Tag Archives: X-Factor

A New Image of Man

Why are You so important at the moment?

When in norse mythology Odin, the Vikings main God, needed information  about what was happening in the outside world, he sent his two ravens, Hugin and Munin to be his eyes.

Iconic illustration of Odins two Ravens, Hugin and Munin

                   Rise and shine to a new birth of mankind.

Now this website need you to be like Odin’s ravens. Yes, we need your special attention in order to manage our main task and basis for our existence. As you remember, this website is meant for one special purpose; – to search high and low for a new image of man.

          “I am in constant flux with the earth’s nature, since 60%  of me is water.”

Fed up with endless conflicts and the way they are handled.

Today, we are many of us all over the world, that are tired and fed up with the endless and violent worldwide conflicts going on. It’s like they’re going on almost on repeat. It’s  as if we had not learned anything at all from history. Isn’t 90 million lifes killed because of war between 1939 and 2020 a price too high to pay for disagreement between states?  We’re talking about millions of civilians, like  children, men and women, including very young soldiers that were sacrificed to save their nations!

               The downside of Wars. Show me the upside, please!

So we need you now to be our eyes and ears out there, looking for examples where people instead of competing fiercely, try to cooperate friendly. Examples where children, teenagers and grown-ups instead of stirring to conflict, try to dampen tensions, and reduce ongoing conflicts.

      How cute a child of earth. Doesn’t she/he deserve a better version of the world?

We need your references to pre-war scenarios where the brutal and lethal war was avoided. Examples where local or national leaders used their wisdom and compassion for all the possible victims of a future war to avoid armed struggle.

Nobel Laureate President Juan Manuel Santos of Columbia, negotiating Peace after 50 years of Civil War in Columbia.

We also need your examples of constructive negotiation where people of different ranks try to talk with each other respectfully, even when they are of very different opinions. We need your attention to some children’s ways of tackling conflicts of interest, without pushing, hitting or kicking the other child, or using brute force.

      Acts of benevolence, Young People helping both young and old

At the same time, we need your conscious attention on the cultural or subcultural frame of reference where these encouraging incidents occur. That is, discriptions of the atmosphere of the family, the kindergarten, or national culture at stake.

1.Family atmosphere. 2.Russian-American student Forum.  3.Best workplace in the US 2016. 4. Safe and friendly atmorsphere in New Zealand.

We all know the answer, don’t we?

Even when living outside the many deadly warzones, it’s painful to experience thru the daily news how easy it seems to wage war, and how difficult it seems for the war initiators and world leaders to make peace. Shouldn’t it be obvious now that the only effects of wars are temporary victory for the militarily superior, and death and lasting traumas for the civilians and our children?

Holocost Survivors in 1945.    Israeli victim of palestinian rocket.

We know that war makes traumas that can easily feed aggression. In the wake of traumas, we always get physical and psychical illness. Most often we also get hatred, and the wish for retaliation and revenge. That is unfortunately, exactly the ingredients needed to incite new violent spirals of conflict and war.

 Children and their mother killed in their home in Gaza. Grandfather and father shocked and desperate after Israeli bombs kill their newborn child.

Who are the victims of war?

The persons that escalate conflicts to the level of brutal war are very seldom active in the warzone. They are most likely to be found sitting safe and protected behind their bureau desks and bodyguards.

Leaders are guarded by armed police or bodyguards, or they are sitting peacfully at their bureau desks in their airplanes far from the killing Fields.

Who must sacrifice?

Or: They are speaking rhetorically to their people, about the bad enemy out there, threatening their lives, their way of living and their culture.

Painful separation or joyful reunion for the families of war heroes. When war is over soldiers are either dead, injured or psychically very unstable. Soon they are forgotten by the states.

They tell you of the sacrifices needed of young men and women to gain the victory we are all fighting for. But please, – Trump, Putin, Hollande, Erdogan, Stoltenberg and other leaders. Go to the warzone yourself, and fight together with your soldiers. Stay there until you realize that war is futile if you want to build a safe and sound nation and world society of today.

Only soldiers and civilians know how dreadful and menaingless wars really are. It’s not enough to watch some movies, with popcorn, Coke and Pizza!

They call it protecting your nation against it’s enemies. Why is it that our enemies call their aggression towards you, exactly the same? Protecting their nation against it’s enemies!

When the world was young and immature.

Perhaps wars were inevitable some time ago, when mankind had not yet matured and the struggle for existence was raw. – I don’t know for sure. The origin of wars, with the forerunners of armed struggle and warfare, are very complex and multifaceted mechanisms. They  touch upon the roots of our civilization and our psychological universe, with our instincts of selfpreservation ready at hand.

      When Battles and War were how we did it, when in conflict.

But, once we believed pesticides to be the only one and best protection of crops and fruit. Today we know that many of these poisons were much more damaging to the environment and people’s health than some wrecked corn in the cornfields, and some worms in the kernel of our apples.

  When we believed that pesticides would save us instead of killing us.

Violence in the  upringing of children.

