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Friday, September 28, 2012

AWOL

I am defecting, right now, right here, I should be either translating a text from German to Dutch, or write an English text about sexuality amongst the ancient Romans.  I should.  I used to define the verb 'should'  as 
<< I know I ought to, but let's not...>>  with a smile.

Now that's the problem. My smile is gone.  I looked under my bed, it isn't even there. 

According to the newspapers I'm an average dutch person, and being very fashionable: having a part time job and setting up a small private company.  The difference between me and the interviewed persons however is that this is not what I want. I see this as a very unfortunate phase that must be 'lived down' as quickly as possible. I spent eight and a half hours in the office today, including a thirty minute lunch break in which I have been translating a booklet on autism.  Next to the office hours, I travel almost 3 hours, forth and back, in which I work approximately an hour. working on that same translation. And now I feel I ought to be writing for a few hours more.
I know, there are people who have to work even harder than I do, for less reward. If they can manage to do so while retaining their capacity to smile ... I am jealous of them. 
I don't mind the hard work, but something grim crept in. That's what I'm complaining about. I seem to have maneuvered myself into the corner of competition.
What for, I ask myself right now... it may be only a ghost that  I've conjured up myself...

That is exactly why I started to write... because my blog, born out of a toothache that I'm still grateful for, is the only place where I manage to mellow again, become myself, I write here what I like and if you like it, join me, read my posts. If you don't, move back to google. Find yourself another page!  Ay, here I go again, being gruff and short tempered.

Maybe the crucial part is my shaky belief in the outcome. The dark muddy garden, only seeds in the ground and no idea whether they will send out roots and leaflets... If you read the post on the woman at the well, you will realize I haven't taken the water that will cause me to not to be thirsty ever again... 
Then again, anyone can hang in, if he had the guarantee the outcome would be good. Child's play. It's time to stop being childish and mix planting with pleasure.  
I must make sure my nose is still capable of smelling when the blossoms open up in my garden, And my taste buds must be in order by the time the fruit of my work begins to ripen. All is dark now, seemingly resting but in truth.. teeming with life power... 

Sigh... there's nothing to do, doing too much might cause harm. But there's so little to enjoy right now, in this barren backyard. Working is actually more fun than 'loitering' when there's no palm under which you can drink your piƱa colada. Or in my case: a beech tree to keep the rain out of my coffee mug :)
I'll do some watering tomorrow, and some weeding the day after... I should do as my saplings are doing:  lie still and let Life run through it's course. But I know what will happen while I try... it won't be happy thoughts, growing roots. It'll be weed, shooting up and becoming a 'choker'.
-May be for the better Jo. So you can identify them and get rid of them most effectively -

This gardener should learn to dream again, she still could, not so many months ago ... even if it's only about the harvest celebration that  -stop doubting!-  she one day will have.That would be the biggest loss: to be bitter by then. 

Maybe I'm not smiling brightly yet, but at least I know what is most important right now... find something tiny, amazing and touching. Or something that needs care, not toughness.  That's the best cure against bitterness. Deadline's, Reputations  and Prestige can't hold up against such rivals :))



Jo

Friday, September 21, 2012

Disempowerment 2

Overpowering...

With fascination I have read about Beckham’s Panopticon and Foucault’s study of Beckham’s gruesome design. The Panopticon is a prison, a building in which the inmates cannot see each other but they can be seen constantly by the guards. 
Staying in a Panopticon can deform a person's 'psyche' completely. According to Beckham this can be used in a positive way: to make a useful person out of a good-for-nothing. A criminal, a psychiatric patient, a child.
But who is to be the judge of that, who will throw the first stone?

Gruesome, that’s what it is to me, I have trouble accepting unconditional power of one person over another. Because almost always this power is used without real consideration of the powerless party.  Wantonly or because the one exerting his power is incapable of truly thinking and acting in behalf of the party or individual subjected to his power.

Why would someone long to have power over others? To secure his own happiness? I'm usually happy over little things: moderate possessions, funny challenges and silly 'adventures'  -mere anecdotes.
Actually, my happiness is built upon the happiness of others. Don't you know that exhilarating feeling.... of having a rush of  positive energy washing over you when you exchange furtive winks or someone smiles at you. A  real smile, in which the eyes are in harmony with the mouth?
Thus my fascination was a negative one and it took me some time  - to distance myself from the subject-  before I could write this post.


