Connu sous le nom d’«École de Palo Alto » (petite ville située dans la banlieue de San Francisco, en Californie), ce groupe rassemblant linguistes, anthropologues, psychiatres et sociologues, a renouvelé l’approche des relations interpersonnelles. Parmi eux : Gregory Bateson, Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin et Don Jackson.

I. LES RÈGLES DE LA COMMUNICATION INTERPERSONNELLE

A. Une approche pragmatique
Ou comment réussir à établir avec autrui une relation satisfaisante ou — pourquoi pas — une relation non satisfaisante…

B. La métaphore de l’orchestre
La perspective psychologique est abandonnée au profit d’une perspective interactionnelle : communiquer, c’est entrer dans l’orchestre!

C. Les axiomes de Watzlawick
Axiome 1 : On ne peut pas ne pas communiquer;
Axiome 2 : Toute communication peut s’analyser sous le double aspect du contenu et de la relation;
Axiome 3 : La nature de la relation dépend de la façon dont les partenaires ponctuent la séquence de communication;
Axiome 4 : Toute communication est ou symétrique ou complémentaire.

II. DE NOUVELLES PRATIQUES THÉRAPEUTIQUES

A. Le piège du double lien
Identifié par Bateson, ce système de communication contradictoire (exemple : «J’exige que tu me désobéisses!») piège les partenaires dans une relation pathologique.

B. Les cercles vicieux de l’interaction
Quand le système familial produit et entretient la maladie d’un de ses membres.

C. Changer les règles, pour changer le jeu
Efficace, le recours à la métacommunication, ou communication sur la communication.

Rendez-vous sur le site du magazine Psychologies, pour tout savoir sur les thérapies familiales (article de Laurence Lemoine @ Psychologies.com).

I think I get unreasonably distressed when big companies treat me badly. I take it badly. And I take it personally. Which has to be unreasonable. After all they don’t give a jot about me!

Double-bind

Being bullied by people in power is called a double-bind. It’s basic structure goes like this.

• You treat me badly.
• But I can’t walk away.

So I have to absorb three bad things about myself.

• You treat me badly.
• I can’t walk away.
• I am in a position where I cannot resolve this dilemma or even talk about it someone else. You certainly won’t listen. You will just deny that you are treating me badly.

Side-stepping a double-bind

I understand all this stuff. I am a psychologist after all.

So why do I take bad treatment like a kick in the solar plexus and spit in my face?

I pondered this a few days ago and had this ‘eureka’ moment.

Because suffering humiliation suggests I am investing in the wrong things. Because the petty humiliations hint that I have been horribly mistaken about what is true and good in this world.

If I catch the fleeting hint and look at it squarely, I can ask myself why I continue to pursue this life.

If this life is what I want, then maybe I can find a way to remove the irritant, compensate for the irritant (or pay it back), or simply put it in the irritant box.

The key question is not what to do about the irritant.

The key question is in the fleeting hint : is this the life I want? What have I assumed about what is true and good?

Do I still believe I have chosen the right direction in life knowing what I know now?

Pincer Attack!

I remember playing Final Fantasy 6. It was a good game. Pincer attacks (like the one viewed above) were fairly rare, but at best they were an incredibly minor inconvenience. They didn’t actually impact the way the particular battle would turn out. It just looked a little different.

If only pincer attacks in real life were so simple. Rather, what I find is that double binds in real life are painful, awkward, and pervasive. There’s a wikipedia page on double binds here (I didn’t just make it up to talk about a video game!) And while double bind research generally relates to the complexity of communication among schizophrenic patients, I think there are just too many examples when it is practical elsewhere.

I think R.D. Laing caught the phenomenon well in his book of poetry “Knots” (here is a sampler page). Here is just one:

It is our duty to bring up our children to love,
honour and obey us.
If they don’t they must be punished,
otherwise we would not be doing our duty.

If they grow up to love, honour and obey us
either we have brought them up properly
or we have not:
if we have
there must be something the matter with them;
if we have not
there is something the matter with us.

Oh wow, why does that sound so familiar?

I’ve been thinking…on the new comments from Elder Bruce Hafen on same-sex attraction to Evergreen. It has generated quite a bit of commentary, to say the least. And it’s made me think about this incredible double bind that gay Mormons face in particular, I think.

So, imagine that you’re raised in the church, and you take to it. So, you believe. You believe it all. You believe that the church knows what is eternally best, right.

But you have a problem. You don’t fit into the mold (and this actually applies to so many other people). Not only do you not fit the mold, but you can’t change yourself to fit the mold.

Still, there’s pressure. The expectation is that if you were only righteous enough, you could change yourself. Even if not, you can and should control yourself. You shouldn’t engage on your feelings. In fact, you might decide to do pursue as “normal” a life as possible — who’s to say you can’t make a mixed orientation marriage work out despite your indiscretion. At the least, you decide that you won’t engage those feelings. Because you trust that the gospel truly does know this will bring you happiness.

This is just one side of the pincer. Do you know how painful it is just to read blogs that are like this? I could link to so many. The story is almost a trope.

The other side beckons. Why stick with such an obviously oppressive and offensive, harmful church? Why take up for that? Why not be happy and fulfilled with your life? Why not reject such a harmful influence?

The other side of the pincer. I see so many blogs that take this stance. It becomes resentful, but in a way, isn’t resent deserved?

But no. You can’t really be sure that that’s what would fulfill you. Maybe it’s illusory. Maybe there’s some truth in what the church says about the gay feelings. After all, you do see the more promiscuous communities and you see that that has its own dangers. Are they really happy? Even though you know that’s not all there is, you wonder if that is what you’ll always be susceptible to if you lose your grounding with the gospel.

Why is it that God would make you in such a way? So that you had to deny something this central? But then again, maybe the church is right when it says you should not view this as “central” to who you are. But you can’t minimize this issue. It refuses to size down in your mind. And the entire time, the teetering brink is misery.

Is there room for Mormons who recognize that they are just as much Mormon as they are gay? Because it seems like the two sides who are playing tug-of-war will not yield an inch. One side expects a rejection of THE GAY — whether it completes in this life or the next. This side says that you cannot truly be happy unless you seek this rejection (why is it they can say this so surely when life is hell for you who tries to live it?) But the other side expects a rejection of THE MORMON. And to be sure, some people can decide to reject one or the other…but why is it necessary? Why must life be terrible? Why is it so hard to leave the heritage?

People not involved simply do not understand, and the struggle cannot even be put into words, though you futilely try. Sometimes, it feels better just to give up, but there’s a cough in the back of your throat that demands that you try to explain, even though you know that every single time, you will be misunderstood, rebuked, and rebuffed. It is painful to speak out, but it is painful to keep it in. Pain is life; we can never keep it down. But why? Why did it have to be like this?

In the end, you feel a kinship with those who are going through this with you. And even though you feel such a kinship, it’s not like this makes things any better. It’s not like you all can team up and take the world by force. No, rather, you all will be in this awkward double bind together, able to compare battle scars and not feel completely alone. But perhaps the realization that you are powerless, though not alone, is even more alienating.

Let’s be superheros, ‘k? Let’s break these impenetrable binds and live through every experience without turmoil, misery, or rage. Don’t we owe it to ourselves?

Double bind – doppio legame e i paradossi della comunicazione

Qui di seguito copio un articolo veramente molto interessante a cura di Simona Carloppi, tratto da DIGILOGICA n° 2/2005.

Formulata negli anni 50 da Gregory Bateson e altri a partire da studi sulla genesi della schizofrenia e approfondita dalla famosa “Scuola di Palo Alto”, la teoria del double bind (doppio legame) riguarda le conseguenze di una relazione costantemente invalidata da comunicazioni paradossali tra due individui di cui uno dipende dall’altro emotivamente e/o per la propria sopravvivenza fisica.
Esempi di messaggi double bind sono:
«Sii spontaneo»
«Devi amarmi»
«Voglio che tu mi domini»
«Devi essere felice di giocare con i bambini come tutti gli altri padri»
«Non essere così obbediente»
«Sei libero. di andartene, caro. Non fare caso se comincio a piangere»

Si tratta cioè di paradossi che intrappolano, togliendo la possibilità di intraprendere un’azione “vincente”. La vittima sbaglia se obbedisce e sbaglia se disobbedisce, o addirittura non può obbedire, e finisce per subire comunque conseguenze negative. La teoria della comunicazione che analizza il modello double bind include la gerarchia di “tipi logici” definita da Bertrand Russell. Russell afferma che alcuni messaggi parlano direttamente di cose, si riferiscono a realtà esterne al parlante e hanno principalmente carattere cognitivo ed espressione verbale.
Altri, invece – i cosiddetti “meta- messaggi” – si riferiscono ad altri messaggi, sono comunicazioni sulla comunicazione e hanno prevalentemente natura affettiva e forma non verbale. I paradossi nascono dalla difficoltà di mantenere distinti differenti livelli logici. Nei casi di double bind si ricevono, su piani diversi, messaggi contraddittori e minacciosi da una figura autorevole e c’è anche la proibizione di discutere la contraddizione. Non si può vincere, non si può pareggiare e non si può neppure smettere di giocare.

Cosa si intende con double bind

Entrando nel dettaglio, gli elementi costituenti di una situazione double bind secondo Bateson sono:

1) Due o più persone, tra cui una soltanto svolge il ruolo di vittima.
Le relazioni prevedono spesso forme di subordinazione e di potere in cui le posizioni reciproche sono definite dal contesto e in cui la distanza tra persone differisce anche molto.
In una famiglia, in genere la vittima è uno dei figli con genitori e fratelli che ricoprono ruoli ben distinti e complementari. In un’azienda possiamo pensare al fattorino, al portiere o a un dipendente che lavora contemporaneamente a più progetti. Tutti questi individui sono continuamente sottoposti a richieste contrastanti da fonti diverse. In alcuni casi l’ordinamento gerarchico può fornire un ordine di priorità, ma talvolta i richiedenti hanno una posizione organizzativa equivalente. Inoltre la conoscenza personale e legami di amicizia con alcuni dei colleghi possono ulteriormente complicare la situazione.

2) Il ripetersi dell’esperienza sgradevole.
Il doppio legame è uno schema ricorrente nel vissuto della vittima, ripetuto fino a quando finisce per diventare un’aspettativa abituale che porta a confondere rispetto e paura.

3) Un’ ingiunzione primaria, generalmente negativa, che può assumere due forme.
Non fare questo e quello o ti punirò Se fai questo e quello io ti punirò. Si tratta quindi di un contesto di apprendimento basato sull’evitamento di una punizione e non sulla ricerca di una ricompensa. In teoria il doppio legame può funzionare anche nel secondo caso, ma, soprattutto per soggetti “deboli”, la paura pare essere un’emozione più forte e, quindi, una motivazione più importante del desiderio. In ambito familiare la punizione può essere costituita da espressione di rabbia o odio, ritiro dell’affetto o abbandono del bambino a se stesso.

4) Un’ ingiunzione secondaria in conflitto con la prima su un piano più astratto e, come la prima, rinforzata da una punizione o da un segnale di minaccia a benessere e sopravvivenza.
Questo secondo messaggio è più difficile da descrivere del primo. In primo luogo perché in genere viene comunicato in modo non verbale tramite postura, gesti, tono di voce, azioni significative e implicazioni nascoste delle parole. In secondo luogo può riguardare uno qualunque degli elementi costitutivi della prima affermazione, quindi può assumere una grande varietà di forme.
Ad esempio:
«Non considerarla una punizione»
«Non sono io che ti punisco»
«Fa più male a me che a te»
«Non sottometterti alle mie proibizioni»
«Non pensare a ciò che non devi fare»
«Non avere dubbi sull’amore (la stima) che nutro per te, perché questa proibizione ne è una prova»

5) Un’ ingiunzione terziaria negativa che proibisce alla vittima di uscire dal dilemma, di fare commenti, chiedere spiegazioni o protestare.
Potrebbe sembrare inutile trattare questo come un elemento separato, poiché il rinforzo alle altre due ingiunzioni è una minaccia sufficientemente forte e se il double bind viene imposto a qualcuno fortemente subordinato una via d’uscita appare impossibile. Comunque sembra che, in alcuni casi, vengano utilizzati alcuni espedienti che non sono puramente negativi. Come ad esempio promesse di affetto “capricciose” o il labeling, cioè l’etichettare una persona, includendola in una categoria comportamentale rigida che permetta di interpretare tutto il suo comportamento e le sue intenzioni indipendentemente da quello che esprime:
«Sei piccolo, certe cose non le puoi capire»
«Sono io il capo. So io cosa è meglio per te»

6) Quando poi la vittima, attraverso la ripetizione, si è abituata a percepire l’universo secondo schemi a “doppio legame”, non è più necessaria la presenza di tutti gli elementi suddetti.
Quasi ogni parte della sequenza è sufficiente da sola a causare una reazione di panico o di rabbia.
Da un punto di vista formale, Paul Watzlawick ha individuato quattro categorie di paradossi double bind:
a) «Sii spontaneo»
Si richiede o addirittura ordina di fare qualcosa spontaneamente.
b) «Sei così confuso (stai così male) da non poter sapere come ti senti realmente. Io lo so meglio di te»
Viene punita una corretta percezione della realtà. Si impone alla vittima di non dare peso alle proprie percezioni e di accettare la descrizione della situazione data da altri, costringendo così a spendere un grande ammontare di energia psichica per capire come ogni situazione “deve essere interpretata”.
c) «Devi essere felice di svolgere il tuo compito»
In questo caso vengono confutate sensazioni, emozioni e sentimenti, con il rischio di far sentire in colpa chi “sente in modo sbagliato”.
d) «Devi essere leale e raggiungere il tuo obiettivo a ogni costo»
In questa imposizione (la seconda parte della quale è quasi sempre implicita) si chiede e si proibisce la stessa cosa nello stesso momento, obbligando a disobbedire per poter obbedire.

Nel 1967, inoltre, Sluzki e collaboratori hanno individuato cinque “schemi di squalificazione” cioè metodi attraverso cui l’esperienza diretta di una persona viene invalidata attraverso il double bind:

Evasività e cambio di argomento
Si verifica quando un’affermazione che non chiude una discussione viene seguita da un’altra che fornisce una risposta negativa implicita, cambiando argomento
A: «Possiamo andare al parco a giocare a calcio»
B: «E’ una giornata splendida per lavorare in giardino»

Gioco di prestigio
La seconda frase è una risposta alla prima, ma ne cambia il contenuto
A: «Siamo sempre andati d’accordo»
B: «Sì, ti ho sempre voluto bene»

Litteralizzazione
Il contenuto della prima proposizione è trasposto in senso letterale nella seconda, senza che il cambio di contesto venga segnalato.
A: «Mi tratti come un bambino»
B: «Ma tu sei un bambino!»

Imposizione di status
Status personale superiore, maggiore esperienza o migliori conoscenze vengono usati per contestare il contenuto delle affermazioni altrui, spesso rivolgendosi a terze parti.
A: «Ho notato che non interagisce bene con gli altri…»
B: «Ma io lavoro bene in gruppo!»
A: «È appena arrivato, non può sapere cosa sia un’interazione efficace…»

Uso di domande retoriche
Implicano dubbi o disaccordo, pur senza esprimerli apertamente:
A: «Vado d’accordo con tutti»
B: «Con tutti? Davvero?»

