Layer 418 . . . Music, Pleasure, Dopamine, Neuroscience, Health, Wellbeing, Frissons, Chills, Satori and Other Wonders of the Human Brain

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Why blog about music? Why do so many people consider music to be an important, even a crucial part of their lives? Why do so many people have no time, no need, and no regard for music? Are these people soulless, or just made differently? Different to what?

Looking back, I can remember my first record player, my first LPs, my first 45s, my first live music bop at the local youth club, my first pub gigs, my first discos (dancing to Tamla Motown, Stax and Atlantic), my first live encounters with bands who'd had hit records, my first college gigs, my first festivals, and so on. Not only do I remember these things, I have intense memories of the pleasure these things gave me. Even now I can listen to early Dylan, Stones, Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, etc, with the same pleasure as I listened with way back then.

I can remember nights in Africa, camped under the stars of a pitch-black night, listening to music. I can remember driving for endless miles through bush and rain forest with the volume on the hi-fi cranked right up to maximum for favourite tunes.

These days it's still a huge pleasure to wander through Spotify, finding new music, new bands, new solo artists.

This week we hear news of research which shows a chemical link between music and wellbeing:

Music 'releases mood-enhancing chemical in the brain'
By Sonya McGilchrist Health reporter, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

Music releases a chemical in the brain that has a key role in setting good moods, a study has suggested.

The study, reported in Nature Neuroscience, found that the chemical was released at moments of peak enjoyment.

Researchers from McGill University in Montreal said it was the first time that the chemical - called dopamine - had been tested in response to music.

Dopamine increases in response to other stimuli such as food and money.

It is known to produce a feel-good state in response to certain tangible stimulants - from eating sweets to taking cocaine.

Dopamine is also associated with less tangible stimuli - such as being in love.

In this study, levels of dopamine were found to be up to 9% higher when volunteers were listening to music they enjoyed.

The report authors say it's significant in proving that humans obtain pleasure from music - an abstract reward - that is comparable with the pleasure obtained from more basic biological stimuli.

Music psychologist, Dr Vicky Williamson from Goldsmiths College, University of London welcomed the paper. She said the research didn't answer why music was so important to humans - but proved that it was.

"This paper shows that music is inextricably linked with our deepest reward systems."

Musical 'frisson'
The study involved scanning the brains of eight volunteers over three sessions, using two different types of scan.

The relatively small sample had been narrowed down from an initial group of 217 people.

This was because the participants had to experience "chills" consistently, to the same piece of music, without diminishing on multiple listening or in different environments.

A type of nuclear medicine imaging called a PET scan was used for two sessions. For one session, volunteers listened to music that they highly enjoyed and during the other, they listened to music that they were neutral about.

In the third session the music alternated between enjoyed and neutral, while a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI scan was made.

Data gathered from the two different types of scans was then analysed and researchers were able to estimate dopamine release.

Dopamine transmission was higher when the participants were listening to music they enjoyed.

Consistent chills
A key element of the study was to measure the release of dopamine, when the participants were feeling their highest emotional response to the music.

To achieve this, researchers marked when participants felt a shiver down the spine of the sort that many people feel in response to a favourite piece of music.

This "chill" or "musical frisson" pinpointed when the volunteers were feeling maxim pleasure.

The scans showed increased endogenous dopamine transmission when the participants felt a "chill". Conversely, when they were listening to music which did not produce a "chill", less dopamine was released.

What is dopamine?
Dopamine is a common neurotransmitter in the brain. It is released in response to rewarding human activity and is linked to reinforcement and motivation - these include activities that are biologically significant such as eating and sex.

Dr Robert Zatorre said: "We needed to be sure that we could find people who experienced chills very consistently and reliably.

"That is because once we put them in the scanner, if they did not get chills then we would have nothing to measure.

"The other factor that was important is that we wanted to eliminate any potential confound from verbal associations, so we used only instrumental music.

"This also eliminated many of the original sample of people because the music they brought in that gave them chills had lyrics."

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From the Montreal Gazette:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Music+produces+natural+high+McGill+study+finds/4084087/story.html

Music triggers the same pleasure-reward system in the brain as food, sex and illicit drugs, according to McGill University researchers who have been peering into minds of music lovers.

They've discovered the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine is released when people listen to their favourite music, be it rock, jazz or classical.

The finding by the team at McGill, reported yesterday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, helps explain why music is so pleasurable and popular.

It also hints at why music has been so valued and important throughout human history and across cultures, says neuroscientist Robert Zatorre, who leads the McGill team at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

"Music has such deep roots in the brain that it engages this biologically ancient system," says Zatorre, explaining how dopamine generates the sensation of pleasure in the striatum, a primitive region deep in the brain.

It's long been known dopamine is produced and generates pleasure when we eat or have sex, reinforcing activities that are key to survival. The Montreal study provides the first evidence that dopamine is also responsible for musical highs.

"For reasons that we don't entirely understand, somehow music was able to kick in with the same system," Zatorre says. "And that gives it power that it might not otherwise have."

While music may not be key to survival, he says it has been "very" useful.

"Because it gives us pleasure, we can use it to our advantage to modulate our state of mind."

Heroin and cocaine hijack the dopamine system, which is what makes the illicit drugs so addictive. But Zatorre sees little danger in listening to too much music.

"If you are hooked on music, it won't cause you to waste away, it won't give you health problems," he says. "On the contrary, it probably enhances your health."

For the study, he and his colleagues put out a call for people who get the chills, a sign of intense nervous-system arousal, when listening to music. Of the more than 200 individuals who volunteered, 10 people were eventually selected to undergo the brain scans that cost a few thousand dollars each.

