The rigidity of the Samaritan relationship to a caller leads one to question,why? I want to look at this in this blog, along with my usual examination of group psychology.
OK., so we can see that Samaritan volunteers need some sort of training and that inevitably training will carry definite prescriptions. The problem is that for many years Sams have been taught to be strict with callers according to a one-track formula. Whilst the minority of Sams with a more person-centred approach apply training loosely and intelligently, the majority of Sams do not.
Unfortunately, for most people, training is something that has to be adhered to precisely, not wisely. This applies to us all in all walks of life. We are brought up in an educational system that requires conformity to succeed, a system that does not reward individuality or initiative. We are therefore frightened to break rules.
The Samaritan structure, like any group organism, coheres around the acceptance of a particular method, in other words, a belief system. All groups function around mind-sets that everyone is expected to conform to, those who do not will find their place in the group under threat, not least because their non-conformity represents a threat to the group itself. This is true of the Samaritans as of any other group. Here, a belief that callers must be directed and controlled in a parent-child style, that all callers want and need silence, or whatever the notion we care to example, leads to a cold, clinical, robotic mode of relation where, paradoxically, a caller is expected to talk about their feelings in an environment that is bereft of human warmth !!
But as we see in other situations where rigid control is upheld, the more control there is, the more control is needed. What I mean is, if we take the example of unwanted child behaviour and set the threshold too high, we end up having a constant battle to maintain our stance. We become more anxious about our self-made rules than we do about the child we seek to control ! Broadly, we feel more and more threatened the more we lose control over the person we are trying to control and this leads us to employ greater and greater measures to hold our position. This is what commonly happens between a Samaritan and his or her caller. The primary focus is not helping the caller, but rather applying training with a rule book that inhibits both the Samaritan and the caller.
With the Samaritan`s level of expectation upon a caller set so high, he puts himself in a position of a parent who must maintain discipline at all costs.Let me reiterate that: At all costs. And this is what happens, inevitably: a caller, unwittingly, has to measure up to a whole list of criteria (which are to do with the needs of the Samaritan), and like a child confronted with zero tolerance, is treading on a mine field.The Sam, like an insecure parent, uses all manner of discipline to prevent chat and, frankly, get their own way, with the ultimate penalty of absolute power, ending the call. (A reminder that we are talking about a genuine, non-offensive caller here.)
It`s all about what THEY want.
Let`s look at what the typical Samaritan wants from a caller: firstly, the Samaritan expects that the caller has to be happy with silence,then comes the need for the Samaritan to have a call from a "genuine caller" who exhibits a level of distress that the Sam can relate to. We then have the Sam needing to not be caught chatting (whatever that means!) and to ensure the fulfilment of this overwhelming rule the Sam decides that they must not make comments as the caller relays his plight. The result is, of course, a caller who is expected to talk about their feelings, yet no emotional support is forthcoming from the other end of the phone. In effect, the stricture of training has stripped the call of anything that would be called human, caring and supportive. I think that the Samaritan`s need not to chat....and to deliver silence for the caller to fill, causes them to be detached, non-involved with the call, and this created distance bleeds the call of humanity. In fact, a Samaritan in this functional mode has little or no manifest caring for the caller simply because they do not engage with them. With no two-way contact the Sam`s posture is perfunctory and compassionless.
We have to emphasise here that individual Sams are not to blame, they are merely doing what they are told do. They believe what they are told to believe. Where they are told that callers want silence in which to talk, they think that this is universally true. In order to become a Samaritan one has to believe what one is told and use it upon callers. Training also teaches the fear that NOT to follow the instructed method will be detrimental to callers and so there is a fear/guilt devise that makes Sams conform.
There has to be a better way.
So what would be a better model for helping callers? Well, I think for starters, the ethos would have to change, revert back to the humanity of Chad Varah. The Nanny State-ism would have to go, to be replaced by respect for the caller and HIS needs. I think that, too, the caller would have to be treated with a presumption of genuineness, along with adopting a truly non-judgmental stance that does not discriminate between callers upon grounds of the subjective measure of distress. I think that with a refocus on the callers needs a more humanistic approach would follow, where a Sam would engage in a human way with the caller.
But in all of this we must not forget our Samaritan`s wishes to help people.. We must not forget that Sams themselves are victim to a training regime that not only disrespects callers, but disrespects them, too. So I think that to train Sams to be responsive to the needs of callers, to be adaptable, to have confidence in their OWN ability to relate to people would empower THEM to do what it is that they volunteer to do, for it is not just that callers are under the thumb of an all powerful rule book, Samaritans are too. Both Samaritans and callers are treading on egg shells.
I hope to come back in a bit to round this up. It`ll be a shorter blog (!)
that looks at the benefits of a more humanistic approach..... Hope to see you soon !
Best advice: remember the Sams operate on the basis that YOU are there for THEM. In other words, you are there to comply with what the Sams want from you.
If you need to phone many times over a period of time, don`t phone the same part of the country and don`t use the same name each time you call. If you phone many times information may be gathered about you (from the calls) because the Sams decide that they want to restrict your access, for whatever reason they see fit. This info is passed around branches.N.B.You may be in genuine distress over a period of time, but this is irrelevant to the Sam's decision. They decide what is best for you, whether you agree or not... and there is nothing you can do about it.
N.B. If you complain about one Samaritan at one branch, there is a high chance that other Sams at that branch or in that area will be unkind to you and may bully you.(Information will have been gathered about you so that they all will be able to identify you when you call.) This is typical of group behaviour so it`s no surprise!
Further,if you are badly treated by more than one Sam (this is very common so don`t think that it`s you personally!)and feel you should make another complaint, please remember that several complaints will likely get you labled as a "complainer". If this happens, it demonstrates the groups need to shift their guilt onto YOU. It is, as we have discussed many times, a typical strategy to protect themselves by making you look like the problem.
Showing posts with label bullying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullying. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Saturday, 22 May 2010
What On Earth Has Happened to The Samaritans (2) ?
To continue where I left off, let me give another example of the end result of a rigorous training that is all about Samaritan needs, on their terms....
It is a Crime to Chat.
Sams are told in training that chatting is not an acceptable use of time, nor does it help callers. This, just as the literal application of silence, leaves our Samaritan who genuinely wishes to help people, caught in a bind.
In reality, the interpretation of the work "chat" is not only arbitrary, when it comes down to it, but leads to an indiscriminate judging of people based upon a particular Sams interpretation of what constitutes "chat". A subjective, ruthless enforcement of the "no chat" rule leaves genuine callers upset, insulted and bewildered.Sams themselves are invariably so frightened that anything they say is "chat" that they are unable to engage with the caller AT ALL.