La ripetizione di questi pattern finisce per imporre e consolidare modelli idiosincratici di interazione, che implicano un certo stile di relazione con il resto del mondo. Questo stile prevede la negazione sistematica di certi stimoli, la repressione sistematica di certi significati, il rinforzo e la ricompensa del fraintendimento e la punizione di ogni tentativo di fare chiarezza. Secondo Jay Haley, una regola fondamentale della comunicazione comporta che “è virtualmente impossibile per chiunque evitare di definire o controllare completamente la definizione della propria relazione con un’altra persona”.
In altre parole, in ogni relazione una delle prime cose che è necessario concertare è quale tipo di relazione portare avanti. Le relazioni possono essere complementari o simmetriche. In quelle complementari il comportamento di un componente completa quello dell’altro: c’è un dare e un avere, ad esempio tra maestro e allievo c’è chi insegna e chi impara. In quelle simmetriche c’è invece somiglianza e corrispondenza tra i comportamenti dei due partecipanti. Se uno parla di una vacanza che ha fatto, l’altro interverrà raccontando una sua esperienza o i suoi progetti. È dunque presente una tendenza alla competizione. Con il passare del tempo la natura di una relazione può cambiare. Ci possono essere aggiustamenti e conflitti e quasi tutti avvengono sul piano della comunicazione. O meglio sui molteplici piani della comunicazione, poichè quasi tutti i messaggi che inviamo e riceviamo sono misti e spesso conflittuali. L’abilità comunicativa consiste nel saper riconoscere e commentare i conflitti di significato. Il double bind, la conseguente perdita di senso con I’inestricabile confusione che comporta e le reazioni negative, o addirittura patologiche, di chi è costretto a subirlo, comportano l’impossibilità e la non volontà di definire apertamente la natura di una relazione. Chi è costretto a subire paradossi senza via d’uscita, infatti, può finire per cercare di annullare la comunicazione negando: a) di aver comunicato qualcosa, b) che sia stato comunicato qualcosa, c) che la cosa sia stata comunicata all’altra persona, d) il contesto in cui è avvenuta la comunicazione. L’unico modo reale per sfuggire alla trappola però risiede nell’analisi, nel riconoscere il double bind e nel ricostruire correttamente l’organizzazione gerarchica dei livelli di comunicazione.

Comunicazione double bind in azienda

Il double bind è particolarmente dannoso se chi lo subisce è un bambino nel proprio contesto familiare perché va a interferire con il processo di sviluppo psicologico. Una crescita corretta, infatti, passa attraverso i tre stadi di dipendenza infantile, transizione e indipendenza.
Il “doppio legame”, invece, crea un conflitto tra il desiderio di essere autonomi e quello di essere perfetti, bloccando la costruzione di una individualità sana. Le conseguenze possono andare da crisi di ansia e attacchi di aggressività e autoaggressività ricorrenti e apparentemente senza causa, fino alla genesi di disturbi psicotici, borderline o addirittura schizofrenia. Se la vittima è un adulto e l’ambito della situazione è meno emotivamente connotato di quello familiare, sicuramente i danni saranno meno gravi.
Tuttavia una realtà del genere, radicata all’interno di un’azienda, dà comunque origine a conseguenze negative sia per i singoli che per l’organizzazione. Infatti comporta la distruzione della capacità di dare un significato corretto alla comunicazione e quindi di reagire in modo adeguato. È uno spreco di energie e di risorse, una pratica disfunzionale che danneggia efficacia ed efficienza degli individui e del sistema nel suo complesso. In casi estremi, inoltre, può causare anche una serie di comportamenti anomali e disturbi emotivi (stress, demotivazione, burn out, ecc.) che affliggono la vita lavorativa che per un adulto della nostra cultura assorbe gran parte della giornata -e possono avere riflessi su benessere e salute generale. E comunque una situazione piuttosto diffusa. Molto più diffusa di quanto si pensi.
Può coinvolgere un’intera impresa: basti pensare al caso in cui l’alta dirigenza raccomandi di avere “un atteggiamento proattivo”, ma ordini di portare avanti il lavoro come al solito, quando appare evidente che si verificheranno cambiamenti in un futuro prossimo. Il primo messaggio richiede di “anticipare il futuro e cambiare adesso”, il secondo ordina di “ignorare i segnali e non cambiare”. Più in generale, capita spesso che la comunicazione tra top manager ed esecutivi prenda la seguente forma: messaggio “questo è il principio”, meta-messaggio: “non seguite il principio” e per principio possiamo intendere ogni tipo di visione, obiettivo o norma definiti in una realtà lavorativa. Questo inevitabilmente porterà a un aumento della sfiducia, intesa sia come sensazione generale che come diffidenza tra differenti livelli gerarchici.
Più frequentemente, però, il double bind coinvolge gruppi più ristretti di persone. Ad esempio avviene spesso che nei progetti che richiedono una presentazione ai clienti o a entità esterne all’azienda, il management negozi una certa data con i destinatari finali, comunicandone poi un’altra molto più vicina ai team di progetto, per essere sicuri di veder rispettata la scadenza che ci è stata richiesta. In questo caso il double bind va a colpire i quadri intermedi che vengono informati del “trucco”, ma devono tenerlo nascosto agli altri, trovandosi così a vivere una contraddizione tra la lealtà verso la dirigenza e quella verso il gruppo di lavoro di cui fanno parte. E, in realtà, bisogna osservare che il verificarsi di paradossi legati a doppie verità e doppie appartenenze è un’evenienza molto comune nell’esperienza di quadri e middle management, quasi una caratteristica costitutiva di questo tipo di figure aziendali che finiscono quindi spesso per trovarsi in una situazione relazionale assai delicata. La forma più comune in cui il double bind si presenta, comunque, è l’invio di messaggi contraddittori da un capo ai diretti subordinati. Un’eventualità estremamente diffusa consiste nel chiedere ai propri collaboratori di essere creativi, perché la creatività è la principale fonte di valore aggiunto in una collaborazione. Quando però vengono presentati i risultati di un lavoro, il boss muove un’infinità di appunti, osservazioni e correzioni. Anche se questo comportamento viene giustificato dalla massima «è necessario cercare ogni possibilità di miglioramento del nostro lavoro», il risultato è che l’iniziativa dei subordinati non appare mai all’altezza di quello che il dirigente richiede. La richiesta implicita che viene avanzata è «dovete adattare i vostri sforzi a quello che voglio fin dall’inizio».
In pratica c’è un messaggio “siate creativi” che contrasta con il meta-messaggio “adeguatevi”. Una situazione simile si verifica quando un capo chiede ai subordinati di essere indipendenti, ma poi interviene continuamente sul loro modo di agire dando suggerimenti su come fare le cose, partecipando a tutte le riunioni, andandoli a trovare alle loro scrivanie, osservando e commentando quanto stanno facendo e chiedendo ripetutamente di elencare compiti futuri e lavori in sospeso. Interventi eccessivi affermano indirettamente “io vi controllo”. Quindi il messaggio è: “siate indipendenti”, mentre il meta-messaggio afferma: “siete completamente sotto il mio controllo”.
Nel caso poi di un quadro intermedio integrato in una struttura gerarchica complessa che segue una gestione per obiettivi, una fonte di paradossi può provenire dal sistema di negoziazione dei target da raggiungere. Sapendo che il management superiore tenderà sempre a fissare gli standard ai livelli più alti possibile, un responsabile può chiedere al suo team di limitare gli obiettivi dichiarati per evitare il rischio di fallimenti. Se però, nella routine quotidiana dimostra aspettative sulla qualità più alte di quelle dei suoi sottoposti, finirà per veicolare l’osservazione implicita: «dovete porvi obiettivi più alti». Messaggio: “fissate obiettivi più limitati”, meta-messaggio: “fissate obiettivi più ambiziosi”. Infine una fonte di forte confusione può provenire dai registri linguistici utilizzati.
Soprattutto nei casi di aziende con personale di diversa nazionalità (ma non solo) può avvenire che il capo raccomandi, per chiarezza, di utilizzare un linguaggio “a bassa contestualizzazione”. Un modo di esprimersi cioè in cui la maggior parte dell’informazione venga esplicitata nella forma più semplice possibile, limitando metafore, forme umoristiche, ambiguità e riferimenti indiretti. Nonostante le indicazioni date agli altri però, può continuare a esprimersi in modo sofisticato e ricercato per abitudine o come modo per affermare inconsciamente il suo status superiore, utilizzando artifici, figure retoriche e motti di spirito. Per dipendenti di altri Paesi può così diventare molto difficile interpretare le sue parole e afferrarne rapidamente il significato con spreco di tempo ed energie. In forma più attenuata, e soprattutto per ciò che riguarda battute e doppi sensi, poi, il problema può presentarsi anche tra connazionali provenienti da regioni o contesti sociali molto distanti tra loro. In questo caso il messaggio è “attenetevi al senso letterale”, il meta-messaggio: “non prendete le mie parole in senso letterale”.
In genere poi, una realtà in cui compaiono forme di comunicazione double bind non presenta una sola, ma numerose contraddizioni che sono interrelate e si rinforzano a vicenda. Se, ad esempio, in un’impresa compaiono contemporaneamente la seconda, terza, quarta e quinta aporia, possiamo osservare come la confusione tra senso letterale e figurato non farà altro che aggravare le altre contraddizioni tra richieste esplicite e implicite. Analizzando la situazione dall’esterno, quindi senza i condizionamenti dovuti a potere ed emotività, appaiono evidenti due possibili linee di azione: a)il capo (o il management) adegua le parole agli atti, b)il capo adegua gli atti alle parole.
Nel primo caso, rispetto agli esempi esaminati dovrà smettere di chiedere creatività e indipendenza, assumere di essere il più creativo, prendere tutte le decisioni in prima persona, diventare molto più direttivo, permettere l’uso di una comunicazione “fiorita” e divertente, accettando le possibilità di fraintendimento che ne derivano e obbligare i subordinati a prefissarsi obiettivi elevati fin dall’inizio(probabilmente quest’ultima è la cosa meno assurda).
L’applicazione del secondo tipo di intervento appare più realistica. Il capo dovrà minimizzare commenti e critiche, accettando la scarsa creatività altrui, limitare le forme di controllo diretto pur sapendo di doversi assumere la responsabilità di eventuali fallimenti dei sottoposti, dovrà abbandonare il linguaggio aulico o indicare in anticipo che sta parlando in senso figurato e fisserà obiettivi elevati fin dall’inizio. Esiste però anche una terza soluzione che prevede che siano i subordinati a cambiare, modificando il proprio schema di interazione con il superiore da complementare a simmetrico.
Un atteggiamento complementare consiste infatti nel rispondere a commenti e critiche cercando di soddisfare tutte le richieste (adattamento), agli interventi di controllo cercando di obbedire alle indicazioni (obbedienza), ad aspettative di qualità alte cercando di raggiungere i risultati auspicati (adeguamento), e a un linguaggio complesso cercando di capire il reale significato da soli (interpretazione).
Un atteggiamento complementare, invece, porterà a rispondere alle richieste con proprie richieste, alle aspettative con proprie aspettative, al controllo con un’altra forma di controllo e alle battute di spirito con altre battute, e questo finirà per smontare, “mandare in corto circuito” il meccanismo double bind. Il vero danno infatti deriva dalla reazione complementare alla contraddizione tra messaggio e meta- messaggio, più che dalla contraddizione in se stessa.
È evidente come nella vita di ogni giorno capiti assai spesso di osservare incongruenze tra la comunicazione verbale e quella non verbale. Si può dire che si tratta di una discrepanza presente in diversa misura in ogni individuo. Il problema vero risiede nel rapporto di potere, nella rigidità delle norme che regolano una determinata situazione e nella possibilità per ogni partecipante di mettere in discussione le “regole del gioco”. In altre parole, la gravità del danno che una comunicazione paradossale può creare a un’organizzazione è strettamente dipendente dalla cultura organizzativa, dal sistema di comunicazione e dalle forme di partecipazione che la struttura mette in atto. I problemi maggiori si avranno in compagini rigide e fortemente gerarchizzate. Al contrario, organismi più fluidi, che prevedono possibilità di scambio e confronto aperto, potranno ammortizzare facilmente questo tipo di contraddizione, perché, per loro stessa natura, dispongono già di meccanismi più o meno consci e formalizzati destinati a risolvere contrasti, opposizioni e antinomie.
Ciò emerge in modo ancora più chiaro se consideriamo che, qualunque sia l’opzione scelta tra le tre alternative possibili, il primo passo per arrivare a una soluzione consiste nel condividere l’analisi della situazione tra tutti i soggetti coinvolti. Superiore e subordinati devono capire di trovarsi in mezzo alla confusione generata da messaggi contraddittori, devano condividere una comune comprensione della situazione, perché un improvviso cambio di atteggiamento che avvenga senza spiegazioni servirà soltanto ad aumentare la sfiducia reciproca. Soprattutto è importante capire che l’atteggiamento in grado di rendere inefficace ogni tentativo di soluzione è costituito dalla richiesta espressa dal capo di cercare “una via di mezzo” con i sottoposti. Questo comportamento genera un ulteriore double bind in cui il creatore stesso del dilemma (il dirigente) finisce per eliminare, rendere inapplicabili, tutte le possibili soluzioni. Anche perché da un lato afferma, con il messaggio “trovare una via di mezzo”, l’impossibilità di giungere a una soluzione netta e unilaterale del dilemma, mentre con il meta-messaggio dimostra che sta prendendo un’iniziativa in prima persona per risolverlo. L’analisi delle tre soluzioni fa apparire evidente che in casi come questo non può esistere una “via di mezzo”.
Utilizzando una metafora, possiamo dire che se abbiamo il prodotto “-5 x 3″ e cambiamo il segno di entrambi i fattori in “5 x -3″ otterremo lo stesso risultato negativo. Soltanto cambiando uno solo dei due segni è possibile cambiare il risultato.

Il processo di gestione del problema può essere riassunto nella seguente tabella:

Come risolvere una situazione double bind?
I fase: Comprendere la situazione
Comprendere che ci si trova in presenza di una situazione double bind
Comprendere perché ci si trova in una situazione del genere
Comprendere che non può esistere una soluzione “via di mezzo”

Il fase: Scegliere una tra le possibili soluzioni
Il capo adegua le parole agli atti
Il capo adegua gli atti alle parole

I subordinati cambiano il loro atteggiamento verso il capo da complementare a simmetrico

In conclusione, in un’organizzazione esiste la possibilità di parlare delle contraddizioni esistenti. Non farlo per paura di essere considerati “privi di spirito di squadra” o “disfattisti” vuol dire sottomettersi volontariamente a un double bind. Ovviamente può essere anche molto difficile per un singolo riconoscere una situazione double bind e scegliere la risposta più appropriata. Un aiuto estremamente prezioso può venire da persone esterne al sistema disfunzionale: parlare con la propria famiglia o con amici e conoscenti se non si vuole o si è nell’impossibilità di rivolgersi a professionisti come coach o consulenti può servire a ottenere punti di vista e pareri non condizionati, liberi e, quindi, spesso illuminanti.

