Questions From Murph
A reader poated a comment to my last blog entry. In it he asked some very poignent questions. So rather than respond to him in the comments section of the thread i"m making this blog entry. To put the following into context its advisable to read Murph's comment and questions first.
Murph... they point and laugh and shame? You do mean the pointing and laughing is the shaming don't you? Is this experienced as shaming in that culture?
I dunno.
I have no idea what the belief systems are in their culture and so, no idea what is going on with their ritual. They are a tiny microcosm still fairly isolated. Yet there is value to anthropological study there. We could probably get a pretty good read just by observing the eyes, the expressions, the body language, and the demeanor of the child in the midst of the pointing and laughter.
But thats not what you're asking me is it? That was just an example and you want to know if I think shaming could be a good thing right? Something to help insure survival?
Just because something prolongs life does not mean it sustains it.
Kinda like oil. Know what i mean?
I would say yes, shame has been used for that purpose though. Out of proclaimed good and loving intent too. I actually question that thats really love there though. For the most part, an incredibly heavy price is paid if shame is and does what the experts say it does to the psyche. And if they are right, we need to seriously question our interpretations of love.
As an aside I will say that I think we need to seriously question if there are alternatives to the ways and methods we teach. Guide is probably a better word and I have some ideas about this we can apply to your example. And I think if we look to the reflections our current ways and methods produce we may get some clues to the judgements, interpretations, and belief systems from which we are operating that may be entangled in the core. I'm speaking here to the point you made in your second para. But in another post perhaps.
Actually shame is probably a reactionary dynamic... something that follows or is a result of something else going on. Sorta like success is not something you chase (even though most view it as such), its something that follows. Its a result.
According to experts, (here's one of them) I experience guilt when I conclude that I did something wrong. Something not acceptable to an observer or society. Be that from within or from without or both. I experience shame when I conclude I AM something wrong. I AM the something that is not acceptable to the observer. In this scenario there is no outside observer. The observer is the self. The outside is influencing. Often the outside influence is making a mark on an emotional level of the observer.
That leads some to question who is really to blame. Is the perp and the victum the same? After all, who drew the conclusion? Only the self is responsible for the conclusion. That view is a pretty sick twist in the dynamic and is a form of denial in action. It can be complicated to see even in knowing we're talking about the experiences of a developing child and one would think any sane person could see the trama being inflicted. Unfortunately there's not much sanity going around in this department though.
You've asked some excellent questions Murph. Questions that beg examination. There's a whole lot more to the above, to the socialism of our young which I call pedagogies which are the activities of educating, teaching, and instructing. This produces positive and/or negative results. We've had some great minds examining these dynamics in the last 20-30 years and they are exposing a great psychic war in action playing out here. What Alice Miller calls poisionous pedagogies.
The work of Miller is the best study of this I have ever found. A trained therapist who had an epiphany when she began doing free expression water colors and was savy enough and brave enough to wonder from where within her all these tramatized images were coming from.She excommunicated herself from the orthodox psychoanalytic community realizing they could not possibly guide their patients through tramas where the very soul has been pirated when they themselves refused to look into their own tramas.Titles of her books reveal the result of the poisionous pedagogies of family, social, cultural, and theological systems...
Drama of the Gifted Child
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
For Your Own Good
Banished Knowledge
The Body Never Lies
....to name a few. There was a time when I traveled pretty heavy in circles that exposed me to threapists and took me into rehab centers. I realized in my own feelings that Miller was right on but that was validated whenever I would ask a pro if they were familar with her stuff. Some would blow it off completly. Others would say yes and quickly change the subject. To me, that was a big fat clue.She identifies these pedegogies as causal factors contributing to the annilation of the self. In one of those books she did extensive research and went into annalysis on the childhood of Hitler.
The downside is she hadn't looked for clues beyond the present generations in her earlier works that might lead to further understandings about original causal factors. I'm only familar with her earlier works including all of the above except the last which is her latest. So my criticism may be unjustified for her later work. But I'm pretty sure there's a whole lot more going on in the story of what Hitler was and how this maniac came to manifestation.She did me great favor though in helping me to get to a point where it became time to dive into deeper realms... much deeper. For me, identifying and examining what she was calling causal factors led me the next obvious question... what then, is causal to those causal factors?
What are the causal factors in this psychic war? Why are our children being attacked by their own parents and role models? Our churches? Our educators? Our state? Our society? Our leaders? Is denial playing a role in it? I haven't examined this aspect of it in the particular context of your question. But you've posed a very valid question very worthy of examination.
We've had some great minds doing incredible work in the past 20-30 years in a myriad of fields. It seems we are in a very unique time. Some of us view that life itself may hang in the balance. Are we just pawns in its game? Or are we each playing a role? If so, how is it in play? If we examine and then recognize that we are, what can we each do to stop feeding the monster?
