The Demise of Guys

New TED ebook warns of the demise of guys.

Have boys bottomed out? A new TED Book says yes. The culprit: the rampant overuse of video games and online porn.

In their provocative ebook The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, celebrated psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo and Nikita Duncan say that an addiction to video games and online porn have created a generation of shy, socially awkward, emotionally removed, and risk-adverse young men who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school, and employment. Taking a critical look at a problem which is tearing at families and societies everywhere, The Demise of Guys suggests that our young men are suffering from a new form of “arousal addiction,” and introduce a bold new plan for getting them back on track. The book is based on a popular TED Talk which Zimbardo did in 2011, and includes extensive research as well as a TED-exclusive survey that drew responses from more than 20,000 men. We recently spoke with Zimbardo and Duncan about their ideas.

Why are guys failing?
Duncan: There are many factors that play into a general loss of motivation in guys. If you go beyond the symptoms — performing poorly in school, failing to transition into adulthood, flaming out socially and sexually with women — and into the causes, guys are living in an environment that’s hostile towards men. We make men feel expendable, unneeded, and like they can’t be themselves. When you think about the fact that 85% of all stimulant medications are prescribed to American boys, for example, you can’t help but wonder about why there is such a disproportion. No doubt there’s some legitimate cases of ADHD, but we’re basically telling high-energy males that it’s not okay to be that way and there’s something wrong with them. We’ve also canceled most gym and recreation time in schools — an important way guys used to be able to release some of that energy. The list goes on.

What age group of men are we talking about?
Zimbardo: We focus primarily on guys in their teens and 20s, although guys of all ages are certainly affected.

What’s causing this? Tech? Media?
Duncan: Technology is not the issue. Rather, it’s the misuse of technology. There’s a general overuse of video games and porn — especially in social isolation — which is not balanced out by other activities like exercise, face-to-face socialization with peers, or individual time with any kind of male mentor. The average teenage guy spends 44 hours a week in front of a television or computer screen and half an hour in one-on-one conversation with his father. And that’s the boys who actually have a father around. Fatherlessness is another huge factor; America leads the industrialized world in fatherlessness — 40% of children today are born to unwed mothers, the rate is 50% for women under 30. This in turn affects guys’ school performance. Boys that grow up without fathers around do not do as well in school and are not as well adjusted socially. They’re also far more likely to have attention or mood disorders and more likely to play excessive amounts of video games.

Each generation seems to think that the generation following them is headed for ruin. Couldn’t this just be adult fears based on not understanding the youth?
Zimbardo: There’s no doubt every generation is different from the last. However, this generation is very different from any other before it. Guys’ brains are being forever altered with prescription drugs, illegal drugs that have ever-increasing potency, and overstimulation from enticing images and games. All of this make them less motivated to deal with a quickly evolving reality. Young men are getting left behind socially, sexually, and financially.

Has something changed to worsen the challenges that young men have in creating solid interpersonal relationships?
Zimbardo: The most popular answers from our 20,000-person survey was that widespread hardcore Internet porn is wreaking havoc on relationships. Women said it’s made guys emotionally unavailable, and guys said it made them less interested in pursuing a relationship in the first place. The terrible economy doesn’t help, because of the current financial situation many guys can no longer see a family in their future. Relationships used to be viewed as a precursor to setting up a family together, but today, with fewer reasons to become romantically committed, young men don’t need to look beyond women as sex objects.

Can we slow the demise of guys?
Yes. These trends can be reversed, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and involvement from parents — both mom and dad, educators, video game producers, and guys themselves. We started a forum on our website demiseofguys.com to get these discussions going.

The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It is part of the TED Books series, which is available for the Kindle and Nook as well as on Apple’s iBookstore for $2.99.

Mind Your Own Business.

In 1858, Baha’u'llah, in exile to Baghdad, walked the banks of the Tigris river, and, over time, revealed a book He called ‘The Hidden Words’, the inner essence of “that which hath descended from the realm of glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the Prophets of old. … clothed in the garment of brevity, as a token of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust, and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue”

Adib Taherzadeh, in his attempt to describe the breadth of the revelation of Baha’u'llah in a 4 volume work, regarded Baha’u'llah’s chief aim of ‘The Hidden Words’ to detach us from the mortal world and protect our soul from our greatest enemy, ourselves. Among ‘The Hidden Words’ are a set of gems which point towards the development of method in this spiritual endeavour:

Baha’u'llah poems

26. O SON OF BEING! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.

 27. O SON OF MAN! Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner. Shouldst thou transgress this command, accursed wouldst thou be, and to this I bear witness.