Donne, organizzazioni e double bind

Negli ultimi anni è sorto un grande interesse -che ha portato a un notevole numero di studi -sui problemi comunicativi derivanti dalle differenze di linguaggio tra uomini e donne. Per quanto le evidenze statistiche siano contestate da alcuni ricercatori sembra ormai accertata l’esistenza di un “dialetto femminile”. Si tratterebbe di un modo si esprimersi molto descrittivo e attento ai dettagli, che evita espressioni troppo forti o aggressive; utilizza forme deboli, dubitativo-ipotetiche, domande retoriche e forme interrogative anche quando vuole affermare qualcosa; impiega un gran numero di aggettivi; presenta pronunciate differenze di intonazione; attribuisce grande importanza a non verbale e paraverbale; mostra evidenti cambiamenti di stile condizionati da contesti e interlocutori, una forte dipendenza dal contesto che porta a lasciare impliciti buona parte dei contenuti di una conversazione e un grado di ambiguità di significato assai alto.
Lakoff lo descrive come powerless language usando la locuzione sia nel senso di linguaggio usato da soggetti privi di potere, che nel senso di linguaggio inefficace. L’idea sembra confermata dal lavoro di West e Zimmermann che hanno rilevato l’alta frequenza con cui una donna viene interrotta da un interlocutore maschio, in contrasto con la bassa frequenza dell’evenienza contraria e i problemi che una donna incontra nell’utilizzo di espressioni gergali o confidenziali in contesti semi-pubblici (i.e. le conversazioni da bar o da sala mensa). Secondo Michell, il linguaggio appare condizionato anche dalle strategie di autoaffermazione ritenute più appropriate, rispetto alle risorse sociali disponibili e, in questo senso, le forme indirette del linguaggio femminile (mezze verità e reticenze) sembrano essere una risposta ragionevole e, in certa misura efficace, alle difficoltà di adattamento a una società spesso ancora fortemente maschilista.
Per Cheryl Kramer, invece, la differenza più significativa tra linguaggio maschile e femminile è che il secondo appare “more restricted”, cioè può essere utilizzato in un numero di contesti più ristretto, è meno adatto a trattare una serie di argomenti (tra cui anche finanza e politica), ed è meno enfatico, potendo disporre di un numero minore di esclamazioni e oscenità. A ben vedere le differenze elencate sembrano strettamente legate agli stereotipi sessuali tradizionali per cui alcuni autori hanno insinuato che le ricerche sul linguaggio siano troppo influenzate da pregiudizi e preconcetti e poco supportate da prove concrete. Ciò che però appare innegabile è che il sesso di un parlante è un elemento condizionante per i suoi ascoltatori, poiché comporta differenze nelle aspettative e nelle percezioni di quanto viene detto. In altre parole si può contestare che le donne si esprimano realmente in modo diverso dagli uomini, ma non si può contestare che chi le ascolta si aspetta che si esprimano in modo diverso e giudica diversamente cosa sia comunicativamente appropriato e cosa non lo sia.
La situazione, per quanto sgradevole, appare abbastanza chiaramente definita nei contesti familiari e di vita quotidiana, ma le cose si complicano in ambito lavorativo. In tale settore infatti, può non essere cosi semplice stabilire se la propria controparte preferisca una “tradizionale leggiadria” o comportamenti più assertivi, sicuri o addirittura aggressivi. Inoltre facilmente compariranno differenze tra quello che può risultare opportuno tra un capo (uomo) e una collaboratrice, tra uno o più collaboratori e un capo (donna) e tra colleghi pari grado. Ad esempio, l’utilizzo di forme interrogative e condizionali per avanzare una proposta durante una riunione mista può dare l’impressione di insicurezza, favorendo la possibilità di essere ignorate e interrotte, ma d’altra parte affermazioni troppo secche e dirette possono suonare aggressive e suscitare ostilità. Negli ambienti a forte predominanza maschile questo tipo di ambivalenza appare molto evidente.
Una donna che ricopra un incarico di responsabilità dovrà assolutamente dimostrare di essere forte, competente e sicura per ottenere il rispetto dei colleghi, ma, nello stesso tempo, questo atteggiamento la farà apparire minacciosa e potrebbe crearle conflitti interni rispetto ai metodi di comportamento che le sono stati inculcati durante infanzia e adolescenza.
Un altro problema sorge poi riguardo a doppi sensi e umorismo a sfondo sessuale. Se una donna si dimostra offesa, rischia di essere considerata asociale e snob, se ride, rischia di vedere messa in dubbio la propria moralità.
Si tratta, insomma, di classici esempi di situazioni double bind del tipo: “sbaglio se mi adeguo e sbaglio se non mi adeguo”.
I vari tipi di “azioni positive” e interventi in favore dell’integrazione delle donne nel mondo del lavoro non hanno, fino a oggi, preso in considerazione questo aspetto. Un punto di partenza può essere ancora una volta, come in tutte le realtà in cui compare un doppio legame, I’esplicitazione del problema. Solo attraverso momenti di confronto libero o strutturato (role-playinge altri tipi di gioco e dinamiche di gruppo) si potrà arrivare, nel tempo, al riconoscimento e alla decostruzione di questi meccanismi costrittivi e alla creazione di ambienti che permettano maggiore libertà agli individui e un migliore utilizzo delle risorse umane disponibili.
In ogni caso. secondo Coates, le donne sembrano essere estremamente sensibili, pronte e disponibili a cogliere ogni evoluzione e cambiamento del linguaggio disponendo di una plasticità espressiva tale da permettere loro di cambiare gli schemi utilizzati non appena se ne presenti l’occasione e questo può essere un’ottima fonte di speranza per ilfuturo.

Il double bind danneggia anche chi lo crea?

Fino a ora abbiamo parlato degli effetti negativi sulle vittime, ma in realtà il double bind danneggia anche i “persecutori”.
A ben vedere infatti risulta chiaro che si tratta di un comportamento apertamente manipolativo che può suscitare comportamenti apertamente ostili nella controparte e quindi scontri anche accesi.
È una forma di controllo piuttosto rozzo, ottenuta portando alla paralisi attraverso un contrasto tra repulsione e desiderio, ma è pienamente efficace soltanto su soggetti deboli, semplici e privi di esperienza. L’applicazione ripetuta di questo schema di comportamento porta alla solitudine e a vivere le altre persone come minacciose. Il creatore di paradossi finisce per vivere in un universo di continua lotta per il controllo e il dominio, in cui non è ammissibile essere in torto. La continua lotta per il potere finisce per portare a una povertà emotiva in cui non ci si può fidare di nessuno. Diventa necessario nascondere sempre le proprie vere intenzioni. Se si viene ignorati, se non c’è opposizione, diviene impossibile recitare il ruolo di virtuoso, scopo ultimo di questo tipo di comportamento. Quindi, in ogni caso, chi genera situazioni double bind è costretto a sprecare un enorme ammontare di energia psichica per mantenere in piedi la propria recita e, se non riesce ad avere un pubblico, finisce per crollare e restare preda della paralisi che voleva infliggere agli altri, potendo arrivare in casi estremi anche a esplosioni di aggressività o crisi di angoscia.

Il double bind come mezzo di crescita

Per completezza, parlando di doppio legame, non si può ignorare quello che costituisce forse l’aspetto maggiormente paradossale di questo tipo di comunicazione, ovvero il fatto che possa essere usata anche in funzione positiva. Alcune scuole di psicoterapia utilizzano il double bind per portare al punto di rottura situazioni stagnanti e patogene, forzando realtà difficili e bloccate, fino al livello di insostenibilità per far esplodere una crisi aperta che porti a una riorganizzazione dell’interazione secondo principi nuovi.
Nella pratica di stampo ericksoniano, poi, i terapeuti usano il double bind come strumento di facilitazione dell’ipnosi. La capacità di double-binding, porta ad assumere il controllo e a rendere la controparte insicura e suggestionabile, spesso fino alla paralisi, ma, sorprendentemente, situazioni double bind sono state ampiamente utilizzate nel corso della storia e vengono impiegate a tutt’oggi anche con soggetti sani, allo scopo di ottenere forme superiori di conoscenza. Un tipico esempio è quello del maestro zen che minaccia il proprio discepolo con un bastone affermando: «se mi dici che questo bastone è reale, lo userò per colpirti. Se mi dici che questo bastone non è reale, lo userò per colpirti. Se non mi dirai nulla, lo userò per colpirti».
Apparentemente l’allievo non ha scampo, ma, secondo i precetti dello zen, può raggiungere I’illuminazione togliendo il bastone dalle mani del maestro.
Ciò che genera la crescita spirituale è la capacità di uscire dalle regole prefissate, decontestualizzare, mettere distanza tra se stessi e le situazioni che si vivono per cambiare la scala di valori.
Questa è la meta finale di molte scuole religiose e filosofiche e non esiste niente di più potente ed efficace di un paradosso per costringerci a mettere in discussione schemi di riferimento e realtà date per scontate. Anche il famoso “Cogito ergo sum” di Cartesio è un paradosso di questo genere.
Ciò che la frase afferma è che io percepisco me stesso, mentre sto oggettivando me stesso attraverso la percezione che ho di me stesso. Ovvero siamo di fronte alla costituzione del soggetto come entità autocostituentesi. In altre parole, tutti gli sviluppi del pensiero filosofico moderno sulla soggettività, la coscienza e la conoscenza derivano da un paradosso double bind.

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ADDRESS “SACRIFICE”

Be careful about clicking for the full text. I did several times and got to an odd page that would not close without multiple attempts which zapped all my active windows. Go figure. I am using Firefox, though I am not happy with their updates which give you no choice but to accept them. Choice for me is a cardinal aspect of selfhood and ever since Microsoft began to use the OK? window when there was in fact no choice, I have realized that there is a double bind involved. Low level, but all double binds contribute to madness.

Υπάρχει κρίση; Ή δεν υπάρχει; Μήπως υπάρχει μεν, αλλά προβλέπεται κάποια φάση ανάκαμψης από τον επόμενο χρόνο; Τα μηνύματα είναι αντιφατικά. Την περασμένη εβδομάδα διαπιστώθηκε επισήμως έκρηξη της ανεργίας στην Ελλάδα ― μάλιστα, της φανερής, καταγεγραμμένης ανεργίας. Μόνο το τελευταίο οκτάμηνο 163.729 άνθρωποι βρέθηκαν άνεργοι· οι απολύσεις αυξήθηκαν κατά 11,7 το α’ τρίμηνο, ενώ οι προσλήψεις μειώθηκαν κατά 19% για το 2008.

Ταυτοχρόνως, κορυφαίοι επιτελικοί κεντρικών τραπεζών, όπως λ.χ. ο αντιπρόεδρος της ΕΚΤ Λουκάς Παπαδήμος, προβλέπουν ανάκαμψη από το 2011, ενώ στα χρηματιστήρια, μετά την κατάρρευση, το παιχνίδι με χαρτιά και προεξοφλήσεις προσδοκιών συνεχίζεται ως εάν να μη συμβαίνει τίποτε. Ως εάν… Τι κι αν ο Πολ Κρούγκμαν και άλλοι οικονομολόγοι, που είχαν μάλιστα επικρίνει τον άγριο νεοφιλελευθερισμό και είχαν προβλέψει τα χείριστα, μιλούν για δύσκολη και επώδυνη έξοδο από την κρίση, μιλούν για αλλαγή παραδείγματος και για ανάγκη παρέμβασης των κοινωνιών στην αυτονομημένη σφαίρα της οικονομίας;

Μπορούμε να αναφέρουμε και άλλα πολλά παραδείγματα, για τα διφυή, αντικορυόμενα μηνύματα. Το μήνυμα προς τις μεγάλες επιχειρήσεις είναι: κρίση είναι , θα περάσει, λάβετε θέσεις για να είσθε πιο ανταγωνιστικοί και πιο κερδοφόροι μετά την ύφεση· και σε αυτή τη δύσκολη φάση, τα κράτη θα συνεισφέρουν με γενναιοδωρία κεφάλαια και διευκολύνσεις. Το μήνυμα προς τον κόσμο της εργασίας είναι: η κρίση βαθαίνει και σας αφορά· θέσεις εργασίας χάνονται και θα χάνονται διαρκώς· ξεχάστε το παλαιό καθεστώς κοινωνικής προστασίας, προσφέρετε μεροκάματα και μισθούς για διάσωση των επιχειρήσεων, το μέλλον έχει πολλή ξηρασία.

Τι πράγματι συμβαίνει; Και τα δύο. Ο καζινοκαπιταλισμός, που θέριεψε τις τελευταίες δεκαετίες, με την εκδήλωση της χρηματοπιστωτικής κρίσης επλήγη υλικά και, προς στιγμήν, απονομιμοποήθηκε, έχασε το αλάθητο και τη μονοκρατορία. Ακόμη και οι πιο πιστοί απολογητές του, είτε βουβάθηκαν είτε άρχισαν να συνηγορούν θερμά υπέρ της ρύθμισης, των κρατικών παρεμβάσεων, και βέβαια υπέρ της αρωγής: δισεκατομμύρια δημόσιου χρήματος σε τράπεζες και εταιρείες, για να μην παγώσει η αγορά. Ομως η αγορά παγώνει. Διότι οι πολίτες-εργαζόμενοι-καταναλωτές μένουν χωρίς δουλειά και χρήμα, στεγνοί, απελπισμένοι, τρομοκρατημένοι. Πρώτοι οι εργαζόμενοι δέχονται την παλίρροια της κρίσης, ως εάν η εργασία να φταίει για τα τοξικά προϊόντα και την κερδοσκοπική κυκλοφορία χρήματος και την εκθεμελίωση της πίστης. Ως εάν η εργασία να φταίει για την απαξίωση της εργασίας και τον ευτελισμό του ανθρώπου-πολίτη-εργαζόμενου από ένα σύστημα που τρέφεται με δημιουργία υπεραξιών και όχι αξιών.

Οπως ήδη έχουν πει πολλοί, η κρίση είναι πολιτική. Και πολιτικής υφής είναι η διχοστασία των εκτιμήσεων για την πορεία και την έκβαση της κρίσης. Οταν δεν μπορείς να διακρίνεις την ιδιοτέλεια πίσω από τα λόγια, αυτό το αντιφατικό διπλό μήνυμα είναι σαν το double bind της ψυχανάλυσης και της ανθρωπολογίας: είναι σχιζοφρενιογόνο.

Και είναι ιδιοτελές. Το διπλό μήνυμα υπηρετεί την τάξη πραγμάτων προ της κρίσης, πριν από την ηθική ήττα και την απονομιμοποίηση του νεοφιλελευθερισμού. Μετά το πρώτο σοκ, μετά τις οργισμένες και συχνά οξυδερκείς απαντήσεις πολιτικών ηγετών που πιάστηκαν στον ύπνο, μετά την κατάπληξη και την οργή των πληττόμενων λαών, μετά τον φόβο για κοινωνικές εκρήξεις, μετά τη ροή του δημόσιου χρήματος για ανάταξη των λαβωμένων κολοσσών που παρήγαγαν την κρίση, το σύστημα ανακάμπτει. Ο κόσμος κουράζεται, είναι φοβισμένος, η χρόνια πλύση εγκεφάλου λειτουργεί, τον στέλνει υποταγμένο και πειθήνιο στη Γιουροβίζιον και τη δημοκρατία των ψήφων SMS. To σύστημα που παρήγαγε κρίση, πλιάτσικο και καταλήστευση του πλούτου των εθνών, προσπαθεί να πέσει στα μαλακά, να εξηγήσει ότι η κρίση είναι τεχνική, και εν πάση περιπτώσει θα περάσει ― αλλά με θυσίες. Μονομερείς θυσίες βεβαίως. Θυσίες εις βάρος του κόσμου της εργασίας, με γενίκευση τoυ part time και του stage, με ασπιρίνες και μαντζούνια για θεραπεία της συστημικής νόσου, με ψεύδη και υπονομεύσεις στο σώμα της ήδη νοσούσας και λειψής δημοκρατίας.

