Kristo Ivanov - BLOG

Some of the inserts that follow below were written in Swedish language. They can be passably translated into English by inserting them into <http://translate.google.com>. This unconventional weblog is intended to allow me to formulate thoughts which burden my mind and cry out for expression, while satisfying the wish of readers to know more about them. In due time these thoughts may find their way to be refined and ordered in my Work In Progress (forthcoming). In the meantime I think that the references and the basic material I am working on can help others in their parallel efforts. Psychologically I may be writing in the spirit of "Dixi et salvavi animam meam" ["I have spoken and saved my soul"] a quote that is attributed to Karl Marx's ending of his critique of the Gotha program, while its meaning is extracted from the Bible (Ezekiel 33:9). I make extensive albeit not exclusive use of Wikipedia-references because of their comprehensiveness, and easy overview in terms of standardized layout, with full knowledge and evaluation of their possible shortcomings, obviously including those covered by other sources than Wikipedia itself and by me in the context of Wikipedia-democracy or “wikicracy”. The entries are put in inverse chronological order (year-month-days, with date of last major revision in parenthesis at the end). All comments are welcome: all will be read and, if necessary, answered. The reason why I do not encourage a public on-line debate by using a standard blog-editor is explained in my entry below on "The meaning of debate", and perhaps in my biblical reference above as well in Plato's famous "seventh letter" about the questionable value of writing. For the rest, see my disclaimer, at the top of my research overview. The expressed opinions are strictly personal and I do not represent any organization or institution.

[PÅ SVENSKA / IN SWEDISH] För att underlätta förståelse av mina texter kan man börja med att läsa min (på engelska) General disclaimer. Följande är avsett att i avvaktan på min egen närmare bearbetning tillkännage tankar som kräver uttryck och som kan stödja andra i parallella ansträngningar i besläktade problem. Psykologiskt drivs jag sannolikt att skriva i den anda som präglar uttrycket "Dixi et salvavi animam meam" ["Har talat och räddat min själ"] som ofta hänförs till Kal Marx i slutet av hans kritik av Gotha programmet medan dess mening härstammar från Bibeln (Hesekiel 33:9). Inläggen införs i datumföljd (år-månad-dag, med datum av senaste större revision i slutet inom parentes). Alla kommentarer är välkomna och, om nödvändigt, skall besvaras. Anledningen till att jag inte uppmuntrar en offentlig on-line debatt genom användningen av en standard blog-editor finns förklarad i mitt inslag nedan ang "The meaning of debate" och kanske i min bibliska referens ovan samt i Platons berömda "sjunde brev" angående det tvivelaktiga värdet av att skriva. Åsikterna är strängt personliga och jag representerar ingen organisation eller institution.

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E240210 Swedish coverage of the Israel-Hamas war

Especially during trips abroad, and as already mentioned in my article on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I compare Swedish news in mass media, mainly television SVT and radio SR, with news accessible in hotels’ television networks, the English versions of Deutsche Welle (DW), France 24, and AlJazeera. Earlier I also compared them with the CNN, BBC and more seldom available CGTN (Chinas Global Television Network) in connection with the Ukraine war. Now in the first two months of year 2024 we felt it embarrassing, the more so in dialogues with our foreign contacts that the events in the Israel-Hamas war are comparatively silenced after the initial terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel. This to the extent that we wondered if this is not recommended because of concern that the truth (as well as the balancing of different opinions) will increase the harassment of Jews in Sweden. It is the case that TV and radio stations in other Western countries including the Al Jazeera English reported news with text and images of the killing and the wounding, of up to an average of 200 civilians per day, mainly in Gaza, including the West Bank. This in Israel's self-defense after the Hamas attack with (in mid-February 2024) about 28.000 (33.000 in April) dead Palestinian civilians against Hamas's murder of roughly 1,300 Israelis, both figures including children, women and elders. By the end of February news agencies (here, here and here), reported that an active member of the United States military (Aaron Bushness) had set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, in an apparent act of protest against Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, estimated (as the BBC Middle East correspondent did) to have resulted in about more than 30.000 dead and 70.000 injured. Others estimated on March 5, 2024 an informal death total of up to 200.000, which is supported by the reported application of high-tech warfare. (see here on AI-weapons). I did see neither the suicide nor the 100-200 daily deaths being commented in the Swedish public service news.

I understand that Sweden’s commitment to membership in NATO implies an increased mirroring of its and USA’s positions regarding ongoing conflicts such as in Gaza and Ukraine. At the same time Swedish news ignored what was going on in Senegal, Pakistan and Indonesia, while AlJazeera on February 24th I saw journalist Step Vaessen interviewing Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi on her country’s view of the conflict in Palestine. In Deutsche Welle the very same day I saw the journalist Sarah Kelly interviewingThe Palestinian politician, academic and economist Mohammad Shtayyeh, followed by comments from politicians from Israel, Jordan, Spain and Canada. AlJazeera on several occasions interviewed people from the Norwegian Refugee Council (also here) in Rafah, Gaza, e.g. Youssef Hamash and Samah Hadid. Other interviewed and reporting journalists in Deutsche Welle were World Health Organization WHO’s representatives, and e.g. Mohammad Alkahlout and the often consulted Marwan Bishara presented as an “author who writes extensively on global politics and is widely regarded as a leading authority on US foreign policy, the Middle East and international strategic affairs. He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris”. Another personality appearing at the television if Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian physician, activist, and politician who serves as General Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative.

Up to the end of Frebruary 2024 nothing of all this was considered worthy a loan of some program from an international news service, or a television or radio program, documentary or podd at the Swedish public service network. The first more ambitious program I hears it was from the Swedish Radio SR, in the serie Konflikt [Conflict] on March 1st 2024 with the title Bidens fredsplan mitt I Gazakriget [Biden’s plan for peace in the middle of the Gaza war]. It indirectly uncovered the “active passivity” of the USA in face of the ongoing killing and injuring of civil Palestinians, completing a few shorter previous programs as of February 28 on Protester och ilska mot Hamas I Gaza: “Vi star inte ut [Protests and anger against Hamas in Gaza: "We can't stand it"]. It could be seen as a diplomatic journalistic bonus to Israel, reminding Swedes that the 30.000 Palestinian deaths and ongoing suffering is to be attributed to Hamas and its initial incursion in Israel. It is also a diplomatic journalistic bonus to Ukraine to have had an earlier program on Putin’s krig mot sitt eget folk [Putin’s war against his own people], reminding that journalism, the more so with membership in NATO, relinquishes the need of objectivity with presentation of conflicting views and arguments. In any case, one main Swedish morning newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, on March 6-7 2024 has obviously no problem with access to its source (TT) of news in Israel when it publishes (my transl):

“His friend is a Hamas prisoner - wants tougher action”:

Two of his friends were murdered and a third kidnapped to Gaza in the Hamas terror attack on October 7.

Student Daniel Danon wants peace - but also wants Israel to be even tougher in the Gaza Strip.

Mia Holmberg Karlsson/TT

Published at 06:19

On the morning of October 7, Daniel Danon is eating cereal in a hotel bar in Iceland. He is on vacation from his studies in Tel Aviv, visiting glaciers and ice caves. When messages from home start to trickle in, he calls his mother in Kalia, a kibbutz by the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank. […]

I remember one day towards the end of January, war news in SR were replaced by the news that climate warming was behind the fact that some butterflies' 5 spots on their wings had been reduced to just 3. And it was probably last night that the complete silencing of such news is replaced by a fairly large feature about the trials in the United States in the case of Alec Baldwin’s “2021 shooting incident”. Before that I listened to the news at the radio’s channel 1: no mention of the Israel-Hamas war but a notice that researchers find environmental clues on butterfly wings (cf. old notice here). I asked myself, “journalists editing such news while at the beginning of february I had heard that 113 journalists had already been killed in Gaza and Jodie Ginsberg reported for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

And what about “World news in the now NATO-friendly Sweden?". The Swedish TV (STV) choose to rely only upon its correspondent in the Middle East Samir Abu Eid whose e-mail address I have been trying to obtain from STV while other international sources are even too generous to supply their own controversial information and complaints for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. All this while Samir Abu Eid complains for not being allowed by Israel to enter Gaza. At the same time it is noticeable how skillful he is in his reporting from outside Gaza, in order to maintain “impartiality”. And the Swedish radio’s correspondent Cecilia Uddén has always been even more skillful in being more outspoken as in one of the rare strong reportings, on March 10, 2024, from her contact with the journalist Sami Abu Salem in Gaza (also here, immediately accused here by the online newspaper Bulletin for spreading Hamas propaganda), apparently allowed in a medium that emotionally is not so strong av television with its images.

But by a remarkable coincidence, the very same day of March 10, when the whole world had begun to talk about the Gaza disaster, also the Swedish television had a rare if not first close report from the news agency Reuters from a hospital in Gaza. It included images of dying and dead children whose faces and limbs, however, appeared shiningly whitewashed, if not computer-photoshop-manipulated with beauty filter, as I had never seen in e.g. Deutsche Welle’s and AlJazeera’s videos showing dirt and blood. That was followed by an interview with Carl Skau, chief operating officer of the World Food Program and by interviews emphasizing Sweden’s restart of contributions to UNWRA and Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas. It is interesting that such skills in maintaining “impartiality” have been unnecessary in both Swedish radio’s and television’s reportings from the war in Ukraine, while Cecilia Uddén has been criticized and suspended by the Swedish television for making evaluative statements about presidential candidates during the 2004 American presidential election when she was the radio’s correspondent in Washington.

I felt embarrassed in front of our foreign friends. I guess that SVT does not have the same resources as several foreign TV stations, the more so when the news mention its unavailability of own journalists in Gaza, allowed only if incorporated in Israel’s IDF, without explaining why it cannot purchase news and programs by e.g. AlJazeera with daily reports by their correspondents. I cannot understand why it could at least buy selected programs with reports with e.g. Deutsche Welles and AlJazeera's local foreign correspondents (including from Gaza itself) and simply "translate" them with Swedish undertexts. Again: During my latest trip in Western Europe down to Spain I did annotate interviews in the mentioned channels with e.g. Tareq Abu Azzoum and the already mentioned Marwan Bishara in AlJazeera; Efraim Halevy in DW (former director of the Mossad Israeli intelligence), interviewed by Tim Sebastian in the series “Conflict Zone”, and revealing the official Israel rationality; Jan Egeland, Norwegian diplomat, and Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide (chair of the board, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue), and I wonder whether he has been interviewed by SVT in the Scandinavian brother-country Sweden) in AlJazeera; the broadcasted public report by US secretary of state Antony Blinken on 7 February 2024 after Israel’s rejection of Hamas’ plan for peace. And Shani Rozanes from Deutsche Welle commented the Israel’s rejection of the Hamas offer, while Swedish television preferred to only report “Hamas’ rejections of Israel’s plans for peace”.

I saw nothing of all this in my daily comparison with Swedish television and radio news, which uncontroversially presented readymade facts and conclusions. I also experienced that the items mentioned above required heavy attention and continuous sometimes painful thinking. I had to think while listening to the discussions and interviews. All this is crowned SVT’s news only mentioning (e.g. on 9 Feb 2024) that there were more than 200 Palestinian deaths, plus that SVT's Russia correspondents only convey criticism of Russia instead of conveying views from Russia's counterparts to our defense or geopolitical pundits (e.g. Fyodor Lukyanov). And in addition, following Brussels' EU recommendation, Sweden has been censoring the Russian "state-controlled" RT.com, at the same time (Jan-Feb 2024) as e.g. Spain had it fully available. It is paradoxical that Sweden, which often wished to be considered the “conscience of the world”, refers so often to its "democratic freedom of expression". As I already wrote in my text of “Quality-control of information”:

The debacle of democratic free expression, or the official mistrust of people, of freedom in communication and of power of argumentation, is displayed in governmental western censorship of news from the Russian network Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News. In Sweden. It was directed by decision of The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (corresponding to USA’s FCC), following EU imposed sanctions (also here) announced 2 March 2022, while all those western countries were not in war.

It is meaningful curiosity to match these events to what is a popular saying in Sweden, also consistent with ongoing assumptions about elements in its national character, it all recalling abusive interpretations of Biblical sayings, mainly Psalm 141:3 and Proberbs 21:23. Psychology suggests that fear of open conflict is counterbalanced by hidden aggressivity. According to the following table, in Swedish on the left, and English on the right:

Om man ingenting sager har man ingenting sagt.

Om man inte lägger sig i behöver man inte dra sig ur.

(Som jag kompletterar med liknande uttryck:)

Om du inte tittar ser du ingenting.

Om du inte lyssnar hör du ingenting.

If you say nothing, you will have said nothing.

If you don't interfere, you will not have to withdraw.

(Which I complete with similar expressions:)

If you do not look, you see nothing.

If you do not listen, you hear nothing.

And then we shall mention the latest curiosity reported in Germany, France and England that after by then unproven Israel's claim that 12 out of the about 30.000 UNRWA employees were Hamas sympathizers or fighters, Sweden together with UNRWA's major donors, including the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, and France, subsequently suspended funding. As if they could not wait for proof that this claim is not part of the information war. But, again, it may be a consequence of Sweden’s commitment to a membership in Nato, implying an increased eagerness to follow the USA’s positions in political matters, as already done in the conflict Russia-NATO-Ukraine.

It is therefore a question of SVT’s programmatic silencing (also mirrored in the press) of controversial videos and news - which cannot be offset by any other occasional programs that in turn tend to become biased and cannot reach a wider Swedish audience that has been already biased by the SVT’s policy.

I wrote about all this to SVT’s contact address <kontakt@svt.se> with the naïve request that this should be presented to SVT's top management, with the expectation of a comment as well. I got the following anonymous answer (except for it being signed with the first name “Daniel, editor”), whose anonymity was encouraged by the nowadays famous Swedish "Thou-reform” that today is often (ab)used to anonymize or hide the identity, relieving the responsibility of the sender. I maintain my view of the distressing inferior quality of Swedish public radio and television in the issues covered here, but also in other intellectual ethical issue such as LGBT as ultimately shown in a recent talk-show program for seniors in the series Studio 65. It is characterized by the avoidance of controversial views and opinions, and it is unrelated to the showing of “the bloodies and most horrific images”, which in my experience have been also avoided by all the mentioned established foreign television channels. My general conclusion, supported by my all other work? We all are experiencing a serious “apocalyptic” cultural crisis that is not mainly political but rather ethical with its base in ignored religion and theology: in the Western world, mainly Christianity.

And here follows the body of the mail answer from the Swedish public television SVT at the beginning of February 2024. No comments:

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Thank you for your email.

If you think we have not reported on the suffering of civilians in Gaza, I question whether you have been following our reporting at all. We have had numerous reports on how people are really suffering in the Gaza Strip, almost on a daily basis. Our reporting on the war between Israel and Hamas has been extensive since October 7.

It's sad that you are ashamed of SVT compared to other European broadcasters. But there is no lack of resources to cover these news events.

My suggestion is that you go through our articles on svt.se about the war and watch our broadcasts backwards in SVT Play. Unfortunately, they are available only for the past seven days, but it will give you a good picture.

Here you can also read more about how we report on this conflict [in Swedish]

https://www.svt.se/kontakt/sa-rapporterar-svt-om-kriget-mellan-israel-och-hamas

…

[B]ut we can't show the bloodiest and most horrific images either. There are laws and rules about how much violence and blood we can show during the early evening. And even after 9 pm, we can't show the most brutal images. We have a journalistic responsibility here. If we violate it, we will be condemned by the Review Board.

With kind regards

/Daniel

Editor

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No comments, and a curiosity: the Swedish public radio’s program on March 23, 2024 Medierna [The Media] reported the public audience’s historic hundreds of complaints to the Swedish Press and Broadcasting Authority about impartiality in reporting the conflict in Gaza, with the news or three of them that had been recently been officially verified.

For the rest, I only hope that this text will not have to grow as it grew during my writing here, to an exhausting whole long essay, as it happened with my blog (below) on the conflict between Russia, NATO and Ukraine.

And now only a final note:

Note for mainly Swedish readers since it deals with the content of a Swedish book:

I think that a continuous discussion of these matters would incur in the communicative (im)possibilities that I try to resume in my texts on Information and Debate and Information and Theology, with applications to my analysis on the information about the Russia-NATO-Ukraine conflict, all related to Quality-Control of Information that includes the matter of information-wars, misinformation and disinformation.

A suggestion I offer to “intellectual pundits” who wish to pursue the matter is that they should attempt to review the theology behind a new book, Grinden I Dachau [The gate in Dachau] by the journalist Björn Wiman, cultural editor of one main morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter which represents an influential main current of Swedish journalism. A sufficiently explicative excerpt from the book was published in Dagens Nyheter on 27 January 2024, and can be helpful to understand, for instance, also the background of the above-mentioned interview in DW of Efraim Halevy in (former director of the Mossad Israeli intelligence). It is a theology of a Judeo-Christian culture (see also Wikipedia’s disambiguation of the term) that has divorced from Christianity and from a dialog with Islam and other religions, while speculatively referring to the Midrash Biblical exegesis that uses a rabbinic mode of interpretation prominent in the Talmud.

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But no…! It was not enough. I have to repeat and probably implement what I wrote above that: “I only hope that this text will not have to grow as it grew during my writing here, to an exhausting whole long essay, as it happened with my blog (below) on the conflict between Russia, NATO and Ukraine.

A couple of weeks after all the above text was completed, on April 6, 2024, I listen to the Swedish public radio program in the series “Medierna”, which seems to be a self-appointed supervision of or self-criticism produced by a business that calls itself Tredje Statsmakten Media [The Third Estate Media], and presents itself as (my translation) “Monitoring media and journalism. Goes behind the week's headlines and looks at the media landscape of the future.” The program is related to another one published February 10, 2024 also mentioned below, and announced as follows (also my translation) naming reporter, producer and presenter:

https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/israel-portar-al-jazeera-langlivad-vaccinartikel-och-om-att-overlista-slumpen-med-lottojournalistik

https://podme.com/se/medierna/1796715

Media giant Al Jazeera banned in Israel. This week, news broke that Israel has passed a new law that can temporarily restrict foreign media from reporting in the country - if they threaten the country's security. It quickly became apparent where the axe was pointed when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on X that "the terrorist channel Al Jazeera will no longer be allowed to broadcast from Israel." But what role has the Qatar-owned media giant Al Jazeera played in covering the war?

Reporter: Freddi (Fredrik) Ramel.

https://podme.com/se/medierna/1686230

SVT [The Swedish public television] spreads both pro-Russian disinformation and its own conspiracy theory.

Last weekend, SVT Nyheter [SVT News] published an investigation into how pro-Russian disinformation, through various media proxies, could be spread to established media. But exposing fake news involves a balancing act on a knife edge. Because retelling inaccuracies and lies involves the risk of amplifying the messages and spreading the false claims to a far wider audience than they would otherwise reach. In this particular case, that is exactly what happened. Because when films from the investigation were spread outside the safe SVT environment, they suddenly became perfect examples of exactly what the investigation was supposed to highlight. The media cover up mistakes. Like the changing of the seasons, the media's willingness to expose their mistakes seems to vary over time. For a long time, it was not only customary, but also a matter of great pride and honor for the media to clearly display their corrections. But are we seeing a shift in how openly the media acknowledge errors and account for changes and additions to publications?

Producer: Erik Petersson. Presenter: Martina Pierrou.

My comments: the first program contains also an account that AlJazeera’s various versions in English and Arabic contain different versions of news, where the Arabic ones, for instance, have a mores ympathetic attitude to Hamas, seemingly meaning that they dare to account for its own versions of events. One or two days earlier than April 6, interestingly enough, I had heard at the English AlJazeera, National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby (live) reiterating, in face of Israel’s accusations, the official trust of the USA White House in the quality and integrity of AlJazeera.

Likewise, in what I called the “related” program it is meant that it is pro-Russian because it accounts for the Russian version of events, which seems to mean that it dares to account for non-Western USA-NATO accounts of the very same events. In this sense it means that they resemble what I myself have been accused or will be accused of in the present blog and in my essay about the Russia-NATO-Ukraine information crisis. In the above presentation of the latter related program on pro-Russian disinformation it also extremely interesting to realize that so-called disinformation, lies, inaccuracies, false claims, corrections, errors etc. outside the safe SVT environment, ignore the whole problem of quality-control of information as developed in my essay on the subject. And who are, what do listeners or readers know about the self-appointed (and approved the Swedish Radio itself) “public media supervisors” or “journalists square” of the “program square Medierna” Freddi Ramel, and Martina Pierrou? They could be arabs, Israelites, or employees or sympathizers of whatever besides being employees or associates of the above-mentioned business firm Third Estate Media.

And what does Third Estate (or Third Power) mean? Yes, this is also extremely interesting. The Third Estate in Sweden corresponds to The Fourth Estate in most if not all other concerned countries of the world. Very simple if one does not ask “Why?”. The short answer is: because the the Swedish Thirs Estate is supposed to be the democratic public mass media, here represented by SVT and the firm Third Estate Media, where Media has appropriated to the Judiciary Power’s third place in other countries where the media are relegated to being a fourth power, within the political theory’s concept of division and balance of powers legislature, executive, and judiciary. Whoever wants details, can study Inga-Britt Ahlenius’ article (in Swedish by translatable by e.g. the Chrome-browser’s translator feature): “Sverige has en egen syn på maktdelning” [Sweden has its own approach to sharing power], in Svenska Dagbladet, December 12, 2020.

It would last until April 10, 2024 for the Swedish radio itself (it was serendipitous that it happened after my own blog – which both the radio and television have reasons to follow-up - was published) to broadcast a program of 20 minutes in its series “Dagens Eko” [Today’s Echo] with the title Därför kallar Israel Al Jazeera för en terrorist kanal [Therefore Israel calls AlJazeera a terrorist channel]. It was an ambitious short report about AlJazeera’s origin, history, and ambitious work including Israel’s killing of journalists emphasizing, however, the problematic that it also has reported pronouncements by e.g. the Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. This emphasis once again reveals that the both the Swedish public media and its self-appointed critics do not understand the grounds for what I have called quality-control of information.

Conclusion? It is regrettable that the Swedish public radio cannot report controversial events, judgments and opinions, and that artificial general intelligence or the presently trendy ChatGPT cannot be expected to write texts such as Alastair Crooke’s Brutal, chaotic war – norms, conventions and laws of conduct are being erased. Even if disregarding that our so-called norms, conventions and laws of conduct were originally supposed to decur not from western democracy, but rather that they and democracy itself decurred from religion in general, and from Christianity in particular.

PS – Having listened to the Swedish Radio’s main morning news at 8 o’clock, the day April 11, 2024 I can refer typically two among the highlights: that a man was shot in a suburb of the capital Stockholm, and three horses were attacked by wolves somewhere else in the country. One may assume that nothing important has happened in neither Gaza nor Israel.

Another significative highlight the following day was an Internet message I received on April 12 an article by Jan Majlard that was published earlier, in the morning-newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, referring to an article in the the Politico with the title Zelenskyy warns Russia has penetrated US politics, invites Trump to Ukraine. It has gone so far that people in the West are accused for being “pro-Russian”, both politicians and common people writing in their blogs, and driven by “idealism”, which possibly also includes references to religion and Christianity. I already remarked in my essay on the conflict in Ukraine that the simple suspicion of my being “pro-Russian” was enough for the enmity of former assumed “friends”. And this in a western country, champion of “democracy” based on free press and freedom of expression. So far, Swedish public media stands above all suspicions of broadcasting fake news, being pro-Russian or pro-Palestinian.

The Israeli bombing of the Iranian embassy in Damascus in April 2024, and the subsequent Iranian strike in Israel could be expected, however, to serendipitously foster an increased mass-media disinterest for the conflict in Gaza. It may be considered by some as an interesting case of political-psychological synchronicity. The first if not only quality program on the issue that I have seen on the Swedish public television, “Vedergällningen” [The Retaliation, can be seen in the whole world until October 13th, 2024], was broadcasted on April 16th with a discussion between former minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt, and the former Middle East correspondents Bitte Hammargren and Stina Blomgren. Again, it may be a serendipitous synchronicity that all of them are “former”, as I myself.

But despite of this exceptional quality program, there seems to be no chance that the Swedish TV will be able to at least report and even less borrow and re-transmit the program that the channel AlJazeera transmitted the following day, April 17th. The commissioner-general of the UNWRA (already mentioned above), Philippe Lazzarini, was shown “live” delivering a speech to the the United Nations Security Council UNSC. He explained the tragedy that Israel’s announced proposal to dismantle UNWRA would imply for the Gaza population, 75 years after the organization was established for assisting displaced Palestinians with food, medical assistance and education. And he reminded that since the beginning of the war in Gaza 178 of the staff hade been killed in the war, while Israel’s accusation (so long without delivered proofs) that 12 of the staff out of 13.000 employees had been active in supporting Hamas’ activities and attack in Israel, had not yet been evaluated, but 16 UN-countries lead by the USA have freezed their UNWRA’s funding.

[240418-1210]

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E230923 From a mother to her insolent son

The title of this blog could also have been: Denying a mother to see her great-grandchildren. More than ten years ago I had witnessed scenes of insolent adult children and grandchildren who harassed or were insolent with their mother and grandmother. It motivated me to write an insert in my blog with the title Parents, adult children, childish adults - Inverted identities?

Since then I perceive that moral decline of society, including also an increased criminality of youngsters down to an age of 13, which has continued, if not even accelerated. Lately I have witnessed a few uncommon examples of sons (but I know one case of daughter) who even hinder their parents to have contact with the sons' own grandchildren. This understood as a "penalty" for perceived unjust or unloving behavior of their parents, which at least in a couple of cases I personally could verify was not true.

The latest case of a suffering great grandmother puzzled me for my not being able to imagine (I felt wordless) how she could respond to the insulting behavior or her own son who he himself for months does not even drop a telephone call to his old mother, and allows one of his own adult children to forbid her to contact with her great grandchildren.

A distressing, sorrowful parenthesis: as it was not enough, there is the case of a grandparent who is not even invited to a grandchild’s wedding. And to add insult to injury, that grandchild’s father and siblings who happen to be invited to the ceremony do not care or dare to investigate, denounce and blame the insult. “The decline of the West”?

After passing a couple of nights almost sleepless, I could formulate the only text that would not provoke a meaningless impossible argument between the two main actors of this undignified drama. This, disregarding whether my thoughts would be accepted or not by the great grandmother. For my own peace of mind and possible encouragement to other unhappy people I put the English translation at the left and the original Swedish text at the right here below:

From a mother to her insolent son

I don't feel unresponsive, just speechless.

I am overwhelmed that you let your feelings for me,

come so far or so low,

without being able or willing to express them to me.

I could have explained to you,

things and events that you could not understand.

I myself have learned how important it is, after the death of my parents,

not to be left with a guilty conscience.

It is only in old age that I have been able to better understand,

the tremendous importance of the Fourth Commandment to

Honour thy father and thy mother.

(And this even before the Fifth Commandment of "Thou shalt not kill"!).

Since even among the animals it is natural

that the parents take care of their young

but the young are not expected to remember it,

or even show love, respect and gratitude.

Från en mor till sin oförskämda son

Jag känner mig inte svarslös, utan bara ordlös.

Jag är överväldigad av att du låtit dina känslor för mig,

komma så långt eller lågt,

utan att kunna eller vilja uttrycka dem för mig.

Jag skulle ha kunnat förklara för dig,

saker och händelser som du inte kunnat förstå.

Jag har själv lärt mig hur viktigt det är att efter föräldrarnas död,

Inte ha något dåligt samvete kvar.

Det är först vid ålderdomen som jag själv kunnat bättre förstå,

den oerhörda betydelsen av det fjärde budordet om att

Visa aktning för din far och din mor.

(Och detta även före det femte budet "Du skall inte dräpa"!)

Eftersom även bland djuren förekommer det

att föräldrarna naturligt tar hand om sina ungar

men att dessa inte förväntas komma ihåg det,

eller ens visa kärlek, respekt och tacksamhet.

This is also the place to mention that on other occasions I have heard a son “lecturing” his mother on the desirability of his feeling neither shame nor guilt, which prompted me to reflecting that he would have liked to be shameless and conscienceless. I also heard a granddaughter responding to her grandmother who had expressed a longing to see her, for a visit by her, accusing the grandmother for wishing to instill in her feelings of guilt, and that she already new very well that grandmother loved her. In still another occasion I heard of a daughter who had fallen ill and had been taken to the hospital reproaching her mother for telling about feeling like sharing the daughter’s suffering. The daughter clarified that it was she herself who was now suffering, and didn’t like to hear about her mother’s sufferings. In other words, the daughter had never heard or understood the Christian idea of sharing others’ suffering. I also saw a younger woman who apparently “praised” her mother for having avoided to feel guilty because of having taken care until of her grandmother, the mothers’ mother, until death. Later I realized that her praise might have been motivated mainly by her aversion towards feelings of guilt and shame. Even disregarding the Bible’s sharing in suffering, this would also show a sad lack of understanding of what “love” is, and a disregard of psychological realities in that shared pain brings people together. In other words, it shows an impossibility to also understand the ultimate Christian meaning of suffering as exposed in the text of the famous apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris by the former Pope John Paul II.

Aftermath: Returning to my first main account above, the more I thought about this event the more I was reminded of criticism of Christianism in the context of a Nietzsche-inspired Master and Slave philosophy. I thought, right or wrong, that the attitude of a great grandmother who would not accept my formulation of a message to her son and grandson, is an attitude that encourages others to regard Christianism as a philosophy for slaves:

A philosophy for slaves would be the pure passive acceptance of suffering, which may deserve the humiliating and undignified epithet of masochism, in oblivion of the Christian message on the meaning of suffering and of the meaning of the Commandment Honour thy father and thy mother. In fact this attitude in suffering can be seen as differing from the attitude of martyrdom because it does not display the suffering a persecution for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. That is, because the party would not be a suffering "martyr" because she does not "advocate". In our case this means that she would not be a martyr because she would display what is a perceived as the attitude of a "slave": she does not spell to the son and grandson the sheer content of the Fourth Commandment or, as often seems to be the case in a secular culture of "silence", the "slave" "heroically" does not even disclose, display or speak out her suffering.

Or, in her attitude, the persecuted party keeps at the level of the illuminated but pre-Christian attitude of Plato (in his famous Seventh Letter (341d, and 344c), who reached the apex of secular wisdom in realizing and formulating the tragedy that I already tried to illustrate in a text on Information and Debate, explaining why the mother and great-grandmother should not mention her suffering to her son and grandson. The explanation can be resumed in a couple of quotations from Plato that I felt the obligation of displaying in other texts of mine:

If I thought it possible to deal adequately with the subject in a treatise or a lecture for the general public, what finer achievement would there have been in my life than to write a work of great benefit to mankind and to bring the nature of things to light for all men? I do not, however, think the attempt to tell mankind of these matters a good thing, except in the case of some few who are capable of discovering the truth for themselves with a little guidance. In the case of the rest to do so would excite in some an unjustified contempt in a thoroughly offensive fashion, in others certain lofty and vain hopes, as if they had acquired some awesome lore. […]

For this reason no serious man will ever think of writing about serious realities for the general public so as to make them a prey to envy and perplexity.

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E230801 Quran desecration and burnings in Sweden

What follows is a text that I have not the time and means to elaborate as it should from the point of view of the language of political science.

There are reports of desecration of Quran by means of burnings since year 2020 with a culmination in 2023. These desecrations were permitted by the police under the banner of freedom of expression and demonstration in the Swedish Constitution, disregarding the protests of Islamic countries that experience this as an abusive insult to their main religion and national identity, or how it happens to be expressed at different times in their politics and mass media. The ongoing main response reported by Swedish mass media is that both government and the parliament reiterate the fact that the on the basis of its democratic structure the government cannot intervene in the doings of the police and the courts' interpretations of its constitution that guarantees the freedom of expression.

Such response does not tell whether and why the Swedish parliament with the democratic support of the population could not influence the relevant laws and the constitution. I can guess that the answer and explanation is that Sweden is the or a most secularized country in the world and it does not mind about any religion or conception of neither God nor gods or their believers. Nevertheless, for the religious majority in the rest of the world, desecrations of holy books in the great religions are a sign of danger because desecrations are perceived as declaration of rejection of basic values that are considered as more basic than secularized local “basic values” such as freedom of expression in presumed, misunderstood “democracies”. (More below, with reference to author Tage Lindbom.) Consequently, religious people do not feel respect for and trust in peoples that in democratic elections affirm acceptance of constitutional rights of “free expression” of contempt and rejection of religious basic values with decurrent unexpected behavior.

Upon the violent protests and threats of boycotts the main official reaction in Sweden up to now has been the expression of fear of terrorist actions and fear of economic consequences of a worsening of Sweden’s international “trademark” and prestige in world politics, to the point that one main morning in the country, Svenska Dagbladet (Nov 26, 2023) published an extensive overview of a worldwide worsening of Sweden’s reputation. The more so when seen together with the loss of its neutrality in its application for joining NATO. Not a serious consideration of changing the law as a sign of respect for others' feelings that are not "only feelings", as it is obvious to do in the name of human friendship and respect as within families. Friendly respect is not shown because of considering that in a democracy the freedom of expression is "sacralized" by the constitution. This disregards that democracy is or should be not mainly feelings and (freedom of) "expression" but mainly friendly serious intellectual debate that is not simple acting, burning of books or Piss Christ (and its section "See also"). The latter went relatively unnoticed, probably because Muslims are people who still take religion seriously. At the same time, it suggests that Christian populations do not take religious matters seriously. On the contrary they feel proud for not “giving in” to threats of retaliation and terrorism. In other words, the question of “love thy neighbor”, the summary of Christian commandments, is translated into a question of power, as when a possible apology is replaced by counter-threats of sanctions, or accusation of “hypocrisy” of those who condemn the lack of respect, as I note elsewhere in the case of the Ukraine conflict. And there is also the fact that other democracies such as Finland as some other European democracies already have laws that allow for avoiding such desecrations, which by the way has allowed Finland to not incur, like Sweden did, into Turkey's veto to its problematic joining the NATO.

In several other writings of mine archived mainly in archive.org, but especially in the most recent one about the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, I have emphasized that in the West in general, but even more so in a most secularized country like Sweden, Democracy with capital D has taken the place otherwise held by God himself. The freedom of expression being one main pillar of democracy is consequently also sacralized, whatever expression means. This has been treated in detail by the late political scientist Tage LIndbom in his book that has been translated into English under the title The Myth of Democracy, where he dwells on the pre-requisites for democracy before it became a God-surrogate. The myth of democracy also explains why intellectual debate, when not outright impossible as suggested in my essay on Information and Debate, ends in religion(s) with its (their) psychically necessary dogmas.

It leads to the tragic consequence that the only intellectual debates (not burnings or desecrations but) about the differences between religions, should be seen as statements of ultimate supreme values, such as the primacy of power and justice vs. alternative primacy of charity or love. But the impossibility of debates because the lack of "love thy neighbor", a lack equivalent to the replacement of speech by logic purified from feelings and emotions as in artificial general intelligence of ChatCPT, as also after brain lobotomy, means violence and war.

An example of such a logical (or figuratively “lobotomized”) mind can be perceived by those who understand Swedish in the position of the philosopher Per Bauhn in the discussions in a program of the Swedish public radio Yttrandefrihet eller Hädelse? [“Freedom of expression or blasphemy?” on 8 Sept 2023, link to the recording available until further notice]. I have long claimed that if computers such as in AI and ChatGPT cannot achieve intelligence, humans can culturally get accustomed to think only or mainly logically, as slow and simple computers. I have no space here to give an account of philosopher's contribution to the above-mentioned program, but it could have been achieved by a ChatGPT "trained" with appropriately chosen defective definitions, e.g. of the Swedish (freedom of) "expression", which in English is usually an more appropriately translated into (freedom of) "speech".

This becomes the more clear when we consider that despite the supposed, assumed sacralization of the democratic freedom of expression, the denial of the Holocaust and the display of the Nazi flag-symbol have been criminalized in several western democratic countries. In other words, the Holocaust and the respect of its victims (cf. respect of "Love thy neighbor"?) and their heirs is more sacralized than God himself, as conceived in the three main monotheistic religions. Unless the respect for particular human lives in not the only remnant, deformed commandment of old Judeo-Christian culture. Not to mention "hate crimes”, where hate contrasted to the commandment of love, is also considered more sacred than hate of God, since they do not include hate of God and of those who adhere to religious faith. This up to the point that a Pentecostal Christian pastor had been denounced up to the supreme court of justice for quoting from the Bible (cf. here in English, and here a commentary by the Supreme Court of Sweden (in Swedish).

Western secularized countries’ defective understanding of what religion and especially Christianity is about has ultimately also caused misunderstandings of their own welfare politics as in Sweden, increasing estimated risk for terrorist attacks. As the Associated Press expressed it in a communication of February 3, 2023, aggravated by Palestinian Hamas attack of Israel on October 7 the same year:

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Swedish government again sought Friday to discredit claims that Swedish social service agencies kidnap Muslim children, saying Sweden was again seeing a “systematized” and “extensive” disinformation campaign.

“This campaign has now gained momentum again,” said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

“This is false. This is not true. Sweden does not kidnap children. The social services do not kidnap children,” Kristersson told a press conference. ”Neither Muslim nor other children.”

He said that social workers and other employees are being “exposed on social media and are being threatened.”

He said the government will post guards inside social services offices and will earmark more funds to the Swedish Psychological Defense Agency, which was established to counter misinformation, to help it tackle the “systematized” campaign against Sweden.” He didn’t say how much money would be given to the agency.

[…]

Kristersson said the disinformation campaign over child kidnappings started in 2021. The Psychological Defense Agency said last year that the allegations could be traced to an Arabic-language site whose creator expressed support for the Islamic State group.

In February 2022, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said that “all children in Sweden are protected and cared for equally under Swedish legislation” and that social workers need a court order to remove children from their parents without consent.

After the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and Israel’s counterattack in Gaza and the West Bank, some Muslim and Pro-Israel demonstrations repeated the accusation the Swedish social service agencies kidnap children of Muslim refugees. It is seen as increasing the risk for Muslim terrorist attacks. What is not explained is why Muslims perceive what happens as kidnapping, as also non-Muslim families may perceive it. This is not explained because the Swedish establishment, prefers to classify the whole as “disinformation” without knowing what information and “dis-“ is in the first place, in the context of quality-control of information. The Swedish establishment is not aware that it lives in a society applying a philosophy of law called Positive Law (discussed also here, in Swedish) in contrast with several other countries and cultures that espouse a Subsidiarity that is related to religion and to the concept of Natural Law. In practice it means that in contrast to Sweden, much of the world around it considers the family represented by man and woman, and consequently children, as the “atom or cell” of society. Not the government and governmental (“kidnapping”) power that Sweden unconsciously assumes as being the final guarantor, as historically accounted in the ideology of State Individualism.

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E221027 - New view of Sweden's gang crimes, and solutions

Why are gang criminals in Sweden so extremely easily offended? is the title of an article by author a former lawyer Jens Lapidus in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (October 23, 2022) and could this in turn mean that there are unexpected opportunities to fight crime? The subject of the article is motivated by the welfare nation Sweden’s special position in relation to organized crime. The article was further summarized in the Finnish main newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet and in a news site, and it is now commented by me here below. It emphasizes that serious criminals in Sweden have special characteristics compared to other countries in Europe.

Shootings after being offended. Jens Lapidus points out that he perceives that the shootings are often about quarrels between individuals rather than broad conflicts. They rarely concern settlements on overall issues of drug trafficking or territorial division. Instead, they are about individuals who feel offended, Jens Lapidus emphasizes in a text in Dagens Nyheter today.

Under the heading "Why are Swedish gang criminals so easily offended?" Lapidus tells about his experience with young criminals. “When I was active as a lawyer, I met many clients for the first time when they were only fifteen years old. The crimes they were charged with were relatively trivial, but a few years later the charges had become much more serious.” During his conversation with the young people, a revealing picture of the development appeared: in the isolation that prevailed, conversations sometimes arose about something other than the later trial itself. It could touch eating habits and exercise, faith and family, film and literature.

Privatizations or integration: “They weren’t yet -filled eighteen, but I thought of elite soldiers, guys who first break down and then built up as new, tougher and more dangerous men.” Regarding the question of how to counteract the growing gang violence in Sweden, Jens Lapidus notes that in recent years a number of law-penalties have been tightened and new measures are being introduced by the new government and the right-coalition of political parties. Lapidus discusses that some believe that the cause of the problems is cuts in the budget, privatizations and increased gaps, while others emphasize high immigration and unsuccessful integration of immigrants. “However, I believe that the most unique in the situation is how sensitive the perpetrators of violence are, says Jens Lapidus in DN. An extreme norm of masculinity seems to have emerged in parts of Sweden's youth groups. A lost word, a too long look, a wrong click on social media can be perceived as an insult that must be answered with violence says Lapidus.

Comparison with other countries. In Sweden, the men in the gang criminals are apparently extremely much more offended than their peers in other comparable countries. When Jens Lapidus seeks answers as to why Sweden is affected by so many shootings, he points out that poverty, racism or drug trade probably do not differ much between Sweden and other countries. “It has to do with the fragile men, “protest-masculinity”. The toxic masculinity, Hypermachismo, is the real reason why Sweden tops the lists on shootings, emphasizes Jens Lapidus, which in the Dagens Nyheter’s text also highlights various literary sources, research and interviews. He asks if the modernized male norms in Sweden may have increased the gap to the gang's hypermasculine attitude. Sweden may have been naive, not understood the seriousness of the so-called protest masculinity.

Sweden compared to Germany: Lapidus indicates that cultural differences linked to foreign patriarchal thought systems do not seem to be the only cause. Large groups with the roots in these systems are also found in other countries, for example in Germany and France, without the ultra-high sensitivity to offenses. “But Sweden should never be ashamed of the achievements we have achieved in the field of gender equality, emphasizes Jens Lapidus. There are several possible partial solutions that can have connections precisely to the view of masculinity. “Perhaps investments in martial arts or military service can be part of the solution: activities that award traditionally male virtues such as strength and solidness, without being toxic.” In the newspaper’s text he also emphasizes that much more is required than that and that there are no simple solutions.

What to say about this view of solutions to gang crime in general and crime in particular? With all respect for the new insights my first observation is that it does not relate to solutions based on ethics and moral education, especially if focusing on preventive measures, the more so when referring to children and youngsters becoming criminals. It is as if it is not necessary to teach what is right and what is wrong. In this sense the above text ignores this blog’s earlier text below on criminality.

A second observation is that the article extends the thought to the question of masculinity up to the point of mentioning the possibility of investments in martial arts or military service but does not relate to the locus of teaching on masculinity, the role of the father in the family. As I see it, on the contrary, the text above is absolutely politically correct in underlining that “But Sweden should never be ashamed of the achievements we have achieved in the field of gender equality”. It is engraved in the democratic bible represented by the Swedish Government’s declarations, which have received worldwide attention. But few dare to question the breakdown of the families and the responsibility of fatherhood where a fugitive, or divorced and rejected father is often absent and the children grow under the shaken authority of the mother and various father-substitutes. They testify simultaneously the meaninglessness of masculinity and self-sufficiency of the mother in the nation with a declared feminist agenda.

The children without an ambitious, protective and authoritative family are not stimulated to fulfill their school studies. They are educated by massmedia to contempt for obnoxious masculinity in former patriarchates, which have oppressed women and mothers for centuries. The children do not learn to dominate the language and to formulate and express their thoughts and feelings. The only way out is through aggressive, affirmative public action and a visible persona or, in the best case, to look for an archetypal father figure who, in the worst case is found in a criminal gang leader who teaches teenage boys to murder (as in Sweden, so young as at 15 years’ age), or in the best case will be found in the videos and books of the psychologist, author and media personality Jordan Peterson. It is not a by chance that he has been felt as a role model by a great number of young men, for having expressed “forbidden truths”.

At least a road to some of these forbidden truths I have tried to outline in a text on Reason and Gender. In another text on Medical safety of patients dealing with my own experiences with the “health industry” I expose situations that could have raised violent aggressiveness in people who have not the option to verbalize their frustrations, which in part are also motivated by a secular culture’s ineptitude in fostering humility, meekness, modesty. Such ineptitude is rooted in the ignorance of the meaning of The Mote and the Beam in the eye, that I also point out as a root of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The more we heighten ourselves, the greater our fall is perceived to be when insulted. It is not necessary to search so far as in the classic Imitation of Christ. It is enough to browse the likewise classic Litany of Humility, and to compare it with what has become “law” in modern Sweden when seen as the most secularized country of the world. It now practices the rhetorical rejection of the Law of Jante as a secular adaptation of the pious Protestant ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism of the USA seen as dominated by Prosperity theology.

