August 07, 2014 - Love is a serious problem in our world. There is too much of it. So I want to explain how we can destroy it systematically. If we can destroy love completely, we can destroy life on Earth.
But first, what is love?
In essence, love is a feeling. It is not something you experience as a thought, although a thought might arise from the feeling. Love precipitates a certain type of behavior. This might include showing someone that we care about them deeply. Often, it means taking action that demonstrates our love. Perhaps even that we are willing to make concessions or sacrifices for their benefit. Depending on the context, love might be accompanied by some companion feelings such as compassion, empathy and sympathy.
The problem with love is that it might incline us to act with genuine concern for others. In fact, we might act as if someone else or others in general are as important as are we. And if we did that, it would ruin our chances of getting as much as we can for ourselves at the expense of those around us.
So how can we destroy love?
The best
way is to terrorize a child. How? The most effective
way to terrorize a child is to do what parents
ordinarily do in the belief that we need to
'socialize' children in the ways of their society.
This involves inflicting what I have called
'invisible' violence as well as 'utterly invisible'
violence on children throughout their childhoods so
that they become obedient and easily controlled
slaves. For a thorough elaboration of this point,
see 'Why Violence?'
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and 'Fearless
Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and
Practice'
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless-and-fearful-psychology/
So what is
'invisible' violence? Here are a few examples from
my list of more than 200: blaming, condemning,
insulting, mocking, embarrassing, shaming,
humiliating, taunting, goading, guilt-tripping,
deceiving, lying to, bribing, blackmailing,
moralizing with and/or judging a child.
And what is
'utterly invisible' violence? It is deliberate
interference in the expression of the child's
feelings and the behavioral responses naturally
generated by these feelings (including when these
feelings and behaviours arise in response to our
visible or 'invisible' violence). This 'utterly
invisible' violence occurs when we ignore, comfort,
reassure, distract, laugh at, ridicule, scream at,
hit, restrain or punish a child who is crying,
scared, angry or otherwise expressing and/or acting
on their feelings. When we do this, our unconscious
message to the child is clear: 'Don't feel and act
on your feelings, unless they are happy or loving
ones, or I will terrorize you until you stop!'
If you
terrorize a child in this way they will become
fearful of listening to their feelings. Moreover, as
they lose their courage to fight back against your
violence, they will accumulate feelings of
self-hatred as well. However, without a safe
opportunity to feel this fear and self-hatred in
order to release them, the fear and self-hatred will
be suppressed below their conscious awareness. And
given the extraordinarily unpleasant nature of these
feelings - who wants to feel like a coward and to
hate themselves? - the fear and self-hatred will be
projected as fear of and hatred for 'socially
legitimized victim groups': depending on the social
context, this will usually be people of other racial
or religious groups.
This projected
fear and self-hatred is most readily observed in the
behavior of political leaders such as US President
Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who are so
obviously terrified and devoid of self-love and,
hence, the capacity to love others that killing
people, including children, is the intended and
routine outcome of their military violence.
The projected
fear and self-hatred of corporate figures like Bill
Gates, the Walton family (of Walmart) and their
fellow billionaires and millionaires is also readily
observed. Again, devoid of love for themselves, they
cannot feel love, compassion, empathy or sympathy
for those 50,000 people in Africa, Asia and
Central/South America who are starved to death each
day because of corporate capitalism's control of the
distribution of the world's resources to maximize
their corporate profits and personal wealth, often
at the expense of their heavily exploited employees
as well.
In stark
contrast to the individuals mentioned above, the
self-love and, therefore, love for others is obvious
in the behavior of people like Noam Chomsky, Mairead
Maguire, Chandra Muzaffar and Kathy Kelly who devote
their lives to articulating and acting on the
nonviolent truth.
If you want
your child to love themselves and others, it is
essential that you do not terrorize them into doing
what you want (or you must let them have their
feelings about your violence if, occasionally, you
do terrorize them). If you love your child, let them
behave in accordance with their own feelings, not
yours. That is what evolution intended. It had a few
billion years to work it out.
If you
like, you can listen to a song by Anita McKone that
highlights the importance of feelings:
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/songs-of-nonviolence/lets-sing-a-feelings-song-for-kids/
And here's another song that highlights the meaning
of love:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvvZ1TEQRB8&feature=kp
If you
wish to join the worldwide movement to nurture love
and end all violence, you are welcome to sign online
'The People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
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