Ultimately we all need to find our own answers. But a sharing of views can be very helpful. I started this blog for 2 reasons....
1... writing is a tool I use to see a reflection of myself.
2... create a space that might draw inquiring minds such as yourself where we can have a sharing of ideas. People who have turned over rocks and connected dots. People who recognize we are under heavy attack. People who give a damn for themselves and their fellow man in the midst of this miserable human condition and have the courage to ask, why is this so? Can we change it?
Your observation about the survival aspect of denial is a case in point. My writings on the blog up to now have been pretty subtle actually. Maybe the blog has experienced a form of the 100th monkey dynamic and its time to be more direct.
You ended your comment with 2 more questions.... Do you see a difference in the complexity of a society and the relative amount of denial within that society? Do you see that denial evenly as a negative aspect?
My short answers are yes and no.
The first is complicated and worthy of unpacking. I'm not opposed to pursueing but we could get easily sidetracked.
A yes answer to the second would suggest there would therefore be a positive aspect to denial. Denial does have a positive aspect to it. But in the context of your question, all denial is ultimately a form of denial of self and therefore produces a negative result. I admit this is my opinion and is subject to scrutiny as such a claim should be.
Thats part of what this blog is all about. I submit that if we look at the reflections of our outer world we can observe the role denial is playing. And I submit that we will find it repeats itself over and over and over again.
If it turns out this is so then we already know the short answer to the question of if its playing a role in poisionous pedagogies.
So whats the positive side of denial? If it produces such negative results, the kinds of results I've suggested on this blog, what can possibly be good about it? I've also suggested on this blog that it could be a major piece in the perfection of creation. It could be that denial draws an experience equal to or greater than the denial so the denial present in the politic of the self can be recognized and moved out. And it could be that denial is at the very core of the human condition. It could be that denial is the very opposite of unconditional acceptance for the self. It could be that if i do not have unconditional acceptance for myself I can't possibly have acceptance for you or anyone or anything else as everything would be placed on condition.
It could be that denial is the opposite of love. And it could be that if I am denying myself I am denying my personal power and that denial is then used against me to over-power me. One things for sure, something is empowering power-over agendas. Why are we loosing so many freedoms? Why does it look like freedom itself under attack?
Is there a war on consciousness? On life itself? Is it a war between good and evil? Is it all about the fight of one to over-power another? Have we been fooling ourselves?
I believe the answers to those questions is a big fat YES. And I believe we can know and understand how to change it, that this is our challenge, our lesson, our purpose, our right.
I realize this all sounds rather utopian or the stuff of fantasy even. And thats being kind. Throw crazed and insane in too. But... well, let me put it this way.... we're either pregnant or we're not. We either have the right to question we can do something about the human condition or we can't. One things likely for sure, and we can see this if we study the oral and written histories of mankind... why has nothing ever really changed? Why do we keep repeating the same-o, same-o? Why do we keep killing each other? Why have we always had wars? Why are we having more and more of them? Why can kids be so cruel to each other? They're still young. What's in them that they are acting out? Why do adults continue to do forms of those very same childish behaviors and then claim we're adults?
Why do we rape and pillage and kill and allow even one human being to die of starvation when we have them dieing by the second and then claim we're a loving people? Why do we have guys like Bush in places of power? Why do we have this so-called war on terror? Why did Katrina happen and then the ugly aftermath and all the while claim we're the greatest nation thats ever been on the face of the earth? What was that tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands all about? This is our Mother Earth. What the hell is so massive, so horrific, so anti-life that she's holding that was un-leashed there?
Is she over it?
What the hell is this arrogance and complete disregard for land, life, and liberty that is so pervasive? Whats all this hatred about? Where's it come from? What's causal to it? What can we do about it? Why is it that views are becoming even more and more polarized in a time of obvious crisis and threat to the species if we'd done such a great job of training that survival chakra? In a time when one would think there would be a gathering of care and love and compassion amoung the people in a common cause if such really exists? I could go on and on and on here but I think you get my drift.
Often its hard to recognize the same-o over time because of the form changes involved. But if we study the dynamics and start connecting the dots we can see the re-enactments. At best evolution is stagnent. At worst we are de-evolving and there are students students out there who can show us in the record that much has been lost along the way. We can easily do this ourselves as we have so many pieces of evidence, hidden in plain site, right before our eyes, that prove to us there was a time when higher intelligence was at work here.
When those could-be scenarios I've submitted are considered it could be we could find some real solutions, solutions to issues like how to sustain life, whats the real reason why we have population explosion and how it will be solved in a loving way, how to clean the planet of the poisions, how to truely sustain life, not just prolong it. And it could be we absolutely can and must create a new paradigm and open the future to real evolution in life and love.
There's not much validity in short answers to important questions. It can be a long road to pealing the onion down to that core where denial can be seen as an original causal factor though.
