Traditional morality and the fourth commandment…

Alice Miller writes at page 204 in her book ”The Body Never Lies”:

“The second pillar [on which the idea that we must honor our parents rests] is traditional morality, which has threatened us for thousands of years with premature death if we should dare to deny our parents the honor they deserve, regardless of what they may have done to us.

It is not difficult to understand the dreadful effect this morality of intimidation will have on individuals who were abused when they were small.”

Triggered by a new posting by Anja on the blog Do nothing day about research “showing” that bad sleep can cause psychiatric diseases. We have known since long that bad sleep can cause different bodily complaints.

Anja means that isn’t this typical: psychiatry is a science still working from the hypothesis that psychiatric diseases just occur from empty nothingness and everything that can become connected to the disease are consequences of this. One seems to have an immense dislike, aversion, to turn the causal relation around and see the psychiatric disease as effect of something.

I have also though of people who have come into my life again the last time showing to have different “problems,” in different degrees. We are all in good middle age now.

One has broken with her 6 year old brother of some reason.

Another is being on sick-list for being burnout, she was one of the more clever at school (till we were in the beginning of our teens, when I and my family moved to an entirely other part of the country, and I gradually lost all contact with all former mates and friends), I think she became jurist.

A third is trying to quit using snus. And I have wondered already what she was exposed to as a child.

The two first are living alone, with broken relations behind them (quite long relations? One lasted at least for 15 years, resulting in no kids).

I don’t know what I expected getting in contact with old classmates and friends… From a period I have painted rosier than it was??

Came to think about “Traumas – a non issue…”

The effects of sweeping things under the rug or "What's hidden in snow comes up in thaw," as we say, or "everything comes out sooner or later"...

The beliefs that if we don’t talk about it, pretend it didn’t happen or forget it, it disappears, it doesn’t exist any more and doesn’t harm. But if we talk about it it will harm.

Fatalism…

Michael Milburn and a water colour painting by him.

from this site (I got an e-postcard this morning from a friend).

Some morning reflections: I react a lot at our current government (a government I hope becomes short-lived and doesn't destroy too much in the society, but I fear they are going to destroy a lot more than they have already done). And this takes a lot of time and energy for me of some reason?

I wonder what is driving them (and what is driving me?). Probably a lot they aren’t aware of themselves? Or all their drives are probably not conscious (is this to exaggerate)? And why do people in general go on these politicians rhetoric? What is driving them? Do they know what is driving them?

With this not said I know myself so much better than people in general (with a tired smile).

And as the creatively working I am I think hardly any of all our politicians (neither here than anywhere else) show creative traits… And no interests in these things either!! At least hardly any genuine, deep, passionate interests. And I react too on a certain sort of snobbishness…

There are no access between the “right” and “left” brain? The Swedish physician Christina Doctare wrote in her book “Hjärnstress” (“Brain Stress”) that she thinks the future leaders need to have both IQ and EQ and jolly good/proper broad bands between those.

Alice Miller writes at page 188 in her book “The Truth Will Set You Free”:

“As a child I, too, had to learn to keep my mouth shut and stop asking ‘Why?’ of people whom I knew would give me an evasive [undvikande, kringgående] answer. Later I tried to answer those questions for myself and in so doing discovered the supreme commandments running through our upbringing and education: ‘Thou shalt not be mindful of the things done to you or the things you have done to others.’ I then realized that for thousand of years this commandment has prevented us from telling good from evil, identifying the wrongs done to us in childhood and sparing our own children the same fate./…/

If we deny the wounds inflicted on us, we will inflict those same wounds on the next generation. Unless, that is, we make a decision in favour of knowledge.”

But for doing this journey we probably need help? If we have to do it on our own it will take a lot of time, and we will probably inflict harm on others during it, but hopefully less big...

Our politicians are pretty authoritarian, and “knowing best”…

The American neurologist Jonathan Pincus writes about how abuse might lead you bigotry.

Miller also writes at page 189 -190 in “The Truth…”:

“Like Frank McCourt, many people today say, ‘My childhood was awful, but it had its moments, and the main thing is that I survived it all and can write about it. It’s the way of the world.’ I find such an attitude fatalistic and believe that we can rebel against this kind of childhood and do our bit to ensure that it will cease [upphöra, sluta upp med] to exist, or at least cease to be so common.