A secular Godless society cannot imagine that young criminals can be seen as satanically possessed practitioners of a misunderstood theology of prosperity. As it cannot imagine why people feel the need of drugs, possibly because of the need of “Spirit” in lack of a Holy Ghost. And now: what to do to help young and adult criminals? It reminds me of what my doctoral advisor West Churchman wrote somewhere, namely that he saw one main valid reason of why students at schools and universities (and even less inmates in prisons) were not taught ethics: that the teachers themselves were not or did not feel competent, and did not dare to discuss and teach these matters. And if some people do not feel that such things can be taught or discussed, then they probably must also confess that they do not believe in democracy, and possibly believe in nothing except themselves. For the rest, I would repeat several of the arguments that were already expressed below, in the text on Criminality.

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E221013 – Inflation in Europe and the West: WHY

“What’ causing these inflation rates?” was the title of news accessed on euronews.com on 13 oktober 2022, with a text updated on October 3rd and starting with the following text:

Eurozone inflation is continuing to soar to record highs, with the latest estimate from the EU's statistics body predicting annual eurozone inflation of 10 per cent.
The September estimate sees prices for food, alcohol and tobacco, non-energy industrial goods, and services all up on the numbers in July and August when annual eurozone inflation was forecast at 8.9 per cent and 9.1 per cent respectively.
The September estimate from Eurostat has energy inflation at 40.8 per cent, up over two percentage points compared with 38.6 per cent in August. […]

What’s causing these inflation rates?
Europe and much of the wider world were already being hit with soaring energy prices - which contribute to inflation - before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February. The conflict has exacerbated the energy crisis by fueling global worries it may lead to an interruption of oil or natural gas supplies from Russia. Moscow said in September it would not fully resume its gas supplies to Europe until the West lifts its sanctions.
Russia has lately been the EU's top supplier of oil, natural gas, and coal, accounting for around a quarter of its energy. […]
The prices of many commodities - crucially including food - have also been rising ever since COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns were first introduced two years ago, straining global supply chains, leaving crops to rot, and causing panic-buying in supermarkets.
The war in Ukraine again dramatically worsened the outlook, as Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat and barley, and two-thirds of the world's exports of sunflower oil used for cooking. Ukraine is also the world's fourth-biggest exporter of corn.

And The Economist (October 5^th 2022) parades with other grandiose “causes” as implied in its special report on Inflation and rising demands on governments are changing economic policy. But what is changing what? The regular news broadcasted in the radio and television in October 2022 just repeat that the “cause” of all this is the increased price of food and energy. I guess that the basic problem behind this all, and that nobody dares or wants to mention is, yes, the war in Ukraine but also its prolongation thanks to the western help to Ukraine with money and weapons, and most of all the western economic sanctions against Russia and its retaliation. In the same way as Ukraine refused to acknowledge the Russian security needs regarding Ukraine’s membership in NATO, so Russia that is opportunely simplified and named “Putin” as world-war Germany was named “Hitler” found that the only language possible to use with Ukraine was the military one. Consequently, the only language that USA and the West found possible to use with Russia, in abeyance of the military one, was the language of economic sanctions, and increased expensive militarization of western and Ukrainian military defenses, which are also attacking weaponry and military manpower. The reciprocal mistrust and enmity, based on vengeance that is known to escalate in growing reciprocal hate.

So, all what happens is the fruit of reciprocal hate, and nobody in the inflationary West even dares mention the ultimate cause of increased inflation and the possibility of alleviating it by negotiating a mitigation and de-escalation of sanctions against Russia. Western politicians believe to fulfill the wishes of their people by trying to inflict so more pain to the Russian people even at the cost of pain for their own people. As I write in one section of my essay on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the hate is so great that one is ready to suffer in trying to inflict pain to others: the hate may be so strong that in the wish to inflict suffering they may be ready to suffer themselves, or rather others in their own population, inverting the Christian idea of “Love your neighbor as yourself” into “Allow to inflict pain to yourself as much as you want your enemy to suffer”. Cf. the Bible, Mark 12:31, to be completed, for all parties starting from ourselves with Matthew 5:44 on “Love your enemies”.

But then, it is another matter that those who suffer most will not be politicians and military in key positions in the opposing blocks, but their people, beginning with the Ukrainian one who could have been spared all death and suffering. All according to my own painfully drafted text on the issue, at cost of risk for being victimized by the politically correct western cancel culture.

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E-220901 - Criminality and juvenile delinquency: WHY?

For once I do not wish to fill my text with (too many!) links to references. I will simply recall the daily news about daily shootings on the streets, the gang violence related to demand and consumption of drugs. The continuous rise of Juvenile delinquency has lately been exemplified in Sweden by cases of murders on the streets and in schools committed by children who are as young as 15 years of age, killing people, school teachers and other children. This has been completed recently with new about increasing frequency of children’s suicides. Such news have been often accompanied by comments that this is a sign of society’s failure in educating children and protecting citizens, a failure that in a welfare country is attributed to the effects of drugs, the politics of the school system, the social welfare authorities who do not support families, the customs that allow the entry of drugs, and the police that allows its distribution. The attribution is documented by means of statistics, the degree of drug consumption relative to price and availability, the degree of children drop-outs or passed in school examinations, the budget and manpower in social welfare and health care authorities, plus the numbers and percent of successful interventions by customs and of the police.

In more recent times, the increase of juvenile delinquency has been conceived (in the morning newpaper Svenska Dabladet, 29 December 2023) in terms of “child soldiers” as the chosen title indicates: “Barnsoldater har blivit del av Sverige” [Child soldiers have become part of Sweden]. In this way it is possible to realize that western “advanced” countries have own pressing problems and should not look down to poor and “primitive” nations in the world, which figure in Wikipedia article like on Children in the military.

What is seldom if not never discussed is the WHY in a country like Sweden. If the cause is related to drug gangs, WHY do people need or demand drugs, why there are no reports of research on the reasons of why there is an increasing demand of drugs, and why only sale but not purchase of drugs is criminalized, while the opposite is the case with prostitution. Why people do not refrain from joining criminal gangs, from committing crimes, why students do not respect and obey their parents or study more, why families keep united and do not divorce, why they are not more supportive of, and able to educate and take care of their children who consequently down to age 13 are recruited by criminal gangs. I repeat, why are families disrupted in the form of divorced, criminal or single parents, often children with single mothers and absent fathers. It is an image of disrupted families that stands in contrast with not only the Christian image but also, for instance with the Confucian image in the I Ching's (hexagram 37, but cf. also e.g. the Quran 66:6) that today can be cheaply overturned by reference to late feminist dogmas:

If the father is really a father and the son a son, if the elder brother fulfills his position, and the younger fulfills his, if the husband is really a husband and the wife a wife, then the family is in order. When the family is in order, all the social relationships of mankind will be in order. […]

The family is society in the embryo; it is the native soil on which performance of moral duty is made early through natural affection, so that within a small circle a basis of moral practice is created, and this is later widened to include human relationships in general.

The problem is in turn mirrored by the fact that it is seldom if not never mentioned the need and possibility of implementing and ethical education, and education in ethics, of what is to be considered right and wrong, good and bad. Earlier in the West this was taught in Christian education, as it was called from 1919 to 1955. Later up to 1969 it was renamed in Sweden as Christian knowledge, and thereafter Religious knowledge, as it is now found with its historical roots in the Swedish Wikipedia, or in a limited survey for the world in the English Wikipedia also extended further as Religious Education outside the range of primary and secondary education. In order to appreciate the complexity and tragic importance of religious or confessional vs. non-confessional education, all this against the background or State Individualism of Sweden (see Are Swedes Human Beings?), those who can read Swedish have the opportunity of study this in depth mainly in (translated title) The religious history of the school: About the transition from state Christianity to state religion-critical secularism, (and here, and here).

In fact, the situation as tragically portrayed in a radio program from the Swedish public radio (P1, Program 1, 7 October 2023, available until further notice here with the title När mammorna blir måltavlor, meaning in English: When mothers become targets. It is one main aspect of the increasing criminality in Sweden involving youngsters and children down to 13 (soon 10-12?) years of age, who murder criminals and a wave of hateful revenges targeting what once upon a time was most sacred in what once upon a time was whole families: the mothers of the involved criminals. The more so in view of the frequent absence of fathers. In a whole hour's program nothing is mentioned about ethical or religious education, and not a single father appears for being interviewed. Everything is reduced to a question of security for the threatened persons, mostly children and mothers, and consequently to a criticism of the "society", i.e. the shortcomings of the right-wing politics, social welfare authorities, and of the police that consequently needs the support of the military plus private security companies. They are supposed to take care of (up to tens of) relatives of each involved, and of their surveillance in their move to appointed new safer residences. There is a tragic analogy to computer "security" being taken as a substitute of the quality of information, as explained in other texts,( here, here, and here) or power being taken as a substitute of charity and love.

Faith in "security" turns out to be in faith in "logic" allied to faith in struggle against the "romanticism of a gangster life" (as expressed by a public prosecutor, Lisa dos Santos, interviewed in Swedish public radio October 7th 2023, announced as Lisa dos Santos – prosecuting children who murder children), while it is also (unperceived) romanticism the logic and mathematics of budgeting and implementing society´s activities in legislation, social welfare and law enforcement. Such romanticism of logic is the same that stands behind the uncritical faith of the last international hype of artificial general intelligence, that Lisa dos Santos in interview also sees to be applied to the struggle against juvenile delinquency. It is the same romantic enchantment as the reading of logical puzzles in detective stories, as well as the prosecutor's disgust towards "gangsters' defense attorneys", which reveals that she does not understand that her disgust is caused by her not being conscious of working under a law conceived in the Swedish conception of positive law, while she dreams of a natural law but without understanding and acknowledging its Christian content. That means that in Sweden and in secular countries a lawyer's client must be considered as innocent until proved to be finally guilty after the pleading by both the prosecutor and the defense attorney. A defense attorney can never be accused of defending a gangster, only of having defended, after a condemnation that historically is proved to be possibly overturned, even after a verdict in a supreme court of justice. Similarly, only the unconscious working of a prosecutor in the secular spirit of a secular country can lead the prosecutor as well as the country's many intellectual pundits to be able to assign criminality to only or mainly poverty, unemployment, or equivalently to immigration from poor countries. If this were so, such countries would display a chaotic lawless violent criminality, which is not the case pending the influence of a particular religion and further discussion of criminality and "criminalization" (by Claes Lernestedt, here in Swedish, here a later elaboration in English) in philosophical and (more difficult and rare) theological terms.

These are not small matters, and they are food for thought about what is not but should be done. Teachers and counselors (university researchers’ and so-called intellectuals’) should be able to explain for children, in adult education, and for prison inmates, the philosophical and religious matters: Ethics, Morality, Ethics in Religion, Ethics in the Bible, Islamic Ethics, Buddhist Ethics, Chinese Ethics or Confucianism, and Meta-ethics. The latter extremely abstract nebulous meta-ethics, in my opinion can be seen as an ultimate symptom of the crisis of thought and philosophy, of a decadent West that once upon a time started with mainly, if not only, sermons on the Bible. It is a Bible that today many in the West relinquish also with the motivation of not encroaching on other great religions, while other religions may respect more those who confess their respect for their own religion and what it has in common with the other great religions, as suggested above about ethics.

There are good arguments for practicing good ethical behavior, and for discussing differences between the historical views of ethics in different cultures. They may center, for instance, on good reasons, perceptions, feelings and intuitions about why humans, for instance, should not kill, if the they cannon love or at least be kind to each other, and what love does mean. As it stands today, there are not only children but even adults who never have been confronted with discussions about what good and bad (behavior) does mean, while historically western people grew and were educated with at least a knowledge of the existence, interpretation and application of the Ten Commandments beyond those of socialist or secular morality and ethics of the French revolution's, Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, or "solidarity". Today teenagers can grow up without even having heard and discussed the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. Not to mention the summary of commandments: "Love thy neighbor as thyself" (starting in Leviticus 19:18, plus Matthew 22:39, and Mark 12:31).

The question is complicated by the meeting of different cultures, which follows immigration of political (and economic) refugees, and by Swedish authorities’ ignorance of the interface between religion and ethics, between natural law, and positive law that (for many unconsciously) is taken for granted in Sweden. Here belongs the alleged state-sponsed kidnapping of Muslim children in Sweden, which for some Muslims is not “alleged” because their understanding is coloured by natural law and the principle of subsidiarity by which the state is not expected to intervene into the “core” of the social “atomic” component of the family. Such intervention that is seen as is something that can strengthen personal autonomy fits the Swedish tradition of Statist individualism, while in natural law it can be seen as violating the family’s autonomy and overarching religious principles according to which even secularized countries allow for Civil disobedience. That all this is not understood in Sweden is evidenced in a very popular series of television programs at the Swedish public television network broadcasted in 2023-2024 such as Tänk om jag har gjort något fel, Vem har sag tatt du skall erkänna, and Dem tar våra barn [trans. into What if I have done something wrong, Who told you to confess, and They take our children]. It is in this context very comforting that at least one cultural journalist at one main Swedish morning papers, Svenska Dagbladet, Anders Q. Björkman, published on January 14, 2024 a critical editorial with the title Svenska värderingar – är de bäst I världen? [Swedish values – are they the best in the world?].

My doctoral thesis advisor, West Churchman, wrote somewhere that he saw one good main reason why ethics is not taught in universities: there is not research about was mentioned above in this text, on how to train families and teachers who are able or courageous enough to accept the requirements of the educational challenge. Unfortunately it is perceived as easier to manipulate laws including capital punishment and the judiciary, to increase the police force, and to build prisons. For supporting discussions and political action for the latter it is politically more expedient to gather and build on statistics on the what, how and when, rather the WHY of criminality of children and adults. And it is easier to hunt sellers of narcotics as being source of criminality that to understand the demand of these same narcotics, and condemn the real culprits of the crimes: the buyers.

Despite the importance give to economics there is no emphasis on the ethical meaning of the fundamental microeconomic "law" of supply and demand. There is seldom or ever a questioning of the WHY of demand, except for when it is mentioned in the context of the belief that its criminalization will curb prostitution. Why are buyers of sex criminalized but not buyers of drugs? Is it just because the buyers are too many compared with the number of seller and drug cartels? The possibility to criminalize the demand for drugs is seldom or never mentioned. I suggest that it is in turn related to the incapacity or cowardice in asking the WHY of the demand for drugs, including the demand for alcohol, while it is believed that we know the WHY of the demand of sex, when in fact we do not know what "sexuality" means, as I try to show in the context of Reason and Gender. It is symptomatic that when Stina Oscarson, presented as a theater director, author and debater, uniquely questions as I do the criminalization of the “purchase of sex” in an article, in an article of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (December 9, 2023) she is countered by the champion of this criminalization, Anna Skarhed. She has been member of the Supreme Courts of Sweden and Finland, as well as a creator of the feminist jurist network Hilda, aiming at increasing the number of female managers, raising some controversy. Anna Skarhed has already been named in earlier inserts in this blog, related to the issues of #MeToo and of the SCUM Manifest. Reading the mentioned article by Skarhed in Svenska Dagblade it becomes clear that she tragically understands sexuality as only an “satisfaction of instinct” with no notion of its psychological and spiritiual dimensions suggested in my Reason and Gender that would reveal every “purchase” of sex as a desperate appeal to spiritual or pastoral care.

I guess that this is in turn related to a Decline of the West: the incapacity to appreciate, or the denial of the spiritual needs of humans that have been discouraged to take care of such needs in the progressive, increased secularization of society where "culture" is understood as only including (the freedom of expression of whatever in) art and literature, but not anymore religion that is never mentioned in the context of culture. It is the official denial of religion in the name of a misunderstood and abused divinization of a bloodless "Democracy", seen as equivalent to the freedom to ask for and (democratically) get anything that the citizens like and desire. That is, the ignorance of Spiritus Contra Spiritum. And here some readers may get tired by too many links and references that require much work from them, as they did from the writer.

A later insert in this blog, New view of Sweden's gang crimes, and solutions, can be seen as a complement to this text.

[240314-1400]

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E-220716 Life, death, political correctness, and conflicts

I wish to report a case that in my opinion may explain the origin of estrangement between people and the origins of the phenomenon of political correctness or opinion corridor. It all started when I wrote a message to a married couple of neighbors, husband and wife who returned home after having been away for some months. I ended my message writing: “In any case: welcome to our temporary earthly paradise in hopeful anticipation of the definitive ditto.”

The wife responded with a message to my wife (!) telling her that they would appreciate to come to us but have things to do, and also have had a hard time with (my) "joke" about life and death! Adding that “Not everyone may be able to read those signals! Losing a beloved child is very tough !!! I'm writing to you so Kristo does not misunderstand and think we did not have fun with you! We're in town but coming out again with our grandchild.”

To which my wife responded in writing to her : “What Kristo wrote was probably meant as a bit un-Swedish and general address, not ‘accusatory’ against you in any way. He wants so well. I understand your reaction; Kristo can be difficult to interpret sometimes even for me. We hope you have a great week with your grandchild and that we may see each other someday in the future!”

My reflections are, to begin with, that in welcoming a visit from them I did not think that they had lost a daughter afflicted by cancer, and that they did not feel well in being reminded of references to “death”. I myself, instead, being aged 85 and knowing that most people who reach this age also die before age 90, have been struggling for understanding the meaning of life and death. Because of this I consider them not only legitimate but also most important questions, incorporating them spontaneously in some daily conversations and as exemplified above, at the beginning of this text.

But the lady conceives the whole situation in “not everyone may be able to read those signals. Losing a beloved child is very tough!!!”. Indirectly I understand that knowing that she had lost a beloved child, I should have understood the “signal” and refrained from mentioning or “joking” about death. And I mean that this is the origin of political correctness if it understood as refraining from saying anything that one had to foresee that it could be perceived as painful or outright abusive. Since such a principle must be seen as reciprocal in the interaction between two or more people it may also be the origin of what appears as a popular Swedish proverb for depicting unspoken interaction: “Om man ingenting, säger, har man ingenting sagt”, meaning that if you say nothing, you will not have said anything, that is, you cannot be held accountable for having said anything. To which I have added that if you do not look you will not see; if you do not listen you will not hear, and if you do not meddle you do not need to pull away [Swedish: om man inte lägger sig I behöver man inte dra sig ur].

It may have taken root in our culture through the impact of some related biblical proverb (Prov. 17:28), which in turn have their similar roots as summarized in the expression “Speech is silver, silence is golden”. But perhaps it should have been: “Silence is gold in the mouth of a fool”. Such principle was partly applied when the woman in question “answered” my message to the couple by directing herself to my wife. Is this an archetypal enactment of “Woman to woman”? Or is it an archetypal enactment of feminism implied by “Strong women”? In this respect she reminded me of a case I have personal knowledge of: the brother-in-law of a friend once complained to the wife of his friend for something the friend had said to him regarding his worry for his health.

Perhaps it is a modern expression of the relation of this issue to the Taboo on the dead or the Naming taboo. I am inclined to believe that the issue has much to do with the degree of secularization in Sweden, often considered as the most secularized country of the world. When there is no spirit but only body, there is neither hope nor relief from the sorrow of death, neither our of beloved ones nor our own. And without Christianism there is no way of understanding and applying the meaning of the Bible’s Matthew 7:3-5 about “the beam in your own eye”. And it is difficult to understand e.g. the observance of the Day of the Dead in Mexico. It must also be difficult to be enlightened by books that will be outright avoided, such as about Anthropology of Death. It is symptomatic that a Swedish ethnologist like Karl-Olov Arnsberg who consequently is sometimes accused for being extreme-right (by the magazine Expo grounded by far-leftist Stieg Larsson) had to write books like Svenskhet [Swedishness] and SvenskaTabun [Swedish Taboos]. I feel that it is very Swedish the tabooing the death of beloved ones including oneself.

But all this is interesting and important in a wider context, because it illustrates also an origin of estrangement between friends, debate and eventual conflict or war, when one party wants to limit the counterpart’s free expression because of perceived pain or abuse, while at the same time not imagining, wondering and still less trying to understand the counterpart’s situation and feelings. I mean that this is what happens in conflicts and wars, as I try to illustrate in the case of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and certainly happens especially in most long, unending conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian one.

I expanded my text with these apparently learned far-fetched associations and references in order to show the immense intellectual and emotional importance of death, and the absurdity of silencing its spontaneous well-meaning mention, just because of living in an impoverished secular culture. Its debacle can be intuited by substitute decadent cultural expressions of death such as Satanism and Goth subculture. Swedish readers may appreciate an extense presentation of the latter in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (Nov. 26, 2023).

So, returning to the initial episode: my wife was right in the diplomatically condescending tone of her answer to the wife in the couple, writing: “I understand your reaction; Kristo can be difficult to interpret sometimes even for me“. But it is easy to forget what is implied in this: “I understand your reaction, but do you understand mine and Kristo’s?” And: “Kristo can be difficult to understand even for me, but I myself can be difficult to be understood even by him!”.

[221127-1630]

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E-220221 The Russia-NATO-Ukraine information crisis

Most of these initial lines were initially written as an insert in my blog on 21 February 2022 while the world press was reporting on the so called crisis in the relation of Russia to NATO regarding Ukraine. I apologized for the volume of my text having grown up to the point that it could not belong properly to a blog, requiring a separate essay. It relates to my discipline of information science in that it puts in evidence its most critical relationship of information to social and political science, and ultimately to theology. It is now found at the following links to which I refer the readers to one of the two following alternative links:

https://archive.org/details/rus-ukr

https://www8.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/Rus-Ukr.html

There I only wish to advance some reflections that I have not noticed in the media's reports and comments about this issue and tragic consequences for all involved people. In doing so I do not claim any special competence in geopolitical foreign relations and diplomacy. On the contrary I have had serious difficulties in understanding what historically has been going on, for instance, in the dissolution of the state of Yugoslavia, or in my parents’ native country Bulgaria, e.g. during World War II affecting the destiny of the whole family as refugee in Italy and Brazil, or the historical relations between Spain and France starting with the Franco-Spanish War, not to speak of the historical involvement of Russia and Ukraine in European events and especially in the World War II, and so on (more on this below). I only claim competence in discussing the meaning of information (system) about the conflict.

My main message will be that the solution of a serious conflict is not well understood in the examples from this case of Russia vs. Ukraine. Extreme violence and deaths in ongoing wars as well as in suicides testify that survival itself is not the highest value. Beyond violence and the historical concept of “just war” what is required is an insight into a rationality that justifies a spiritually grounded self-sacrifice by all parties in the conflict, up to the extreme of martyrdom in the sense it has in Christianity.

[220603]

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E-211213 Consequences of Quarantine in Greece

1. Zeus sells the throne to a Korean multinational.

2. Achilles will treat the heel in public health.

3. Eros and Pan inaugurate a brothel

4. Hercules suspends the 12 works for lack of payment.

5. Narcissus sells mirrors to pay off overdraft debt.

6. The Centaur pulls carts for a living, while Pegasus was hired by Amazon to expedite deliveries.

7. The Acropolis is sold and a Universal Church of the Kingdom of Zeus is inaugurated there.

8. Eurozone rejects Medusa as Greek negotiator: "She's got worms on her head!"

9. Socrates opens Cicuta's Bar to earn some bucks.

10. Dionysius sells wines on the roadside from Marathónas.

11. Hermes delivers a resume to work at the Post Office.

12. Aphrodite accepts to pose for Playboy.

13. With no money to pay salaries, Zeus frees the nymphs to work in the Eurozone.

14. Isle of Lesbos opens straight resort.

15. To save energy, Diogenes blows out the lantern.

16. Oracle of Delphi leaks budget numbers and causes panic in the stock exchanges.

17. Ares is caught red-handed diverting weapons to the Syrian guerrillas.

18. Plato's cave houses thousands of homeless people.

19. Hades returns Euridice to Orpheus because she refuses to get vaccinated.

20. The reason for the crisis was discovered: the economists are all speaking Greek!!!

(Original shorter version in Portuguese attributed to Gilberto Godoy - https://www.gilbertogodoy.com.br/ler-post/consequencias-da-crise-na-grecia. Item 19 contributed by Alexandre Schwager. My translation).

PS Reading well made up "jokes" I am often surprised in thinking of how much work and imagination are needed to compose such a work. And who is it that has so much talent, motivation and time for such work in the midst of daily concerns and chores. It requires a "poetic" vein that is very rare. I guess that the suggested idea is to illustrate the "secularization" and "materialization" of the world of the human spirit which earlier was expressed in myths and religion.

[211213]

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E-210707 The case of Veganism

I know of a young man in his twenties who was convinced by his girlfriend to start practicing veganism and even to try to induce others into it. I am grateful for his having stimulated me to think further about the meaning of friendship, dialog and discussion.

Veganism and vegetarianism, as well the fight against global climate warming, can be supported for moral reasons. I believe, however, that such allegiances can and should be problematized, as I already did in an earlier text about the climate issue, where I tell about a young schoolgirl of 15 years who became world-famous in starting to fight for the global climate warming instead of for veganism. This is because such allegiances inadvertently subvert the priorities of the basic values that originally direct our attention, actions and their consequences. "Mother Nature", as Pantheism and Biocentrism encompasses the climate and the well-being of animals and plants, all this while many humans do not understand each other, kill each other and cannot even keep their families together. They focus their efforts on enriching themselves through predation on natural resources, minerals, plants, animals and humans, but starting with the humans, from which the rest follows.

So, it is explainable that the impotence and anxiety for what is happening all over the world, especially in young people who are still in the process of educating themselves and still without experience of life, invites into a basic task such as veganism, climate movement or a political ideology that seems "accessible" and brings peace of mind by allowing us to feel that we can do something, and making us feel good despite everything else: “better to do something rather than nothing”.

This may be a core of the issue: “to feel good” and to be recognized as such. And it may the base of the inventive joke about the question of “how to identify a vegan?” The answer being: “no need to bother trying to identify, they always make sure you know”.

This recalls the refined meaning of a famous quotation that else may seem too categorical: "When you stop believing in God, you start believing in anything" (cf. the link’s #53). The fact that there are not only those who recommend veganism but also those who recommend, say, also an “only-meat” diet, or expound ideas that “you are what you eat”, all this against the background of a worldwide diet-industry, suggest that it may be a spiritual issue or fixation upon the body, as presented for instance in the book Full: Food, Jesus and the battle for satisfaction. Vegans can also sense the issue as Spiritual nourishment: How your spirit impacts your eating & and eating impacts your soul, but despite the obscure reference to a soul it all belongs rather to the class of SBNR or “Spiritual but not religious”.

In the example of veganism, this intellectual problem is illustrated by the atheism of the famous philosopher Peter Singer, champion of utilitarianism as applied to several issues including the Animal Liberation. Especially in highly secularized societies as championed by Sweden, most people who do not care for more than 2000 years’ theological discussions will not care for trying to understand the convolute criticisms of a utilitarianism that seems to appeal to common sense. If somebody refers to (the criticism of) the utilitarianism of Singer he may be labeled as just being “allergic” to Singer or “not agreeing” with utilitarianism, and just having another (“Nietzschean” relativistic) “perspective” among all possible perspectives.

Especially today, common sense is often understood as elementary logic that happens to be available also to youngsters who have not yet studied neither natural nor social science, and still less philosophy. It based on unknown definitions and premises that also stand at the basis of the difficulties if not impossibility of debate and of the facile computerization or so-called digitalization of our society, apparently requiring nothing more than “human-computer interaction”, i.e. interaction with senseless logic. The conclusion seems to me to be that if we don't already have a Judeo-Christian faith that teaches that humans but no other animals are created “in the image of God”, it will be necessary to at least try to discuss it in philosophical terms or in terms of philosophy of science, which lead to theological considerations as I try in another text. In any case the refusal of the Catholic view of animals, paradoxically ignores its loving regard for them as expressed in the account of the lives of many saints, and of Saint Francis of Assisi in particular for his great love for animals and the environment.

Not being created in the image of God, even in a secularized country, has many important consequences such as not having a soul, or spirit equated to mind, whatever they are or should be. The step is then short to equating humans and animals with robots and computers as in the so-called Turing test or “imitation game”, and further to advocate that humans respectfully retreat in front of the super-human artificial superintelligence represented by supercomputers, which in turn are represented by science and super-scientists. It is possible to paraphrase a sentence from an earlier text of mine about the problem of human-computer interaction, by substituting “animal” for the word “computer”:

The degree to which humans feel (interaction with) computers as people is the degree to which they project psychic content because of it having been left unconscious in different degrees. If they have not yet understood and felt what "people" and "humans" mean, they will easily see and feel them to be equivalent to computers and the other way round.

It is worrying to try to guess, for instance, how disabled humans without (undefined or misunderstood) soul, spirit or mind will be considered and treated by superintelligence when they have “cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, sensory” impairments. We already know the history of eugenics (today in abortion), but may not be aware of its intellectual sources intertwined with political ones. And we also know how we justify putting to death (killing!) animals in order to magnanimously prevent their eventual suffering. An alternative to eventually putting them to death is to prevent their being born, their coming to life, to start with. This reminds of some youngsters who today already express their unwillingness to have children in the future in order to prevent their suffering in the foreseen disasters of global climate warming. It will also solve the problem, if it not solved by soy milk, of the children’s need for milk that cannot be produced by cows that will not be born.

A paradoxical analogy to the latter can be seen in that a success of veganism implies that many animals will never have lived, while human evil will survive and flourish as ever. When the animals' lives have become sacred, many vegans will flourish without ever having read and studied the Bible or other sacred books. Evil, economic-political greed or incomprehension, integrated as they may be with assumedly good technology and its economic-political-logical rationality, are paradoxically promoting the implementation of both the industrial production of animal food and of the vegetables that will permit veganism. It is industrial technology and modern science within the frame of the mentioned rationality that cause the problem envisaged by veganism. Without them the solution might have come automatically, naturally, by means of a Malthusian check: population control with the additional help of periodic wars and pandemics like the Spanish Flu.

It is the industrial-technological transformation of society starting from the western world, in connection with the growth of world population, that allows for the dehumanization of relations between humans (cf. the alienation in Marxism) and between humans and animals. Humans themselves become numbers by means of personal identification numbers – PINs. This is to the point that people do not care for the suffering of humans, and still less of alien animals, while most of them still care for close relatives and pets. When youngsters suddenly realize what is happening, what they have been eating and the associate suffering it lays close at hand to become at least vegetarian and conscientious objector. Others choose the arduous way to behave like true Christians or, say, Buddhists if not seduced by Marxism and such.

Vegans can rightly feel upset at the view of suffering of cows being inseminated while women also are inseminated in sperm banks leading to “fatherless” children, and zoophiles (cf. humans are animals) make love to (“inseminate”?) animals, as noted in internet-media (author Chris Sweeney). Vegans are upset at the view of cows being separated from their calf, or of pigs put to death in gas chambers. They get upset perhaps because they cannot or do not want to understand how in the 1940ies in one of the most cultured and technologically sophisticated European countries, cultured intelligent people could put to death (kill!) supposedly soulless Jews and others with their children in gas chambers.

In general, today’s veganism cannot suffer the view of suffering in this world, by both humans and animals. Since I experienced myself not only suffering but also the pain of viewing the suffering of others in poor countries, I have a further guess about why vegans and others cannot bear the view of not even animals’ suffering. People have difficulty to bear not only their own suffering but also others’ suffering because they cannot or do not want to see its meaning. This is because they do not acknowledge the existence of evil. They rather feel it as in Greek philosophy before the advent of Christianism, as only the result of lack of knowledge, not as mainly the result of sin. This means that they cannot or do not want to bear the knowledge of the existence of evil, to begin with the evil within themselves. They do not acknowledge that they themselves have sinned, will sin and make others suffer, as I have witnessed and reported (below) about youngsters who humiliate and make their own relatives suffer, including their own parents and grandparents.

And very few would accept the explanations offered by the Theodicy. They mostly ignore the word itself and don’t care to understand it as they do not care for the Catholic apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris [Redemptive Suffering] explaining the meaning of suffering. Ignoring theodicy can lead to a questioning of Christianity by means of rhetorical questions like “Which Christian values do lead people to make animals suffer in the industrial production of animal food?”. So far and so low has the popular (mis)understanding of Christianity reached after 2-3 generations of western children that have not been educated in school about the concept of sin. This is so to the point that instead of veganism they could as well have been seduced into Marxism including Liberation Theology in order to prevent the suffering of billions of exploited suffering workers of the world. Or into superficial westernized Buddhism while ignoring its complexities with relation to humans vs. animals. This can be seen as an elementary phenomenon: people do not want or dare to risk experiencing or seeing suffering. This is so to the point of their advocating not only divorce and war, but more: abortion and euthanasia. This makes them feel good by calling others as evil or labeling them as sadists and those who bear suffering as masochists, unconsciously “honoring” the names of Marquis de Sade, respectively Sacher-Masoch and ignoring the interpretation of sadism and masochism such as by psychologist James Hillman in The myth of analysis (that I refer to in a theological text).

Conclusion? As already suggested above, this is the kind of issue that I found to be practically impossible to discuss or debate. Instead of seeing it as a religious or political issue it is, as in a sort of autism, reduced to attempts to convince others by means of elementary logic, as with reference to cognitive dissonance. This to the point that that there are those who at advanced age confess that they prefer to keep their friends rather than try to discuss and prove that they are right. And this proves the importance of understanding the meaning of friendship and love that starts with the family.

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E-210218 Conspiracy theories - and covid19 vaccines

This text is for people who want to understand those who are in doubt about getting a vaccine or even suspect vaccines as well as the covid19-pandemics and other societal disasters to be linked to worldwide conspiracies. Most reactions (exemplified here) are either scornful, humorous or serious but, in my view, missing a main point. See for instance, if it is not fake, a video of a “ex-Russian intel officer” identified as Vladimir Kvachkov, colonel of military intelligence service – GRU - linking pandemics to a greater conspiratorial context. More trustworthy testimonies can be found in relation to more trustworthy institutions, as in accounts dealing with archbishop Carlo Maria Viganó.

Most of us probably judge that the above comes from "dark and dubious satanic" sources, and that it is digitally apprehended through "dubious" Internet-contacts. It can only be tolerated by strong spirits who can cope with the thought of "conspiracy theories".

I personally believe that all this is an expression of a late cultural-moral crisis that started in Western society, was preannounced by the world wars and the Holocaust, and is undermining trust and respect between people, towards politicians and also towards scientists. I myself witness a sort of corruption in the scientific field, in sectors that I am aware of and have already attempted to analyze it in an essay with emphasis on the computer field, including prophecies about the capabilities of artificial intelligence – AI. There I have also found that people who are particularly gifted for logic and mathematics are especially prone to build (“conspiratorial”) logical networks that in philosophy of science have been called Leibnizian inquiring systems. Because of their logical complexity or use of esoteric mathematics beyond the grasp of most people, they are perceived as extremely persuasive when related to a successful "magical" technological science, becoming a substitute for an absent or invisible God and decay of mutual human trust as related to authority in secularized societies where everything is reduced to trust in the myth of secular "democracy". This is also so because logical and mathematical truths in their relation to the reality of the empirical world sometimes cannot be proved to be wrong, as I also explain in a late essay on Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT. All this leads to an ultimate sort of degeneration of the modern human psyche and absurdities such as Post-truth politics or beliefs that a critical attitude in order to avoid conspiracy theories is to believe that "things just happen", as possibly deduced from such texts as on The Nature of Conspiracy Theories or An Integral Understanding of Conspiracy Theories.

So-called common people who do not belong to “elites” do not know higher mathematics and know even less about problems of the theory or methods of science. They are not scientists and even less knowledgeable about abstruse mathematized scientific fields gradually fragmented in subfields, as exemplified in the so called life sciences that are actualized by the covid19-pandemics especially when evaluating “conspiratorial” accusations of uses of aborted fetuses for the industrial production of vaccines intended to counter virus of doubtful, conspiratorial laboratory-leak origins. They probably have a sort of intuition for this dubious state of affairs where the Nietzschean dying God has been substituted by Science and Democracy without any regard for the importance of trust in science, as suggested by Steven Shapin in A social history of truth. They tend to be accused as rejecting “established scientific facts”, as it happens in controversies about climate change, but express distrust in the form of various degrees of interest for what others identify as conspiracy theories that boil down the issue in apparently simple terms of power and greed, good and evil.

This may be one background of the famous quotation attributed to G.K.Chesterton, “The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything”. Ultimately, in blacklisted “conspiratorial” contexts they even come to distrust the modern god or idol of Democracy, which is something that in modern times had been already suggested not by its enemies but by intellectuals such as Tage Lindbom in his The Myth of Democracy, and whose reasoning I did review in an earlier text on Belief and Reason.

The misunderstood criticism of democracy leads to associating distrust for science and democracy with political conservatism muddled with “extreme right movements”, Nazism and Fascism. They are then put in opposition to a progressive “left” and a relatively harmless “extreme left” that is in turn associated with oppressed political and social minorities, underprivileged, destitute, LGBT and such. In this way a politically cultural and theological problem is reduced to simplified political strife, as I did illustrate in another context. Science is then perceived as display of oppressive force by “globalist” political and financial elites that are then exemplified by Bill Gates and George Soros under disguise of philanthropic projects. They are also associated with the history of the Rothschild family, and tainted with corresponding antisemitic flavor. Some of them are suspected, for instance, to make profits in the vaccine-industry, while oppressive force is also exerted by governmental authorities’ declaring during the covid19-pandemics the need of restrictions in the liberty of citizens with the extreme of obligatory vaccination with unsafe if not purposedly dangerous vaccines (example here). All this creates an opposition in terms of e.g. a conspiratorial World Freedom Alliance and conspiratorial theories such as The Great Replacement. They are in turn are seen as dangerously prone to future violence and terrorism associated with the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, to be countered by the establishment’s likewise conspiratorial organizations such as the Institute for Strategic Dialogue [corresponding in Sweden to Expo] and governmental anti-terrorist measures. And all this takes place in a milieu of defective or impossible debate, with a defective concept of a reason, which is equated to logic and mathematics while it is overrun by unconscious feelings and passions.

A dismemberment of the psyche or intellect corresponds to mental derangement, which in turn may show up in the form of political incorrectness and an increased number of mental diagnoses that at least Swedish readers can examine in an essay by a psychiatrist with the title “Diagnosis: political incorrectness” ( in Kvartal, 17 february 2021). The subtitle is:

“Diagnoses such as autism and Asperger's syndrome are becoming more common. At the same time, our society is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate in some respects - some words should not be said, some questions are considered uncomfortable to ask. There is reason to believe that the line between dissent and mental disorders will become blurred”.

And it is not question of only autism and Asperger, but also of violence and terrorism also based on conspiratorial conceptions.

Distrust for incomprehensible science in a doubtfully supposed democracy by people with own various “values and valuations”, where trust could be seen a dimension of love in the sense of Christian charity transmutes doubts into fear. It consequently leads into paranoia, hatred and aggression that nowadays appear initially in the venue of the family and its dissolution, disruption of friendship, and hate speech, especially in social media. An understanding of this process would also require an understanding the roots of Nazism and Fascism beyond present cheap ritual maledictions and beyond the frame of the Frankfurt School. It also would require an understanding of those people who have become more or less seriously classified as conspiracy theorists and sometimes anti-Semites and neo-nazists. Examples among many are Kevin MacDonald, David Duke, and David Icke, or in Sweden of, say, Lars Adelskogh, Björn Björkqvist, and Jan Bernhoff. The whole problem is aggravated today by the perceived incomprenhensibility of the gradual computerization of society or, before that, of the consequent Kafkaesque perception of society’s dynamism, technically aggravated today by an imposed daily human-computer interaction.

There is, however, the possibility and perhaps necessity to expand the conspiracy-question into more detail. I will consider the case I know of a professor in the field of human sciences (Geisteswissenschaft) who (like me) had a “philosophical” leaning in his work. One day he discovered that a Word-document had disappeared in his computer. It was a delicate document because in his research on socio-psychological problems he studied the reasons of what he perceived as a strange overflow of such problems into the field of sexuality and gender. For this purpose he has gathered a collection of links to pornographic sites taking care, however, not to download or identify with words anything that could be criminalized) because of the very reasons for this overflow even into the field of law. The US Dept. of Justice, for instance, states that “Federal law prohibits the production, distribution, importation, reception, or possession of any image of child pornography” where children are defined as minors or persons less than 18 years old.

But guess the almost immediate response, or rather reaction (see here about the difference), of the professor to the discovery of the vanishing of the document. He suspected that it was an intrusion by police authorities into the computer for the purpose of further investigation, as part of the international campaign against child pornography as related to its legality, on the basis of analysis of traffic on the Internet. Consider this as the birth of a “conspiracy theory”, intensified by relation between complex computer networks and possibly controversial legal subtleties.

The whole process of criminalization, has only occasionally considered as an object of academic research (but see a Swedish doctoral dissertation by Claes Lernestedt here). Since the famous terrorist September 11 attacks has accelerated especially in the Western world, covering also the whole political field where the denomination of terrorism is applied to everything that menaces the government of (more or) less democratic countries. The process of criminalization can be seen as an alternative to the edification and preservation of morality, in a secular society in cultural decline where religion has lost its traditional influence.

Criminalization presupposes law and rule of law that is immune to corruption I myself have perceived that the field of law, in a society that ignores the problems of philosophy of law as expressed in the conflict between legal positivism and natural law, has been invaded to the point of showing up as a confrontation between two former member (justices) of the Supreme Court of Sweden. The case is exemplified by a retired former manly justice released from jail (published by the Swedish Radio 23 March 2021: “He was under investigation for allegedly raping a female student during the Christmas holiday last year but was released from jail on Tuesday and had denied any wrongdoing”. His account with serious reflections on Swedish rule of law in relation to the presumption of innocence is found in his blog (# 307,but see details in #304-306 all in Swedish). All this should be compared with what an (already commented by me in an earlier blog) also retired female justice of the Supreme Court expresses (regrettably here, in Swedish) during an interview at the Swedish public radio (30 April 2021, at 34:00 minutes) upon a direct question about the particular event above. It is to be considered as a psychologically conditioned (cf. my Information and psychology, and Reason and Gender) blatant failure in understanding the rule of law as related to the presumption of innocence. When all this happens with a (former) justice of the Supreme Court of Sweden with its problematic heritage of legal positivism it is easy to understand what cultural decline of social morality can mean for the rise of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories thrive when both morality and law are being corrupted, and pathological narcissism is stimulated by the impression that the ego, thanks to its supposed superior intelligence, has perceived and disarmed a conspiratorial, complex logical network that the majority has not even perceived.

As food for thought, see examples of news in the Internet, which tend to be classed as conspiratorial because of being related to the content of the recommended informative Wikipedia article on vaccine hesitancy :

1. http://friasidor.is/professorernas-chockerande-upptackt/ (in Swedish).

2. https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/2/frontlinenews/exposed-klaus-schwabs-school-for-covid-dictators-plan-for-great-reset/

3. https://bestnewshere.com/dr-zelenko-and-dr-martin-are-now-naming-names-of-the-genocidal-killers-behind-covid-19-bioweapon/

4. https://catholicism.org/catholic-perspective-on-vaccinations-with-pam-acker.html

5. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/letter-to-liberals-ebook-20220802.pdf

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._McCullough

7. https://healthimpactnews.com/2021/gagged-australian-nurses-form-whistleblower-group-to-expose-what-is-really-happening-in-hospitals-with-covid-19-vaccine-injuries/

8. https://nobulart.com/covid-19-vaccine-ingredients/ (in Swedish)

9. https://thaddeuskozinski.substack.com/p/the-plandemic-the-unforgivable-sin

10. https://theexpose.uk/2021/10/02/seven-covid-lies-how-a-newfound-scepticism-saved-me-from-todays-covid-19-cult

11. https://traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/j108_Fact.htm

12. https://ugetube.com/watch/powerful-interview-covid-jabs-are-premeditated-first-degree-murder-says-dr-zelenko_kj6QzdjxKPgzba1.html

13. https://ugetube.com/watch/powerful-interview-covid-jabs-are-premeditated-first-degree-murder-says-dr-zelenko_kj6QzdjxKPgzba1.html?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=az8zRoBdRFTWyvPEtuvm7ybhs0bPmFLt0.C3E6cZYsM-1637339775-0-gaNycGzNB5E

14. https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-master-plan-behind-the-covid-crisis/

15. https://www.familyandlife.co.uk/science-morality-safety-of-vaccines

16. https://www.fromrome.info/2021/06/18/br-bugnolo-when-the-flu-season-comes-the-chaos-will-begin-prepare-yourselves-now/

17. https://www.globalresearch.ca/hospital-nurse-whistleblowers-on-vaccine-injuries-deadly-strokes-bizarre-rashes-cardiac-arrest-blood-clots-in-the-legs-neurological-symptoms/5757128

18. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/03/no_author/did-a-vaccine-experiment-on-u-s-soldiers-cause-the-spanish-flu/

19. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bombshell-pfizer-whistleblower-says-vaccine-glows-contains-toxic-luciferase-graphene-oxide-compounds/

20. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pfizer-whistleblower-credits-the-lord-with-helping-her-uncover-covid-vaccine-abortion-link/

21. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/were-in-the-middle-of-a-major-biological-catastrophe-top-covid-doc-mccullough/

22. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/a-hill-worth-dying-on-expert-explains-how-aborted-baby-cells-taint-covid-vaccines/

23. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/pathologist-asks-where-are-investigations-into-organ-damage-caused-by-covid-vaccine/

24. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/safety-signals-for-covid-vaccines-are-loud-and-clear-why-is-nobody-listening/

25. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/we-cant-sit-this-out-were-dealing-with-a-criminal-conspiracy-to-usher-in-global-socialism/

26. https://www.manierodelmirto.it/prodotto/ebook-mors-tua-vitae-mea/

27. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/pdf/SNI-13-167.pdf (most ambitious as being published at www.nih.gov site.)