Το διπλό μήνυμα, το double bind, είναι η ρητή έκφραση μιας ιδιότυπης Παλινόρθωσης που ήδη τελείται: επαναφορά στην κανονικότητα του εικονικού χρήματος, του τερατωδώς άνισου πλούτου και της οικουμενικής διασποράς ληστευμένων ζωών.

ζωγραφική: Βασίλειος Πάσπαλης

“The exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to non-co-operate with their exploiters. That will convert the exploiters also.”

Mohandas Gandi, July 28th, 1940

daklozen net als illegalen, armen, hangjongeren, bedelaars, onaangepasten zijn manifeste verdedigers van het onvervreemdbare recht op het nomade menszijn tout court, geen sukkelaars, te pathologiseren gevallen die kost wat kost dienen geholpen te worden in de aktieve welvaartstaat met smetvrees, de ware pathologie. Zwervers, bedelaars dienen behouden in het straatbeeld, ze behoren ook tot het erfgoed als zijnde getuige van een verleden en nog steeds heden waarin empire haar zinloze geweldperversies steeds maar weer probeert weg te kuisen, nu meer dan ooit met haar steeds maar uitbreidend en alsmaar dieper exploiterend welzijnssysteem, biopolitiek. Vergeefs dus.

The proverbial “Honesty is the best policy” begs plurium interrogationum (many questions) as it is an implied dilemma. The question “Do honest people exist” is a misleading discourse because something is implied without being said explicitly. Nowadays, this question imposes outcome of a negative response to validate the dilemma, and in which the positive response has an invariant outcome in the concocted dilemma. Of course the common way out of this argument is not to answer the question (e.g. with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’), so allow me to challenge the assumption behind this question (and I am working on my 10th cup of coffee and too much thoughts swirling in my head).

This question in itself is complex because it presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. This typical fallacy within my short  life experience is often used rhetorically, so I find that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the question’s agenda. Bluntly put, I think it is relative.

It is also a psychological fact that when someone touts “I AM HONEST” or “I DO NOT GOSSIP” usually are the first people who contradict themselves. I would classify this question as cognitive dissonance because it holds two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The “ideas” or “cognitions” in this question includes attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness, justification and rationalization of one’s (or anyone for that matter) behavior. I guess I am guilty of dissonance because I perceive this as a logical inconsistency among my cognitions (and other people that I know). A powerful cause of this dissonance of course is when this idea conflicts with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as “I am a good person” or “I made the right decision.” There´s always an anxiety that comes with the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or justifications to support one’s choices. For instance, a person who just spent too much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may or may not be true, but it would likely reduce dissonance and make the person feel better. I think we can safely say that this dissonance can also lead to a confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.

HONESTY  is a very loaded because the word itself has plenty synonyms that is best described as principles and values: bluntness, candor, confidence, conscientiousness, equity, evenhandedness, fairness, faithfulness, fidelity, frankness, genuineness, goodness, honor, impeccability, incorruptibility, integrity, justness, loyalty, morality, openness, outspokenness, plainness, principle, probity, rectitude, reputability, responsibility, right, scrupulousness, self-respect, sincerity, soundness, straightforwardness, straightness, trustiness, trustworthiness, uprightness, veracity, and virtue. (Notice that the antonyms are few: artifice, cheating, deceit, deception, dishonesty, duplicity, falsehood, fraud, fraudulence, lying and treachery). How many people do you know that actually exhibit these 100%?

My point is this question relies upon context for its effect. Human communication is complex; 90% of it is nonverbal and context is an essential part of it. Communication consists of the words said, tone of voice, body language and also: how these relate to what has been said in the past; what is not said, but is implied; how these are modified by other nonverbal cues such as the environment in which it is said and so forth.For example, if someone says “I love you”, one takes into account who is saying it, their tone of voice and body language, and the context in which it is said. Is it a declaration of passion or a serene reaffirmation; is it public or private; is it insincere and manipulative; does it sound as if they are saying “Please pass the salt” or is it said in a joking tone, when they are annoyed at you?

Conflicts in communication are common and often we ask “What do you mean?” or seek clarification in other ways. This “metacommunication” (i.e. communication about the communication) sometimes, asks for clarification that is impossible. Communication difficulties are common in ordinary life, and often occur when metacommunication and feedback systems are lacking or inadequate or there is not enough time. Some people practice double binds which can be stressful and potentially destructive when one is trapped in a dilemma and punished for finding a way out, but making the effort to find the way out of the trap can lead to emotional growth. For example, when one is commanded to “be spontaneous”. The very command contradicts spontaneity, but it only becomes a double bind when one can neither ignore the command nor comment on the contradiction. Often, the contradiction in communication is not apparent to bystanders unfamiliar with previous communications.Or say, someone says (like Mother to child)”You must love me”. The primary injunction here is the command itself: “you must”; the secondary injunction is the unspoken condition that love is spontaneous, that the child love the mother genuinely, of its own accord.

Or how about “Be genuine” or in this “Be honest”? The idea here is to present your true self to the person. But then the more you try, the phonier you are, and even the “act” of not trying is just another version of trying.

Consider the following psychological theories that affect view of “honesty” among individuals: 

1) Choice-supportive bias is a memory bias that makes past choices seem better than they actually were.

Big Brother is Watching you

2) Doublethink is the act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and fervently believing both. It is related to, but distinct from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Doublethink is a form of trained, willful intellectual blindness to contradictions in a belief system. Doublethink differs from ordinary hypocrisy in that the “doublethinking” person deliberately had to forget the contradiction between his two opposing beliefs — and then deliberately forget that he had forgotten the contradiction. He then had to forget the forgetting of the forgetting, and so on; this intentional forgetting, once begun, continues indefinitely. George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, describes it as “controlled insanity”.

3) Self-perception theory is a competing theory of attitude change. It asserts that we develop our attitudes by observing our behavior and concluding what attitudes must have caused them. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that attitudes come prior to behaviors. Furthermore, the theory suggests that a person induces attitudes without accessing internal cognition and mood states. He/She reasons his/her own overt behaviors rationally in the same way he/she attempts to explain others’ behaviors.

… …………… Gentle Readers, Gentils Lecteurs … ……………

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How are you today? Don’t answer! For your personnal  information, aswering to this may get you in a BIG trouble. Let me explain you the one novelty in the mentality of our new, enhanced and exiting brave new world…

Subject & Themes / Sujet & Thèmes

When I was young and learning english, since as remarked by the most discerning of you, english is not my native language { hence my texts full of gallicisms, frenglishisms (a.k.a. froglish) and my conjugation & grammar somewhat strange }, the way to politely approach a person was by asking:  “How do you do? ” which sounds weird to most of the North American english speakers. A teacher freshly arrived from Zbagerny introduce our bunch of scalawags to an higher level of knowledge & a more fashionable way to ask the question: “How are you? “

That teacher was very clever and we learned also how to politely anwser to this “How are You?” by a “Very well, Thank you. And you? “. Owning this new and funny knowledge our group of rascals begin to chase after an english speaker to experiment their new skills as well as showing how much they are wise… I have to speak you frankly and admit that famous chase was a total failure: english speaking person in the Pnkgbavna’s townships was as much as frequent than an elephant. {than… an … E… ant… sounds weird? That’s poetry you yokel!}

Years later I was in a situation to (finally) shows how good is my knowledge of the William Shakespeare language but my expectations failed & my disillusion total BUT the process of learning human behaviour was commenced and, as far as I know, will never finished.

When I asked the famous approach question the answer was a total surprise for me: “How are you.”

:O !!! What’s going on? He don’t care, absolutly don’t care about. I was totally asthonished. In french, for instance, it’s very unpolite to answer to a question by the same question. (With an other question it is irony not unpoliteness except with morons which take it personnaly and especially the st00pid girls of the Upper-Evpuryvrh, a spot in Eastern & French Canada, where irony shows some lights of intelligence therefore an insult to them, to their “everybodies must be identical” attitude…)

The way to answer this approach question in french give the illusion that poeple care about how you are whereas american english is more brutal but frank: nobodies really care. Nobodies except if you are in bad mood and naive enough to give the true answer. In this case, about 90% of poeple don’t care and the rest rejoice with…

For sure, as you expect, if this question is asked you by your physician, you have enough insight to understand that, this time, you have to tell the truth and, as you normally expected, your Doctor will care about. Keep this in mind for later…

Modern medical knowledge is based on the biology researches & discoveries. The physician practice is based on biological theories accepted as true by the scientific communauty. This is an applied science of the biology as well as engeneering is the application of the physic science if you want a comparison.

One of the most important characteristic of the science, pure and applied, is the importance given to the observations of the facts on which I would insist in this 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. The other important characteristic is, as we learned from Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton: the theories must not be forged by imagination but based on verified observations and hypothesis are expressed in the language of the science: mathematics.

The science in is true meaning is an combination of  research of all the facts and the accuracy of the mathematics. The possibility of that kind of knowledge was discorered by Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei in the Renaissance period. {Science, stricto sensu, is a kind of knowledge not THE knowledge}.

When a theory can’t explain all the facts in the field of a scientific research this drive to the development of a new theory to explain in a better way what the previous theory was unable to handle and it is, most often, a reform instead of a revolution. Most of the time a new and accepted theory explain in a better way more facts that the previous accepted theory and, also, why the previous one was uncorrect. This new theory is often more simpler and therefore more elegant…

Here the third important characteristic of the science: the theories and the facts have to be verified by the other scientifics of the same field of knowledge and must be widely verified and accepted by a scientfic consensus of this specific “community” not by everybodies and not by anybodies else. The Science is, to speak in terms of  Politic a “Federation of Republics”. To participate and express your advice in a specific science you must have the “Citizenship” of this “Republic”. Want to talk scientifically of physic? You have to be a physician which is the “Citizenship” of the “Republic of Physicians”. But nobodies may have a “Citizenship” of the Federation because the generic word “science” don’t mean there is somethings like THE science.

As we learned from William of Ockham, from the linguistic existence of a word it is unlogic to make a deduction of the existence of a corresponding entity. The word “Unicorn” exist as a word but not unicorns (as animal like a moose) and the word “moose” exist as word and mean that animal founded in northen forests of the septentrional hemisphere but mooses will exist even the word “moose” is unexistent as a word… Signs are used as a way to mean and must have no meaning by themselves. They related to somethings else not to themselves. A true sign is, to use a poetic way to express it, not selfish at all and full of generosity, like the ONE of Plotinus, giving what he don’t have.

It let you make your own research on these issues and suggest you to start with the works of Bertrand Russell. But let me give you this last remark: observations are better than any word even a very “scientific” one. Hypothesis help to orientation to the facts but never replace or creating facts. If you believed in a word as a replacement for a clever observation you leave the way of science, pure or applied, and behave, to make a comparison, like a computer program unabled to get information from outside and relying on his own list of data. In the knowledge field it is called a BIAS.  Very bad for observations & therefore for a scientific approach of the problem as you see. Keep this in mind for the rest of this story…

But now it’s the recreation period and,  just for you ,  this funny video. The conclusion of this story will come after…

Funny Video / Vidéo Rigolo

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To keep my long digression short, the scientific way even in applied sciences like medecine may be understood by three criterias which are: Reason, Observations and… Trust.

Trust in the Reason, trust in the other poeples reason, trust in the value of observations, trust in the value of the other poeple observations but not a blind trust for any of them. If this trust is lost, for any of these criterias or about their relations, what we call “science” is lost.

If Trust is lost for observations, you’re going  into what Francis Bacon call the Way of the Spider, if you lost the Trust for the Reason in the Way of the Ant. Lord Verulam prefer the Way of the Bee but where talking about human and I strongly prefer the Way of Human in science even I like the bees and other animals useful for us or not. (I like for instance bacterias making beer or yogurt as well as other bacterias doing nothing good for us AND nothings bad.) I let you find out what’s happen when both Reason and Observations becomes untrustable…

Reason in the meaning used here mean not only what a person think but also what a person communicate to the other and with the others. In the Federation of the Republics of Sciences this communication must be free, universal and open. This is again a question of Trust.

By the way, one of the most interesting field of research today is in the Theory of Communication like the School of Palo Alto and works from people like Gregory Bateson, Paul Watzlawick, Don D. Jackson et al. as well as the Cognitive Theory used in the treatment of mood disorder by poeple like Dr. David D. Burns. I let you make your own investigations on these subjects…

And now let me finished with the authentic story of a patient and his physician and how bias, bad observations and a lack of communication drive this patient in a situation not far from a (bad) remake of a Kafkaian novel.

The patient had a long story of repetitive depression, a mood disorder supposed to be well known today as well as correctly treated by modern medecine. After a year of (successful) treatment the time arrived to renew the prescription of the antidepressor and, in the mind of the patient, to go further and begin to control his very high blood pressure as well as his level of bad cholesterol.

This story happen last year, just before the period of Xmas and New Year festivities and the patient was happy to meet again members of his family at this occasion. The patient arrived at his appointment with the Doctor and was happy to meet her again, because she’s a sympathic young women and because he was also happy to tell her how much the treatment was successful…

- How are you? ask the Doctor.

- Very well thank you and you Doctor? reply politely the patient.

Believe it or not, this answer act as a trigger for this resident Doctor and she conclude that this patient suffer of a beginning of a severe maniac episode, in other word, this patient is not a successfully treated depressed patient but a case of bipolar disorder. She change the diagnosis and the prescription: droping by half the antidepressor dose and add a dose Lithium carbonate.

To be more accurate, this patient was asked many times before about possible maniac episodes and always tell the truth: he never suffer any kind of these symptoms. No observation of any kind to drive to a bipolar disorder diagnosis except one thing: bias from the physician.

Trusting his Doctor the patient start the new treatment and pass a very bad period of Xmas and New Years festivities. His bad mood comes back, he becomes more irritated, more sad and a month later renew with the experience of suicidal ideas… See the picture?

He was a very experienced patient and instead of closing his mouth and let the things goes in this very bad way, the patient return to see the Doctor and meet a nurse, another Doctor and finally (in the same day) the supervisor of his Doctor. Nobodies there was understanding why this patient was so upset. (After all this is only his health and life.) How this patient may  put in question the skills of a Doctor of Medecine… ?

They send him to the Psychiatric Department of the nearest hospital to have second diagnostic this time by a psychiatrist. The exam was performed and confirm the patient was right and the Doctor wrong. The correct diagnosis was depression not bipolar disorder. Period.

To give you more insight in this case you have to know that the Dr of Psychiatry who makes the second diagnosis who was actively listening the patient but also avoid to make the diagnosis based on other things than the facts: observations and communications with &  from this patient.

The most funny things in this story was a remark from the psychiatrist about the wrong bipolar disorder diagnosis: giving a bipolar diagnosis to almost every depressed patient is nowadays a fashionable diagnostic of the medical services or in a less diplomatic way: a preconceived diagnosis. A kind of catch-22 situation where the patient is “bipolar” if he have OR if he don’t have the symptoms revealed by the anamnesis and the clinical signs . This preconcieved diagnosis drive these average physicians (Dr. Knock emulators) to interpret all recovery signs  from depression as proofs of bipolar disorder or in other word: If you feel good you’re sick.

References / Références

Video founded via Nicolas Roberge on Twitter

Original page of the video: The Onion

My  post about related subjects / Mes articles sur des sujet reliés

L’exil Transcendantal ou la Vie

Do you suffer from political apathy?

Your Comment… / Votre Commentaire…

Publishing tools / Outils de publication

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[{p ٧ ¬p}W{p ۸ ¬p}] ٧ significare aut crepare ٧ σημασία ἤ θόρυβος …

Which Mormon group is the “Restored Church”?