Murph... they point and laugh and shame? You do mean the pointing and laughing is the shaming don't you? Is this experienced as shaming in that culture?
I dunno.
I have no idea what the belief systems are in their culture and so, no idea what is going on with their ritual. They are a tiny microcosm still fairly isolated. Yet there is value to anthropological study there. We could probably get a pretty good read just by observing the eyes, the expressions, the body language, and the demeanor of the child in the midst of the pointing and laughter.
But thats not what you're asking me is it? That was just an example and you want to know if I think shaming could be a good thing right? Something to help insure survival?
Just because something prolongs life does not mean it sustains it.
Kinda like oil. Know what i mean?
I would say yes, shame has been used for that purpose though. Out of proclaimed good and loving intent too. I actually question that thats really love there though. For the most part, an incredibly heavy price is paid if shame is and does what the experts say it does to the psyche. And if they are right, we need to seriously question our interpretations of love.
As an aside I will say that I think we need to seriously question if there are alternatives to the ways and methods we teach. Guide is probably a better word and I have some ideas about this we can apply to your example. And I think if we look to the reflections our current ways and methods produce we may get some clues to the judgements, interpretations, and belief systems from which we are operating that may be entangled in the core. I'm speaking here to the point you made in your second para. But in another post perhaps.
Actually shame is probably a reactionary dynamic... something that follows or is a result of something else going on. Sorta like success is not something you chase (even though most view it as such), its something that follows. Its a result.
According to experts, (here's one of them) I experience guilt when I conclude that I did something wrong. Something not acceptable to an observer or society. Be that from within or from without or both. I experience shame when I conclude I AM something wrong. I AM the something that is not acceptable to the observer. In this scenario there is no outside observer. The observer is the self. The outside is influencing. Often the outside influence is making a mark on an emotional level of the observer.
That leads some to question who is really to blame. Is the perp and the victum the same? After all, who drew the conclusion? Only the self is responsible for the conclusion. That view is a pretty sick twist in the dynamic and is a form of denial in action. It can be complicated to see even in knowing we're talking about the experiences of a developing child and one would think any sane person could see the trama being inflicted. Unfortunately there's not much sanity going around in this department though.
You've asked some excellent questions Murph. Questions that beg examination. There's a whole lot more to the above, to the socialism of our young which I call pedagogies which are the activities of educating, teaching, and instructing. This produces positive and/or negative results. We've had some great minds examining these dynamics in the last 20-30 years and they are exposing a great psychic war in action playing out here. What Alice Miller calls poisionous pedagogies.
The work of Miller is the best study of this I have ever found. A trained therapist who had an epiphany when she began doing free expression water colors and was savy enough and brave enough to wonder from where within her all these tramatized images were coming from.She excommunicated herself from the orthodox psychoanalytic community realizing they could not possibly guide their patients through tramas where the very soul has been pirated when they themselves refused to look into their own tramas.Titles of her books reveal the result of the poisionous pedagogies of family, social, cultural, and theological systems...
Drama of the Gifted Child
Thou Shalt Not Be Aware
For Your Own Good
Banished Knowledge
The Body Never Lies
....to name a few. There was a time when I traveled pretty heavy in circles that exposed me to threapists and took me into rehab centers. I realized in my own feelings that Miller was right on but that was validated whenever I would ask a pro if they were familar with her stuff. Some would blow it off completly. Others would say yes and quickly change the subject. To me, that was a big fat clue.She identifies these pedegogies as causal factors contributing to the annilation of the self. In one of those books she did extensive research and went into annalysis on the childhood of Hitler.
The downside is she hadn't looked for clues beyond the present generations in her earlier works that might lead to further understandings about original causal factors. I'm only familar with her earlier works including all of the above except the last which is her latest. So my criticism may be unjustified for her later work. But I'm pretty sure there's a whole lot more going on in the story of what Hitler was and how this maniac came to manifestation.She did me great favor though in helping me to get to a point where it became time to dive into deeper realms... much deeper. For me, identifying and examining what she was calling causal factors led me the next obvious question... what then, is causal to those causal factors?
What are the causal factors in this psychic war? Why are our children being attacked by their own parents and role models? Our churches? Our educators? Our state? Our society? Our leaders? Is denial playing a role in it? I haven't examined this aspect of it in the particular context of your question. But you've posed a very valid question very worthy of examination.
We've had some great minds doing incredible work in the past 20-30 years in a myriad of fields. It seems we are in a very unique time. Some of us view that life itself may hang in the balance. Are we just pawns in its game? Or are we each playing a role? If so, how is it in play? If we examine and then recognize that we are, what can we each do to stop feeding the monster?
Ultimately we all need to find our own answers. But a sharing of views can be very helpful. I started this blog for 2 reasons....