28. https://www.newswars.com/mrna-vaccines-weaken-immune-system-even-after-covid-recovery-according-to-uk-data/

29. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/08/06/the-worlds-business-political-leadership-rejects-freedom/

30. https://www.unz.com/article/fauci-and-the-great-aids-swindle/

31. https://www.unz.com/article/introduction-to-the-real-anthony-fauci/

32. https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/will-vaccine-linked-deaths-rise-sharply-this-winter/

33. https://www.unz.com/proberts/excess-deaths-from-the-vaccine-point-to-a-depopulation-agenda/

34. https://www.unz.com/proberts/the-vaccine-is-killing-more-people-than-covid/

35. https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/health/covid19/anger-grief-resentment-understanding-how-anti-vaxxers-feel/

36. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-zIGt8btng (in Italian, by a Catholic Vatican-related archbishop)

37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=F8NfJRj_7tE (Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on “Post-Americans”).

38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXbuoaXbJSU

39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pcIbVvHI2c

[231004-1745]

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E-210202 Respectful interaction in social media?

Having been a member of a WhatsApp chat-group together with old colleagues of mine (age 80+), I noticed a recurring behavior, which requires a particular understanding of old age and its problems. They include but transcend valuable insights such as in the best research I know as the one directed by Laura Carstensen at the Stanford Center on Longevity dealing with changes in physical, and cognitive vs. emotional aspects of the psyche. I noticed among the members of WhatsApp groups a particular sensitivity to a perceived lack of respect among peers, and it certainly makes debates or even dialogues impossible as I report in an essay on Information and debate. It is a perceived lack of respect that recalls the historical meaning of ressentiment (resentment). Wikipedia refers to the use of the term by some 19th century thinkers as a sense of hostility directed toward an object (“subject”) that one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration. I understand it also as related to the controversial phenomenon of political correctness to which I dedicated the review of a book that became an essay by its own. In practice it all shows up as unexpected interpretation of something which has been said with all goodwill, perceiving it an unjust criticism or sheer lack of respect up to "verbal violence", where respect is a misunderstood word based on elusive etymology. For instance, today respect such as when referring to respect for others is often misused for covering simple indifference, as when “I respect [read: ignore!] you, your feelings, opinions and actions so long they do not affect or bother me”.

In more popular terms, when I first observed the phenomenon, I understood it spontaneously as the feeling experienced by aged successful professionals such as engineers, doctors, professors, CEOs or the like who during most of their professional life got accustomed to increasing recognition and respect by peers at their workplaces, not to mention the tendency of some to compete for being the “best” one, equivalent to an alpha male. When they get older and retire with self-perceived signs of physical bodily and mental decline, which for a few may even announce dementia, this gets coupled to their increased emotional maturity and sensitivity. They feel isolated, away from their workplace and among other common people, including family youngsters. That is, among people who do not really know “who they are”, or rather have been, and do not show the same degree of respect and consideration for their person, their age and especially their formerly authoritative if not authoritarian opinions and judgments. All this in an age and society that does not respect the elderly, as I expand elsewhere in this blog (here, here, and here) and Swedish readers can appreciate in newspaper essay such as "Skräcken för att åldras i Sverige" (Dagens Nyheter, 31 Jan. 2021). Whatever "respect" should mean. Consequently they develop a selective perception and sensitivity to whatever is said or written, which could be a sign of contempt for inferiority or aggressiveness. They will feel to be assaulted by a peremptory affirmation of a colleague about any matter of common interest, but immediately afterword will not hesitate to state that an engaged statement of another colleague is pure “bullshit”, or scold a third one for improper language, or a fourth colleague for displaying intellectual vanity. From having tended to identify themselves with an admired “persona” they may have to retire towards their own misunderstood inflated ego. Ego-inflation has been studied along the lines of analytical psychology, e.g. in the context of relation to Eastern thought. At its extreme ego-inflation recalls what has been called narcissistic personality disorder.

Disregarding controversial psychological or psychologizing interpretations, I find that some elders do not understand and apply the teachings to be found in what I call an archetypal manual for retirement and after-retirement. It is the biblical Ecclesiastes, and on occasion of my 75th birthday I selected the following verses, which may be found on the net, and may be not the only ones to also apply to the present context:

"What has happened will happen again, and what has been done will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun...The men of old are not remembered, and those who follow will not be remembered by those who follow them..."(1:9, 11)

"So I applied my mind to understand wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, and I came to see that this too is chasing the wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and the more a man knows, the more he has to suffer..."(1:17)

"Yes, indeed, I got pleasure from all my labour, and for all my labour this was my reward. Then I turned and reviewed all my handiwork, all my labour and toil, and I saw that everything was emptiness and chasing the wind, of no profit under the sun..."(2:10)

"What sort of man will he be who succeeds me, who inherits what others have acquired? Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will be the master of all the fruits of my labour and skill here under the sun. This too is emptiness." (2:18)

"One more thing I have observed here under the sun: speed does not win the race nor strength the battle. Bread does not belong to the wise, nor wealth to the intelligent, nor success to the skillful; time and chance govern all..."(9:11)

"One further warning, my son: the use of books is endless, and much study is wearisome."(12:12)

For the rest there is a proposal for basic rules of behavior for WhatsApp groups but some of them are questionable. They would help in the above context only at the cost of limitations in the freedom of expression, at the edge of self-censorship and imposed political correctness. The issue is so difficult and hopeless, related to philosophy of technology: WhatsApp is part of the whole problematic of social media with its questions that are sometimes classified as impact on users, social impact, and criticism, debate and controversy. It did motivate me to write a whole essay on the difficulties of debate. There is no substitute for morality in interpersonal relations supported by Christianity and the major great world religions.

[210612-1605]

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E210121 Restaurant-party in COVID-19 pandemic

I will speak about a planned restaurant party that I became aware of in the middle of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. It was a restaurant party by about 20 people who intended to celebrate a man's midlife birthday. I just wanted to tell them all what earlier I had to discuss with some old Brazilian friends about the perils of contagion, as Brazil (213 million inhabitants) had been among the most affected countries in the world. One close Brazilian old friend had recently returned home after 2 weeks of hospitalization due to covid-19 infection. It happened after a family reunion to celebrate Christmas with 12 adults and 3 children, a celebration made with all available protective measures, where no one had initially symptoms but afterword all of them had become infected, with serious long-term consequences for my friend who died in August 2021.

I reminded those invited to the restaurant party mentioned above that restaurant visits are a high risk because you do not know the health of who and how prepared the food, and served it. Usually you do not know in advance who and how washed and handled (in a dishwasher?) the china, glasses, and the table cutlery. Health authorities had advocated ONE METER'S DISTANCE between groups of a maximum of 4 people at a table. Of course, one meter gives no guarantee, if a guarantee is requested at all, not even in the aggravating circumstance of staying INDOOR, as it must in cold winter weather.

A related problem that I had discussed with friends in Brazil is the general worldwide tendency to counterweigh increased protection measures with increased risk-taking, such as when using winter studded tires to increase the speed to the point that you may even increase the overall risk (which is estimated as probability multiplied by the severity of the consequences, which may be death). And this is due to the fact that you feel that sometimes you deserve to allow to indulge yourself. Poor impulse control, one might say: if you want or have a strong desire, then it becomes a need, and "you have to party!".

In view of the urge to party in restaurants, I thought about a few more things that I had discussed with ditto Brazilian friends. People who know or only suspect that they have already had covid19, or who have survived mildly an infection, and have or hope to have antibodies, are tempted to "take a chance" in the belief that they are to some extent somewhat protected. This is so although it is known that asymptomatic people can be infected and be contagious and one does not know the degree of protection given by how many and which antibodies that are left in the body for an unknown period of time, ant which they may have according to different tests that have different unknown degrees of accuracy and precision.

Even before being vaccinated, many people believe that once they have received the vaccine, they can more easily afford to take a little or more risk. They may ignore that even asymptomatic vaccinated people can be carriers of virus, and that different vaccines offer different, and so long unknown degrees of protection for unknown periods of time. Not to mention the vaccines’ unknown protection from coming recurrent mutations of the covid19-virus, also imported from foreign countries. Their protection can even be as low as 60-70% - and in addition sometimes depend on the distribution of the dosage of vaccine between the first and second vaccination. All under the condition that the vaccines were stored, including during distribution, in the right way, at the right temperature and so on.

All the above difficulties appear to be related to misunderstanding the concept of probability as used in estimating lower vs. higher probability and risk of contagion and death. The only objective measure of probability, as I understand it, is given upon the basis of the relative frequency of outcomes of past events (cf. Prediction and Optimal Decision, chap.6). In the case of the new covid-19 and its mutations the only sure stable component of the events is the human individual (if one disregards bodily variations in time). And there can be no more than one only unique event leading to the individual's death. A pale analogy, while acknowledging that all analogies ultimately must fail, is a broken watch as analogy of a broken, failing human reason. It has been claimed that a broken watch is actually right at least twice per day, per 24 hours. If the claim is rephrased as it being "about right" (hospitalization but no death), the claim can be "more than twice" but not more than, say, one out of 24 hours. If the individual's reason fails in estimating the probability and risks of contagion he can also be right a number of times, in the sense of having survived several times the risks of contagion. But it is enough to be wrong only once.

Even in the light of all the knowledge about the above, there are many who "judge" that risk-taking should be a strongly personal decision because it is one's own life that counts, so as many want it to also apply to suicide and voluntary euthanasia in case of severe fatal diseases. What is easily overlooked is that, apart from religious aspects, the responsibility for one's own feelings and life should also include the responsibility for the feelings and lives of others as evidenced by rarely insightful classic films such as "It's a Wonderful Life". One's own illness and ultimately death affects others, one's own relatives, friends, healthcare or hospital staff who are dependent on trying to take care of us. In the media news, desperate, physically and mentally exhausted nurses, doctors and health authorities appear to appeal to everyone to avoid risks and to not occupy hospital places needed for unavoidable cases like those involving elders, especially in intensive care units.

Who cares about those who later have to take care of us? And what happens if a younger or middle-aged family father or mother with young children falls ill or dies? Yes, then you call siblings or grandparents asking for practical and financial help. In this respect, the "judgement process" is also revealed by which people beget unwanted children and want divorces or mismanage their own finances. They feel doing so because it is their right since it concerns "one's own life", while it was really one's own will, lust or desire. And parents, relatives, and "society" in the form of social assistance are supposed to withhold their opinions and just help when asked to intervene.

Addition: Some news (January 19th, 2021) in The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/well/live/covid-b117-variant-advice.html

And if it the following links are accessible - two relevant and good articles (in Swedish) from the newspaper SvD - Svenska Dagbladet, from the time when I had a free subscription:

"The super-spreader event on Gotland: Everyone did the right thing"
https://www.svd.se/spridareventet-pa-gotland-alla-gjorde-ju-ratt
or
https://esvd.svd.se/1001/Svenska-Dagbladet/362307/2020-12-21/17661851/Superspridareventet-pa-Gotland-Alla-gjorde-ju-ratt

"Therefore, not everything will be immediately good even though we can now vaccinate"
https://www.svd.se/resultatet-av-vaccinen--svaren-kan-komma-i-host
or
https://esvd.svd.se/1001/Svenska-Dagbladet/367625/2021-01-11/18003091/Darfor-blir-allt-inte-omedelbart-bra-trots-att-vi-nu-kan-vaccinera

[210903]

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E200409 Easter and Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic

It is not the right time, now close to Easter in April 2020, to dwell into epidemiological statistical and medical or economic matters with details of the ongoing coronavirus disease 2020 that are available in literature and on the Internet. What appears as particularly difficult to grasp is the political dimension as related to what should be its base in true political science: ethics, and religion as they appear in philosophy and daily psychology. This includes several key questions such as Plato's reminder (in Republic, books 8 and 9, 558d ff.) of the limits between societal necessity and luxury or necessary vs. unnecessary appetites in government and business (cf. unemployment and immigration), and further the questions of democracy vs. one-party state or dictatorship, reliance on politicians vs. experts, globalism vs. nationalism, individual vs. "medicare" state insurance, or state vs. society and tax-payers, such as who is borrowing or printing money and who ultimately is going to pay for extraordinary emergency financial support of citizens during a catastrophic emergency such as pandemic. Or, finally, a new world order that will even fix the problem of climatic global warming or paradise on earth, as suggested in a recent Swedish brainy biblical paraphrase with the apostle Paul's "Paul-like" title of "The first Corona-letter". A serious text relating some few of these issues to Christian thought is Gabriele Kuby's Corona virus calls for conversion.

What seem to be fundamental is the fear of suffering and death, both one's own and that of children, parents and closest relatives. While in past most serious historical pandemics such as the spanish flu as one late example among the list of deadly epidemics people still felt close to the phenomenon of death as they still do in poor or war-torn countries, death has become a sort of taboo in modern affluent countries where science in general and medical science in particular has replaced concern for ethics and religion. I myself have been rebuked by a relative who asked my wife to instruct me, immigrant and former foreigner, that "in Sweden it is not proper to mention death". I have been following for once some morning newspapers and remember only e few articles, among hundreds dealing with the pandemic and considered this matter (John Sjögren, "Min blick på barnet har förändrats av krisen", Svenska Dagbladet, 8 April 2020), Björn Wiman, "Sjukdomen tar inte bara våra liv, den tar vår död" (Dagens Nyheter, 12 April 2020), and Carsten Jensen, "När sorgen blir en folksjukdom" (Dagens Nyheter, 21 April 2020). Another article I happened to see dared to touch upon the presence of unspeakable suffering and death for poor people and migrant workers inside a suddenly closed down India, Arundhati Roy, "Pandemin kan vara en portal till en ny värld" (Dagens Nyheter, 12 April 2020).

In other words, by ignoring the challenge of death we seem to keep far from the deeper humanistic insights displayed in the philosophical criticism of utilitarism which is now directing the planning of medical assistance, as it is illustrated in an article on Cost-effectiveness for health intervention, that has occasionally been interpreted in Sweden in terms of trade-off of unemployment vs. deaths, or to lead to the blunt de-prioritization of health care of the very young and old citizens. Things have gone so far as to drive three main senior personalities of the Swedish Medical Association to write an extense article in one main newspaper to warn about "Oroväckande etisk glidning i coronatider" ("Alarmingly ethical drift in the corona times", Svenska Dagbladet, 19 April 2020). And we are even far from the insights of Albert Camus in his epochal book The Plague as well as far from Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel where "he portrayed war as a mystical experience that revealed the nature of existence". Or, in art, from the candid insight of Pieter Bruegel's in The Triumph of Death.

But, how to counter the fear of death? In present Easter times it should be close at hand to refer to the Christian message about the meaning of suffering and death as ultimately portrayed in the Passion of Jesus and The Stations of the Cross. Unfortunately the process of secularization in the West in general, and in Sweden in particular, prevents the sheer understanding of the meaning of the Passion and consequently of Easter and Christianity as related to the question of an afterlife summarized in Romans 8:11 "But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you".

For instance, the mere mentioning of Christ's suffering on Good Friday can elicit an ill-tempered response based on the supposition that one's own suffering is downplayed in a comparison with the suffering of Christ (!). This goes in parallel with Easter so early as on Good Friday being applauded with early keen tweet-like cheers of "Happy Easter" accompanied by emoji-ideograms of red-hearts ❤️ which are assumed to indicate deep love and a want of contact with parents and relatives during the isolation in corona-times. All this while the authors during years let pass weeks and even months without dialing a single phone call to, or visiting their old parents except for asking for money, as in a paraphrase to the beginning of the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:12), a phenomenon that I did already consider in an earlier blog-insert on adult children and childish adults.

[200421]

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E190210 Climate change and global warming

[This excessively long blog-item has been developed elsewhere into a more structured text: here]

By the year 2018-2019 climate change and global warming have come to be considered by the world's mass and social media as well as by "big science" and in the political discourse as being the main and most urgent problem of mankind because of apocalyptic visions about the future of humanity.

I do not claim scientific competence in discussing whether these judgments on "the most urgent problem of mankind" are beyond any doubt but I wish to advance my doubts at the cost of being relegated to the role of "climate change denier" in the "global warming controversy" (as illustrated in particular in Sweden by individual cases of "dissidents", exemplified in English here, here, and playfully here about Two Cheers for Heresy on Global Warming, and in Swedish sites such as here). I must emphasize, however, that I see myself as competent for discussing what "scientific" means, and that I am wholly positive and supportive for the attempt to care for and improve environmental conditions and sustainability, only they are not made into the absolute most urgent universal priority among all ongoing suffering in the world. In this respect I am of the same opinion of the well known physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson who, as summarized in Wikipedia, "is skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority."

I do oppose the "moralistic" tone with which the supposedly established truth of global warming os presented as if it were no longer debatable, classifying dissidents as conspiracy theorists or worse. With due regard for the differences I sense that "climate change denial" is being regarded in a way that recalls former suspected God's denial or atheism, and in modern times Holocaust denial as much worse than atheism. It recalls in my mind, once more, Chesterton's controversial quotation that "A man who won't believe in God will believe anything". (Applied here as "who won't believe in God's Apocalypse must create his own".) And I would add that today who won't believe in God will substitute it with "science", something that becomes obvious when the one of the two main Swedish morning newspapers' editor in chief (Dagens Nyheter, November 1st 2020) inveighs in an editorial against the other newspaper for its "denial" of the climate crisis, where denial consisted in its affirming the need and right of questioning scientific findings established by the would be "scientific community" seen as represented the United Nations', UN's, climate panel IPCC. The second newspaper (Svenska Dagbladet), despite the famous democratic freedom of the press would not have the same (moral?) right as e.g. Wikipedia's accounting of criticism of IPCC.

In fact I believe that scientifically incompetent editors in chief, and many other people's vociferous commitment to save-the-climate movement, is less a commitment to godly democratic 18th century's "general will" or today's UN than an expression of "identity politics". I did already consider this in the section on "Censorship of talk about religion" of my article on Information and Theology. Even people who have not contributed in any way to determine and counter the dangers of global warming can cheaply feel proud by boasting about their understanding and approval of the "overwhelming scientific evidence" of an impending climatic catastrophe, and feel self-righteous for caring about the salvation of the whole humanity, with their own grandchildren to start with. As I write in a text on Information and Theology, "all this happens while they claim to worry for climate change that may affect their grandchildren but ignore present, ongoing massive suffering of neighbours or the poor all over the world (illustrated or exemplified by shocking videos and photos)." My scientific advisor West Churchman (1913-2004) who dedicates the whole first chapter of his last book (Thought and Wisdom, 1982) to "Future generations", kept repeating in his late life that about 40.000 children in the world died every day (not equivalent to child mortality) because of starvation and related causes. And this despite of worldwide availability of food, the problem being its distribution. A question arises about how long will we have to wait until additional 40.000 children die daily because of climate change: a change that is claimed to be a worldwide priority while world politics during more than a half a century could not agree to care of neither starving children nor for disarmament of nuclear weapons, which could wipe out climate and humanity in a few hours.

To begin with I wish to pay my recognition to the young schoolgirl Greta Thunberg for the final insight that fixed my present convictions and doubts. Her influence on my insight was accomplished after her becoming suddenly world famous at the age of 15, for her commitment to the struggle of combating global warming. It reminds the historical similar case of another girl, noted as her spiritual precursor who at age 12 also "silenced the world" at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, long before Internet social media that could have made her equally famous. Her name: Severn Cullis-Suzuki. Disregarding whether it is true that Thunberg's becoming famous was promoted by her involvement in a public-relations PR scandal or not the account is that in one of her interventions during a 15 minutes interview at the Swedish public television she acknowledged more specifically that her interest and commitment were related to her diagnosis of Asperger-autism. As I note elsewhere, her behavior also recalls the behavior attributed to supposed, so called indigo-children and displayed by cases of child prodigy at the edge of both infantile omnipotence and savant syndrome. It all means complex psychic trouble. She explained that she sees the world in a different perspective from the "outside", in black-and-white, and has difficulties to understand other people who get distracted by what she sees as empty talk in "social games". So, she acknowledges that the problem is exceedingly complicated but seen in black-and-white the solution is so simple that even a 5-years old child can understand it. Indeed I know of adults, not the least engineers, who seem to reason in these matters as a 5-years old child: "We" ("They") must simply make "them" ("us") stop emitting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I see some ultimate implications recalling William Akin's conceptualization of Technocracy and the American Dreamwhere engineers are also managers and politicians. They may be able to determine behavior in their civil society but probably will not be able to limit ongoing emissions of carbon dioxide in poor needy countries and by armed forces in recurring wars and exercises on land, in air, water and ice all over the world. Least of all will they be able to counter the horrors of any war going on in the world right how, or ultimately the risk for a nuclear holocaust.

All this while Greta Thunberg engages in climate-change advocacy, such for a "lecture tour" from Europe to the USA in a supposedly climate-saving sailboat, a trip that despite all care, has been criticized for being more polluting than if she had taken an airline's round trip (see, in German, here in Die Welt 16 August 2019, and here). It is a premonition of what good old national and world politics and professionally planned PR efforts will make out of scared good naive children and good intentions: "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", which is one main tenet of the "system" idea. A hint: "Greta Thunberg and the plot to forge a climate warrior: The teenage activist wants nothing more than to change the world. The shadowy cabal behind her has other goals." (by Dominic Green, The Times, October 10 2019)

In other words: discussions about who are "We", and the why there have been evil, wars, religion, philosophy, and diplomacy in the history of humanity, including the last two world wars, are relegated to "social games" and to "Them". It is an attitude that emotionally attracts the secularized general public that is tired of the of the complicacies of world's evil, corruption and suffering and feels the need of a natural innocence of childhood (that also may be a background for the ignored causes of pedophilia), all in oblivion of the theological meaning of Infant Jesus and of teachings of the Lord of the Flies. At the same time "we" show that we are morally superior, and in particular morally superior if we are children who teach adults to be more altruistic and to think about their children and future generations (instead of the fifth commandment "Honor your father and your mother", Exodus 20:12). As if adults did not do that already, think about at least their own grandchildren but must be taught by them to think about them. A child's reproach is then "Everybody thinks only about himself but I am the only one who thinks about me". Or "People only care about themselves; I'm the only one who cares about myself". It is related to "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Compare with the Matthew 7:5 "You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Children's plea for the adults to think more about them and their future instead of about other ongoing tragedies is then the only egoistic plea that serendipitously, with rhetorical power, can claim to be altruistic. This despite children not having had even the time to acknowledge the ongoing suffering and evil inte the world, the less so when autism implies difficulty to feel empathy.

The Berlin's bishop even experienced a Greta-inspired children's demonstration in April 2019 as reminding Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, while a deaconess in the Christian Protestant Uniting Church in Sweden declares (in Swedish) the very same schoolgirl to be God's prophet. Others criticize comparisons with a modern Joan of Arc. It is also a felicitous case of successful self-victimization and identity politics (children as a group) with its well-researched but often ignored smart advantages (cf. the last paragraph of my text on censorship of talk about religion). When adults allow themselves to remain or become childish it is children who teach and take the leadership (cf. the Bible, Isaiah 3:4,12). The title of one of the few sober reflections upon the Greta-phenomenon was as article about When children protest, adults should tell them the truth.

My main point is that this illustrates what I did perceive also from engineering colleagues who are very committed to the struggle against global warming: as engineering researchers they gather scientific and mass media information about the empirical means by which a majority of climate scientists gather empirical data that are supposed to prove beyond any doubt the reality of global warming. Most important for them is to refer to (the Lockean) "consensus or tacit consent" of the majority of the world's relevant authorities", that is, one of reasons that determined the rejection of Galileo's findings. (This despite of the rejection of such "Galileo hypothesis" in the establishment's opposition to one main "skeptical" environmentalist, Bjørn Lomborg). In doing this they also ignore more moderate views about the climate change as expressed (e.g. in Swedish, on Youtube) by authorities such as Lennart Bengtsson. and harassed scientifically lesser authorities such as (in Sweden) Lars Bern. After that they claim that "we" but ultimately "they", managers-politicians all over the world should "listen to researchers" (never the other way round except for getting research funds), and do something about it in order to limit the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If they don't it is a management failure or a failure of democracy that entitles to a sort of enlightened dictatorship by a strong and wise man or elite group, as suggested by philosophy professor Torbjörn Tännsjö in a Swedish TV program on global warming (Ekdal och Ekdal - Avsnitt 5: Klimat) 12 February 2019. This position of "we-they" ignores the controversy about fact-value distinction and assumes implicitly a positivistic view of the world inasmuch the engineers get relieved from any responsibility for the use and consequences of application of the technology they develop as long as they are paid by the managers-politicians to do that, while politicians and policy-makers are free to finance the development of whatever technology and gathering or creation of any facts that fosters their power and political goals, starting with their own political careers. This conundrum is well explained and developed in a classical publication by C.W. Churchman and A.H. Schainblatt: "The researcher and the manager: A dialectic of implementation" (Management Science, vol. 11, No. 4, Feb. 1965, pp. B69-B87, followed by extensive commentaries in "A dialectic of Implementation. Commentary", vol. 12, No. 2, Oct. 1965, pp. B1-B42).

But the girl mentioned above gets applauses from the emotionally moved masses who long for and welcome the strong leadership of a rhetorically powerful ("spiritual"?) leader, a need and hope expressed by the masses in times of perceived extreme crisis as in Germany before the second world war, where science, politics and people had reached consensus that the problem was (not climate but) living space, Lebensraum. No further comparison. See the contrast with the above mentioned famous biblical Isaiah 3:12 "As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them", notwithstanding its interpretational difficulties. They include the embarrassing observation that Isaiah reproaches the adults whose faults are penalized by such inversion of roles. And the energy of the leader-girl is powered now by both Asperger and by the trust in the power of established science, which I elsewhere show also powered the famous Lucifer effect of the "Stanford prison experiment". They are applauses for the girl's sincere rhetorical power, candid way of seeing reported facts, and for something that should be done by "them", democratic (Nietzschean?) supermen, politicians, and political systems around the world, supported by technology and economic means. Implied: "more of the same", more international regulations with sanctions guaranteed by supposed democratic powers, more engineering, social engineering and technology will save us from the environmental effects of technology, ignoring not only politics and most of the philosophy of technology, a field that often with wishful thinking announces the need for a (impossible) "moratorium" in the development of technology. Not even war imposes a moratorium on technology. On the contrary it has always stimulated its endemically misdirected development.

The success of the campaign for stopping global warming has unleashed a worldwide storm in mass media and social media, whose structure is analog to the phenomenon of #MeToo movement (see the blog entry below) and the hypothesis I advance on the subject, as in my review of a book by Howard S. Schwartz on political correctness. There, on #MeToo, i write the storm is a collective hysteria" or "mass psychosis" or "witch hunt" but must be regarded scientifically as a socio-psychological mass phenomenon of the type addressed originally by Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) including ideas in the books on the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (1841), lately by Douglas Murray's (2019), and incorporated by Carl Jung in psychological theory, and superficially resumed under Wikipedia's label of "Crowd psychology". Other particular hypotheses or attacks have been launched in media, exemplified by Ross Clark in The Spectator April 23rd 2019, Cory Morningstar (five parts or "acts") in The Art of Annihilation Jan-March 2019, Brendan O'Neill in Spiked April 22nd 2019, and the virulent "Emotional appeals for the Social Engineering" by Russ Winter in Winter Watch, September 25, 2019. All this was violently countered in other arenas such as The Huffington Post, April 26th 2019, indicating the infected field of emotional tensions and political exploitation from which children like Greta should have been protected and treated by adults who instead indulge in alleviating their burden and responsibility by giving free rein to troubled children's imagination. This should be so in order to counter the risk for ultimate serious and possibly mortal mental wounds: it is dangerous for a child to awaken och live through powerful "archetypal" roles such as Joan of Arc. The risk appears already when (especially privileged, informed) children get in panic about their announced calamitous future while experiencing their ignorance, impotence and hopelessness in an apparently indifferent adult world, to the point of wanting to sterilize themselves to spare catastrophes for their future children (cf. interviews in the Swedish Radio's "Konflikt" 30 nov. 2019) and paradoxically blaming the earlier generations): how far is such self-sterilization from the idea of suicide? Or when children feel downgraded when meeting accusations of serving political conspiracies or when confronted by serious, sharp criticism of the type that Swedish readers can read critical articles so far away as in Russia Today(11 Dec and 17 Dec 2019) and others analyzing democracy vs science (by Lena Andersson in Dagens Nyheter 28 September 2019) where politics meets ethics, if yet in deficient exclusively secular terms that are typical for Swedish intellectual life.

The hype of the climate issue is probably in part due to that it creates a false but cheap impression of worldwide consensus on the basis of worldwide popular concern if not panic stimulated by various historical initiatives, some of them illustrated by the former USA's vice-president Al Gore's widely advertised "environmentalism". It enables politicians to divert public attention from efforts to solve highly sensitive and divisive, daily political issues about welfare, economics and justice. Such daily important permanent issues of poverty and famine can continue to be treated according to the old devise of "Divide and rule", while sacrifices are being required from both rich and (especially) poor for the indisputable sake of the climatic "survival of humanity". In the meantime "the truth about big oil and climate change" could be that "Even as concerns about global warming grow, energy firms are planning to increase fossil-fuel production. None more than ExxonMobil" (The Economist, Feb 9th 2019). It is interesting to see that such panic for the survival of humanity could not mobilize the world's political opinion for a nuclear weapons' disarmament of a few "advanced" nations of our planet. This to the point that a Daniel Ellsberg in an interview at the Swedish public television network, had to remind as in his book The Doomsday Machine (2017) that a nuclear weapon's conflagration has been and still must be considered as an impending immediate reality and a threat - to begin with - of deaths, destruction of the climate, and famines. This even disregarding the dangers and environmental consequences of past and now declassified nuclear weapon's incidents reported by James Oskins as co-author of numerous books on the subject. To the billions, including refugees, who ask for immediate relief from poverty, wars, famine and illness, the answer is that priorities in our world-wide debates are for money and worldwide efforts that must be spent on climate research and interventions for the sake of their grandchildren and whole humanity. Let it go that Ellsberg's sense of urgency was translated into his enthusiasm for Greta Thunberg's view of the world in "black and white" and wish for more people having the Asperger's syndrome, instead of their restraining their greed and having a respect for truth, justice and love of their neighbour as predicated by major religions. In the meantime, official statistics reports that half of Swedish marriages end in divorce.

"Our time's perhaps most crucial research project " (part 1) was published by the Swedish public television network on 4 February 2019 under the title Vetenskapens värld - Världen i växthuset del 1, available for display until 3 August 2019 (In the TVDB: "The world of science: The world in the greenhouse, part 1",). It started explicitly and symptomatically with the premise that the truth of global warming would not be debated and promised to go to "the root of the matter" about global warming, with the strongest argument of science. It would teach about the respiration of the forests, the cold waters of Antarctic, and the Keeling curve (graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements started on the island of Hawaii from 1958, up to about 100 sites around the globe the present day). The TV program's host also promises to furnish the spectator with an image of "how everything hands together: oceans, land, air, and ice". In academia "how hang together" is systems theory, but people prefer to forget about theory and focus on logically related empirical findings.

A curiosity, (beyond a beneficial reflection upon the famous "Little ice age"): In an article on "Greenhouse and icehouse Earth" we read: "Without the human influence on the greenhouse gas concentration, the Earth would be heading toward a glacial period. Predicted changes in orbital forcing suggest that in absence of human-made global warming the next glacial period would begin at least 50,000 years from now [...] But due to the ongoing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth is instead heading toward a greenhouse Earth period". What is the difference between an apocalypse within 100 or 50.000 or according to the sun's life expectancy of "5 billion more years when all life on the surface of the Earth will already be long gone"? Is it our grandchildren? Or is it that "more and better of the same", science and technology, may save the Earth and humanity? It reminds me of West Churchman's quotation (in his Design of Inquiring Systems, p. 203) of James Hillman's rhetorical image (in his essay on "Senex and Puer", in Eranos-Jahrbuch 1967, and 2005): "fat science proclaiming it will save the world while it odoriferously defecates in public". Maybe this is what all climate change is about, and it has to do with the philosophy of technology, which I did mention earlier and which i have considered in an earlier essay.

Returning to The world in the greenhouse, part 1 I am not going to summarize the arguments advanced in the one-hour's program-DVD except for noting that, as usual in this context, they deal with global direct and indirect measurements of temperatures and carbon dioxide percentages (and averages!) on land, in waters, ice, and air. In my own work I learned to appreciate all the pitfalls of measurement and statistics (cf. statistical "averages") in economics by studying Oscar Morgensten's On the Accuracy of Economic Observations (1965). More relevant for natural science is T.N. Whitehead The Design and Use of Instruments and Accurate Mechanism (1934). It contains complex guidelines that one wonders whether have been considered in mass production of climate telemetering instruments. The computer is also an instrument, rather than a tool (cf. Bo Sundin, ed. Is the Computer a Tool?, 1980, and there is much more to say about it.) And meteorology is not precise and accurate physics but can, rather, be compared to economics. Not to mention the misunderstanding and misuse of statistics when its presuppositions are not valid, as indicated in C.W. Churchman's Prediction and Optimal Decision, (1961, chaps. 5 and 6) on measurement and probability when there are apparent facts but no theory. It is, by the way object of a whole chapter III om "Probability as applied to errors" in the mentioned Whitehead's book. Misunderstandings and misuses of probability stands also at the basis for not understanding and for not having seriously considered chance in the interpolations and extrapolations of levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That is, chance or randomness or "the occurrence of events in the absence of any obvious intention or cause", which in Prediction and Optimal Decision (pp. 143-170, 259-261) is rightly understood as not having any correlation with any known phenomenon and, and as such could be a humble reminder of our (un-?)pretentious ignorance. In face of all this it is easily felt as an extremely bold statement to claim in panic that plus/minus one or two degrees centigrade, with unclear tolerances and relations between accuracy and precision, juggling with "averages" over time and the whole world, not to mention the "philosophical" balance between statistical errors of type I and II, will spell doomsday or survival within, say, 100 years. Most educated laymen and most scientists may have not yet grasped the exent of "mythological" capabilities affirmed in the name of science, such in artificial intelligence's "technological singularity", and "neuralinks". Most educated people have no idea about details of the accuracy or precision in fields such as meteorology, weather and climate or extreme weather. There is no democratic control of narrow specialized new research. Or, more generally, because of the lack of an established overarching discipline of "climate change and global warming" there should be a recourse to the design of inquiring systems of metrology (elaborated in chap. 9 of a later book). For now I would not be surprised if the failure of predictions of causes of future climate changes reveals itself as a sort of worldwide hoax imposed in the name of politicized big science where theory is reduced to computer simulations of a network of logically related, selected empirical findings. Alternately I can guess already now that if the predictions do not turn to be true, it will be explained by claiming that it is because whatever measures have been implemented had a stronger beneficial effect than expected.

The statistics of adduced measurements is based on diverse "causal chains" of the type that motivated the environmentally very concerned mathematician Jan Brouwer to distrust non-systemic science, as I exposed in parts of my essay on computers as embodied logic and mathematics. That is, the very same hype of computers that are adduced in "computer simulations" in order to impress especially laymen about the climate crisis, without any major mention to the problem of validating models and simulations, which cannot be validated only against past measurements. And they meet seldom the mentioned difficulties, considered in C.W. Churchman's "An analysis of the concept of simulation" (in Hoggatt & Balderston, eds. Symposium on Simulation Models, South-Western Publishing Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 1963, today more available in the author's summary in The Systems Approach and its Enemies, 1979, pp. 51-53). If it is a simulation of reality, what is the future reality after all, when we doubt the present one? For instance, in the Dec. 28, 2007 New York Times' article Science and Soothsaying, environmental scientist Daniel Botkin writes "My own experience makes me skeptical of how environmental forecasting is being used." It is echoed by an exhaustingly detailed review of the forecasting of global warming in a tour de force of seven articles (in Swedish) by academically trained polymath Krister Renard, especially the fifth one on climate models.

At this point it could be fruitful to sit down and analyze other historically predicted "catastrophes" such as the Malthusian one or more relevantly The Limits to Growth. A careful reading of the latter as well as the story of the contribution by the computer engineer and systems scientist Jay Forrester, not to mention C.W. Churchman's The Design of Inquiring Systems, should make the further development of this blog contribution superfluous, or then revert the whole question to my reflections on the impossibility of serious debates as presented in my article on information and debate. Ultimately it all may be a question of the western attitude to death and its negation (see here below on donation of organs for transplants) in view of acknowledgment or ignorance of religious apocalyptic archetypes and historical examples as of the Classic Maya Collapse. Sorry for at my age not having the time for hoping to be able to develop these thoughts in a book, and for entering in a hopeless debate about it. If you want a taste of such debates you may start to browse for instance the "pushing of dangerous myths about climate change". If you wish you can see me as inspired to humility by the biblical verse Sirach 3:21: "Seek not what is too difficult for you, nor investigate what is beyond your power." It may be appropriate for others too, not only those who look for a climatic apocalypse instead of the biblical one, but also for those who look for extraterrestrial life instead of problems of ongoing suffering in terrestrial life, which is symptomatically ignored even in Nobel prizes in physics such as in year 2019 celebrating physical cosmology and recalling "Since ancient times, humans have speculated whether there are worlds like our own". It is to be contrasted to Alfred Nobel's will, that the prize be given "to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". Who cares, if "physical cosmology" may enhance the "science" of climate change and global warming, which is supposed to be the greatest threat to humankind?

I like to terminate in a playfully controversial mood by imagining that the title of this whole text could have been "The Denial of Empiricism". Despite of an apparent overwhelming scientific consensus on the dangers of climate change, political reality shows the primacy of psychological, spiritual, or religious (mis)understanding among people and among peoples of the world.

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E190207 - Donation of body materials and organs for transplants

There is in the West and especially in Sweden as reported (in Swedish) by The National Board of Health and Welfare a perceived increasing need for parts and especially organs from dead or dying human bodies, as well as whole dead bodies. This is in order to satisfy the demand for transplantations, as well as for medical surgical training with the explicit purpose to save or improve the lives of sick or disabled survivors.

I was impressed by the popular response to one of the programs (Feb. 1st 2019) of the series Svenska Nyheter, [Swedish News], described as a Swedish weekly comedy show broadcast on the Swedish public television. The host, a comedian, found a way of relating witty reflections about the news of Sweden being a country with relatively scanty offers of organs for transplantation, to his public appeal for more donations in death or “when life can no more be saved”. In doing so he also appealed to the reasonable idea that whoever does not offer his own organs should not ask for donations in case of his own need for a transplant.

Despite a certain recognition of ethical concerns, in that the supply of materials for transplants may trample on respect for the rights to life”, there are other dimensions of ethics that do not seem to be recognized. Some of them have religious undertones that tend to be ignored as much as religion and theology are not considered seriously, especially in “developed countries”.

I always felt a kind of malaise in face of a decision to register myself as a potential donor for transplants, attributing such feeling to a sort of cowardly egoism combined with some sort of religious feeling. This was so until I recently heard about the analog Swedish problem of shortage of sperm donators in face of increased demand caused by the political decision to extend the offer of insemination also to single and lesbian women. This as if it were a prioritized medical health program provided by state the state authorities and private clinics that require donations. I felt that it opened my eyes to the core of the issue.

The core of the issue is probably the absence of an unnecessary, superfluous love, an intuition that also shocked me in an earlier discussion of the problems of immigration in general and of asylum to refugees in particular. In its next to last paragraph there I tried to express the idea that hospitality would feel more natural and legitimate if it were a personal commitment to host a refugee in one own’s home, instead of turning it to a politically determined bureaucratic anonymous machinery at the expense of tax-supported governmental service. That is, one additional expression of what elsewhere I depicted as the new family-constellations in The illusion of state-individualistic ethics.

So, I felt that “donation” of organic bodily material should and would be perceived by me to be ethical and legitimate if it were that result of person-to-person love and commitment, far from bureaucratic industrial-commercial anonymous machinery, which in turn implies that the human body and ultimately the whole human being is seen as a store or warehouse of replacement parts. And the request for replacement parts is also framed in “commercial” terms: you can get a replacement part if you are ready to pay by giving one.

Now, this is not the place for attempting to write a book about the essence of love as related to caritas, or about the relation between logos and eros. Therefore I take the chance to stimulate to further thought and insights by applying the idea of Chesterton’s fence on the why last offices, mourning and wake, examples of preparation of the body, and Christian or Buddhist concerns for the happenings after death, should be substituted by thoughts about and medical concern for prompt aseptic asportation of tissues and organs from the dead person. All this followed by swift disposal of the rest of the body. Chesterton’s fence mentioned above is resumed in “The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the former state of affairs is understood”. The Tibetan Book of the Dead (or Bardo Thodol, compiled and edited by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Oxford Univ. Press, 1980) makes further mention (pp. 3n, 36nf., 90n, 93n, 198n, 234n, et al.) to the relation of this work to the popular late medieval Christian Ars moriendi [The art of Dying] and other Christian thoughts. A late expression of such Christian thoughts may be intuited in the Vatican's Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Ad resurgendum cum Christo”, regarding the burial of the deceased and the conservation of the ashes in the case of cremation, which however does not make any mention to the question of donation of body materials.

A best monumental analysis that settled the question in my mind was, however, the reading and re-reading Louis-Vincent Thomas in the Anthropologie de la Mort (The Anthropology of Death, Payot, 1975) a book of more than 500 pages that I had intuitively bought as early as in 1976 and browsed later a couple of times in 2005 and 2011. I would like to complete this blog-insert with proper references to this work (pp. 249f, 256, 273ff, 292, 313ff, 341ff), which probably will be accessible only to readers of French language since I will not have the possibility to translate French into English.

Thomas explains how the whole question can be framed (pp. 260-384) as the Western desacralization of death if not outright desecration of the human corpse. That means especially our attitudes to the corpse and to the grave. The human body is no longer merged with the person and does no longer belong totally to God, belonging in part to the "power" of the judiciary and the medical establishment in autopsy, dissection, necropsy and pathological examinations. The change of attitude to the corpse operates on and mirrors psychological effects. Cf. the Catholic funeral rites as well as the Eastern Orthodox 40th Day after death. The exposition of the corpse is seen as facilitating the mourning and is a sign of respect for the grief of the survivors. It also counters the modern funeral industry's tendency, typical of the USA, and the risks of transforming an act of pity into an economic operation for profit (p. 350), leading ultimately to organ trade. Other aspects of the question that almost nobody dares to mention but are more evident in analyses of other "less developed" countries is the kind of fear of the return of ghosts, which encourages the mutilation of the corpses (p. 301). In socialist countries also appears the possibility for the person to dignify his impending death and his posthumous reputation by emphasizing his willingness to offer his dead body for the best of the collectivity (p. 306, 333). In this sense the process recalls the phenomenon of "triumphant death" typical of the heroic death on the battlefield (for the survival of survivors) by means of a decision that also may mean the wish to manipulate the survivors beyond one own's death (p. 384). "Dead heroes, in fact, have a higher value that living heroes" (p. 314). The triumphant death is paradoxically matched to a psychological denial of death implied (p.324) in the denial of rottenness obtained through antiseptic incineration of the corpse, which may be paradoxically experienced also as a second death, a willingness to destroy. All this is obtained at the cost of a certain twist of feelings and suppression of mourning with consequent depressions because of a missed liberating expression of suffering (p. 348).