 28. O SON OF SPIRIT! Know thou of a truth: He that biddeth men be just and himself committeth iniquity is not of Me, even though he bear My name.

 29. O SON OF BEING! Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.

 30. O SON OF MAN! Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee, for his face is My face; be then abashed before Me.

 31. O SON OF BEING! Bring thyself to account each day ere thou art summoned to a reckoning; for death, unheralded, shall come upon thee and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.

Number 26 though 29 of the above (in order of appearance in The Hidden Words) reflects the judgmentalism that most of us bring to life. Number 30 seems quite different. Certainly any of Baha’u'llah’s ‘Hidden Words’ can be studied in isolation. However, consider the possibilities by placing it in a context between the first 4 and the last. In this context we see it as part of a pattern of education that Baha’u'llah is providing us against our beliefs and response to others. At least one view would be to consider the early four as a lead up, like saying, “look here, look there, at your fellow humans, all with our follies, yet pay attention only to yourself dealing with them as faultless, and being just and fair.” Then Baha’u'llah follows up this lead by raising the stakes, as if to say, “now that you have removed the basic barrier against the other approaching you, now that you have recognised there is no separateness, the other can approach you and, when they do, give them what they ask, with humility.” The set is rounded up by Number 31, a profound challenge to accountability, suggesting, in the context, that we will be reckoned against whoever we denied.

Although the language of these ‘Hidden Words’ are chastising in form, it would be unfortunate for the reader to become afraid to the extent they are unable to reach for an understanding of the lofty possibility that Baha’u'llah has placed before us, the possibility of love, a condition of desire for the benefit of the other against one’s ownself.

Further, how do we grapple with a concept of allowing everyone to approach and then giving them whatever they ask? On first glance it might suggest that Baha’u'llah is asking us to allow ourselves to be victimised. Yet, if we dig deeply around this idea, we begin to see another set of possibilities stemming from the first act of allowing others to approach through non-judgementalism and love. When we are being open to the other with love, there is simple no separation, they approach, we are listening to them, we are listening to ourselves, there is no separation. Indeed, Baha’u'llah says, “his face is My face“, we are listening to Baha’u'llah. And what are we hearing. On the face of it we are hearing any type of sharing from another: happy, sad, angry, complaining, encouraging. We might think, well happy is better from the other than complaining. Yet isn’t it true that their happiness is our happiness, their complaint our complaint. On one hand, Baha’u'llah is drawing us to the insight that there is no-one else being happy but ourselves, no-one complaining but ourselves. Baha’u'llah’s goad, when considered in the light of Abdu’l-Baha’s suggestion that “all souls become as one soul, and all hearts as one heart … all be set free from the multiple identities that were born of passion and desire, and in the oneness of their love for God find a new way of life”, even suggests that ‘ourselves’ is a bigger entity than that lying within one brain, one mind, but the ourselves as a community. Isn’t it also true that the happiness or the complaint of another is but a request to us. Aren’t we always asking something of each other? “Deny not My servant should he ask anything from thee”, and we are asking of each other at all times. And, given their request is our request, what shall we deny? For we can deny ourselves even requests we know come from within our own desires, so why not the request of another. Yet what we do not deny ourselves is to present our request to ourself. Neither then, shall we deny another to present their request to us. Conversely, does it make sense that we would withhold our own request of another?

So, what is that request? Whether the other is angry or happy, whether they are complaining or encouraging, isn’t the request for love. So, when another comes looking for love, give the other love. And, yes, often, in giving love, we give the other what they say they are desiring, for we have no need for it. And sometimes we might not give it because we do have need for it. Making a distinction between what we need and what we do not need is our most significant spiritual challenge.