One key stipulation was that the volunteers' favourite music not have lyrics. "We wanted to be sure the response was due to the music, not the words that accompanied it," Zatorre says.

The volunteers agreed to undergo brain scans while listening to tunes they picked, which ranged from techno to folk to classical.

Two types of brain scans were done as the volunteers blissed out to music inside the medical machines. Positron emission tomography (PET) revealed if and where dopamine was being released. For these scans, the volunteers were injected with a short-lived and harmless radioactive molecule, carbon-11, that latched onto any dopamine produced and showed up on the PET scans.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which detects how much oxygen brain cells are using, revealed which areas of the brain were stimulated as the pleasure associated with the music kicked in. "It tells us where the brain is active and it tells us, within a range of a couple of seconds or so, when it is active," Zatorre says.

As the volunteers listened to music that "really turned them on," the sensors and scanners picked up clear signs of pleasure. Chills ran up their spines and their heart rates climbed as dopamine was released deep inside the brain. The volunteers also underwent scans listening to music they are indifferent to, which produced no pleasure effect.

The music that generated dopamine release depended on the listeners' tastes and preferences.

"All types of music activated the same part of the brain," Zatorre says. "It doesn't matter if it's punk, classical, tango or even bagpipes."

While the study volunteers experienced the chills when most roused by music, he says the scans revealed dopamine was also released even when the pleasure was not as intense.

The scans also showed that dopamine is released in advance of key sections and sequences in music, enhancing and prolonging the pleasure, which Zatorre considers one of the most interesting findings: "Ten to 20 seconds prior to the maximum pleasure, there was a different dopamine response in a slightly different place in the brain."

He says this "anticipation response" helps explain why musicians often build tension and pauses into their pieces. "They have a kind of intuitive understanding of the neuro-mechanisms behind pleasure," Zatorre says.

He says understanding the biochemical orchestra at work in the "magic of music" makes him appreciate it even more.

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Music+produces+natural+high+McGill+study+finds/4084087/story.html#ixzz1Aiyq00X7

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110109/ap_on_sc/us_sci_music_on_the_brain
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Layer 340 . . . Woods, Work, Drugs, Shock, NHS, Iraq and Folly

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Why walking in the woods is good for you

It's one of the most enjoyable activities imaginable - and it might also be one of the most beneficial

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/27/walking-in-the-woods-health

According to the Finnish Forest Research Institute, one of the most enjoyable activities around can reduce stress and depression, ease muscle tension, counter attention deficit disorder, even calm an erratic heart. What is this wonder therapy? A walk in the woods. As Karjalainen puts it, "Many people feel relaxed and good when they are out in nature. But not many of us know there is also scientific evidence about the healing effects of nature."

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All Work and No Play

Given the levels of debt and the low wages in our society, flat-out full time working seems like the only option for most people trying to stay alive and make a decent life for themselves and their families.

The ants march on, but we'd be happier as grasshoppers

The idea that work is the meaning of existence has little basis in biology. Let us guiltlessly enjoy the sweet idleness of summer

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/ants-march-grasshoppers-happier

Of course, work is a good and necessary thing in its place. It stops you from starving, directs your energies and can even offer friendship and community. But nature writers like Mabey have pointed out that seeing work as the meaning of life is a human, metaphysical invention; it has little basis in biology. Play, not work, seems to be the defining essence of life on earth.

While the new austerity requires us to put a price on everything, play remains priceless precisely because it is pointless: a way of simply enjoying and celebrating life when life is all we have. Play is also free, egalitarian and equilibrium-loving: it costs nothing and asks for nothing in return and is therefore an excellent model for sustainable living with scarce resources.

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Angus Macqueen is the guy who made the four-part series on drugs policy, which I commented on yesterday. This is an article he wrote about drugs in last Sunday's Observer:

Why do we so wilfully cover up the failure of the war on drugs?

The vulnerable are left unprotected by our attitudes to substance abuse, argues a leading documentary maker

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/01/angus-macqueen-drugs-trade-policy

Drugs policies have little to do with science, health risk or harm. They have been hijacked by the emotive rhetoric of moralists.

This fear of the Daily Mail is a dishonest excuse – the truth is that there is a collective lack of will to address one of our major social problems. We bury our heads and pretend that banning drugs equals regulation. Quite the reverse; driving drugs underground leaves them unregulated and consumers unprotected.

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The Shock Doctrine

Coalition is more radical than Thatcher government, says senior Tory minister

Francis Maude defends scope and speed of reforms with claim earlier governments have not pushed ahead vigorously enough

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/30/coalition-government-reforms-francis-maude

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Former MI5 chief delivers damning verdict on Iraq invasion

Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller tells Chilcot that invasion increased terrorist threat and radicalised young British Muslims

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/20/chilcot-mi5-boss-iraq-war

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Polly Toymbee was on form with this piece on the government's intentions for the NHS:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/17/tories-are-demolishing-the-nhs

This is no careful plan: the NHS is being wired for demolition at breakneck speed

Analysts are aghast at the sheer recklessness of the proposals. Yet the Tories proceed with no answers to the basic questions

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Simon Jenkins has been keeping up his relentless attacks on our follies in the Middle East:

A history of folly, from the Trojan horse to Afghanistan

By recording failure in meticulous detail, the leaked war logs bear devastating witness to our incompetence

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/27/folly-war-wikileaks-afghanistan

I cannot avoid the conclusion that, just as the Pashtun are said to be "hardwired to fight", so now are certain western regimes. War is about sating the military-security-industrial complex, a lobby so potent that, long after the cold war ended, it can induce democratic leaders to expend quantities of blood and money on such specious pretexts as suppressing dictators in one country and terror in another.