Ultimately it all about donations may be a secular psalm to our fear of death and to our faith in "power", the power of science and technology, in a heroic journey that hopefully brings us ever closer to eternal life. This without asking what we as survivors are supposed to do with our longer lives, and without asking questions to the philosophy of medical-technological and economic power, and still less to theology. As in the ongoing anguish about climate change and global warming, we have returned to the Nietzschean neo-god of (longer?) "Life", without asking about love, charity and justice.

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E181008 – Swedish-Swiss friendship and its ending

An Indian woman who moved to Sweden wrote a text that describes how a foreigner living in Sweden may perceive its cultural characteristics in what concerns friendship. I got a feeling of déjà vu, relating to own experiences related to Sweden and Switzerland, and to earlier blog-texts of mine (below) about Friendship and personal relations and (in Swedish) about Spiritual friendship. In Parents, adult children and childish adults I wrote that "I do not cease to get amazed by what is happening not only in the feminist struggle between woman and man or between children's parents, but also between young and old people, between children and parents or grandparents." A late experience has been adult grandchildren suddenly “disappearing”, becoming silent and unavailable for their old grandmother. All this related to the ongoing gradual breakdown of the traditional family institution. Being so, I do not get anymore amazed about any sudden breakdown of friendships and even ties between close relatives, but felt it necessary to copy the Indian lady's testimony and spread its insight that may be applicable to other "advanced" European countries besides Sweden such as, say, Switzerland that I also have experience of. Now, over to the Indian woman:

"Some bad things about Sweden?"
by Lakshmi Ramachandran, PhD English Literature, University of Madras (1997):
<https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-bad-things-about-Sweden/answer/Lakshmi-Ramachandran-19?share=efb06d69&srid=u9AT3>
(Updated December 8, 2018)

I moved to Sweden from India 16 years ago and loved everything about it. I like the cold, I don’t mind the darkness. The freedom I experienced as a woman on the streets was mind blowing. So was the potential freedom as an individual. If I want to, I can easily live alone, and this is important to me. I love that the society values knowledge and this knowledge is widespread, not just resting with intellectuals and research scholars. Rules, and laws are mostly based on sound knowledge and research and I value that tremendously. The people are humble and kind and that’s important considering what I am going to say next.

There is one thing that makes me really sad about Sweden and that is, as some people have mentioned - it’s almost impossible to make friends. This is so strange that I needed to understand this and I reserved my judgment for close to 15 years. A more humble kind people you cannot find. So what’s the problem? Why does one never make friends?

It doesn’t matter for how long you have known someone. The day you cease to be colleagues or neighbors or whatever, the ‘connection’ ends. The person who spoke to you animatedly for 10 years on the bus everyday will greet you politely and distantly and move on when you run into them later. No excited hellos, no catching up, nothing. And you wonder what all those years of acquaintance meant to them. They are not being false. It’s learned behavior. Just like we from warmer cultures have learned to connect, to make and keep friends, to reach out and be openly curious, they have learned this behavior. It’s not that they don’t feel, this behavior is what they know. And it’s a tragedy, I think. The best thing about life, thrown away just like that. Like someone else mentioned on Quora once, there is a small window during childhood and the college years, during which Swedes make friends that they keep. After that this possibility kinda doesn’t exist.

Another thing that shocked me was the way people handled death. Nobody informs you when someone you know dies. You won’t even know. It’s not considered important information that should be communicated to people who may care. One of our close friends, an old lady, ‘disappeared’ in this way. We presume she died during the 6 months we had not called her. We never came to know.

Often, even if you come to know, you will be left wondering if you will be invited to the funeral. You need closure and the funeral is important for you. But it’s often by invitation. If someone in your neighborhood dies, people simply go about their business. You don’t voluntarily visit the family or talk to them. The not talking about the dead, not knowing how or why they died - these things disturb me. How can we not leave our business and stop for death? I can never reconcile with this one thing about Sweden.

No society is perfect. But if I had to pick one ‘imperfection’ I do not ever want to experience, it would be this coldness, this lack of connection between human beings. It’s just so sad.

But my question is "Why?". As much else including shortcomings of science and research I believe that this is the result of the progressive secularization of the Swedish society in particular, and of the West in general as depicted in part in my research on Information and theology. In reading the Cisternian monk Aelred of Rievaulx commented by Dennis Billy in Spiritual Friendship I felt the wish to share a couple of thoughts in the book, for the possible advantage of others (p. 79 and 113):

Aelred draws an important distinction between true and apparent friendship, between a bond of intimate companionship that is true and lasting and one that is ephemeral and short-lived. [...] Rather than ending the relationship abruptly, he advises us to unravel the friendship "stich-by-stich" over an extended period of time. In doing so, there will be no hard feelings between those involved and, while no longer, friends, they will be
able to relate to one another with dignity and mutual respect.

Aelred's text is included in the book's "Book Three" with the telling title of "The Conditions and Characters Requisite for Unbroken Friendship". For the rest, among the first best known texts about friendship, besides Cicero's On Friendship and Christian agape or charity, we find in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics (books VIII and IX) and Eudemian Ethics (e.g. Book VII, esp. from 1236a, see also on the web). In the latter Aristotle enumerates three kinds of friendship, for excellence or character (pursuit of good), for utility or usefulness, and for pleasure. Since usefulness and pleasure are usually temporary, so remains only (true) friendship motivated by what Aristotle denominates as excellence or goodness character. It is easy to draw conclusions about the cause of the ending of friendships, including family relationships. Such friendships are judged to be no longer useful or pleasurable, at the same time as people in modern "advanced" societies feel that they are self-sufficient. This is further enabled by the presumed assistance of the nanny-state, which in Sweden has produced state individualism and the rhetorical question "Is the Swede a human being?", at least until the time of approaching death. And the need for self-sufficiency in such societies is increased by the gradual breakdown of dialogue and debate that I have portrayed elsewhere, and by the reduction of religion to politics where religion was a background for enduring suffering as well for fostering charity and faithfulness much deeper than solidarity.

What if often forgotten in the devastating sorrow and suffering by those who are abandoned or feel the indignity of being betrayed in a supposed friendship. Especially as exemplified by divorce in the sublime archetype of friendship in marriage, with the father or mother of the own children. As a matter of fact, I know the case of a husband whose first wife had divorced and "abandoned" him. Later on, he himself "divorced-abandoned": suddenly and with no explanation broke the relationship with a couple of old friends who then in turn felt bewildered for how he himself may have behaved with his former wife. Such people may therefore develop an intense love for animals, e.g. dogs, perhaps mainly because of dogs' relatively inexpensive and very limited simple needs (no expectations or exigences) coupled to their consequent submissive "unconditional love" for their almighty provider and protector. Dogs who do not meet expectations can easily be returned to or left in a doghouse or on the street, and cats can be abandoned in the forest: animal versions of human divorce. Or, about wives and husbands, as in Matthew 19:7-8: They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way". [My italics.]

Nevertheless, the main question is the ultimate “WHY?”, why people suddenly and even silently must “divorce” from partners (formerly called spouses and consorts) and then, of course, even more often from friends. My writing a more recent blog insert on veganism (above) made me realize that ultimately it may be because they cannot bear suffering, the suffering in feeling outraged by their friends as caused by the friends’ shortcomings, but also in perceiving their own shortcomings such as in turn hurting their friends or not being able to forgive, where all shortcomings include sins. I have seen and have reported (below) this happening also between children, grandchildren and their parents or relatives. I experienced this also happening among researchers as when a friendship is disrupted by a colleague who is a sophisticated scholar and enthusiast of Habermas’ “theory of communicative action” with its associated problems that I consider elsewhere. That means: a celebrated theory of communication does not even prevent or solve a basic breakdown of communication between two scholars. Sometimes the phenomenon involving well known people ultimately gets commented even in articles in the press, as exemplified in Sweden (in Swedish) with the case of a famous playwright and author. All this recalls that it is a cultural phenomenon characterized by the decline of understanding, love and charity.

I think that in terms of analytical psychology the answer to “why?” is apparently simple: love and friendship imply “projection” of unknown opinions, convictions, desires and fantasies upon the initially unknown object, a person whose external qualities awaken them. After a closer and longer relationship the object reveals itself as being a real subject who does not meet or even rejects some or all the imaginary expectations. This requires endurance, withstanding suffering: a painful forced withdrawal of projections renders them conscious in the projector. He becomes aware of previously hidden or even disagreeable and dangerous traits in both himself and the other. Divorces that often are attributed to the members of the couple having developed in different directions are in fact caused by their not having developed at all. People do not have courage and endurance to acknowledge their sins, the less so if there is no forgiveness and atonement. They go instead in search of new partners and new friends who seem initially disposed to satisfy their old desires and fantasies. That is, unless old partners and friends choose to efface themselves, to the detriment of all, developing codependency as a substitute for friendship.

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E180416 - Terrorism: radicalization and rehabilitation?

Periodically arises in Sweden as in other European countries a discussion of how to avoid radicalization or facilitaterehabilitation of mainly youngsters who plan to leave for, or return to the country after, fighting for Islam in the Middle East in organizations such as IS or Daesh, or al-Qaeda. In this context our Western European world as represented by the European Commission mentions "respecting fundamental rights, promoting integration and cultural dialogue and fighting discrimination", and UNESCO puts forward some secularly "sacred" keywords such as "human rights and the rule of law, with dialogue across all boundary lines" or "intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity, human rights and human dignity".

In short my message will be that the main or only way to prevent so called radicalization and to rehabilitate extremism as seen by the Western world would be to revive Christianity. This implies to compare and counter Islam with Christianity, including a Christian analysis of contentious parts of the QURAN compared with problematic parts of the DEUTERONOMY or fifth book of the Torah or Old Testament. In this I also mean that the influence of Islam is conditioned by the progressive weakening of Christian faith and increasing secularization of the Western world. This appeals to those individuals who are longing for a valid religious faith in the middle of a perceived decadent Westerns culture that attempts to divinize badly understood Democracy and Human Rights.

In an earlier essay about the problems of "debate" I wrote the following about dangers in Western understanding or misunderstanding of the influence of Islam, expecting that youngsters will relinquish interest for Islamisc organizations in the name of supposed Westerns values of, as they were on one occasion recently resumed as "Reason, Democracy, Human Rights and Women's Rights", as if women's rights in the light of feminism needed a special emphasis among human rights, as also mentioned in UNESCO's "gender equality and empowering women".

This has deep implications for the ongoing debate about the relation between the Islamic and the Western world with its ignored Christian background, an issue that has been buried by the kind of politically a-theoretical debate based on logic acrobatics with a plethora of the latest ad-hoc trendy political terms (cf. extremism, fundamentalism), such as in Sam Harris & Maajid Nawaz, Islam and the Future of Intolerance (2015). Their in my view neo-religion, in the eloquent words of Nawaz, hides under the ambition of, based on secularism and liberalism, i.e. scientific rationality, human rights and gender equality, facilitate "a genuine grass root movement to popularize alternative narratives that can compete with Islamist ones". (My italics, pp. 64, 122.) It seems that self-appointed representatives of dialog about Islam in the secularized Western world (in the book published by Harvard University Press), completely lacking self-criticism, berate others' religious convictions by recommending their own narrative religion or religious narrative with its "more of the same": a new islamic or cosmopolitan version of the good old Religion of Humanity. This is probably perceived by the many others as further undermining the presumed morality of the West itself as it appears to them daily in its mass media, Internet, and international television networks.

My point is that there may be a deep misunderstanding of the whole issue if it is the case that human beings have an inborn sort of "religious instinct" in Carl Jung's sense that there is an inborn need of faith and an image of gods or ultimately God, as suggested by the discipline of Theology and by religions, and a majority of humans in the whole world, especially in the non-Western world, also evidenced in humanistic studies such as in Jungian thought. Terrorism in the ultimately the result of a misunderstanding of both Christianity and Islam decurring from a religious ignorance that in turn facilitates a demonization of the opposition. Religion can be only countered or, better, met by (better) religion. If the West were true to its Christian heritage in thought, behavior and action, its international interventions would not be perceived as attacks, invasions or bombings of foreign countries around the world in cruzades that claim to act in self-defense and to only defend the secular gods of democracy and human rights. It would deserve the kind of respect that may inhibit terrorism, as already suggested in an earlier text of mine (in Swedish: Terrorism, Justice and Love).

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ES171025 #MeToo (Hashtag): Hollywood-worldwide sexual harassment

As widely advertised, a case of so called sexual harassment in Hollywood in October 2017 did raise a worldwide wave of attention in massmedia connected to the hashtag Me Too. A neglected question is, as often is the case, "why?". Which is the fundamental reason for this supposed upsurge of indignation, which I already have considered earlier (below)? And this, after all supposed advances of liberal reason, understanding, and advertisement of equality in our secularized, and sexualized society. Why all this sudden explosion of, and vociferous condemnation of abuses, paedophilia, murders, etc. in affluent, modern, enlightened Westerns societies? And, rationally speaking, one must ask oneself whether these "vociferous" charges or allegations, in mass media, are "actually true", what that means. Sociologically speaking about numbers and statistics, it is not enough that they are "many". It all depends upon definitions, causes, sampling, percentages and tested evidence, such as in science and in law courts, instead of lamenting that accusers are not believed despite of supposedly speaking "truth". And, despite all accusations and refutations, we should not forget that the a juridical basis of Western law is that all people are to be considered innocent until proof of the contrary in a tribunal. If not, abuses may turn out to be products of the "abuse industry" that I already addressed in an earlier blog entry, and to which there are many references on the net (example here). One of the most recent products of the abuse industry's attempts to enforce by criminalization a secular improvement of people's ethical behavior is exemplified by the juridical redefinition of "rape" as related to "consent", and of what "violence" means in such context. This is further exemplified by cases such as of Julian Assange (broadly considered in my essay on WikiLeaks and Information Systems), and of Jean-Claude Arnault.

I wish to advance the hypothesis that it all is motivated by the breadown of basic values and traditions while most people sense the results of having lived in the hollow illusion of Western, and especially Swedish superiority of illuminati, boasting for its advances in reason, democratic equality between the sexes, and freedom from supposed, particularly religious, prejudices. It hurts having to confess the persistent (human) animality of instincts, which continue to be misunderstood despite 100 years of depth psychology, today ignorantly ignored and supposed to be substituted by trendy cognitive behavior therapy-CBT, to which nobody dares to refer in the context of #MeToo. They are instincts that are supposed to be only men's, despite the "liberation" of women's sexuality, sanctioned nowadays by the Swedish "state feminism", historically rooted in Swedish love-ideology and state-individualistic ethics. It also hurts to realize that decent human behavior does not follow from politics and fear of the police, but rather as earlier from the ethics, Christian and of other great world religions; and that supposedly modern "reason" does not eradicate instincts, as little as wars, milennary evil and human conflict, supposedly creating paradise on earth. The instincts were and are naively believed to be under the control of lofty cognitive reason in expectation of progress towards final paradise on earth, which happens to be already inhabited by angelical women.

And, forget about Christian teachings like "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife" (1 Cor. 7:4) . First of all because people no longer care about sex being related to marriage, even while there are wive's claims of having been raped by their men, even when lying naked in the matrimonial bed. And, second, because sex is first of all for one own's "magic" gratification or lust, for taking rather than giving. The Christian exhortation, instead, may be seen as an attempt to prevent the use of sex as a blackmail or (reciprocal) extorsion in commercial power negotiations that guarantee that "consent" is not given before one gets at least as much as one gives. Forget about love, a word that one does not even dare to use in this context, when lust is its substitute. How far and low Western psychological “science” and morality has reached in the treatment of these matters is exemplified in the field of so called evolutionary psychology by the book When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault (it should be enough with a review here).

Many, but neither all nor even a majority of women are supposed to remain virtual passive victims of evil, as when the Swedish law on sex-purchase (Sexköpslagen) criminalized only purchase but not sale of sexual services. Women are then supposed to accept or reject advances as in a new proposed law on obligatory "sexual consent", pending their own taste and perceived need to exploit sex in order to obtain personal advantages including lust. Among personal advantages there may be also a welcomed "feminist" feeling of enhancement of woman's value in the aesthetics of dressing and make-up, i.e. power of attraction contrasted to the weakness and lack of self-control in despicable dependent unattractive men. Nowadays this is also corrupted and perceived in terms of economic theory as value in terms or the relation between demand and supply, where high demand as implied by claims of being harassed means high self-esteem. The other way round, there is en enhanced feeling of degradation when partner-candidates do not dare to pay the expensive price for a decent but insecure traditional courtship.

Regarding the relation and interaction between the sexes (or were they genders?) there were stereotyped traditions of roles and behaviors that regulated the approach between them. In my childhood in Catholic Italy, for example, I myself, as many young men, was educated to symbolize archetypal femininity with the figure of Mary, "mother of God" and as such, archetypal mother of humanity. It is an archetype very far from the modern secularized, potentially abortive "Terrible Mother". I was raised with the sort of proverb that "One does not beat a woman, not even with a flower". In Sweden, considered to be the Western most secular state, this reference is, or course ridiculous as, for instance, to acknowledge discussions about the meaning of the much discussed dogma the Assumption of Mary. It can be seen as a Catholic, cultural, public enhancement of the value of femininity that may explain why feminism later developed in the Protestant world. It will be also ridiculous to refer, for instance, to the Russian and French theologian Paul Evdokimov's work Woman and the Salvation of the World, which also expounds Christian ideas constituting the dignity of woman. To take a similar recent work, please consider Christian-Noël Bouwé's chapter (in French) on L'union conjugale et le sens du sacré - La sacralité du mariage das la théologie de Louis Bouyer, (Cerf Patrimoines, 2017). English translation of the title: "Marriage and the Meaning of the Sacred - The Sacrality of Marriage in Louis Bouyer's Theology". There is a Swedish commented translation by Göran Fäldt.: Vishetens källa - Mariamysteriet i äktenskapets mysterium - Studier i äktenskapets sakramentalitet i Louis Bouyers teologi (Katolska Utskottet för Äktenskap och Familj, Skrifterie nr. 12, ISBN 978-91-639-5931-8) together with a catholic analysis of the related question of genus Är dagens genusteorier olycksbådande? [pdf-format - Are the current gender theories dangerous?]. This portrays the official catholic view of the problem as exposed (May 2004) in Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, which includes a whole section om "The importance of feminine values in the life of society". All this to be contrasted to the decadent trends of feminist theology as exemplified in an article in the Swedish Church's journal Spira (nr. 1, 2019, p. 22, in Swedish) with the symptomatic title "Metoo är en väldig Jesuslike grej" [Metoo is a great Jesus-like stuff]. An understanding of a historical and anthropological "sensed of the sacred" related to violence, intercourse and the civilizing mission of woman arises also in non-religious works such as Eric J. Leed's The Mind of the Traveler (pp. 85 ff., 111 ff.). The same author wrote a more secular analysis of Violence, Death and Masculinity, which in an exemplary way exposes the historically-culturally grounded but tragically ignored complexity of the relation between the sexes.

In his book The Myth of Analysis James Hillman calls (p. 148, 153) the feminist movement:

[A] personalized and profaned cry of the soul. The psyche had lost touch with eros, just as eros, having been excluded from psychology, was simplified and debased into pornography and sentimentality. Thus psychology discovered "masochism"; and psychology found masochism in the psyche, characterizing its femininity as masochistic. The "discovery" of masochism tells us that at that time the psyche craved to submit in some form, in any form, to eros - eros at any price - in order to disengage itself from the imperious materialist inflation of the nineteenth century's insistence that the psyche belongs only to the mind [...]
Psyche = mind, and mind = head, could be pushed one step further: head = ego, in the modern sense of the controlling ordering organ.

I would have inserted in the equations above also "head = brain", connecting all this to modern biologistic brain mythology, imagining that a CBT-training of the ego in the human brain could solve the #Me Too. In this perspective the #MeToo movement implicitly denounces the women who earlier submitted to disgruntled, desperately lonely men's sadistic harassments as being victims of their own masochism. It does not allow women's psyche to at least react to society's gradually increasing materialism and to submit to eros. Eros is substituted by Phobos, fear and hate of men. The psyche is then supposed to keep belonging only to the mind, and this is consistent with the expectation and failed requirement that instincts and feelings be dominated by "imperious materialism", by the mind's = brain's ego-inflated supposed "reason" or "will".

The wholesale atheist secular denial of all these views and arguments make it ridiculous, in public debate, to refer to one woman, historically main intellectual exponent of Swedish women's movement, Ellen Key, today ignored or accused by modern feminists for being anti-feminist because of being (having been labeled) "difference feminist". In the 1914, fourth edition, of her Woman's Psychology and Woman's Logic she predicts (p. 121-122 of Logos edition 1981, cf. orig. year 1896's text on the Internet) that if one sets for the development of women the goal of equaling men's striving for material and "spiritual" values, as they were called at the time, then the reproductive instinct [sexual instinct], when love does not ennoble it, will appear to them as brutality. It is the loss of the sense of sacrality of the intimate relation to the other person. And this brutality will be experienced as the sexual harassment of #MeToo at the workplace, leading insightful critics such as the Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson (whom I considered in another context of "debate") to search for "rules" of coexistence and cooperation between men and women at the workplace. He did so apparently without perceiving that the so called rules may have been the neglected, rejected traditions, and roles associated with being man and woman, or assuming, or hoping that "new traditions" can be "invented".

This perceived brutality, also implicit in widely advertised and diffused Western pornography, will also lie behind a progressive breakdown of the relation between the sexes. It will visibly affect the Western world requiring more extreme pornography and, paradoxically, drugs to boost sexual potency that in turn foster more brutal sexuality. Also paradoxically such development also may follow the discussed pattern in Japan, of an unholy alliance of high technology plus religious shintoism - with "decreasing sexual activity" or "celibacy syndrome" as when a young man in The Guardian (20 Oct 2013) expresses that "emotional entanglements are too complicated". The phenomenon of masochism mentioned above, or more generally BDSM will then thrive together with the paradoxes of "victimization", which include "victim playing". This is death of love - combined with lack of intellectual understanding of sexual perversions as suffering caused by great spiritual distress, as elaborated by Hillman (above).

I will add: this brutality will not be experienced as such when erotic advances happen to be welcomed for confirming the woman's self-esteem and for sheer personal pleasure according to erotic choices by the own Ego, the same Ego that is required and expected to be harnessed in others. Paradoxically such a development, particularly in Western culture, will be experienced but misunderstood by more intellectual modern women as the phenomenon of increasing sexual impotence or (now) erectile dysfunction of modern men. An example is given by Ann Heberlein that Wikipedia introduces as a Swedish academic and author who writes extensively on theology and ethics, after defending a dissertation on in practical philosophy about guilt, shame, moral responsibility, abuses and forgiveness. Her experience in her position as a divorced single woman is clearly exposed in a touching newspaper article (Svenska Dagbladet, April 9, 2022 with an original title “Impotence among men is now a common disease” editorially published as “Lying there in a bed with throbbing disappointment". It describes her disappointment in a sexual encounter with a man. She arrives close to a less shallow if not deeper understanding when writing, near to a conclusion:

"I cannot help but think about whether the concealment of man's sexual problems is an expression of some kind of misandry, a contempt for man, but also an expression of a lack of understanding of the place of sexuality in human life."

What lies behind it all is also the banal idea of the supposed importance of consent: promiscuity, brutality, perversion or whatever are no longer negative or forbidden if it is ME who looks for and welcomes them. Consensual will and "democratic" consent that in scientific method corresponds to naive empiricism has become "sacred" when it is regarded to be a substitute for God. But "my willl is more sacred than yours, our will is more sacred than others, majority's will rules all"? This runs counter to the biblical Matthew 5:41 as expressed by the English idiomatic expression "to go the extra mile". (Portuguese readers can see a commentary). It reminds that "It is the defense of the Ego and its rights that leads us to take on the role of God and to ward off supposed or actual errors", observing that Jesus illustrated this in terms of our person, our property, or our work. As Christians we must renounce to our own defense and sensitivity."

Men will appear as brutal, clothed in thoughtless directedness, when traditional roles in courting, and now "dating", rituals have been removed for supposedly "sincere and direct" sexual initiatives. In the extreme brutality of raping behavior men will express in a paradoxically, provocatively sexualized decadent society their desperate need and culturally conditioned helplessness in getting in contact with their inner femininity that would require a civilized projection upon, and elaboration with a responsive woman. Apparent options will then be violence, feminization or homosexuality. Correspondingly, women, groomed as the men in a society without the father will expect and counter brutality with their own masculine brutality expressed at its extreme in The SCUM Manifesto (see below, esp. reference to Anna Skarhed) leading ultimately to lesbian or radical, or other shades of feminism affecting the juridical system that in Sweden in heavily influenced by the school of positive law. Melodramatic tales of sexual harassments (such as exemplified by the Swedish Radio's documentary "Ingen ger väl sig på en handikappad?" on 17 April 2018) will then tend to be awkward accounts of neurotic fantasies of Freudian "primal scene". Or they will be symptoms of what analytic psychology identifies as possession of women by their Animus, and ultimately by the Demeter-Kore complex, conditioned by jealous attachment to mother, in competition with and because of the nowadays often absent father. It all will amount to a collective rabid anger and violence. In summary it is a matter of decadent culture when traditional cultural values have been rejected, or

"Traditions are solutions to forgotten problems.
Remove the tradition and the problem returns."

My spontanously suggested hypothesis is that the MeToo movement is what has been popularly described as "collective hysteria" or "mass psychosis" or "witch hunt" but must be regarded scientifically as a socio-psychological mass phenomenon of the type addressed originally by Gustave Le Bon in The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, incorporated later by Carl Jung in psychological theory, and reappearing lately in popular but sophisticated contexts such as The madness of crowds - Gender, race and identity. In its prolongation it can be regarded as related to what I did write (see below) on The SCUM Manifesto with its hate of men, (later countered by the hate of women in the Incel movement). Its spirit is still alive today, long after my writing the first version of the present text, as shown in some reactions to the nomination in July 2018 of judge Brett Kavanaugh to become Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: Christine Fair, an American political scientist and professor at D.C.:s Georgetown University, was quoted (accessed October 7th, 2018) to have tweeted, referring to Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that they were "entitled white men justifying a serial rapists' arrogated entitlement" and that they "deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps." She made additional comments expressing support for post-mortem castration and corpse desecration of the senators. This professorial pronounciation was given wide publicity in mass media all over the world ( ex. hereand here).

Going further along these lines, the phenomenon implicating "men" in general beyond individuals and implicating genetical characteristics, recalls the collective madness of the persecutions by the French revolutionaries and, more controversially, by Nazis of Jews where all Jews were incriminated for what the few did who were accused of antisocial behavior. I see the misery of the "spirit of SCUM" applied to the whole of Western society on occasion of the #MeToo campaign in mass media. I happen to be reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, and I also happened to think about SCUM on page 271 where Merton tells his thoughts and feelings face the first news at the time of the beginning of the second world war:

"And the world faced not only destruction, but destruction with the greatest possible defilement: defilement of that which is most perfect in man, his reason, and his will, his immortal soul. - All this was obscure to most people, and made itself felt only in a mixture of disgust and hopelessness and dread. They did not realize that the world had now become a picture of what the majority of its individuals had made of their own souls."

There are a few tenuous signs that some aspects of the problem are indirectly perceived by many women, as suggested in a program by Nathalie Rothschild at the Swedish Radio "Efter #metoo: möt kvinnorna som kritiserar feminismen" [After #MeToo: meet the women who criticize feminism]. This is exemplified with Joanna Williams with her book Women vs. Feminism: Why We All Need Liberating from the Gender Wars, Ella Whelan with her book What Women Want: Fun, Freedom and an End to Feminism, and Cathy Young with her book Ceasefire! Why Woman and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality. The most ingenuous analysis of the #MeToo complications that I have found and recommend is Ian Buruma's bewildering article "Editing in an age of outrage", in Financial Times, March 29th 2019. (Included in the lists at the end of this article. The text may be better found in a browser through the search-string <ian buruma financial>.)

POSTSCRIPT

Long after I wrote de text above I happened to read in the Swedish morning newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (April 24, 2022) a chronicle by the professor of Economics Johanna Möllerström, whose title and introduction say everything about its thoughtful content: IT IS NOT A DUTY TO FEEL HARASSED (my trans.):

In total, I have received three emails from the American university where I graduated, where they ask me to think very, very carefully about whether I do not feel in any event offended or harassed. When the first email came, I shook my head in surprise but then forgot about it. By email number two, I began to realize that the first might not have been an isolated mistake, as I first thought. And now that a third email has appeared, I am forced to state that the, largely unhealthy, grip that "metoo” has taken over the American university world has also reached me.

REFERENCES - LITERATURE

Enough: and now some references for those who want to deepen the understanding of the problem, starting with texts including those I have already written, in English (one in French), and touching upon the problem, followed by texts in Swedish for those who can read in that language:

"Traditions are solutions to forgotten problems.
Remove the tradition and the problem returns."
["Traditioner är lösningar på bortglömda problem.
Undanröj traditionen och problemet återkommer."]
<https://twitter.com/Arch_Revival_/status/893248552243265537>. Cf. "Chesterton's fence": <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_fence>.

Eric J. Leed Violence, Death and Masculinity (Vietnam Generation, Vol.1, No.3, 1989)
<https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/vietnamgeneration/vol1/iss3/15/>

The Unsettling Truth Behind the #MeToo Movement
http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/october/unsettling-truth-behind-metoo-movement-harvey-weinstein.html

Harvey Sweinstein and Hollywood's Hos
<http://www.unz.com/imercer/harvey-sweinstein-and-hollywoods-hos/>

Why Complaints of Harassment and offences
<http://web.telia.com/~u46508757/BLOG.htm#A19>

Parents, adult children, childish adults
<http://web.telia.com/~u46508757/BLOG.htm#A32>

SCUM Society for Cutting Up Men
<http://web.telia.com/~u46508757/BLOG.htm - A30>
<https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/dags-att-prata-om-det/>

On critical theory and political correctness
<http://www8.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ZimbardoLuciferReview.htm>
<http://www8.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SAISchwartzReview101224.htm>

Gender Relations, Violence and Conflict Transformation
<http://www.berghof-foundation.org/fileadmin/redaktion/Publications/Handbook/Articles/harders_handbook.pdf>

"Rules" for coexistence between men and women at the workplace?
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ahmzySUB8&feature=youtu.be>

These Are The Dire Consequences Of The #MeToo Movement
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BpKyEAM3ag>

After a year of #MeToo, American opinion has shifted against victims
<https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/10/15/after-a-year-of-metoo-american-opinion-has-shifted-against-victims>

(In French) Nous défendons une liberté d'importuner, indispensable à la liberté sexuelle
by Catherine Millet, Ingrid Caven et Catherine Deneuve, Le Monde, 9 Jan 2018
<http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/01/09/nous-defendons-une-liberte-d-importuner-indispensable-a-la-liberte-sexuelle_5239134_3232.html#oUVQk3CD5rW5U4xi.99>

RECOMMENDED: Ian Buruma's bewildering article "Editing in an age of outrage", in Financial Times, March 29th 2019. (Text is better found in browser <ian buruma financial>.)
<https://www.ft.com/content/7d47be7e-4efb-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626294>
(Swedish translation "Det ska fan vara publicist när Twitterstormen viner" in Dagens Nyheter, April 14th 2019.)

----

And now over to Swedish language, starting with what I consider the best summarizing analysis of the problem, by the historian Yvonne Maria Werner:

I metoo är kvinnan enbart ett offer [In metoo woman is in only a victim]
Published in Svenska Dagbladet, 31 december 2017:
<https://www.svd.se/historiker-i-metoo-ar-kvinnan-enbart-ett-offer>

Kvinnopsykologi och kvinnlig logik [Woman's psychology and woman's logic]
(av Ellen Key, fjärde upplaga 1914)
Från <http://runeberg.org/kemissbruk/0121.html>:
Men sätter man medvetet uppnåendet av männens högsta andliga höjd som det slutliga målet för kvinnans utveckling, anser man att hon först då blivit helt människa från att ha varit "moderhona" då skall det otvivelaktigt visa sig, att liksom kvinnans intelligens försvagades genom att icke nog brukas, måste av samma skäl hennes rent kvinnliga känslor småningom försvagas. […] Är väl en gång – av hela kvinnokönet – uppnåendet av mannens högsta andliga höjd satt som mål för kvinnokönets utvecklingsarbete, då skola, efter några århundraden, känslorna ha blivit omdanade I samklang därmed. Utbildning, arbetsvanor, arbetsval, ärvtlighet, urval, allt skall då samverka till att män och kvinnor spänna lla krafter för att frambringa materiella och andliga värden. Kvinnorna få allt mindre tid och håg för utvecklingen av de erotiska och sympatiska känslorna. Släktuppehållelsedriften skall – då kärleken icke adlar den – för dem med full rätt te sig som brutalitet. [läs: trakasserier, våldtäkter och misshandel] […] Begreppet hem komme att få allt ringare innehållsrikedom; det offentliga livet, klubbar [läs: "rörelsen"] och samkväm skulle allt mer fylla den lediga tiden samt upptaga tankar och känslor.
            Men vad månne den tidens opponenter skola säga?
De skola säga, att…ju mindre kärleken betyder, ju mer de andligt utvecklade därför se ned på äktenskapet, dess mer har intelligens-nivån sjunkit…Det skola säga att sedan "det krämarkatiga vägandet av kön" upphört, ha de andliga värden, man fått att väga, blivit allt lättare…
            Ett tillstånd, sådant det nyss målade, är lika möjligt, som familjelivets urartning under romerska kejsartiden eller som naturens undertryckande genom medeltidsaskesen…
            Jag fruktar viss icke släktets utdöende genom kvinnoemancipationen. Jag påstår att av dem, vilka ställa kvinnans uppnående av mannens andliga höjd som kvinnoutvecklingens mål, kräver logiken det medgivandet: att utdöendet borde bli den slutliga följden, ifall de verkligen nådde sitt mål.
            Men de nå det icke, ty kvinnan är lyckligtvis en oändligt mycket djupare, rikare, härligare och – förfärligare varelse än kvinnosakskvinnan [läs: radikalfeministen].

Ivar Arpi: När alla kvinnor år offer
<https://www.svd.se/metoo-gor-alla-kvinnor-till-offer>

Jan Guillou: Häxornas försvarare [The witches' defender]
<https://www.bokus.com/cgi-bin/product_search.cgi?ac_used=no&search_word=h%E4xornas+f%F6rsvarare+%3A+ett+historiskt+reportage>
<https://www.svd.se/guillou-pa-korstag-mot-haxjakterna>

Johan Hakelius: "Me too, Staffan!"
<https://www.fokus.se/2017/11/me-too-staffan/>

Bo Rothstein: Ryggradslöshet bland forskare efter metoo
<https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/bo-rothstein-pa-dn-debatt-ryggradsloshet-bland-forskare-efter-metoo/>
<https://www.dn.se/debatt/felaktig-tolkning-av-metoo-riskerar-att-skada-tilliten/>

SVT1 [Swedish TV Channel 1] (30 mai 2018, kan ses till 26 nov 2018)
Uppdrag Granskning och Fredrik Virtanen
Fredrik Virtanen var varken dömd eller åtalad för något av de brott han anklagades för. Ändå hängdes han ut med namn och bild i etablerade medier och förlorade sitt jobb. Men vad händer med historien när man går till botten med uppgifterna som publicerats? I ett extrainsatt Uppdrag granskning granskas ett av de mest uppmärksammade fallen under metoo-hösten 2017.
<https://www.svtplay.se/video/18177558/uppdrag-granskning/uppdrag-granskning-metoo-och-fredrik-virtanen-metoo-och-fredrik-virtanen?cmpid=del:em:05-30-2018:uppdrag-granskning:pla:lp-app>

SVT1 Juridiken och etiken i mediernas #MeToo ( 2 Juni till 29 Nov 2018)
<https://www.svtplay.se/video/18211374/fonster-mot-medievarlden/fonster-mot-medievarlden-juridiken-och-etiken-sa-hanterade-medierna-metoo>

Björn Finér: #MeToo är för viktigt för att urarta till Lynchmobb (30 Mai 2018)
<http://tvdags.se/artikel/metoo-ar-for-viktigt-for-att-urarta-till-lynchmobb-kvallens-uppdrag-granskning-ar-ren-public-service>

Aron Flam & David Eberhard: Dekonstruktiv kritik av #MeToo
Video <https://www.patreon.com/posts/17104475> eller <https://novom.ru/en/watch/eUJ_7Kep6jU>
Text: <http://bit.ly/EberhardVsMeToo>

"Medierna": Ett år efter #MeToo.
Vad hände inne på de granskade redaktionerna? Vad hände med journalistiken? [What happened to the reviewed media editors? What happened to journalism?] (Sveriges Radio, 20 Oktober 2018)
<https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/1185662> or download (35 min): <https://sverigesradio.se/topsy/ljudfil/srse/6681059.mp3>

R. Poirier Martinsson: "Varför hatas och hotas inte jag?" (Metro, 31 Oktober 2018).
<https://www.metro.se/artikel/roland-poirer-martinsson-varför-hatas-och-hotas-inte-jag>

Lena Andersson: Lagen skall inte uppfostra oss till att allt sexuellt obehag är våldtäkt (Dagens Nyheter 22 Dec 2018.
<https://www.dn.se/ledare/lena-andersson-lagen-ska-inte-uppfostra-oss-till-att-allt-sexuellt-obehag-ar-valdtakt/>

Lena Andersson: "En kör av röster, en Julberättelse". (Sveriges Radio P1, 24 Dec 2018)
<https://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/1215073> and in mp3 (1) mp3 (2) mp3 (3)

Marianne Stidsen: "Tidningen som bryter mot sin egen värdegrund". (Kvartal, 23 juni 2019).
<https://kvartal.se/artiklar/tidningen-som-bryter-mot-sin-egen-vardegrund/>
Om Stidsens bok Den nordiske MeToo-revolution 2018 – og dens omkostninger. (U Press, 2019).

(REKOMMENDERAT)
Ian Buruma: "Det ska fan vara publicist när Twitterstormen viner" (Dagens Nyheter, 14 Apr 2019, översättning från engelska originalet, se ovan)
<https://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/kulturdebatt/ian-buruma-det-ska-fan-vara-publicist-nar-twitterstormen-viner/>

Marianne Stidsen: "Den nordiske MeToo-revolution 2018" (in Danish,, 2019)
<https://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/den-nordiske-metoo-revolution-2018-9788793060951>

Lena Andersson: "Man kan inte göra män rättslösa för att hantera kvinnans sexuella utsatthet" (Dagens Nyheter, 14 Mar 2020)
<https://www.dn.se/ledare/lena-andersson-man-kan-inte-gora-man-rattslosa-for-att-hantera-kvinnans-sexuella-utsatthet/>

Johanna Möllerström: “It is not a duty to feel harassed” (Svenska Dagblade, 24 March 2022).
<https://esvd.svd.se/shared/article/det-ar-inte-en-plikt-att-kanna-sig-krankt/Tiao0c4G>

[220425-1150

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E170724 Environmentalism and the age gap

This is a text that was sent to me from colleagues in Brazil. I translated it from the Portuguese and include it here because it portrays and denounces a perceived cultural decline that expresses itself in a supposed clash of values between the oldest generation and the younger ones. I do not know whether the text in Portuguese was an original. It is related to two earlier blog items of mine (below) written in Swedish, one about "Gamla och unga" [Elders and youngsters] and the other about "Fjäska inte för pensionärerna" [Do not butter up senior citizens], as well as to one item summarizing the whole matter, written in English with the title "Parents, adult children, childish adults - Inverted identities?". Their content ultimately suggests a meditation over the Bible's eschathological content in chapter Mark 13 and Matthew 10:21, such as "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death."

---------

In the supermarket queue, the cashier says to an old lady: "You should bring your own shopping bags, since plastic bags are not environmentally friendly.

The lady apologized and said, "There was no green wave in my time. The clerk replied, "That is exactly our problem today, ma'am. Your generation did not care enough about our environment.

"You're right," said the lady. Our generation did not care adequately about the environment. At that time, bottles of milk, bottles of soda and beer were returned to the store. The store sent them back to the factory, where they were washed and sterilized before each reuse, and they, the beverage makers, used the bottles, a few other times. We did not really care about the environment in our time. We went up the stairs because there were no escalators in the stores and offices. We walked to the store, instead of using our car, every time we needed to go two blocks from home. We did not worry about the environment. Even baby diapers were washed because there were no disposable diapers. The drying was done by ourselves, not in these machines electric dryers. Solar and wind energy really dried our clothes. The younger children wore the clothes that had been their older brothers', not new clothes. But it's true: there was no concern for the environment in those days. At that time we had only one TV or radio at home, not one TV in each room. And the TV had a 14-inch screen, not a stadium-sized screen which later will be discarded, as I do not know how. In the kitchen, we had to beat everything with our hands because there were no electric mixers, they do everything for us. When we sent something fragile in the mail, we used old paper as protection, not plastic bubble or plastic pellets that last five centuries to begin to degrade. In those days no gasoline engine was used to mow the lawn, a lawn mower was used that required muscles. The exercise was extraordinary, and you did not have to go to a gym and use treadmills that also work on electricity. But you're right: there was no concern for the environment at that time. We drank straight from the fountain when we were thirsty instead of using plastic cups and pet bottles that now flood the oceans. We reloaded our pens in ink countless times rather than buying another. We sharpened the razors, instead of throwing away disposable devices, when the blade missed the cut. Actually, we had a green wave at that time. At that time people would take the trolley car or buses and the boys would ride their bikes or walk to school, instead of using their parents as a 24 hour taxi service. There was only one outlet in each room, not a wall outlet on each wall to power a dozen appliances. And we did not need GPS to receive signals from satellites in space to find the nearest pizzeria. So it is not incredible that the current generation speaks so much in "environment", but does not want to give up anything and does not think of living a little like in my time!

Now that you have read this outburst, send it to your friends who are over 50 years old, and to the young people who have everything in their hands and only know how to criticize their elders !!!

A free class taught by an elderly woman considered outdated.
[170726]

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S170413 Samvetsfrihet och abort

Med anledning av den debatt som fördes i RingP1, bl.a. torsdagen den 13 april (<http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/875697?programid=1120>) och gällande en barnmorska som anför behovet av en klausul om "samvetsfrihet" för att slippa utföra aborter:

Låt oss t.v. bortse här från den viktigaste frågan om "varför så många aborter", eller fosterutdrivningar (eller -mord) i Sverige, drygt 30.000 årligen. Låt också bortse från den principiella frågan om abort skall betraktas som medicinsk vård när havandeskapet inte handlar om fara för moderns liv. Jag hänvisar till inslaget av den som ringde och jämförde barnmorskans attityd med vapenvägran. Jag vill dock overföra jämförelsen till en tänkt vapenvägran i Tyskland under andra världskriget. Enligt då gällande lagar stiftade under den tidens demokratiskt av tyska folket vald regering ingick i en soldatuppgift att utföra order. I dem ingick att medverka i militära operationer som ledde till mord av bl.a. eugeniskt valda folkgrupper, vissa handikappade, romer och judar.

Efter kriget i Nürnbergrättegångarna åtalades och dömdes skyldiga för brott mot krigslagarna, mord eller dålig behandling av krigsfångar, brott mot mänskigheten med mera. Det gällde oavsett om handlingen var frivillig eller ofrivillig och "oavsett om det var eller inte var ett brott mot det lands lag där brottet begicks. Ingen skulle bli fri från straff även om han handlat på order, även om detta skulle dock kunna anses som en förmildrande omständighet." Precis som den svenska rättvisan skulle betrakta en medborgare som utomlands utför t.ex. avrättningar av civila enligt lokala sharialagar.

I analysen av barnmorskans fall gäller det alltså inte att sätta patientens rätt mot barnmorskans rätt. Det gäller i stället att sätta patientens rätt mot fostrets eller barnets rätt. Ytterst gäller det den svenska juridiska rättsposivistiska ideologin ställd mot naturrätten, d.v.s. uppfattningen av det existerar absoluta rättsprinciper nedlaggda i människans natur, antingen av gudomligt ursprung eller med icke-religiösa förklaringar.

Ett historisk exempel gällande icke abort utan kränkning av äganderätt är när Europadomstolen år 1984 avkunnade dom i målet Sporrong och Lönnroth vs Sverige och tvingade den svenska staten att förändra lagstiftningen - den s.k. Lex Norrmalm - för att den skulle överenstämma med europakonventionens krav.

AVSLUTNINGSVIS: För att påvisa vart den ytliga logiken - ofta använd vid sekulära debatter om abort - leder till när man utgår från okända eller oförstådda premisser skall jag förelägga följande referens och sammanfattning av logikern Steven D. Hales uppsats angående "Abortion and Fathers' Rights" (sammanfattning) i Robert Almeder & James Humber (eds.), Biomedical Ethics Reviews: Reproduction, Technology, and Rights. pp. 101-119 (1996). Jämför gärna med min Some roots of the Swedish socio-ethical model. och tredje stycket i mitt blogginlägg här nedan angående Refugees or Economic Immigrants.

