Layer 350 . . . Mexico, Drugs, Revolution, Britain, Smashing the State, The Pope, Religion, SEN and Patience

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It's real autumn - tomatoes continuing to ripen, chilli peppers, sunflower seeds harvesting, apples, pears and damsons from friends' trees, etc.

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Someone on the radio said he'd learnt the secret of happiness from a food container: Stand Upright in a Cool Place.

Two challenges here. How to stand upright. Finding a cool place to make your stand.

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Continuing with thoughts about Mexico and revolutionaries -

Mexico's modern revolutionaries

As Mexico marks its 1810 and 1910 uprisings, 2010's upheaval is likely to be about drugs, not politics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/12/mexico-revolution-drugs-uprising

This week sees the 200th anniversary of Mexico's war of separation from Spain; in addition, 20 November marks the centennial of Mexico's landmark revolution, the first mass uprising of the underclass in the Americas. The coincidence of centennials has given breath to the hypothesis that Mexico explodes every 100 years in social upheaval, and some leftists are eagerly expecting renewed fireworks in 2010. Indeed, conditions are ripe for revolution here: 70% of Mexico's 103 million population teeter on and around the poverty line.

Revolutions don't happen unless the working class is angry. Electricity workers recently mounted a mass hunger strike (they lasted 90 days) in the main plaza of Mexico City to protest at the loss of their jobs to privatisation.

Today full-scale urban warfare rages on the streets of Juárez – over 1,800 citizens have been slain in the first eight months of the year in firefights between drug gangs and the Mexican military. Car bombs detonate on downtown streets and the mansions of the wealthy are looted and torched. Narco-commandos attack police stations and army barracks, carrying off artillery, and prisoners are broken out of jails much as they were by revolutionaries a century ago.

The Mexican military and the US North Command – for which Mexico is the southern security perimeter – have long expected the narco-gangs and leftist revolutionary bands to coalesce. But revolutionaries in their armchairs complain that revolutions must have ideologies and display class allegiances: this narco-insurrection seems to be all about barbaric killing and taking power, not the liberation of the working class.

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The drugs issue is hotting up. Even The Economist is running major features on the arguments in favour of following Portugal and decriminalising drugs. Portugal now has one of the lowest levels of drug use in Europe, according to The Economist.

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Meanwhile, back in Britain, it seems it's the government itself that wants to start a revolution:

Yes, the coalition wants to smash the state. That's good

The misery of cuts will grind the government down unless it boldly declares the ideology behind its spending plans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/12/coalition-smash-state-cuts-ideology

This is an ideological government with a plan for a smaller, less centralised and more liberal state. The left dreads the obvious fact that spending cuts are central to this plan – and they are. The left senses that the government is staging a cultural revolution against social democracy – and it is. The coalition does not want to make mild adjustments to the old order. It intends to smash it.

To say that cuts are being forced by necessity and nothing more, is to imply that when fatter times return ministers will reverse them. Nobody who knows the leaderships of this coalition believes that. Much of what the government must do to balance the books it would have wanted to do even if they were in balance.

The point of reducing spending is to change the state, not just spend less.

There's a kamikaze spirit in this government's soul. Ministers seem strangely pacified by the prospect of their possible political doom. New Labour feared unpopularity so much it became timid. This government has written unpopularity into the script. This has freed it to do things it would never have risked in fiscal peacetime. It is why change seems reckless and fast. The coalition feels a revolutionary duty to be brave. It should be proud of that.

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HOWEVER . . .

Financial markets are still ruled by instant gratification

Two years after the collapse of Lehman Bros, it's hard to find much sign of the fundamental reforms we were promised

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/13/economics-recession-globalisation-rebalancing-reform

The crisis exposed the structural weaknesses of the bubble years and policymakers said what they always say at this point in the economic cycle: never again. Faced with evidence of the fragility of globalisation, they announced that the system required fundamental reform. At this juncture, it is appropriate to assess how they have been getting on.

The Demand for Immediate Gratification.

Andrew Haldane, Bank of England executive director for financial stability, said recently in Beijing that rapid gains in economic growth in the modern age were accounted for by patience: investing for tomorrow meant sacrifice today.

"Studies have shown that happy people save more and spend less," he argued. "Happy people also take longer to make decisions and expect a longer life. In short, they are patient. These patterns are connected and reinforcing."