Divide and Rule. Or: Isolate and Subordinate
<< In Discipline and Punish Michel Foucault builds on Jeremy Bentham's conceptualization of a panopticon as he elaborates upon the function of disciplinary mechanisms in the prison and illustrates the function of discipline as an apparatus of power. The "panoptic" style of architecture may be used in other institutions with surveillance needs, such as schools, factories or hospitals. The ever-visible inmate, Foucault suggests, is always “the object of information, never a subject in communication.”.
 He adds that, "He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection"  >>


In other words the inmate adopts the ways of thinking and deciding of his suppressor and loses his own value system, his individuality He becomes a docile body.

Foucault speaks of the Gaze and generally people emphasize the permanent visibility of the inmate of the panopticon as the aspect that makes the Panopticon so effective:
The Panopticon was the ultimate realization of a modern disciplinary institution. It allowed for constant observation characterized by an "unequal gaze"; the constant possibility of observation. Perhaps the most important feature of the panopticon was that it was specifically designed so that the prisoner could never be sure whether they were being observed at any moment. The unequal gaze caused the internalization of disciplinary individuality, and the docile body required of its inmates. This means one is less likely to break rules or laws if they believe they are being watched, even if they are not.


Unless  the Gaze is meant to be seen metaphorically, this is not the aspect that makes the Panopticon so dehumanizing, turning people into docile bodies. Look at the TV hypes like the dutch “Golden Cage” where a group of persons let them selves be 'locked up' in a house or on an island, being filmed day in day out. These people were being watched constantly. They knew and they didn’t care.  The Gaze didn't bother them.
Because there was no 'unequality' in the gaze. They were allowed to express and pursue their own visions, ideas and  opinions. Of course not all they did went by without criticism... but at least the contestants were allowed to explain and defend themselves, to criticise their critics. They had the choice to go on as they liked, if they were willing to accept the consequences like being voted away from the show.

The Panopticon uses the credo 'divide and rule'. It is constructed to isolate the inmates. While the inmate is alone, sees nor hears anyone who can back him up, the guards are obviously part of a group. They communicate and inform one another about the inmate’s transgressions. And the inmate is not allowed to explain his acts, to defend the motivation behind his behavior. Whether and how his doings are to be punished is solely dependent on the what the group(members) decide(s).  Or to quote Foucault: the inmate is “the object of information, never a subject in communication.”

And this is devastating. This is what causes a person to outwardly live a life that is accepted by the rulers, but inside … his soul is wilted, suffocating. Foucault again: the inmate became a “docile body”.
Our souls simply need appreciation and recognition to thrive. Or when you're alone... the possibility to act outwardly in accordance with what lives inside. This is harmony and causes your heart song to well up in you.



How to maintain an abusive system

Funny, didn't we just run into a weak point of the totalitarian-like system described above? I wrote <<dependent on the what the group(members) decide(s).>>   Now here is a weak point: does the group decide or do the group members decide? 
In order to maintain itself, a system based on unequal power [totalitarianism] depends not only on keeping the lower ranking members subordinated, but also on making sure that the leading party, the elite, will be faithful to one another. 
In a way the leaders are each other’s subordinates…. However the Elite's cage is gilded and chances are that they are willing to stay inside.
It's the subordinates in their rotten smelly cages that are willing -or should be willing-  to leave. And therefore they are to be kept under control by ‘discipline’ . As in 'disciplinary action', not as in healthy self control. 
This is done by imposing FEAR…  fear of what might happen if you go by you own ideas.  The frightful thing that might happen can either be a severe punishment, physical or psychological, or your efforts to live your own life turning out to be a flat failure, causing you to end up lost, lonely and poor.

To infuse such a strong fear of failure in a person you must
a)  make it hard for him to communicate with others, especially outsiders. Because others might support ideas of the victim that can cause him to become insubordinate.
b) cultivate very low self esteem.rob people of their ability to act and think creatively, to think for themselves, by my making them feel insecure. 

If the organisation plays it smart, the victim thinks he is being saved while in fact he is being held down. In the Netherlands we have a saying for such people:  <<He is pushing you into the ditch just to get you out and say “I've saved your life!” >>   


It is just that "Ill save your life" credo that attrackts people in the first place, right? An ideology and a charismatic leader... the hallmarks of a totalitarian system.

 
Why stay in an abusive system?