The Samaritan requirement for the caller to talk about their feelings has also become a servant of the Samaritan need to command and control "chatting". A huge number of Samaritans demand feelings which are to exclude the context around which those feelings exist, so that anything that is not soley and literally about feelings, will likely be penalised.
Because the Sam is told that chatting is not allowed, the opportunity for a caller to talk about their feelings has become, widely, a command to do so, based upon at its most extreme, the need to eliminate chatting. Many Samaritans want feelings from callers with no context at all (let alone any human interaction between Sam and caller). The experience for many callers, therefore, is that the events in their lives that give rise to any feeling of worry or distress, will be disallowed. This would mean that talk of family, events in the day, life circumstances, etc., all significant to the callers distress, will all be excluded by many Samaritans as "chat". A digression into the prohibited territory of,say,explaining family events in the day that led to whatever feelings prompted the caller to phone, may result in the Sam's parental-role-authority raising its reproving fist to threaten, "unless you talk about your feelings, I will end the call." Yet, if the caller rings again.... and gets another Samaritan who is not authoritarian (these are too few), he may find that "chatting" about context such as family, is thought not to be "chat" at all ! The fact is that a caller does not know whether the Samaritan they get can be trusted to be non-judgmental, whether they will judge that anything that is not purely "feelings" will be judged as chat, or where, indeed, the judgment will fall.
You may think, like me, that the two examples given so far, point to a service that is overly concerned with what IT wants rather than care for the caller. You`d be right. Of course, what is deeply alarming is that the bullying of callers at the behest of Sam training can have devastating consequences to vulnerable people. To be impugned with such judgments as being deemed non-genuine, or that one`s issues are in fact "chat" and, to boot, being told that the Samaritans is not the organisation for you if you want a less disciplined, less sterile approach, is deeply wounding.
But the judgments don`t stop here. Many Sams operate an assessment protocol whose purpose is to weed out those deemed unworthy of time. The Sam mantra has been that they are non-judmental, yet judgment is firmly rooted in a policy to judge which callers need time. I suppose the less loaded way of putting this would be to say that Sams are looking for folks who most need time, but, of course, you can see the problem....
Problem: how exactly do you judge who isn`t in distress sufficient enough to need time? Sams here, too, make up their own minds. They play God with callers, deselecting those who seem to have more trivial problems, according to a subjective view, and selecting ones who trigger the right signals for "acute", "needy", "distressed", and so on. Samaritans differ so much that one Sam will tell a caller that M.E. is not sufficient reason to call and another will see this as having great sympathy-value !! The subjective opt-out for a Sam who finds that they have no sympathy for serious illness, or anxiety about children, for example, will use one of the Sam phrases, "not here to chat", etc., to end the call. Absolute power. The caller has no chance.
I talked a little about why this happens in my last blog... Of course, we see a disparity of power wherever there are people in need and certainly "givers" have undue power over them. Paradoxically, the very anonymity of the Samaritan service contributes to Samaritans being able to be judgmental and cruel to many callers and for there to be little chance of recourse. Calls go to anywhere in the country and it is difficult for a caller to identify the Sam Centre where a Sam has been abusive. Of course,as one would expect,Samaritans who bully callers can lie about their location, making it more difficult for them to be caught and,sadly,even if complaints identify the offending Samaritan, other members at that branch, or in that locality, may well take it out on the person who has complained if they call again.
In summary, wherever people are abused there has to be opportunity to dispense bullying behaviour without being caught. Sams have this opportunity. Not all would take advantage, but it is to be noted here that all forms of abuse need a victim and a suitable situation to enable abuse. At this point we must observe that Samaritans are not overseen by anyone else ...with more tolerant, humanistic values. They are self-policed. There is no external challenge to their new system, its humanity, its efficacy or its rightfulness. With the clear inability of the organisation to be introspective it is necessary, I feel, for outside intervention.
I want to come back in a bit and talk about the psychology of this a little more. See you soon, I hope !!
It is a Crime to Chat.
Sams are told in training that chatting is not an acceptable use of time, nor does it help callers. This, just as the literal application of silence, leaves our Samaritan who genuinely wishes to help people, caught in a bind.
In reality, the interpretation of the work "chat" is not only arbitrary, when it comes down to it, but leads to an indiscriminate judging of people based upon a particular Sams interpretation of what constitutes "chat". A subjective, ruthless enforcement of the "no chat" rule leaves genuine callers upset, insulted and bewildered.Sams themselves are invariably so frightened that anything they say is "chat" that they are unable to engage with the caller AT ALL.
The Samaritan requirement for the caller to talk about their feelings has also become a servant of the Samaritan need to command and control "chatting". A huge number of Samaritans demand feelings which are to exclude the context around which those feelings exist, so that anything that is not soley and literally about feelings, will likely be penalised.
Because the Sam is told that chatting is not allowed, the opportunity for a caller to talk about their feelings has become, widely, a command to do so, based upon at its most extreme, the need to eliminate chatting. Many Samaritans want feelings from callers with no context at all (let alone any human interaction between Sam and caller). The experience for many callers, therefore, is that the events in their lives that give rise to any feeling of worry or distress, will be disallowed. This would mean that talk of family, events in the day, life circumstances, etc., all significant to the callers distress, will all be excluded by many Samaritans as "chat". A digression into the prohibited territory of,say,explaining family events in the day that led to whatever feelings prompted the caller to phone, may result in the Sam's parental-role-authority raising its reproving fist to threaten, "unless you talk about your feelings, I will end the call." Yet, if the caller rings again.... and gets another Samaritan who is not authoritarian (these are too few), he may find that "chatting" about context such as family, is thought not to be "chat" at all ! The fact is that a caller does not know whether the Samaritan they get can be trusted to be non-judgmental, whether they will judge that anything that is not purely "feelings" will be judged as chat, or where, indeed, the judgment will fall.
You may think, like me, that the two examples given so far, point to a service that is overly concerned with what IT wants rather than care for the caller. You`d be right. Of course, what is deeply alarming is that the bullying of callers at the behest of Sam training can have devastating consequences to vulnerable people. To be impugned with such judgments as being deemed non-genuine, or that one`s issues are in fact "chat" and, to boot, being told that the Samaritans is not the organisation for you if you want a less disciplined, less sterile approach, is deeply wounding.
But the judgments don`t stop here. Many Sams operate an assessment protocol whose purpose is to weed out those deemed unworthy of time. The Sam mantra has been that they are non-judmental, yet judgment is firmly rooted in a policy to judge which callers need time. I suppose the less loaded way of putting this would be to say that Sams are looking for folks who most need time, but, of course, you can see the problem....