So, spiritually, what do we need? Baha’u'llah responds, “Observe My commandments, for the love of My beauty. Happy is the lover that hath inhaled the divine fragrance of his Best-Beloved from these words, laden with the perfume of a grace which no  tongue can  describe. By My life! He who hath drunk the choice wine of fairness from the hands of My bountiful favour will circle around My commandments that shine above the Dayspring of My creation.”

It follows, then, that: we give whatever we have no need of, to observe Baha’u'llah’s commandments; we give whatever, in giving, fulfils Baha’u'llah’s commandments; and in any case, whatever we need to fulfil the laws of Baha’u'llah are not ours to give, do not belong to us, but are ours to provide the observation of those commandments.

The profound challenge to accountability reckoned by Baha’u'llah in Hidden Word number 31, by suggesting that we will be reckoned against whoever we denied, and, as such, how much we have denied our own selves. In denying our own selves, we are not only separate from the others, we are causing separateness within ourselves. Not denying ourself and others, then proposes that we shall not deny their request. Their request, being a request for love, receives through love, the observation of Baha’u'llah’s law.

Yet, if we acknowledge our ineptness in regard our judgmentalism, how do we bring ourselves to account? From my own experience, just sitting everyday, acknowledging my failures of that day and promising myself to do better, tomorrow, has provided limited fruit. If anything, the best fruit it has brought to me has been the question that my current approach is not working so well; and that has allowed me to open a search for methodology that might serve to enhance my accountability.

I would like to describe two methods for daily accountability that I have found valuable in bringing me to looking accountably at my being in life, in order to be open to the other.

The first method is ‘The Work’ by Byron Katie. Listening to Byron Katie’s talks, I am fascinated by the turn of phrase that she occasionally uses, that provided me a new insight to the above ‘Hidden Words’. One of these was, “mind your own business”. Now, we tend to use this phrase in a defensive manner with rejecting connotations. This is not the sense of Byron Katie’s usage. Katie means it very literally, that our business is, as Baha’u'llah frames it, is to look at our own faults, our own  sins, our justice towards others, and share the observation of His law with His servants. Katie recognises that we tend to be ‘minding someone else’s business’ by telling them what they should be doing in life or for us. ‘Minding someone else’s business is what Baha’u'llah points to as a denial of Himself, an accursed thing. Byron Katie reflects that because of the effort required, we really have no time to mind anyone else’s business. Yet our mind, at least that aspect which some refer as our ego, prefers not to mind our own business, and therein lies the rub.

So Katie devise a series of questions to bring our minds into focus on our own business. She advises us to remember a stressful situation or a person you think could use your advice. Fully revisit the situation and its emotions. BE HONEST.

1. Describe the situation: I am (emotion) with (name) because (elaborate).
2. What do you want them to do: I want (name) to (elaborate).
3. What advice would you offer them: (Name) should / shouldn’t (elaborate).
4. What do you need of them, to be happy: I need (name) to (think, say, feel, do).
5. What do you think of them: (Name) is (elaborate).
6. What is it that you never want to experience again: I don’t ever want (elaborate).

Once you have completely been honest with these questions, and it might not look good, Katie suggests a set of questions against the original scenario.

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know it is true?
3. How are you being when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without that thought?

Keeping the last in mind, Katie then suggests that you turn the thought around as many ways as you can but especially to be about yourself; to be that you are doing it to the other; and the complete opposite idea, and therefore there is not a problem.

Each time you turn it around, Katie suggests you find three genuine examples of how that turnaround is true.

You can see the discipline it is creating for bringing yourself to account about how you created separateness in your own mind towards others.

Finally, and here is the mighty spiritual reach, Katie encourages we commit to acceptance of the challenge that we perceive from the other, to learn to dispel our sense of separateness. For this, she suggests returning to the 6th statement of need you elaborated earlier, and, instead of “I don’t ever want …” turn that around to “I am willing to …” or “I look forward to …

I want, now to turn to the second method for accountability that I am working. A lighter idea, an idea of gratitude. In this method, look back over your day for an example to be grateful of. Remember, even journal it in full. Do some exercise for your fitness and brain health. Meditate to train calmness of the mind. And finally, make one small random act of kindness, even just a note of gratitude in an email or text message. This might seem different to the goals we set for accountability. However remember that accountability is about removing our separateness between our fellows. Learning joyfulness that comes with gratitude for our interactions with others, dispels judgement, brings our own business to the fore which is to be joy with others.