We also once believed that spanking children were for their own good. Swiss psychoanalyst Alice Miller titled one of her most famous books about former child rearing; “For Your Own Good.” (Miller 1980). The book is a hard-hitting criticism of Germanic child rearing, where one of the most frightening examples of harmful child rearing, refers to the methods of Hitler’s father.

           A Family tragedy that under special circumstances developed to a world’s disaster

Today corporal punishment of children is illegal in many countries, and from recent psychological research we know that this upbringing breeds violence. Psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, PhD, of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, looked at both positive and negative behaviors in children that were associated with corporal punishment.

               “Remember,  this is for your own good!”

She concentrated on 11 crucial aspects of child behavior to observe changes in these parameters when children were raised with or without corporal punishment She collected metadata on this matter (looking into other scientist’s research) from a period of over 62 years.

The results of this meta study was published in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin, by the American Psychological Association. Here Gershoff concludes that corporal punishment very clearly leads to more aggression and violence in the child.

    “The hell with you loser, fuck you teacher, I’ll kill you,- asshole!”

Out of eleven measures of reactions and conduct, there is only one effective short term upside with corporal punishment. It makes the child immediately obey you: – Ten of the associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child.(Gershoff 2002)  

What image of man does violence on film and TV maintain?

As early as 2001 psychologist Dyregrov found that 60% of US television programs contained violence. Before American pupils have finished school they would at the time of the millennium, have seen more than 8000 murders and more than 100 000 other violent acts. – This number is even higher when the child has access to cable TV or video, as many have, the psychologist reported. He also pointed at video games, where 85% of the most popular games were violent.

               Grab your gun son, and welcome to the world.

One year earlier in June 2000, the six major professional societies in the United States (including the American Medical Association for Children, The Medical Association, The Association for Psych-ologists, and the Members of the Association for Psychiatrists), wrote a warning declaration: «At this time, well over 1,000 studies… point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children. »

        How many murders do we need to feed our children with, before they know what kind of society we grown-ups have made for them?

It is emphasized that not all children get more overtly violent after seeing movies with violent acts and murders. But the ones that do will represent a massive threat to our society.

This was 17 years ago though. We know however, that violence on visual media is steadily increasing. A 2013 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics discovered that violence in films has more than doubled since 1950. Gun violence in films has more than tripled since 1985.

Just following the daily news makes us all witnesses of murders, terrorist explosions with mutilated corpses on the ground. We can from our sofa at home follow the constant bombing of civilians and their children in Syria, Iraq, and otherwhere. At the same time our ten year old son or daughter sitting besides us in the sofa, might play “ Dark souls III”, or “Carmageddon, Max Damage” on their Mac or pc.

The killing fields  of international trading and money market.

We live in a neoliberal global capitalistic era, were the war metaphor is also highly relevant within the worldwide trade and commerce. In that connection I have had some very nervous CEOs and sales managers in my clinic. They have been experiencing “the killing fields of international global trade” as a warzone. Slogans like “win or lose and quit”, “eat or be eaten”, “kill or be killed”, tell us much about the inherent and constant struggle for market share in the world of commerce.

                 Run, run, run, or I crush your chances in life.

America Got Talent, Survivor, Big Brother, The Voice, Fear Factor,  Idol, and X-factor.

Have you noticed that there are almost no reality shows on TV without fierce competition and shattered dreams. America got Talent, Survivor, Big Brother, The Voice and Fear Factor,  Idol, and X-factor being the most popular of the many. It’s almost like Spencer’s phrase, “the survival of the fittest,” has been taken to newer hights on TV these days.

In my country they even have a TV program called The Cake War. Then the War eventually has  reached the Kitchen too. Fortunately the ammunition is the quality of the baked cakes. The Warriors are the bakers. And the Survivor is the fittest baker of all.

But have we totally forgot that  Spencer’s much cited sentence “survival of the fittest” was mostly misunderstood? It was originally referring to Darwins theory, but was later pulled into a very negative direction called social Darwinism?

What does these images add up to?

If we put all these different images of man from media mentioned above together, we get a rather distorted picture of who we are. Or may I ask: – Has this image stuck so strongly into our perception of ourselves that we have become just like it?

I wouldn’t have been bothering with this issue if I didn’t believe otherwise. On the other hand: We might of course have been living up to this somewhat distorted image of man lately, as a mere consequence  of modelling a misconception.

The Birth of a New sustainable Human being, living in respect of his fellow Citizens and the Environment.

         We are all parts of nature and of all other living Creatures.

We are like herd animals, we flock together, photo Psychologcal Universe.

From The Seinfeld Series.

NEW: Attend Psychological Universe with your own writings.

Try to look out for personal examples or stories from others where human actions give hope for a healthier society and a healthier world.

You can refer to children, teenagers, grown-ups, old people, groups, soldiers, medical personel, teachers, priests, politicians, leaders of all kindm-you name it! You don’t need to be very good in writing. We will do some simple editing if needed. Any questions just ask us here below. You can send your story right on or as an attachment to the e-mail adress:

janeriwaa@gmail.com

We look very forward to having you here and promise to take your contribution very serious.

Yours Sincerely,- Admin_Janeriwaa.