Problem: how exactly do you judge who isn`t in distress sufficient enough to need time? Sams here, too, make up their own minds. They play God with callers, deselecting those who seem to have more trivial problems, according to a subjective view, and selecting ones who trigger the right signals for "acute", "needy", "distressed", and so on. Samaritans differ so much that one Sam will tell a caller that M.E. is not sufficient reason to call and another will see this as having great sympathy-value !! The subjective opt-out for a Sam who finds that they have no sympathy for serious illness, or anxiety about children, for example, will use one of the Sam phrases, "not here to chat", etc., to end the call. Absolute power. The caller has no chance.
I talked a little about why this happens in my last blog... Of course, we see a disparity of power wherever there are people in need and certainly "givers" have undue power over them. Paradoxically, the very anonymity of the Samaritan service contributes to Samaritans being able to be judgmental and cruel to many callers and for there to be little chance of recourse. Calls go to anywhere in the country and it is difficult for a caller to identify the Sam Centre where a Sam has been abusive. Of course,as one would expect,Samaritans who bully callers can lie about their location, making it more difficult for them to be caught and,sadly,even if complaints identify the offending Samaritan, other members at that branch, or in that locality, may well take it out on the person who has complained if they call again.
In summary, wherever people are abused there has to be opportunity to dispense bullying behaviour without being caught. Sams have this opportunity. Not all would take advantage, but it is to be noted here that all forms of abuse need a victim and a suitable situation to enable abuse. At this point we must observe that Samaritans are not overseen by anyone else ...with more tolerant, humanistic values. They are self-policed. There is no external challenge to their new system, its humanity, its efficacy or its rightfulness. With the clear inability of the organisation to be introspective it is necessary, I feel, for outside intervention.
I want to come back in a bit and talk about the psychology of this a little more. See you soon, I hope !!
What On Earth Has Happened to The Samaritans?
Hello Everyone!!
I hope you are very well !!!
For those expecting my continued blog about eating animals, apologies. I will come back to this soon.
It is with great heaviness that I come to this blog. It is not easy to know that which is uncomfortable to know ....
So, due to the sensitivity of this matter, I want to start with a statement of support for those who volunteer to be a Samaritan and to affirm their good intentions. It also has to be said that many Samaritans don`t use the regime-technique of which I am about to speak and are truly person-centred, compassionate and non-judgmental. However, this blog is about the very serious and deeply saddening issue of how most Samaritans treat people and that their manner of relation towards callers represents a desperately radical schism between the founding ethos of the Samaritans movement and present day practice.(I am talking about Samaritans in the U.K.)
It is out of respect for Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans, and a deep caring for all folks in distress who call them, that this blog is written.
The first thing to mention is that the Samaritans work upon a parent-child basis. It is this that is the fundamental problem....as we shall see............in the way a Samaritan will relate to a caller. To digress slightly, we have seen in government in recent times the phenomenon of Nanny State. A State that invades and interferes and controls everything we do. This is the State being our parent, disrespecting us as individuals and thinking that it knows best in its assumption of the parental role over us, its citizens. This is, of course, a social trend and the Sams are following a tendency to assume the role of parent that we see in many areas of our lives.
The parent-child role that all Sams are trained to employ is thought to be in the best interest of the caller (they know best). There is no malintention to control, disrespect, or aim to limit the potential of the call or to behave in an inhumane manner. Of course not. However, the one-track-mind-set of Sam training..... to do what is best for the caller upon a Samaritan-formulated agenda, results in an exacting, judgmental, controlling and punitive regime that is just about as far from what most people suppose the Sams to be about as to be almost impossible to believe.
We will be examining in these blogs the Sams fundamental disrespect for callers, their bullying of people in genuine need, and a Samaritan`s "comply with what we want or I`ll hang up", mentality.
The Wall of Silence.
Let me illustrate the manifestations of a parent-child ethos by giving some examples: Sams are told in their training that callers want and need silence.(This silence is thought of in terms of "giving the caller space to think".) The parent knows best what is good for them! Our well-intentioned volunteers therefore believe this not only to be true across the board, but MUST be dealt out to EVERY caller without any leeway. For a caller with some trepidation at making a call, a wall of silence is extremely disturbing, but the Sam will not adapt to the particular needs of the caller because they are trying to do exactly what they have been told to do in their training !!! This means that a caller who is inhibited by a policy of silence will not get a service at all from the Sams unless they bury their inhibitions and COMPLY with what the Samaritan thinks is best for them. You will see just how abusive this is when you consider that this one blanket practice discriminates against a caller (who may be in an equal state of distress to a caller who wants silence) who finds a wall of silence difficult to deal with.
But this is still more problematic because the Samaritan, having been drilled in good practice, believes that unless they stick to the way they have been told to "make space for the caller to think" they are doing something WRONG and certainly the caller is wrong not to be happy with it!
Sams are not told to adapt and put the caller first, they are told to stick to their training ! Tragically, if a caller asks for a more relaxed approach, that might be more conducive, the Samaritan will refuse upon a string of formulaic retorts.(We are, of course, talking about a genuine caller here.) Examples would be, "we don`t give advice", "we are hear to listen","we are not here to chat", etc., all rudely directed at a caller who does not want advice or, God forbid, want to chat. All pretty shameful avoidance tactics to shift the onus onto the caller and away from their own inadequacy.
Why do they do this? The answer is that a person wishing to help others goes into training and believes that the training is absolutely to be adhered to no matter what happens, and that this is THE way that they will be able to best help people. When they are presented with a caller who doesn`t fit their mold, they feel threatened. They then defend themselves by making the caller guilty, rather than blaming their own rigid formula. As is typical with groups, the group comes first, does no wrong and must be protected. The outsider, in this case the caller....and a caller who does not quite fit what the group demands....must be made guilty. With this position of self allied to group defence, the Samaritan then decides that a caller who wants something a little more person-centred is not a genuine caller. This is the point at which the Samaritan will bully the caller.Bullying is common place and knows no bounds.(I will give examples of this bullying later, probably in my second blog on this subject.)
You could be ostracised.
Let`s look at group psychology:
Groups exclude people who don`t fit in, who don't follow the thinking that the group expects. A caller who feels uncomfortable with a regime of silence, even if it is meant to be for his own good, will now come under the fist of a parent (Samaritan) who wants his wishes obeyed. At this point the Sam will make an ultimatum that either the caller fits in with what is on offer, or they will put the phone down. This sounds horrendous doesn`t it, though it is common practice for Sams to bully callers and to be abusive and cruel.This attitude reminds me of the confrontation between a parent and child when the child does not want to eat the food that is on offer, yet says they are hungry ! The parent will say, "If you don`t eat it, you aren`t hungry!" Well, in the same way, a caller who prefers a relaxed style from a Sam will be deemed "not really in distress" if they refuse what is on offer ! (Of course, this caller may feel timorous to call again, but several calls later will find a Samaritan who does not use a wall of silence, nor a harsh approach and the call will go very well.)