If your life seemed empty and meaningless at the moment you were being pushed into the ditch, just being noticed and rescued feels so nice, so safe and loving... You'd rather warm yourself in that glow, wearing a blindfold, than open your eyes and see that the flames come from a dragon's mouth, opening wide to swallow you.


Or maybe you are greedy and your rescuer is one who promises you golden mountains, if you just... do this, do that, just hang in there a leeeettle longer...  At one point you realise you're on the wrong train, it'll never take you to the destination you once had in mind. But it's so much more easy to stay on the train than disembark and find the right one. Besides, who'll guarantee you'll hop on the right one after disembarking? 
'Though I think this kind of reasoning fits someone who is higher up in the abusive system, not really suffering -yet-. 





To be continued....




 







The quotes (italics, blue) are from Wikipedia "Discipline and Punish"

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Judgmental

Alas, this is a true story ...

My son is a thrill seeker, his body is not apt to give him any warning signals. Worse, if he sits still for too long his body is giving him hardly any signals... so he craves movement, speed, danger...

I am the opposite. I hate speed and the slightest touch or just being moved about frightens me. And such a 'slow mow' as I am... terrible. Looking after my son when he was a toddler  was more than an ordinary challenge for this single mom. 

My son did have his 'safe distance' as all toddlers have... the maximum distance that a child moves away from his mother, when out on the street and not corrected by an overprotective mom.  His safe distance was around 150 meter  [ 492.1259842519685 Feet  :))  ]  And he didn't respond to audio cues, he preferred visual information.  Can you imagine a two year old, not apt to listen and with his back turned towards his mom... How much time would it take to stop him if he was about to do something dangerous? 

Way too much, so that's why I took my son out on a leash, a toddler's leash. Oh, the comment people gave me. From the jokes about him being trained as a dog or us playing horsey, to downright denigrating remarks, that I was being insensitive and cruel. That my kid would learn nothing from this.... 
I just hated this short sightedness of others. How stupid can you be, judging someone else based on such little information,  on looks alone... it marred my shopping trips.



I didn't just take my son out on his leash for shopping, the time when mother's get absorbed in their surrounding and take a risk at neglecting their child. I even took him out like that for our little walks to a nearby 'park'...  an overgrown stretch of grass, with a few large trees, benches and a broad ditch..

On a beautiful autumn day I went to this park, my high spirited child hanging in his harness like a sled dog in training. From a distance I noticed him, with his girl friend.. They were sitting close to one another on the first bench of the park.  I tried to decide on what to do... crossing the street was impossible, too much traffic. I could take the part of the sidewalk that ran past the park instead of through it, but even that was too obvious.. the best thing, I figured, was to walk past as quickly as I could and swallow the remarks about the leash, forgetting about them as quickly as I could. Because no doubt this huge punk with his lugubrious Gothic clothes would make the meanest remarks ever...
I took a deep breath and geared up, which wasn't hard thanks to my son pulling at his leash. 
Yes, I was right... just as I passed the couple, the guy looked away from his girl friend. His eyes first rested on my son, then he looked me in the eye...
"Good for you ma'am, that you use a leash. My mom used it for me and it saved my life".

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Back at the Well

Dear God,


there I am again, fallen on my face, lying down at the bottom of the well. Bleeding and sobbing. Deservedly so.

I didn't trust you. I summed up my dreams to you. But didn't really expect you to help me fulfill them. Or not in time anyway... MY time, the timespan calculated with my negative worldly viewpoint. I forgot how short sighted that is and went ahead to meet my deadline. I am facing it now... the first four letters taunting me.

I ripped my dreams out of your hands and set out to fulfill them myself. In a way so calculating and free from surprises, I left no room for romance, love and adventure. The detours that I love so dearly were cut off from my map. I was being the tour operator and forgot that tourists like scenic routes, not freeways embedded in sound screens.

My hands are incapable, my 'drive' is all gone. Except for a few tiny flames. The flames I wanted to see soaring high, but that I almost quenched. Did you preserve them for me? I thank you for it. 
 
Regaining Sight
These little flames are the pilot lights in the darkness I have called upon myself. By thinking I should build dreams on my own. These lights are my true fulfillment, and my hopes for them will guide me back to you. For without trust and comradeship with you, this 'undertaking' is void of color. 
 
I hereby give you my dreams and again I will not ask you to help me fulfill them. Because I TRUST you to do so.