But patience does not always triumph. When impatience takes control, we save less and borrow more. We take snap decisions, thinking little about long-term consequences. This sort of behaviour, as Haldane noted, reaches its apotheosis in the financial markets. "Most traders' brains harbour the impatience gene. Often they harbour little else."

So, it would be a real sign of progress if there was evidence that the gods of the financial markets were re-learning the virtue of patience, thus setting an example to mortals. The sad fact is nothing has changed. The business-as-usual mindset makes the case for reform even more compelling.

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Simon Hattenstone's interview with Sinead O'Connor is well worth a read. It seems she's a total believer in God and Jesus, but hates the Pope, who arrives here tomorrow, and the whole of the Christian hierarchy of priests and bishops.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/sinead-oconnor-pope-visit

Sinead O'Connor: 'The Vatican is a nest of devils'

When she tore up the pope's picture as a protest against child abuse, people thought she was loopy. But Sinead O'Connor – former pop star, priest, newly married mother of four – won't say 'I told you so'

She says, apart from her children, her ordination is her greatest achievement. "I am proud that I did listen to that voice inside me rather than be intimidated by men telling me you can't be a priest. One ought to be more concerned in obeying what the Holy Spirit inspires you to feel rather than what a bunch of men in fucking dresses are telling you to do or not do."

I'm still trying to work out her position – she loves God, but despises Catholicism? She shakes her head. "No, what I think is wrong is that the people running the show are misrepresenting what Catholicism actually is ... what I'm talking about is the highest echelons of the Vatican't as I call it."

"The way they've behaved just in the last 20 years, over this issue of sexual abuse, shows they don't give a shit. They feel untouchable. And to me it seems they don't believe in God at all. Because if you did believe you couldn't stand in front of that spirit covering up and moving priests and doctoring reports to psychiatrists and not telling them there was a suspicion of abuse, you just couldn't do that."

"OK, the abusive priests have been dealt with and that's very important, but now what has to be dealt with is the criminality of the cover-up." She says it has to go to the very top – after all in 2001, Pope Benedict, as Cardinal Ratzinger, issued an updated edict instructing the world's bishops to silence all abuse allegations or risk being thrown out of the church. "The Vatican is a nest of devils and a haven for criminals. It's evil, the very top of the toppermost is evil."

O'Connor is clear what has to happen – those responsible have to go. "And when all the those guys stand down we should take back the church for us." Would she like to see a democratically elected pope? "Do we need a fucking pope? Why do we need a pope? Christ doesn't need a representative. Ten years from now the church will be nothing resembling what it has been."

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Also on the subject of the Pope and religion:

The pope's priestly model: a rabid, self-harming tyrant

The Catholic priesthood needs radical reform. Yet Benedict looks to a cleric who banned dancing and whipped himself nightly

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/10/pope-benedict-xvi-catholicism

What has the pope done about the crisis? What he hasn't done is to initiate reforms based on inquiries into the culture of the total clerical crisis. His solution to the complex problems of clericalism is to ask seminarians and priests to emulate a French priest called Jean Vianney, who died 150 years ago.

Last year Benedict was on the verge of proclaiming Vianney as the patron saint of parish priests, the model for a purer, healthier, irreproachable priesthood. In a scolding letter to the Irish clergy earlier this year, the pope asserted that following the life of Vianney would redeem Ireland's disgraced, abusing clergy. At every opportunity he has promoted Vianney as exemplary.

The promotion of Vianney seems to me the most backward-looking of this pope's initiatives, which include bringing back the Latin mass, routinely denouncing homosexuality, and declaring the ordination of women a great sin.

What is the holy father thinking of, promoting this self-harming, narrow-minded tyrant as a solution to the problems of paedophile priests? Even by a mild interpretation, we should infer that priests must turn parishes into spiritual ghettoes where all secular influences are banned. Masochistic displacement activity, the punishing of the flesh, is proposed as a substitute for personal maturity and integrity.

In other words - spiritual intelligence.

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Special Educational Needs in the press today, and on the 'Today' programme this morning:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/14/special-education-needs-school-young

'Special' education comes in many different guises

Some school students need extra support to liberate them from the constraints with which their world tries to strap them down

Young people in our schools, particularly challenging inner-city schools, do need special educational provision to liberate them from the constraints with which their world attempts to strap them down.

Schools have a duty to provide these young people with the tools to enable them to break free from these constraints, to drive up self esteem, aspiration and expectation, and to take their rightful place at the table of learning.