The Rich Don’t Create Jobs

Nick Hanauer is a venture capitalist from Seattle who was the first non-family investor in Amazon.com. Today he’s a very rich man. And, somewhat jarringly, he’s screaming to anyone who will listen that he, and other wealthy innovators like him, doesn’t create jobs. The middle class does – and its decline threatens everyone in America, from the innovators on down.

Apparently Hanauer gave a talk in March 2012 at the TED University conference and it is not uploaded becasue TED officials have declared it too politically controversial to post on their web site. Here is the transcript from National Journal.

“It is astounding how significantly one idea can shape a society and its policies.  Consider this one: If taxes on the rich go up, job creation will go down. This idea is an article of faith for republicans and seldom challenged by democrats and has shaped much of today’s economic landscape. But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe.  It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.  

I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is a “circle of life” like feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion this virtuous cycle of increasing demand and hiring. In this sense, an ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than a capitalist like me. 

So when businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it’s a little like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Anyone who’s ever run a business knows that hiring more people is a capitalists course of last resort, something we do only when increasing customer demand requires it.  In this sense, calling ourselves job creators isn’t just inaccurate, it’s disingenuous.That’s why our current policies are so upside down. When you have a tax system in which most of the exemptions and the lowest rates benefit the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.Since 1980 the share of income for the richest Americans has more than tripled while effective tax rates have declined by close to 50%.  

If it were true that lower tax rates and more wealth for the wealthy  would lead to more job creation, then today we would be drowning in jobs.  And yet unemployment and under-employment is at record highs.

Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, we go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.

I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the vast majority of American families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.  

Here’s an incredible fact.  If the typical American family still got today the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would earn about 25% more and have an astounding $13,000 more a year. Where would the economy be if that were the case?

Significant privileges have come to capitalists like me for being perceived as “job creators” at the center of the economic universe, and the language and metaphors we use to defend the fairness of the current social and economic arrangements is telling. For instance, it is a small step from “job creator” to “The Creator”. We did not accidentally choose this language. It is only honest to admit that calling oneself a “job creator” is both an assertion about how economics works and the a claim on status and privileges. 

The extraordinary differential between a 15% tax rate on capital gains, dividends, and carried interest for capitalists, and the 35% top marginal rate on work for ordinary Americans is a privilege that is hard to justify without just a touch of deification 

We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an eco-systemic  feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.

So here’s an idea worth spreading. In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are consumers, the middle class.  And taxing the rich to make investments that grow the middle class, is the single smartest thing we can do for the middle class, the poor and the rich.”

While there is something a little clunky about Hanauer’s argument, including that the person who can make wealth, can also utilise that wealth for purposeful means that create jobs and assist the progress of civilisation. Nonetheless, there is sense in his demand for a democratic system of governance in which taxation rates are progressive according to wealth creation. If we take the principle that everyone in a democratic system admits to paying a equitable share of the wealth they have drawn from the nation of resources, then equity demands that the return from wealthy people to the commonweal will be proportionally greater than from the poorer people. In fact, the social contract in democracy would see people like Nick Hanauer increasingly volunteering their money to the commonweal. A progressive taxation rate might be based on a formula in which the lowest 10% income earners pay zero tax, the next 30 % pay 20% tax, the next 30% pay 40 %, and the highest 30% pay 60%.  This system pragmatically, as in the Australian system, precludes tax on that first increment (as per the lowest 10%) for everyone. Certainly I agree with tax deductions for the costs of running business and employment. And so, even at the upper level, the wealthier person is accumulating significant dollars.

Meanwhile the progressive tax system creates a huge feedback loop into public services and infrastructures, assisting the nation in times of downturning economic times, and in steering a nation’s socio-economic direction toward ‘greener’ pastures. Ironically, it is toward ‘greener’ pastures that all modern economies require steering this century.  How the taxation system can be used to steer that course is another important discussion. Regardless, I would suggest that the total taxes paid by an individual (including a company) should not be much less or at all higher than I have suggested here. It’s leverage would be only to create small percentages of rewards for change of economic behaviour. For the wealthy who need to lead economic changes, even small percentage changes amount to great increase in wealth, so any rewards must be discrete indeed.