A genuine caller, who does not use bad language, is not offensive in any way and who is not a time-waster, can be excluded from a branch or a group of branches simply because they are branded by one or more Samaritans "non-genuine" on the basis of something like not feeling comfortable with silence. It`s that simple. A caller who needs a more humanistic approach can be ostracised from a branch purely because they don`t fit what ONE Samaritan demands.
We have discussed many times how groups demonise outsiders to secure or "make right" their own position and this is not only a classic example, but to be expected of group behaviour.Groups will unite in demonising a particular caller, human nature yet again, and this can happen in a branch where one Sam dislikes a caller and gains support from others to shut them out.
Of course, a practice that subjectively demonises and excludes certain non-offensive, genuine callers, using gathered information to identify people, will inevitably lead to over-invasive scrutiny of some callers thought to BE an individual who has been excluded, and to the slap in the face of mistaken identity. It is on these such occasions that an ordinary, distressed caller alarmingly discovers the full thrust of Samaritan behaviour and a painful glimpse into how others are treated.
In my next blog we will go on to explore such examples, and I hope, to come to an understanding of why Sams are able to bully and abuse completely genuine callers, in a one to one encounter that is unwitnessed and unpoliced.
I hope you are very well !!!
For those expecting my continued blog about eating animals, apologies. I will come back to this soon.
It is with great heaviness that I come to this blog. It is not easy to know that which is uncomfortable to know ....
So, due to the sensitivity of this matter, I want to start with a statement of support for those who volunteer to be a Samaritan and to affirm their good intentions. It also has to be said that many Samaritans don`t use the regime-technique of which I am about to speak and are truly person-centred, compassionate and non-judgmental. However, this blog is about the very serious and deeply saddening issue of how most Samaritans treat people and that their manner of relation towards callers represents a desperately radical schism between the founding ethos of the Samaritans movement and present day practice.(I am talking about Samaritans in the U.K.)
It is out of respect for Chad Varah, founder of the Samaritans, and a deep caring for all folks in distress who call them, that this blog is written.
The first thing to mention is that the Samaritans work upon a parent-child basis. It is this that is the fundamental problem....as we shall see............in the way a Samaritan will relate to a caller. To digress slightly, we have seen in government in recent times the phenomenon of Nanny State. A State that invades and interferes and controls everything we do. This is the State being our parent, disrespecting us as individuals and thinking that it knows best in its assumption of the parental role over us, its citizens. This is, of course, a social trend and the Sams are following a tendency to assume the role of parent that we see in many areas of our lives.
The parent-child role that all Sams are trained to employ is thought to be in the best interest of the caller (they know best). There is no malintention to control, disrespect, or aim to limit the potential of the call or to behave in an inhumane manner. Of course not. However, the one-track-mind-set of Sam training..... to do what is best for the caller upon a Samaritan-formulated agenda, results in an exacting, judgmental, controlling and punitive regime that is just about as far from what most people suppose the Sams to be about as to be almost impossible to believe.
We will be examining in these blogs the Sams fundamental disrespect for callers, their bullying of people in genuine need, and a Samaritan`s "comply with what we want or I`ll hang up", mentality.
The Wall of Silence.
Let me illustrate the manifestations of a parent-child ethos by giving some examples: Sams are told in their training that callers want and need silence.(This silence is thought of in terms of "giving the caller space to think".) The parent knows best what is good for them! Our well-intentioned volunteers therefore believe this not only to be true across the board, but MUST be dealt out to EVERY caller without any leeway. For a caller with some trepidation at making a call, a wall of silence is extremely disturbing, but the Sam will not adapt to the particular needs of the caller because they are trying to do exactly what they have been told to do in their training !!! This means that a caller who is inhibited by a policy of silence will not get a service at all from the Sams unless they bury their inhibitions and COMPLY with what the Samaritan thinks is best for them. You will see just how abusive this is when you consider that this one blanket practice discriminates against a caller (who may be in an equal state of distress to a caller who wants silence) who finds a wall of silence difficult to deal with.
But this is still more problematic because the Samaritan, having been drilled in good practice, believes that unless they stick to the way they have been told to "make space for the caller to think" they are doing something WRONG and certainly the caller is wrong not to be happy with it!
Sams are not told to adapt and put the caller first, they are told to stick to their training ! Tragically, if a caller asks for a more relaxed approach, that might be more conducive, the Samaritan will refuse upon a string of formulaic retorts.(We are, of course, talking about a genuine caller here.) Examples would be, "we don`t give advice", "we are hear to listen","we are not here to chat", etc., all rudely directed at a caller who does not want advice or, God forbid, want to chat. All pretty shameful avoidance tactics to shift the onus onto the caller and away from their own inadequacy.
Why do they do this? The answer is that a person wishing to help others goes into training and believes that the training is absolutely to be adhered to no matter what happens, and that this is THE way that they will be able to best help people. When they are presented with a caller who doesn`t fit their mold, they feel threatened. They then defend themselves by making the caller guilty, rather than blaming their own rigid formula. As is typical with groups, the group comes first, does no wrong and must be protected. The outsider, in this case the caller....and a caller who does not quite fit what the group demands....must be made guilty. With this position of self allied to group defence, the Samaritan then decides that a caller who wants something a little more person-centred is not a genuine caller. This is the point at which the Samaritan will bully the caller.Bullying is common place and knows no bounds.(I will give examples of this bullying later, probably in my second blog on this subject.)
You could be ostracised.
Let`s look at group psychology:
Groups exclude people who don`t fit in, who don't follow the thinking that the group expects. A caller who feels uncomfortable with a regime of silence, even if it is meant to be for his own good, will now come under the fist of a parent (Samaritan) who wants his wishes obeyed. At this point the Sam will make an ultimatum that either the caller fits in with what is on offer, or they will put the phone down. This sounds horrendous doesn`t it, though it is common practice for Sams to bully callers and to be abusive and cruel.This attitude reminds me of the confrontation between a parent and child when the child does not want to eat the food that is on offer, yet says they are hungry ! The parent will say, "If you don`t eat it, you aren`t hungry!" Well, in the same way, a caller who prefers a relaxed style from a Sam will be deemed "not really in distress" if they refuse what is on offer ! (Of course, this caller may feel timorous to call again, but several calls later will find a Samaritan who does not use a wall of silence, nor a harsh approach and the call will go very well.)
A genuine caller, who does not use bad language, is not offensive in any way and who is not a time-waster, can be excluded from a branch or a group of branches simply because they are branded by one or more Samaritans "non-genuine" on the basis of something like not feeling comfortable with silence. It`s that simple. A caller who needs a more humanistic approach can be ostracised from a branch purely because they don`t fit what ONE Samaritan demands.