Introduction

We will study this question by first (in Part 1) looking at the various divergent Mormon sects, then (in Part 2) examining why this division constitutes further proof that Mormonism can in no way be considered a “restoration” of Christianity.

Part 1: How many Mormon sects are there?

The more important Mormon groups

1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)

2. The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS)(Independence, Missouri, USA) now renamed to the Community of Christ, under president W. Grant McMurray,

This groups came into existence in the 1850s under the leadership of Joseph Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III. This group believes Joseph Smith II was nominated by the founding Joseph Smith as his successor. The Utah-based LDS group, however, disagrees.

Interestingly this group owns the historical Mormon properties in Kirtland, Ohio; this being the outcome of court case with the LDS group, the courts having decided the then RLDS had more claim (from a doctrinal standpoint) to be the church founded by Joseph Smith Jr. than the Utah–based LDS group.

In the 1970’s the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints began to experience what many lay members considered to be serious problems with the hierarchy of the church trying to change the church. The main changes were “a major shift in the General Church teachings a de-emphasis of the Book of Mormon, the Second Advent and celestial life in favor of more conventional Protestant-like Christianity” (Saints Herald, January 1974, p. 52).

What Is The Difference between the LDS and the RLDS (now Community of Christ)?

Salt-Lake City based LDS uses KJV or Joseph Smith’s Translation (aka the “Inspired Version”); their second President, Brigham Young, taught God the Father was once a man (Adam), a doctrine which has never been revoked; teaches “eternal progression” to godhood; use secret temple rites; practises baptism for the dead; temple marriage is for eternity; God the Father Son and Holy Spirit are three separate “Gods”; accepts the Pearl of Great Price as Scripture.

Independence Missouri- based RLDS (now Community of Christ):uses “Inspired Version”; do not believe God was once a man; does not believe in “eternal progression” claim never to have used secret temple rites; claim Zion is Missouri; does not and never did, condone baptism for the dead; marriage only for earthly life; believes God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit exists in three different “modes” not Persons; rejects the Pearl of Great Price.

Both sects of course claim to be the “restored” church. When the LDS missionaries come knocking, they wil not tell you that the second largest Mormon group (the Community of Christ) believes very much differently from the Utah based LDS group.

3. Church of Christ -Temple Lot (Temple Lot, Independence, Missouri)- one early leader, Granville Hedrick, called Joseph Smith a “fallen prophet”. This group teaches that there has been apostasy from the restored gospel faith. This group was also involved in a lawsuit with the RLDS over ownership of the Temple Lot. By 1869 they purchased the original “temple lot” in Independence Missouri.

How does the Temple Lot church differ doctrinally from the LDS and RLDS?

In contrast to the LDS and RLDS, the Temple Lot group have no first presidency, high priests or patriarchs, and no prophet as leader (having 12 “apostles” instead). In common with the RLDS group, they reject the Pearl of Great Price, the doctrines of celestial marriage and eternal progression, and baptism for the dead.

Lesser known groups

The Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Missouri, USA) Founded 6 April 1991 at the Waldo Avenue Church in Independence, Missouri. The RLDS Church was declared “out of order” and the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was founded in its place. In 1992 and 1994, two small schismatic groups, in their turn, left this group.

There also exist fundamentalist groups that do not accept the revelation which ended the practice of polygamy.

The Church of Christ With the Elijah Message (Blue Springs, Missouri, USA).

The Church of Jesus Christ (based in Pittsburgh, USA).

The Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times (Mexico) now defunct.

The Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerites) (Independence, Missouri) founded by Alpheus Cutler, 1853 – distinguished between church and kingdom

The Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (based in Louisiana USA). Rejects the Doctrines and Covenants standard LDS work

The Restored Church of Jesus Christ (Independence, Missouri, USA) – also claims to be founded by Joseph Smith, Jr.

The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days (Manti, Utah, USA) these believe “that the fullness that Joseph Smith Jr. restored has been corrupted”. The Manti group split into two groups in late 1994.

Further information on several of these groups can be found at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbowie/restore/restoration.html . For a comprehensive list of Mormon sects, please see the book “Divergent Paths of the Restoration” by Steven L. Shields (1990) which discusses more than a hundred different mormon sects.

So we see that there exist many Mormon sects, with even the main groups differing widely on doctrinal points.

Part 2: What do the divisions in Mormonism tell us?

Mormons will point to the apparent unity of their church and say it is proof theirs is the one true church. Mormon missionaries will not tell you, however, that the Utah-based LDS church is one of over a hundred mormon sects, or that there are numerous differences in doctrine between the Utah-based LDS group and the next largest group, the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS).

Do not for one moment, dear reader, believe that the Mormon religion resents a unified faith system that consists in some “restored gospel”. Mormon claims therefore to hold the true “restored” and “everlasting” gospel ring very shallow indeed when we discover that their doctrines are products of the 19th century, and that, like so many other religious sects, divided into multitudinous doctrinally divergent sects after the death of their first leader in 1844 and subsequent decades.

Is it not so much easier to simply conclude that there never was any “restoration” because there never was any apostasy?

This is the obvious answer, and the correct one. (Other pages on this website deal with this subject also.) None of the Mormon sects claiming to be the “restored” church are what they say, precisely because there was no “restoration”!

It is also of no value for LDS to counter that the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism are as great, if not greater, than the divisions betweent the Mormon sects.

(Important to remember: it is not necessary for a Catholic to defend the divisions of Protestantism; Protestantism, in the same way as Mormonism, is divided because it is in error.) This Mormon argument can be a bit confusing when first encountered: in witnessing to the truth, a Catholic only has to point to the unity of Catholicism, not the disunity of Protestantism.

Also, the authority of the Catholic Church had been accepted for the first 15 centuries; the authority of the sect of Joseph Smith’s followers was repudiated as soon as he was dead. The authority of 15 centuries will not be broken by the rebellion of a few Protestant leaders whose teachings themselves subeequently underwent countless divisions.

Remember, the Mormons claim to present the “restored gospel” so any divisions among them is automatic proof they do not have this. In contrast, the sects which left the Catholic Church over the centuries present no proof that the original teaching of the Church has been corrupted, a requirement for the Mormon “restoration” in the first place. (We will not even begin to discuss the glaring absence of Mormon doctrines from the early centuries of the Church)

It is also of no use for Mormons to claim one sect is true, and all other groups broke away from it. This view requires that the original sect be known. But both the RLDS and the LDS claim this title, as well as many other groups! Historically there were many sects after the death of Joseph Smith. The US courts ruled that the RLDS (now Community of Christ) was the closest to Smith’s original church. Where does that leave the Utah-based LDS group? Which was first?

Even more importantly, the Mormon sects cannot show that there was an “apostasy” in the early days of the Church. Without this evidence, of course, all their talk about “restoration of the gospel” is pointless.

So what do we see? The doctrine of the Catholic Church has been maintained a unified whole for 20 centuries, the doctrines of Mormonism split in every direction after the death of its founder Joseph Smith. The doctrines of Protestantism likewise split in every direction after the Protestant revolt established a foothold.

The one true Church has exhibited doctrinal unity through 2,000 years and now has over a billion adherents. That is the Holy Catholic Church. Her source of unity is not the empty boasting of some self-appointed prophet but the Holy Spirit. Those who seek the truth need look no further. Herein is unity as given by the Holy Spirit. Outside is chaos. The sincere Mormon reader is urged to look at the claims of the Catholic Church and to prayerfully seek the true Christ where He may be found.

Conclusion

Mormonism has split into a variety of sects since its foundation less than two centuries ago. Such division bears the hallmark of a religion invented by man. Mormon founder Joseph Smith once boasted:

“Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet.” Joseph Smith, Mormon founder, History of the Church, Vol. 6, pp. 408-409

The followers of the Latter – Day Saints did run away from him, into over a hundred different sects.

The Catholic Church, in contrast, has preserved a supernatural unity throughout 2000 years, a unity promised not by man, but by the Holy Spirit.

http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/mormon/mormonsects.html 

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The Pattern of the Double-Bind in Mormonism 

In the fall of 1997, my son, Matt, and I discovered Eric Kettunen’s internet site, Recovery from Mormonism. Matt replied to Eric and posted his letter (#70); soon after, Matt started his own Higher Mormon site.

Until that time, we thought that we were alone in our discoveries about Mormonism and in leaving the church. As I read each Post, I was impressed with the similarities of personal experiences … and how they coincided with my own. I could see aspects of The Pattern in each Post and some explicitly contained all aspects. They filled in, and clarified more fully the stages of this Pattern in Mormonism for me.

Stage 1 Problem – Anxiety – Question – Fear
Stage 2-3 Agreement – Ambiguity 
Stage 4 Double-Bind – Reversal – Guilt/Fear
Stage 5 Denial – Humiliation – Dehumanized 
Stage 6 Accusation – Demonized – Guilt/Shame
Stage 7 Punishment – Compulsion/Subjection – “Black is White”
Stage 8 Bound – Love/Hate – “Voluntary” Union
Stage 9 Psychological Cannibalism – Suicide

Stage 4 Double-Bind – Reversal – Guilt/Fear

THE MAZE OF MORMONISM

Prologue to Stage 4. This stage is built upon stages 2 and 3. A promise was made and then not fulfilled. A “but” was then inserted as the reason for not receiving what was promised. The “but”-excuse then becomes a replacement for the promise; something was not done “right” by the would-be recipient who is now blamed for not being able to receive. Obedience to the “but” is now required to become worthy to receive.

Stage 4: The Double-Bind – “Guilty, Guilty” – Reversals – Rape of Mind
“You are damned if you do a thing,” and “You are damned if you don’t do it.”

Reversal: “Guilty, Guilty” – Rape of the Mind

One classic Double-Bind in Mormonism is in regards to receiving the “burning in the bosom,” the manifestation of the Holy Ghost, as a requirement for a testimony and sanctification. The promise is that if you pray sincerely you will receive a “burning in the bosom,” which is the manifestation that the Book of Mormon is true. If you don’t receive a “burning in the bosom,” you were not “sincere,” or there are other things you must do to be “worthy” of receiving it. This is the “Yes, but” stage; “Yes, you prayed, but……” The “but” then, becomes the focal point, the “hook.” It becomes “the carrot on the end of a stick” that can never be reached and becomes the means for your being judged “guilty” for your inability to work hard enough to “get it.” This leads into the blatant Double-Bind, which says:

If you don’t obey the “But-things,” you will be “guilty” of not being “sincere,” not trying hard enough.

If you do obey the “But-things,” you are “guilty” because you still haven’t received the “burning in the bosom,” which you would have received had you done them properly.

At this point many other suggestions are given to help you “earn,” through work, what was promised you if you were only “sincere” and had worked hard enough. You now need “help” in order to prepare yourself to be made “worthy” of receiving this “gift.” More “buts” are issued, as “helps,” and the fact that you are outnumbered makes you feel that “I am the only one who doesn’t get it” … you think that “if I work hard enough I will not be the only one who can’t ‘get it.’” The truth is, the many others, also, “don’t get it,” i.e., they have been caught in the same maze. The irony is that the ones who “can’t get it” are the ones who are sincere, and authentic … the ones who are earnestly trying to keep the integrity of their own minds. (See Post #19 below.)

This leads to another Dilemma:

We are told we must live by faith alone, in a non-physical, i.e., a non-brain, non-rational, mental state. At the same time, we are told that the sign of the physical “burning in the bosom” is proof of the Book of Mormon, the necessary confirmation of its being true. The irony is the reverse. A “burning in the bosom” only happens in the real world as an extension of a true, physical brain-perception leading to a rational result. It does not occur when our individual perceptions and our brain are not involved.

This is a Double-Bind:

If you do have faith and relinquish your brain, you cannot, in reality, reach a confirmation of a truth. The means have been taken away.

If you don’t have faith, and rely on your brain, you will not find the confirmation of the truth of something that is false.

In both cases, you will be judged “guilty” of not receiving the “burning in the bosom.” Again, Momonism juxtaposes opposites, pits them against each other, and then, subtly uses the opposite (reason) for the proof of faith … which is doomed to fail.

The Binder divides, pitting faith and reason against each other, and by that means, conquers. Reason has to be the enemy of faith, which in the Double-Bind is necessary, but not to be seen … it becomes the Satan that is there, yet … is not there. The Mormon Apostle, Boyd P. Packer said that reason is the enemy of God, and a state of war has been declared against it. He says, “In an effort to be objective, impartial, and scholarly, a writer or a teacher may unwittingly be giving equal time to the adversary… In the Church we are not neutral. We are one-sided. There is a war going on, and we are engaged in it.” (From his talk: Do not spread disease germs!) The Closed System is “one-sided” (only non-brain faith is allowed). On the one hand, it turns its back on reason, the Open System; on the other hand, it claims “reason” in “lip service.” The dual personality in Mormonism is the “Yes,” reason, “But,” at the same time, it is “non-reason.”

This is why members “fail” to receive the “gift” of confirmation: they are sincere! They are relying on their own true perceptions, the means to reason and Self-control, which is a brain related activity. The reason more “work” is demanded of individuals who “fail” is that their minds have not yet been “converted” to the upside-down world of programmed “Yes, but”-thinking and the feelings that are attached to that view. When this is not seen, the means of survival in the real world are gradually eroded making us totally dependent and compliant to a fabricated idea that is designed, step by step, to dehumanize those who are enticed into it unknowingly.

It will be helpful to know that each step, or stage, is connected by a “hook;” the transitions between each is very subtle. In this case, the “hook” is the “but.” In each stage, once the “hook” is accepted, it becomes the connecting link to the next one. This is the insidious nature of The Pattern.

The Double-Bind as Experienced by Women in Mormonism

Guilt – Reversal
(A very common Double-Bind is when it is used to coerce the bearing of testimonies.)

“The last straw was drawn when they expected me to offer my testimony. The missionaries had taught me that a person should create their own prayers, as opposed to repeating prayers as the catholics do. ….That Sunday, however, after a few members had recited their chorus line (using the same set of words), it appeared everybody’s eyes were on me. I did not get up. Immediately following the closing prayer, the missionary came to shake my hand and said, very loudly, ‘we need our friend here to give her testimony.’

Her Double-Bind:
If she did bear her testimony, she would be labeled “good.” She would, however, in reality, be guilty of going against herself.

If she didn’t bear her testimony, she would be labeled “bad.”

She would be going against the church and her “voluntary” commitment that must be confirmed over and over again … “guilty.”

Post #16. See: Stage 1, Stages 2-3, Post #16.

(The Double-Bind is always FOR the BINDER, and AGAINST the BOUND, the individual Self. It is reinforced through repetition until there is no longer a Self to go against; the mind then is silenced into obedience and is labeled “good.”)

Double-Bind – Guilt/Fear
“After baptism I continued to ask questions …. Being an orphan, “I asked them (the missionaries) about illegitimate orphans. They said that orphans were less valiant in the pre-existence. They were not born into homes where they would have parents and it was because of how they lived in the pre-existence. I felt sick to my stomach. I knew that if I had been taught that belief before baptism I would never have joined the church. Now that I was a member I figured that if I became the very best Mormon I could be I would win God’s favor and He would forgive me for being less valiant in the pre-existence. I hoped I could clean the slate for I never wanted to come face to face with God and feel His disappointment because I had been less valiant in the pre-existence. I was always afraid to ask if God had forgiven me for what I had done in the pre-existence and how I could ask for forgiveness when I didn’t know what it was I did. Or, was I suppose to be asking for forgiveness for not being valiant but valiant in what? How could I know? So I just kept trying to be a good Mormon.” (Italics, mine.)