To a child, an unemployed father (like McCourt’s) spending his dole money [arbetslöshetsunderstöd?] on drink is an inescapable trick of fate: the child has no alternative but to come to terms with such realities. Children may in some vague way intuit that they are not really being perceived [sedda, varseblivna, uppfattade] by their parents for what they are, that the parents need them as scapegoats. But their minds cannot grasp the facts/…/

They take refuge in compassion for their parents, and the feeling of love will help them retain some modicum of dignity in spite of the mistreatment.

But children forced to overlook the cruelty born of irresponsibility and indifference on the part of their parents are in danger of blindly adopting this attitude themselves and staying bogged down [stående i ett träsk? Fatalismens träsk?] in the fatalistic ideology that declares evil to be the way of the world. As adults they will retain [hålla kvar] the perspective of the helpless child with no alternative but to come to terms with this fate. They will not know that, paradoxically, they can only grow out of this childlike attitude if they lose their fear of the wrath [vrede] of God (their parents) and are willing to inform themselves about the destructive consequences of repressed childhood traumas. But if they do become alive to this truth, they will regain [återfå, återvinna] their lost sensibility for the suffering of children and free themselves of their emotional blindness.”

Earlier postings under the label Christina Doctare and on empathy deficits here and here.

See Arthur Silber and his Alice Miller essays. Words that comes back in the titles to these essays are "obedience", "denial", "innocence" it feels... For instance Silber writes about the consequences of denial, see “THE ROOTS OF HORROR: The Consequences of Denial”:

“…the results of the mechanism of denial and obedience, a mechanism which requires that reality be obliterated [utplånad, förintad], so that the threat of unpleasant facts cannot come too close and so that authority will not be questioned -- even when those facts lead to the deaths of untold millions of people and a war that engulfs the entire world.

People ought to consider this warning from history -- before it becomes too late, once again. Unfortunately, if history itself is any guide, all such warnings will be disregarded [ignorerade, åsidosatta], and the nightmare [mardröm] may envelop [svepa in, inhölja] us still another time.”

Also read about "Pro-War Personality Disorder". There it stands for instance:

"Kurt Vonnegut, author of the anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five, said in an online article that he believes many corporate executives and government leaders are afflicted with psychopathic personalities which match actual textbook definitions.

‘PPs [Psychopathic personalities?] are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care... Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich...’

Why are political views more deeply divided in America than anywhere else in the free world? According to Michael Milburn, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts [who seem to paint too!! Nice!], the difference is in the way individuals were raised, as he explained in a Newsweek magazine interview [another copy of the text]."

About gratitude and positive thinking...

Moses with the ten commandments.

[Slightly updated April 8]. I came to think of what Miller has written about gratitude and positive thinking (something about encouragement, in society, therapy, by friends in social life etc., to feel gratitude and think positive even when there are no reasons for it, or how Miller wrote? As if one can decide what to feel either? As a sort of moral? A moral prescription? For which you are even admired and get accepted sometimes, and even are rewarded? And if you aren't grateful or positive thinking you get punished and maybe even rejected in some circumstances) and searched on it and found her article “What is hatred?” where she for instance writes:

“Hatred is only a feeling, albeit a very strong and assertive one. Like any other feeling, it is a sign of our vitality. So if we try to suppress it, there will be a price to pay. Hatred tries to tell us something about the injuries we have been subjected to, and also about ourselves, our values, our specific sensitivity. We must learn to pay heed to it and understand the message it conveys. If we can do that, we no longer need to fear hatred. If we hate hypocrisy, insincerity, and mendacity, then we grant ourselves the right to fight them wherever we can, or to withdraw from people who only trust in lies. But if we pretend that we are impervious to these things, then we are betraying ourselves.

The almost universal, but in fact highly destructive, injunction to forgive our ‘trespassers’ encourages such self-betrayal. Religion and traditional morality constantly prize forgiveness as a virtue, and in numerous forms of therapy it is erroneously recommended as a path to ‘healing.’ But it is easy to demonstrate that neither prayer nor auto-suggestive exercises in ‘positive thinking’ are able to counteract the body's justified and vital responses to humiliations and other injuries to our integrity inflicted on us in early childhood. The martyrs' crippling ailments are a clear indication of the price they had to pay for the denial of their feelings. So would it not be simpler to ask whom this hatred is directed at, and to recognize why it is in fact justified? Then we have a chance of living responsibly with our feelings, without denying them and paying for this ‘virtue’ with illnesses.

