteria. Thus, according to the rules of formal logic, medicine also has the power to exclude those conditions which fail to meet those criteria. This distinction between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ states or conditions plays a role in every medical decision. The norms of biomedicine are embedded in the practice of any medical examination and treatment, and affect every living person who addresses a medical institution in the role of a sick patient. Through application of these norms, distinguishing the ‘proper’ from the ‘improper’ within a formalized societal context, medicine has the power to stigmatize people who ask for help for ‘improper’ conditions. While acting in the name of giving help, medicine may, in fact, violate a person’s dignity. But even those who present apparently ‘proper’ conditions may risk stigmatization if presumably appropriate medical interventions prove ineffective. According to objectifying medical theory, such measures ought to result I a predictable outcome. If they consistently do not, the most probable question is not, ‘what is wrong with medical judgment and medical theory?’ but rather ‘what s wrong with this patient?’ Failures stemming from the foundations of professional judgment, namely medical knowledge acquired by applying rules requiring objectivity, are more likely to be attributed to those whose conditions fails to improve. In other words: Medical norms exclude, marginalize and then stigmatize.”
Side-track: is this the case even more today, with doctors’ limited time with each patient?
And in school: shouldn’t we all try to improve the school in general, together, isn’t this our common concern?
I have cooperated with class-teachers (grade 1-3) as preparation for the music-school. An offer from the music-school, as a way to reach all children, not only those having support from home… To give all children an opportunity to experience the joy of singing, dancing, playing… And maybe make them want to go further, and learn to play an instrument. (I want to add: during all my work life there has been discussions round instrumental education; genres not least, to use the music young people listen to, and to use all the new techniques when it came: synths, computers etc. etc. etc. I am a bit tired hearing about this, as the very ambitious person I am, working and working and trying and trying. Hearing ‘you should this and that!!’ And those saying this, what do they actually know about what I, or we, do?? Quite sarcastically to be honest!!). With the ambitions t give all children an opportunity to become active executors not only passive consumers… Does this sound idyllic, and unrealistic, a stupid dream?
And back to the question limit-setting: why do children and young people have problems with boundaries? How do we handle this?
The best would of course be if we did something as early as possible… The best would be before the child was born; informing about a child’s needs (if we know which they are? For this we probably need to have access to our own history… Which would probably demand a tough, hard work on ourselves, and how many are interested in that?).
I don’t know what is actually possible at school: but with a child acting out on others and in the class-room, what should one do? And what is done actually?
I don’t believe in “obey and keep quiet”! The authoritarian, totalitarian method…
Are grown ups afraid of hearing about actual truths? And/or afraid of having to deal with something they don’t know how to handle? The method of solving this is sweeping this under the rug!???
Is it possible to talk to the child face to face, in person, and explain to it, calmly and not moralising that you can’t do this or that, and at the same time be open to listen??? And to hear!!?? This would probably also require that this grown up has support from other grown ups in the environment, so he/she can keep the professional, empathic stand he/she ought to have??
The sad thing is that this I probably so much easier to talk about than to do… Just because I think we all have experienced things we don’t want to be reminded about…
But from some professionals we are entitled to demand more in this respect: not least from psychologists, therapists of all kinds, probably also doctors and at last people in school…
Silently: personal development isn’t highly regarded or rewarded though… At least from some bosses… I wonder if a more seeing co-worker also can be a little dangerous!!?? The more aware and enlightened this person can see other things and question other things and that is “a bit” dangerous… (or very dangerous straightly said!!??).
So children are at risk of becoming revictimized already in school…
I see parallels to what Kirkengen describes in medicine to the conditions at school. But I don’t work in the “regular” school, only in its outskirts.
Another sidetrack: research has shown that the ones that are more empathic are at greater risk of being burnt-out…
What am I taking on my shoulders? To change the whole world? What is my responsibility? Is this only my responsibility? Can I do this on my own? And what shall I do on my own? What can I do? The first step is to articulate things? To say it out loudly? Test the thoughts in that way? And by this also process my own personal things? Discover what is actually driving me, and by this maybe also deal with things more constructively? Not burdened with a lot of own unprocessed, unconscious stuff? Which can make me behave and handle things maybe both self-destructively and destructively, i.e., harming myself and/or others even if I don't want to do that (which I perhaps do)?
And things I meet: what is about me (and are things I should do something about) and what is not about me, but the other person actually??? What am I to blame for, and what I am not to blame for?
PS. It's convenient with people taking the blame on them, with people blaming themselves?? That about defences... Which are actually protections against old pain Bosch and Jenson mean, and they cause problems of all sorts in grown up life. I think Bosch even writes that they can be life-threatening.
On the label "the Primary defence" (blaming yourself). And the label "defences".
"What do you have to complain about; you with your back-ground, all the opportunities you got and had!!??"Just this fact, does it give others permission to mistreat? And isn't this fairly contemptuous?? Too!!? What have I done to that person? Just the fact that I exist is enough?? And that I exist as the one I am? I have to take this humbly, full of shame for who and what I am (as if what I am, how I live etc. is something to be jealous about at all!!!). Bow my head and just take it?? Shall I?
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