Fishes and Oceans; Being and Dancing

I expect that, when you woke up this morning, you didn’t fall flapping on the floor, gasping for air until you remembered that, of course, you can breath air, you have lungs. You didn’t have a long philosophical debate about whether it was an appropriate form of breathing, to breath air with lungs. Fish, of course, live in the salty ocean, also without any philosophical complaint, nor any distress, nor any enquiry. Humans, like fish, tend to be oblivious to our capacities and tendencies where they are indistinct from our survival in the sea in which we swim.

Humans, unlike fish, became ‘being’ at the first moment of realisation that, indeed there is a distinction, that the sea (the world) will not ensure our survival, but that we can bring capacity to bear on the world to enhance that assurance. However, we then create a dance between ourselves and the non-sentient world around how far we can separate from each other and the world, and what good it does our progress, to separate. As we weave this dance, we create cultural seas within which, for a time, we feel ‘right’. However the dance is destined to perturbation and eventually disintegration. What do we do, when this disintegration occurs? Without integration in the world and our human relationships, we cannot breath, there is no automatic ‘rightness’, and logical answers, while helpful, are diverse and energy expensive, making them often unworkable.

Baha’u'llah, references His own mission in this process. “The world’s equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind’s ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System — the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.

Immerse yourselves in the ocean of My words, that ye may unravel its secrets, and discover all the pearls of wisdom that lie hid in its depths. Take heed that ye do not vacillate in your determination … This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future. Let him that seeketh, attain it; and as to him that hath refused to seek it — verily, God is Self-Sufficient, above any need of His creatures.”

By encouraging humanity to “Immerse yourself in the ocean of My Words ” I wonder that Baha’u'llah is evoking for humanity a completely new culture, completely new relationships, an ocean for us to swim, within which the whole of humanity is successful, even extraordinary in progress, but which realisation comes about from being fully transformed into a ‘being’ that breathes the Word of God from Baha’u'llah.

It seems the dance is reinstated. For those who give their whole life to immerse themselves in the ocean of His words, they live in another world and are creating a new attractor for the dance, a new way of being. For those who are fishing from that ocean, not convinced that they can live within, new products and forms are brought forth. Those who wander on the beach head notice the remnants of recent generations of effort, wasted in the sand, and are inspired. And those who spend their days eking an existence from a briny wastewater, hear only rumours of a seemingly mythological paradise, and ignore them.

“Immerse yourselves” is Baha’u'llah’s tantalising invitation. Become a new being in a new ocean, living effortlessly in an extraordinary culture that no other generation of humanity has dreamed, is the implication.

Radical Forgiveness

Thanks to the ABC ‘All in the Mind’ program for revisiting an interview with Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela about her interview with Eugene de Kock, the head of covert operations units in the security forces of South Africa, during the South

Desmond Tutu and Pumla Gobodo-Madikezela

African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Pumla is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Cape Town

Pumla’s interview provides an deep insight into the nature of mass evil, and its transformation through forgiveness. Of the commission, Desmond Tutu had said, “We will have looked the beast in the eye. We will have come to terms with our horrendous past and it will no longer keep us hostage.”

On this ‘beast’, Pumla reports, “the apartheid government (used) religion and psychology to integrate religion and psychology as a way of getting to the minds of their supporters. Any group or individuals who were opposed to the states were perceived as the anti-Christ, these were the apartheid leaders placed by God so as to speak.

And at a deeper psychological, even perhaps one might say unconscious level … is a level at which people then split off their ability to understand right from wrong, and abuse from treating people as fellow human beings. This whole idea of splitting within the self so that if you are not for me, then you are other, and if you are other then I can treat you anyway that I want. So you make the other person invisible, you don’t see them as human beings and that happens at a very deeply psychological level — to the extent that people may not even be consciously aware of what they are doing, just their mind splits off: I don’t exist in your eyes, or you don’t exist in my eyes, as a human being.

Eugene de Kock’s role was to train black and white collaborators with the state as death squads. Black and white anti-apartheid activists were targeted by the security forces or the state and word would be out that they needed to be eliminated. He ran an operation on a secret farm that was called Vlakplaas, just outside of Pretoria, fully funded by tax payers’ money. He ran a series of death squads placed all over the country; many, many people were killed. Murders that were engineered to look like so-called terrorist operations when in fact the government had lured activists into a trap and then killed them.

