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.

IFS-therapy…

We don’t need more disintegration but more integration. From what I have understood about IFS-therapy: Imagining that we have different parts in us whom we can speak to (and who can speak to each other?) doesn’t support integration?

About inner child work:

“…letting clients imagine that they can get now or do now what they couldn’t then [by for instance giving their ‘inner children’ what they didn’t get then] undermines the healing process, even though clients experience relief in the short run.” (Bosch page 101).

And about (maybe solely) using our intellect (neo cortex) to understand and imagine what’s behind our current problems:

“…if we misinterpret the cause of the feeling we can inadvertently hinder the healing process, since in order to heal, it is important to be aware that a specific feeling goes back to something (be it a general or specific situation) and let ourselves feel that.” (Bosch page 101).

Jenson writes, in my maybe a little free interpretation: if we unconsciously rewrite our history the failure is unavoidable.

Because we want to avoid the truth to whatever prize, because it is so painful. Either we remember through feeling anxiety etc. OR we remember what we were exposed to but not with the feelings that should have been adequate, appropriate and connected to the event(s).

The child had to deny what happened, to different degrees, and needed to do so to survive. As adults we continue with this denial, because the truth is still so painful, but therapists mean that we can survive the truth about then today… But we need appropriate help with “confronting” (I am not sure this is the appropriate or right word, because I am not sure it’s about confrontation in the “aggressive” meaning) it.

If we try to fill childhood needs as adults it will always cause problems of different kinds and degrees therapists (Bosch and Jenson for instance) mean.

But I think we shall be very careful with choosing therapist. I think Miller is right there. See what she has written, in for instance the revised version of The Drama. Not least about regression (and primal) therapy.

In the meantime we can break silence by talking about those things or just by informing ourselves? And thus hopefully tear some, or in the best case, many barriers down and maybe this is the only help the less harmed need?

On top, a central message in Miller’s book “Paths of Life” is that the path to recovery differs from person to person, illustrated by the seven scenarios in this book. What is much less needed is a method (whatever sort) rather than a listening ear and empathy?

Individualism, competition, escapism...

[Slightly updated/edited January 12]. The American director Courtney Hunt in an interview about her film ”Frozen River” said something in the style that:

“The big companies think stories like this one are too depressing. Instead products are produced attracting a big audience. Seen to what sort of films that sell best the American movie visitor prefer warnography rather than realistic descriptions of life, especially if they have a gloomy note.

There’s a strong movement of individualism; that we are all separate isles who can manage without ever asking each other or the authorities for help [False Power – denial of needs?]. I think we are going to become over flown with detached fiction, by the fantasy’s escapism.

It sounds hard, but I welcome an economic crisis. I hope it will give us a necessary understanding. It isn’t worth aiming at becoming rich to whatever prize and with all means, and it isn’t shameful being poor.”

Loud thinking: Does it has to be either/or? Can we be both individuals AND cooperate? Can we be both independent AND dependent? Can we be needing and other times not needing? Sometimes strong and other times weak? Does the one exclude the other? And if it does, why does it? Where are the roots?

Is this about contempt for weakness? Looking down on and despising weakness? Looking down on the not so perfect? What is perfectionism about?

Addition: See Miller on societal denial and traditional moral. And the reader's letter on her web stating that all physicians have been traumatized, first by their first caregivers and then during their education... Why they have reached this goal (this profession, with all which follows with it)...

I get so upset over the state of the affairs in the world and not least in our society so I don't find words, neither spoken nor written!!! But I write and talk nevertheless, though many times with blushing cheeks, over my language... Not over things like swearwords though, but over how I express things, and don't find the proper words or expressions...

Child abuse...

Things I threw down in my diary after starting to read about a child's experiences:

"Pushed into a corner. Siblings with alloted roles. A parent exercising power. Acting her/his things out? Things that had nothing to do with the child/ren.

Breaking the child's will?