Her Double-Bind: Guilt/Fear.
She would be damned if she did remain a Mormon.
It would be against herself, her own perceptions. (“Guilty)

She would be damned if she didn’t remain a Mormon.

She would (1) not be valiant in this life; (2) she would forfeit her chance to work out her “repentence” for not being “valiant” in the pre-existence, plus, (3) she would then be denied entrance into the Celestial Kingdom in the next life. (She would have failed in her past life, her present life and therefore, her future life: “Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.”)
Post #22-1, #37. See Stage 1, 2-3. #22-1, #37.

Double-Bind – Guilt
“Right after we were married, our stake president wanted to discuss sex with us. He told us that rather than continue the old approach of inquiring into every prurient thought, the church would leave it to our discretion what sexual practices were permissible. …This …coming from an old guy we hardly knew who had but weeks before been asking my husband about masturbation. It was also too little, too late, for resurrecting the idea that sex between married people is okay. Being told to be fruitful and multiply is one thing, but after years of being told that sex is forbidden, evil, unclean, and transforms the woman into some revolting thing like “used gum” or a “half-eaten cookie,” it is unrealistic to think that normal sexual functioning could result from such constant negative conditioning.”

The Double-Bind:
You are damned if you do have sex.

Sex is forbidden, evil, and unclean; the woman is like a gardenia, once it has been touched it turns brown, and can never return to its white purity. “Evil”

You are damned if you don’t have sex.

You are commanded to have sex … to have as many children as you can; this is “Good.” At the same time you are “Evil,” because you break the first forbidden sex-commandment.
Post #43, See: Stage 1, #43.

Rape of the Mind and Body – Double-Bind – Guilt and Fear

(The following is the cruelest use of the Double-Bind of all these posts … not with an adult, but with a totally defenseless child.)

“My father was in jail for domestic abuse against my mother. My mother turned to the church for financial help because she was trying to raise me, my sister, and my brother on her own. She did have a job at a nursing home, but it wasn’t enough to cover food. The Bishop agreed to help her, providing that she would clean the church. Just a few light duties: washing the windows and vacuuming, mostly. I was in charge of vacuuming. My mom had a key to the church and I would go over there when she was at work and make sure that it was all vacuumed every Saturday so that it would be ready for Sunday. (She was only 7 years old.)

My experience all started when I ran into a counselor in the bishopric. On that particular day, I remember being very upset because I was constantly being teased by the other kids because my dad was in jail. The counselor sat me down on his lap in the chapel and asked me to tell him why I was crying. He was so kind! So wonderful! This was a man of God wanting to know about ME! I told him everything. I trusted him and was really happy for the attention! I went home that day very happy and grateful for my new friend.”

(Gradually, each Saturday, this counselor began subtly to molest her. She was confused, but really didn’t understand or question it) “because, after all — he was a member of the bishopric. I was extremely uncomfortable with this behavior, but he always told me that I was “special.” And that he loved me like I was his own little girl. I should never tell, because that would break the promises we had made to each other in the church. ….Once I told my mom that I didn’t want to clean the church anymore, she told me that if I didn’t then I would be responsible for the church taking food away from our family. Did I really want to do that? NO. I couldn’t handle it.” (The molestation increased until eventually there were more than three penetrations by this counselor.) “I just kept thinking it MUST be okay because come Sunday, he would be sitting up there on the stand and wink at me once in awhile, or lead the opening remarks and after all, this was a man called of God. If God thought that it was okay, then it must be okay.” ….(After her baptism and in the chapel for her confirmation, this counselor stood nearby with his eyes closed, and his head bowed. She was very disturbed. The next Saturday, she tried to resist him and he roughly forced her. Fortunately, her family moved shortly after that.)

This 7 year-old child had not only to contend with one Double-Bind, but two.

Double-Bind #1.
If she did tell anyone: The counselor had told her that she would be breaking the promise that they had made in God’s church.

If she didn’t tell anyone: He would be free to continue his molestation of her.

Double-Bind #2.
If she didn’t go to the church every Saturday to vacuum: Her family wouldn’t have enough food to eat.

If she did go to the church: She would be subject to more abuse from the counselor.
Post #61.

* * *

The Double-Bind every member encounters in the Temple is:

You will be damned if you do speak of the “sacred” oaths and penalties …. (made without prior knowledge) …. outside the temple.

You go against your “voluntary” oath, and against the Binder.

You are damned if you don’t speak of them.

You go against yourself; you are silenced through Fear of punishment
and “Guilt.”

* * *

“I didn’t say anything to anyone because your not supposed to discuss those things outside the temple, and I felt strange bringing up the question in the celestial room. That was not the time to question anyone. ….I was never prepared for that (the penalties), but my mom and dad were there, so I thought they understood everything and it was something they did all the time.”Post #33.

Double-Bind – Guilt/Fear.
Another way to express the Double-Bind in Mormonism, is described by this Post.

“Their (Mormonism) treatment of homosexuals seeking help is appalling. While I am not gay, I was involved with a gay member of the church, and the hell he was put through–even as he begged for help–was appalling. Instead of self-acceptance for EVERY member, the church teaches conditional love:

“If you do this and this and this, the church/God will love you and find you worthy.”

(If it is in the interest of the Binder, it will be against the self, the individual … then, it is “good.”)

“If you do not do this and this, you are damned for all time–starting here and starting now.”
(If it is for your Self, or an individual, it is against the Binder; you are then, “evil.”)
Post #69 See: Stage 2-3, #69.

Note:
The Mormon Apostle, Boyd K. Packer says, “We must be one-sided, all facing one-way.” … towards the organization (the Closed System), not towards the individual. “It is critical that all of us work together and put aside personal interests.” He refers to individuals as exceptions that take the church away from the many others who are in more need than the few. The church’s plan for the membership is simplication and reduction, for the general welfare of all, not the particular; all members are to be reduced to the lowest common denominator; individuals not keeping up with the herd are expendable. The other word for them is pariah, an outcast.

The Double-Bind as Experienced by Men in Mormonism

Double-Bind – Fear
“I’ve removed my web page. I’ve chosen an alias because I’m still trying to find a way to bring my page back. (He had left the church and was stating his opinion on his web site.) It was my mistake for using my real name. I felt that to do otherwise would be cowardly. I guess the joke’s on me. …… the members (of the church) in my parents area started to mobilize. My parents were harrassed by people they’ve gone to church with for over 20 years. Instead of exhibiting Christian-type values such as comforting them for the loss of a son from Mormonism, they received emotional blackmail instead. My father’s health started to suffer as a result of it.”

If he did use his real name, his family (who were still members of the church) would be harrassed to the point of injury.

If he didn’t use his real name, he would be false to himself by concealing his identity.
Post #2 See: Stages 2-3, #2

Double-Bind – Fear/Guilt
“My earliest memories of the church, while not necessarily negative, are not really positive either. They are sort of bland; null, if you will. What I do remember are impressions of not seeing what everyone else seemed to be seeing, and feeling left out as a result. I would sit through the meetings, wondering if there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t get up in front of the whole congregation and spout the same platitudes that my peers did. What prevented me from thinking and speaking as the others around me?

“My father always called me “Mister Blunt” because I was unfailingly honest in my appraisals of people and situations. This got me into trouble more than once over the years. But, in this context, I could not testify to something which I did not really feel.

“The years passed, …. The same lack of feeling was present at my ordination, and so on through my teen years….I did the things that I was told to do, for to disobey my dad would bring swift retribution. I was always the “dutiful son.” I just figured that I didn’t feel anything because I wasn’t “worthy” for some strange reason or other.”
Post #19. See Stages 2-3. #19.

The 13th Article of Faith in Mormonism says:: “We believe in being honest, true …..” However,

This young man was damned if he was honest.
His honest appraisals were construed to be false; he was “bad” if he told the truth.

He was damned if he wasn’t honest;
He would be going against his own integrity; he would be “good” only if he lied.

Because Mormonism is a Closed System,”one-sided,” there can only be one view, that of the Binder, which leaves out reason, choice and universal principles. Lip service only is given to the words “honest” and “true,” as if they were being applied in the universal, rational sense. New converts are attracted by the label “truth” and “universal principles” … the “Yes,” we believe in being honest, true ….” Later, the “meat,” i.e., the church’s true definitions replace the universal. The universal principle of being true has to do with the individual being true to himself and with his fellowman. In Mormonism, the Church replaces the individual’s identity, converting the possession of “truth” to the Church, i.e., the individual disappears into the Body Politic of the Church which contains all “truth.” The thinking has already been done for all its members.

Double-Bind – Guilt/Fear
“Charles, a teen ager, … mentally retarded … who clearly didn’t know right from wrong … had been baptized … his family were not Mormons. I didn’t understand how he could have made a rational decision to be baptized into the Mormon Church, but there he was-an Aaronic priesthood holder. One day Charles told me something I will never forget. Something that really sums up Mormonism. He said that he had read some “anti-Mormon” literature which caused a lot of doubts to enter his mind. He then visited and sought counsel with the bishop. Surprisingly, the bishop did not tell Charles to stop reading “anti-Mormon” material. Instead he told Charles to read 15 minutes of “anti-Mormon” material, and then read 15 minutes of the Book of Mormon or other church approved material. After having read both,

Charles was to determine which of the two made him “feel” good.

Since the “anti-Mormon” material would obviously cause doubt and bad feelings, it was false.

Since the “pro-Mormon” material would make Charles feel good, it was true.

This was an exercise in “truth detection” as given by our bishop…. discern truth with your feelings, not your mind.”
Post #28. See: Stage 1, 2-3, #28.

(The means by which this Double-Bind could be seen, or by which a rational choice could be made, was not there for Charles, nor is it there for any member who can’t, or does not, use reason.)

Double-Bind – Guilt/Fear
(The following is the Double-Bind experienced by members when they consider leaving the church. Most have members of their family who are still active participants in Mormonism and have all been staunch members from birth.)

“I will probably receive harsh criticism from your other readers for not “being true to myself and others,” explaining to those I love my current beliefs. However, it’s just not that easy when almost everyone I know … is and has been a faithful LDS member and proponent their entire life.” Post # 34

The Double-Bind:
To stay in Mormonism, aids the Binder, and is against your Self … and your family.
To leave Mormonism, divorces you from your family, and you become an “outcast.”

Double-Bind #1 – Guilt/Fear
“About seven years ago, there was a PBS documentary done on the LDS Church and its missionaries. Several returned missionaries admitted that they did not “know” the church was true, even while they had said they did as a missionary. ….one of the LDS secrets is that there is a great deal of peer pressure on missionaries to say “I know,” whether or not they do. I would note that while I lied, I did so while feeling caught by my obligation to serve God. I had been taught that it was my duty to serve God as missionary, that “every worthy young man should serve a mission.” I had been taught those who prayed sincerely and in righteousness would receive a testimony and if they had not, one chief reason would be that they were not recognizing the answer God was giving.”

Double-Bind:
If you lie, you are “good.”
You go against yourself.

If you tell the truth, you are “bad.”
You go against the Binder.

Double-Bind #2 “Mental Illness” – “Delusions of Grandeur”

“Further, some suggest that I was emotionally ill. There is no doubt that I was. The only question is what was the cause and the exact nature of my “mental illness.” They suggest that, in a mild form, I was suffering delusions of grandeur, caused by my close association with that other fellow, Brad Thompson, who happened to be my EQ president when I first came to BYU. He also, in his own way, suffered delusions of grandeur. In a way, this suggestion is no doubt true. The only question is as to whether Mormonism itself feeds such delusions.”
Post #38 See: Stage 2-3, #38

(This is another version of the promise that you “will receive …..” (fill in any blessings “given” you), then when it isn’t fulfilled you are accused of wanting to be “the center of the world.”)

Double-Bind:
If he didn’t have faith that his blessings would be fulfilled, he would be faithless and “guilty.”

If he did believe they would be fulfilled, but they were not … he was guilty of “suffering delusions of grandeur” in thinking that he could expect what others had not yet received.

Double-Bind – Guilt
“Free Agency as taught by the church: “I am free to choose good or evil.” In practice, Mormon free agency is a sort of bondage. It amounts to:

“If I obey authority and do not think for myself then I have “chosen” Good.”
“If I do not obey authority and think for myself then I have chosen Evil.”
Post #70.

http://www.exmormon.org/pattern/stage4.htm

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An Indian Reply to President Zardari:

Rewarding Pakistan for bad behaviour leads to schizophrenic relationships

by

Subroto Roy

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s recent argument in the New York Times resembles closely the well-known publications of his ambassador to the United States, Mr Husain Haqqani.  Unfortunately, this Zardari-Haqqani thesis about Pakistan’s current predicament in the world and the world’s predicament with Pakistan is shot through with clear factual and logical errors. These  need to be aired because true or useful conclusions cannot be reached from mistaken premises or faulty reasoning.

1.  Origins of Pakistan, India, J&K, and their mutual problems

Mr Zardari makes the following seemingly innocuous statement:

“…. the two great nations of Pakistan and India, born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947, must continue to move forward with the peace process.”

Now as a matter of simple historical fact, the current entities in the world system known as India and Pakistan were not “born together from the same revolution and mandate in 1947”.  It is palpably false to suppose they were and Pakistanis indulge in wishful thinking and self-deception about their own political history if they suppose this.

India’s Republic arose out of the British Dominion known as “India” which was the legal successor of the entity known previously in international law as “British India”.  British India had had secular governance and so has had the Indian Republic.

By contrast, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan arose out of a newly created state in international law known as the British Dominion of Pakistan, consisting of designated territory carved out of British India by a British decision and coming into existence one day before British India extinguished itself. (Another new state, Bangladesh, later seceded from Pakistan.)

The British decision to create territory designated “Pakistan” had nothing to do with any anti-British “revolution” or “mandate” supported by any Pakistani nationalism because there was none.  (Rahmat Ali’s anti-Hindu pamphleteering in London could be hardly considered Pakistani nationalism against British rule.  Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Pashtun patriots saw themselves as Indian, not Pakistani.)

To the contrary, the British decision had to do with a small number of elite Pakistanis — MA Jinnah foremost among them — demanding not to be part of the general Indian nationalist movement that had been demanding a British departure from power in the subcontinent.   Jinnah’s separatist party, the Muslim League, was trounced in the 1937 provincial elections in all the Muslim-majority areas of British India that would eventually become Pakistan.  Despite this, in September 1939, Britain, at war with Nazi Germany, chose to elevate the political power of Jinnah and his League to parity with the general Indian nationalist movement led by MK Gandhi.  (See, Francis Robinson, in William James and Subroto Roy (eds), Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s.)  Britain needed India’s mostly Muslim infantry-divisions — the progenitors of the present-day Pakistan Army — and if that meant tilting towards a risky political idea of “Pakistan” in due course, so it would be.  The thesis that Pakistan arose from any kind of “revolution” or “mandate” in 1947 is  fantasy — the Muslim super-elite that invented and endorsed the Pakistan idea flew from Delhi to Karachi in chartered BOAC Dakotas, caring not a hoot about the vulnerability of ordinary Muslim masses to Sikh and Hindu majority wrath and retaliation on the ground.

Modern India succeeded to the rights and obligations of British India in international law, and has had a recognized existence as a state since at least the signing of the Armistice and Treaty of Versailles in 1918-1919.  India was a founding member of the United Nations, being a signatory of the 1945 San Francisco Declaration, and an original member of the Bretton Woods institutions.  An idea put forward by Argentina that as of 1947 India and Pakistan were both successor states of British India was rejected by the UN (Argentina withdrew its own suggestion), and it was universally acknowledged India was already a member of the UN while Pakistan would have to (and did) apply afresh for membership as a newly created state in the UN.  Pakistan’s entry into the UN had the enthusiastic backing of India and was opposed by only one existing UN member, Afghanistan, due to a conflict that continues to this day over the legitimacy of the Durand Line that bifurcated the Pashtun areas.