Like puppets dancing to manufactured fears and dreams of glory, these leaders have lost their grip on Plato's "sacred golden cord of reason". Until that grip is restored, the folly revealed by the war logs will continue.

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Clegg told the truth on Iraq. It's for Cameron to end a decade of pretence

The coalition inherited a mendacious foreign policy, leading to two disastrous wars. Time now for an honourable peace

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/22/clegg-truth-iraq

Commentators are often asked to predict history's verdict on a particular era, and are well advised to decline. But it is hard not to see western policy in the first decade of the 21st century as sunk in a morass of folly. It was subcontracted to a defence lobby desperate for a role, which it found in exploiting weak leaders by playing on the ideology of fear.

It has led the US and Britain into contentious relations with the entire Muslim world, fuelling anti-western sentiment not only across Asia but, as Manningham-Buller pointed out, among Muslim populations within the west. The last decade has seen an entire foreign policy elite lose the art of friendship. Bred under the communist threat, the west's leaders craved a mighty enemy and found it by exaggerating the threat from militant Islam and elevating terrorist gangs to the status of state enemies.

As a result, British policy has relied on one outdated premise after another.

Foreign policy lurched into paranoid mode. Guantánamo filled with victims and ludicrous sums were spent on security. The world responded in kind. Airports became nests of xenophobia.

This was nowhere better demonstrated than in Blair's dreadful January appearance before the Chilcot inquiry, which now meekly claims to be unconcerned with the legality of the Iraq war (so what is it concerned with?). All evidence has testified that the war was a mistake and undermined Britain's security. Blair's contradictory display of pro-war self-delusion, arrogance and folly should be a textbook video for any school of 21st-century statesmanship.

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Seamus Milne pitched in with this:

Now Afghanistan too shows the limits of American power

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/21/now-afghanistan-shows-limit-american-power

The catastrophic illusions and acts of official betrayal at the heart of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being progressively exposed, one after another. In London, the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller confirmed to the Iraq inquiry this week  that the security service had indeed warned Tony Blair's government that aggression against Iraq, "on top of our involvement in Afghanistan", would violently radicalise a generation of young Muslims and "substantially" increase the threat of terror attacks in Britain.

And so it came to pass. A few days earlier, Carne Ross, Britain's former representative at the UN responsible for Iraq before the invasion, told the inquiry that the British government's statements about its assessment of the threat from Saddam Hussein "were, in their totality, lies". In due course, those lies were brutally exposed.

It's easy to be inured to the power of such indictments after nine years of the war on terror and its litany of torture, kidnapping, atrocities and mass killing. But together with a string of earlier revelations they do combine to highlight the utter disgrace of the British political and security establishment, which deceived the public about a war it was well aware in advance would expose them to great danger.

The reason for such official dissembling and recklessness is also now clear enough. The British commitment to join the attack on Iraq was transparently never driven by the supposed menace of Saddam or the legal casuistry advanced at the time, but by an overriding commitment to put Britain at the service of US power, under whoever's leadership and wherever that might take it at any particular time. The "blood price", as Blair called it, for this – David Cameron made explicit last week – subservient relationship had to be paid.

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It's good to see Susie Orbach writing again in the Guardian:

Ad men today are wrong on body size

Why Lynne Featherstone was right to celebrate curvaceous Christina Hendricks as a role model

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/31/susie-orbach-ad-men-wrong-on-body-size

http://anybody.squarespace.com/anybody_vent/2009/2/8/susie-orbach-on-bodies.html

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5661153.ece
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Layer 261 . . . Return to Bankers, Reform, Progressive Solutions and Obama's Democrats

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There are lots of things to catch up on this week, and three good pieces in the Guardian today.

Simon Jenkins wrote another superb column -

The bankers lied. And Darling, a mere puppet on their string, knows it

Britain has paid a horrific price for allowing the City to dictate credit policy. Yet there is no inquiry, no questioning, only silence

Still no inquiry. Still no answers.

The lack of accountability, the sheer lack of curiosity from the political community, is amazing.

 Advised by bankers, surrounded by bankers, obsessed with bankers, Darling paid.

I would like to know why. Ask those involved and they go wide-eyed and mutter "Armageddon", rather like Tony Blair explaining the Iraq invasion. To these people, not letting banks fail was not an option but a creed. They cannot explain what is "wrong" with taking hold of a reckless bank in trouble, guaranteeing its deposits (and cash machines) and continuing to lend against a Treasury guarantee, while dumping the casino activities into administration. Shareholders lose out, but that's capitalism. Talk of bank doors closing is rubbish.

So why were RBS and Lloyds/HBOS not fully nationalised, rather than given unconditional largesse?

An Economist headline put it pithily: "Banks fine: pity about the customers."

Darling did not even require banks to curb their extraordinary bonuses, even when they consumed a large share of reported losses. The American financier, Warren Buffett, famously protested that banks were "being run for their employees… with lucrative paydays that enriched people who are not particularly intelligent and add little value". Since he claims to own them, Darling might at least explain why he was further enriching them at public expense.

At a time when consumer demand was collapsing, the government found itself unable to respond with more VAT cuts, pensions bonuses, higher social security and more public projects, in other words a classical Keynesian answer to a slump.

That is what Germany and many far eastern countries did, with benefits rises, tax holidays and consumer scrappage schemes. The British government did the opposite.

Why did Darling not let HBOS or Lloyds fail, merely guaranteeing their deposits? Alternatively, why did he not nationalise and split up the ailing banks in October 2008? Again, if they really were too big to fail, as they alleged, why has he not made them emphatically smaller, so when they fail next time they do not drag the economy down with them?