Jenson wrote in her book about abuse of a more subtle sort and thus more difficult to see or grasp [as she seems to see it. Now I see in the Introduction that she writes that because her experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional family * weren't so apparent - she wasn't beaten and usually not shouted at either - it took a long time for her to understand how her childhood had affected her. Not until she had been in traditional therapies for years she discovered how you can uncover experiences that had been unconscious. Then she understood why and how childhood experiences still affected (disrupted, disturbed, interrupted, spoiled, marred) her life].

Reacting at scapegoats only give temporary relief..."

I had a father coming home and acting his irritation, anger, frustration out... Incapable of being present really... He was never really there. Impatient. Have I adopted parts of this? Though in a female way? (But I have been admired for my enormous patience in many circumstances, for instance in my work...)

Was he ever aware of this or even wondering over this? Did he ever question this side of his? Did he understand the roots for this ever? Did he want to understand? Did he have to understand?

Are other people forced to understand because their alternatives/options are none? And other people have the possibility to come home and pour things out and thus stay "healthy" and sane?

He died in malign melanoma when he was almost 83, 5 years. He was never a sunbather. Stress research has shown connections between depression and skin cancer... Searched on this on the net and found this.

Links between diabetes and depression see here for instance.

Also see the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (the ACE-study) on almost 18, 000 people.

* Jenson has written in her book about the results of just changing dysfunctional behavior to a functional; that it too often doesn't change so much (however a method that is most often used, i.e. you just understand these things with your brain). The feelings are often the same or even worse after this sort of therapy... You need to understand these things on a deeper level, get help understanding them on a deeper level. If you have to do this work on your own it will take a lot of time...

But physicians like Vincent Felitti, Anna Luise Kirkengen and Eli Berg for instance have shown that just giving a patient the opportunity to speak up, break silence can lead to tremendous relief and recovery.

So young and so clever...

Katarina Pietrzak.

Nina Björk.

From the foreword to a book “So young? And so clever!” by Katarina Pietrzak I got as Christmas present:

“I often feel trapped in myself. Often I have to fight what I have always considered my true nature. My way of being. The right way of being. I want too much. With time I have come to understand what prize I have had to pay for to want, how little in life that is free of costs. How I have always had to pay with consequences.

We live in a new time, a new economy and a new millennium. In all that is new it feels as something ancient has disappeared. The bottom in which you feel that feelings are landing. Where you can go to feel that you get a reference to what’s right and wrong and maybe [where you also] can steel a moment of relaxation. This depth has no place/space inside us anymore; we are even breathing shallower in a/this more and more bustling era. Can you recognize this?

We have bad conscience, but we don’t know to whom. We are lacking something, but don’t know what. We are irritated, but have forgotten why. And most of all we are maybe afraid of becoming altogether forgotten or exchanged.

Or we feel shame. The shame of being unable of managing. The shame of admitting that you let go of things you have held hard and steadfastly to. The feeling of losing the foothold and losing the highly valued and on depth needed control. Not knowing who you are without doing what you have always done. To fail. To judge yourself and in despair ask yourself why all other could, why all other but me? Why did I fall of all people? /…/

We live in an era and a part of the world where the achievements seems to have become a religion. You are what you do. Many people work not just because they have to, but because the work in itself gives satisfaction and self-esteem. The identity is constituted by an employment or the lack of one.

‘What are you working with then?’ is often the first question we get from new social acquaintances. Our identity is immediately established in new peoples’ eyes by what we are doing.

More and more people are working in the possibilities project which gives freedom and space to design your life and your work exactly as you want and have dreamt of. You have all possibilities in your hands, and it’s up to you making something from them. It’s you yourself who sees so you become something. Or somebody.

To become is important. Doing is important. Just being is so forgotten that it has become the most difficult of everything. And above all, so shameful. For who will be lazy?