"Fathers do not have an absolute obligation to provide for the welfare of their children. If mothers have the right to opt out of future duties towards their children by deciding to have an abortion instead, fathers too should be considered to have the right to avoid similar future duties. I also argue that fathers should be granted a mechanism by which they can exercise such a right. The discussion is initially motivated by showing an apparent inconsistency among three widely accepted principles regarding a woman's right to an abortion, equality, and parental obligations. I argue that by allowing fathers (with certain restrictions) to refuse to support their forthcoming progeny, the inconsistency among the three principles is resolved. I also argue that this is the best resolution, and provide three other independent arguments in favor of a paternal right of refusal."

---

Referenser

(1) <https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellinor_Grimmark> angående sjuksköterskan och barnmorskan Ellinor Grimmark.

(2) <https://www.svd.se/trots-domen--barnmorskan-har-mojligheter-kvar> i Svenska Dagladet den 13 april 2017, på tal om "moral" och "hälsa": Om det är nödvändigt att inskränka samvetsfriheten "i ett demokratiskt samhälle med hänsyn till den allmänna säkerheten eller till skydd för allmän ordning, hälsa eller moral eller till skydd för andra personers fri- och rättigheter" är det inte diskriminering att göra så.

(3) <https://www.svd.se/religion-pa-arbetsplatsen-skapar-friktion> i Svenska Dagbladet den 13 april 2017, på tal om "åsikt" mot "samvete" i moralfrågor: I Europakonventionen finns det skyddsregler bl.a. för religionsfrihet och samvetsfrihet (art. 9) och yttrandefrihet, vilket inkluderar åsiktsfrihet (art. 10). Därutöver finns det skydd mot diskriminering (art. 14) samt en rätt till effektiva rättsmedel – det ska finnas tillgång till juridiska verktyg som kan användas för att bevaka sina rättigheter (art. 13).

[170821]

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E151214 Refugees or Economic Immigrants

In the secularized West in general and Sweden in particular many people believe to have basically implemented - mostly by means of technological and social-democratic economic means - a solution to human evil, suffering and tragedies (what was the meaning of tragedy, or karma, after all?) This West or Sweden is then set in contrast to a less affluent, decadent or lless rational surrounding world. One persists in believing that one has found or at least defined paradise on earth. Thus one cannot see or acknowledge the existence since time immemorial of inevitable suffering, or accept that we live in an unfair if not evil world. One wants to believe that all evil and suffering either can be denied (refugees are not welcome) or can be relieved not only as in the officially neglected Christian spirit like the poor widow, the good samaritan, do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, the camel and the needle, will always have the poor among you, I was a stranger and you invited me in, "If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also" [Luke 6:29-30!]. All this while ignoring contrasting biblical interpretations and ignoring the complexity of the Bible's references to immigration in lists that symptomatically miss the dangerously controversial Deuteronomy chap. 7. Not to mention theological studies on “Evaluating the morality of immigration”, and finally a famous apostolic letter of John Paul II on the meaning of suffering, under the Latin label of Salvifici Doloris. An antidote to willful or feelgood ignorance of human drama and tragedy, which should be obligatory study by (im)migration experts is the established anthropological and historical knowledge about the nature of man and societies in the context of hospitality and "otherness of strangers" in worldwide travel, exile, conquest and exploration as masterly analyzed by e.g. Eric L. Leed's The Mind of the Traveler (pp. 101 ff.) Or then the risk is to want to believe that most, if not all, evil and suffering can also be prevented and repaired with money, social engineering, information, educational advertising or publicly proclaimed one's own good intentions in the workshop of paradise represented by loving motherly Sweden or, rather, Swedish state ("all refugees are welcome").

That is, Sweden with the richness allowed by its war neutrality, could thrive in the immediate postwar's profitable industrial production sold to destroyed European countries. Since then it has kept basking, and marketing internationally the self-image of an affluent and generous humanitarian superpower. Much about this has already been said in The illusion of state-individualistic ethics supplemented later by the documentary firm The Swedish theory of love, as well as in books about political correctness (examples book 1 and book 2). Swedish newspapers did at last dare to display the problem as "The price of Sweden's moral hubris is too high" (Göteborgs-Posten, 29 Dec. 2015). Even atheists and socialists have their way of relinquishing political correctness (PC, controversially called by some also tyranny of goodness or opinion corridor) and at last confessing the "moral challenge" of the Swedish refugee problem in terms of Bertolt Brecht's play The Good Person of Szechwan (Dagens Nyheter, 27 Dec. 2015). Very late (about Dec. 2015-Jan. 2016) the Swedish Radio (public service) challenged political correctness in order to allow a series of programs (in Swedish) about the migration and refugee problem: "The Pioneering Country", and about the situation in the small city of Norberg, hosting refugees (part 1 Jan. 4th, part 2 Jan 5th, both in the time segment 10-41 minutes). At last even a main newspaper dared to speak simple truth, i.e. openly about the refugee problem as related to political correctness (Dagens Nyheter 11 January 2016.) Eventually an ethnologist and a journalist tried to summarize the whole process in a book (In Swedish) on Swedish immigration politics and its consequences, published in March 2016.

During year 2014 charitable Sweden reports 36,000 induced abortions in the country, while commiserating the destiny of victims of child trafficking and controversial reports on unaccompanied refugee children, defined as up to 18 years' age. Dramatically, the latter's number in 2015 happens to be about the same as the number of domestic abortions. Not to mention that about 50% of all marriages end in divorces (not counting separations of unmarried couples), where former husbands or wives leave partially "orphaned" children and become uncommiserated childless "refugees" in their own country. Charitable Sweden wants to welcome many refugee children while not being able to welcome about the same number of their own aborted children. Families that are not able or wanting to take daily care its own members, own children or own elders because of heavy individual work responsibilities still hope or even claim to be able to take care of an increasing number of refugees. They are obviouly supposed to be taken care of by state or "public machine", anonymous welfare volunteers and public employees who, however, are not to be paid by means of increasing a high tax levy that is generally perceived as already too high. This is the basis for the insightful affirmation that "Socialism is perverted Christianity". Socialism borrows from Christianity the symbolic power of attraction of charity and "love thy neighbour" but perverts its sense, ignoring self-sacrifice, i.e. sacrifice of self, and moral justice.

Moreover, especially politicians and the cultural elite try to do all the above at the expense of others in society. A possible if not sure dismantling of the welfare insurance scheme is not likely to affect politicians and those who are part of or above the middle class. It will affect mainly those who are really poor old or sick, who have paid taxes all their working lives in the belief that they bought themselves a promised minimum insurance which eventually came to be used to protect even numerous non-insured. Some of these aspects were later covered in media, e.g. by Ann Haberlein's Det brutna samhällskontraktet [The broken social contract].

If more needs to said: in order to understand the proper limits of personal involvement we might ponder on the difference between what we perceive as our own preparedness and disposition for sacrifice for rescuing or lodging and feeding in our home, in order of priority: (1) our child, (2) our husband or wife (or "partner" as nowadays), (3) our parents, (4) our relatives or friends, (5) our compatriots, connationals or co-citizens, (6) strangers, or (7) our or others' persecutors or enemies if any. And this at different degrees of risk for our own lives or obligations to intervene, e.g. in the name of European or United Nations' solidarity. If we do not think ourselves and others being able to do such sacrifices, and cannot afford to take personally care of at least our own old parents, to what extent, then, do we want, are tempted to, or dare to publicly display sanctity in "playing God" particularly if done at the expense of others, while paradoxically ignoring our own Imitation of Christ ? Ultimately, the problem is not to be meant to be solved at the expense of others or state government, but of ourselves, requiring us to become alike Christian saints as preached in Kempis' Imitation of Christ or in the Bible's Matthew 5:40: "And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also."

Let me finish with a quotation taken out the review of a book about "political correctness" I wrote time ago:

"The very same transposition of psychoanalytical Oedipal terms into cultural Christian and political terms is achieved by the Swedish political scientist Tage Lindbom who stood at the interface between Christianity and Islam, in his book The Myth of Democracy (1996, orig. 1991, p. 26f.) He reminds that expulsion from Paradise [cf. the Oedipal Mother] means entry into the profane world [of the Oedipal Father] with all of its forms of limitation, contradiction, and conflict. But the paradisiacal, primordial state of peace, serenity, and freedom from conflict lives on in man as a "memory", and therefore modern man dreams of a lost Paradise, even in socialistic and communistic speculations. Fairy tales and dreams can give what harsh, profane reality cannot provide. In contrast, traditional man is conscious of the conditions that inexorably govern creation. He knows that this brutal reality is a consequence of this expulsion from Paradise and that this is his destiny. He knows that a dream is a dream, that the world is what it is, and that man is what he is, that is, potentially a saint, potentially a villain. Traditional man knows that he cannot dream himself away from his earthly existence. Secularized man, on the contrary, has lost this elementary wisdom. When he enters a world of tales and make-believe, the cherished daydream has a different content: almighty human power will realize terrestrial perfection. He lacks a consciousness of the divine Father's presence in the world and senses an emptiness and meaningslessness that stimulates him to give himself up to endless narcissistic imaginings and speculations, which replace reality.

[210525]

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E151025 On the why of rare inserts in this blog

Today's date is 25 October 2015 and I definitely realize the decreasing number of inserts per unit of time in my blog. Possibly the same will be happening with my production of scientific articles. This is consistent with I write in the explanation above in the introduction: Why and how to read this blog that is nearly the same as the position statement for my research after year 2002, as well as elsewhere in my reflections on occasion of my 75th birthday, and about the meaning of debates if one considers each item of a blog as a contribution to ongoing debate or exchange of opinions. As a matter of fact, each further contribution of mine to either blog or research can be seen as a paradox in face of what I have written about the meaning and meaninglessness of debates. Ultimately one must say that this paradox is being solved by my decreasing activity of writing and, in general, discussing, the more so with advancing age beyond my present age of 78.

A justifying example: recently there has been in Sweden the well known Trollhättan school attack and I realized that there was much to be said about it that is not being said. I soon noticed, however, that I hade already expressed most of what I think should be said on another analog occasion concerning the case of the mass murder in Norway by Anders Breivik. And so it has been going, I increasingly notice that new occasions to comment on daily events tend to be repetitions of earlier questions that have already been commented. "So there is nothing new under the sun", states the Ecclesiastes, something which in the right interpretation appears gradually more and more clear with advancing age. Other examples could be the problems related to above, seen as "An attack and identity crisis in Sweden" (The New Yorker, 23 October 2015) for which I would repead a similar kind of analysis I applied earlier to e.g. political correctness , to debates on feminism, and to the "illusion of state-individualistic ethics." My conclusion is that there are good reasons for, if not already closing down this blog, at least to expect rare contributions to it especially if I will not submit myself as earlier to the provocations perceived when listening to mass media debates.

[151215]

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E140825 On Gender Studies and Gender Perspectives

After the latest continuous exposition to LGBT news and exhortations in massmedia I felt that I should send the following e-mail with a hint to students and former colleagues at my university:

"There seems to be considerable interest in gender issues, to the degree that the state - regardless of the diversity of theories and approaches in all the various sciences except in official trends in gender studies - allows itself to demand that universities must build a gender perspective in research and teaching. Therefore - in full knowledge of Anglo-Saxon cultural domination in academia and society - I suggest that those who happen to understand French read or listen to the following rendering of a 2011 conference (in French) on Man-Woman: Felicitous Difference or Gender War?"

One main suggestion seems to be that the difference between the sexes is a sort of archetypal or primal motivation for acceptance and respect for differences between humans. It appears to me to be inversely related to the phenomenon of political correctness, and the grouping of similarities, as in the case of homosexuality.

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S121112 Lågvattenmärke i svensk kultur, och i förakt [Low-water mark in Swedish culture, and scornful contempt]

Jag tar mig friheten att informera om nedanstående fenomen i Sveriges ledande dagstidning eftersom jag förmodar att det är bra att känna till hur djupt folkkulturen eller debattklimatet sjunkit i landet - för att därmed dra slutsatser om vad man skall försöka förstå och göra. Det handlar om förakt för religion och det som flera miljarder människor över hela världen tagit och tar på största allvar och med stort engagemang. Med andra ord handlar det om respekt för våra medmänniskor. Men det handlar även om förståelse och kultur.

Eftersom jag av besläktade anledningar håller på att läsa om delar av Carl Jung's samlade verk som jag först studerat för 30-35 år sedan så råkade jag nyss observera följande stycke: "It is after all only a tiny fraction of humanity, living mainly on that thickly populated peninsula of Asia, which juts out into the Atlantic Ocean, and calling themselves "cultured" who, because they lack all contact with nature, have hit upon the idea that religion is a peculiar kind of mental disturbance of undiscoverable purport. Viewed from a safe distance, say from central Africa or Tibet, it would certainly look as if this fraction had projected its own unconscious mental derangements upon nations possessed of healthy instincts." (Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Collected Works, vol. 7, p. 204f.)

Senaste angreppet på religion i allmänhet och kristendom i synnerhet levereras i Dagens Nyheter den 9 november 2012 (paradoxalt nog i sektionen "Kultur"), under den dunkla rubriken "Hårdrockare tycks inte väcka lika mycket sympati som anarkofeminister". Det förtjänar inte att refereras eller kommenteras utan bara att beskådas. Det är också intressant då det ett talande exempel: genom dess användning av begreppet feminism i allmänhet och anarkofeminism i synnerhet kan man också få djupare insikter i dessa fenomen.

Författaren som av någon anledning erbjudits en hedersplats för sin krönika på just kulturdelens andra sida presenteras i svenska Wikipedia.

Läs gärna artikeln. Slutsatser? Kanske kan något uppslag erhållas från hemsidor som försöker följa upp och påtala föraktuttryck och förföljelser enligt

<http://www.europe4christ.net/index.php?id=147>
<http://www2.trincoll.edu/~dcruzuri/anti-catholic/catholic.html>
<http://www.akegreen.org/>

Vidare: exempel (nedan, på den här sidan) på hur jag själv försökt reagera, som ev idégivare till andra:

<BLOG.htm#A16> och på tal om "debatter"
<BLOG.htm#A31>.

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E111227 Parents, adult children, childish adults - Inverted identities?

I do not cease to get amazed by what is happening not only in the feminist struggle between woman and man or between children's parents, but also between young and old people, between children and parents or grandparents. Since I myself do not have own children my image of those relations would be stuck in my memories of how it was and supposed to be in countries where I grew up, some 60-70 years ago. As it stands today I keep updated on the basis of what I see and hear around me, and from friends or neighbours or from mass media. In particular I have been hearing from older acquaintances I have known for decades, whom I have followed ever since, and who in part inspired me to write by reflections (in Swedish) "Old and young people", (in English) "On friendship and personal relations", and (again in Swedish) "Do not grovel for pensioners".

Beyond the sociologisms of "generation gap" I think about youngsters in poor countries all over the world who risk their lives to emigrate or flee as refugees to rich countries to find work and live in locally miserable conditions in order to save and send money home to their parents. Mid-aged sons or daughters in one of the most affluent countries of the West, where the state offers generous generalized welfare, repeatedly ask for favors, loans, or gifts from their parents and relatives. They even request such support urgently, "today or tomorrow", since despite of decently paid employments they have not spared any buffert for unforeseen circumstances of life. Some of them cannot borrow from banks but perhaps only from friends, since apparently they are not deemed to be creditworthy or cannot afford to be bound to pay interest rates, and still less to pay amortizations. At last, as life emergencies accumulate as if in the middle of a third world war, they repeatedly ask or hope even for long-run loans or, rather, advance inheritance - equivalent to interest-and amortization-free loans. I know of cases where "children" in their fifties repeatedly ask for advance inheritance from parents who may live on small pensions and barely can guarantee to be able in the long run to provide for themselves, or ultimately from needy parents who feel obliged to take bank loans on behalf of their needy adult children.

These grownup and would-be needy children ignore that if the parents in turn ever got any inheritance they would need it themselves in order to guarantee their own elderly care since obviously they cannot rely on their children who in turn claim to rely on the parents. This is obvious also from the fact that grown up, adult or middle-aged children tend to call on their parents or grandparents mainly when they need some money or other help, else letting weeks or even months pass without ever asking how they are doing and still less whether they need something. (But they may eventually make it to come to mourn at their funeral.) And if and when their parents ever can afford to give any help, it is not sure that this will be acknowledged and that they will get any substantial thanks or more frequent calls from their needy children.

In order to offset their possible feeling of guilt or shame these grown up "children" may even recur to strategies of self-victimization or self-image of victimization, or victim mentality (masterly presented in the Swedish book Is the Swede a Human Being?, p. 379, cf. my book review). They condemn "guilt and shame" as having been imposed upon them, without realizing that their absence creates and characterizes impudent and conscienceless people. Or, more expressively in Swedish: people who are "oförskämda och samvetslösa". If they happen to have some serious sickness they insinuate that if they do not get advance inheritance they may even die earlier than their old parents in the eighties. This they do despite of sometimes having at their disposal a trendy downtown apartment, a car, summer cottage, and own children all loaded with trendy electronic gadgets. Not to mention that the parents' occasional complaints can be rebuked as being moralizing self-pity, attempts to arouse feelings of guilt and shame, sheer bullying, or, in the best case, the complaints are met with reproachful silence. In the worst case, grown-up children or grandchildren can "punish" parents or granparents by refusing to meet or even speak to them, or witholding opportunities to their meeting grandchildren. And parents may not insist, and still less rebuke, but rather arrive to the extreme of apologizing, for fear of definitely losing their children's and consequently grandchildren's hoped-for contact and affection. This recalls what Richard Stivers writes in his book Technology as Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational (1999, p. 58f.):

"[P]arents sentimentalize their children and live vicariously through them to the point of turning them into consumable personalities. In the absence of cultural authority, parents increasingly use psychological techniques of childrearing to manipulate children into conformity. [Cf. cognitive behavior therapy for e.g. ADHD syndrome.] Both through technological objects and technical processes parents create dependent children. At one time the end of love was to create free and independent children. Most parents, however, do not recognize the change of the meaning of love from ethical to sentimental and manipulative. And yet with an appreciation and critical knowledge of past meanings of love, parents can make a heroic effort to live out some earlier meaning of love, but they do so at the risk of isolation." [My italics.]

I have myself witnessed the elderly's silent suffering after they and their beloved hade been undeservedly insulted by their supposedly mature grandchildren, with their own parents' connivance: this is a variant of phenomena I felt the obligation to report (in Swedish) in an earlier blog entry of year 2009 (below.) As somebody expressed it: "While grandma is sad for not hearing from her beloved mature granddaughter, the latter is too busy for that but prides herself for the proof that she is so loved, and therefore lovely. At the same time she deplores her grandmother's nagging and her sadness as being self-pity and as attempts to awaken feelings of guilt in her. Conclusion: it is valuable to be loved despite of being too busy to love people whose good graces are not useful. Is there some advice or consolation to be offered to the old man who for unknown reasons has been insulted by a 25 years old grandchild with the epithet "motherfucker" (in Swedish "skitstövel")? Yes, there is: "If you have an injury done you, you do your adversary too much honor to take notice of it, and an excessive fear of dishonor itself is dishonorable" (Steven Shapin in A Social History of Truth, pp. 108, 148f., 167f.) To get offended in such circumstances is to give illegimate weight and encouragement to an offender who should have been educated earlier in childhood, or ultimately brought to justice. The question is serious enough since it also addresses the problem of duelling in the history of Western culture as that of honor killing, both related to their modern forms of bullying and abuse in our supposedly "enlightened" present culture, and amid the decline of civility.

To top it off, as I have noted in my earlier blog entries referenced above, the young rebuke their elders for being stingy and unwilling to help, and blame the them for having a leisurely retirement at the youngsters' expenses, who in turn feel harrassed and offended . To add insult to injury many youngsters enviously resent that many elders are "richer" than they are. It is necessary for a clinical psychologist like Jordan Peterson in his debates (see video at about 1:54 from start) to remind these youngsters that age increases the probabily of being richer by savings, and that many elders would like to be able to purchase youth and health is they could. In practice, it seems that when parents and grandparents stopped to rebuke their children and grandchildren in the name of a new "children's liberation", they also opened the door for the children's insolent rebuke and incrimination of parents and grandparents: "The Sibling Society"? Indeed it would be consistent with my own research on the "death of the Father", whereby young adults have come to consider that parenthood and the whole society is supposed to supply unconditional motherly care. And probably, from cultural viewpoint, all this goes on unconsciously in the shadow of the archetype of the "Great Mother" conceived psychologically by e.g. James Hillman, and poetically by Robert Bly in the humanistic tradition of Carl Jung. Since the main of my life has been dedicated to university education and research it natural for me to think also about the master-apprentice relationship and to events typical of university environments as analog to those between parents and children, and wonder what all this does imply for the ongoing present and for the future.

The "Great Mother" mentioned above together with the "death of the Father", also means the youngsters' revolt against , and lack of respect for, authority as traditionally represented by father and age. Thus, for instance, a young man in the military (!) may allow himself to gratuitously insult his innocent old grandmother and her dearest on the basis of personal frustrations, unexplained reasons, and hateful insinuations about some close relative: that is, guilt by association, analog to soldiers' gratuitous violence against unarmed innocent children and civilians in war situations in enemy territory. Or then they wander around in family meetings and private gossip in order to judge and later apply to elders, unsuspecting relatives mischievous epithetes such as "assholes" (in Swedish "skilstövel", cf. "verbal abuse" and "violent language".) Compare with the outmoded "respect for elders". Another grown-up middleaged son or granddaughter, who in childhood never got a reprimand from the "absent father" and rather expect motherly complacency for all self-centered needs or wishes, nourish lasting resentment against anybody who rebukes them or does not satisfy their wishes or expectations. It is indeed a good ground for narcissistic personality disorders with frequent references to the "lust principle" and their right to do what they please as a legitimate sign of adulthood and guide for their lives. Personal sacrifice and suffering is then perceived as self-willed melodramatic martyrdom. Authority is replaced by the matriarchal "wolf pack" mob dictatorship that characterizes much ongoing political correctness: emotional threats and blackmailing, scornful behavior, slander with insinuations, punishing silences, bullying, cowardice, vendettas. And all this within the circle of relatives, with many self-declared pacifists talking about world peace while unable to keep peace in their own extended families. If any reader feels struck in reading these lines, that is bad enough. Others have testified that they perceive such descriptions as "sheer therapy" in view of their personal life experiences. Swedish readers have the opportunity to experience such archetypal behaviors as described in Felicia Feldt's autobiographical "reality novel" Felicia försvann (Felicia disappeared). For reviews of the book see links on the publisher's web page.

Yes, "the sibling society" or, then, at the end (again) the apocalyptic and already tested society in Stalinist-Maoist cultural-revolutionary times:

And I will make boys their princes,
and infants shall rule over them.
And the people will oppress one another,
every one his fellow
and every one his neighbor;
the youth will be insolent to the elder,
and the despised to the honorable.

(Isaiah 3:4-5)

"And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child:

and the children shall rise up against their parents,

and cause them to be put to death."

(Matthew 10:21)

Exaggeration? Yes, I am mainly gathering my images from a series of sources as mentioned at the beginning above. It could have been called a reality-novel. One thing which can be said in defense of the actors of this behavior is that it is the result of faulty education in the West despite the Christian heritage. First of all fault by the parents: children look at what parents themselves do rather than to what they say. After all what has has been said above, I need to confirm ritually that, of course, youngsters are not bad and elders good. I know many loving and lovely youngsters and realize that what appears as evil may be named shortcomings. And all humans including elders and myself have sinned against parents and have something good and something evil inside themselves. They should confess it without blaming "situational influences" for the evil while praising themselve for the good, as in some late psychologizing ethics. Evil is ultimately our personal responsibility or outright sin, even if forbearance is called for when one takes into account the situational influence of the cultural-ethical decay of the family and society. It is a decay that with perverse rhetoric is acclaimed by the the type of postmodern aesthetical ethicsacknowledged by Michael Maffesoli. It is indeed a postmodernity that is tragically impervious to both criticism such as by David Evans, Stephen Hicks, or Christopher Norris, and to the learned and complex but ambiguous and indecisive, if not outright obscuring, overview by Zygmunt Bauman.

To acknowledge all this may indeed be a legitimate rhetorical requirement but I was talking about typified general trends and changes in feelings and attitudes, as in all kinds of apocalyptic and prophetic messages in the Bible. It is significant that the Bible's Ten Commandments include "Honour thy father and thy mother" and not the other way round, related to the instinct-supported care of the offspring. After all, it is merciful to prevent children from having to regret what cannot be undone when the parents will be dead, not to mention these parents' prior lonesome suffering while lying on their deathbed in niggardly financed, low-tax elderly care. Better to love them in life than to only cry beside their deathbed or to mourn them publicly at their funeral. A Swedish author expressed it touchingly in another way: it is a pity for parents when their children do not grow and mature fast enough in time for being able to express their gratitude before their death.

Indeed, the World Values Study is referred to in the book Is the Sweden a Human? (p. 73 f.) stating that as regards the expectation that children are to love and honor their parents, and the percentage of people who consider themselves religious, Sweden is in the bottom layer. If it is too late for supposedly outdated Christian education, perhaps a minimum of respect can be evinced by a common reading, by old and young, of a resignedly and quietly humorous book like Jane Miller's Crazy Age: Thoughts on Being Old. Those who read French and insist in serious and committed intellectual work are recommended instead to study Louis-Vincent Thomas' Anthropologie de la Mort [Anthropology of Death, Payot 1976], especially the masterly chapter IV on elders and death, with emphasis on section Ab (p. 363ff.) on old people in the Western world who "helplessly watch the demolition of values for which they sometimes have sacrificed a lot". A reinstatement of respect for old age that is still typical for many world cultures may be obtained by a study of classics such as Cicero's Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, or by a study of research such as at the Life-Span Development Laboratory of Stanford university.

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Some months after having written most of the text above I happened to read a valuable journalistic overview of the phenomenon including curling parenthood, in the The New York Times, the series that included (14 July 2012) "Guilty parents, ungrateful kids, easy solution", in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (10 July 2012) "Sluta behandla era ungar som kungar" by Alf B. Svensson in Aftonbladet , (10 July 2012), "För evigt ung" by Pernilla Ström in Dagens Nyheter ( 23 January 2010), "En ny generation vill glida genom livet" by Jenny Strömstedt in Expressen (19 February 2014), but most comprehensively in "När egot tar examen", by Ana Udovic in Dagens Nyheter (6 May 2012). The latter relies explicitly in part upon work (in Swedish) on narcissism and related issues (the socio-psychological counterparts of common-language egoism) by Bo Sigrell and Lena Teurnell, Mats Alvesson, Magnus Lindwall. And all that recalls Det infantila samhället [The infantile society] by Carl Hamilton, promptly and symptomatically mocked by a feminist icon. A book (also in Swedish) coupling these questions to Swedish culture or "national character" is the above mentioned Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh's Är svensken människa? Gemenskap och oberoende i det moderna Sverige [Is the Swede a human being? Community and independence in modern Sweden], also reviewed by myself, and commented by Tomas Brytting in Swedish Radio's "Tankar för dagen" on the National Day 6 June 2012 (text here). Those who cannot read Swedish may appreciate some of the English literature that is the main recurrent reference in the article, by dr. Jean M. Twenge, the author of Generation Me, who also co-authored with W. Keith Campbell the laterThe Narcissism Epidemic. I recommend strongly this overview, disregarding my dissent about the suggested roots of the phenomenon that elsewhere I did conceive in different terms of ethics and social psychology. All this having been said I also confirm my knowledge and conscious dismissal of the humorous anedoctal historical accounts of complaints, since Socrates, against earlier young generations, an example being (in Swedish), Dick Harrison's Historiens sju "värsta" generationer[History's seven "worst" generations]. Harrison misses content and meaning, especially the historical meaning of secularization (cf. Jacques Le Goff), being an illustration of the rhetorical postmodern relativization of values and cultural issues.

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E111222 The meaning of "Debate" oneliners. Or publications and peer-reviews

[INITIAL NOTE: Starting April 2014 revised versions of the text above were published as versions of my research paper with the title Information as Debate.]

On occasion of my retirement I intended to complete my research that had been neglected because of managerial duties, and to summarize my experiences and reflections in one or several publications. The more I studied and reflected, the more I got convinced that the main problem was not the lack of debates, books, publications, experiences, reflections, but rather the lack of wish, will, courage, that is "lack of time" , to select readings, to read, to think, or to understand in depth and to act upon knowledge that is still valid and already available. But it is obvious that debates about an issue have an intrinsic value, at least initially, as an expression of human respect or friendship, as a test of one own's arguments and as a way of understanding others' mind or psyche. This is partly analog to the situation of a physician who must have a contact with ill people and illness in order to get a chance to understand and cure it, or to assist with palliative care.

If one conceives writing as the building up of a relationship between the writer-author and the reader, I perceive the problem as being the difficulty of creating in the Western culture's latest trends a genuine I and Thou relationship in the sense of Martin Buber's "dialogue and existence." The final disaster seems to be represented by the oneliners or fewliners of the Facebook's or Twitter's blog or microblog phenomena. The contrast to Buber's I and Thou is then illustrated by the changeover to I and all of you, since I cannot afford the time to write to each of you individually. You all are the mass of my massmedia. Facebook and Twitter, as examples of the latest debate techniques represent networked fragmentation opposed to the systems concept, and are some of the latest additional onslaughts of technology with hypothetical advantages and paradoxical cumulative waste of the time it would have been required to form a personal committed oldfashioned letter. This is accompanied by other psychosocial phenomena that historically were grasped by the Danish social critic Søren Kierkegaard, and summarized by Prof. Richard Stivers in the book on Technology and Magic: The Triumph of the Irrational (1999, pp. 122-124): "Whith the decline of inwardness and passion, one's relationship to the other becomes concurrently that of aesthetic possibility and ethical indifference." There are also descriptions and more popular analyses in a few research reports and essays such as (in Swedish) Lasse Granestrand's "Resa i den twittrande klassens universum" (Trip in the twittering class' universe, Dagens Nyheter, 7 october 2012.) See also some more superficial criticism as by Annina Rabe (in Svenska Dagbladet, 11 September 2012.) On occasion of my 70th and 75th birthdays, when the issue of available time and the meaning of it all becomes increasingly acute, I tried to summarize this insight in my virtual research summaries.

Publications and peer-reviews, which are considered to be the criteria for academic success, can also be perceived as examples of present sterile debates, i.e. debates with editors and colleagues in tenliners if not oneliners, often with view on career advancement as related to academic alliances with currently influential peers who are editors in influential journals and their subcultures, or to intrigues or to the selling of books, journals and ideas. Conversely, everything that may be understood as criticism of the closest peers must be selectively silenced in order not to endanger the esprit de corps or collective identity of the alliance. It is not necessary to go so far as to politics in order to, justly or unjustly, perceive this phenomenon of cronyism also typically appearing as suspicion in university departments. The basic idea for such a successful career is to prioritize the avoidance of creation of enemies, and the promotion of vulgar versions of Machiavellianism, with disregard of Aristotelian ideas of true courage. I myself could easily recognize early among graduate students those who would make such a rapid career, behaving with exquisite meekness, far from appearing as simple smartalecks, to the point that they claimed that their responding to hard arguments with silence was motivated by "respect". In this context students can be perceived by older professors as children or grandchildren are perceived by parents in the dialectics I described elsewhere under the label of Parents, adult children, childish adults - Inverted identities? A much more important and nowadays dominating phenomenon related to cronyism is, of course, the controversial and extremely complex political correctness that I considered elsewhere in the context of my review of a book on organizational self-destruction, by organizational psychologist Howard Schwartz. Alternative expressions of political correctness appear in the phenomena of bias and suppression in the supposedly scientific process of peer review. The important thing here is to note how such phenomena undermine not only dialog but also debate including politics. They become display of fears, struggles of power and of self-affirmation.

All this undermines communication and dialog from an ethical point of view but still presupposes a "semantic understanding" of what others say or write. Richard Stivers in the earlier mentioned book on Technology and Magic(pp. 44-78) advances the insight that the semantics itself is in question because of an ongoing decline of language in the technological society, its substitution by images, visualization, aesthetics, and aestheticism, and the consequent decline of capacity of thought and understanding that accompanies language. Stivers, on the basis of Email, predicts Tweet-Facebook language when describing how talk shows on television and radio "reduce dialog to the level os street talk - emotional outbursts, simple assertions, and elliptic sentences". All this while mass culture "is based on the creed that everything can and must be made effortless and immediately understandable." Despite all this there are research trends that in the spirit of an unconscious "Heidegerrian" aestheticism claim that it opens the way for a deeper and intuitive or unconscious kind of understanding. Words that express this dream are the following, abstracted from a PhD dissertation on human-experiential design: "tangible interaction, unconsciously executed through the computer itself will restore the primacy of action and re-integrate the mind and the body. There should be no conscious effort in the behaviors, because experience has already made possible the series of right actions, but unconsciously, in that it uses the memory that our bodies know, erasing the awareness of people as users but not as humans, and the need of willpower to act. To be pleasant and invigorating, life should be free of the need to always be conscious of the environment in which we exist."

Stivers continues adducing a study conducted at the University of Texas that found that less than half of the sample of adults could understand a plainly written paragraph. Others found that students increasingly think in "nonsequential and visual ways." This recalls my own late experiences that in a e-mail containing more than one question about a subject, or more than a subject, the answer if it comes at all, may often respond to only one question of one subject, as if the rest of the original text had not been read at all. Summarizing various research Stivers observes further that where once visual images were subject to language, now language is becoming subordinate to visual images. The meaning of life becomes exclusively aesthetic and now resides in cultural experimentation as in technologically conditioned consumption, lifestyle, and entertainment. Now we have "communication" rather than speech, writing, literature, art; we have "relationship" or "network" of "networked friends" rather than friends and lovers. People think less and less in sentences and allow themselves to be led more and more by words or at best, as I wrote, by twittered, facebooked, e-mailed oneliners. Stivers refers particularly to the phenomenon of "plastic words" that were defined by Uwe Poerksen as words that aspire to be scientific or technical burt end up being amorphous, having as chief purpose to "provide security and perform exorcisms". I myself noted that supposedly scientific words are no longer defined. "Method", "model", "theory", "information", "communication", "interaction", "system", or "design" have no longer contended definitions because of their being definitely "plasticized", and lately have been supplanted by other still less defined such as "conceptual framework" and, most recently "methodical and conceptual toolbox", never mind the meaning of concept, or the difference between tool and instrument. Or, for that matter, in the context of technology's benefits, between growth and development.

Among those who are constrained to adopt old and new plastic words we find graduate students who are obliged to get socialized into the sub-cultures of their sub-specialties; forget about dialog and debate within specialties. In the manuscript of a dissertation dealing with informatic digital capability, ICT co-evolution and business strategies I found, for instance, the following terms, which put off even specialists since they suggest the need for an initiation and socialization into the particular sub-field of study: conceptual framework, theoretical framework, functional view, design & enactment, ICT-assets & knowledge on design, conceptual tools, conceptual models, design capital, functionality, performance, complex-unstable-dynamic environments, strategic options portfolio, strategic foresight vs. systemic insight, functional resources, organizational-operational-dynamic capability, co-evolutionary perspective, and ambidexterity. The latter being the ability to both exploit current opportunities through efficient operations and to adapt to future exogenenous (sic) change through exploration. And there are references to philosophical foundations of the work in terms of perspectives on causality, ontology, epistemology, and critical realism.

Smartalecks and cronyists also know how to borrow into their publications terms used by their influential disciplinary patrons. And in the context of interaction never mind about the more subtle forms of human interaction that tend to be submerged into hateful commentaries, harassment, and competition of popularity in terms of "friends' likes" on the net. Compassion, ethical love, trust and patience are concepts that have disappeared from general cultural discourse, as terms like honour, virtue, temperance, modesty, and chastity. Stivers summarizes these tendencies by noting that "there is no effective way of raising ethical questions", and this is also my own summary as background of my position regarding "debate".

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When approaching 75 and with an increasing feeling of urgency because of consciousness of finding myself in the "vestibule of death" I did reread the Swedish political scientist Tage Lindbom's The Myth of Democracy where he finds a way of exposing the phenomenon of "debate", which dispenses of any further explanations and recalls that the deepest truths have already been revealed in the many great books. In a cursory review of the history of ideas about democracy he writes tthe following three paragraphs that I would have risked to waste my time by trying to express myself, namely:

"A seductive notion is that truth is to be found like a 'vein of gold'; and the hope of finding this 'vein' of truth gave impetus to feverish philosophical search" (p. 30). And gave impetus to scientific development, I may add.

"[Jean-Jacques Rousseau] tries to find and explain different ways in which this ascension can be accomplished [wherein human choices are elevated from the merely private to the general level, where the Popular Will is to be realized]. By deliberation, he says, it may be possible to bring a multitude of different opinions into concert. The more thoroughly we discuss a question, the more our differences can be reduced. By this means we can come nearer to what we want to achieve, namely unanimity, and unanimity expresses the Popular Will" (p. 35f). (These ideas foreshadow, by the way, a Hegelian dialectic of the kind that I myself applied in my dissertation on quality-control of information. With the great difference, however, that I did not assume that one would come nearer to unanimity, and for that very same reason I called for an accounting of a measure of the degree of disagreement.)

"Truth is an endless number of fragments in which true and false are mingled. But the golden grains of truth can be sifted out; and this is accomplished by the unending, reiterated exchange of opinions. The lifeblood of liberalism, therefore, is debate and discussion. Every restraint, every limit on opinion must be denied." (p.41). "Continual searching and researching, gathering raw data, empirical trials, analysis through logical and discursive processes of thinking, always in a cadre of continuous debate: these are the operative demands of the liberal search for truth - truth which, it is believed, is like grains of gold, washed and sifted in a free selective process, the false dross being separated from the noble metal of truth. ...A world of freedom in which truth will win out over the lie ...The true will become better and better, ever more 'true'" (p. 43).

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It should be obvious why this is not so, when everybody tends to start his logic from different and often unconscious basic assumptions, compared with earlier times' more general, collective Christian assumptions in the Western world, not to mention the forgotten method of uncovering basic assumptions by means of a Platonic dialectic that requires much more than the typical blog-oneliners. Compare also the philosophy of information systems as advanced in West Churchman's The Design of Inquiring Systems, countering the naive idea of data and information as "fragments". I witness what happens today's with the so called social media not to mention computer games and blogs, phenomena that academia is desperately trying to intellectualize by selling basic courses on, for instance, "Blog's theory and practice". Or, yes, I know, by following good advices, more simple than Plato's dialectics, like the following one: "Conversation is a game with some hard rules: say only what you mean; say it as accurately as you can; listen to and respect what the other says, however different or other; be willing to correct or defend your opinions if challenged by the conversation partner; be willing to argue if necessary, to confront if demanded, to endure necessary conflict, to change your mind if the evidence suggests it." Quoted from David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. (Harper & Row, 1987, p. 19, referenced in Anthony Flood's web page).

Occasionally it pops ut in political debates that leaders of political parties do not themselves believe in sheer debate based on sheer freedom of expression. As the leader of the Swedish Center party Annie Lööf expressed it in a debate article on a controversial issue (including "polygamy") in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter on 11 January 2013: "A point is reached when a kind of stop line must be drawn in the debate to avoid confusion to be created". Also occasionally it will be found that some insightful journalist like Niklas Wahllöf (TV column in Dagens Nyheter 29 November 2012) uncovers the empty dramaturgy of many pseudo-debates and interviews at the supposedly "public service" Swedish television. It also happens that this strange atmosphere of empty, sterile excentric debates is noted in unpretentious musings and deeper probes in very symptomatic newspaper essays as for instance, in the titles' translation from Swedish, "The air in the debate is stale and confined", (Dagens Nyheter, 17 September 2013), "All talk och no one says anything", (Metro, 26 September 2013), "After threats and lampoons I take now leave from the gender debate" (Swedish Television Debate Page, 8 November 2013), or "When verbal vomit drowns public discourse" (Svenska Dagbladet, 26 January 2014), and in "The debate about the debate is hereby declared dead" (Svenska Dagbladet, 29 January 2014.) It is obvious that many citizens sense the emptiness and poverty of the debates despite of not being able to grasp the core and the why of the phenomenon as related to controversial "political correctness".

I have come to realize that in many ongoing debates about crises or problems "Democracy" is named as the theoretical basis of debate and as a general solution in a way that recalls the old universal appeal to God and religion. So, it can be in the case of trying to explain the mass murder tragedy of Anders Breivik in Norway, or islamic terrorism, or the wave of economic crises in the USA, or in Europe as analyzed by Roger Cohen in The Age of Outrage. What becomes apparent is that the solution is supposed to be "more of the same" whatever that same could be, if only it is called Democracy. It seems never to occur the possibility if not the need of the analyzers self-criticism. With that I mean the hypothesis that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" but in our case not Denmark but perhaps in the practice of democracy in the Western world, where Democracy has become an idol that has replaced the supposedly old-fashioned God. As Cohen writes "Egos expanded...Money outpaced politics. Rage surged... The only people who walked away unscathed from the great financial binge that preceded this mess were its main architects and greatest beneficiaries: bankers, financiers and hedge-fund honchos". Nevertheless there is no real analysis, no real questioning of the sources of ethics or of why democracy went wrong and may be going towards a short or long term disaster. I suppose that democracy went and goes wrong because it has been equated to the implementation of a truth determined by a supposed majority in the supposedly free market of opinions, never mind wise arguments. And this is gradually being represented by the Internet or by more communication and pluralism despite the likewise gradual realization that notwithstanding freedom of speech there must be rules of communication, and a motivation to avoid seeking narrow consensus based on restricted social "debate groups" that foster oversimplification in face of complexity.

Nevertheless more than 150 years ago Alexis de Tocqueville, to whom I have repeatedly referred to in my writings,in an insightful analysis of democracy in the USA offered an analysis that is surprisingly modern and deserves attention. The more so during times of financial crises and upheavals such as in Europe after year 2010. One very focused and clear analysis of financial crisis as example of the failure of debate or rather of dialogue in the democratic system is offered in an editorial of 27 January 2013 (in Swedish Det verkliga hotet, The real threat) by the economy columnist Andreas Cervenka of the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

After Tocqueville we also have Carl Schmitt whose controversial work exposes the connection between the misunderstandings about debate and the perils of dictatorship if not totalitarianism. In the context of political theology he is referred to as follows: "Schmitt criticized the institutional practices of liberal politics, arguing that they are justified by a faith in rational discussion and openness that is at odds with actual parliamentary party politics, in which outcomes are hammered out in smoke-filled rooms by party leaders. Schmitt also posits an essential division between the liberal doctrine of separation of powers and what he holds to be the nature of democracy itself, the identity of the rulers and the ruled. Although many critics of Schmitt today, such as Stephen Holmes in his The Anatomy of Anti-Liberalism, take exception to his fundamentally authoritarian outlook, the idea of incompatibility between liberalism and democracy is one reason for the continued interest in his political philosophy." (ref. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy.)

"The genie is let out of the bottle", and language is no longer effective for meaningful communication, leading to overconfident illusions about the power of unbridled debate or "art" à la Muhammad drawings controversy, or "artful" caricatures of dialog such as Kränkta vita män (Swedish for "Outraged white men", possibly and paradoxically inspired by the book title Stupid white men) a degrading Facebook group that presumedly righteous feminists scornfully urge critics of feminism to join and is ritually praised by other feminist journalists (like Catia Hultquist in Dagens Nyheter 17 December 2012) who use the rhetorical trick of equating antifeminism with racial discrimination or worse. Occasional deep but paradoxical insights about "debates" versus political correctness appear very seldom in daily newspapers, but are exemplified by Johan Hilton in Dagens Nyheter (17 September 2013.) The self-avowed lesbian feminist Kristina Hultman earlier in the same Dagens Nyheter (9 October 2012) equates antifeminists with "terrorists like Anders Behring Breivik, aggrieved white men, religious patriarchs and fascist movements." Never mind about guilt by association. I can only despair about the empty hopes and wasting of time in one-liners by millions of Internet users who unconsciously maintain an unfounded faith in a sort of intellectual social Darwinism. My latest distressing experience besides a short free subscription to a major Swedish newspaper and its section on a symptomatic "culture & entertainment" (cf. "edutainment"!) has been to witness some of the discussions about the theater staging in Sweden of the unfortunate "feminist" S.C.U.M. manifesto. It is no longer justified to put hope into democratic debate when, for instance, Swedish newspaper columnists write articles (Dagens Nyheter, 25 August 2012) that are equivalent to one-liners and reject democratic votes (the hollow new god of Democracy) in the name of libertarian cultural radicalism. The voting human being seems to be considered as an object, such as a sort of biotechnological automobile platform with sexual organs as styling accessories, and his supposedly wrong voting behavior is said to be due to pseudo-Marxist false consciousness. Opposing intellectual currents are demeaned in a few lines, resembling Twitter's 140 characters, as "romantic enlightenment" and are swept away in the name of the latest trends in "gender theory". Conclusion? I feel strengthened in my earlier research-reflections expressed on occasion of my 70th birthday. It is no longer a question of writing or reading but, rather, of Evangelization or Apocalypticism.