Gillian Tett's book on the psychology of credit greed, Fool's Gold, shows the corrupting effect of unfettered derivatives trading on the whole financial system. Darling has done nothing to mitigate that effect. The world is alive with talk of curbs on bonuses, hedge funds, short trading, proprietary dealing and transaction taxes. There is talk of stress tests, living wills and higher reserve ratios. In almost all these arguments, Labour ministers are on the side of unregulated banking and against further controls. They are the wildest of free-marketeers. Brown and Darling have gone native and become puppets on a banker's string.

Britain has paid, and will go on paying, a horrific price for this government allowing bankers to dictate credit policy after 2008. To avoid ministers suffering the ideological odium of proper nationalisation (as opposing to bailing-out), Britain is being forced to lose jobs, firms, infrastructure, prosperity and the happiness it brings.

Too big to fail has taken a savage toll on the economy. If it was worth it, I would like to see the account. If not, someone should pay. Yet because the policy was backed by all three main parties, there is no questioning, no inquiry. All is silence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/banks-lied-darling-puppet-city
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Mehdi Hasan wrote this:

It's defeatist nonsense to talk of a crisis of leftwing thinking

Progressives have been vindicated. The public are far ahead, and to the left, of government on the reforms we need

The left never seems to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Social-democratic political parties across the west are in danger of allowing the financial crisis to "go to waste". Instead of seizing this once-in-a-lifetime chance to promote a radical, progressive and even populist political and economic agenda, much of the left has retreated into a familiar and introspective comfort zone, in which navel-gazing and self-flagellation become substitutes for action.

Eighteen months on, few, if any, of the leading neoliberal ideologues have recanted their belief in the sort of market fundamentalism that unleashed the worst financial crisis in human history.

The irony is that leftist analyses, for example, of the fragility of financial markets and the corrosive effects of inequality, have been vindicated by events. Never before in living memory have such large swathes of public and expert opinion endorsed policies and positions long advanced by the progressive end of the political spectrum. The public is to the left not simply of New Labour, but the political and media classes as a whole.

The reality is that the public are far ahead, and to the left, of the government on financial and economic reform. Polling by YouGov in February, for example, revealed that 76% of those surveyed wanted the government to introduce a law to cap bonus payments; 51% said they backed the so-called Robin Hood tax, or Tobin tax, on financial transactions; and 68% said they supported rules to split retail and investment banking. The latter view is backed by the Trotskyist governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, and the former by "Red" Adair Turner of the Financial Services Authority.

Then there is the role of the state. The right could offer no real alternative to the de facto nationalisation of the banks in 2008 – and the late Michael Foot went to his grave having seen a key section of his 1983 "suicide note" manifesto implemented by a (New) Labour government. But the hankering for state ownership of the so-called commanding heights of the economy is not restricted to the financial sector. Polls show voters in favour of the renationalisation of electricity, gas, water, the railways and the telecommunications industry.

In fact, throughout the Thatcher era, more people voted for high-spending, tax-raising parties than voted for Thatcher. Despite three decades of tacking to the right, under Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown, the public has remained rather collectivist in its attitudes. Happily, recent events have only served to entrench this British mindset – and Labour's belated semi-conversion to a populist, Keynesian social democracy surely explains the narrowing of the Tory lead since the new year.

To talk therefore of a crisis of leftwing thinking is defeatist nonsense. It is the market-worshipping right that should be in crisis. But there is a serious question as to whether, after a decade-long Faustian pact with the City, Labour, as it is currently constituted, is capable of delivering the radical, progressive agenda voters crave.

The left should be much more confident, triumphalist even; for this is a progressive moment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/11/defeatist-nonsense-leftwing-thinking
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Michael Tomasky wrote this very depressing piece about the state of the nation in the USA:

A disgrace for the Democrats

Obama's congressmen will sabotage the health bill to keep their seats. It is stomach-churning

The players in this drama are participating in the destruction of their own party. They know this. And they persist.

They live in fear of being tarred by a future Republican opponent of having abetted the march of socialism. So they voted no on the most important piece of social legislation that body has had before it in probably 40 years.

Living in mortal fear that they might lose their seats. But are they thinking about how to fix the bloated mess that is American healthcare, or serve their uninsured and underinsured constituents? Maybe in private, but certainly not in public.

Disgraceful. Virtually all of them have tens of thousands, or sometimes more than 100,000, adult constituents with no private insurance. If they're not in Washington to do something about that, then what are they there to do? Please don't answer that question.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/11/disgrace-democrats-sabotage-health-bill.

Layer 206 . . . More Damned Targets

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Peter Preston, ex-editor of the Guardian, wrote another loathsome column in the paper on Monday, headed In Praise of Targets.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/18/targets-work-topdown-cameron?

The sheer ignorance expressed in this article is beyond belief, and beyond a joke. Every time 'Presto' writes one of these reactionary columns he gets a deluge of correspondence explaining why and how the targets culture messes up education, health, etc, - but does he pay any attention? Of course not. Why on earth would he pay attention to the views of those who advocate a wholly different approach which focuses on the needs of children, sick people, etc, rather than the needs of politicians & their pals to "show results"?

The reason he should pay some attention and show some respect to professional opinion (eg the Primary Review) is that the least we should expect of Guardian writers is the ability to consider & to present both sides of an argument, with a reasoned refutation of one side if they disagree with it. Preston clearly hasn't read the Cambridge Review with an unprejudiced eye, and clearly hasn't understood it. Just like the tabloid writers he's maintaining that the Review says children shouldn't start school till aged 6, whereas Alexander & co have said no such thing. Why on earth would "working mums" be unhappy with the report, as he suggests, when no-one's advocated closing down early years classes or reducing the length of the school day?