We have discussed many times how groups demonise outsiders to secure or "make right" their own position and this is not only a classic example, but to be expected of group behaviour.Groups will unite in demonising a particular caller, human nature yet again, and this can happen in a branch where one Sam dislikes a caller and gains support from others to shut them out.
Of course, a practice that subjectively demonises and excludes certain non-offensive, genuine callers, using gathered information to identify people, will inevitably lead to over-invasive scrutiny of some callers thought to BE an individual who has been excluded, and to the slap in the face of mistaken identity. It is on these such occasions that an ordinary, distressed caller alarmingly discovers the full thrust of Samaritan behaviour and a painful glimpse into how others are treated.
In my next blog we will go on to explore such examples, and I hope, to come to an understanding of why Sams are able to bully and abuse completely genuine callers, in a one to one encounter that is unwitnessed and unpoliced.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Classrooms: Survival of the Fittest, 2.
Despite efforts to prevent bullying, to help all children keep up with the others, our biological selves can be pulling in the opposite direction. A classic example of this would be our desire to eradicate bullying, not insincere, of course, yet we struggle to prevent it at the same time as we use default strategies to enable it. Sounds strange, I know, but throughout society we do this. We endorse systems that create victims and punish our vulnerable, whilst trumpeting equal rights or humane treatment or protection for victims.
In the case of classroom teaching, all teachers know that a percentage of kids are falling off the pace in class. What happens is that they can`t help them catch up so they attend to the conforming majority and leave the runts behind. The word "runt" here shows us exactly what is happening: just as a weak animal will be abandoned in nature, maybe the runt will be unable to fight for it`s mothers milk, so this same natural selection process happens in class.
I call this a runting process. It`s a harsh and uncomfortable term, but one I want to use because it shines a wake-up light on the biological forces that are so destructive in our societies. The classroom, in general terms, is a classic runting process. The teacher likes the stronger kids, the ones who cooperate and make his life easy. He doesn` t like the less able ones who hold everyone back and disrupt things....even the imaginative,free-thinking, challenging child is often not wanted.
What happens, of course, in this runting process, is that the adaptable, let`s call them "conjunct" children, do better and better and the ones who have difficulty become more and more disjunct. The tragedy of this is for all to see: the kids who fall by the wayside, become more and more disabled as they fall, less and less "deserving" help and less receptive too. They are like our social misfits, tramps, alcoholics, beyond help, disillusioned and hopeless. Probably by this time too, the process has made them hate learning and hate themselves. ......Okay, so let`s just remember here that this didn`t just happen, no less so than a tsunami is a spontaneous act of God !!! It has been CREATED, just like the witch hunts that we were discussing in my previous blog, disaffected children are CREATED by us. The classroom does this to kids. (N.B. I intend to look at illness in regard to the need to runt people in our society, including A.D.H.D., at a later date.)
Isn`t this a terrible thing, you might say? Well, of course it is. The way we strive and thrive against others can have terrible consequences, but I think that if we can be aware of what we do,understanding might help us to make things better.
I want to just go back to bullying in schools before I leave this blog for today...We talked about "evidence" for the case of our cosmetic good intentions versus our underlying biological drives... I have just said that the level of failed children in our education system demonstrates how we profess to want education for all, yet use a system that we know will create failure on a large scale for some. This is a sign of contrary intentions and our mainstream blindness to it shows how we allow our other nature to override our intelligence, I think. So, let`s just look at the way we strive to deal with bullying and see whether there is a confusion of intention here too:
For many children who are bullied in school, there is not the "expected" outcome. The school doesn`t deal with the bullies, doesn`t uphold the bullied child, whilst on the surface they proclaim that they have a "robust anti-bullying policy" or that "no child is bullied in our school." Yet many parents pull their children out of school because of unresolved bullying. Curious! Many G.Ps will not support parents in protecting their child because they do not want to go against the school or the L.E.A., and there is often an outcome that sees the child having to have counselling or even medication to "treat" the psychological damage caused by bullying. So here is an example of how we think that we are on one side, yet are really on the other. Schools, despite a cosmetic stance against bullying, will often be more at ease with an outcome that sees a bullied child having to have counselling or take medication, rather than dealing with bullies. This is a "make the victim mad" strategy seen in the game-play of groups.
Why does this happen?
I am on the back-boiler until my next blog! Please tune in for the sequel !!!!!! Very Best Wishes to all !!!!
www.home-education.org.uk/family-rights.htm
www.parentsagainstinjustice.org.uk/
www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com/
In the case of classroom teaching, all teachers know that a percentage of kids are falling off the pace in class. What happens is that they can`t help them catch up so they attend to the conforming majority and leave the runts behind. The word "runt" here shows us exactly what is happening: just as a weak animal will be abandoned in nature, maybe the runt will be unable to fight for it`s mothers milk, so this same natural selection process happens in class.
I call this a runting process. It`s a harsh and uncomfortable term, but one I want to use because it shines a wake-up light on the biological forces that are so destructive in our societies. The classroom, in general terms, is a classic runting process. The teacher likes the stronger kids, the ones who cooperate and make his life easy. He doesn` t like the less able ones who hold everyone back and disrupt things....even the imaginative,free-thinking, challenging child is often not wanted.
What happens, of course, in this runting process, is that the adaptable, let`s call them "conjunct" children, do better and better and the ones who have difficulty become more and more disjunct. The tragedy of this is for all to see: the kids who fall by the wayside, become more and more disabled as they fall, less and less "deserving" help and less receptive too. They are like our social misfits, tramps, alcoholics, beyond help, disillusioned and hopeless. Probably by this time too, the process has made them hate learning and hate themselves. ......Okay, so let`s just remember here that this didn`t just happen, no less so than a tsunami is a spontaneous act of God !!! It has been CREATED, just like the witch hunts that we were discussing in my previous blog, disaffected children are CREATED by us. The classroom does this to kids. (N.B. I intend to look at illness in regard to the need to runt people in our society, including A.D.H.D., at a later date.)
Isn`t this a terrible thing, you might say? Well, of course it is. The way we strive and thrive against others can have terrible consequences, but I think that if we can be aware of what we do,understanding might help us to make things better.