All this is the reason of why, objectionably, I write as I write, with an intentional profusion of references and without much hope for dialog with people who expect one-liners, or "executive summaries" of about half page that they hope will enable them to avoid painful studies of something they really do not know why they should care about. This style of writing becomes gradually more urgent as life is perceived to get short and the most important task becomes to leave a heritage of the type "take it or leave it" to those who happen to want to study further.

[REMINDER: Starting April 2014 revised versions of the text above have been published as versions of my research paper with the title Information as Debate.]

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E111207 SCUM Society for Cutting Up Men - Watershed of disgust

In my late research I have focused on the rationale behind evil, hateful or indifferent non-ethical thoughts and behavior that I have been experiencing in my professional life. Because of this I noted that in November 2011 a theater in Stockholm staged a play consisting of a recital of the so called S.C.U.M. manifesto where the initials stand for Society for Cutting Up Men as conceived by its author Valerie Solanas in 1967. It is a diatribe against men and masculinity, literally advocating scorn, contempt, hatred and murder of men, reminding the possibly hidden analogous message in Thelma & Louise. Symptomatically it has been the object of much positive attention in feminist circles all over the world. On occasion of its staging in the Stockholm theater it raised a violent debate about its ethical implications. Among those feminists who approved its staging, there were those representing a major feminist organization like ROKS who clearly and literally endorsed it, while others, when in their mildest mood, wished to see it not as an incitement to murder but rather as a satire akin to Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal, missing the point that the "proposal's" victims were its actual heroes. Those who disapproved the uncritical revival of the text authored by the mentally disturbed Solanas accused it for being a propaganda for hate, akin to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that, however, did not go so far as to advocate murder, while nobody today is prone to read it as a satire. Based on my reading of psychoanalysis and depth psychology I joined soon the critics of SCUM but realized gradually that it is the literary expression of both the roots of feminism as well as of the essence of so called hate speech that has been well exemplified in Swedish feminist debate. In the attempt to prevent hate crime as related to political correctness I did analyze the issue in my review of a book by organizational psychologist Howard Schwartz, which deals with the evasive and controversial phenomenon of "political correctness".

In Wikipedia's rendering of SCUM there is a reference to "See also" Separatist feminism, Misandry and The Turner Diaries including a section on "crimes associated with the book". For the rest, please compare with some criticism of the case Andrea Dworkin. Not to mention symptomatic fringe aberrations like the "Temple of Diana". The staging of the SCUM-manifest is rather an exploitation of a tragic destiny for political purposes. Not many of us would appreciate to see or hear , after an eventual return to sanity, what we have being doing or saying during the most unhappy days of our life. We would find that it is a breach of our privacy and personal integrity, to expose whatever we happened to act out when we were not in control of ourselves and felt sheer desperation. And instead of being helped and loved, to see somebody recording everything and broadcasting it through a loudspeaker on the streets, or on a theater stage, attributing to us particular philosophical or political standspoints that suit others' interests.

Regarding the neglected coupling of SCUM hate-thinking to terrorism, it is interesting that in discussing SCUM and Anders Behring Breivik nobody seems to suspect that many "terrror" events can be the result of desperation at the perception of deep crisis and danger in the development trends of our Western Civilization, as most obvious in the neglected story of the life of the Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb. And it is appalling that mass media do not seem to be able or interested in a deeper analysis of ongoing parallel events. For instance, the newspaper Dagens Nyheter(DN) in its campaign of supportive reviews of the rehearsals and theater performance of the SCUM-manifesto (on 21 October, 18 November, and 30 November 2011 with renewal on 20-23 July 2012) considers it to be valuable art, encouraging feminists who want to expose schoolchildren to it. A few days later another critic in the same DN in an evaluation of a new controversial Swedish film ("Play") dealing with ethnic social integration ( 5 December 2011, "Play" missar de andras perspektiv) objects that the film does not give to its public the possibility of taking in the "others' " (in our case non-feminist) perspective, which, after all is said to be a criterion for good art. And, concerning art, "Art becomes aesthetic autism...there are no canons, no aesthetic standards or legitimate attitudes. Every rule, every norm, every model, all well-rooted criteria are denied". (Tage Lindbom in The Myth of Democracy, p. 120). And such a perverted art, which claims the privileges of democratic freedom of expression, is closely related not only to unbridled liberalism but also to socialist doctrine, having the strong source of power in social and political hatred: "Terms like reconciliation, forgiveness, or trust do not exist in the Marxist lexicon nor in the world of Marxism [that radical feminism paradoxically often ignores in its simplified biased versions]. The dialectical struggle is an affair of life or death. It is merciless, and the result of the struggle involves the annihilation of the losing party." (Idem, p. 110.)

I felt that this late experience of mine regarding the staging of the SCUM-manifesto, despite of some stubborn (soon labeled by feminists as "anti-feminist") resistance on the net such as in Swedish blogs of Axess, Genusnytt, Newsmill and PelleBilling, triggered my resigned perception of personal disgust at this my "watershed of disgust" while I came to feel the meaning of catholic and islamist resistance to main trends in the Western mind, and the meaning of Apocalypticism. My disgust and feeling of outrage, also expressed by many others as evidenced in the blogs linked above, increased at the sight of the ineffective, nonchalant judicial treatment of formal complaints filed at the Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO, case 2011/1891), the Parliamentary Ombudsmen (Riksdagens Ombudsmen, JO, case 1065-2012), and the Chancellor of Justice (Justitiekanslern JK case 7826-11-30) whose common response characteristics appear to be arrogant unaccountability. And this in face of SCUM's startling incitement to collective murder with startling sociopsychological similarities with the case of Anders Behring Breivik, and the Holocaust: collective persecution and exhortation to murder on the base of politicization of religious or ethnic-biological characteristics. It has been pointed out that the present (year 2011) head of the office of the Chancellor of Justice and earlier member of the Supreme Court of Sweden, Anna Skarhed, is she herself a member of Hilda. It is a rather secretive network for female jurists, named after a valkyrie (of "battle") of Norse mythology. [The very same Skarhed was later on May 1st, 2021, ten years after the rest of this text was originally written, interviewed (in Swedish) at the Swedish Radio, expressing views about her involvement in Hilda (28:30 minutes), and expressing (34:00 minutes) especially doubtful, feministically tainted interpretation of the principle of rule of law with respect to the fundamental right of presumption of innocence, in the context of #MeToo that I treat above in its own context].

Not to mention e.g. an involved legal officer of the Equality Ombudsman, Anna Fritshammar, noted at Facebook as being member of feminist-related networks. A simple comparison with the apparent sophistication with which the Supreme Court of Sweden handled the case of the Christian pastor Åke Green who had been accused and condemned for having criticized homosexuality in a church sermon is very informative. It indicates the level of judicial incompetence and displicency displayed by those who like the Equality Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice legalize the theater staging of the SCUM-manifest and its aftermaths under the cover of freedom of expression. Except for extremely scandalous cases where majoritarian public opinion exerts political pressure, displicency reigns. Increasing suspicions of corruption of the Swedish legal system have been advanced in the context of the Quick affair and its overview by the investigative journalist Maciej Zaremba in Dagens Nyheter 10 September 2012 (in Swedish: "The judges abdicated from their responsibility".) See also the same day's editorial "Fatal malpractice" as well the overview on 30 September 2012 and 10 October 2012 about shortcomings of the rule of law in the Swedish judicial system as it regards the state's bullying of private citizens. And the admonitory scandal of former police chief and front man of state feminism Göran Lindberg, former official "adviser on gender equality and sexual harassment", who turned out to be a serial rapist, is conveniently ignored or exploited for turning a recruited young prostitute into innocent victim (the " Nora case", documentary by the Swedish Radio on 21 January 2013.)

These cases indicate that the allowance for public complaints is mainly a virtual escape valve for the discontent of minorities or silent majorities. Their voices are heard but systematically ignored. In order to understand the illusions offered by such judicial organs it would be necessary to penetrate and apply the kind of analysis made by Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America (chapters 6-8 in volume/book 1, esp. "Judicial Power in the United States".) The next best analysis, in Swedish, explaining the historical process of corruption the Swedish judicial system with respect to human rights is offered by Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh in their epochal book Är Svensken Människa?[Is the Swede a Human Being?], best except for its philosophical-ethical anti-climax in the inconsequential chapter 13 about "The Swedish Love".

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AFTERWORD

After having written the above I was contacted on 31 July 2012 by a young journalist from the Swedish northern city of Umeå's regional newspaper Västerbottens Folkblad (VF) who inquired about the complaints filed at the three Swedish authorities referenced above. The reason was that the theater company with the SCUM-Manifesto would soon stage it in Umeå. I directed her to my text and links in this section where I openly account for my opinions and sources. I also asked her whether she was a feminist in order to know whether I was to expect an impartial account of my opinions without incurring into the phenomenon that I describe in my earlier references in this text to articles in Dagens Nyheter (DN) and elsewhere here on this page in the item (in Swedish) on Radio Sweden's serial named "the holy family", a "crusade" against traditional family values, that had nothing to do with the Holy Family. She answered "No comments". So, I could not ascertain whether she had the same identity as the person with the same name that Google listed from the apparently lesbian-feminist site "mamaqueerest.com". Such are the present conditions of the freedom vs. objectivity of the press and mass media.

Subsequently the regional newspaper Västerbottens Kuriren (VK) published on August 10th 2012 an interview with me (in Swedish) "Scum borde jämföras med Breiviks manifest" referring to this blog item of mine, and including a comparison between the SCUM's and Brevik's manifestos that I commented in the blog item below on the mass murder tragedy in Norway. The net version of the article displayed also a series of readers' comments that in part confirm my thoughts about "one-liners" in the blog item above. The very same day (August 10th) the cultural editor of the newspaper wrote in the newspaper and in her blog an article (in Swedish) about "Konsten att skilja på verk och verklighet" [The art of distinguishing between a work of art and reality], the significantly funny thing being that in Swedish both work and reality build upon the very same lexeme "verk", like "work and workability". She writes that art must be allowed to do things that manifest hatred, clarifying "mind you, carry a manifestation OF hate, not FOR." In a free society the freedom of art includes the acceptance that artistic creations are artistic depictions, not journalism, not facts, but just works. And she adds that all opinions about a work of art such as the staging of the SCUM-manifesto require that it be seen first. - Well I saw it, but I remember some feminist reviewer of the film Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman portraying the relation between mother and daughter condemned it on the basis that Bergman never had been neither mother nor daughter. Forgetting that in his family life he had had both mother and sister, that is, forgetting the cognitive and moral value of all fiction literature. And the requirement guarantees that all scandalous works of art will be commercial successes besides the fact that "all publicity is good publicity" because it works like advertising. It is also interesting to note that the initiative to bring the SCUM-play to the city of Umeå was taken by its Theater Association whose producer Meta Tunell assures on the net version of the VK article that the SCUM performance displays a "strong artistic quality" and can "generate an interesting discussion." Paradoxically, such provocative generation of "interesting discussion" is rejected by aggressive or dogmatic feminism when it comes to allow the Swedish Television to launch a series of programs investigating modern feminism. Censorship is then openly advocated by a columnist in the main Swedish Newspaper Dagens Nyheter (30 Dec 2013) because, as during the rise of nazism, a provocative criticism of feminism and a raising of suspicion and doubts about it in mass media may encourage oppression of social groups (women as seen by feminists, but symptomatically not of men.) The Umeå Theater Association, with financial support from among others The Swedish Arts Council, has a long and stable ideological tradition having been also a co-producer of, for instance, the Umeå Queer Festival so early as in April 2003. For the rest, the above defense of freedom of art (but not of freedom of expression or of the press?) implies that the above mentioned Christian pastor Åke Green would have been outright considered innocent if he only had perceived and presented his sermon and the Bible itself as a work of rhetorical art. It is startling that the abuse of the notion of artistic freedom to the disadvantage of freedom of expression is noticed so seldom, as paradoxically exemplified by the renowned case of the gratuitously outrageous video Innocence of Muslims.There are rare exceptions such as in some of the debates about the scandalous Lars Vilks' affairs, e.g. by Susanna Birgersson in Dagens Nyheter 10 September 2012 (in Swedish "Etiketten förändrar ingenting".)

In the meantime the feministic campaigns and the escalation of gender-hate continues in the middle of suggestions of abolishing the institution of marriage through the glorification of LGBTQ relations, as done in the Swedish major newspaper Svenska Dagbladet about "the army of lovers" (11 March 2014), echoing the SCUM-like Queer Nations Manifest, and through the legal implementation of polygamy. Also in Svenska Dagbladet a positive uncritical review published 27 January 2013 as När underkastelsen blir till glödande vrede [When subjugation becomes fierce anger] praises the play "Lyckliga slut" (Happy endings) at the Uppsala city theater. International and national cases of rape reported by mass media are dramatized in the play involving ten women. No questions asked but men are confirmed to be "animals" and, among others, shit-tough feminists (in the cultural language of the reviewer, in Swedish: "skittuffa feminister") tell about their experiences of being raped and battered. No questions asked about possible "whys" of such events and society's development beyond the supposed criminal animality of men and the naive innocence of women. When reality does not support such weird hypotheses "reality novel films" are created incorporating "poetic license" to depict a loved and respected father as crap, such as in a Swedish film, Monica Z. about the jazz singer Monica Zetterlund as reported by Tom Alandh in Dagens Nyheter, 17 September 2013. The free staging of the imaginary father was confirmed the following day to have been a symbolic indictment of "patriarchate". At the extreme of this question is to be found the example of the "Stureplan case" surveyed by the Swedish television on 16 January 2013 concerning a woman's alleged rape by two men with whom she had got home with and having had earlier sexual relations with (sic - see my other blog insert on "Why complaints of harassement and offences?")

And if that was not enough, there are books which because of some reason tend to be ignored in the dominating mass media climate, like the one which is introduced as follows: "While national crime rates have recently fallen, crimes committed by women have risen 200 percent, yet we continue to transform female violence into victimhood by citing PMS, battered wife syndrome, and postpartum depression as sources of women's actions. (When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, by Patricia Pearson.)

Let me terminate by referring to the link to the best critical English summary of all these trends I know, mathematician Tanja Bergkvist's "Gender madness" . Some believe that the only and ultimate way of reacting to such trends is satire that also might include extreme examples of murderous feminism and songs with texts of hate appearing in YouTube. I also may quote, for a contrast with humanity, from an interview with Philip Roth in New York Times (and Svenska Dagbladet) on March 2nd, 2014:

"As I see it, my focus has never been on masculine power rampant and triumphant but rather on the antithesis: masculine power impaired. I have hardly been singing a paean to male superiority but rather representing manhood stumbling, constricted, humbled, devastated and brought down. I am not a utopian moralist. My intention is to present my fictional men not as they should be but vexed as men are. The drama issues from the assailability of vital, tenacious men with their share of peculiarities who are neither mired in weakness nor made of stone and who, almost inevitably, are bowed by blurred moral vision, real and imaginary culpability, conflicting allegiances, urgent desires, uncontrollable longings, unworkable love, the culprit passion, the erotic trance, rage, self-division, betrayal, drastic loss, vestiges of innocence, fits of bitterness, lunatic entanglements, consequential misjudgment, understanding overwhelmed, protracted pain, false accusation, unremitting strife, illness, exhaustion, estrangement, derangement, aging, dying and, repeatedly, inescapable harm, the rude touch of the terrible surprise — unshrinking men stunned by the life one is defenseless against, including especially history: the unforeseen that is constantly recurring as the current moment."

A SECOND AFTERWORD

The spirit in SCUM does not belong only to the pathology of Valerie Solanas and the period of the sixties and seventies. It continues alive permeating radical feminist thought, long after my writing the first version of the present text, as shown in the famous #MeToo campaigns and in some reactions to the nomination in July 2018 of judge Brett Kavanaugh to become Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States: Christine Fair, an American political scientist and professor at D.C.:s Georgetown University, was quoted (accessed October 7th, 2018) to have tweeted, referring to Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that they were "entitled white men justifying a serial rapists' arrogated entitlement" and that they "deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps." She made additional comments expressing support for post-mortem castration and corpse desecration of the senators. This professorial pronunciation was given wide publicity in mass media all over the world ( ex. here and here). My position is that feminism is a tragically dysfunctional symptom of society caused by devaluation of the values that were associated with "femininity" (rather than women) in Western culture. This has proceeded in parallel with the development of "masculine" technology with its social effects, and devaluation of Christianity and its feminine values embodied in the figure of Mary, mother of God, enhanced by the dogma of the Assumption. Reaction to his process started with primarily affecting the feminity of women and raising in them an aggressive masculinity, which has in turn provoked a touchy feminine counterreaction in men, all expressed in hate and its abuses. More on this mainly in my essays on information and psychology and political correctness.

I had to wait until October 2017 in order to see the misery of the "spirit of SCUM" applied to the whole of Western society on occasion of the "Me Too" campaign in mass media, which motivated a new blog insert (above). And the hate inbued in the spirit of SCUM could prognosticate the birth of a counter-hate as it appeared later in men's INCEL movement of "involuntary celibacy". At the time I happended to be reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, and I also happened to think about SCUM on page 271 where Merton tells his thoughts and feelings face the first news at the time of the beginning of the second world war:

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E110726 Mass murder in Norway, and Christian democracy

The excessively massive text that follows, written between 2011 and 2015 deals mainly with the attitude to, as well as the causes and meaning of the 2011 Norway attacks. My conclusion is that the public attitude to the whole event is flawed. This was confirmed on occasion of its 10th anniversary on 22 July 2021 by the Norwegian prime minister in 2011 Jens Stoltenberg's comments in a television documentary named after the site of the event, (Utøya, never forget, never be quiet, in Swedish, sent 22 July 2021, on the net until 22 July 2023). In my view these comments reveal a blatant public incomprehension of the intellectual basis of the whole problem. This does not question that the event was an expression of evil leading to murder and tragedy. It questions that it was so because of infringing the western world's supposed basic values of Democracy and Freedom of expression. In my whole work as summarized in my text on Information and theology, but not repeating it here, I claim that democracy and its associated supposedly ground values cannot replace God. They are (often abused) conquests made through religion, in particular Christianism. Those who publicly swear allegiance to democracy and freedom of expression, the more so if in the name of a political party, are not to be considered saints or apostles of love for humanity, not even if they happen to be murdered. And the murderer is not a devil as the archetype of Hitler, even if he must be brought to justice and atonement. The problem is how to meet evil, but not only in others, also in ourselves. This is what Stoltenberg, mentioned above, now secretary general of NATO opportunely calls for "not being naïve", not understanding that Christian attitude to evil is much more than not being naïve. This lack of understanding that also characterizes the general attitude to the mass murder in Norway, however, is not surprising if we consider what Wikipedia reports among details of Stoltenberg's own personal life, which I find as indicating his belonging to a sort of politically correct SBNR-church - Spiritual but not religious:

Although being portrayed as a staunch atheist for most of his adult life, and declining membership in the formerly official Church of Norway, Stoltenberg has stated that he does not consider himself an atheist. He explained: "Although I am not a member of any denomination, I do believe that there is something greater than man. Some call it God, others call it something else. For me, it's about understanding that we humans are small in relation to nature, in relation to the powers that are bigger and stronger than man can ever comprehend. I find that in a church."

Now over to my main old text on the issue. On 25 July 2011 in an interview at the Swedish radio a journalist wanted that the Swedish prime minister should have swiftly commented with better rhetoric the tragedy of mass murder in Norway caused by the by now herostratically famous Anders Behring Breivik. I believe that what the journalist wanted was a more emotional or aggressive expression and condemnation of the "extreme right" in general and the Sweden-democrats party in particular, in its resemblance to Norway's Progressive party with which the perpetrator Anders Breivik sympathized. Interestingly, the Christian-Catholic point of view about not judging people in themselves but merely their actions and motivations (a human is more than his actions) should come to the fore along with, in the context, embarrassing "understanding" of the human being, along with a redeeming, if not forgiving attitude. Mass media's and the political establishment's bullying of Sweden Democrats or the Norwegian Progressive party, which seems to attract such problematic or politically incorrect people, just annoys and aggravates the aggressive behavior of ditto people, recalling Hannah Arendt's message on power and violence. Imagine if the U.S. had been able to think about this after the 11 September's events, at least in the official Christian mass held in a Washington church after the event. Even the officiating priest did not dare to say anything about "understanding" the criminals, and reconciliation if not forgiveness like suggesting a withdrawal of American troops from Muslim countries, or the launching of a sort of regional analog to the Marshall Plan, which obviously were and are considered politically impossible but would have had a baffling effect. As expressed in a letter to the editor of Dagens Nyheter (9 October 2012) Muslims need indeed help rather than satire that denigrates their religiously grounded only hope for a better life. Christian caritas as a supplement to justice or outright retaliation in the treatment of hate is obviously considered to be impossible. Hate is supposed to be met and remediated only by hateful retaliation despite 2000 years of Christianity and lip service to Christianity's moral superiority over Islam's supposed violent hatefulness.

Moreover, it may interest you to note that, to my knowledge no one in Sweden has so far been able or willing to spare a thought for the Catholic point of view, the fundamental institution of FAMILY, the family situation as a context of the criminal's background. Below I reproduce a few quotes that I gathered in my ongoing research on similar issues (and which I put in the context of what I previously wrote on political correctness and how good people are supposed to turn evil. And here follow the quotes,

From the English Wikipedia
"Anders Behring Breivik" accessed 25 July 25 2011:
The English Wikipedia reports (July 25 2011) That his father Jens currently lives in France as a pensions and had no contact with his son after 1995. His mother, Wenche (née Behring) was a nurse, and is said to be a feminist. He has two half-brothers and two half-sisters, from the previous marriage of his parents. His parents divorced when he was one year old and his mother together with him and his half-sister moved from London back to Oslo.

From The Telegraph, 25 July 2011
"Norway killer: Anders Behring Breivik was a 'mummy's boy'":
The absent father is a theme that Anders returned to repeatedly in his rambling 1.500 page manifesto. His diary reveals an [odd conflict with] his mother – at once fond of her and furious at the liberal upbringing she gave him. He wrote: "I do not approve of the super-liberal, matriarchal upbringing as it completely lacked discipline and has contributed to feminize me to a certain degree."

From CBS News - World Watch, 25 July 2011
"Breivik's father: I wish my son killed himself":
The father of Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian who confessed to last Friday's twin terror attacks, said he was ashamed and disgusted by his son's acts and wished he had committed suicide. Jens David Breivik, a former diplomat who lives in retirement in the south of France, said he first learned of his son's attacks from media websites." I couldn't believe my eyes. It was totally paralyzing and I couldn't really understand it," he said. Breivik's parents divorced in 1980, and his father lived in London while he and his mother lived in Oslo. In an interview with the Swedish tabloid Expressen, Breivik said he and his son have had virtually no contact with one another since 1995 (when Anders was 16), except for a "bland" phone call about 10 years ago. "I don't feel like his father," said Breivik from his secluded home in southern France.

From the Swedish television SVT1, 22 December 2011, 10:00 p.m.
"Brennpunkt: Far till en massmördare" available on the Internet until further notice:
Title to be translated in English as "Focal Point: The father of a mass murderer",
Norwegian documentary by NRK's ?? Brennpunkt-editors. The terror suspect Anders Breivik Behring has in interrogations refused to talk about his childhood. For the first time now tells Breivik father and stepfather about the mass murderer's family and upbringing. Starring: Jens Breivik and Tore Tollefsen.

From the Swedish television SVT2, 19 April 2012, 08:00 p.m.
"Den norske terroristen", translated title of the original
"Norway's massacre", BBC documentary by Edward Watts:
Documentary shown on BBC HD and BBC2 on 15-16 April 2012 on occasion of the ongoing trial of Anders Breivik in Oslo's district court. The documentary dealt with the question of Breivik's motives for his crime, whether his was sane or insane, and whether he should be allowed to have his own statements of motives broadcasted or not. Among others interviewed there was forensic psychiatrist Randi Rosenqvist but none of them even mentioned Breivik's family situation during his upbringing, the absence of his father with whom he did not speak the last 15 years, his views about his mother and the other way round, etc.

One has to go to Wikipedia in order to be informed that Breivik reproached his mother for being, in his opinion, a "moderate" feminist (whatever that means, if he really expressed it so - no reference is given to the source). He wrote about his upbringing: "I do not approve of the super-liberal, matriarchal upbringing as it completely lacked discipline and has contributed to feminizing me to a certain degree". It is extremely interesting to note the example of another young man involved in serial shooter who also is reported to have had a similarly complicated upbringing (only for Swedish readers, in a Swedish Newspaper.)

Yes, the FAMILY, and parents' responsibility for it and for their children, contrasted to the death of committed love, divorces, feminism and promiscuity: the very same family that, together with the Christian "Holy Family", is repeatedly and programmatically scorned in various programs at the "public service" Swedish Radio, as already indicated below. Repeated attacks are made as in the "cultural" program "OBS-Kulturkvarten" in time for Christmas 2011 (23 December 1.45 and 8.45 pm) with text by a prominent "feminist sex entertainer" in the role of amateur-apprentice theologian. Another writer-columnist in the role of amateur-apprentice theologian-philosopher-of-science whom I already noted many years ago was invited on 28 October 2011 by the public service Swedish Radio to give a one-and-half hour sermon on science and atheism that also contributes to the deconstruction of the traditional values of the loving family, as do other "artistic" sermons as indicated above in my entry on the SCUM-manifesto. And most of the press, especially the Swedish one, contributes systematically to the silencing of the consequences of the ongoing deconstruction of the family. Like in the Breivik-case it ignores or hushes the fact that many family-tragedies are correlated with if not caused by absent or absented parents, almost always fathers. One example among many is the case of a young murderer whose symptomatic upbringing is hushed, like Breivik's, in a report by Dagens Nyheter (25 April 2012). If that is not enough this very same dimension of the problem has also been hushed even after public opinion forced the Swedish government to investigate and report the scandalous history of related child abuse and neglect in institutions and foster homes (Vanvård i Social Barnavård, SOU 2011:61 with English summary). It is also symptomatic that the bibliography in the report - I could not believe my eyes - neglected all reference to domestic and international scientific research on the matter, as well as to books that contributed to public opinion behind the report and to debates (cf. one more, on political intrusion into the family, among many examples in Google on "omhändertagande av barn") around the Swedish act on the care of young people (Lag om Vård av Unga, ULV, act 1990:52). On 17 May 2012 the Swedish state television reported (film Stulen Barndom, i.e. Stolen Childhood) on the tragic life of one man who embodied and fostered the build-up of public opinion on the issue, ending his life with a suicide, exactly the same that was reported (see above, CBS News 25 July 2011) that Breivik's absent father wished his son had done. It should be obvious that some reflections are needed on the importance of the family for the formation of youth, even if not circumscribed to the views of Catholicism.

The ongoing deconstruction or destruction of the family in the name of alternative "family constellations" can also hamper the integration of immigrants and the mutual understanding of different cultures, which stands at the center of the Breivik tragedy. This is especially so when religions are involved, such as Islam, where the secularization process and the destruction of the family have not progressed as much as in formerly Christian West. For instance, contrary to the case of the Muhammad drawings controversy or Muhammad cartoons controversy, Jesus Christ is often the object of frivolous contempt and scorn, and one late example among innumerable many like the Swedish Ecce Homo exhibition is James Frey's The Final Testament of the Holy Bible with the goal of "creating a new mythology" on a Christian model. For instance, the Swedish state television channel SVT1 sent on 16 May 2012 in the investigative journalistic series Uppdrag Granskning a program that with hidden cameras and controversially edited recordings purports to reveal what values do Muslim leaders spread in Swedish mosques and what advice imams give to self-declared oppressed women who simulate a confession of would-be intimate family conflicts about sexual rights vs. duties, polygamy and wife-beating. And all this is broadcasted against the highlighted background of state subsidies to religious communities presupposing their role of "maintaining and strengthening the society's basic values". This is recalled to mean, among other things, that the communities must work for "equality between men and women, and against discrimination, violence, and brutality". In pursuing this the tv-program embodies all ongoing confusions about the relation between public vs. private, religious vs. secular, ethical vs. theological, civil society vs. government and the principle of subsidiarity. In law this relates further to the phenomenon of criminalization (calls for police) that in Sweden has been the object of a penetrating PhD dissertation by Claes Lernestedt. The issue would take us too far here, but I have tried to address it elsewhere, (as in another item of this blog about the Society for Cutting Up Men, S.C.U.M. already mentioned above) when analyzing the related hypocrisy in political correctness that the tv-program so well exemplifies. It assumes that religious institutions should contribute to the reduction of ethics to law enforcement, recommending solution of family conflicts by recourse to the police, ignoring even the teachings of restorative justice. It exacerbates mutual mistrust and hate that may end in violence and terror of Breivik-type. In all this most Westerners today condemn Islamic polygamy but don't care about the "why" of monogamy and its Christian sources. At the same time practical polygamy is probably most often practiced tacitly among Westerners in the form of serial monogamy, adultery and the extremes of polyamory without raising public outrage. And nobody cares about the significant parallels between Islam, Judaism and Christianity with the often misunderstood Christian teachings (Ephesians 5:24 and 1 Peter 3:1-6) with regard to wives' obedience to their husbands that takes into account the difficulties of an institution having two equal CEOs, as well as teachings (1 Corinthians 7:2-5) with regard to rights and duties in sexual intercourse that could alleviate wife-beating or mutual beatings by preventing destructive emotional blackmailing and retaliation (cf. Romans 12:20, Proverbs 25:21-22.)

It is difficult to talk about WHY Anders Breivik did what he did because of what he felt. Difficult - and so what? Difficult as trying to understand world-wide terrorism - and so what? It is symptomatic that nobody up to now seems to have been able to submit Breivik's Manifesto (also in pdf-version) or not even the shorter and simpler video 2083 - A European Declaration of Independence to a serious rational analysis in the sense of extracting from it some rationale that explains his legitimization of his own views on societal decay, akin to the views held by Islamic terrorists or, say, by the Una-bomber Ted Kaczynski. This importance of the family - all important in the Christian and especially Catholic perspective - is to be contrasted to the fact that in many Western secularized countries one prefers to talk about community, government, police, far right (less the Stalinist-Maoist-influenced left or far left), feminism (it was "men's" fault - see the Swedish text in a major newspaper on the fatidic 25 July "How-should-we-identify-the-lonely-dangerous-men"), and legislation. And the whole society, in the present secularized and postmodern frame of mind, sees the social and ethical problem in the perspective of a legal positivism as expressed by lawyers and prosecutors, with no idea of restorative justice. And the legislation of our time has neither time nor motivation for one-hundredth of the depth of thought as Alexis de Tocqueville's 150 years ago. Yes, the tragedy is probably the result of the ongoing tragic divinization and misunderstanding of democracy as well as of the concomitant destruction of the family as basic unit of society, and in particular of a democratic society according to the principle of subsidiarity.

As a test of whether it is a question of misunderstanding of democracy in a time when religious freedom for minorities tends to be interpreted as the secularized majority's right to question the freedom of religion, I analyzed an article (in Swedish: "Därför ler Anders Behring Breivik") in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter published on 20 April 2012. This was under the stressful days at the beginning of the trial of Breivik. The article written by science journalist and historian Henrik Arnstad, in strange similarity to another one written some days later (25 April, by art critic Ingela Lind) purports to explain why Breivik appears sometimes cool or even smiling during the trial as he also was during the perpetration of his crimes. The explanation given is that he is a modern fascist, and he sees "politically correct" socialists, liberals, and feminists as the German fascists regarded Jews: in this perspective the actions and attitudes of Breivik are understandable and logical. He does not need to be understood (so long as he does not unite with too many like-minded): it is not a question of psychological insanity but, rather, a matter of political ideology (so long as it does not unite too many like-minded).

This author's attitude also seems to be the one that justifies the limitations imposed on the freedom of expression in broadcasting Breivik's repugnant defense during the trial, while, paradoxically, no limitations are ever imposed on "ideological artistic" expressions such as, say, in popular satanic rock music. In this way the author of the article explains away everything by gathering together socialists, liberals, feminists, Jews, and the term political correctness itself, and himself, as symbolizing the victims of fascism and Nazism. That is, a sort of inverse "guilt by association", a redemption or "honor by association". In reality it can be simply the author's application of the socio-psychological principle of winning the argument by means self-victimization or victim mentality, especially in the case of mentioning Jews related to the Holocaust as the author does. Or it was the author's unconscious impersonation of Jesus' persona as way of distancing himself from the evil that Breivik's example makes us suspect may dwell also in ourselves, as I indicated elsewhere. I ponder that it was in the name of the sanctified liberalism of the French revolution and sanctified socialism of applied marxism that innumerable innocents were sacrificed with the same logic of Breivik, as today's feminist enthusiasts of theS.C.U.M. Manifesto are allowed to advertise with impunity the murder of men while priests are not allowed to preach against homosexuality. Not to mention the cool and democratic collateral murder of civilians in the ongoing war against terrorism, or the Lancet Surveys of Iraq War Casualties. All with the same basic logic of sacrificing innocents for a supposedly higher long term ideal that in Iraq's case was not even legalized by the United Nations, but is excused by reference to the example of war against Nazism, if not Vietnam's communism. And yet there are many who in their superficial analysis (without real whys) of Breivik refuse to relate his mass murder (so long as he does not unite too many like-minded) to nations' "democratically" (as for USA's Iraq invasion) organized governmental murder that is called war.

The author of the article, journalist and historian, even concludes his article imagining in his interpretation that Breivik could well have experienced the crime as "mission accomplished". The journalist-historian does not perceive the embarrassing fact that the banner became famous as it was proclaimed by president George W. Bush as marking the end of major combat operations after the Iraq invasion in May 2003. It is, finally, symptomatic that the author does not know, or acknowledge that political correctness also has a main connotation in Stalinist "socialist" orthodoxy, revealing itself in socio-psychological studies that i have reviewed elsewhere as having much to do with the Western decadence of the family institution in its Christian conception. Swedish readers can refer further to my earlier blog item about the "family", and another one with its links as examples of decay of family relationships.

And the family has much to do with politics, not only because the family has long been conceived as the basic unit of civil society prior to the liberal atomization into discrete individuals. When humans cannot experience a loving consideration within their family they will look for it within the closest social environment, tribes, gangs, political parties, or the historical nation, leading to desperate nationalism. , the "flag", the godly "royal family" or "democracy", or "general will" of the "people". When all of them fail or are not sufficient because of the unavoidable dilution of the interpersonal, intimate emotional ties, the next step is socialistic or capitalistic internationalism and multiculturalism as related nowadays to the dream of cosmopolitan computerized globalization. One cannot rescue one's own family but wants to rescue the world. But what ultimately and desperately is being sought is likely to be the kind of love that in the Christian tradition is comprehensively called charity. The obscure etymology of the word religion suggests that it aimed at binding or relating humans among themselves and to God, revealing them as brothers because of their common godly filiation.

if such thoughts appear quite weird to us, citizens of societies living in a secularized culture, it may be due to having ignored or forgotten that the "political approach" to the management of human affairs is "making polis (or community)." "One of the essential conditions for making polis is the creation of an image of sharing and the breakdown of the ego-desire drive." (Words of this last paragraph up to here are from West Churchman's The Systems Approach and Its Enemies, 1979, p. 24, cf. p. 74). The secular attempt to make polis without a religious tradition that supports ethics does not only undermine human tolerance to different religions and fosters "phobias" (as illustrated by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, (chap.6 or II.1) but also blurs political analysis into a hodgepodge of bombastic political constructions. This is clearly illustrated in the inconsequential analyses that the Breivik-events prompted political intellectuals to make, as Steve Sailer about Breivik's Brain. Swedish readers may read Paul Gottfried about of the meaning of cultural Marxism adduced by Breivik, and Roland Poirier Martinsson about the standard political left-right scale's attempts to appropriate Breivik's overall rhetoric. Others like Lars Adaktusson relate terrorist attacks to "madness and extremism" and talk about "motives and driving forces", a conceptual morass that I addressed in my review of Philip Zimbardo's acclaimed book on The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. The Breivik tragedy has turned into a grab-and-scramble party of using the tragedy for own political purposes. And this without ever questioning whether there may be anything fundamentally wrong in society's "democratic" political ethics that raises terror-feelings in mentally vulnerable, or spiritually sensitive people like, say, the classical Islamist Sayyid Qutb's who are then declared criminal or insane as the politically incorrect dissidents in former Stalinist Soviet Union.

No surprise, then, that forensic psychiatry with its obscure relation to sociology of law, politics, ethics, theology and religious feelings has had troubles in defining Breivik's mental status. And we ourselves (as Tocqueville, mentioned above) should have troubles in defining the dangers and cultural status of secularized Western democracies. This became clear upon the announcement of the court's announcement of the verdict on Breivik on 24 August 2012, widely publicized in the world press, not the least in the USA. The riddle is illustrated by newspapers' editorials (such as in Dagens Nyheter 25 August 2012) that attempt to summarize the verdict as the resolution of a conflict between the first pair of expert psychiatrists consulted by the court (Torgeir Husby and Synne Sørheim) diagnosing Breivik as paranoid schizophrenic and the second pair of psychiatrists summoned later (Angar Aspaas and Terje Tørrissen) countering the first diagnosis with their own of Breivik having been and being fully accountable and therefore entitled to prison instead of institutional patient psychiatric care. That is, after the first diagnosis had been published prosecutors and public outrage led the court to summon the second pair of psychiatrists. The latter's diagnosis was then endorsed by the court verdict and pacified the outrage. A consequence, however, was the subsequent mass-media's smearing of the first psychiatrists and of the stamping of the outcome as a failure of the discipline of forensic psychiatry. It came to be claimed as being unscientific because experts disagreed among themselves. As if it were up to the court to determine what is scientific truth in the context of paradigmatic strifes in normal science, including pure mathematics. And as if it the choice of the second pair of psychiatrists summoned by the court could not have been "commissioned results". Not to mention that in my own experience and as common knowledge in scientific communities the choice of experts determines the outcome of evaluations such as in determining the allowance of research grants. The awkward thing is that in the first diagnosis Breivik's behavior would have been seen as motivated by delusional misconceptions while in the endorsed second diagnosis it is seen as motivated by political engagement or involvement. That is, again, as if political involvement cannot be caused by delusional misconceptions. In this way the court's verdict uncovers all the basic philosophical and ethical problems associated with the determination of evil and responsibility that I have addressed elsewhere in my review of a well known but problematic book on "how good people turn evil".

Theologians and philosophers like Heidegger try to create a theology without God as I myself considered elsewhere, and it is not strange that politicians and political intellectuals also try the same in the pursuit of the "breakdown of the ego-desire drive." Everybody seems to mention and appeal to anything except Christian teachings that are systematically ignored except for being smeared in associations to the "Christian right". After writing most of this present text I had to wait until May 2nd, 2015, in order to see the first essay in the press that addressed the core of the Breivik-question in terms similar to those I introduced here: Emerich Roth's article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish, 2 May 2015) with the suggestive title "Bara kärlek kan rädda oss från hat" [Only love can rescue us from hate]. Nevertheless, it is symptomatic that the author attempts to base his appeal for universal love upon secular grounds with the result that the educational functions of the family are supposed to be taken over by the school system and its staff [read: "society" and government] including men who would function as "role models" of fathers for children who cannot anymore rely on their dysfunctional families. This naively hopeful or, rather, hopeless reliance upon gender-equalization and government recalls two reviews of mine dealing with political correctness, and with state individualism. The naivety of Roth's conception is sealed by his one only intellectual reference to, and quotation: by the Swedish author Hjalmar Söderberg: "One wants to be loved, in lack thereof admired, in lack thereof feared, in lack thereof loathed and despised. One wants to instill some sort of emotion in people. The soul trembles before emptiness and desires contact at any price." (From Doctor Glas, 1905.) That is the way in which the complex message of love vs. justice in the Torah, the Bible or the Koran was substituted by reference to the common sense of Hjalmar Söderberg, in the supposition of being able to avoid the issue of religion.

We are reminded that process of dismantling Christianity started long ago and today not even philosophers themselves are prone to study, for instance, J.-G. Fichte's atheism dispute (in French La Querelle de l'Athéisme, the case described in French Wikipedia) at the time when society and its legal system still cared about it all. Poor C. S. Lewis turns in his grave or cries in heaven for apparently have written in vain his Christian apologetics as in Mere Christianity. And so what? Many believe that Christ himself died on the cross "in vain", while Christians and others are busy elaborating complex conspiracy theories (cf. part 1 and part 2) about the main agent of the event.

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E110628 Democracy and information technology

I feel totally estranged from the new order and I am horrified at how easily many of my contemporaries accommodate themselves to an intellectually blind attitude to information technology and its social setting. I would like to write to friends about my moral and intellectual isolation and how my mind no longer has a country. If a had a genuinely appropriated mother-language I would have spent my time after retirement the year 2002 in writing some sort of memories or book.

In the affluent and democratic Western world as represented today by the USA or my home country Sweden the majority has staked out a formidable fence around thought that some like to call by the controversial and often misunderstood term political correctness. Inside those limits a writer is free but woe betide him if he dares to stray beyond them. Not that he need fear an auto-da -fé or ritual of public penance of condemned heretics, but he is the victim of all kinds of unpleasantness and everyday persecutions. An institutional career is closed to him, a political one if he is a politician, scientific in he is a researcher who depends upon research funds that nowadays are controlled by the politics of science. Before publishing his views, he thought he had supporters; it seems he has lost them once he has declared himself publicly; for his detractors speak loudly and those who think as he does, but without his courage, keep silent and slink away. He gives in and finally bends beneath the effort of each passing day, withdrawing into silence as if he felt ashamed at having spoken the truth. The example of Daniel Ellsberg who released to the press the Pentagon papers, is an exception in this last mentioned aspect, since he suffered this process but did not give in.

It is not because I am an opponent of democracy that I want to be sincere about it. Men do not receive the truth from their enemies and their friends scarcely offer it to them; that is why I utter it.

My writing is written under the pressure of a kind of religious terror exercised upon my soul by the sight of the irresistible democratic-technological revolution and unfurling of equality in social conditions which has progressed over so many centuries, surmounting all obstacles, and which is still advancing today amid the ruins it has caused.

I realize that, despite my precautions, nothing is easier than to criticize the whole of my work should anyone think of doing so. Those who wish to take a close look at it will discover a dominant thought which binds together, so to speak, the various contributions. But the range of the topics which I had to deal with is very wide and anyone attempting to single our one thought to challenge the body of thoughts, to quote one idea wrenched from the main body of ideas, will manage to do so with ease. I should, therefore, like people to do me the favor of reading my work in the same spirit that has guided my efforts .

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All this (the text above) is my sort of paraphrase of some sentences written by Alexis de Tocqueville himself and by Isaac Kramnick in his introduction to Gerald E. Bevan's excellent translation of Tocqueville's book Democracy in America (1835-1840, p. xv, 298, 15, 25). I did feel very touched by this author's work and its import for understanding the limitations of research in a democracy, especially in the relation between theory and practice, action and thought, politics and science (pp. 352, 529, 533, 624, 709, 732, 735) but also regarding digital social media, political correctness, participatory design, privacy, the role of law, and more. The title of chapter 10 in the second volume (p. 529) spells it out for those who are aware of the USA-dominance in the ideology of universities and information technology: WHY AMERICANS ARE MORE ATTRACTED TO PRACTICAL RATHER THAN THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF THE SCIENCES. And the subsequent chapter on Of The Spirit In Which The Americans Cultivate The Arts furthermore suggests, as Christopher Norris in recent times does in What's Wrong with Postmodernism(1990), why some "Marxist" (and non-Marxist) information scientists after the debacle of the Soviet Union and of political faith have diverted their interest from sociopolitical systemic issues and focused on DESIGN. I am convinced that many others would benefit from Tocqueville's book. Here I just wished to reproduce some words which, without further comparisons, can be held as a mirror of our ambitions when words are no longer sufficient and most of them are likely to be misunderstood.

