|
Leo Semashko. Planetary Tetraspheral Structure: The Priority of Children in a Harmony of Spherons Free of Violence Response to Robert J. Burrowes Publication: In English: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1327 In Russian: https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=1178 Dear Robert. Thank you very much for reminding us of your brilliant 2013 article on the "war of adults against children" in view of its escalation and expansion. We have been in contact with you for a long time, since 2013, with your "Promise to Children," published on the GGHA website (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=625) as part of this international movement, which was launched by Kerry Bowden and supported by us in 2005 with my "Promise to Children" (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=102). Your active collaboration with the GGHA began in 2016, with the publication of your childhood experiences in our fundamental "Global Peace Science" (2016: https://peacefromharmony.org/docs/global-peace-science-2016.pdf). For them your was awarded the highest honorary title of "Gandhian Creator of World Harmony" in 2021 on your personal page (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=679). You and I, along with our organizations, have long and persistently strived to overcome child abuse, as well as violence in society in general, in accordance with the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. We highly value your efforts and contribution to solving this key social problem, their relevance and necessity, but we disagree on its fundamental cause. You limit it to the undoubtedly important psycho-emotional and pedagogical factors of children in the family, at home, and at school, the visible and invisible violence against children by adults, which you have brilliantly outlined in this and other articles on this topic, thus defining the "fundamental cause of violence." To address this, you propose a solution that is completely correct within your limited, fragmented framework of vision: "we must also tackle the cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do." This, in your opinion, will free children from "dysfunctional, violent behavior" and put an end to violence in general. You have limited the entire solution to family and school pedagogy. But is this the only "fundamental cause of violence"? We are convinced, and have scientifically proven, that this cause of violence lies, according to Galtung's definition, in "structural violence," the inescapable and insurmountable violence of partial, sectoral social structures, the endless fragmentation of which gives rise to endless hostility, confrontation, war, and violence between them. In the unsystematic chaos of which speechless children are relegated to a low structural status, which allows for any kind of violence to be perpetrated against them. Why do you conceal the horrific statistics of abortions worldwide, the number of children maimed by the LGBT movement for essentially forced sex reassignment, the number of children trafficked into sexual slavery, the number of children killed and maimed in wars, the number of systemic Nazi exterminations of children by the Third Reich, and now by Bandera's Ukraine, Israel, and others. Why do you conceal the absolute fact of the mortal threat to all humanity, including all children, of the nuclear "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD) prepared since Hiroshima in 1945? Its probability has been growing rapidly every year for over 80 years, yet adults haven't offered any common solution to save at least their children from this barbaric violence, if they don't feel sorry for themselves? No pedagogy can counter these facts, as "fundamental causes of violence," but only the planetary harmony of the humanity tetraspheral social structure of equal spherons, as Mahatma Gandhi first spoke of. But their scientific understanding is impossible in disciplinary, "whole-blind" thinking and in its "Godless and Fake Science" (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1255). It requires, according to Einstein, "a substantially (structurally) new (tetraspheral) thinking," which determines the structural social priority of children in humanity. With this idea, initially imperfect and limited to mere "promises," the GGHA began in 2005. Over the next 20 years, it has created and verified the foundations of a planetary "Perpetual Peace Science," which integrates your specific, true proposals into its overall system. Its brief conclusions on the real implementation of nonviolence and the priority of children are presented in the attached two-page abstract. For the GGHA, the social priority of children is the highest scientific and peacemaking honor, purpose and meaning. only the social priority of children overcomes the systemic, holistic violence of adults against children and is ensured not only by fragments of pedagogy and psychology, but by the entire planetary and scientifically conscious tetraspheral structure of equal, harmonious, and eternal spherons of humanity in their structural harmony and coherence. We also recommend these scientific and verified conclusions to Waheed (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=1323), who has also been the GGHA member for a long time, since 2019, in whose defense of children's