I want to just go back to bullying in schools before I leave this blog for today...We talked about "evidence" for the case of our cosmetic good intentions versus our underlying biological drives... I have just said that the level of failed children in our education system demonstrates how we profess to want education for all, yet use a system that we know will create failure on a large scale for some. This is a sign of contrary intentions and our mainstream blindness to it shows how we allow our other nature to override our intelligence, I think. So, let`s just look at the way we strive to deal with bullying and see whether there is a confusion of intention here too:
For many children who are bullied in school, there is not the "expected" outcome. The school doesn`t deal with the bullies, doesn`t uphold the bullied child, whilst on the surface they proclaim that they have a "robust anti-bullying policy" or that "no child is bullied in our school." Yet many parents pull their children out of school because of unresolved bullying. Curious! Many G.Ps will not support parents in protecting their child because they do not want to go against the school or the L.E.A., and there is often an outcome that sees the child having to have counselling or even medication to "treat" the psychological damage caused by bullying. So here is an example of how we think that we are on one side, yet are really on the other. Schools, despite a cosmetic stance against bullying, will often be more at ease with an outcome that sees a bullied child having to have counselling or take medication, rather than dealing with bullies. This is a "make the victim mad" strategy seen in the game-play of groups.
Why does this happen?
I am on the back-boiler until my next blog! Please tune in for the sequel !!!!!! Very Best Wishes to all !!!!
www.home-education.org.uk/family-rights.htm
www.parentsagainstinjustice.org.uk/
www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com/
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Who will be a Victim?
Who is more likely to become a victim?
Well, there are many examples of people in particular categories who are more likely to become victims.. Let`s just look at those first: Children, of course, the mentally ill, old people, the sick, and of course anyone with diminished faculties, for whatever reason. Why? The answer is that it is easier to abuse, in any way, someone who is weaker in some way, who has less awareness, principally because they may not understand, may not be able to represent themselves adequately, or may not be believed when they tell someone else.
Let`s take sexual abuse of a child: Someone with greater power can use threats and manipulation to prevent a child from disclosing the truth and also a child is less believable than adults in anycase. Children are also suggestible, they will likely take on guilt that is ascribed to them and not be able to reason through the justifications fed to them.
Someone mentally ill may realise they are being abused, in whatever form that may take, yet if they tell someone what is happening, they are less likely to be believed because they are deemed to be lacking capacity.
A person who is ill, perhaps elderly, may not have awareness to know what is happening and may not have the wherewithal or stamina to tell someone in a position of authority.
For all of these vulnerable people, the main reason for the perpetrator bullying or abusing them in particular, is that their lack of social power tends to make them invalid as witnesses to their own situation. In short....and this is not just a little like Darwin`s survival of the fittest, the stronger amongst us human animals can victimise the weaker and those that feed off victims tend to abuse where they wont get caught.
So what of children who get bullied in school, or women who fall victim to men, or the employee who gets bullied at work? Are they identifiable as being weak? Well, they don`t necessarily have a weakness that renders them vulnerable, but folks who become prey to ongoing bullying often have a vulnerability. Take a child who is a little shy, perhaps under-confident, perhaps unhappy, as soon as they walk into a school their body-language gives off a signal to children who have learned to want to hurt other children that this child can be their victim.
As we examined before, a bully may have been bullied, or he/she may have learned how to bully by watching it done to others. Some children copy the bullying mode of relationship and inflict it upon other children. Some children who are bullied discharge their own pain by hurting other kids. But some children bullied or undermined or unloved at home become burdened with low self-esteem, and, without an adequate core-self, they become easy targets for victim seekers in school and beyond. And victim seekers have a major talent for sniffing-out vulnerability.
We can apply this to adults also: If an adult has low confidence, maybe has some life problems, feels inadequate, they can become targets for abuse. Some people just find it difficult to stand up for themselves and end up being made fun of by the people around them. Referring back to medical misogyny: A strong woman with lots of confidence would be less likely to become victim to a doctor, as indeed anyone with strong family support will be safer in these terms. Confidence and being part of a group is always a protecting factor. The bully will always sense that someone is under-confident or that they wont have support from the people around them. It`s all part of the animal instinct that is able to assess, almost instantly, any person encountered.
This is a sad state of affairs indeed...Some people just like to have a victim, it is second nature to them, and although, of course, there are many good people who wouldn`t take part in such insidious behaviour, we should not forget that our social world functions around the survival of the fittest.
Well, there are many examples of people in particular categories who are more likely to become victims.. Let`s just look at those first: Children, of course, the mentally ill, old people, the sick, and of course anyone with diminished faculties, for whatever reason. Why? The answer is that it is easier to abuse, in any way, someone who is weaker in some way, who has less awareness, principally because they may not understand, may not be able to represent themselves adequately, or may not be believed when they tell someone else.
Let`s take sexual abuse of a child: Someone with greater power can use threats and manipulation to prevent a child from disclosing the truth and also a child is less believable than adults in anycase. Children are also suggestible, they will likely take on guilt that is ascribed to them and not be able to reason through the justifications fed to them.
Someone mentally ill may realise they are being abused, in whatever form that may take, yet if they tell someone what is happening, they are less likely to be believed because they are deemed to be lacking capacity.
A person who is ill, perhaps elderly, may not have awareness to know what is happening and may not have the wherewithal or stamina to tell someone in a position of authority.
For all of these vulnerable people, the main reason for the perpetrator bullying or abusing them in particular, is that their lack of social power tends to make them invalid as witnesses to their own situation. In short....and this is not just a little like Darwin`s survival of the fittest, the stronger amongst us human animals can victimise the weaker and those that feed off victims tend to abuse where they wont get caught.
So what of children who get bullied in school, or women who fall victim to men, or the employee who gets bullied at work? Are they identifiable as being weak? Well, they don`t necessarily have a weakness that renders them vulnerable, but folks who become prey to ongoing bullying often have a vulnerability. Take a child who is a little shy, perhaps under-confident, perhaps unhappy, as soon as they walk into a school their body-language gives off a signal to children who have learned to want to hurt other children that this child can be their victim.
As we examined before, a bully may have been bullied, or he/she may have learned how to bully by watching it done to others. Some children copy the bullying mode of relationship and inflict it upon other children. Some children who are bullied discharge their own pain by hurting other kids. But some children bullied or undermined or unloved at home become burdened with low self-esteem, and, without an adequate core-self, they become easy targets for victim seekers in school and beyond. And victim seekers have a major talent for sniffing-out vulnerability.
We can apply this to adults also: If an adult has low confidence, maybe has some life problems, feels inadequate, they can become targets for abuse. Some people just find it difficult to stand up for themselves and end up being made fun of by the people around them. Referring back to medical misogyny: A strong woman with lots of confidence would be less likely to become victim to a doctor, as indeed anyone with strong family support will be safer in these terms. Confidence and being part of a group is always a protecting factor. The bully will always sense that someone is under-confident or that they wont have support from the people around them. It`s all part of the animal instinct that is able to assess, almost instantly, any person encountered.
This is a sad state of affairs indeed...Some people just like to have a victim, it is second nature to them, and although, of course, there are many good people who wouldn`t take part in such insidious behaviour, we should not forget that our social world functions around the survival of the fittest.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Covert Misogyny 2.
