Fragmented thought / thinking .

[MikeyDB]

For successive generations, priests politicians and other significant agents of appeal to conformity and the status quo compel our children and our adults to regard their existence as seperate from and often at "odds" with the overarching well-being and "prosperity" of the society/population as a whole.

Professionals (therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists) are in many respects the "gate-keepers" of a societies cultural self-definition. This can frequently cause difficulties particularly when "mental health" is described as "role affiliation" and social/religious "duty".

North Americans have fixed taboos throughout our societies in terms of what behaviors are accpetable and which aren't, that are hold-overs from earlier generations that held maintained and elevated "religious" thinking and morals emerging through religious ideation and identification. The western taboo regarding nakedness and language regarded as appropriate or otherwise when it comes to talking to youngsters and people in general regardless of their chronological age, regarding sex and sexuality supplies boundaries and limitations to communications. Similarly, passionately held religious beliefs that were once used to consolidate a tribes claim to land or "right" to particualar behavior is foundational in expression of and investigation of radical fundamentalism.

Our preparedness to adopt and embrace "values" for which there are no reasonable grounds expresses as vulnerability to marketing and advertising....God isn't dead he's merely been replaced by Madison Avenue.

I'm sorry to ramble on, but the complexity of the human condition isn't fully comprehended or appreciated until a beginning grasp a fundamental understanding of the interrelatedness of all life and all being is undertaken.

It's easy asking "simple" questions, the "answers" to these simple questions are however extremely complicated and demand a way of thinking and a perspective that rejects limitation and linear processing.

Either you get it or you don't....

 

[MikeyDB]

Fragmentation? Does that result from complexity of choice? How can we fit healthily into a system that isn't healthy?

Hey beve How's it goin eh...

Complexity of choice is one facet of the connundrum, the intent is another. We are encouraged to believe that "choice" and its companion "variety" are hallmarks of "freedom". Notions like responsibility to ones family, social responsibilities and simply "fitting-in" are all conditional concepts in our postmodern reality.

We have to perhaps examine the idea of "healthy" in terms of cultures and societies before we can assess the relative "fit" of the individual within that reality.

 

[darkbeaver]

Hey beve How's it goin eh...

Complexity of choice is one facet of the connundrum, the intent is another. We are encouraged to believe that "choice" and its companion "variety" are hallmarks of "freedom". Notions like responsibility to ones family, social responsibilities and simply "fitting-in" are all conditional concepts in our postmodern reality.

We have to perhaps examine the idea of "healthy" in terms of cultures and societies before we can assess the relative "fit" of the individual within that reality.

It's going Mickey. I have read that our cultural/social developement cannot and has not kept pace with our technological developement. This was rendered as being like running very new complex hardware(our civilization) with very old software (our minds), in other words human developement itself is or may be incapable of following the science step for step and the attempt to do so has become todays prime source of fragmentation. Specialization to enable participation further fragments. The snowball may be in free fall. I would say that the intent of complexity of choice is purpose built to obscure reality which cannot be addressed today without necessary illusion.
When we deal with human limits and fits in todays culture of individuality I think those who do not feel the discomfort of the fit are the ones who need help not those who find it distastefull and uncomfortable and destructive.

 

[MikeyDB]

Hey Beve!

You may be right, but what part of modernities abandonment of principles has more impact on future generations?

While "science" can describe and offer explanation for phenomena and events, the complexion of a consuming society is vulnerable to manipulation. We celebrate our "freedom", in particular our "four-wheel-freedom" and forget that there is a price for that freedom that's being paid by many more people than just us. We forget that that nice cup of coffee we get at Tim Horton's, the beans that made that coffee were harvested by someone earning a dollar a day.....

When we "believe" that our consumption and our activities don't have impact on the world we could all believe that nations and citizens are somehow not interconnected and related and that's been the strategy of Madison avenue and the corporate juggernaut for decades. To seperate us from our humanity turning us into consumers first and "ideologues" second....

 

[darkbeaver]

Hey Beve!

You may be right, but what part of modernities abandonment of principles has more impact on future generations?