rights we always support him and on whose page we publish Robert's letter and our response. With peace and love for children's priority, Leo Semashko 22-04-26 --------------------------- Time to End the Adult War on Children Robert J. Burrowes April 2013 https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/adult-war-on-children/ Perpetrators of violence learn their craft in childhood. If you inflict violence on a child, they learn to inflict violence on others. The terrorist suffered violence as a child. The political leader who wages war suffered violence as a child. The man who inflicts violence on women suffered violence as a child. The corporate executive who exploits working class people or those who live in Africa, Asia or Central/South America suffered violence as a child. The individual who perpetrates violence in the home, in the schoolyard or on the street suffered violence as a child. If we want to end violence, war and exploitation then we must finally end our longest and greatest war: the adult war on children. And here’s an incentive: if we don’t tackle the fundamental cause of violence, then our combined and unrelenting efforts to tackle all of its other symptoms must ultimately fail. And extinction at our own hand is inevitable. How can I claim that violence against children is the fundamental cause of all other violence? Consider this. There is universal acceptance that behaviour is shaped by childhood experience. If it was not, we would not put such effort into education and other efforts to socialize children to fit into society. And this is why many psychologists have argued that exposure to war toys and violent video games shapes attitudes and behaviours in relation to violence. But it is far more complex than this and, strange though it may seem, it is not just the ‘visible’ violence (such as hitting, screaming at and sexually abusing) that we normally label ‘violence’ that causes the main damage, although this is extremely damaging. The largest component of damage arises from the ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that we adults unconsciously inflict on children during the ordinary course of the day. Tragically, the bulk of this violence occurs in the family home and at school. See ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’. So what is ‘invisible’ violence? It is the ‘little things’ we do every day, partly because we are just ‘too busy’. For example, when we do not allow time to listen to, and value, a child’s thoughts and feelings, the child learns to not listen to themSelf thus destroying their internal communication system. When we do not let a child say what they want (or ignore them when they do), the child develops communication and behavioral dysfunctionalities as they keep trying to meet their own needs (which, as a basic survival strategy, they are genetically programmed to do). When we blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie to, bribe, blackmail, moralize with and/or judge a child, we both undermine its sense of Self-worth and teach it to blame, condemn, insult, mock, embarrass, shame, humiliate, taunt, goad, guilt-trip, deceive, lie, bribe, blackmail, moralize and/or judge. The fundamental outcome of being bombarded throughout their childhood by this ‘invisible’ violence is that the child is utterly overwhelmed by feelings of fear, pain, anger and sadness (among many others). However, parents and other adults also actively interfere with the expression of these feelings and the behavioral responses that are naturally generated by them and it is this ‘utterly invisible’ violence that explains why the dysfunctional behavioral outcomes actually occur. For example, by ignoring a child when they express their feelings, by comforting, reassuring or distracting a child when they expresses their feelings, by laughing at or ridiculing their feelings, by terrorizing a child into not expressing their feelings (e.g. by screaming at them when they cry or get angry), and/or by violently controlling a behavior that is generated by their feelings (e.g. by hitting them, restraining them or locking them into a room), the child has no choice but to unconsciously suppress their awareness of these feelings. However, once a child has been terrorized into suppressing their awareness of their feelings (rather than being allowed to have their feelings and to act on them) the child has also unconsciously suppressed their awareness of the reality that caused these feelings. This has many outcomes that are disastrous for the individual, for society and for nature because the individual will now easily suppress their awareness of the feelings that would tell them how to act most functionally in any given circumstance and they will progressively acquire a phenomenal variety of dysfunctional behaviors, including some that are violent towards themself, others and/or the Earth. From the above, it should also now be apparent that punishment should never be used. ‘Punishment’, of course, is one of the words we use to obscure our awareness of the fact that we are using violence. Violence, even when we label it ‘punishment’, scares children and adults alike and cannot elicit a functional behavioural response. For elaboration, see ‘Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’. If someone behaves dysfunctionally, they need to be listened to, deeply, so that they can start to become consciously aware of the feelings (which will always include fear and, often, terror) that drove the dysfunctional behaviour in the first place. They then need to feel and express these feelings (including any anger) in a safe way. only then will behavioural change in the direction of functionality be possible. ‘But these adult behaviors you have described don’t seem that bad. Can the outcome be as disastrous as you claim?’ you might ask. The problem is that there are hundreds of these ‘ordinary’, everyday behaviors that destroy the Selfhood of the child. It is ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and most children simply do not survive as Self-aware individuals. And why do we do this? We do it so that each child will fit into our model of ‘the perfect citizen’: that is, obedient and hardworking student, reliable and pliant employee/soldier, and submissive law-abiding citizen. Moreover, once we destroy the Selfhood of a child, it has many flow-on effects. For example, once you terrorise a child into accepting certain information about themSelf, other people or the state of the world, the child becomes unconsciously fearful of dealing with new information, especially if this information is contradictory to what it has been terrorised into believing. As a result, the child will unconsciously dismiss new information out of hand. In short, the child has been terrorised in such a way that they are no longer capable of learning (or their learning capacity is seriously diminished by excluding any information that is not a simple extension of what they already ‘know’). If you imagine any of the bigots you know, you are imagining someone who is utterly terrified. But it’s not just the bigots; virtually all people are affected in this manner making them incapable of responding adequately to new information. This is one explanation why most people are failing to respond to the multiplicity of threats posed by the rapidly advancing global technocracy. See ‘We Are Human We Are Free’. So if we want to end human violence, we must tackle all of its symptoms simultaneously but, as part of our strategy, we must also tackle the cause. Primarily, this means giving everyone, child and adult alike, all of the space they need to feel, deeply, what they want to do, and to then let them do it (or to have the feelings they naturally have if they are prevented from doing so). See ‘My Promise to Children’ and ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’. In the short term, this will have some dysfunctional outcomes. But it will lead to an infinitely better overall outcome than the system of emotional suppression, control and punishment which has generated the incredibly violent world in which we now find ourselves. This all sounds pretty unpalatable doesn’t it? So each of us has a choice. We can suppress our awareness of what is unpalatable, as we have been terrorised into doing as a child, or we can feel the various feelings that we have in response to this information and then ponder ways forward. See ‘Putting Feelings First’. If feelings are felt and expressed then our responses can be shaped by the conscious and integrated functioning of thoughts and feelings, as evolution intended, and we can plan intelligently. The alternative is to have our unconscious fear controlling our thinking and deluding us that we are acting rationally. It is time to end the adult war on children so that all of the other violence that emerges from this cause can end too. ‘This isn’t going to happen’, you might say. And you are probably right. Nevertheless, some of us are committed to working on this most critical of issues. You are welcome to join us.
This article ‘Time to End the Adult War on Children’ was originally published in various progressive news outlets in April 2013. I have updated one sentence and added a few references (that had not been written in 2013) to elaborate key points.
------------------------ Dear Waheed, Sincerest congratulations on your appointment as Chair of the Lahore Bar Association Child Protection Committee for the forthcoming year: An appointment richly deserved given your work in this field and it is gratifying that it has been recognized by this appointment. In response to your comment that you are 'interested in learning more about your work in this field', I thought I would share some of the research that Anita and I have done in recent decades which, in essence, explains why adult violence against children, under the guise of what is called 'socialization', is the foundation of all other violence in our world. A brief article here: 'Time to End the Adult War on Children' https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/adult-war-on-children/ More solid documentation here: 'Why Violence?' https://tinyurl.com/whyviolence Explaining our process here: 'Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice' https://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/ And a website here: 'Feelings First': https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/ Anita joins me in wishing you well for your year at the helm of this important committee and we look forward to hearing of your progress. Warmest regards; Robert (& Anita) RJBurrowes & AMcKone flametree@riseup.net 14-04-26 ------------------------------
Up
|