Right, now back to this huge subject.... Let`s see if we can shed some more light on it:
We have looked at some reasons why some doctors practice covert misogyny and now I want to think about why such a profession permits this to happen. You might say "permits it by default", since the profession as a whole would be loath to admit that it occurs at all. I think that this denial has parallels with any individual or group that pretends that abuse isn`t really happening. For example, where there was abuse of children in the Catholic Church, denial was the biggest factor in the whole saga.
When we talk about an individual denying their guilt we see that they do so to protect themselves from punishment. Somehow "denial", they hope, protects their innocence. But why do members of a group protect each other? After all, why protect someone who might be guilty? The person protecting someone else isn`t guilty, so why trouble to shelter someone who is? How do they square this with their conscience?
Well, part of this may be to do with feeling that they cannot be sure that the person is guilty, maybe they want to believe that they are not guilty, and part of it this has to do with the connection and loyalty they feel for their colleagues.
Let`s look at this in regard to a priest: The priest may be a nice man, long serving in the church, he has many close friends...he may have done kindnesses for other clergy... This creates a loyalty and a feeling in others that they do not want to believe that he is guilty. In anycase, if they report him for suspected abuse, they may be impugning him by mistake and turn his life into a nightmare, not forgetting that to report him to the police will bring trouble for themselves: they may not be believed, their colleagues may turn against them, etc. In short, keeping shtum is the preferable option. The most important dynamic here though, is reciprocal loyalty within the group: If you protect a colleague, they will certainly protect you! Because of this,cases are rare where someone is brave enough to betray a colleague in the name of right.
This is broadly what happens in groups, it is all about group cohesion and group function and group survival. This very same mechanism will be in play in the medical profession when a doctor medically abuses a patient. Doctors simply don`t want to believe that some of their colleagues are misogynists and if they half see it, they turn a blind eye.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, where someone is guilty in regard to someone else, the compartmental conscience kicks in and there is activated a demonisation of the wounded party.(In cases of sexual abuse, this would involve making the child look guilty). The function of demonisation is to shift guilt from the abuser/ perpetrator onto the victim. This facilitates a concealment of guilt. When we observe this in regard to one-to -one relationships, the power of the guilt-shift is played out depending upon the power of the individuals concerned. That is, which one is weak, which one is strong; which one has endurance and which one doesn`t; which one is more forgiving,etc. The game-play ratchets up when one uses their own social or family group as an endorsement of their demonisation strategy. The person in this one-to-one battle, who has greater social skills, greater prowess at manipulating, will doubtless win the war when they recruit a group around them to support their position. It`s simple:a group has more power.
The same is true of doctors who medically abuse women: The surest way to hide what has happened is to demonise the woman, find concrete ways of showing that she is "mad" or "bad" and that therefore the doctor hasn`t done anything wrong at all!!! The simplest way to do this is with psychiatric diagnosis. When there is a psychiatric diagnosis attached to a female patient it becomes almost impossible for the medical abuse to be revealed. Of course, this is gross misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, but who would ever find out?
You might wonder how doctors manage their consciences, both to themselves and in regard to their colleagues.. Well, it`s our old friend the compartmental conscience !!! When a woman is medically abused and she is then demonised in order to hide what has occurred, the demonisation is the salve to the conscience. The doctor thinks, "well, this woman is an attention-seeker, or at least neurotic, and my colleague certainly has, therefore, done nothing wrong. It`s the woman`s fault." This way he shuts out the truth and carries on ethically with his other patients, with this woman-victim safely shut away in a bad box in his mind.
We have looked at some reasons why some doctors practice covert misogyny and now I want to think about why such a profession permits this to happen. You might say "permits it by default", since the profession as a whole would be loath to admit that it occurs at all. I think that this denial has parallels with any individual or group that pretends that abuse isn`t really happening. For example, where there was abuse of children in the Catholic Church, denial was the biggest factor in the whole saga.
When we talk about an individual denying their guilt we see that they do so to protect themselves from punishment. Somehow "denial", they hope, protects their innocence. But why do members of a group protect each other? After all, why protect someone who might be guilty? The person protecting someone else isn`t guilty, so why trouble to shelter someone who is? How do they square this with their conscience?
Well, part of this may be to do with feeling that they cannot be sure that the person is guilty, maybe they want to believe that they are not guilty, and part of it this has to do with the connection and loyalty they feel for their colleagues.
Let`s look at this in regard to a priest: The priest may be a nice man, long serving in the church, he has many close friends...he may have done kindnesses for other clergy... This creates a loyalty and a feeling in others that they do not want to believe that he is guilty. In anycase, if they report him for suspected abuse, they may be impugning him by mistake and turn his life into a nightmare, not forgetting that to report him to the police will bring trouble for themselves: they may not be believed, their colleagues may turn against them, etc. In short, keeping shtum is the preferable option. The most important dynamic here though, is reciprocal loyalty within the group: If you protect a colleague, they will certainly protect you! Because of this,cases are rare where someone is brave enough to betray a colleague in the name of right.
This is broadly what happens in groups, it is all about group cohesion and group function and group survival. This very same mechanism will be in play in the medical profession when a doctor medically abuses a patient. Doctors simply don`t want to believe that some of their colleagues are misogynists and if they half see it, they turn a blind eye.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, where someone is guilty in regard to someone else, the compartmental conscience kicks in and there is activated a demonisation of the wounded party.(In cases of sexual abuse, this would involve making the child look guilty). The function of demonisation is to shift guilt from the abuser/ perpetrator onto the victim. This facilitates a concealment of guilt. When we observe this in regard to one-to -one relationships, the power of the guilt-shift is played out depending upon the power of the individuals concerned. That is, which one is weak, which one is strong; which one has endurance and which one doesn`t; which one is more forgiving,etc. The game-play ratchets up when one uses their own social or family group as an endorsement of their demonisation strategy. The person in this one-to-one battle, who has greater social skills, greater prowess at manipulating, will doubtless win the war when they recruit a group around them to support their position. It`s simple:a group has more power.
The same is true of doctors who medically abuse women: The surest way to hide what has happened is to demonise the woman, find concrete ways of showing that she is "mad" or "bad" and that therefore the doctor hasn`t done anything wrong at all!!! The simplest way to do this is with psychiatric diagnosis. When there is a psychiatric diagnosis attached to a female patient it becomes almost impossible for the medical abuse to be revealed. Of course, this is gross misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, but who would ever find out?
You might wonder how doctors manage their consciences, both to themselves and in regard to their colleagues.. Well, it`s our old friend the compartmental conscience !!! When a woman is medically abused and she is then demonised in order to hide what has occurred, the demonisation is the salve to the conscience. The doctor thinks, "well, this woman is an attention-seeker, or at least neurotic, and my colleague certainly has, therefore, done nothing wrong. It`s the woman`s fault." This way he shuts out the truth and carries on ethically with his other patients, with this woman-victim safely shut away in a bad box in his mind.