While "science" can describe and offer explanation for phenomena and events, the complexion of a consuming society is vulnerable to manipulation. We celebrate our "freedom", in particular our "four-wheel-freedom" and forget that there is a price for that freedom that's being paid by many more people than just us. We forget that that nice cup of coffee we get at Tim Horton's, the beans that made that coffee were harvested by someone earning a dollar a day.....

When we "believe" that our consumption and our activities don't have impact on the world we could all believe that nations and citizens are somehow not interconnected and related and that's been the strategy of Madison avenue and the corporate juggernaut for decades. To seperate us from our humanity turning us into consumers first and "ideologues" second....

Modernitys abandonment of principles has been wholesale, all accross the board the same twisting of truth is applied in the service of consumption I think. When we can't even accomodate the truth of the cost of our freedom to the rest of the planet how can a few sessions with the psycdocs and a handfull of drugs act as a corrective? It can't, it's not even designed to do that, it's designed to serve the corporation not the human. Drugs and psycdoc therapy cure nothing ,without prevention the need for intervention will get more and more common but if that stopgap commercial approach pays it's way in the sale of drugs and expertise will it ever end? Once the particular market has established life of it's own there is no mechanism to stop it. It becomes self perpetuating.

 

[MikeyDB]

I think you're right, but that's a condemnation of everything "capitalist" "democratic" and "supply side economics" isn't it?

How can the attitude and practices of a consumer society that sits self-satisfied with its "prosperity" celebrate the poverty and injustice that very "prosperity" engenders?

From trillions sent to Saudi Arabia to sweatshops and slaves picking coffee beans....who's responsible?

 

[Curiosity]

Mikey - I'm gonna shortchange your good messages yesterday and the questions you asked me.... am running off schedule this morning, am worn out and want to spend more time considering all the queries you made in the two long posts about gender specific issues and how to cope in our modern world of insistence on conformity. Your questions should be asked by the general public, whether there are answers I do not know - the disciplines are all over the map and I am not familiar with all of them.

They are good topics and ones which we can no doubt do our own homework and investigation in finding our way out of situations which are non-productive - or conversely learn to accept situations in which we can find no alternative - ease the frustration in favor of acceptance.

I'd like to come back later and go through some thoughts with you but you carry a huge cannon of challenges, I don't want to slide by them as they are important and valid.

In my world the following would be a likely situation. It is not one in which I participated, but was witness in a learning process to the steps taken to relieve two boys of an incident wherein they were trapped by parental dysfunction, hate and eventual murder.

Two boys one two years younger ages 12 and 14 were living with their separated mother, still have contact with their dad who lived nearby and the boys enjoyed close relationships - idolatry and worship of the manly dad, empathy and love and caretaking for the alcoholic mom who prostituted herself for money to keep the family afloat - at least it seemed her most obvious talent for her idea of earning money. Mom kept her boys clean, tidy, well mannered, on time for school and activities...all seemed as normal as it could be regardless of her strange choice of occupation.

One day after school mom met with the boys and asked the older one to shoot his father for her - using a shotgun still in the garage which dad had left behind when he took his possessions. The older boy was stunned and for a week avoided responding until the mother badgered him into an answer - he responded "no" he would not shoot his father - he could not and even though he loved his mother he also loved his father. That intial week of trying to please mother and injuring father pushed the boy into an unreality of thought (fragmented) because he had nothing in his learning process about killing a beloved person...for another beloved person.

He stuck with his negative answer, and the responsibility fell to the younger son. He was weaker and had fewer decision-making abilities having lived only twelve years, so consequences were not at the forefront of his cognitive thinking and processing.

After school on a Friday, he took the gun disassembled in a backpack, went to his dad's house and waited to have dinner at dad's which was not an unusual behavior for either of them. After dinner and chat and television watching, the boy went into his and his brother's bedroom at dad's house and reassembled the firearm... he returned to the living room where dad was watching television and shot him at close range in the head. He then picked up the phone and called his brother at the mother's house to come and help him "clean dad's head off the wall just to the side of the sofa where dad had been sitting"..... he was cold, matter-of-fact but needed his brother to help because he hadn't considered the mess and what products would be needed to clean up the living room.

His thinking didn't even go beyond the thought of being 'caught' - only that the living room was a mess and he was responsible for the mess. That was the deepest of his cognition - the magnitude of the act was beyond his comprehension.