1... writing is a tool I use to see a reflection of myself.
2... create a space that might draw inquiring minds such as yourself where we can have a sharing of ideas. People who have turned over rocks and connected dots. People who recognize we are under heavy attack. People who give a damn for themselves and their fellow man in the midst of this miserable human condition and have the courage to ask, why is this so? Can we change it?
Your observation about the survival aspect of denial is a case in point. My writings on the blog up to now have been pretty subtle actually. Maybe the blog has experienced a form of the 100th monkey dynamic and its time to be more direct.
You ended your comment with 2 more questions.... Do you see a difference in the complexity of a society and the relative amount of denial within that society? Do you see that denial evenly as a negative aspect?
My short answers are yes and no.
The first is complicated and worthy of unpacking. I'm not opposed to pursueing but we could get easily sidetracked.
A yes answer to the second would suggest there would therefore be a positive aspect to denial. Denial does have a positive aspect to it. But in the context of your question, all denial is ultimately a form of denial of self and therefore produces a negative result. I admit this is my opinion and is subject to scrutiny as such a claim should be.
Thats part of what this blog is all about. I submit that if we look at the reflections of our outer world we can observe the role denial is playing. And I submit that we will find it repeats itself over and over and over again.
If it turns out this is so then we already know the short answer to the question of if its playing a role in poisionous pedagogies.
So whats the positive side of denial? If it produces such negative results, the kinds of results I've suggested on this blog, what can possibly be good about it? I've also suggested on this blog that it could be a major piece in the perfection of creation. It could be that denial draws an experience equal to or greater than the denial so the denial present in the politic of the self can be recognized and moved out. And it could be that denial is at the very core of the human condition. It could be that denial is the very opposite of unconditional acceptance for the self. It could be that if i do not have unconditional acceptance for myself I can't possibly have acceptance for you or anyone or anything else as everything would be placed on condition.
It could be that denial is the opposite of love. And it could be that if I am denying myself I am denying my personal power and that denial is then used against me to over-power me. One things for sure, something is empowering power-over agendas. Why are we loosing so many freedoms? Why does it look like freedom itself under attack?
Is there a war on consciousness? On life itself? Is it a war between good and evil? Is it all about the fight of one to over-power another? Have we been fooling ourselves?
I believe the answers to those questions is a big fat YES. And I believe we can know and understand how to change it, that this is our challenge, our lesson, our purpose, our right.
I realize this all sounds rather utopian or the stuff of fantasy even. And thats being kind. Throw crazed and insane in too. But... well, let me put it this way.... we're either pregnant or we're not. We either have the right to question we can do something about the human condition or we can't. One things likely for sure, and we can see this if we study the oral and written histories of mankind... why has nothing ever really changed? Why do we keep repeating the same-o, same-o? Why do we keep killing each other? Why have we always had wars? Why are we having more and more of them? Why can kids be so cruel to each other? They're still young. What's in them that they are acting out? Why do adults continue to do forms of those very same childish behaviors and then claim we're adults?
Why do we rape and pillage and kill and allow even one human being to die of starvation when we have them dieing by the second and then claim we're a loving people? Why do we have guys like Bush in places of power? Why do we have this so-called war on terror? Why did Katrina happen and then the ugly aftermath and all the while claim we're the greatest nation thats ever been on the face of the earth? What was that tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands all about? This is our Mother Earth. What the hell is so massive, so horrific, so anti-life that she's holding that was un-leashed there?
Is she over it?
What the hell is this arrogance and complete disregard for land, life, and liberty that is so pervasive? Whats all this hatred about? Where's it come from? What's causal to it? What can we do about it? Why is it that views are becoming even more and more polarized in a time of obvious crisis and threat to the species if we'd done such a great job of training that survival chakra? In a time when one would think there would be a gathering of care and love and compassion amoung the people in a common cause if such really exists? I could go on and on and on here but I think you get my drift.
Often its hard to recognize the same-o over time because of the form changes involved. But if we study the dynamics and start connecting the dots we can see the re-enactments. At best evolution is stagnent. At worst we are de-evolving and there are students students out there who can show us in the record that much has been lost along the way. We can easily do this ourselves as we have so many pieces of evidence, hidden in plain site, right before our eyes, that prove to us there was a time when higher intelligence was at work here.
When those could-be scenarios I've submitted are considered it could be we could find some real solutions, solutions to issues like how to sustain life, whats the real reason why we have population explosion and how it will be solved in a loving way, how to clean the planet of the poisions, how to truely sustain life, not just prolong it. And it could be we absolutely can and must create a new paradigm and open the future to real evolution in life and love.
There's not much validity in short answers to important questions. It can be a long road to pealing the onion down to that core where denial can be seen as an original causal factor though.
posted by Palooka's Revenge at 3/12/2007 07:13:00 AM
2 comments
