[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] our p2p/commons contribution to Journey to Earthland (GTN Discussion) (Michel Bauwens)

Sun Nov 6 14:07:16 CET 2016

dear Anna,

I fully agree with your perspective and conclusions here, and that we must
learn from the good practices of societies before our own, and one's that
exist today with better child-rearing practices ..

here are some historical trends on military spending though; it is my
understanding that for many western european countries, military spending
is down in relative terms, but I checked the UK which is more militaristic
than most, it seems down there as well, see 'historical perspectives' here
at https://ourworldindata.org/military-spending/

nevertheless with the increasing social and ecological crisis, social
instability is again in the air, and it is not at all impossible to see
increasing re-armament trends,

Michel

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 6:39 PM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:

> I am not clear what you both mean by "idealisation". My intention was not
> to idealise tribal cultures, but nevertheless there is much that we can
> learn from them, particularly as regards to birth practices. The tribal
> groups studied were specifically small band hunter gatherers, not tribal
> cultures in general. And the point is to take what is good, not import
> wholesale. The evidence is based on recent neurobiological research, not
> social history.
>
> The recent protest at Standing Rock also shows a "tribal" understanding of
> the importance of natural resources which western cultures can treat with
> breathtaking ignorance.
>
> But I must take objection to the idea that "Military training is now for
> volunteer professionals, and the kind of de-sensitizing practices are not
> nearly as generalized as they once were". War is a constant part of our
> lives, and military expenditure is increasing not decreasing. That in
> itself reveals a general de-sensitising towards wholesale destruction of
> people and planet. Many still enter the military because it's the only job
> open to them without qualifications, and they are treated as heroes.
>
> If a newborn experiences the world as a hostile place, everything that
> comes after is fitted into that paradigm, unless much work is done to
> counteract that impression. It will also affect the neurobiological
> development of the newborn, in damaging ways that are difficult to reverse.
> That is why I am emphasising the need to focus on that entry point, to
> ensure that as far as possible, the experience of the newborn is tenderly
> loving and sensitively cared for. Leading hopefully to the conclusion of
> Michel's last paragraph, with which I strongly agree.
>
> On 6 Nov 2016, at 10:24, peter waterman <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> A good argument, I think, Michel, especially since it has more general
> implications for facile references to 'el buen vivir' or 'ubuntu'.
>
> I make such references myself but by 'facile' I mean an idealisation of
> the pre-capitalist, pre-class, non-western, society. Such references might
> serve as useful sticks with which to batter idealised/essentialised Western
> civilisation/culture, but they hardly help us to dialogue either with such
> tiny/isolated autonomous formations as might still exist, even less to
> relate to contemporary indigenous communities, deeply affected by consumer
> fetishism, equipped with cellphones, and taking action on their own
> behalves in manners that require (self-)reflection.
>
> P
>
> On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 10:38 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 4:01 PM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> There is much evidence to show that competitiveness and anxiety traits,
>>> built in to our modern birth and child rearing practices, support the trend
>>> towards violence in later life. The lack of care at this crucial point in
>>> life, sets the tone for later states of dissociation which allow military
>>> personnel to destroy other human beings without compunction, as well as the
>>> general lack of connection with the natural environment on which we all
>>> depend.
>>
>>
>> so first a general remark of your critique. I guess I'm an
>> integrative-structuralist, which means that what you suggest is part of my
>> approach, and is well documented on our wiki, but, in this contribution, I
>> focus on the structural necessity of the commons/caring shift, which is
>> inevitably linked to the underlying psycho-bodily-relational structures.
>>
>> But this being said, I can't agree with the idealization of the
>> paragraph. We actually now know that tribal cultures were <more> violent
>> than state-based systems, not less, and that the attachment parenting
>> (which is good, and I have practiced largely with my children, but
>> especially the last two), was inextricably linked to the desensitization
>> produced by the male initiation rituals.
>>
>> Reading the the Institute of Psycho-History, and especially their very
>> well-document 'History of Child Abuse", is very instructive. In fact, we
>> have now a unprecedented number of children who have been education through
>> democratic and respectful parenting, and they are the ones driving the peer
>> to peer/ commons / collaborative culture we draw on. Military training is
>> now for volunteer professionals, and the kind of de-sensitizing practices
>> are not nearly as generalized as they once were.
>>
>> There are of course huge pockets of the population (say the Trump voters,
>> and the books of George Makoff), where authoritarian education continues to
>> be the norm, and produces authoritarian personalities. And the migration of
>> countries where such repressive practices are still the norm, create
>> additional problems (it's the rural migration from Anatolia which
>> overwhelmed the secular state in Turkey).
>>
>> So we should continue to build on the huge cultural shifts set in motion
>> by the 1968 revolts, which were politically defeated, but did put in motion
>> changes we can built on.
>>
>> But of course, I am in agreement that there are still important amounts
>> of dis-sociation going on in our child-bearing and child-rearing practices
>> ... and that these need to be changed, (taking babies away from their
>> mothers as soon as they are born, sleeping in different rooms with anxiety
>> provoking baby phones, childcare in anonymous and bureaucratic institutions
>> too early in life)
>>
>> I also agree we should be re-creating the positive effects of more
>> collective child-rearing in renewed community setings ..
>>
>> I have been blessed by living the last 12 years in Thailand, where unlike
>> my experience in Belgium, both caring for my kids , and caring for my
>> Alzheimer-afflicted mother, was 'easy', because of the support of the
>> extended family.
>>
>> But let's not forget, thai society is also hyper-authoritarian and
>> violent, much more than ours, and this is because , 'from 1 to 7, treat
>> your children as kings, from 7 to 14, treat them as slaves, from 14 to 21,
>> treat them as friends'
>>
>> In other words, as I said in the beginning, the attachment parenting is
>> replaced with very authoritarian education in the school system.,
>>
>> It leads to a society where you dearly love your (extended) family, but
>> deeply mistrust anyone outside ... This is what civic societies have
>> changed, by extending 'love' to a more broader scope, though still limited
>> to the imaginary community of the nation; part of the next phase, is to
>> create successful trans-national neo-tribes, firmly rooted in networks of
>> physical places, that ca form the basis of an extension of that 'love' to
>> humanity as a whole,
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Michel
>>
>>
>> --
>> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at:
>> http://commonstransition.org
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates:
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>>
>> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> *Click here for Peter's recent writings*
> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/o8s52g2y905rq6w/WatermanGmailSignaturePanel%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20Updated.docx?dl=0>
>
>

-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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