Schools and teachers cannot do this alone. It is a multi-agency agenda of skilled professionals working alongside the most committed, hardworking, diligent and skilful teachers that can create this climate of success.

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Layer 31 Passion and Patience

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The Today programme on Radio 4 just now featured an item on a new production at the National Theatre of “The Taming of the Shrew”. This came shortly after a trailer for ‘In Our Time’ in which Melvyn Bragg was talking about this morning’s programme, which focused on the human brain. He mentioned that Shakespeare had little regard for the brain, by which he meant ‘thought’, compared with his emphasis on the ‘heart’, meaning human passions and emotions.

This was a real coincidence as I’d woken up today thinking about Shakespeare’s regard for patience, as a crucial human ‘virtue’. He speaks of patience in lots of the plays. For example, in Romeo and Juliet: “Be patient. For the world is broad and wide.” (Act 3 Scene 3) That phrase alone is worth a whole session of reflection and meditation.

Needless to say, Romeo, being a young man under the influence of passion and infatuation, has no interest at all in being patient, and no intention of calming his enthusiasm in order to ensure long-term happiness. Obviously his banishment from Verona was seen as the best thing for him - to give him a chance to cool down.

This week I enjoyed a long and stimulating conversation with two good friends about human emotions - whether they are positive or negative, whether they are simple or complex, whether they have components of thought, feeling and intuition as well as passion, and whether passion is the basic or primitive driving force within us, the fiery part, the libido, and so on.

Yesterday’s Guardian featured a letter from a Hillingdon Councillor, Norman Nunn-Price, who was commenting on what the Labour Party needs to do in the wake of last week’s disaster in the local elections. He speaks of anger, and how to channel this emotion in a positive way.

“ There are now many ex-councillors who are very angry at losing their seats. They are now free to be active where it matters - on the streets and doorsteps. This anger must be harnessed.”

Yes indeed. By everyone, every day. If we take the time to reflect on the things that make us angry, then we should think through the ways in which we can constructively use this emotion and the passion that fuels it to eliminate from our lives the things that make us angry. If not, we either have to learn how to live with the anger and whatever‘s causing it, or else let it rip negatively, and to hell with the consequences.

For myself, I’ve always liked the phrase “Don’t get mad, get even.” Given that we can’t prevent ourselves experiencing anger from time to time, it seems to me that what this means is, don’t just let your anger rip and cause havoc in a useless negative way - consider why you feel angry, and who is causing the anger, and act wisely and logically in a way that will either punish or neutralise whoever or whatever caused you to feel angry. Essentially, revenge is a dish best served cold, as the saying has it. Personally I quite like it frozen, on a stick.

Some quotations on Anger:

http://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_anger.html

Incidentally, Norman Nunn-Price concluded his letter, “The Labour party in Westminster must turn its back on the fat cats in the City and all these media whiz-kids and advisers. Spend the next two years on the streets where people live. Talk to them, listen to them and learn from them. Build up our fighting strength again. Replenish, replace and regroup the shattered battalions. That is the way ahead“.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/07/3

Revenge

(Wikipedia has an interesting page on revenge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge)

Working with children and their parents over so many years I frequently had to deal with the notion from the Old Testament of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, and the determination of both the kids and their parents that they needed some sort of revenge on wrongdoers. It was very hard to convince them that the role of the school was to help children learn from their mistakes, and to develop their emotional intelligence.

It was sufficient punishment normally, given that the children did learn from their mistakes and rarely committed the same act of aggression more than once, for them to have to talk through what they had done, and to feel a sense of shame and disgrace. Even more so if their parents were brought in to talk about the matter, which happened whenever children did not learn and did not respond to warnings and demands for better behavior, better self-control, etc.

Learning to control anger can be hard, and some children are just naturally more fiery than others - more inclined to flashes of temper, instant reactions to frustrating situations, more passionate in their likes and dislikes. Both carrot and stick are needed. Praise for successfully staying calm or walking away from stressful situations; and having to experience isolation from their friends and teachers, and deprivation of things they enjoy, as well as counseling sessions and having to reflect on whatever got them into trouble, when things go wrong.

In Our Time - The History of the Brain.

A curiously unsatisfying and superficial edition of the programme. No reference at all to the essential parts of the brain and what functions they perform - the frontal and pre-frontal lobes, the amygdala and the hippocampus.