It's not a question of "putting teachers back in charge of what's taught". It's about putting professional educators back in positions of responsibility for policy and practice (rather than politicians and professional bureaucrats) and determining through reasoned argument & developing practice which approaches produce properly educated young people and which ones do not - as happens in the countries at the top of the international performance comparisons. In countries like Finland there is continuing debate & challenge within the profession, not top-down political dictat & arbitrary targets that measure only what is measurable, with no proper assessment of children's progress towards being positive, self-motivated & independent learners who enjoy learning, literature & literacy.

Government targets, in this respect, do not "work", as Preston continues to maintain. They have the opposite effect, if anything, although most teachers do their best to retain their pupils' enjoyment of and interest in learning, within what has become a soviet-style factory system of performance quotas & targets, used as a basis for "performance management".

Mr Preston really has to stop dismissing pupils who "only" achieve a high Level 3 (3A) at age 11 as "fundamentally illiterate". He clearly has no idea what a high Level 3 consists of, and no idea how much progress has been made by many children with learning difficulties and other disadvantages when they are able to score a Level 3 in English and maths in a formal timed test. Most adults are for the most part "only" operating at Level 4 in their daily reading and writing, and the supposedly failing and illiterate children (according to Peter Preston) who have reached Level 3 in English by the end of Primary school have almost achieved that level. If they don't then go on and reach Levels 4 and 5 at secondary school it can only be because insufficent support and inadequate focus on literacy is on offer there.

The "force of a centrally imposed quasi-market economy" has NOT "transformed the situation", and neither has centrally-dictated methodology & pedagogy, if what we mean by "transformed" is "turned more children into better learners, more capable thinkers, more imaginative and more motivated seekers of knowledge, etc". The only thing that's improved under the last two governments is teachers' competence in teaching to the tests. Enough.

The Guardian should send 'Presto' packing in the same direction as Melanie Phillips, and tell him that as of now his views should be repeated ad nauseam where they belong, thereby freeing up space in the Guardian for more enlightened opinion. It's outrageous that Preston should be given space in the Guardian to smear those of us who agree with the Primary Review's authors as people who are motivated by "dogma and professional self-interest". These are Stalinist smear tactics. If anyone's dogmatic in this argument it's Preston & his ilk. For goodness' sake, even the Conservatives have become enlightened to the point of pledging to scrap both government-set targets and the micro-management of pedagogy & the curriculum in schools.

As for Mr Preston's conclusion that we should "make knowledge your target, and value those who can tell you on the frontline of information" - here's final evidence that he has no understanding of the issues and still believes that improved test and exam scores, obtained by whatever means, including paid cramming, are the same thing as a high standard of education that develops all of a child's intelligences, aptitudes and abilities, including their creativity and imagination.

The schools that are failing their pupils are mainly those that are abusing them by treating them as mere instruments in the achievement of production targets, thereby depriving them of a real education. Preston clearly knows nothing about the sorts of achievement that can't be measured by timed pen & paper tests, and neither does he care.
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Layer 182 Responsibility, Humanity, Teenage Violence, Peace, Spiritual Intelligence, and a Health Service.

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How To Practise

Yesterday's quotes from the Dalai Lama's book, The Way to a Meaningful Life, ended with:

"The desperate state of our world calls us to action."

The latter part of his Introduction continues:

Each of us has a responsibility to try to help at the deeper level of our common humanity. Unfortunately, humanity is too often sacrificed in defence of ideology. This is absolutely wrong. Political systems should actually benefit human beings, but, like money, they can control us instead of work for us.

If with a warm heart and patience we can consider the views of others, and exchange ideas in calm discussion, we will find points of agreement. It is our responsibility – out of compassion and love for humankind – to seek harmony among nations, ideologies, cultures, ethnic groups, and economic and political systems.

When we truly recognise the oneness of all humankind, our motivation to find peace will grow stronger. In the deepest sense we are really sisters and brothers, so we must share one anothers' suffering. Mutual respect, trust, and concern for one anothers' welfare are our best hope for lasting world peace.

Creating Harmony

Harmony and friendship cannot thrive in a climate of mistrust, cheating, bullying and mean-spirited competition. Success through intimidation and violence is temporary at best; its trifling gains only create new problems.

We can only solve our problems through truly peaceful means – not just peaceful words but a peaceful mind and heart. In this way we will have a better world.

Is this possible? Fighting, cheating and bullying have trapped us in our present situation; now we need training in new practices to find a way out.

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Teenage Violence

G2 last week reported (again) on teenage gun crime, violence and killings. As usual, with such reports, there were far more questions raised than answered in this feature.

Of course there should be massive investment in work and projects that aim to “break the cycle of violence” - through dealing directly with the susceptible teenagers and gang members themselves. And of course there must be massive investment in tackling bad housing, unemployment and lack of recreational and socialisation opportunities.

But a much better long term investment must be made in ensuring that young people do not grow up without social, emotional and spiritual intelligence. In which case schools must be massively empowered, encouraged, and even directed to make these areas of learning central to pupils’ experiences in schools.

Since many homes encourage the maintenance of the culture of violence and retaliation, then it’s often only in schools that pupils can learn how to cope with destructive emotions and begin to understand human values. If schools fail to educate vulnerable pupils in more enlightened ways of coping with problems and challenges then nobody else will be able to reach them. Only the fortunate few will reach a stage in their lives where greater personal maturity plus experience of life’s harsh lessons will be enough to help them see through the madness and chaos of what passed for normality in their world.

If schools don’t even attempt to pre-empt teenage pressures to join gangs through giving vulnerable Primary age children greater insights into those pressures, then those children are unlikely to figure out for themselves more productive ways of living, and more purposeful ways of spending their time.