Eugene de Kock asked to meet privately with some of the widows of his victims. From that meeting the widows came out and told me that they had forgiven Eugene de Kock. Now that struck me as something that is impossible; I’ve never, up until then, even as I was involved in the Commission I have never imagined the possibility of forgiveness in the context of these kinds of crimes. One of the women when I tried to understand what she meant by forgiving Eugene de Kock, she said Eugene de Kock gave us so much more than anybody ever has done in terms of information about the killing of our husbands. I want to hold Eugene de Kock by the hand and to show him that there is a possibility to change, I forgive him, unconditionally. And now when they were in the room with Eugene de Kock they were in tears, they were crying, so I asked them what were the tears about and she says I want him to know that our tears were not just for our husbands, they were tears for him as well. And this was just so unbelievable for me and this was the beginning of my work in this field of trauma and forgiveness.

I mean this person was the embodiment of evil, we called him prime evil, that was his nickname in South Africa. He was kind of like the very essence of what evil is about in apartheid. I went to see de Kock for all those reasons and my first meeting with him was really going to be the last meeting, the only meeting. But what happened was I asked Eugene de Kock to describe his encounter with these widows who forgave him. And as I asked that question his face just fell and you could visibly see how distressed he was; he started to shake, to tremble and he took off his glasses and his voice, it was cracking and you could see the voice was breaking.

I reached out and touched his shaking hand, just responding to a human moment someone feeling a sense of pain and my being drawn to respond to touch him with my heart, with my hand — to kind of indicate my sense of empathy or my sense of sympathy. I don’t know, it’s just that human quality that draws us into community with others who are in pain.

In opening myself, making myself vulnerable in so many ways, what I realise is that we are taught to distance ourselves and to despise those we define as evil. To split off the side that carries or bears the possibility of engaging in evil in ourselves so that the other person who commits evil never is brought into the community of moral human beings. And we see them as monsters and these words help us in a way to distance ourselves from them. And that instinct to respond to de Kock in the way that I did is what I’ve come to know as a human tendency. It’s what you are brought up with that will recognise the humanness of another person.

I think it is important for us to recognise the journey people like Eugene de Kock choose to embark on when they at last listen to the voice of conscience. Here is a human hand touching him and it happens to be a black human hand as well, I mean he spent his life targeting black people, and so it threw him off, even that idea of referring to it as my trigger hand, it’s another level of splitting. Here’s something that is important I want to mention, Natasha, and I really think we all so often miss this point, which is that Eugene de Kock may have been an operator conducting these treacherous horrific acts — he was not alone, he was backed by a whole society of voters, and in fact during the years where Eugene de Kock stepped up his operations, where the operations became more horrific, the number of voters who supported apartheid increased. So it was a vote of confidence in the government. De Kock was the most decorated police officer in the entire police force in South Africa because of what he did.”

Tutu is also reported of this process, “It is very humbling, it is very ennobling too. Many times when these things happen I almost always feel like saying to people, we should take off our shoes, we are standing on holy ground.”

Pumla talks to forgiveness. “Forgiveness, true forgiveness is a very specific process. Forgiveness is not an event, they are engaging with the perpetrator who has felt a sense of remorse. They are responding to the sense of remorse. Now I think the essence of forgiveness at the relational level is about transforming the relationship. Once we begin to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation we are urging towards a transformation of those relationships. Now I call it radical forgiveness in opposition to the notion that these acts are unforgiveable.”

The dialogue between the realities of perpetrator and their victim resuscitates a victim that was dehumanised… When perpetrators acknowledge that remembering of the other human being. It touches a core in the victim’s inner world, one that invites their engagement with this terrible man — and that opens the door to forgiveness.

It can be disempowering too when a perpetrator continues to deprive the victim of that sense of acknowledgement, and even saying words of forgiveness, forgiveness can be disempowering.