I would be suspicious if a therapist promised me that after treatment (and possibly thanks to forgiveness) I would be free of undesirable feelings like rage, anger, or hatred. What kind of person would I be if I could not react, temporarily at least, to injustice, presumption, evil, or arrogant idiocy with feelings of anger or rage?

Would that not be an amputation of my emotional life? If therapy really has helped me, then I should have access to ALL my feelings for the rest of my life, as well as conscious access to my own history as an explanation for the intensity of my responses. This would quickly temper that intensity without having serious physical consequences of the kind caused by the suppression of emotions that have remained unconscious.”

And I got a hit on an interview with her “Violence Kills Love: Spanking, the Fourth Commandment, and the Suppression of Authentic Emotions - Interview given by Alice Miller to Borut Petrovic Jesenovec in June 2005 for the magazine ONA (Slovenia)” where it for instance stands:

The interviewer: Positive thinking is just as harmful as religious injunctions to forgive and love those who hate us. Should we avoid new age self-help manuals?

AM: Yes, you are right. ‘Positive thinking’ is in no sense a remedy, as it is a form of self-deception, it is a flight from the truth and cannot help because the body knows better. In my recently published article on my website, ‘What is Hatred?’ I explain this point more extensively. I do the same in my latest book, which will soon be published in your language [‘The Body Never Lies’?].”

And see this article “Does Morality Harm Children? Alice Miller On Morality and Poisonous Pedagogy” by William L. Fridley. Yes, that about traditional morality! "Honor thy..."

Alice Miller on therapists...

Alice Miller in an answer to a reader about how to find the right therapist in the letter "Questions" (observe: I have "edited" the answer):

“Certainly, if I knew of some therapists who would be

– respectful enough to answer your questions;

– free enough to show indignation about what your parents have done to you;

– empathic enough when you need to release your rage pent up for decades in your body;

– wise enough to not preach to you forgetting, forgiveness, meditation, positive thinking;

– honest enough to not offer you empty words like spirituality, when they feel scared by your history,

– and that are not increasing your life-long feelings of guilt

I would be happy to give you their names, addresses and phone-numbers.
Unfortunately, I don't know them, but I still like to hope that they exist. However, when I am looking for them on the Internet I find

– plenty of esoteric and religious offers,

– plenty of denial, commercial interests, traditional traps,

– but not at all what I am looking for.

For that reason I gave you with my FAQ list [FAQ=frequently asked questions] tools for your own research.

If a therapist refuses to answer your questions right from the start, you can be sure that by leaving him you can save yourself your time and your money.

If you don't dare to ask your questions out of your fear of your parents, your fear may be highly understandable.

However, trying to do it anyway may be useful because your questions are important and

by daring to ask them you can only win.”

Addition: in Miller's ”For Your Own Good - Hidden cruelty in childrearing and the roots of violence” I found the following:

"I have used Hitler as an example to show that:

1. Even the worst criminal of all time was not born a criminal.
2. Empathizing with a child's unhappy beginnings does not imply exoneration of the cruel acts he later commits. (This is as true for Alois Hitler as it is for Adolf.)
3. Those who persecute others are warding off knowledge of their own fate as victims.
4. Consciously experiencing one's own victimization instead of trying to ward it off provides a protection against sadism; i.e., the compulsion to torment and humiliate others.
5. The admonition to spare one's parents inherent in the Fourth Commandment and in ‘poisonous pedagogy’ encourages us to overlook crucial factors in a person's early childhood and later development.
6. We as adults don't get anywhere with accusations, indignation, or guilt feelings, but only by understanding the situations in question.
7. True emotional understanding has nothing to do with cheap sentimental pity.
8. The fact that a situation is ubiquitous does not absolve us from examining it. On the contrary, we must examine it for the very reason that it is or can be the fate of each and every one of us.
9. Living out hatred is the opposite of experiencing it. To experience something is an intrapsychic reality; to live it out, on the other hand, is an action that can cost other people their lives. If the path to experiencing one's feelings is blocked by the prohibitions of ‘poisonous pedagogy’ or by the needs of the parents, then these feelings will have to be lived out. This can occur either in a destructive form, as in Hitler's case, or in a self-destructive one, as in Christiane F.'s. Or, as in the case of most criminals who end up in prison, this living out can lead to the destruction both of the self and of others. The history of Jürgen Bartsch, which I shall treat in the next chapter, is a dramatic example of this."