Such a review of elementary historical facts and the position in law of Pakistan and India is far from being of merely pedantic interest today.  Rather, it goes directly to the logical roots of the conflict over the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) — a state that itself originated as an entity in the world system a full century before Pakistan was to do so and more than half a century before British India did, but which would collapse into anarchy and civil war in 1947-1949.

Britain (or England) had been a major nation-state in the world system recognized since Grotius first outlined modern international law. On March 16 1846, Britain entered into a treaty, the Treaty of Amritsar, with one Gulab Singh, and the “State of Jammu & Kashmir” came to arise as a recognizable entity in international law for the first time. (See my “History of Jammu and Kashmir” published in The Statesman, Oct 29-30 2006, available elsewhere here.)

Jammu & Kashmir continued in orderly existence as a state until it crashed into legal and political anarchy and civil war a century later.  The new Pakistan had entered into a “Standstill Agreement” with the State of Jammu & Kashmir as of August 15 1947. On or about October 22 1947, Pakistan unilaterally ended that Standstill Agreement and instead caused military forces from its territory to attack the State of Jammu & Kashmir along the Mansehra Road towards Baramula and Srinagar, coinciding too with an Anglo-Pakistani coup d’etat in Gilgit and Baltistan (see my “Solving Kashmir”; “Law, Justice & J&K”; “Pakistan’s Allies”, all published in The Statesman in 2005-2006 and available elsewhere here).

The new Pakistan had chosen, in all deliberation, to forswear law, politics and diplomacy and to resort to force of arms instead in trying to acquire J&K for itself via a military decision.  It succeeded only partially.  Its forces took and then lost both Baramula and Kargil; they may have threatened Leh but did not attempt to take it; they did take and retain Muzaffarabad and Skardu; they were never near taking the summer capital, Srinagar, though might have threatened the winter capital, Jammu.

All in all, a Ceasefire Line came to be demarcated on the military positions as of February 1 1949.  After a war in 1971 that accompanied the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, that Ceasefire Line came to be renamed the “Line of Control” between Pakistan and India. An ownerless entity may be acquired by force of arms — the erstwhile State of Jammu & Kashmir in 1947-1949 had become an ownerless entity that had been dismembered and divided according to military decision following an armed conflict between Pakistan and India.  The entity in the world system known as the “State of Jammu & Kashmir” created on March 16 1846 by Gulab Singh’s treaty with the British ceased to exist as of October 22 1947.  Pakistan had started the fight over J&K but there is a general rule of conflicts that he who starts  a fight does not get to finish it.

Such is the simplest and most practical statement of the history of the current problem.  The British, through their own compulsions and imperial pretensions, raised all the talk about a “Lapse of Paramountcy” of the British Crown over the “Native Princes” of “Indian India”, and of how, the “Native Princes” were required to “accede” to either India or Pakistan.  This ignored Britain’s own constitutional law.  BR Ambedkar pointed out with unsurpassed clarity that no “Lapse of Paramountcy” was possible even for a single logical moment since “Paramountcy” over any “Native Princes” who had not joined India or Pakistan as of August 15 1947, automatically passed from British India to its legal successor, namely, the Dominion of India.   It followed that India’s acquiescence was required for any subsequent accession to Pakistan – an acquiescence granted in case of Chitral and denied in case of Junagadh.

What the Republic of India means by saying today that boundaries cannot be redrawn nor any populations forcibly transferred is quite simply that the division of erstwhile J&K territory is permanent, and that sovereignty over it is indivisible. What Pakistan has claimed is that India has been an occupier and that there are many people inhabiting the Indian area who may not wish to be Indian nationals and who are being compelled against their will to remain so ~  forgetting to add that precisely the same could be said likewise of the Pakistani-held area. The lawful solution I proposed in “Solving Kashmir, “Law, Justice and J&K” and other works has been that the Republic of India invite every person covered under its Article 370, citizen-by-citizen, under a condition of full information, to privately and without fear decide, if he/she has not done so already, between possible Indian, Iranian, Afghan or Pakistani nationalities ~ granting rights and obligations of permanent residents to any of those persons who may choose for whatever private reason not to remain Indian nationals. If Pakistan acted likewise, the problem of J&K would indeed come to be resolved. The Americans, as self-appointed mediators, have said they wish “the people of the region to have a voice” in a solution: there can be no better expression of such voice than allowing individuals to privately choose their own nationalities and their rights and responsibilities accordingly. The issue of territorial sovereignty is logically distinct from that of the choice of nationality by individual inhabitants.

2.  Benazir’s assassination falsely compared to the Mumbai massacres
Secondly, President Zardari draws a mistaken comparison between the assassination last year of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and the Mumbai massacres a few weeks ago.  Ms Bhutto’s assassination may resemble more closely the assassinations in India of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

Indira Gandhi died in “blowback” from the unrest she and her younger son and others in their party had opportunistically fomented among Sikh fundamentalists and sectarians since the late 1970s.  Rajiv Gandhi died in “blowback” from an erroneous imperialistic foreign policy that he, as Prime Minister, had been induced to make by jingoistic Indian diplomats, a move that got India’s military needlessly involved in the then-nascent Sri Lankan civil war.  Benazir Bhutto similarly may be seen to have died in “blowback” from her own political activity as prime minister and opposition leader since the late 1980s, including her own encouragement of Muslim fundamentalist forces.  Certainly in all three cases, as in all assassinations, there were lapses of security too and imprudent political judgments made that contributed to the tragic outcomes.

Ms Bhutto’s assassination has next to nothing to do with the Mumbai massacres, besides the fact the perpetrators in both cases were Pakistani terrorists.  President Zardari saying he himself has lost his wife to terrorism is true but not relevant to the proper diagnosis of the Mumbai massacres or to Pakistan-India relations in general.  Rather, it  serves to deflect criticism and condemnation of the Pakistani state’s pampered handing of Pakistan’s terrorist masterminds, as well as the gross irresponsibility of Pakistan’s military scientists (not AQ Khan) who have been recently advocating a nuclear first strike against India in the event of war.

3.  Can any religious nation-state be viable in the modern world?

President Zardari’s article says:

“The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.”

This may be overly simplistic.  As pointed out in my article “Pakistan’s Allies”,  Gregory Zinoviev himself  after the Bolshevik Revolution had declared that international communism “turns today to the peoples of the East and says to them, ‘Brothers, we summon you to a Holy War first of all against British imperialism!’ At this there were cries of Jehad! Jehad! And much brandishing of picturesque Oriental weapons.” (Treadgold, Twentieth Century Russia, 1990, p. 213).   For more than half of the 20th century, orthodox Muslims had been used by Soviet communists against British imperialism, then by the British and Americans (through Pakistan) against Soviet communism.  Touché! Blowback and counter-blowback!  The real question that arises from this today may be why orthodox Muslims have allowed themselves to be used either way by outside forces and have failed in developing a modern nation-state and political culture of their own.  Europe and America only settled down politically after their religious wars were over.  Perhaps no religious nation-state is viable in the modern world.

4.  Pakistan’s behaviour leads to schizophrenia in international relations

President Zardari pleads for, or perhaps demands, resources from the world:

“the best response to the Mumbai carnage is to coordinate in counteracting the scourge of terrorism. The world must act to strengthen Pakistan’s economy and democracy, help us build civil society and provide us with the law enforcement and counterterrorism capacities that will enable us to fight the terrorists effectively.”

Six million pounds from Mr Gordon Brown, so much from here or there etc –  President Zardari has apparently demanded 100 billion dollars from America and that is the price being talked about for Pakistan to dismantle its nuclear weapons and be brought under an American “nuclear umbrella” instead.

I have pointed out elsewhere that what Pakistan seems to have been doing in international relations for decades is send out “mixed messages” – i.e. contradictory signals,  whether in thought, word or deed.  Clinical psychologists following the work of Gregory Bateson would say this leads to confusion among Pakistan’s interlocutors (a “double bind”) and the symptoms arise of what may be found in schizophrenic relationships.  (See my article “Do President-elect Obama’s Pakistan specialists believe…”; on the “double bind” theory,  an article I chanced to publish in the Journal of Genetic Psychology, 1986, may be of interest).

Here are a typical set of “mixed messages” emanating from Pakistan’s government and opinion-makers:

“We have nuclear weapons
“We keep our nuclear weapons safe from any misuse or unauthorized use
“We are willing to use nuclear weapons in a first strike against India
“We do not comprehend the lessons of Hiroshima-Nagasaki
“We do not comprehend the destruction India will visit upon us if we strike them
“We are dangerous so we must not be threatened in any way
“We are peace-loving and want to live in peace with India and Afghanistan
“We love to play cricket with India and watch Bollywood movies
“We love our Pakistan Army as it is one public institution that works
“We know the Pakistan Army has backed armed militias against India in the past
“We know these militias have caused terrorist attacks
“We are not responsible for any terrorist attacks
“We do not harbour any terrorists
“We believe the world should pay us to not use or sell our nuclear weapons
“We believe the world should pay us to not encourage the terrorists in our country
“We believe the world should pay us to prevent terrorists from using our nuclear weapons
“We hate India and do not want to become like India
“We love India and want to become like India
“We are India and we are not India…”

Etc.

A mature rational responsible and self-confident Pakistan would have said instead:

“We apologise to India and other countries for the outrageous murders our nationals have committed in Mumbai and elsewhere
“We ask the world to watch how our professional army is deployed to disarm civilian and all “non-state” actors of unauthorized firearms and explosives
“We do not need and will not demand or accept a dollar in any sort of foreign aid, military or civilian, to solve our problems
“We realize our economic and political institutions are a mess and we must clean them up
“We will strive to build a society imbued with what Iqbal described as the spirit of modern times..”

As someone who created at great personal cost at an American university twenty years ago the book Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, I have a special interest in hoping that Pakistan shall find the path of wisdom.

Associated Press photo

Thousands of Californians rallied today at the state Capitol here in Sacramento against Proposition 8, which narrowly passed on November 4. Proposition 8, funded mostly by Mormons and Catholics from outside of California, wrote discrimination against same-sex couples into the state constitution after the Repugnican-dominated California Supreme Court (six of the justices were appointed by Repugnican governors, while only one justice was appointed by a Democratic governor) had ruled in May that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry under the rights guaranteed to them by the state’s Constitution. 

So today I attended the second weekend anti-Proposition 8 protest rally at the state Capitol building here in Sacramento. I haven’t seen mainstream media estimates of the crowd’s size in the media yet, but I estimate that it was at least a third bigger than was the first one on November 9, which I also attended.

I had to go to the protest rally today. I’m a gay man who is sick of being told that I don’t deserve the same rights as every other American, am sick of my second-class citizenship status — and hell, I live within walking distance of the Capitol. (And Margaret Cho was there! And she sang an anti-Mormon-cult song that the crowd loved.)

The most poignant part of the rally happened before I even got to the rally, and it was unexpected. A female friend and I walked from my apartment to the protest rally at the Capitol, and while the rally was on the west side of the Capitol, on the east side of the Capitol my friend and I saw and passed, on our way to the rally, a heterosexual wedding party.

Lots of people get married on the east side of the Capitol in what is called Capitol Park. It has a nice rose garden and a little veranda under which couples can exchange their wedding vows.

As the bride and groom and their wedding party passed right by us, the bride in her sweeping white dress and a wedding photographer documenting the bride and groom’s movement, it really struck me that according to California law right now, I can’t get married.

My boyfriend Tony and I have been together in a monogamous relationship for more than a year and a month now. (He would have accompanied me to the protest today, but he had to work.) Tony and I should be able to legally marry if we so choose. We both work and we both pay taxes — but we don’t have equal rights.

People remind me that other groups have had to wait years to get their rights. Getting Americans to do the right thing takes decades, generations, I’m reminded.

You know what?

I don’t want to fucking wait. Right is right and wrong is wrong. There’s nothing to argue about and there’s nothing to wait for.

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR EVERY AMERICAN – NOW.

That’s nonfuckingnegotiable.

And if I hear one more fucking moron say that democracy won out on November 4, I will fucking vomit — preferably on the assbite who has just made that “argument.”

The majority is wrong much of the time.

It has been established that slavery is wrong, but had you put slavery up for a vote in the South before the Civil War, surely the “democratic” majority would have voted for slavery. So is slavery right or wrong? Or does it depend upon the vote? (And one wonders how the South would vote on slavery today…) 

Had the Nazis put the persecution of Jews up for a vote, a majority of German voters would have approved it.

And lest you think I’m just picking on the Nazis again:

The more than 100,000 Japanese American citizens who were rounded up and put in concentration camps during World War II: At the time, had you put the putting of Japanese Americans into concentration camps up for a vote, the majority of Americans would have voted yes. Even the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1944 that the internment of the Japanese Americans was acceptable.

But, Wikipedia notes:

In 1988, [the U.S.] Congress passed and President Ronald Reagan signed legislation [that] apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” About $1.6 billion in reparations were later disbursed by the U.S. government to surviving internees and their heirs.

Internment of the Japanese Americans sure seemed like the thing to do at the time, though! (I’m surprised that there was no serious movement to intern Arab Americans during the post-9/11 hysteria that gripped so many people around me…)

And it wasn’t until 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for any state to outlaw interracial marriage.

I say: Fuck this tyranny of the majority bullshit. EQUAL HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS DON’T GET PUT UP FOR A VOTE!

And Americans need to learn their nation’s fucking history and basic fucking bedrock principles:

In the U.S. Declaration of Independence it reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So are these American concepts and ideals of equality, unalienable rights, and the enumeration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as such unalienable rights actual American concepts and ideals – or if the Mormon cult and the Catholic church pour millions of dollars into a hateful campaign of bigotry and lies and manage to get just more than 50.00 percent of the voters to side with them on their side of ignorance, fear and hatred, can we just burn the Declaration of Independence to ashes, then?

Do we mean it when we say that all are created equal? And that they have unalienable rights, meaning that even a majority vote cannot take away these rights? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — are these for all Americans or just some Americans? Can we vote that a certain segment of Americans may not have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as was the case during slavery or when women couldn’t vote or when we put Japanese Americans into internment camps?

Mormons and Catholics and other “Christo”fascists call gay men sluts when gay men don’t enter into monogamous relationships — yet the “Christo”fascists tell us gay men that we can’t get married, either. When you put a group of people into a double bind like that, what it means is that you just don’t want them to exist at all.

No doubt many if not most of the “Christo”fascists would have us gay men and lesbians outright exterminated, eliminated, if they could, just as the Nazis wanted to exterminate, eliminate, not just Jews, but gay men and others, too. (Uh-oh; I should be careful lest I give the “Christo”fascists an idea for their next ballot-proposition campaign. After all, surely the murder of “undesirables” if perfectly acceptable if you get a majority vote, right? That’s democracy in action, no?)  

You know what? I’m as mad as hell and I’m willing to die for my rights. I won’t just stand by or sit down while the “Christo”fascists try to strip me of my rights. If they win this battle, whose rights will they try to eliminate at the ballot box next? At what point will they not even bother with the ballot box? What freedoms will they continue to destroy until we have the “Christo”fascist state that they desire?

This is a bit cheesy, but very apparently far too many of my fellow Americans need to see it (again):

When the Nazis came for the Communisits,
I remained silent;
I was not a Communist.

