You in your small corner

Hearing of Margaret Mead's work in a history cum anthropological seminar at Sussex brought me into a world I've been waiting to explore. She suggested, amongst so much else, that the British class system evolved from aristocratic family life in which the nurse cared for and then presented the child to her own parents at what was considered an appropriate time.

Similarly in the military, as I remember from my two years service but had never seen it in this light, the senior non commissioned officer having himself ensured we were fit for purpose invited the commissioned officer to inspect us befor marching us off to the next experience. All that shouting and saluting was to equip us to know our place and as Tennyson put it 'not to make reply ..not to reason why ..but to do and die'

Similarly a friend who is a civil servant employed in local government is being schooled even now for a forthcoming inspection which will result in her employing authority being being awarded one two three or even four stars. Such drama, such bullshit is supposed to impress those higher up the chain and as such but it's really designed to maintain a hierarchy.

Yet maybe try www.pigs-in-lipstick.co.uk/2005/01/the_emperor_has_no_clothes.htm

But I am apparently an individual who will eventually stand alone to be inspected and judged by he from whom no secrets are hid! Similarly anxious and pushy parents can monitor on line their child's behaviour or progess or whatever at school. For such fugitives there is no hiding place.

Margaret Mead's insight into the ways of the primitive British got me going. This morning I woke with a ditty I learned as a child 'Jesus wants me as a sunbeam ......you in your small corner and I in mine'. This stuff of individualism was soon reinforced by the notion that Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world. A current aristocracy has Tony Blair ingests the body and blood of Christ whilst born again George Bush is confident that he, with others like him, is saved. This leaves them free in their crusade against bad people whilst denying in Gaza the democratically elected Hamas.

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Let's stay with hymns. As tenant farmers with the lord of the manor in his private pew we sang of the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate and God ordered that estate. Whilst in the military I was so stuck with my non conformist affiliation I stood in Esher Baptist Church (with near by Sandown Park as the Welsh Guards training ground) to sing no 653 which might have been in army regulations 'Direct control suggest each day, all I design or do or say, that all my powers with all my might, to thy sole glory may unite'.

And paradoxically we live with all this bullshit whilst discovering that we are social animals and all that entails. As such we are equipped with a Theory of Mind making us empathetic to what the other is thinking feeling and believing; and what each has in mind makes all the difference. Such empathy is in effect a social skill and the basis for relating in every sphere of life.

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Almost as a postcript: having now seen through the paucity of the British class system I realise why Latin Americans have been so powerful in my coming out as human. Manfred Max-Neef showed me that the potential of my fundamental needs can be realised. Carlos Casoni brought me into touch with my passionate self and Luigi Menchini gave me the notion of amicus, that a friend is someone I see worthy of my love and that my enemy is an other who treats me as a friend would not.

Can any mother help me

Jenna Bailey wrote an amazing book Can Any Mother Help Me, an edited version of twice monthly round robin letters written by group of women more or less my mother's age from 1935 until well into the 7o's

Hearing Jenna speak to the life history group at Sussex disturbed me (which is always a good sign) She explained their predicament as a sense of emotional isolation

In speaking she brought to mind my own mothers isolation; she too suffered in silence but alas was trapped having to maintain to all and sundry a happy family syndrome, lacking as it was in empathy.

I'm sending my copy of Joanna's book to my sisters in the remote chance that they might hear what I'm trying to say; on previous experience they'll write me off as peculiar and stay content in the sense of their immediate well being. Mary my evangelical sister will probably keep me on her prayer list but alas it won't work.

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But that notion of isolation stays with me so my heart is with people anywhere who are seen as irrelevant...but that'a another story.

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The good news for me is the BBC's House of the Tiny Tearaways where some people are helped to talk to each other ...but that's yet another story.

Having what it takes

This moment in time shows Sophie with Percy. They've got what it takes. So it's a matter of horses and courses and relating and confidence and courage and skill and practice over years; above all it's their empathy which gives this event a place in my mind.

Hypoempatica, a horrible condition of the mind.

Carlos Casoni depicts someone suffering with hypoempatica; read hypo as inadequate and empathy to suffer with.

Were this a medical condition we could relax but it is an age old lack of humanity. Read of others who walked on the other side Luke 10.25-37

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This condition happens in those who find their status from their firm organisation or even family's postition in some league table or peck order, and will bend their whole energy to maintaining it.

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With that priority uppermost in their mind they can easily overlook empathy as a resource or a salient feature in the life of 'their' firm organisation or even family; or leave it to the women.

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Control freaks top cats and other very important people afflicted with this condition maintain their status by keepinga the rest of us in our place. After all children can be seen but not heard!

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Just seen it. This condition relates to sales and marketing people as to evangelists of every hue. That their sinister intent might be unwitting, at any rate they will deny it, but this in no way makes them innocent. Jehovah's Witnesses are obvious but all such are essentially predatory arrogant patronising and condescending brainwashers. They may be threatening or seductive, they may be amusing and even entertaining but they are out to get you one way or the other.

Panic and getting it wrong.

Robin Dunbar in his The Human Story pp49-50 writes of those who find it difficult to get it right. It's as though in a tense situation 'their mind reading modules are working overtime without the benefit of the more rational part of the mind to act as a brake on the more outrageous inferences made on the basis of tenuous evidence'.

Hence we create conspiracy theories; all too often we get it wrong and waste a load of humanity and join the ranks of those who score poorly on theory of mind development.

Getting it wrong also denies the possibility of a useful encounter in what we find is a problematic situation. Maybe do well to look before we leap and listen before we speak.

AVAAZ

I created the blog Coming Out As Human. Yet I admit that my concern for world wide injustice is recent. Whilst others marched and spoke on behalf of the oppressed in Vietnam and South Africa I was busy doing my own thing 'getting married trying out new oxen or buying a larger house'.

Then I came across AVAAZ a web based petition signing group. The issues they spoke of made sense. I added my name to a host of people around the world drawing the attention of the good and the great to situations in which ordinary people are persecuted.

With my coming out politically I joined a local group of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. On Saturdays we leaflet passers by in Brighton. We invite them to sign our petitions and maybe stay and talk about the plight of the Palestinians; but more often than not little notice is taken of our protest. But we can live with it.

What really matters is the empathy we bring and our celebration of the resilience tenacity courage and determination to live on the part of those we represent.

Another take on Empathy

On TED.COM Steven Pinker deals with the myth of violence.

In a landmark talk Steven Pinker takes on violence. "We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we've come to believe". He charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and concludes that modern society has less to feel guilty about. Watch this talk >>