Encountering Eugene de Kock who represented the worst of apartheid was a huge moment of healing for me, because — these sometimes are symbolic actions, but symbols are so important to put us on a course of transformation in societies. The challenge is how to make it possible for us to go beyond the symbolic, the real transformation of people’s lives, economic justice for example. Now that is the realm of the government, our government in so many ways has made a lot of changes and transformation. In so many ways they have not done enough.

Atlas of Living Australia

Thorny Devil Lizard

There is now an atlas of living Australia.

The Atlas of Living Australia (Atlas) contains information on all the known species in Australia aggregated from a wide range of data providers: museums, herbaria, community groups, government departments, individuals and universities.

Use it to:

• access information pages for each species containing photos, descriptions, maps and observations
• access scientific and common names
• explore the flora and fauna reported around your neighbourhood
• learn about Australia’s biodiversity collections at museums, herbaria and other institutions
• learn about citizen science projects
• map, analyse and visualise biodiversity and environmental data and trends
• access tools to help track changes in biodiversity and the environment
• download and use open source tools
• download biodiversity data
• access images, literature and genetic information through Australian nodes of international data repositories
• volunteer for digitisation projects.

IS BREIVIK A FLAG BEARER?

“Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core.” – Hannah Arendt

Thus begins Giovanni Vimercati’s clear commentary in the Huffington Post, on the Breivik mass murder case in Norway. Vimercati asks, “How many people, though firmly condemning his murderous act, share his concerns regarding the so-called ‘Islamization’ of Europe? Is he a deviant exception or a disquieting symptom?” We might ask the same question around the world of our own attitudes to the ‘other’. Here, in Australia, racism against Aboriginal peoples is quietly endemic, finding a louder voice when directed toward Muslims, and, for some reason, even louder against environmentalists.

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions” Primo Levi once said; may this timeless warning guide us in the struggle against evil.

Is Breivik a flagbearer in front of a growing army of ignorance and prejudice who have learnt few lessons about humanity, and who are just waiting for a trigger to unleash their anger on anyone different in colour, nationality or view?

Re-Thinking Human Rights

Human rights are a very important part of our contemporary global society. However the very fact of their announcement suggests a distortion of the human spirit throughout that society. If we swam in a global society in which the aspiration of human rights were achieved, then we would hardly need to announce them, they would simply be the global society.

So, what would that society be?

At the very beginnings of the Baha’i Faith in Persia in the 1840′s, the co-founder of the Faith, titled ‘The Bab’ (pronounced: barb), wrote at least one prayer indicating that one of the aspirations of an individual’s spiritual being, as a step toward detachment from all things, save God, is independence, materially and socially. Later, Baha’u'llah wrote that one of the most important social principles we should abide, is the unfettered and independent search for truth. Other teachings of Baha’u'llah that detail the concept of independence include: universal education as a means for everyone to participate in unfettered search for truth, declaring the age of maturity as 15 years of age, after which the youth must be competent in independent spiritual and social choices; equality of men and women; and equity for all people of the world. Interestingly, in terms of rights, Baha’u'llah mentions these more in regard to governance. Democratic processes are lauded. Kings and rulers have the right to obedience. They also have responsibility to inquire and respond to the conditions of the people. People have no right to political machination, yet are encouraged to stand up for justice, equity, and the development of the community and the nation.

What I notice about the teachings of Baha’u'llah is that adults, including leaders, have less a state of rights than a state of responsibility. As adults we are responsible for our: material and social independence; search for truth; open and authentic approach to politics and community development. We are also responsible to empower others in our lives towards those same elements of independence.

Marriage and family is one of those micro-communities that exemplify a great deal of this responsibility. Baha’u'llah, while encouraging us to make the commitment, does so, not as a right, but as a responsibility to the spouse and the offspring for their spiritual development and the spiritual development of future generations. The other side of that coin is that parents of both intendeds must formally consent to the marriage, thereby being responsible for an evaluation of compatible character of their child and the intended spouse toward the aim of spiritual development; and declaring an active commitment to the larger unity between two families.

So, in the mature society envisaged by Baha’u'llah, adults have responsibility to serve the spiritual and material development of the world. In that framework, we might say that children have rights, and animals and nature has rights.