The idea to this book was born in such a shame and cracked self-confidence. Along this work I have come to see exactly the same feelings in many of those who have been asked to contribute to this book. I could never imagine that this could be so difficult and so associated with fear, the feeling of failure, and exactly shame, to tell anybody about the achievements role in their lives. About how much one allows, or has allowed, this to govern ones life. What it has meant for ones life. What the consequences became. /…/

Many of those asked to contribute to this book said no. The fears were too many. To acknowledge, hand this out, destroy the chances in the future, become marked as ‘out burnt’, an unsuccessful poor wretch, become exposed to pity, be alone with ones thoughts, become misunderstood…

I have chosen to ask women only, maybe because I am a woman myself and because the mechanisms around how we achieve is interesting to me. It seems to be a certain sort of responsibility taking for the entirety and a need managing everything in women’s lives. But many men probably recognize themselves nevertheless. /…/

Breaking a leg is easy to explain and show, look my leg is broken, I have ache, the pain makes me tired, I have to rest I think. Even if the environment never has had this experience of a broken leg, they can imagine how it must feel [to a certain extent at least, my addition].

How it feels to break ones soul is entirely impossible to understand, for the one that has never experienced this [I am not sure it is for all…]. How much you even want [some don’t want to either??].

The way of living and working we have today, which we honour and value, doesn’t have to lead to a broken or even sprained soul. There are many examples of people feeling well and who has managed to find the balance in life [How many actually? And those who don’t thrive, why don’t they?].

But never before has so many people exposed themselves to risks of this kind. It’s not the first time in history, but something has happened, some sort of boundary has been passed and there is an explanation to all tiredness and to all tears. We have forced the ambitions, the achievements, results and speed, we have created a life/existence where it doesn’t seem to be space for saying ‘I can’t do this, it isn’t worth it, I don’t want to.’ /…/

Is it about a sort of deficit, in the soul, where cleverness and confirmation needs to become pumped into us to make us feel well, as insulin to a diabetic? /…/

I have always – eagerly encouraged by the environment – seen myself as clever. Not only oriented towards results but clever in the meaning dutiful, conscientious, loyal, emphatic, always willing, who cares about other people, who listens and is there. You can rely on me. I think one shall be there. I like helping people. Rather much. Or more correctly, always. And I achieve a lot, I do good things, I’m glad if I can support other people, and I have a strong drive/force. And I value this most of all my traits.

But it also gives me raison d’être, a better self-esteem, yes, simply a kick, to be honest.”

Her social life was totally sent off into a corner, a social life didn’t exist at last…

This morning I also read a review, “Where is the equality in the liberalism?”, over the new book “Free Souls” by Nina Björk based on a dissertation. The review you can read here too.

The reviewer writes that the freedom can show, or present, widely differing fundamental features in the societies where it’s allowed to be seen.

It’s in first hand honored where it’s lacking or newly found or where it’s fragile. Schopenhauer seemed to have said that man can never appreciate freedom until she has lost it.

Some sorts of freedom watch the ones whom want to be free to compete the other person to death with loving care. This sort of freedom is the economic liberalism the reviewer thinks.

Björk is criticizing the liberal outlook on man. And wants to discuss the “dream about the human being without limits.” If all liberalism is maintaining that nobody can or should become thrown into irons, why isn’t this fulfilled by liberals? (wouldn't all people be free in those societies, in all respects - but are they?). And she wonders: where is the equality?

English philosophers like John Locke and John Stuart Mills set out their ideal societies in systematic discussions.

The liberalism has existed in many forms. When Björk says that the liberal, modern subject is typically manly in its independence, seclusion and autonomy ought to cover most of the liberal directions.

Locke thought that active, energetic human beings were entitled to private property of considerable sizes and dimensions (and those who weren't active and energetic, of whatever reason, what abut them?). John Stuart Mills emphasized more than hundred years later the individuality and competition as considerable elements in the liberal teachings.

Björk refers to the Swedish author Victoria Benedictsson whose wants and being able to didn’t get together. She committed suicide.

The reviewer writes that questions about freedom also are questions about free will and free choices. Not least existentialists want to maintain that we constantly find ourselves in situations of choices, where we are forced to take responsibility for our lives by making decisions.

Determinists on the contrary use to maintain that people always are bound to conditions so they in fact never have any really free choices.

Yes, what yokes are we carrying? What burdens do we have on our shoulders? Are we still carrying and why?

Rebellion...

What expressions does rebellion against ones parents take? How do we see it in this/the world? How is it expressed? And how has it been expressed through history?

Mental health abuse...

Video on the Thud Experiment Proof.