robbo203
11th January 2010, 12:12
Ive posted here a very interesting post which appeared on the WSM forum http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WSM_Forum/message/42204. The argument is quite thought-provoking/ Wjhat do people here make of it?
__________________________________________________ ____
This article makes a provocative read since for socialists the question of
consciousness and change is primary to our politics
http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529?page=entire (http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529?page=entire)
some extracts but the whole article makes good reading imho
" Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not
"set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." ....For victims of the abuse syndrome,
the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than
embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than
shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response
to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down
or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's
humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.....
.....When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice.
Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have
been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame,
like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons
that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect
change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with
the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to
shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse,
and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious
cycle of all abuse syndromes....
....The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created
by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study
("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two
Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single
confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single
confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone,
describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of
U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face
contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic
entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by
governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or
informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist
oppression have also decreased.
We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most
of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including
our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by
socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity..... When
human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a
"passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and
not doing anything ....
.....Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing
self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human
emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not
themselves and their community -- are their salvation...
....Can anything be done to turn this around?
When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about
their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is
morale.
What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous
behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain,
shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut
down.....An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are
either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers"
think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they
are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise.
An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know
that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications.
Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale....."
Are there any lessons in this that socialists can integrate in our approach when
it comes to our propaganda and literature ??
The fine line between encouraging the class struggle - that , of course, entails
much more than the work place , and of how struggle can just be a never ending
treadmill that's seen as an end in itself and not as a means .
I'm also struck by the Fromm-ist feel of the article. Have we now missed the
boat concerning the revolutionary potential of psychology and
psycho-analysis influenced socialism , surrendering ground to such schools as
all those pro individualistic self - help motivatation gurus ?
Creating and increasing morale ? Could this be the political basis of
creating a revolutionary myth like Sorel tried to create in his time by praising
the revolutionary general strike and syndicalism ?
__________________________________________________ ____
This article makes a provocative read since for socialists the question of
consciousness and change is primary to our politics
http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529?page=entire (http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529?page=entire)
some extracts but the whole article makes good reading imho
" Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not
"set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." ....For victims of the abuse syndrome,
the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than
embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than
shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response
to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down
or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's
humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.....
.....When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice.
Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have
been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame,
like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons
that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect
change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with
the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to
shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse,
and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious
cycle of all abuse syndromes....
....The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created
by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study
("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two
Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single
confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single
confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone,
describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of
U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face
contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic
entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by
governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or
informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist
oppression have also decreased.
We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most
of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including
our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by
socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity..... When
human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a
"passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and
not doing anything ....
.....Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing
self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human
emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not
themselves and their community -- are their salvation...
....Can anything be done to turn this around?
When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about
their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is
morale.
What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous
behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain,
shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut
down.....An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are
either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers"
think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they
are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise.
An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know
that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications.
Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale....."
Are there any lessons in this that socialists can integrate in our approach when
it comes to our propaganda and literature ??
The fine line between encouraging the class struggle - that , of course, entails
much more than the work place , and of how struggle can just be a never ending
treadmill that's seen as an end in itself and not as a means .
I'm also struck by the Fromm-ist feel of the article. Have we now missed the
boat concerning the revolutionary potential of psychology and
psycho-analysis influenced socialism , surrendering ground to such schools as
all those pro individualistic self - help motivatation gurus ?
Creating and increasing morale ? Could this be the political basis of
creating a revolutionary myth like Sorel tried to create in his time by praising
the revolutionary general strike and syndicalism ?