Not the elder - who arrived, helped him clean up the mess - a forensic mess - took his young brother home by walking calmly throught he streets and then returned to the father's house to call the police and confess.

After the hearings when the facts started to come out neither boy was jailed but were remanded to facilities for evalution and determination what the best outcome would be for them.

The treatment plan allowed the two to understand the enormity of the act, allowed them slowly to feel the catastrophe of it, taking of a life, of a beloved father's life, and finally the story (two stories) of the truth emerged. There was/still is a long road of recovery because as the boys aged, the consequences and realization of what had happened weighed them down, now at the pre-adult stage when responsibility and ownership have to be claimed and understood.

Their mother was eventually charged as the primary instigator and whether the two boys are reaching mental health or have found excellent ways around the system by now to circumvent work they are either bored with or wish to get past and back into the real world (if they ever can).... I do not know.

These stories aren't ones of class disruption or inappropriate activity in school settings, or even alcoholism leading to traffic violations, these are life-changing events happening to otherwise healthy minds, functioning well, underdeveloped as to age and learning, being thrust into a volcano of
horror most humans would be unable to climb out of. I think their youth and optimism is going to save them.

Someone has to understand how to pick up the pieces with the damaged person - yes?

 

[MikeyDB]

Indeed and a Herculean effort awaits anyone who undertakes this issue.

This anecdote provides examples of exactly what I'm talking about. The therapist and the police and the social agencies involved in this terrible situation are product of the social construct of the times and the maelstrom of competing "climates" of thought that swirl around us. I will assume that the "parent"is now actively involved in some process with professional input that can help her understand contributions she made to creating the horrific dynamic.

As I'm confident you're well aware, biological imperatives binding children to their mother/father regardless of the emotional and psychological dynamic emerging from that interrelationship are rarely impacted by external mechanisms. We accept at one level that while the youngsters school attendance and social comportment were "acceptable" that the emotional and psychological environment within the home were toxic. Our social perspective and our recognition of the positive role that can be a part of a healthy familial environment in effect limits our ability to timely assessment of decaying moral and social value constructs within that relationship. Clearly with no or very little opportunity to assess the dysfunctional mom, two youngsters were placed in harms way. We celebrate the protection of the social order but have no means to involve agencies or care-givers into situations like the one you've described. If the children had been involved in criminal behavior, if the mom had been arrested for prostitution, if the "dad" had paid greater attention to the decaying circumstances within the home of his children.....

But this and so many other avenues to interdicting the cascade of terrible events weren't available.

Many questions.

Should there be a mechanism within the education system, within local government, within any social structure be given the authority to assess the "well-being" of this family unit? Could there have been indications that mom was somehow able to afford something her stated income wouldn't reasonably permit..... was there no effort on the part of the school to contact the father and include him in discussions and examinations of his children's progress.....

Does our willingness to "protect at all costs" the sanctity of the home and preserve one's "right" to privacy translate into keeping abreast of situations that decay to the point where an entire family loses their lives? Dad "got off easy" in some respects, those kids will live with the situation created and for which neither is ultimately responsible in any way shape or form, but mom will now perhaps recieve the support she needed before the situation decayed to the point it did.

My concern is that society will and has and will always be faced with failures in parenting, failures in marriage and failures in any social construct because the bottom line here is that the individual and not the society is the most important element under law and in the minds of everyone. Individuals conflicted by the interrelationship of an independent individual consciousness bound to a collective ....

Do I want "big-brother" managing my life or the lives of any other human being? Absolutely not!

Do I want an avenue a means of offering help and support to families that are "missed" because the mechanisms we employ to guage relative "social health" are currently inadequate to that task? Yes absolutely!

It's been a plea long heard in courtrooms and treatment facilities that only when a situation degrades to the point of coming to the attention of the courts (school attendance, petty criminality) or the "social agencies" is help of any kind made available to those experiencing critical issues, and until we re-evaluate the dynamic things will probably stay the same.

We have had no qualms about demonizing tobacco users, and drunk-driving although still an issue has recieved sufficient exposure to characterize it as a social evil, but our unwillingness to broach the walls of a dysfunctional environment where kids (everyone) are potentially at risk remains a boundary not crossed by our societies.....the societies that will incidentally pick up the tab on these kinds of horrors for years and perhaps generations to come....