Do schools currently have such a focus? In America and Britain, of course not. They focus almost entirely on attaining high marks in academic tests and exams. Whilst no-one would suggest that maths, literacy, science and the rest aren’t important, it must be obvious that the pursuit of academic excellence will normally be an impossibility for pupils who lack motivation and who don’t possess high degrees of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence.

Our government’s central and driving belief is that “driving up standards” will enable more working class pupils to gain A-levels, to enter university, and thereby gain the paper qualifications that will enable them to move into high paid employment and move out of violent neighbourhoods and lives of poverty. If only life were so simple. The papers this week are full of outrage about grade inflation and the fact that this year there are thousands of pupils with A levels who can't get university places due to lack of government funding.

The reality is that for hundreds of thousands of working class kids this dream of university and a life of prosperity is virtually never going to happen, unless the individual is unusually ambitious, determined and persistent. The rates of graduate unemployment alone are sufficient to deter a lot of smart kids from being the first in their family to go on to ‘higher education’ unless they have a particular aptitude, unless they enjoy writing essays, unless they are set on entering a profession that requires a university degree, and unless they can cope with the idea of running up huge debts.

The majority will continue to live in the areas where they grew up and where they will earn their living as shop assistants, as bar staff, as butchers, bakers, candlestick makers, plumbers, carpenters and electricians, (OK maybe not candlestick makers) – and for these people the important skills they will need will be based on a strong foundation of social, emotional and spiritual intelligence. The other key attributes they will need to do well in life will be creativity, curiosity, self-confidence, communication skills, Internet skills, empathy, intuition, etc.

It’s increasingly apparent that spiritual and emotional intelligence are also desperately lacking in many Members of Parliament, bankers, city financiers, businessmen, journalists, media personalities, footballers, middle managers, bureaucrats, teachers, accountants, etc. Such people are frequently lacking in anger management skills, humility, honesty, humanity, etc. A little less academic learning and a lot more emphasis on social, emotional and spiritual intelligence would serve them well.

Does anyone seriously think our middle classes are LESS susceptible than the working classes to alcoholism, coke-snorting, relationship breakdown, neglecting and abusing children, nervous breakdowns, obesity, low self-esteem, loneliness, anxiety, depression and existential angst? Are they really any happier, even when wealthier?

The fortunate children acquire a strong foundation of personal, social, emotional and spiritual development in loving and caring homes and extended families that protect them and teach them through personal example, and through discussions about human values and spiritual values. The majority of young people in good homes, both working class and middle class, positively do not want to live their lives in ways that vex and displease their elders.

A very significant minority of pupils, however, will not live and learn in positive households. They may choose not to attend school, or they may turn up physically but not in mind or spirit. They may know or strongly suspect that they won’t be the ones getting 5 A-C’s in GCSEs, let alone A Levels. They may be the ones for whom drug taking and drunkenness, knives and guns and domestic violence are a day to day reality. They may be the ones for whom street violence seems as natural and inevitable as eating and drinking. They may be the ones who will kill, if necessary, to ‘protect’ ‘their’ ‘territory’.

Of course the National Curriculum doesn’t cater for the needs of these pupils. It was never designed to. It was always intended to dominate the school day, and it prescribes academic study as the dominant pursuit of each child’s school day. It was never about learning to learn, learning to enjoy learning, learning to be creative, learning to be expressive in a variety of ways, or learning to manage destructive emotions.

To create an edifice of academic attainment without attending to the other intelligences is like building on sand, and sooner or later there’s a very real chance of collapse. Unless there are strong and durable foundations of social, emotional and spiritual learning young people may do well academically, and even professionally for a while, without ever finding lasting happiness, fulfillment, or even lasting achievement. (see Layer 181 – yesterday – the Dalai Lama) Is this what we really want for our children?

With children whose lives are violent and chaotic any attempt to teach them for examination success without also offering development in the other key intelligences is like building on a bottomless pit of quicksand or a flowing river of red-hot lava.

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“Why the American right make me sick”

I don't normally rate Simon Hoggart as a writer, but he's right on the money with this post:

“There are few tribes more loathsome than the American right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama's attempts at health reform are a useful reminder.

I was thinking of this during a visit to my 91-year-old dad who is still in an NHS hospital after three weeks, recovering from a broken hip. He has had fantastic care, including a new metal hip, blood transfusions, different antibiotics to match every aspect of his condition; all administered by nurses who remain cheerful even when asked to perform tasks on men – the lethal combination of pain and old age makes some in the ward exceedingly grumpy – that I would not want to do for £1,000 a time.

If he was in an American hospital he'd be using up half his life savings to get that standard of care, and few ordinary Americans could afford the insurance that would provide it. (This is because health insurers spend a large part of their income on PR against the "socialised medicine" and on sending pro forma letters explaining why your policy doesn't cover actual illness.) All over the US there are people whose lives are being destroyed for lack of proper health care provision, and there is no sight more odious than the rich, powerful and arrogant trying to keep it that way.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/aug/15/simon-hoggarts-week

This past week or two has been incredible for the mad-dog attacks on Obama's proposals to set up a decent health service in America that will provide a safety net for all, regardless of income or prosperity. Not only do his opponents, in their town hall meetings, on talk radio, and on TV, continually attack Obama's proposals – they are cranking up their personal abuse to the point of absolute hysteria. They're continuing to insinuate he's 'non-American' – i.e. he's 'an African', with no birth certificate to prove otherwise. They're continuing to accuse him of being a 'socialist', which in their book is the same as a communist, and therefore un-American. The degree of anger and hatred is truly appalling. Those of us who want the American people as a whole to be better off, better provided for, more enlightened and much happier, can only look on with pity and a horrified fascination. Especially now that these lunatics have started to mock, ridicule and traduce our NHS, aided and abetted by various scumbag Tory MEPs and MPs.