When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a Social Democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

– Martin Niemöller

P.S. I’m now seeing estimates in the media that today’s crowd at the Capitol was around 4,500 to 5,000 people. I’d estimate that there were at least that many people at the Capitol today.

Unfortunately, organizers of today’s protest rally had publicized that they were shooting for a crowd of 10,000, making it all too easy for people to deem today’s protest rally a failure, but how often do you see even 100 people rallying together on something that they care about?

Once upon a time, half a century ago, the son of a Pakistani president married the daughter of an American ambassador to Pakistan and moved to Washington.  That might be as good a time as any from which to mark the start of the grip Pakistan’s military and political/bureaucratic elite have managed to have on the process of defining official American policy towards Pakistan and indeed the subcontinent as a whole.

Four young and   doubtless well-meaning Democratic Party “think tank” analysts have now produced a document Partnership for Progress: Advancing a New Strategy for Prosperity and Stability in Pakistan and the Region (Center for American Progress November 2008) that is the latest edition emerging out of that process.

It is hard to find the most simplistic of the statements contained in the document.  My runner-up candidate would be the recommendations that what should happen in Pakistan now is

“Dismantle militant groups and reduce regional tensions;
Bolster civilian governance;
Strengthen Pakistan’s economy and advance development”.

Bravo!  What else to say?

My winning candidate for naiveté though must be this on page 16:

“Pakistan… sees itself as the political home for the subcontinent’s Muslim population and believes India’s continued control over the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and denial of a plebiscite for its inhabitants represent a lingering desire on India’s part to undo the legacy of partition, which divided the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan.”

Now someone really ought to explain to these soon-to-be-Obama-Administration-Pakistan-specialists that, once upon a  time, there were men named Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr Zakir Hussain and Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and many others like them (let aside Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) who were all not merely devout Muslims but also leaders who had no wish to have any truck with any idea of a “Pakistan”. And furthermore, that some years later there came to be another man named Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and many others like him, who were Pakistanis but who no longer wished to remain so.

How is it possible for  four young scholars from places like the Fletcher School to not know this and yet pretend to expertise on Pakistan or the subcontinent?   Pakistanis and Indians and Bangladeshis who actually live in Pakistan and India and Bangladesh all know this from mother’s knee.  But the powerful Potomac/CFR/Houston etc Pakistan lobby which has heavily influenced if not controlled the discussion of America’s Pakistan-India policy-thinking has hidden away such inconvenient facts, and may have thus misled our young authors entering these woods for the first time. The inevitable result of such repression has been the set of neuroses and psychoses that have beset the US-Pakistan relationship for decades on end and seem likely to continue now under President Obama.

(As for official New Delhi, its own infirmities, like allowing organized business lobbies to define and control India’s relationship with the United States, as well as its delusions of grandeur, causes it too to fail History 101 miserably, which explains the shallow depths that Indian diplomatic discussion manages to reach on the subject.)

What the Center for American Progress has to say expectedly contains contradictions that have been long seen before.  For example, the authors are unable to reconcile their own explicit statements (A) and (B), revealing what a clinical psychologist might follow Gregory Bateson to identify as a classic “double-bind” leading to schizophrenia in the Pakistan-US relationship:

(A) “The United States should continue supporting and working with the Pakistani military despite strains in the relationship. The stakes are too high to walk away from Pakistan’s military establishment. Not only does most of the materiel for the US war effort in Afghanistan go through Pakistan, but the ISI is almost the exclusive source of information about international terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Pakistan.”

(B) “Pakistan’s powerful military establishment has launched four outright coups d’etat in the country’s 60-year history. And through its control of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, Pakistan’s premiere intelligence service, the military continues to carry out subtler manipulations of the political system during the periods when it has not held power directly…. The military establishment also has expanded far beyond its national security portfolio, entrenching itself in the Pakistani economy…. .The United States shares some of the blame for imbalance between military and civilian institutions in Pakistan. During the 1960s, 1980s, and since 9/11, the Pakistan military has been richly rewarded by the United States based on its status as a front-line state in the Cold War and then in the war against extremist terrorist networks. The United States has created perverse incentives by richly rewarding the Pakistani military in its promotion of unstable and insecure geopolitical situations on the other side of its borders, and then withdrawing our support if peace and stability return. The Pakistan military, meanwhile, uses the threat of India and the dispute over the Kashmir region to legitimize its leading role in Pakistan’s domestic politics and budget…. Ties between the Pakistani security establishment (or at a minimum individuals within it) and specific militant groups have not been severed. The militants that now form the core of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Army have long-standing connections and shared interests….”

What may be recommended by way of therapy?

For starters, a book created under immense adversity at an American university almost 20 years ago: Foundations of Pakistan’s Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, Edited and with an Introduction by one William E James and one Subroto Roy.  (Yes, I too once was as young as these authors are now but we   We may have produced a more substantial piece of work.)  A prominent Pakistani author in the book thanked me for creating it because, he said, it was the first time Pakistan had been treated seriously at a Western university, not merely seen as a source of real-estate or manpower for Anglo-American interests.

Besides the book, I would, most immodestly, recommend any fraction of my subsequent publications in the field, listed alphabetically as below and all most easily available at this site.

America’s Pakistan-India Policy
History of Jammu & Kashmir
India and Her Neighbours
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh Merchandise Exports
Iqbal & Jinnah vs Rehmat Ali in Pakistan’s Creation
Is Balochistan Doomed?
Justice & Afzal
Lal Masjid ≠ Golden Temple
Law, Justice and J&K
On Hindus and Muslims
Pakistan’s Allies
Pakistan’s Kashmir obsession
Racism New and Old
Saving Pakistan
Separation of Powers: India, the USA, Pakistan
Solving Kashmir: On an Application of Reason
The Greatest Pashtun: Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Two cheers for Pakistan
Understanding Pakistan
What To Tell Musharraf

Etc

In such matters, naiveté is too expensive a luxury to indulge in.

Subroto Roy, Kolkata

Postscript:  I had erroneously (and patronisingly) brushed all four authors as “young”; that has now been corrected; I hope it will not distract from the substance of the critique.

In the same vein with what K.J. and others have written, I think this guy has a valid point:

_Sarah Palin’s pregnant, unmarried 17-year-old daughter and probable future son-in-law stood in a nationally televised, politically packaged airport receiving line to meet and greet the Republican candidate for president.

_The extremely cute and bubbly Piper Palin, 7, made her debut on her mother’s behalf, appearing in a video on John McCain’s daughter’s blog. “Vote for my mommy and John McCain,” she said, giggling as Meghan McCain grinned.

_Bristol Palin and her 18-year-old boyfriend, Levi Johnston, sat and held hands as they watched the Alaska governor deliver an acceptance speech that, in its opening minutes, focused heavily on her family and children. Later, the family — including Johnston — ascended the stage, basked in an extended ovation and waved.

Huh? The Republican message about the Palin offspring comes across as contradictory: Hey, media, leave those kids alone — so we can use them as we see fit.

If you doubt this scenario, consider this: On Wednesday morning, a teenage boy from Alaska stood in a receiving line on an airport tarmac, being glad-handed by the potential next president of the United States — because he got his girlfriend pregnant. TV cameras were lined up in advance. The mind boggles.

“Either the children are out of bounds, and you don’t put them in the photo ops, or you don’t complain when somebody wants to talk about them. You can’t have it both ways,” said John Matviko, a professor at West Liberty State College in West Virginia and editor of “The American President in Popular Culture.”

“Right now, it looks like they’re being used by the campaign more than the media are using them,” he said.

In psychology this is the pathological passive-aggressive ploy known as the “double bind”, already long made famous in unilateral racial identity politics, radically misanthropic feminist politics, and other slavish movements that will first carve out by unilateral definition a sanctuary zone wherein partisans declare themselves to be untouchable and then from that vantage point launch what they hope will be (and often succeed in having conceded to them) a hermetically protected attack upon their now-pre-paralysed opponents on the same terms from which their protective sanctuary is constituted: “racism”, “sexism”, “political correctness”, now this Orwellian Palino-Republican “familyism”: unwed teenage pregnancy now as the celebratory manifestation of the Culture of Life over and against the Culture of Death—except in all other cases.

Interesting snippet from Mark Batterson’s upcoming book Wild Goose Chase.

Can I share a personal conviction? I think vision is the cure for sin. One reason many of us get entangled in sin is because we don’t have enough God-ordained vision to keep us busy. The more vision you have, the less you will sin. And the less vision you have, the more you will sin. It is a vision that keeps us playing offense spiritually.

Too often we try to stop sinning by not sinning. That is what psychologists call a double bind. It’s sort of like saying, “Be spontaneous.” You can’t be spontaneous now that I’ve told you to be! The way to stop sinning is not by focusing on not sinning. The way to stop sinning is by getting a God-sized vision that consumes all your time and energy.

Are you focusing your time and energy wisely?

This is a fragment of a thought, admittedly jaded, but I would not say it is fictitious. The ideas listed below are thoughts that have been thought, words that have been uttered, statements expressed by students, by colleagues, in bits and pieces in passing in a wide assortment of published pieces in anthropology. These are two ways of conceiving and doing anthropology, leading to an unremarkable synthesis that seems to capture the worst of both worlds. It seems that no matter what has been done with anthropology, one cannot “win.”

SELF: I STUDY MY OWN CULTURE, and therefore some say that approach is, or shows,

• introverted, provincial, self-absorbed, nationalistic
• a lack of curiosity about the wider world
• unable to recognize and criticize the taken-for-granted aspects of one’s own culture
• not distinctively anthropological, more like sociology
• trying to exoticize the familiar, does not escape the preeminent prejudices of a colonial discipline

OTHER: I STUDY OTHER CULTURES, and therefore some say that approach is, or shows,

• alienation
• a search for the exotic, the erotic
• voyeurism
• primitivism, romanticism
• can never know the other

STUDYING SELF AND OTHER — THE SYNTHESIS:

• writing one’s self into the other, ventriloquizing the other — domination, fiction (as in “untruth”)
  
• remaking one’s self in the image of the other — alienation, fiction (as in “untruth”)
• cultures don’t translate into one another, or else they would not be different
• self remains the subject, the author, while the other remains the object
• still idiographic, still particularistic

Is this the double bind that will afflict any “science” that claims to study “difference”? Is the problem one of conceiving one’s research in terms of self and other, rather than in terms of specific social and political problems? Is the problem above the child of the culture concept and its flaws?

If anyone has an answer, I would love to hear from you. In the meantime, speaking of exotic and erotic, it brought to mind a poem by Suheir Hammad:

don’t wanna be your exotic
some delicate fragile colorful bird
imprisoned caged
in a land foreign to the stretch of her wings
don’t wanna be your exotic
women everywhere are just like me
some taller darker nicer than me
but like me but just the same
women everywhere carry my nose on their faces
my name on their spirits
don’t wanna
don’t seduce yourself with
my otherness my hair
wasn’t put on top of my head to entice
you into some mysterious black voodoo
the beat of my lashes against each other
ain’t some dark desert beat
it’s just a blink
get over it
don’t wanna be your exotic
your lovin of my beauty ain’t more than
funky fornication plain pink perversion
in fact nasty necrophilia
cause my beauty is dead to you
I am dead to you
not your
harem girl geisha doll banana picker
pom pom girl pum pum shorts coffee maker
town whore belly dancer private dancer
la malinche venus hottentot laundry girl
your immaculate vessel emasculating princess
don’t wanna be
your erotic
not your exotic

Funktiedenken,  zorgmodularisering, management, terminologie  van de actuele organisatie van het hulp- en zorgcircuit, ook van dat van de ggz in vlaanderen. Motivering: Niet meer de voorziening, maar wel de vraag van de kliënt als uitgangspunt voor de uitbouw van ggzorgnetwerken, passend binnen de reeds  lang bezigzijnde hervorming van een aanbod – naar een vraaggestuurde zorg in het kader van de actieve welvaartstaat.

De vernieuwing moet doorgaan voor een belangrijke: Het individu zelf en niet de voorziening (merk de onjuiste tegenstelling op, het individu  = creatie van de voorziening, de biopolitieke herformulering van het leven) is het  richtpunt voor alle inspanningen  om in een performant, aan de 21ste eeuw aangepast ggz-netwerk te voorzien.

Pijlers van dit hedendaagse psycho-medische panopticon, zijn  bio-informatica en DSM-IV-klassificatie van gedrag. Belangrijke richtinggevers aan de nieuwe inrichting is het recent formeel opgerichte I-BioStat, languit “Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and statistical Bioinformatics” een samenwerkingsverband tussen de universiteiten van Hasselt en Leuven. Om de samenwerking te bekrachtigen, werd mede een eredoktoraat uitgereikt aan professor Norman Breslow van de universiteit van Washington in Seattle.

Professor Breslow is mede-oprichter van het NWTS, National Wilms Tumor Study al waar hij sinds 1968 een heel belangrijke bijdrage heeft geleverd aan de ontwikkeling van de biostatistiek als ondersteuningsinstrument  voor epidemiologisch onderzoek en de daaruit te bekomen informatie mbt. de planning van allerlei  overheidsmaatregelen ifv. de publieke gezondheid. Een passage uit de voorstelling van de NWTS:

The clinicians’ ideas of what were scientifically and clinically important questions to address had to meet Dr. Breslow’s criteria of valid study design, feasibility and probability of significant outcome.   Withal, he was flexible and showed great imagination in adapting new statistical methods and techniques to accomplish clinical goals.

wat blijft opvallen, is dat nog steeds “over” de kliënt wordt gedacht en gesproken en niet “met”. De analyse van de zorgvraag van de kliënt en de interpretatie ervan in termen van DSM-IV, berust op de aanname dat de DSM-IV het juiste instrument is om de vraag van de kliënt te operationaliseren op weg naar een betere hulpverlening aan diezelfde kliënt. De vooronderstellingen worden weggemoffeld uit een verdere gerichtheid op de kliënt zelf. Anderszijds maakt de biostatistische databasering van alle zogenaamd objektief bekomen klinische data, een kwantificering mogelijk van de hele gg-werkelijkheid waarmee nogmaals “over” de kliënt wordt beslist ipv. “met”.

Bronnen:
° http://www.popovggz.be/documenten/Begrippenkader%20GGZ%20-%20Spiller%20on%20line.pdf
° http://www.nwtsg.org/about/founders/breslow.html
° http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/160/8/1196.pdf
° http://www.spiller.be
° http://www.censtat.uhasselt.be/about/FlyerHBioStat.pdf

Recommended reading:
°http://www.arsindustrialis.org/?q=node/2926
°http://peter-matussek.de/Dar/Dat/index.html
° People count: the social construction of statistics
° Bioinformatics and Biological Reality
° The Rise of Bioinformatics. An historical approach to the emergence of a new scientific discipline
° What is it to be healthy?
According to Christopher Boorse’s Bio-Statistical Theory (BST), ‘health’ is statistically normal function in a reference class, and ‘health’ and ‘disease’ are empirical, objective and value-free concepts. I demonstrate that the success of the BST depends on its choice of reference classes; different reference classes result in different accounts of health. I argue that nothing in nature empirically or objectively dictates the use of reference classes Boorse proposes. Reference classes in the BST, and the concept of health, are therefore not value-free. Nor is there a reason to favour the BST over accounts of health that use different reference classes.

Zones of proximal constructs:
° DSM V: psychiatric taxonomy, language games, distributed cognition, cartesian epistemology.
° Human Genomics
° Aquaint, privacy and civil liberties
° Agamben: Homo Sacer, the coming communities