Extending this concept a little, we might ask, what does this suggest about the engagement of adults with diverse points of view, behaviours, habits. When it comes to the issue of personal or political points of view, Baha’u'llah absolutely forbids aggression or cohercion. He declares the search for truth, the engagement in enquiry, and, even, resignation to the Will of God (perhaps we could translate into, how each moment resolves itself). We might then suggest that the primary dynamic of responsibility for every adult over 15 years is that they shall not coherse another, neither personally nor politically. We shall be responsible for our choices, and our agreements with others. We shall enter into them without accepting cohercion, neither physical nor psychological, neither bribe, nor threat of being cast out. We shall especially avoid cohercion of those with rights: children, animals, nature.

Baha’u'llah offers a vision, an aspiration, for humanity that is extraordinarily transformed from the contemporary ‘Will to Power’ mode. It is, not doubt, confounding for many, how such a society will work. How will we mine our resources and build up our cities, discipline our children, have a secure life? Indeed, under the will-to-power model, we are unable to do these things. Only by a transformation of society as Baha’u'llah has envisaged, can we extract the resources appropriate for the equitable and mature development of humanity; can we raise children to be independent, responsible, and non-cohersive; can we have unity and security and well-being across the planet.

Creative play grows critical thinking in children | Murdoch University

Creative play grows critical thinking in children | Murdoch University.

April 10, 2012

Parents take heart – the alarmingly abstract masterpieces produced by your children could be teaching them how to reason like an adult.

A research project just completed by Murdoch University lecturer Caroline Nilson has suggested that encouraging artistic expression in children may play a key role in establishing critical thinking skills.

Ms Nilson observed the artistic endeavours of 150 children from four local schools who participated in the Mandurah Stretch Festival, a major regional arts festival that uses arts and culture to connect the community.

“By the end of the project we saw the children had grown confidence in their artistic decisions and had learned a great deal about action and consequence, which are both signs of critical thinking.

“This study has shown that critical thinking abilities are developed in children as young as eight and nine years of age through engagement in creative arts.

“Every child needs to have critical thinking dispositions and abilities to survive in today’s rapidly changing world.”

Iqan sent to Evin Prison

In a poetical, heartfelt rendering, Iran Press Watch has translated the post of a youth who has seen a friend sent to prison. In this brief excerpt, the reader will notice that, unlike many other activisms in the world, while Iqan Shahidi is a victim of a tyrannical regime, there is no victimisation here. There is certitude, love, sacrifice, inspiration and service. These are the characteristics of real power. These are the reason why tyrants are ever confounded. These are the reasons why true religion is barely noticed by the world, even though the world would not exist without it. This is the example on which the progress of humanity is founded and will take a direction that few intellectuals perceive. My prayers and service are with our brothers and sisters who are showing the way of sacrifice and the path forward.

Iqan Shahidi

“Iqan is also gone. Iqan Shahidi has been sent to Evin Prison. The same Evin that these days accommodates the best. And Iqan was one of our best….

It is not hard to love someone without having seen him; we love so many things without seeing them. Like the heat of the fireplace in the thick of the winter. Iqan was this warmth. Many of us owe a lot to Iqan. I’m talking about myself. Pity that I can’t describe how one day everyone will know how great a man Iqan was; though even now we know that he is a great man.

Great men are not few. Sama Nourani [another detained Baha'i youth -- see http://www.facebook.com/notes/human-chain-project/one-year-prison-sentence-of-sama-nourani-upheld-in-appeals-court/164913790240005] is another great man; great men who have great plans and hope to accomplish their goal. Yesterday, while reading the following posting on Iqan’s Facebook page my heart sank:

‘ I am checking my belongings for the last time. I am heading out to Evin in one and a half hours. I hope the next time I post something on Facebook, noticeable ease and freedom for my countrymen will have been established through your efforts, my precious ones…’

At the time we had company. Perhaps if I had been alone, I would have burst into tears. I read Iqan’s Facebook posting out aloud to our guests. We fell silent for a while, only silence; a silence that probably Iqan is also experiencing.

Normally, I am not used to talking about someone in this fashion; especially in public. I believe if we love someone like Iqan, we should follow their path. Placing his picture beside ours and bemoaning the misery of his conditions is no help for Iqan, nor for other Iqans, nor for ourselves.

But I write this just for Iqan, because I love him deeply. Long live dear Iqan; awaiting your release.”