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End of the Beginning

The Dalai Lama concludes the introduction to his book by saying that the book aims to

“Introduce the three aspects of spiritual practice – morality, concentrated meditation and wisdom – which are the book's principal themes.”

“I describe two types of morality: reorienting physical and verbal deeds so as to cause no harm to others, and cultivating deeper concern for others.

“In [the section on] Practicing Concentrated Meditation I describe how to achieve mental focus and how to restore calm in stressful situations.

“Practicing Wisdom . . . addresses the difficult but fruitful topic of dependent-arising and emptiness.

“These discussions on morality, concentrated meditation and wisdom flow into . . . Tantra, which presents a special yoga practice combining the three.

“The concluding part, Steps Along The Way, presents an overview of the path of practice from its beginnings right through to enlightenment, a state wherein mind and body are fully developed in order to be of service to others.

“From beginning to end, our focus is on developing a good heart and mind through a moral attitude and an understanding of reality, empowered by concentration.

“Think of morality, concentrated meditation and wisdom as a blueprint for enlightenment, reminding us of the highest aim of practice – a transformation of attitude towards peacefulness, compassion, calm focus, and wisdom. Understanding the blueprint is itself part of the path, drawing us toward the destination.”

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Not a word wasted there, and not a word concerning God, or anything about heaven, hell, angels or devils.
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Layer 17 No Magic, No Mystery. The Dalai Lama

Shakespeare’s birthday. St George’s Day. To be or not to be. Killing a dragon?

This blog consists of more quotations from the Dalai Lama. Sub-headings are my own.

Chapter Two. A Spiritual Revolution.

This is not about religions.

In calling for a spiritual revolution am I advocating a religious solution to our problems? No.

I have realised that there are other faiths and other cultures that are no less capable than mine of enabling people to lead constructive and satisfying lives. What is more I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be a good human being.

The influence of religion on people’s lives is generally marginal, especially in the developed world. No single religion satisfies all humanity. We may also conclude that we humans can live quite well without recourse to religious faith.

As a human being I have a responsibility towards the whole human family, which indeed we all have. Since the majority do not practice religion I am concerned to try to find a way to serve all humanity without appealing to religious faith.

Religions are all directed towards helping human beings achieve lasting happiness. And each of them is, in my opinion, capable of facilitating this. Under such circumstances a variety of religions (each of which promotes the same basic values) is both desirable and useful.

My concern in this book is to try to reach beyond the formal boundaries of my faith. I want to show that there are some universal ethical principles which could help everyone achieve the happiness we all aspire to.

Religion versus spirituality.

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality.

Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or supernatural reality, including perhaps the idea of some form of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, rituals, prayer and so on.

Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit - such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony - which bring happiness to both self and others.

While ritual and prayer, along with the questions of nirvana and salvation, are directly connected with religious faith, these inner qualities need not be, however. There is no reason why an individual should not develop them, even to a high degree, without recourse to any religious or metaphysical belief system. This is why I sometimes say that religion is perhaps something we can do without. What we cannot do without are these basic spiritual qualities.

Concern for other’s well-being.

There is much confusion, as often among religious believers as among non-believers, concerning what spiritual practice actually consists in. The unifying characteristics of the qualities I have described as ‘spiritual’, may be said to be some level of concern for others’ well-being. In Tibetan we speak of shen-pen kyi-sem, meaning ‘the thought to be of help to others’. And when we think about them, we see that each of the qualities noted is defined by an implicit concern for the well-being of others.

Moreover, the one who is compassionate, loving, patient, tolerant, forgiving, and so on to some extent recognises the potential impact of their actions on others and orders their conduct accordingly. Thus spiritual practice involves acting out of concern for others’ well-being.

It also entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so. To speak of spiritual practice in any terms other than these is meaningless.

My call for a spiritual revolution is therefore not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather, it is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call for a turn toward the wider community of human beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognises others’ interests alongside our own.

Some may object that a revolution of spirit is hardly adequate to solve the variety and magnitude of problems we face in the modern world. However, given that each problem could certainly be solved by people being more loving and compassionate toward one another - however improbable this may seem - they can also be characterised as spiritual problems susceptible to a spiritual solution.

This is not to say that all we need do is cultivate spiritual values and these problems will automatically disappear. On the contrary, each of them needs a specific solution. But we find that when this spiritual dimension is neglected, we have no hope of achieving a lasting solution.

Bad news is a fact of life. Events can be divided into two broad categories: those which have principally natural causes - earthquakes, droughts, floods and the like - and those which are of human origin. Wars, crime, violence of every sort, corruption, poverty, deception, fraud, social, political and economic injustice are each the consequence of negative human behaviour.

And who is responsible for such behaviour? We are. There is not a single class or sector of society that does not contribute to our daily diet of unhappy news. Fortunately, unlike natural disasters, about which we can do little or nothing, these human problems can be overcome because they are all essentially ethical problems.

Where ethical restraint is lacking, there can be no hope of overcoming problems like those of rising crime. What then is the relationship between spirituality and ethical practice? Since love, compassion, etc, by definition presume some level of concern for others’ well-being, they also presume ethical restraint. We cannot be loving and compassionate unless at the same time we curb our own harmful impulses and desires.

Religious belief is no guarantee of moral integrity. Looking at the history of our species, we see that among the major troublemakers - those who visited violence, brutality and destruction on their fellow human beings - there have been many who professed religious faith, often loudly. Religion can help us establish basic ethical principles. Yet we can still talk about ethics and morality without having recourse to religion.