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E110513 Wagner-faddism as symptom of cultural crisis?

Every year a certain kind of opera lovers make the pilgrimage to Bayreuth's Wagner Festival. Richard Wagner is hailed as a musical phenomenon while the cult of Wagner has internationally been identified as a business-industry to the point of a "Wagnerian crisis of imagination". Wagner initiatives are also taken in Sweden. Richard Wagner's entire operatic cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, 16 hour musical drama was to attract both local and long distance Wagnerians to the various cultural events to the city of Karlstad in April 2011. These events and the general interest for Wagner was assiduously covered in the cultural sections of main Swedish press, in numerous articles and reviews, exemplified as follows (texts in Swedish):

(1) About Der Ring des Nibelungen in Värmlandsoperan in the city of Karlstad (16 February 2011)
(2) A dance event based on Wagner's opera (16 February 2011)
(3) The first modern middle-class man is found in Wagner (17 April 2011)
(4) ”The Rhein Gold” at Värmlandsoperan, Karlstad (20 April 2011)
(5) On W alkyrie (23 April 2011)
(6) "Siegfried" at Värmlandsoperan, Karlstad (24 April 2011)
(7) ”Walkyrie” at Värmlandsoperan (26 April 2011)
(8) ”Ragnarök” at Värmlandsoperan, Karlstad (26 April 2011)
(9) Summary of "The Ring" at Värmlandsoperan (27 April 2011)
(10) On Walkyrie at Staatsoper-Schillerteatern, Berlin (29 April 2011)

I have read them all but I could not notice any explanation of why the artwork or the performances did deserve such an attention or, for that matter, what they were about unless that is taken for granted in that the articles are directed only to already knowledgeable and convinced faddist-fans who, in turn, cannot explain their faddism. I know about very cultured and philosophically sophisticated people who every year travel several times to Germany in order to assist performances of Wagner's operas. In my attempt to understand their unexplained passion for Wagner I reached back towards what I myself have experienced, read, and thought about myths. I am particularly engaged in trying to understand why the very same kind of people who take so much care for Wagner's musical stories would never exert similar efforts to appreciate Hebrew-Christian "myths" as they have been staged in innumerable artistic and musical settings in our Western culture during hundreds of years.

So, what is this Wagner-faddism all about? The most sophisticated interpretations, for instance of the Walkyrie at Berlin Staatsoper (referenced above) talk about the scenography of Guy Cassiers and his team from the "innovation house of scenic art in Antwerp" that co-produced with the La Scala opera in Milan. It states that it was about "the longing and the search for motherhood. It is the search for a combined body-physicality and a true sense of reality that has been made impossible in a world designed by power's and perverted fatherhood's pipe dreams." And, further: "A world that on every step commits violence against love, and runs forward in the performance's ingenious game with lights and projections - a visual dialogue with the main theme in the music." What are we to do of this verbosity? It does not tell what is all about, but it happens to support the repeatedly indicted politically correct feminism in its ongoing struggle against patriarchy.

Half of the section "Kultursöndag" (Culture Sunday) in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter 17 April 2011 DN is dedicated to Wagner, including journalist Eric Schüldt's article "Varför älskar man Wagner" (Why people love Wagner). It is not available on the net but a closely related article was soon published (19 April 2011) on the (because of some reason) his intensely monitored Wagner-faddism written by the same author, a broadly advertised Wagner-faddist. Somehow these article seem to never get to the point on what all is about, but one thing that becomes clear that in the performance of "Das Rheingold", Eric had found in the story "a gay to identify with", and that at the first break of "Lohengrin", he looked around in the audience and he met the eyes of a guy with whom he fell in love with, and with whom "he lives still today." A Wagnerian friend of mine commented upon this gay phenomenon as follows: "Concerning gayness and Wagner it is true that one sees relatively many gay men in Berlin during Wagner-festivals. If somebody only knew why..." And I replied: "Anybody who knew why would also have understood in depth some of the meanings of Wagnerian thought and music."

The very same day, 17 April, Dagens Nyheter, the self-avowed lesbian, "gender professor" Tiina Rosenberg, a Swedish LGBT-icon who earlier as representative for the political party "Feministic Initiative" FI had proposed the introduction of polygamy in Swedish law, was invited to explain who or what Wagner, after all is. She states as expressed in the article's heading: " Wagner is like a Finnish sauna bath". So much for the cultural level of main newspapers (and gender professors.)

I am not going to solve the riddle here but in order to help myself and others in further studies I reach back towards Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and influential thinker associated with analytical psychology, and whose collected works I happened to study some thirty years ago. In Collected Works vol. 10 "Civilization in Transition" he touches upon Wagner in two essays, on "Wotan" and on "After the Catastrophe". In the latter he writes (pp. 213-214): " While Nietzsche was prophetically responding to the schism of the Christian world with the art of thinking, his brother in spirit, Richard Wagner, was doing the same think with the art of music. Germanic prehistory comes surging up, thunderous and stupefying, to fill the gaping breach in the Church. Wagner salved his conscience with Parsifal, for which Nietzsche could never forgive him, but the Castle of the Grail vanished into an unknown land. The message was not heard and the omen went unheeded. Only the orgiastic frenzy caught on and spread like an epidemic. Wotan the storm-god had conquered. Ernst Jünger sensed this very clearly: in his book On the Marble Cliffs a wild huntsman comes into the land, bringing with him a wave of possession greater than anything known even in the Middle Ages. Nowhere did the European spirit speak more plainly than it did Germany, and nowhere was it more tragically misunderstood."

I believe there is much more to be found in Carl Jung's conceptions or even in encyclopedic summaries of Wagner's work, such as when Wikipedia remarks that both the Idylls and the Ring Cycle (and the general European craze for Nordic-Icelandic myth) were what Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (vol. 2, pp. 310-311) characterized as "second religiousness", a sentimental "toying with myths that no one really believes [any more], a tasting of cults that it is hoped might fill an inner void...It starts with Rationalism's fading out in helplessness... and finally the whole world of the primitive religion...returns to the foreground..."

Or, as expressed by the Swedish political scientist Tage Lindbom in his book The Myth of Democracy (1996, p. 118) regarding clear warning signs in Western culture in the early nineteenth century: "Ambiguous, outré romanticism makes inroads into the human psyche, the music of Richard Wagner, for example, manifests a morbidity in its peristatic, tropistic upheavels. Culturalism, the idolization of cultural pursuits, had promised to bring the human spirit to a higher level, mobilizing 'the eternal' in man's breast; but now we begin to see suggestions that this spiritual journey is in fact going in the opposite direction." An understanding of the appeal of German culture is also fostered by Wolf Lepenies in his The Seduction of Culture in German history, where, however, the problem if not only to have placed culture above politics, but also above religion making it a religion.

The latest most serious and failed attempt to revive the second religiousness may have been The German Faith Movementthat temporarily lured even Carl Jung himself . No comments. But Wagner faddists pretend nothing. Well-intentioned approaches by Western intellectuals try to relate Wagner's work to Schopenhauer's problematic philosophy, as Bryan Magee does in Wagner and Philosophy,(2001) or they indirectly relate it to Parsifal arguing that it is a mythological symbol that foreshadows the birth of modern man, whatever modernity should mean, as Sonia Setzer suggests in her anthroposophically oriented book (2008, in Portuguese) on the very subject of Parsifal.

In the meantime the cultural editor of a major newspaper like the Swedish Dagens Nyheter on 2 September 2012 allows himself to go on writing about the relation between Wagnerian music and Nazism with haphazard rambling reasoning in an article (heading translated into English) Can one listen to Wagner without getting the urge to invade Poland? Its opportunely obscure title and conclusion is that Wagner's music is about "embracing the tension between manipulating and giving in to manipulation", and that "it puts the perhaps most important questions about man's inner tension". I perceive that as an example of bankruptcy in ethics as related to aesthetics. The very same cultural editor writes a later article on 30 December 2012 with the title Spänningen mellan operahistoriens två giganter känns inpå bara huden [The tension between opera history's two giants is felt on the bare skin.] The article inconclusively concludes advocating that "only by uniting Wagner's irresistible awareness of fatality with Verdi's luminous faith in the individual human voice, we can fully understand the world, aware that tragedy can always become a comedy, and vice versa." This time I perceive still more clearly the bankruptcy of not only ethics reduced to comedy and tragedy, but also of culture, at least Swedish culture.

And this could be an introduction to the study of what Plato has to say about music, to begin with the Laws (II, 654d), Republic (424b-c) and Timaeus (47b-d).

Suggestions for further reading besides Plato, disregarding whether they support my analysis:

Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics (1984)
<http://www.amazon.com/Wagnerism-European-Culture-Politics-David/dp/0801492
831> as found in the link
<http://ies.berkeley.edu/people/seniorfellows/dlarge.html>

The Richard Wagner Cult

<http://users.belgacom.net/wagnerlibrary/other/nordau.htm>

Aspects of Wagner (1988)
<http://www.amazon.com/Aspects-Wagner-Bryan-Magee/dp/0192840126/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_cp_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1SCQ7V57ZWDNVYBSD6X4>

The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy (2002)

<http://www.amazon.com/The-Tristan-Chord-Wagner-Philosophy/dp/080507189X/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_cp_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=1SCQ7V57ZWDNVYBSD6X4>.

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110427 Easter - a time for anti-intellectual anti-Christian propaganda

I keep trying to understand "the death of the intellect" and consequently the explaining away of ethics as the phenomenon manifests itself in research and in the supposedly intellectual argument, this time exemplified in the cultural pages of newspapers. A Swedish cultural journalist who is also a literary critic, Jonas Tente wrote on Easter, 23 April 2011, an article in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter with the title "Do not underestimate a good story" [text in Swedish]. The article was in turn, commented and praised the following day by the newspaper's cultural section chief Björn Wiman in an article titled "Easter passion drama shows the power of the new journalism" [text also in Swedish]. Thus, it is not the new journalism that shows the power of Easter's passion drama, but the other way round. Both articles were designed to highlight the importance of stories or narratives, or as Wiman quotes, "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live." Tente himself begins his article, with a declaration of faith, that he is, yes, a believer, but a believer not in God or the Bible, not a believer that Jesus is our savior because he had himself tortured and executed in order to redeem our sins. He writes "But I believe in the power of fiction to capture our ever-wandering minds and make us the thinking beings, we flatter ourselves to be but too rarely are. " The paradox is that he, together with Wiman, flatters himself to be that thinking being, without accounting for how the stories made him such. Not a word was said thus, whether the thinking beings who during a few thousand years have contributed to built up our modern culture, and felt themselves saved by the Jewish-Christian stories, in fact, were not really thinking since they really believed in God and the Bible. It had been appropriate to mention, for instance, something about the long-standing and ongoing discussions on rhetoric's relation to reason , or of Mythos to Logos,not to mention the classical questions of religion against reason. But Tente's article inadvertently also is a defense of the Christian religion: he believes in "power of fiction" but has nothing to say about fiction, or for that matter, about wherefrom comes that mysterious power, or that faith of his, not to mention love. But, in compensation he is the more accurate in declaring what he does not believe and in that way he seems unconsciously and at his best be an atheistic mystic , by analogy to the classical mysticism in the Christian "negative theology". It is worthwhile to once again witness the atheist desperation in the paradoxical empty declaration: I believe in fiction's power to grasp our ever-wandering minds and make us the thinking beings we flatter ourselves to be but too rarely are. It is remarkable that somebody should want to emphasize something about the "fiction" while rejecting God for being only fiction, and that before he really spells out what is truth and what does it mean to be genuine "thinking beings". But it is clear that modern and postmodern philosophy and psychology have already explained away these issues: some time ago I heard a scientist relate to relevant resurrected trends and refer to "moral imagination" as the ultimate source of a legitimate and rational creativity.

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110427 - Påsken - ett tillfälle för anti-intellektuell anti-kristen propaganda

Jag fortsätter att försöka förstå "intellektets död" och därmed också etikens bortförklaring så som den visar sig i forskningen och i den förment intellektuella argumentationen, denna gång exemplifierad i tidningarnas kultursidor. I Sverige finns det en kulturjournalist tillika litteraturkritiker, Jonas Tente som i påsken den 23 april 2011 skrev en artikel i Dagens Nyheter "Underskatta inte en bra historia" som i sin tur kommenterade och prisades dagens efter av tidningens kulturchef Björn Wiman i "Påskens passionsdrama visar den nya journalistikens kraft." Alltså är det är inte den nya journalistiken som visar Påskens passionsdramas kraft eftersom båda artiklarna avser lyfta fram berättelserna eller "narrativernas" betydelse, eller som Wiman citerar "We tell ourselves stories in order to live". Tente själv inleder sin artikel men en trosförklaring, att han är visst troende dock troende inte på Gud eller Bibelns ord, inte troende på att Jesus är vår frälsare för att han lät sig torteras och avrättas för att förlösa våra synder, utan som han skriver "Men jag tror på fiktionens kraft att fånga upp våra ständigt irrande medvetanden och göra oss till de tänkande varelser vi smickrar oss om att vara men alltför sällan är". Paradoxen är att han, liksom Wiman, samtidigt smickrar sig för att vara just de där tänkande varelsen utan att redovisa på vilket sätt vilka berättelser gjort honom till sådan. Inte ett ord blev därmed sagt om huruvida de tänkande varelserna som under några tusen år byggt upp vår dagens kultur och kännt sig frälsta av den judiska-kristna berättelserna i själva verket inte varit riktigt tänkande eftersom de trott på Gud och Bibelns ord. De hade till exempel varit på sin plats att nämna något om de sedan gammalt pågående diskussionerna om retorikens relation till förnuftet, eller Mythos relations till Logos för att inte tala om den klassiska religion mot förnuft. Hela Tentes artikel är egentligen också eller helst ett försvar för den kristna religionen. Han tror på "Fiktionens Kraft" men har inget att säga om Fiktionen eller för den delen den mystiska Kraften eller Tron, för att inte nämna den bortglömda Kärleken: vad de är för något eller var de kommer ifrån. Men han är desto noggrannare med att deklarera vad han inte tror på och på det viset tycks han omedvetet och i bästa fall bli en ateistisk mystiker, analogt till den klassiska mysticismen i den kristna "negativa teologin". Det är värt att än en gång bevittna den ateistiska desperationen i den paradoxalt tomma deklarationen: Men jag tror på fiktionens kraft att fånga upp våra ständigt irrande medvetanden och göra oss till de tänkande varelser vi smickrar oss om att vara men alltför sällan är. Märkligt att man vill understryka "fiktionen" samtidigt som man misstror Gud för att vara fiktion och innan man riktigt vet vad verklighet och verkligt "tänkande varelser" är eller skall vara för något. Men det är klart att moderna och postmoderna filosofin och psykologin redan har bortförklarat dessa frågor: för en tid sedan hörde jag en forskare knyta an till aktuella återuppståndna trender och hänvisa till "moralisk imagination" som den yttersta källan till en legitim och förnuftig kreativitet.

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110313 Humility in intellectual work

After a longer interruption in blogging due to an overload of thoughts, instead of going this Sunday to church I focused on prayer. In particular a prayer which has direct relevance for the feeling of inadequateness in my intellectual work: the feeling of impotence in face of overpowering ongoing events. I do not mean only the catastrophes of earthquakes and nuclear reactor blasts in Japan but in general the moral development or perceived spiritual decline of social life. For the purpose of self-examination I recalled the following prayer. The item which appeared most relevant seemed to be "the fear of being wronged", in the sense of not being listened to, perhaps because of being I myself wrong! Or because of believing to have the merit to be accorded attention and approval, while this implies the unfortunate wronging of others, my "neighbours". In any case, here comes the prayer, attributed to cardinal Rafael Merry del Val.

Jesus! meek and humble of heart, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, . . .
From the desire of being extolled, . . .
From the desire of being honored, . . .
From the desire of being praised, . . .
From the desire of being preferred to others, . . .
From the desire of being consulted, . . .
From the desire of being approved, . . .

From the fear of being humiliated, . . .

From the fear of being despised, . . .
From the fear of suffering rebukes, . . .
From the fear of being calumniated, . . .
From the fear of being forgotten, . . .
From the fear of being ridiculed, . . .
From the fear of being wronged, . . .
From the fear of being suspected, . . .

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it
That others may be esteemed more than I, . . .
That in the opinion of the world others may increase and I may decrease, . . .
That others may be chosen and I set aside, . . .
That others may be praised and I unnoticed, . . .
That others may be preferred to me in everything, . . .
That others become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, . . .

(From <http://the-pious-spinster.blogspot.com/2009/02/cardinal-merry-del-val-and-his-litany.html>)

This litany is particularly interesting for understanding the secularization of thought in Nordic countries, if not especially Sweden: it appears to me as standing in direct opposition to the consequently perverse interpretation of the Law of Jante.

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100823 Böcker och kärlek

Jag måste dela med mina läsare den dikten som jag tipsades om av min hustru, och som hittills hjälpt mig och kan hjälpa andra att sätta rättmätiga band på den tänkta intellektuella verksamheten. Det gäller dikten Böcker och kärlek. Av Carl David af Wirsén (1876)

När stum du sitter vid ditt arbetsbord

Och glömmer för en bok den vida jord,  

Och hon, som blef ditt allt, sig smyger då 

Att sina armar om sin älskling slå,  

Så säg ej buttert: lemna mig i fred! 

Nej, lemna boken du, och gör så med!  

Ty gråa luntor har du alla dar,  

Men ej du vet, hur länge hon är qvar,  

Och mången man, som sitter ensam nu, 

Så gerna ville störas just som du.  

Låt kärlek måla permeboken full 

Med miniatyrer, skinande i gull!  

Då skall, du arme, om ditt hem blir tomt, 

Den gamla boken stråla helgonfromt,

  Och just på sidan, der du stördes då,

Ett englahufvud vinkande skall stå.

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100822 Fjäska inte för pensionärerna? Tillbaka "Gamla och unga"

Det är ofta min, om än återhållsam, kontakt med massmedia som illegitimt “tvingar” mig att skriva så här. Sist Dagens Nyheters insändare den 100821 om “Dags att sluta fjäska”. Författaren ondgör sig över att partierna inför höstens val lovar sänka pensionärernas skatter. “Många av dagens pensionärer bor gratis i fina villor som de för länge sedan betalt alla lån på”…Detta tack vare att när de var unga drev igenom ett för dem förmånligt pensionssystem varvid deras barn och barnbarn tvingas nu betala både sin egen och de gamlas pension…Det lilla summa pengar de betalade in till pensionssystemet användes till dåtidens fåtaliga och små pensioner…” Författaren avslutar med att uppmana dagens egoistiska pensionärer att sluta suga ut sina barn och barnbarn. Ibland ser man dock en och annan gammal pensionär som t.ex. PRO:s Kurt Söderberg i Mitt i Värmdö den 11 mars 2014 som förundras över "hur förhållandet mellan generationerna har förändrats de senaste åren": hans generation mitt i ett hårt arbetsliv såg inte de äldre som belastning eller hinder för vars och en välstånd och konsumtionsutrymme. Men "helt plötsligt känns det som att vi som nått pensionsåldern mer och mer är ett hinder för den yngre generationens livskvalitet".

Och mönstret upprepar sig där politiker bidrar till att hetsa upp generationerna mot varandra och härskar genom att söndra då de på det viset behöver inte stå till svars för dina felaktiga bedömningar och beslut. Till exempel, Joen Dahlberg i Svenska Dagbladet kritiskt refererar den 11 februari 2013 att "politikerna vill ha generationsstrid". Ordföranden Aron Modig i ett ungdomsförbund, Kristdemokraternas (KD) till råga på allt, hävdar att "pensionärerna vill sko sig på bekostnad av kommande generationer och borde skämmas." Två andra politiker, KD-ledaren Göran Hägglund och Gunnar Axén, moderat ordförande i riksdagens socialförsäkringsutskott, lär ha "applåderat ungdomspolitikern och uppmanat till fortsatt kamp mot de giriga pensionärerna." Inget massmedialt intresse här för fattiga pensionärer så som i den hetsiga tidigare debatten om "barnfattigdom", inte.

Det är symptomatiskt för dagens andliga klimat att detta är hur vissa ungdomar ser på och känner för sina föräldrar. Om inte hat åtminstone avund i stället för kärlek. Det spelar ingen roll hur många procent är dessa “många” pensionärer som har det bra. De spelar ingen roll att många barn accepterar dessa föräldrars ekonomiska stöd och förväntar sig ärva föräldrarnas förmodade förmögenheten efter det att dessa gamla genom sina ständigt höjda skatter finansierat deras daghem, skola, hälsovård och samhällets infrastruktur som barnen numera tar för givna. Inte heller spelar det någon roll de 258 (i mars 2010 upp till 679) miljarder kronor som år 1999-2001 regeringen med stöd av alla partier överförde från pensionsfonderna till statskassan och till det samhällsbygge som alla disponerar över idag. Det finns en del annat skrivet om det för de som vill ha analys och fakta. Om detta inte anses spelar någon roll så får det tillskrivas den bristfälliga förståelsen för mänskliga rättigheter så som de bl.a. representeras av begreppet personlig egendom.

Och – om man skall generalisera som författaren gjorde - allt detta i stället för att barn glädjer sig över att de gamla under den korta tiden de har kvar i livet kan lindra ålderdomens ensamhet och krämpor genom att unna sig den levnadsstandard som de eventuellt kunnat spara sig till genom återhållsam konsumtion. Och i stället för att glädja sig över att de inte som i den övriga världen behöver personligen bidra till de gamlas uppehälle och vård, tack vare en utbyggd om än bristfällig äldreomsorg som i varje fall tycks befria dem från skyldigheten att höra sig av och bry sig om dem.

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100524 On friendship and personal relations

Some renewed experiences prompt me to return to the question of "spiritual friendship" about which I wrote (in Swedish) on 090802, the past August 2nd. With increasing age I am appalled by the amount of aggressiveness, vengeance, and even outright hate pouring out and into human relationships. And then I try to forget sheer indifference in wanton estrangement between dwellers who believe they will never need the needy neighbour's help, or between former friends who deny to the other the opportunity of justify or try to explain misunderstandings. I see that, even between relatives in occasionally "extended families", even on occasion of birthday celebrations and parties, it happens, for instance, that the one person A will not participate because person B is invited to be present, and person C will not even talk to person D because of earlier litigation, and person E will reproach the warden for not having invited a friend F, and person G will oppose that a former partner H was also invited because if offends the new participating partner I, etc., etc. In the middle of all this emotional confusion it will be even forgotten what the party or gathering was all about, for instance to salute a common acquaintance or relative who could have been seen as an occasion for mutual forgiveness and conciliation.

I remember having met such situations in certain workplaces. Some person may have fornicated (the classical word for infidelity in marriage), and litigated with husband or wife, leading to a divorce, perhaps after several decades' marriage, or, not better, soon after begetting the first children, which in turn taxes the later relationship with their children, if any. And there are wives who have renounced having children in regard to their husbands' unwillingness to have any. A fornicating, say, father, who inflicts to his wife or his children's mother and the children themselves the most grave humiliation and suffering of a divorce may also dare to humiliate the very same children by requiring their "respect" not only for himself but also for his new lover with whom he may even entertain a folie à deux. In due time the litigation and distancing from the partner leads to litigations and estrangement from the children who, as they reach adulthood, will retaliate by not allowing the child's grandfather or grandmother to see the grandchildren. Whenever that litigation is (temporarily?) resolved, the inborn aggressiveness will be projected into, say, a sister or brother-in- law, with the unconscious purpose to disrupt their relation, and so on. Whatever they say may be interpreted as an insinuation of malevolent criticism. In the meantime similar processes will go on in the working place with projections of family relations into work colleagues and managers, leading to situations like those described in the pioneer work of Otto Kernberg, Internal World and External Reality (1981, part 3). I myself described concretely such processes in an essay titled humanistic computing science, in its section dedicated to "Cooperative work: examples of problems". This sort of personality or personality disorder may eventually disrupt the network or a whole extended family or destroy a whole family or network of relatives, or a workplace, and was described to me by an insightful family victim as a need to hate: a hardly achieved conciliation will displace the focus to the next hate-object.

In my own experience it is extremely difficult if not impossible to cope with such personalities and most common recommendations to whoever is hurt is to move out of the organization, far from the disordered personality. It is harder to move "out of the family", to cut the relationship to a father, mother, brother or child, but those who have religious faith can at least resort to prayer. The personnel departments of businesses and institutions prefer to play "blind" to this kind of problems which in their simplest form may appear as bullying or mobbing. They have been professionally classified, more specifically as borderline personality disorder, or pathological narcissism, displaying as its most visible symptom a verbally abusive behavior.

All this is a sort or opposite to friendship and on a political plane attempts will be made to claim that it is neither aggression nor (just) retaliation but, rather, a call for justice. In the Christian tradition, however, it will be, as I already wrote once (below, 100511, in Swedish), a neglect of the integration between justice and caritas, sometimes conceived by others in terms of love-power-justice. My favorite psychologist and humanist, Carl Jung, writes (in his Collected Works 7, §78) that logically, the opposite of love is hate, and of Eros, Phobos (fear); but psychologically it is the will to power. Bad news for those who seek mainly justice through power, such as in brands of feminism, and, in particular, power in aggression such as bullying in families and in networks of relatives, but also in the politics of the Middle East and wars. But ultimately I like to recall how God is fictionally quoted as saying in the classic Imitation of Christ (the forty-second chapter of book 3): "Without Me friendship has no strength and cannot endure. Love which I do not bind is neither true nor pure".

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100520 Why complaints of harassment and offences?

So many people have been complaining about being harassed or offended to the point that there seems to emerge a sort of "abuse-industry". There have been several authors describing, if not explaining in depth, the phenomenon. I already mentioned (below), Howard Schwartz, Maciej Zaremba, or David Eberhard. In part it is to be attributed to the decreasing regard for others' feelings and values, or inability to tolerate and discuss individual differences that are perceived as threat to one's "group" identity. (For an interesting essay on tolerance, in Swedish, please see Vägar mot en sund toleranstillämpning). I would like, however, to test other, completing explanations. For instance, the role of the WILL in behaviour and feelings. It is a concept and a magnitude that seems to have disappeared from psychological, not to mention ethical, discourse. Human will had been long considered to be a directing force to be guided by reason and morals in the attainment of higher values. But it appears to me that nowadays people distrust the existence of higher values beyond lofty and vague democracy and human rights. The will is put at the service of pleasure. If something gives pleasure then the will is put at the service of the task of obtaining such pleasure.

If this is so then we have an explanation of several phenomena. For instance, several mass media which give advice in matters of personal relations insist in the importance of not only doing things you like but also not doing things that you don't like since it is inconceivable that they should be done if they do not give pleasure. Correspondingly, there is no blame in doing things you like, under the presupposition that it does not hurt others, supposedly equivalent to the fact that you do not perceive that it hurts or may hurt others in the short and long run. An example from a counseling TV-program some years ago was a counselor getting the question of whether it was OK to have sexual relations with dogs and she answered that it was not OK since you cannot ask a dog whether it really likes and wants to be involved in that. And so it goes with other things as with sex where, by the way, lustfulness and exciting attraction to whatever queer object is blessed by confounding it with biblical and romantic "love".

From this follows that harassment will be perceived whenever something happens that the supposed victim does not like. For instance, whatever sexual action that formerly was considered abject or objectionable is now considered OK if done under mutual consent. What it considered now as unacceptable (a word which has become curiously very common in use today) is not that it is in some abstract conception to be evil or unmoral but, rather, that it is done against your, the "victim's" will. And since the will is at the service of pleasure, any action risks to be a harassment if it does not contribute to pleasure. And this has not necessarily much to do with ethics, or right and wrong. The problem gets complicated by the fact that it is more difficult to understand and accept the case that what gives pleasure to one person perhaps give pleasure to the other person, and, furthermore in the short run but not in the long run. That would be the case, for instance, of supposed rape which becomes rape after the victim realizes that what initially appeared as exciting turned out to be disgusting, or the relationship turned out to be a bad business because it gives no more pleasure. A supposed, foreseen pleasure turned out to be a plague. An intercourse must then absurdly be preceded by a written, signed, contract of agreement and of payment of claims for damages. Harassment is then turned into money. Swedish readers may appreciate a commentary by Lillemor Östlin on this pseudo-rape phenomenon that also recalls the case of Julian Assange, on the Swedish site of the magazine Paragraf 19 July 2012.)

And something similar goes on with the problem of obesity. If life has no other meaning besides obtaining pleasure, then the human will should be put at this service, of obtaining sex and food. It will be extremely inconceivable to put the will at the service of some other abstract value, if not, say, "health". But health for what? There will be a trade-off between shorter life with more pleasures and a longer but boring, tedious life. And health is subjectively not so easily measurable and predictable as pleasure. So, what goes for sex, food, and health goes for lots of things in society. There are many pleasures and displeasures and many people will feel offended because they have been thwarted in their will and their purposes disregarding their ethical legitimacy...?

I would have to wait until 29 April 2011 in order to complete the text above with a reference to the most interesting paradoxical paper that became famous in Swedish mass media and illustrates the phenomenon address in this section. It is Johanna Koljonen's article in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter 18 December 2010, with the title "Dags att prata om det" [It's time to talk about it], leading to a whole mass media Internet-industry under the label of "Prata om det" [also as English version]. It shows in the most unintentionally pedagogical way what happens when disoriented sexuality with ego-will put at the service of instincts comes in conflict with other entities of the psyche, natural human feelings of love and commitment, and with conscience, resulting in disoriented anonymous resentment combined with vague complaints of abuse.

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100518 Why religion and social issues rather than science?

Some readers, especially university students or research colleagues sometimes ask why I have been focusing upon religious and mass media issues. I myself felt rather annoyed when my scientific advisor, professor West Churchman, in his late years kept repeating that 40.000 children all over the world die of starvation every day, instead of continuing to focus on scientific problems of information and inquiry. Why is this so? And why don't I write comprehensive longer texts which summarize my thoughts and point the better way or at least my way? Because with increasing age I feel that I have no time for tilting at windmills, in the popular and superficial meaning of the expression. Perhaps this very blog also is a tilting at windmills....I will try to illustrate the reason for my frustration with this issue of so called science.

A university-based young researcher in a recent discussion about ethics and aesthetics of research expressed the claim that a researcher "tries to change, improve, develop, or at any rate to intervene in the context which he/she studies. I replied that in order to put things right in such a matter of ethics and aesthetics it could be enough to state that a researcher first of all tries to improve: why should one else try to change, develop or intervene in the "context", whatever that means? After some days of reflection upon my question he concluded that there is a difference between change and improvement, where "change" can aim to the search of knowledge, without necessarily improving anything in relation to the "client". In contrast, he said, the word "improve" implies a receiver, that is for "whom" it is an "improvement". Therefore, if one uses the word "improve" one must also answer the question "for whom", and consequently it becomes also an important ethical question to deal with.

Now, what are we going to make out of this? To me it is obvious that this young researcher in the distinction between facts and values, between data and their use, or between administration and politics, is rediscovering the main tenets of good old positivism, in particular logical positivism which has been thoroughly discussed in research during the fifties through the seventies, before use and misuse of phenomenology, postmodernism, post-phenomenology, design, non-modernism, qualitative research, and all the rest which started growing strong in the eighties took the place of positivism. Something analog is happening in the last years' enthusiasm for CBT, Cognitive Behavioral therapy and other hundred therapies, in neglect of all past discussions about behaviorism and psychology born out of philosophy.

Am I supposed, after some 40 years of work and fights in business, industry and academia, to start all over again discussing these issues, despite the blatant lack of interest in my social environment to read, study and apply, partly because everybody is busy in trying to fill in RFPs (request for proposals) in order to apply for research funds that will allow them to survive the pressures of industrialized and commercialized universities? No. And I tried to explain my state of spirit in such an atmosphere, in a Research Summary on occasion of the 70th Birthday.

Furthermore, in a documentation for a series of international seminars on Dialectical systems design and beyond to which I referred in a branch of my homepage on research I mused upon several quotations from doctoral dissertations in my own discipline, in order to express my concern and distress upon what was going to become ad-hoc variants of post-phenomenology, qualitative research, ethnographic research, etc. For instance, consider the following quotations in a slightly edited form, from a dissertation on information systems and organization : (1)An interpretive study relies heavily on the researchers own presuppositions and skills. Because of this, any other researcher would end up with very different results, including prescriptions. (2) Multipurpose networks reward self-interest while simultaneously they promote collaboration...I argue that it is central to develop actor-networks that allow for different interests to co-exist. (3) Because this thesis uses only one case study, the results in this study cannot be easily generalized to other settings. Since IS are context dependent, we should expect different results in other organizational contexts. A case study such as this is rather difficult to generalize to a wider theoretical domain. (4) The project is described as successful and shows how the research sponsor succeeded in securing information to its decision makers more rapidly/timely and better structured.

Once again, what are we to make of this? Every researcher arrives to different conclusions, and perhaps then every reader of this research also does so. The researcher does not care about the legitimacy of interests since he will allow different interests to co-exist ("democratically? another version of good old positivism?). Results cannot be generalized and do not need to contribute to theory. And the research sponsor is to be asked to declare whether the research he spent money for was successful, possibly because it fits the sponsor's interests.

And, finally, one further, third example with slightly edited quotations taken out of a more recent dissertation on online communities, also in my own discipline.

(1) To throw light (illuminate) on the questions which stand at the basis of my work. (2) It has not been my objective to include a representative sample (of members of the online community). (3) Initially in my work there was no formulated hypothesis or theoretical approach. The introductory analysis showed, however, patterns and themes in the empirical material. The theoretical framework was therefore not established at the beginning of my work. (4) And there are no conclusions but, rather, some concluding reflections like the non-controversial and already known: (4a) software design affects social interaction, (4b) Meaning and patterns of use are never fixed but, rather, constantly changing, (4c) Online community members are co-creators of the software environment. And, the thesis makes a contribution to the discourse concerning new forms of online communities.

What about that? What do you make of this science? The stated purpose and conclusions give the impression of being to illuminate and contribute to the discourse, whatever illumination and discourse mean beyond the agglomeration of scientific texts with similar title. The introductory analysis, whatever a-theoretical "analysis" may mean, was done on empirical material which was gathered or sampled with no criteria and are not representative (whatever that empirical and representative mean, outside hypotheses, theory, and old-fashioned statistics). And the conclusions are not conclusion but, rather, reflections, whatever reflections mean in science or in a discourse with no hypotheses. But, of course, such a stuff may be curious, interesting and stimulating, as an essay can be. But why not call it an essay? Anyway, all this, for bad and for good, may explain why I have not been focusing on such science, and why I wrote my own "reflections" in research summary on occasion of my 70th birthday already referred to above. But I may find a way to return to the matter.

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100511 Fortsatta angrepp mot katolska kyrkan

Visst är det kanske inte fråga om fortsatta angrepp utan bara om fortsatt fokus på katolska kyrkan, även om det betingas av samhällets allmänna sexualisering. När man nu konstaterar att präster också är syndare så tenderar vår avkristnade kultur som glömt eller aldrig lärt vad synd, botgörelse, försoning och förlåtelse är får något att tänka främst i termer av offentlig icke förpliktigande massmedial ursäkt och upprättelse i form av ekonomiskt skadestånd som exemplifierat under Ekots lördagsintervju med biskop Anders Arborelius den 8 maj 2010 (t.v. nedladdningsbar från Sveriges Radio). Under en halv timmes intervju ville den ivrige intervjuaren att den katolske biskopen skulle löpa gatlopp, krypa till korset och helst erkänna alla sina och andras synder och försummelser, samt lova pengar i skadestånd vad beträffar rapporterade och påstådda övergrepp inklusive preskriberade brott begångna av katolska präster i Sverige sedan 50 år tillbaka i tiden. Vad är det som driver offer och de som frestas att hela tiden försöka bli betraktade som offer och att ständigt förvänta sig och begära (åter)upprättelser och helst eviga skadestånd, eventuellt omdöpta till försoningsgåvor? Det finns nämligen synder som är så pass svåra, även svårare än pedofili, och som endast kan föreställas bli förlåtna av "en Gud". Där behöver förment judisk rättvisa integreras med kristen caritas.

Det fortsatta mediadrevet erbjuder också självvalda bland allmänheten att åter ropa ut sin indignation, avståndstagande och fördömande förbannelse som samtidigt obevekligen och offentligen intygar om deras egen högre stående moral: ingen There but for the grace of God go I där, minsann, allra minst då synden och bikten är avskaffade i vårt sekulariserade samhälle. Det kan också vara ytterligare ett uttryck för missuppfattningen att tystnad är lika med mörkläggning av sanningen som i sin tur missuppfattas som bestående av informationsatomer, bortsett från kontext, förtroende och omgivningens referensram. I sin extrema form illustreras problemet av den kända kravet på svar på den järnjournalistiska frågan "När slutade du begå brott?" Sanningen är dock "systemisk" och inte atomisk eller molekylär eller cellulär, i den mening att (förenklat) om man säger A så måste man också säga B och C, för att lyssnaren eller läsaren inte skall själv koppla A med X och Z.

De som känner varken filosofins eller litteraturens historia är t.ex. inte medvetna att liknande offentliga angrepp med anklagelser mot kyrkan och dess präster daterar sedan hundratals år tillbaka, särskilt sedan upplysningens 1700-tal och har samma egenskaper som själva kyrkans beryktade häxprocesser: dessa angrepp exemplifieras i "perversionernas klassiker" författade av t.ex. Marquis de Sade och Octave Mirbeau vars bakomliggande filosofi dessvärre har en del gemensamt med dagens sekulariserat kulturklimat. Känslan av "nyhet" grundad i historisk okunnighet kanske bidrar till att dagstidningarna fortsätter med "nyheter" om angrepp på kyrkan. Till exempel, jag råkade få tag i Dagens Nyheter den 9 maj 2010 och där fanns det en ledarkolumn, Björntjänster, angående en "Jesus" i TV-situationskomedin South Park som tittar på pornografi, en Buddha som tar kokain, och en Mohammed utklädd i björndräkt. I samma tidning fanns också en notis om Övergreppsmisstänkt biskop får sparken, låt vara att övergreppet gällde en örfil mot en minderårig. Men sexualiseringen blomstrar i andra indignationsartiklar om att Rättsväsendet ser genom fingrarna med sexköpsbrott och (den 8 maj) om att Våldtäktsmän måste straffas. Som om det inte räckte innehöll samma ledande svensk dagstidning den 7 maj en pigg artikel om den s.k. Lady Gagaoch om hennes video där Gaga i en scen står naken framför två lesbiska fångvaktare som diskuterar huruvida hon har penis. Som om det ännu inte räckte så fanns det samma dag, den 7 maj, en förstående recension av filmen Camino betitlad Ondskan bor hos Opus Dei, en i vanlig ordning "uppgörelse med katolicismen". Allt mildras dock av något av annat sexuellt i DN den 8 maj som dock inte riktigt passar med det övriga: Dotter dömd för falsk angivelse(av fadern för påstådda sexuella övergrepp). Inte av undra om en störd 17-årig "flicka" hittar på sexuella fantasier efter att ha läst sådana här dagstidningar i några år. Snart kommer några att hitta bara ännu mera skumt om katolska kyrkan som knappast gjort eller gör något annat och som tillsvidare kommer - i detta kulturland - att förknippas främst med pedofili. Förresten, var det något annat, gott, inklusive god fostran av ungdom och välgörenhet, som kyrkan gjort under, säg, de senaste 1000 åren i världen? Hur var det med procenten och med politikernas och statsanställdas typiska uttalanden om att "men vi kan bli ännu bättre"?

Hur som helst: De som vill stödja den katolska kyrkan, särskilt inför det pågående mediadrevet, kan skriva under Uppropet för katolska kyrkan i pingsttiden 2010. Sen är det en annan sak att dito mediadrev håller på att expandera i takt med sin egen logik, vilken bl.a. innefattar även föreställningen att det är inte alls fråga om ett mediadrev av icke ifrågasatta medier utan om en kris som endast kan lösas efter det att kyrkan tvingats till underkastelse och botgöring efter världsvida demokratiska lekmannapåtryckningar. I spåret av allt detta är det många liberalkatoliker som vädrar morgonluft för att framtvinga en mera omdanande "modern" reform av kyrkan och katolicismen, en neo-reformation som leder till en katolsk neo-protestantism eller utveckling som redan delvis bidragit till av historikern Yvonne Maria Werner analyserade problem med celibat och homosexualitet brand präster. Till exempel den nyutkomna numret 3/2010 av den katolska tidskjriften Signum tycks all text relaterad till pedofilin utom Anders PiltzSanningen befriar –Tankar i pedofilskandalernas tid, andas en aggressiv revolterande ton mot både kyrkan och påven. Däremot finns det knappast något angående den djupare innebörden av pedofilins skador, angående det psykiska "varför" det inträffade, dess betydelse i relation till sexualitetens inklusive homosexualitetens perversion i samhället och dess politik vars inflytande på kyrkan ger sig till känna på detta vis - stick i stäv mot katolska kyrkans alla läror: se åter Yvonne Maria Werners artikel. Och nu talas det alltmer om ett ökat antal våldshandlingar mot kvinnor inklusive ett antal uppmärksammade mord, till den graden att man i massmedia efterlyser "haverikommissioner" för varje begången framtida dito våldshandling. Som om man hade råd att främja moralen med polis och övervakning. Än så länge har man dock inte anklagat katolska kyrkan för denna utveckling - utan bara "männen" - dock, åter igen utan att den djupare frågan om "Varför", där inte bara kyrkan utan i sekulära termer även Howard Schwartz hade något att säga i samband med the roots of political correctness som jag berörde nedan i inläggen den 7 och 11 september 2009.

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100415 Pedofili i katolska kyrkan eller i samhället?

Även om jag själv inte är katolik utan döpt grekisk-ortodox och gift med en konverterad katolik vill jag förelägga några tankar som nyanserar mediadrevet om skandalerna av pedofili inom katolska kyrkan. Dessa tankar skall ses i ljuset av tidigare inlägg i den utländska litteraturen som Philip Jenkins Pedophiles and Priests (1996, recension här) och den katolske påvens herdebrev i ärendet den 19 mars 2010: Pastoral letter of the holy father pope Benedict XVI to the catholics of Ireland.

1) Är denna serie av tragiska skandaler ett problem som är specifikt eller större inom katolska kyrkan än i samhället i övrigt inklusive i offentliga sektorn? Beror det på den katolska läran eller kyrkans organisation? Skulle allt varit bättre om kyrkan inte befattade sig med barn och ungdom eller förlitade sig på den demokratiska statsapparatens förmodade högre moral? Är det inte så att ju mer man gör eller försöker desto flera fel kan man begå, och hur mycket gott gör kyrkan som ignoreras? För att svara på allt detta skulle det behövas ett minimum av statistik, t.ex. om procenten av förövare bland katolska präster i förhållande till dito procent i befolkningen, med statistisk korrigering med hänsyn till kön och ålder (miljöer med barn), och omfattning av kontakt med barn (jämfört med t.ex. lärare, idrottslärare, förskollärare, fritidsledare, personal på ungdomshem) och jämfört med inom icke katolska religiösa, statliga och privata institutioner som familjehem, ungdomsanstalter och dylikt. Till exempel behövde jag vänta till den 28 april 2011 för att uppdatera den här föreliggande texten med referens till den omtalade boken av Patrik Sjöberg, svensk friidrottare och höjdhoppare som beskriver händelser inom idrottsvärlden. Detta samtidigt som dito Sjöberg gör sig till "kränkningsoffer" enligt det tvivelaktiga mönstret om "negativ uppbygglighet" som jag påtalat i mitt tidigare inlägg om "den heliga familjen", ett mönster som i de aktuella redovisade detaljerna bortser från att de kan vara konsekvenser av en politiskt korrekt skilsmässa, familjeupplösning och beteendet som från 15-års åldern kan betecknas som prostitution eller lån av den egna kroppen i utbyte mot världslig framgång. Det är alltså inte bara fråga om naiv statistik typ "hur många offer handlar det egentligen om?" som förmodas bli åtgärdade med att "skapa rutiner" så att sådant inte skall kunna hända, där rutiner och översyner förmodas lösa problem under överinseende av ett antal "vuxna, goda och mogna människor", typ sådana som numera skriver insändare till tidningar och som tidigare skulle varit lika oantastliga som t.ex. en Göran Lindberg eller en Johan af Donner.