Friday, 25 December 2009
Compartmental Conscience.
I describe our human ability to have a selective conscience as "compartmental conscience". This term enables us to visualise the way we put bits of our conscience into different boxes in our minds, separate from other boxes, and the way we take things that we don`t want to have a conscience about and set them aside into another box. This process allows us to function even when different boxes/compartments have contradictions with each other.
Lets look at some examples:
I was prompted to write this blog after seeing video footage of youths tempting a swan to the riverbank with some food, only to viciously kick it in the neck, killing it outright. The TV program then showed a vet operating to save the life of a swan that had had it`s wing broken in another savage attack. The bird lay on an operating table and the vet amputated the wing. The swan`s blood triggered my mind to visualise a similar scene where the bird would be a turkey or chicken being prepared for eating and I imagined that the vet would happily sit down to a roast chicken, yet was here using all her skill to save a bird. This is an example of compartmental conscience. In one mental compartment she is eating a bird, and that compartment says that it is OK to do so, yet in another mental compartment she strives to save a bird. It is the compartmentalising of conscience that enables these contradictory actions to take place, the closedness of each compartment in the mind allowing guilt-free actions in one mode and conscienceful actions in the other.
We see this pervasively in the relationships around us. Someone may bully a friend or a spouse, or whomsoever, on the one hand, and be decent and kind and morally upright on the other. One mental compartment will justify being abusive to one person whilst the another compartment will not allow such behaviour at all. Indeed, it can be the very nature attached to one compartment that propels the moral or immoral behaviour of another. A typical situation would be the compartment we make when we want to justify being unkind to someone: We may be respectful and kind and loving to this person most of the time, but when we want to be unkind we create a compartment with a label of justification...Something like,
" so- and- so forgot my birthday, so I am justified in not speaking to them."
We as human beings want and need to be in a mental compartment that is comfortable and approving of our actions..We see this in religious practice, for example, where people cleave in order to furnish approval for themselves, both from within themselves and from the community in which they live. But where there is one area where we obviously strive to be good, there are others where we are less than good people. Religion can be excellent propaganda for us as "good people" and can help us to feel good about ourselves, yet it can also convince us that other bad actions are acceptable/allowable given that we are so good in this one area. And this we see all around us, a sort of trade-off between compartments, that lets us off the hook as far as guilt is concerned.
So what consequences are there, in the broader picture, of compartmentalising our consciences? Well, cruelty, discrimination, racism and bullying, demonisation and witch hunting, are all products of compartmentalising. We see it in the Nazi ability to demonise Jews whilst they maintain normal, non-paranoid, relations with their families and fellow countrymen. We see it in gang-mentality where violence can be inflicted against "outsiders", or other gangs, but not towards their own. We see it in criminality where a compartment allows shoplifting or burglaries. We see it in society wherever we look.
Bullying..... and I mean all types of bullying....compartmentalises the one to be bullied by some judgment that will enable bullying to take place without there being conscience to prevent it. You have to put someone in a box as "different from others" in order to allow your conscience to get away with it. We thus see that doctors, for example, can be exemplary towards most of their patients, and yet will put a patient whom they don`t like or maybe have damaged in some way, into a separate box labeled "problem patient". The placing of this patient into another category will enable the conscience to switch off in regard to this particular person and the doctor can be rude or even medically abusive without any conscience at all.
We need to be aware of compartmentalising in our interpersonal relationships and in the wider world. Whilst it has many damaging affects, it can also enable our better nature to thrive and function normally.
Lets look at some examples:
I was prompted to write this blog after seeing video footage of youths tempting a swan to the riverbank with some food, only to viciously kick it in the neck, killing it outright. The TV program then showed a vet operating to save the life of a swan that had had it`s wing broken in another savage attack. The bird lay on an operating table and the vet amputated the wing. The swan`s blood triggered my mind to visualise a similar scene where the bird would be a turkey or chicken being prepared for eating and I imagined that the vet would happily sit down to a roast chicken, yet was here using all her skill to save a bird. This is an example of compartmental conscience. In one mental compartment she is eating a bird, and that compartment says that it is OK to do so, yet in another mental compartment she strives to save a bird. It is the compartmentalising of conscience that enables these contradictory actions to take place, the closedness of each compartment in the mind allowing guilt-free actions in one mode and conscienceful actions in the other.
We see this pervasively in the relationships around us. Someone may bully a friend or a spouse, or whomsoever, on the one hand, and be decent and kind and morally upright on the other. One mental compartment will justify being abusive to one person whilst the another compartment will not allow such behaviour at all. Indeed, it can be the very nature attached to one compartment that propels the moral or immoral behaviour of another. A typical situation would be the compartment we make when we want to justify being unkind to someone: We may be respectful and kind and loving to this person most of the time, but when we want to be unkind we create a compartment with a label of justification...Something like,
" so- and- so forgot my birthday, so I am justified in not speaking to them."
We as human beings want and need to be in a mental compartment that is comfortable and approving of our actions..We see this in religious practice, for example, where people cleave in order to furnish approval for themselves, both from within themselves and from the community in which they live. But where there is one area where we obviously strive to be good, there are others where we are less than good people. Religion can be excellent propaganda for us as "good people" and can help us to feel good about ourselves, yet it can also convince us that other bad actions are acceptable/allowable given that we are so good in this one area. And this we see all around us, a sort of trade-off between compartments, that lets us off the hook as far as guilt is concerned.
So what consequences are there, in the broader picture, of compartmentalising our consciences? Well, cruelty, discrimination, racism and bullying, demonisation and witch hunting, are all products of compartmentalising. We see it in the Nazi ability to demonise Jews whilst they maintain normal, non-paranoid, relations with their families and fellow countrymen. We see it in gang-mentality where violence can be inflicted against "outsiders", or other gangs, but not towards their own. We see it in criminality where a compartment allows shoplifting or burglaries. We see it in society wherever we look.
Bullying..... and I mean all types of bullying....compartmentalises the one to be bullied by some judgment that will enable bullying to take place without there being conscience to prevent it. You have to put someone in a box as "different from others" in order to allow your conscience to get away with it. We thus see that doctors, for example, can be exemplary towards most of their patients, and yet will put a patient whom they don`t like or maybe have damaged in some way, into a separate box labeled "problem patient". The placing of this patient into another category will enable the conscience to switch off in regard to this particular person and the doctor can be rude or even medically abusive without any conscience at all.
We need to be aware of compartmentalising in our interpersonal relationships and in the wider world. Whilst it has many damaging affects, it can also enable our better nature to thrive and function normally.
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