We must be able to show that violence towards others is wrong. And yet we must find some way of doing so which avoids the extremes of crude absolutism on the one hand, and of trivial relativism on the other. Ordinary common sense should tell us that establishing binding ethical principles is possible when we take as our starting point the observation that we all desire happiness and wish to avoid suffering. We have no means of discriminating between right and wrong if we do not take into account others’ feelings, others’ suffering.

One of the things which determines whether an act is ethical or not is its effect on others’ experience or expectation of happiness. An act which harms or does violence to this is potentially an unethical act.

Emotions and motivation.

When an individual’s overall state of heart and mind is wholesome, it follows that our actions themselves will be (ethically) wholesome.

The individual’s overall state of heart and mind (or motivation) in the moment of action is the key to determining its ethical content, and this point is easily understood when we consider how our actions are affected when we are gripped with powerful negative thoughts and emotions such as hatred and anger. In that moment our mind and heart are in turmoil.

Not only does this cause us to lose our sense (!) of proportion and perspective, but we also lose sight of the likely impact of our actions on others. Indeed, we can become so distracted that we ignore the question of others, and of their right to happiness, altogether. Our actions under such circumstances - that is to say our deeds, words, thoughts, omissions and desires - will almost certainly be injurious to others’ happiness. And this in spite of what our long-term intentions towards others may be or whether our actions are consciously intended or not. The less calm we are, the more likely we are to react negatively with harsh words, and the more certain we are to say or do things which later we regret bitterly, especially if we feel deeply for that person.

When the driving force for our actions is wholesome, our actions will tend automatically to contribute to others’ well-being. They will thus automatically be ethical. Further, the more this is our habitual state, the less likely we are to react badly when provoked. And even when we do lose our temper, any outburst will be free of any sense of malice or hatred. The aim of spiritual and, therefore, ethical practice is thus to transform and perfect the individual’s kun long [spirit, disposition, motivation]. This is how we become better human beings. [Spiritual intelligence]

I trust that I have made it clear that a spiritual revolution entails an ethical revolution.

Layer 2 Taking Care of Ourselves

It’s worth considering the various ways in which we need to take care of ourselves, and we need to just do it without becoming obsessive about it. We need to take care of ourselves physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally and socially. We also need to recognise, exercise and look after our instinctual selves. We need to think long and hard about just what our instinctual selves might be, and what instinctual intelligence might be.

So that's all fairly straightforward, isn’t it? We’re three dimensional beings. These six aspects, the ones just listed, are the end points of three axes that run through our selves, our multi-faced selves, and our lives. Our lives are this simple, and this complex.

These six aspects and these three types of intelligence make us what we are, and what we’re not. In order to survive and thrive we need to be aware of them, take care of them, develop them and polish them.

We also need to keep ourselves in balance. We can be all thought and no instinct, or the other way round. We need to have lots of both in order to become the best we can be.

Have you ever met some poor sod who was all action and reaction, with little or no capacity for thought and reflection? Ever seen a baby? Ever seen an infantilised adult? The baby is wonderful. The other one isn’t.

Or have you ever met someone who was all thought and reasoning, forever plotting and scheming and planning, with no capacity for spontaneity, no authenticity, and no positive driving instincts? This is the domain of the psychopath, the mad professor, or anyone with excessive desires for control - over themselves as well as others.

How easily we confuse thoughts, feelings and emotions.

We could all benefit from some greater clarity, if only so that we have a common language for building understanding, and raising the levels of our different intelligences. So let’s try this.

Clearly, thoughts belong on the first axis. As do their opposite, our instincts, which often trigger swift reactions - flight, fight, freeze and fuck. Not much thinking involved in any of those. Basic instincts.

Emotions are on the second axis, which reaches from the highly and exclusively personal and emotional to the highly social and impersonal, or the purely collective. Love, hate, fear, jealousy, and all the other emotions are located here. Our social interactions with others are the source of great joy and great misery. On the other hand, to be anti-social or non-social can be lonely, painful, boring and frustrating, whilst privacy and solitude can be restorative and enjoyable. (This is no paradox. This is yin and yang.)

Feelings are on the third axis. They’re the product of our physical senses, and our metaphysical or spiritual capacity for awe and wonder. To look, to see, to touch, to taste, to smell, to hear - to experience the sublime and the ineffable that can never be captured in a thought or an emotion, let alone a word or a sentence or even a book, or a blog. That’s Satori. Wonder-ful.

How do you feel? Open your eyes. Consider the stars and the sunset. Smell the roses. Taste the coffee. Tune in to the music of the spheres. Walk in the sun. Touch or kiss someone special. Now how do you feel? You don’t like roses, or coffee? Pick and choose your own special sensual delights.

So you never feel a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty and mystery of life, the universe and everything? Don’t worry. There are millions on earth who are struggling to develop some spiritual intelligence. To become physically and metaphysically intelligent. Millions of two-dimensional people, flattened by life, squashed and restricted by circumstance.

Most of us have a problem with hanging on to the notion that life is wonderful. Those satori moments tend to be quite fleeting in a world that leaves few opportunities and too little time to open ourselves up to them. Too little time or opportunity to sit quietly and do nothing, or to walk on a beach or a hillside or beside a river by ourselves or with a lover or our children, at sunset or sunrise, or any other time we choose. Many of us feel we have no such choices.

I realise now what’s always on my mind. The axe I constantly grind. Those three axes. Those three dimensions. That particular model of our psyches. That little piece of the jigsaw, that small step on the road - at least my road - towards enlightenment. Back on the road again.