Aristotle regarded the heart as the most important part of the human body. He dissected animals of every kind. He believed the heart was the major organ of the human body. He thought the arteries were the conduits of ‘sensation’. The brain looks as though it has very little blood, being grey in colour. Therefore he considered the brain was relatively unimportant.

Plato thought the soul controls the human body, and was located in three places - one part being in the brain, one in the heart, one in the guts or liver. But ‘the heart’ is what makes us human. The brain is seen as a kind of ‘wise counselor’.

[Very clever, I think, of Plato to recognise that our ‘souls’ are complex, and made up of thoughts, passions, feelings, etc.]

Galen was a prominent ancient Greek physician, whose theories dominated Western medical science for well over a millennium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen

Shakespeare tended to use ‘the brain’ as almost a term of abuse.

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What ‘In Our Time’ left out.

The amygdala is clearly a vital part of the brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigdala

Damage to the amygdala, or perhaps deformation, or under-development, will “produce noticeable changes, including overreaction to all objects, hypoemotionality, loss of fear, hypersexuality, and hyperorality, a condition in which inappropriate objects are placed in the mouth”. Hmmmm.

Problems with the amygdala may also be responsible for Borderline Personality Disorder, paranoia, and autism.

The hippocampus is another key area, controlling memory, inhibition, and a sense of space, it seems. This is one of the first areas to be damaged by the onset of Altzheimer’s.

Borderline Personality Disorder is particularly interesting, since it seems to occur in individuals who have problems with controlling strong passions. Sign and symptoms, according to Wikipedia, can include,

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving).
5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars, or picking at oneself.
6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7) Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
8) Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
For those of us working in education and life-long learning in emotional and spiritual intelligence the above list provides much food for thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_Personality_Disorder

Patience

The cultivation and practice of patience seems to me a vital part of becoming emotionally and spiritually intelligent, as an antidote to excessive passion and a tendency to use it negatively. Easy for an Oxzen to say, you may think, but then again a certain lack of passion or fire in one’s makeup brings its own problems. Ah, the difficulty in finding a balance . . .

http://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_patience.html

Quotes re patience

Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return.
~ W. H. Auden ~
The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.
~ Epictetus ~
Patience means self-suffering.
~ Mahatma Gandhi ~
Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
~ Barbara Johnson ~
Consider the hour-glass; there is nothing to be accomplished by rattling or shaking; you have to wait patiently until the sand, grain by grain, has run from one funnel into the other.
~ John Christian Morgenstern ~
If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.
~ Sir Isaac Newton ~
Patience makes a woman beautiful in middle age.
~ Elliot Paul ~
Patience in the present, faith in the future, and joy in the doing
~ George Perera ~
In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
~ W. B. Prescott ~
Rome was not built in a day.
~ Proverb ~
An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains.
~ Dutch Proverb ~
There are times when God asks nothing of his children except silence, patience and tears.
~ C. S. Robinson ~
Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
~ Johann Friedrich Von Schiller ~
Who can be patient in extremes? [Henry Vi]
~ William Shakespeare ~

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Here’s an interesting link to Shakespeare and The Normalisation of Violence.

(I was just thinking this very morning how difficult it is to educate children in non-violence when they are exposed on a daily basis to powerful images of men using everything from knives and swords to guns, tanks, rockets and aircraft to blast their enemies, often in the name of revenge, or justice, or just ‘taking out the bad guys’. Brings back to mind the cap badge worn by our very own Prince Harry - “We do bad things to bad people”. Oh - great!)

The Moderate Voice

http://themoderatevoice.com/at-tmv/newsweek-blogitics/19330/clinton-obama-mccain-and-shakespeare-the-normalization-of-violence/

This contains an interesting reference to Ate

Ate, a Greek word for 'ruin, folly, delusion', is the action performed by the hero, usually because of his/her hubris, or great pride, that leads to his/her death or downfall. There is also a goddess by that name (Até) in Greek mythology, a personification of the same.
In Nonnos' Dionysiaca (11.113), at Hera's instigation Ate persuades the boy Ampelus whom Dionysus passionately loves to impress Dionysus by riding on a bull from which Ampelus subsequently falls and breaks his neck.

In the play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare introduces the goddess Ate as an invocation of vengeance and menace. Mark Antony, lamenting Caesar's murder, envisions "And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate' by his side come hot from Hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war, ..."

http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Ate.html