Om denna analys åsidosätts med referens till att att en förment moraliserande kyrka måste tillfredsställa högre moraliska krav än anklagarna så kan detta vara ett uttryck för skadeglädjen typ "Och du då?" och fungera som ett maskerad kampanj för att rättfärdiga förslappningen av anklagarens egen moral: "Hur mycket jag själv än syndar så är jag ändå inte sämre än dessa skenheliga" . Samtidigt kan de i och för sig berättigade reaktionerna mot skandalerna i kyrkan vara en återuppväckning av 1500-talets luterska hatet mot katolicismen, eller mot protestantismens allians med statsmakten, vilket då är konsekvent med att man gärna talar om islamofobi men inte om katolicismfobi eller mera allmänt kristusfobi.

2) Beaktande av samhällets och statens eget ansvar: deras bejakande av gradvis ökande sexualisering, särskilt efter andra världskriget och sedan slutet av 1960-talet: lagstiftningen som t.ex. godkänner eller uppmuntrar grov pornografi i massmedia, sexuellt utmanande kommersiell reklam, legitimering av barns sexuella utlevelser från 15-års åldern, samt legitimering om inte främjande av homosexuell, bisexuell, transsexuell, och så kallad queer livsföring. D.v.s. alla områden den tidigare kriminaliseringen liksom klädkoder inklusive uniformering i skolan fungerade som en hjälpande spärr mot sexuella frestelser. Sist kan man tänka på det i pressen nyss nämnda förslag (med efterdyningar) att avkriminalisera incest mellan vuxna syskon, som sannolikt kommer att utvidgas senare till mellan föräldrar och barn, samt kompletteras (som Feministiskt Initiativs och Centerpartiets Ungdomsförbund företrädare antydde) till äktenskap bland flera än två partners, etc.

Man kan t.ex. undra om samarbetet mellan dåvarande statsminister Olof Palme och hans egen utnämnde justitieminister Lennart Geijers som skrev i direktiven till den framlagda sexualbrottsutredning SOU 1976:9: "Fördomar och tabuföreställningar har länge hämmat en naturlig och öppen syn på sexuallivet och dess yttringar. En radikal förändring i synsättet har emellertid inträtt på senare tid." Den föreslog att avkriminalisera incest, upphäva åldersgränsen för sexuell umgänge, acceptera blottare, mildra straffen för sexuella övergrepp och våldtäkt, samt att pedofili med egna och andras barn helst inte skulle åtalas. Utredningen välkomnades av dåvarande Pedofila arbetsgruppen (PAG) inom RFSL. Där var katolska kyrkan sannerligen varken inblandad eller tillfrågad! Lika lite som tillfrågad som när det gäller produktionen och sändningen av TV-programmet "Fittcrew" i SVT2 den 25 april som sprider bilder av barn inblandade i ett mönster av oregerligt och hämningslöst vuxet sexliv. För att inte tala om tendenserna till barns sensualisering och sexualisering som beskrivs i dagstidningar som t.ex. i Svenska Dagbladet den 27 och 28 jan 2014 ("Leksaker inget för 9-åringar" och "De förlorar fyra år av barndomen"). Detta leder i sin tur till frågan om vad som inträffade och motverkade den föreslagna utvecklingen. Vad är som mitt i den oregerliga sexualiseringen av samhället och vardagslivet ledde till en "sanktifiering" av barnets sexualitet, av offermentaliteten (till den graden av man sammanblandar kraft och våld i ett tavtologiskt hävdande att "de är de maktlösa som drabbas och det är förövaren som har makten"), och av synen på och definitionen av våld. Detta till den graden att våldtäkt kan numera ske utan våld och utan vittnen, bara anmälare låter trovärdig, vilket leder till absurda krav på "samtyckes lag" (ref. "Samtyckeslag löser inte mycket" i Svenska Dagbladet 28 jan 2014). Det är alltså frågan om den kulturella synen på "barn" (se längre ner) som fram till 1600-talet tillät fruktsamma giftermål mellan vuxna män och flickor ner i 14 års åldern, i situationer som sedan 1960-talet vi valt att betrakta som våldtäkt.

3) Samhällets bristande intresse i att förstå berörda förövares innersta psykiska och sociala motivation i att begå dessa handlingar: ett råare samhällsklimat inkl. förhållande mellan könen som t.ex. leder till ett omedvetet paradoxalt sökande av den barnalika oskuldsfullhet. Samhällets pågående nedvärdering av djuppsykologin till förmån för billigare och ytligare KBT försvårar förståelsen och terapierna.

Referenser:

* Jung, Carl G. The Psychology of the child archetype. Coll. Works, vol. 9 part 1. Princeton Univ. Press, 1969.

* Hillman, James. Abandoning the child. Eranos, 40, 1971, pp. 357-407.

* Hillman, James. Senex and Puer: An aspect of the historical and psychological present. Spring 2005, Spring Publications (Putnam, CT), 2005.

Samtidigt talas det mycket om celibat och homosexualitet men ohistoriskt bortser man från varför de förekommer och varför det första skall anses vara farligt negativt trots rika exempel på även sekulära rättfärdigande, medan den andra skall bejakas oavsett komplikationerna som avslöjats i 100 års psykoanalytisk teoriutveckling. Dessutom bortser man från hela problematiken om relationen mellan erotism och lärande eller fostran som ofta sammanblandas med maktrelationer, så som den uppenbaras i klassiska historiska verk.

4) Faran med "mediadrev" som när en massiv publicitet kring en mordmassaker på ett universitet eller på en skola kan leda till flera sådana eller till "samhällshysteri" så kan en eller flera "skandaler" inom katolska kyrkan som rapporteras i världspressen leda till än flera sådana verkliga och inbillade. Detta har med själva svårfångade tabu-begreppet att göra. Jämför också med svenska skandaler för några år sedan som i debatten kring påståenden om rituella mord av barn, jämförda med gamla tiders anklagelser i häxprocesser. Där fanns det tydliga samband med grenar av feministrörelser. Det finns svårförklarade men korrekta eller berättigade anledningar till att inte ge stor publicitet till sådana händelser eftersom det inte behöver blir bättre för varken offret eller förövaren. Förutsatt att närmast berörda handlar på ett strängare sätt mot förövarna, vilket inte garanteras av en sexuellt frisläppt demokratiskt samhälle där Demokrati och Statsförvaltning (eller i vårt sammanhang t.ex. Bris och socialdepartementet) helt enkelt intagit eller sammansmält med Guds och Kyrkans tidigare plats i kulturen under överinseende av Massmedia och Debatt som tredje eller fjärde statsmakten.

Massmedia och Debatt är nämligen de nya gudarna som tillbeds även av vissa liberalkatoliker som bara efterlyser öppenhet och insyn i ett transparent system med oberoende kontroll och tillsynsfunktion och som tror att offrens trauma är resultatet av en tystnadens kultur. Och tillit skapas inte av (tillit till!) kontroll-öorganer utan av kunskap om delade grundvärden och om vad annat och kanske övervägande gott någon gjort vid sidan om sina brister och misstag. När var det som massmedia sist sammanfattade allt gott som kyrkan i 2000 år gjort och gör vid sida om sina mänskliga brister och som kan förtjäna största tilliten?

5) Vidare: Tillkommer tankarna i påvens herdebrev i ärendet den 19 mars 2010: Pastoral letter of the holy father pope Benedict XVI to the catholics of Ireland. Bortsett från dess mångfacetterade behandling av problemet så är det värt att notera dess förmåga eller oförmåga att hjälpa oss hantera den sorten systematiska fortsatta angrepp mot katolska kyrkan som delvis sammanfattas och exemplifierades den 21 mars 2010 inslag om pedofilerna och kyrkan i radions P1 "God morgon världen" och som vid sidan om den tidigare nämnda TV-programmet "Fittcrew" i SVT2 den 25 april kan tillsvidare avlyssnas genom Sveriges Radions hemsida. Det gäller det förnyade "liberal-demokratiska" angreppet, inte minst av den återkommande och självdeklarerade kristna som gärna uttrycker sin förfäran över katolska kyrkan med hjälp av sådana schabloner som referenser till "manlig maktstruktur" och "herrklubb", och celibatet som uttryck för en "krampaktig syn på kön och sexualitet", ett celibat som de anser borde vara frivilligt som om valet av prästyrket under gällande förutsättningar inte vore det. Som om det var celibat som låg bakom de otaliga sexuella förbrytelser i samhället och bakom dåvarande justitieminister Lennart Geijers ovan nämnda framlagda utredning om samhällelig sexuell frigörelse.

6) Som Salesian Bulletin uttrycker det i marsnumret 2010 (sid 6): präster är inte helgon utan syndiga människor som alla andra, även om historiskt kyrkans lära traderar en moralisk måttstock. Celibatet behöver stöd och uppmuntran i form av respekt från samhällets sida, precis som äktenskapet behöver det och inte heller får det nuförtiden. Tvärtom, båda ifrågasätts, förlöjligas och föraktas, och det är inte lätt att vara vegetarian i en köttrestaurant eller för en ungdom att vara avhållsam i ett pornografiskt näste. Inför allt våldsammare vardagliga frestelser kan präster bryta sina löften så som under hela världshistorien har de brutits av kejsare och drottningar, adel och ministrar, domare och advokater, psykiatriker, professorer, entreprenörer, affärsmän, makar och alla de andra som svurit inför Gud, folket eller sitt eget samvete. Präster har mottagit orderns sakrament, andra äktenskapets eller något av de övriga fem sakramenten, och inget sakrament immuniserar mot synden. Inför allt detta är det ett särskilt problem att inte erkänna synden realitet och möjligheten att konfrontera den på annat sätt än genom den politiska korrektheten som förutsätter att anklagaren, åklagaren, eller statsmakten är sexualmoraliskt oantastliga.

7) Man kan alltså förvånas av det omskakade förtroendet för katolska kyrkan, en tvåtusen års gammal och beprövad organisation förväntas bli återställt genom ett oantastligt förtroende för den statliga demokratiska kontrollen av stater som under loppet av några tiotal år omskakas av otaliga skandaler. Även om låter långsökt och det kanske inte hör hit leds tankarna till att när allt kommer omkring har katolska präster inte åkt världen runt för att handla med stulna transplantationsorgan eller för "av misstag" döda civila inklusive de avgudade barnen i frihetens och demokratins namn så som den fria världens militärmakt gjort i väldokumenterade videovittnesmål. Och trots att många förvånar sig att kyrkan själv fått utreda kyrkans misstänkta övergrepp enligt kanonisk lag är det inte lika många som förvånas över att polisen får utreda polisens lika misstänkta övergrepp eller att staten mörklägger brott inklusive statsmord i namnet av rikets säkerhet, även bortsett från extrema internationella skandaler som Grisbuktens invasion eller det misstänkta mordet på odömda Hamas-ledaren Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Och allt detta har tydligt samband med "kränkningssyndromet" som inom ramen av den politiska korrektheten på sistone spritts i samhället och som i sekulariserade termer uppmärksammats (om än inte i djupet förklarats) här i Sverige av David Eberhard samt Maciej Zaremba och i USA av Howard Schwartz. I mitt eget senare arbete föredrar jag själv att försöka bearbeta dessa frågor ur en mera etisk-teologisk utgångspunkt.

Vad ville jag säga? Finns det någon "executive summary" för tankelata? Det är något ruttet i all denna hycklande upprördhet kring pedofilskandalerna samtidigt som man godkänner eller bejakar gränsöverskridandet i samtliga övriga sexuella utsvävningar och ignorerar de sammanhängande drivande krafterna i denna utveckling eller moraliska avveckling.

Och det är först den 25 maj 2011 som jag fick anledning att återkomma till den här texten med ett symptomatiskt och relevant kompletterande brev som cirkulerat på sistone bland katoliker och på nätet: Letter of a simple catholic priest (by P. Martín Lasarte SDB. Also here, and in orig. Spanish ). Men jag kanske borde hänvisat i första hand till George Bernanos Prästmans dagbok [orig. Journal d'un Curé de Campagne, 1936]. När det gäller filosofisk analys av pedofiliproblemet i katolska kyrkan känner jag till endast referensen till Mark Dooley, Crisis in the Irish Catholic Church, under inflytandet av Roger Scruton's Sexual Desire.

Ytterligare information kan erhållas från följande länkar:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041602026.html

http://shoebat.com/2014/05/06/sexual-abuse-protestant-churches-catholic/
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/forgotten-study-abuse-in-school-100-times-worse-than-by-priests
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/common-misconceptions/9-myths-about-priestly-pedophilia.html

Långt efter det att ovanstående skrevs fick jag kännedom om följande inlägg av forna påven Benedictus XVI:

https://www.katolsk-horisont.net/post/benedikt-xvi-kyrkan-och-skandalen-med-sexovergreppen-hela-texten

motsvarande den engelska versionen

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/full-text-of-benedict-xvi-the-church-and-the-scandal-of-sexual-abuse-59639

[200806]

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100409 Smaklöshet eller omoral, och "Salandersyndromet"

Vill du få en ögonblickskänsla för hur lågt vår samhällskultur och dess exponering i massmedia har sjunkit? Titta då på följande inslag så länge de är tillgängliga på nätet och försök förstå varför somliga blivit äcklade av att läsa tidningar eller ta del av nyheter i massmedia, eller då i sina protester riskerar börja uppfattas som rättshaverister. På köpet kan du från den andra referensen här ner också bättre ana kopplingen till varför Lisbeth Salander gjort författaren Stieg Larsson så berömd: jämför då gärna med mitt tidigare inlägg här nedan den 14 september 2009.

1) SSU:s (Sveriges socialdemokratiska ungdomsförbunds) TV-reklam: "Visst blir man förvånad". En videosnutt där valpropaganda fokuseras på ungdomsarbetslöshet med en antydan om en ung mans "one-night stand". Han vaknar i säng med en äldre kvinna som associeras till en bakgrund av löständer in ett glas vatten och en använd kondom på nattduksbordet.

Videosnutten på YouTube eller

Videosnutten på Aftonbladets hemsida

2) Filmen "Kick-Ass" med "Hit-Girl" där filmens innehåll sammanfattas med att den stora attraktionen gäller en 13-årig flicka Chloë som skjuter, mördar och svär.

Recension i Svenska Dagbladet eller

Recension i Dagens Nyheter

================

100407 Fortsatt hets mot kristna

Det blir alltmer uppenbart för mig att upphovet till att behöva skriva i det här mediet utlöses av "utanförskap" inför det som jag själv råkar läsa, höra eller se i medier. Samtidigt aktualiseras min tvivel om det är meningsfullt med att skriva eller över huvud taget avreagera mig och som jag redan tidigare uppehållit mig systematiskt vid. Plötsligt kände jag igen något av allt detta när jag råkade läsa Nabila Abdul Fattah i tidningen Metro den 7 april: "Jag ska inte förklara min religion mer": att ju mer hon försöker förklara sig och sina ställningstaganden desto mera känner hon att hon gräver sig djupare och djupare ner i sin egen grop. När det inte är en fråga om mental sjukdom är det nog den desto mera sannolika frågan om en kulturkris där språket inte längre räcker för kommunikation när det inte längre finns en tillräcklig gemensam "värdegrund". I Nabilas fall gällde det Islam men liksom i mitt förra inslag den 14 november gällde det för mig kristendom och katolicism och de olika mångfacetterade "kampanjerna" mot dem, så som det sammanfattas i min korrespondens med Sveriges Radios redaktion för programserien "Människor och Tro" (MOT) - som följer i lätt redigerad form:

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: mot@sr.se

cc: soren.wibeck@sr.se, tithi.hahn@sr.se

Subject: Förra fredagens och lördagens MOT den 19-20 mars

Date-Sent: torsdag 25 mar 2010 19.45.01 +0100

Hej! Jag vore tacksam om den ansvariga redaktören och ansvariga utgivare kunde förklara hur ni ser på opartiskheten av inslaget om anti-semitism i förra veckans MOT om antisemitism.

Det är nämligen så att inslaget börjar med att helt enkelt slå fast att antisemitismen har ökat i samhället utan att referera till några källor då man vet att saken i dess olika tolkningar är trots allt kontroversiell. Sören Wibeck samtalar sen endast med de amerikanska professorerna Marvin Perry och Frederick M. Schweitzer" (två internationellt inte särskilt framträdande historiker) som har med uppenbart judiska om inte israeliska förutsättningar forskat kring historisk och nutida antisemitism, där staten Israel står i fokus som i deras gemensamma bok Antisemitic Myths.

Den svåra fråga huruvida (hur många?) judiska familjer valt att flytta bara på grund av ökande antisemitism eller även av andra orsaker och på grund av obehaget av att de råkar "ställas till svars" för statens Israels agerande berörs inte alls. Hur orättvist detta "ställande till svars" än är det tillräckligt komplicerat - som fallet med Ilmar Reepalo visar. För att kunna analysera denna fråga skulle man t.ex. behöva nämna behovet av att veta hur stor procent bland de religiösa eller kulturella judarna som bor i Malmö eller Sverige (eller för den delen i västerlandet) moraliskt och/eller ekonomiskt stödjer Israel. Man skulle behöva även garantera att judiska organisationer (låt säga nu - i Malmö och Sverige) inte organiserar insamlingar till förmån med Israeliska organisationer med svårutredda eventuella kopplingar till den israeliska statsapparaten. Detta i komplett analogi med muslimer som stött påstådda muslimska välgörenhetsorganisationer men t.o.m. anklagats för terrorism p.g.a. dessa organisationer skulle haft kopplingar till terrororganisationer.

Dessutom fortsätter inslaget i MOT-programmet med att bara föra fram författarnas oemotsagda hävdande att den uppfattade ökade oviljan mot judar i Sverige förstärkts av propagandan i muslimska stater. Så att hela programmet blev ett angrepp mot allt som inkluderar oviljan mot staten Israel och de missförstånd som uppkommer från det, samt blev ett angrepp mot "muslimska stater", om jag nu minns de exakta orden. Men det är klart att det allvarligaste i inslaget tycks vara dess början då det slås fast att "anti-semitismen" ökar och man tar för givet den snäva uppdelningen mellan Israel och judarna, samtidigt som man hävdar att oviljan mot Israel sammanblandas med ovilja mot judar samt likställer det hela med den anti-semitism som uppenbara parter i målet, Marvin Perry och Frederick M. Schweitzer skyller på ohörda svenska medborgares påstådda anti-semitism enligt deras egen definition av begreppet. Jag tror att allt detta är särskilt olyckligt därför att det bidrar till att skapa ett "utanförskap" för svenska muslimer som serveras ett så partiskt inslag.

Tack för kommentar och ev. förslag till ett uppvägande inslag som återställer opartiskheten.

Med vänlig hälsning

Kristo Ivanov

From: Sören Wibeck <soren.wibeck@sr.se>

To: Kristo Ivanov

Subject: Sv: Förra fredagens och lördagens MOT den 19-20 mars

Date-Sent: fredag 26 mar 2010 09.28.41 +0100

Bäste Kristo Ivanov!

Tack för ditt mejl angående inslaget om antisemitism i förra veckans Människor och tro.

Inslaget handlade inte om antisemitismen i Malmö utan var ett försök till fördjupning av nutida antisemitism överhuvudtaget. Programledaren påpekade i påannonsen att vi tidigare hade behandlat den debatt som följt av att judar har flyttat och de av Ilmar Reepalu gjorda uttalanden. Och det sades inte att antisemitismen har ökat utan att den har "bitit sig fast i vår upplysta tid". I inslaget gjordes en klar åtskillnad mellan berättigad kritik av Israels politik och kritik av antisemitisk karaktär.

Marvin Perry och Frederick M. Schweitzer är två personer som så långt jag förstår har penetrerat historisk och nutida antisemitism på ett hedervärt sätt. Deras bok Antisemitic Myths uppfyller god akademisk standard. Att de inte skulle vara internationellt särskilt framträdande spelar naturligtvis ingen roll. Frågan är vad de har att säga. Om kriteriet internationellt framträdande skulle gälla för alla radions intervjupersoner skulle inte många klara provet.

Visst innehöll inslaget en del obehagliga fakta, men så är ju också antisemitismen en obehaglig företeelse. I våra programregler ingår att hävda alla människors lika värde, vilket vi gör med stor frimodighet. Men om du finner att inslaget var osakligt eller opartiskt kan du anmäla det till Granskningsnämnden för avgörande.

De bästa hälsningar

Sören Wibeck, reporter

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: mot@sr.se

cc: soren.wibeck@sr.se, tithi.hahn@sr.se

Subject: Förra fredagens och lördagens MOT den 19-20 mars

Date-Sent: torsdag 26 mar 2010 8:13 +0100

Bäste Sören Wibeck (och redaktionskollegerna) på Sveriges Radio redaktion för programmet "MÄNNISKOR OCH TRO" - MOT. Apropå "Antisemitism i vår tid" som t.v. också avlyssnas på radions hemsida.

Tack för snabb och engagerad respons, trots att du inte tycks vilja erkänna det minsta värdet i min kritik. Jag uppfattar att du bara "skakar av" dig dito kritik med hänvisning till Granskningsnämnden, i trygg förvissning i att det knappast är någon lyssnare som på betald arbetstid kan syssla med sådan svårtydd polemik som MOT dragit igång just på betald arbetstid. Detta att du skakar av dig kritiken och avvisar den i sin helhet motiverar att jag upptar tid och utrymme för följande detaljer.

Min huvudsak var inte hur internationellt framträdande Perry och Schweitzer skulle vara (men testa gärna på Google!) utan att deras åsikter stod OEMOTSAGDA SOM OM DE VORE SÅ FRAMTRÄDANDE, till den graden att de antingen aldrig skulle varit oemotsagda eller omöjligtvis kan bli det. Det är uppenbart att de två utvalda forskarna är partiska i den mening att de företräder bara en sida i den internationella debatten. Kanske är det t.o.m. judiska sionister och i så fall är det allvarligt att MOT-redaktionen inte bedriver känslig källkritik. Och vem som helst som sysslat med forskning vet att - särskilt i samhällsvetenskaper dock i nästan alla vetenskaper och t.o.m. i matematik - finns det motsatta synpunkter och legitima akademiska strider.

Mera i detalj, vad menar du med att det inte sades att "antisemitismen har ökat utan att den har "bitit sig fast i vår upplysta tid"? I programmet början klargörs faktiskt att "antisemitism får fäste i NYA sammanhang och i ny tappning"! Och du påstår att man inte sagt att den har ökat: visst var det en "nyhet" att några (procent?) Malmöjudar behövt flytta ut p.g.a. (då ökat) antisemitism. Det är ju ingen nyhet att antisemitism inte minskat.

Och för övrigt, vad menas i förment vetenskapligt språk att "bitit sig fast"? Här följer vidare ett urval av vad som sagts som ovedersäglig sanning och som jag försökt anteckna under avlyssningen:

1) "I den muslimska världen stöds antisemitism aktivt av regering, media och intellektuella". Alltså i hela dito värld, av alla medier och alla intellektuella.

2) "Personer med rötter i mellanöstern är en del av det här tankegodset". Alltså icke namngivna muslimer, inte minst i Sverige. Alltså måste allmänheten vara på sin vakt när den träffar "personer med rötter i mellanöstern", vad nu rötter skall vara för något - kanske upp till tredje generationen. Däremot får ingen skugga falla på personer med rötter i judendomen, o i synnerhet Israel statens makthavare.

3) "Den arabiska-israeliska konflikten har "retat upp" många intellektuella, och den europeiska vänsterns och höger alltid varit antisemitisk. Anti-israelisk hållning alltid varit Ok bland intellektuella". Låt oss bortse från att uttrycket "reta upp" är en retorisk förminskning av starka och kanske berättigade känslor och värderingar. Men alltså: hela europeiska vänster och högern, och det intellektuella etablissemanget. Vilka är då kvar, centerns icke-intellektuella, arbetarna? - Kan man fråga sig.

4) "Ingen anklagelse är för absurd för den arabiska pressen". Alltså "ingen" och för hela den "arabiska pressen". Den västerländska och i synnerhet den israeliska pressen är alltså däremot alltid och helt OK i sammanhanget.

5) "Staten Israel är alltså hotet mot den muslimska antisemitismen". Anmärkningsvärd vändning, med den dubbla negationen som avslöjar den märkliga vinklingen. Hotet mot Statens Israel och dess bosättningspolitik, däremot, är inget hot mot det lidande palestinska folket.

6) Antisemitismens rötter går tillbaka till det [förkättrade kristna och katolska] Nya Testamentet och kyrkofäderna dock [som tur är] även längre tillbaka i tiden. Dock utan att tala om vad var det detta "längre tillbaka i tiden". Det som i så fall naturligtvis också är belagt är att i det judiska Gamla Testamentet-Torah, i Moseböckerna finns det rötter till rasism (Guds utvalda folk) och förintelse (av folk som står i vägen till det förlovade landet).

7) "Den muslimska världens antisemitism, [i sammanhanget opportunt exemplifierad med Iran] vill eliminera Israel och judarna. Muslimska antisemitismen har lånat mycket från den europeiska antisemitismen, kristen, nationalistisk och nazistisk. Lik nazismen beskrivs judarna som kriminella och pekar sen mot en utopisk framtid då Israel skall raderas och judarna elimineras." På det sättet lyckas texten retoriskt sammanbinda elimineringen av judarna=Israel. Samtidigt insinuerar man per den klassiska "guilt by association" en sort likställighet mellan kristendom nationalism och nazism.

8) "Förlusterna i de arabiska-israeliska krigen har förargat och väckt ilskan i dem muslimska världen". Så att det är inte eventuellt upplevda orättvisor och ockupationer som orsakar ilskan (jfr "retat upp" ovan) utan det är att man blivit förargad för att ha förlorat krigen.

9) "Klassisk islam kunde inte acceptera den nya staten Israel. Det som är muslimskt måste förbli muslimskt för alltid. Israel har blivit en modern framgångsrik stat med demokratiska värden, och för en del arabiska konservativa regimen har det blivit ett hot - de vill inte att värderingarna sprids till det egna landet". På det sättet har man retoriskt viftat bort Israel med demokrati, och attityd mot Israel = mot demokrati. Och, förresten, vart tog då särskiljandet mellan judarna och Israel vägen?

10) "Numera är det Israel som står i fokus för antisemitismen". Var finns ett bättre exempel på den retoriska likställningen mellan judendom och Israel, samtidigt som man hävdar att kritikerna inte skall sammanblanda judar med Israel?

SAMMANFATTNINGSVIS: MOT-PROGRAMMET HAR (FÖRMODLIGEN OAVSIKTLIGT) BIDRAGIT TILL UPPFATTNINGEN ATT KRITIK MOT ISRAEL TENDERAR SAMMANFALLA MED ANTISEMITISM. MOT-LYSSNARNA I ALLMÄNHET OCH MUSLIMER SAMT ISRAELKRITIKER HAR NU RÄTT ATT AVVAKTA ETT NYTT MOT-PROGRAM DÄR MOT-REDAKTIONEN ÅTERSTÄLLER OPARTISKHETEN GENOM ATT TA UPP MOTPARTERNAS HISTORISK-VETENSKAPLIGA LITTERATUR.

Med vänlig hälsning,

Kristo Ivanov

From: Sören Wibeck <soren.wibeck@sr.se>

To: Kristo Ivanov

Subject: Sv: Antisemitism? Förra fredagens och lördagens MOT den 19-20 mars

Date-Sent: måndag, måndag 29 mar 2010 08.48.39 +0200

Bäste Kristo Ivanov!

Tack för ännu ett mejl. Du tar upp så många detaljer att jag omöjligen har tid att besvara dem. Jag har i princip inget att tillägga från mitt första svar till dig. Jag kan bara återigen påpeka att vi gjorde en klar distinktion mellan berättigad Israelkritik och antisemitism. Men, som sagt, det finns ett forum dit lyssnare kan vända sig om han eller hon finner att ett inslag inte uppfyller kravet på opartiskhet, och det är Granskningsnämnden.

De bästa hälsningar

Sören Wibeck, reporter

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: soren.wibeck@sr.se

cc: mot@sr.se, tithi.hahn@sr.se

Subject: Anti-semitism ? MOT den 19-20 mars

Date-Sent: måndag, måndag 29 mar 2010 09.19.01 +0200

Tack själv igen, Sören Wibeck. Som jag försökte förklara, det viktiga i det här läget är inte att du "besvarar" utan att du försöker ta åt Dig något av det jag försöker uttrycka, och om nödvändigt läser om min text så som jag gör med Din. Jag accepterar att du omöjligen har tid att besvara men inte att du inte har tid att tänka över då det ingår i själv MOT-programmets filosofi och ditt eget livslångt engagemang för kristendomen som också råkar på ett subtilt sätt smutskastas när man konsekvent upprepar att den förmodade ökande eller befästande antisemitismen har sina "rötter" i kristendomen, medan man också misstänkliggör araber och muslimer.

Mvh, Kristo Ivanov

================

091114 Hetsjakt på kristna

Hetsjakten på kristna (se inlägget med mitt än så länge obesvarade e-brev här nedan den 5 november) fortsätter: i "Kvartssamtalet" den 6 november (i radions program "Människor och Tro") i P1 presenteras åter tonsättaren Thomas Jennefelt, som i sitt nya verk" Dixit Dominus - In the name of God" tar avstamp i påven Urban den andres tal i Clermont 1095 som blev startskott för korstågen. För säkerhets skull upprepas här kritiken mot påve och kristna. Den nyskrivna musiken väcker frågor kring hur korstågens tankar lever kvar i vår tid och om västvärldens förhållande till islam 900 år senare. "Vad är antisemitism?" (temat för Kulturradions "Nya vägen" i P1 den 11 november) presenteras som ett försök att "nå fram till debattens hjärta med hjälp av den till synes enkla frågan: vad är egentligen antisemitism? Vilka uttryck tar den sig i det svenska samhället idag? Vilka är dess rötter? I studion: författaren Ola Larsmo, och forskaren Henrik Bachner". De inbjudna (än en gång, som det är vanligt i radion - se mitt inlägg den 12 augusti om "Heliga familjen") är rörande överens i sin kritik av kristendomen och väl skyddade från att i studion bli motsagda av någon med avvikande åsikter, allra minst någon katolsk biskop eller företrädare för Kyrkan. Lyssnaren blir åter påmind om att antisemitismens och den allmänna rasismens inklusive den s.k. islamofobins rötter finns i kristendomens Nya Testamentet och Paulus fördömandet av Kristi mördarna. Därmed inget sagt eller ens antytt om att det är i Gamla Testamentet och särskilt i Torah (se referenserna i mitt förra inlägg den 5 november) som finns rötter om föreställningen av ett "utvalt folk" med rätt att t.o.m. utföra folkmord för att invadera och befolka det förlovade landet.

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091105 Angrepp mot kristendomen

Efter ett uppehåll p.g.a. utlandsresa och avsaknad av retelser i form av tidningar så råkade jag se i Svenska Dagbladet (som en gång i tiden räknades som en "konservativ" tidning) ytterligare ett angrepp mot kristenhet och kristendom. Det utgår från en referens till tonsättaren Thomas Jennefelt och citat ur Bibelns gamla testamentet. Jag föll än en gång för frestelsen att "slåss med väderkvarnar". Sådant slag lär inte vara töntigt och meningslöst - lika litet som mitt intresse för teologi in min forskning var det - om man ansluter sig till mera avancerade tolkningar av vad Cervantes menade med den bilden och beaktar religionens återkomst i "Det postsekulära tillståndet". Det resulterade i följande e-brev till författaren av tidningsinlägget som förhoppningsvis är självförklarande och inte kräver mina ytterligare kommentarer förutom att jag i brådskan inte klargjorde att de aktuella citatet som är taget ur Psaltaren 110 har sina direkta - om möjligt än värre - motsvarigheter i i Torah eller femte Moseboken (2:34, 3:6, 13:16, 20:13-22), bortsett från Jesaja (kap. 9, 10, 13, 34). Här följer mitt e-brev:

Date: 2009-11-04 17.58 +0100

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: jenny.leonardz@svd.se

Subject: Förtal av kristenhet? Dagens Svd "Musik mot religiöst våld"

Copies to: thomas.jennefelt@telia.com

Tack för tankeväckande artikel i dagens SvD

(<http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/nyheter/artikel_3749073.svd>).

Jag vill dock göra Dig uppmärksam på att du obemärkt bidrar till en

märklig pågående svartmålning av kristenheten och kristendomen. Jag

tänker på följande utdrag ur artikeln:

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> Men när Thomas Jennefelt närläste texten framträdde hat och våld:

> ”Sätt dig på min högra sida, till dess jag har lagt dina fiender dig

> till en fotapall ... överallt skola döda ligga; han skall sönderkrossa

> huvuden vida omkring på jorden.”

> Tankarna kring kristenhetens våld, då och nu, förde honom till påven

> Urban II:s tal i Clermont i Frankrike år 1095, startskottet för de

> kristna korstågen.

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Både Du och Thomas J. måste förstå att det är särskilt olyckligt

vinklat att citera ett mycket kontroversiellt svårtolkat stycke (lika med

andra besläktade stycken) från den delen av "Gamla Testamentet" som i

först hand motsvarar den judiska Torah - för att strax därefter

fortsätta med "kristenhetens våld" och "påven".

Och detta trots att när det passar så håller man sig till standard

uttrycket "den judiska-kristna kulturen". Varför väljer du då att just

efter citatet strax övergå till "kristenheten"?

Om detta inte räcker för att förstå vad jag menar ställer jag frågan

till både Dig och Thomas J: hur skulle det låta om efter citatet du hade

övergått till att hävda att dito citat leder tankarna till den

judiska-kristna kulturen och judarna i "staten Israel" vad beträffar deras

våld mot palestinierna i Mellanöstern". Sådana övergrepp begås dock

inte mot judar och knappast heller mot muslimer. De är kristna som alltid

anses snällt finna sig i vad som helst.

Jag upprepar att sådana formuleringar är mycket olyckliga just på grund

av att de sällar sig till aktuella förföljelse- och förtalstrender som

oberoende av vad man tycker om dem motiverat sådana initiativ som

<http://www.christianophobia.eu/>. Om det intresserar så har jag själv

haft anledning att fördjupa mig i besläktade frågor i t.ex.

<http://web.telia.com/~u46508757/KMcaritas.html> och

<http://web.telia.com/~u46508757/DNJewChrist.html>.

SAMMANFATTNINGSVIS tycker jag att din olyckliga skrivning motiverar ett

särskilt extra inslag i SvD där Du ställer saken tillrätta.

Med vänlig hälsning,

Kristo Ivanov

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090914 Fler starka kvinnor (och vita svanar)

Efter att jag kände mig omskakad av studien av "politiska korrekthetens rötter" som jag beskrev i mitt inlägg den 7 september (nedan) tycker jag mig se överallt och dagligen tecken på päträngande starka kvinnor som uppbådar bilden av allmakt. Jag är visserligen medveten att ur vetenskaplig synpunkt måste detta tolkas kritiskt vad beträffar dess bevisvärde. Det är ju analogt till den vetenskapliga empirismens anförande av "vita svanar": för varje ytterligare vit svan man ser invaggas man i tron att alla svanar är vita - utom om man råkar besöka områden i världen där det finns svarta svanar, om de nu skall också kallas för svanar, vilket är en del av problemet. Det lärde jag mig först på 70-talet i min handledare West Churchmans bok om The Design of Inquiring Systems (s 108-111).

Faktum kvarstår att nu har massmedia vänt sitt intresse mot Stieg Larssons boktrilogi och särskilt dess första filmatisering i form av Män som hatar kvinnor (det ser ut som en tanke att då tänker man inte på kvinnor som hatar män) och dess skådespelerska Noomi Rapace som spelar rollen som romanernas Lisbeth Salander. Till exempel skriver redaktören för DN söndag i Dagens Nyheter den 13 september att Det hjälper att föreställa sig seniga, envisa, buttra, coola Lisbeth Salander för att få lite kraft. Kan hon så kan också jag...en kvinnlig deckarfigur som vi alla [verkligen?] omedvetet hade längtat efter. Inte ett våp, inte en alkoholiserad medelålders kvinna, inte en frustrerad småbarnsmamma med äktenskapsproblem. Utan något helt annat. Lisbeth Salander.

På samma sida uttalar sig också tre på måfå valda representanter för allmänheten om deras upplevelse av Lisbeth Salander: Hon är världens bästa människa, min största idol...en egensinnig, modig tjej som också är rädd. Jag gillar mest hur bra hon är på att hämnas...en ung, tuff och kaxig tjej. Och längre fram i tidningen i tidningen uppehåller man sig vid skådespelerskan Noomi Rapace och i vanlig massmedial stil utser henne till ny ikon och berättar om hennes historia och familj dock inte ett ord om fadern. Då hon var sju år flyttade hon till Island med sin mamma och sin isländske styvpappa. Det är fascinerande att så många kvinnor har barn som inte bara klarar sig så bra utan sin pappa utan att dessa barn har mammor som kan t.o.m. fixa nya pappor åt dem. Inte att undra att kvinnor väcker så mycket beundran, seniga, coola, modiga, unga, tuffa, kaxiga, d.v.s. som vädjar till "urmoderlig allmakt", som är bra på att hämnas. Förresten, vilket var det kristna budskapet beträffande hämnd? Vad var det som var lämpligt för vår barnfostran och våra äktenskap? (rev 090919)

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090911 Starka kvinnor, barnfostran och barnamord

Den 10 september 2009 publicerade Dagens Nyheter artikeln "Det som blir kvar är allas förlust" som i nätupplagan rubricerades "Mordet i Stureby: Allt gick fel i deras isolerade värld". Det gäller fallet där en pojkes flickvän (båda i 16-års åldern) lär ha hetsat honom att mörda en "rival", en 15 årig flicka. Jag baxnar då jag känner igen nästan ordagrant i journalisten Ulrika Bys ordval i beskrivningen av och reflektionerna kring rättegången den problematik som jag uppmärksammade i mitt eget inslag här nedan den 7 september.

Hör bara, några utdrag: rädslan för att bli övergiven, jagsvaga pojken med starkt behov av bekräftelse hamnar i underläge, hon är medveten manipulativ och vill behålla såväl makten som kontrollen, hon förblir hans allt, hon både älskar och hatar den uppmärksamhet hon får och han inbillar sig å sin sida att han inte kan leva utan henne, för det ska han få hennes villkorslösa kärlek, det är inte svårt att tycka synd om dem...

I tidningens vidhängande artikel av Fredrik Öjemar "Ungdomarna fälls för Sturebymordet" refereras det att pojkens advokat Claes Borgström (är det inte han som tidigare varit jämställdhetsombudsman och alltid uppträtt som starkt feministiskt medveten?) beskrev förhållandet mellan flickan och pojken som en "olycklig konstellation". Symptomatiskt nog är det ingen som frågar om barnens egna familjekonstellationer i vilka de växte upp. Så långt vågar jag dock inte tro att det stämmer, att dessa konstellationer i någon mening skulle varit faderlösa konstellationer. Och jag har inga illusioner att den politiskt korrekta pressen skulle undersöka saken. Men mitt intresse och tilltro i Howard Schwartzs bok (nedan) har dock bara ökat. Det är alltför mycket som stämmer, både fakta- och formuleringsmässigt. Det är nog en samhällstragedi som pågår i skuggan av familjeupplösningen.

Och, på tal om starka kvinnor och politisk strävan efter positiv särbehandling av förmodad saligförklarad svaghet: fredagen den 11 september skriver DN:s Anna Bodin i "Tabu missbruka sex" om en kvinna som beklagar sig över att hennes äktenskap sattes på prov av att hennes make använde datorn till porr-surfing, nät-sex och att boka prostituerade: hon förstår inte varför det är tillåtet att sälja sex, när det är förbjudet att köpa. Om det är tillåtet att sälja sex måste det finnas en laglig accepterad kund. Hur ser han ut? Hennes uppfattning var att det finns många fritidshoror som drygar ut kassan, och att de gör stor skada. Alla är inte offer som "Lilja 4-ever". I samma datum skriver Hanna Kjöller en ledare "Kropp och själ är ett" om boken Skapar vården ohälsa? om "kultursjukdomar" som i hög grad tycks drabba kvinnor: Men varför drabbas kvinnorna? Kvinnor lever längre än mannen [men skall inte betala högre avgifter för pensionsförsäkringar]... kvinnokroppen är starkare än mannens och att det kan finnas evolutionära förklaringar till detta. Kulturen i kultursjukdomarna innefattar nämligen kvinnornas förmenta frigörelse. (rev 090915)

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090907 Feminism, Universitet och Varför

För att stödja studier av relationsproblem och problem på arbetsplatsen vill jag med det snaraste delge ett lästips som betytt mycket för min egen förståelse av tidigare erfarenheter och aktuella problem inom universitetets "postmodernism", kulturen, massmedia och samhällets vardag. Det är ett samhällskritiskt arbete av en amerikansk organisationsspecialist som länge studerat "politisk korrekthet". Det är en omskakande analys av bl.a. det stora och tragiska problemet som universitetets postmodernism inklusive "the design turn" och feminismen representerar i västerländska samhället med grund i (bortsett från franska revolutionen o.s.v.) efterkrigstidens USA. Det handlar om faderskapets symboliska värde som representant för omgivningens och rättvisans hårda krav, ställda mot den förment allsmäktiga och villkorslöst omslutande moderliga, curling-kärlek. Det är en analys som också tillåter en mera medveten utformning av en meningsfull strategi för hur denna utveckling eller avveckling skall bemötas, bejakas vad beträffar förståelsen av dess grunder och kritiseras vad beträffar tragiken i dess konsekvenser. Mitt eget projekt är att översätta författarens psykoanalytiska referensram dels till mera allmänna humanistiska termer enligt den analytiska psykologins anima-animus begreppen, men ytterst till icke -konservativa vetenskapliga och teologiska termer. Jag själv ser sedan länge feminismen i dess vanliga massmediala former som ett tragiskt och kontraproduktivt politiskt uttryck för legitima etiska problem och söker en lösning i det kristna budskapet som hos Franz von Baader och i moderna tider i verk som Stephen B. Clarks Man and Woman in Christ (1980). Den aktuella boken är Howard Schwartz,(2003). The Revolt of the Primitive: An Inquiry into the roots of political correctness.Publisher: Transaction Publishers. Boken vars mest representativa titelord är Den Politiska Korrekthetens Rötterpresenteras dels i recensioner i amerikanska källor (se den sista länken här ovan) och dels genom själva författaren Howard Schwartz. På nätet finns det prov på innehållet i form av enstaka uppsats. I Sverige kan boken erhållas i postlådan på några dagar från Internetbokhandel som AdLibris. (Rev090914)

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090821 Aftonbladets Donald Boström och "Israel-skandalen"

Den 17 augusti publicerade Aftonbladet en artikel av frilansjournalisten Donald Boström betitlad ”Våra söner plundras på sina organ”. Den angavs handla om ett geografiskt område där unga palestinska män kastar sten och glasflaskor mot israeliska soldater på norra Västbanken och där Bilal Achmed Ghanan skulle ha sprättats upp på sjukhus: ”Våra söner används som organreserv”, menar palestinierna. Palestinier anger att Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19, sköts och fördes bort av israeliska soldater. Kroppen lämnades tillbaka ihop-sydd från mage till hals. Palestinier anklagar alltså Israels armé för att stjäla kroppsdelar från sina offer. Artikelförfattaren Donald Boström skriver vidare om den internationella transplantationsskandalen – och hur han själv blev vittne till övergrepp på en 19-årig pojke. Donald Boström belägger det faktum att - och varför och hur - palestinier misstänker Israel. Att avkräva andra bevis är att ignorera att fakta "kostar". Bara Israel har den politiska och ekonomiska makten för att utreda sanningshalten i dessa anklagelser. Eller för att förhindra en utredning genom motanklagelser om anti-semitism.

Artikelns publicering följdes av inblandning från den svenska ambassadören i Israel, med mera som sammanfattas under sektionen "Läs mer" invid artikeln "Ambassadör ångrar sig inte: Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier i Tel Aviv ger inte upp trots växande kritik" publicerat i Svenska Dagbladet den 21 augusti. Så sent som samma datum - den 21 augusti f.m. hade svenska ambassaden i Israel på sin hemsida ingen referens till det som dominerat nyheterna i Sverige dessa senaste dagar, däremot en notis om att "H&M öppnar tre nya butiker i Israel". I avvaktan på en israelisk och opartisk utredning av anklagelserna vill jag för min del bara hänvisa de som hyser blind tilltro till Israels försäkringar till att noga studera omständigheterna kring den beryktade USA-skandalen kring Jonathan Pollard som anklagades och dömdes år 1987 till livstidsfängelse för spioneri för Israels räkning, och särskilt den israeliska regeringens senare agerande i målet. Eller då kan man hänvisa till den av FN stödd "Goldstone rapport" av krigsbrott som Hamas och inte minst staten Israel gjorde sig skyldiga till under kriget i Gaza årsskiftet 2008-2009 och som sist kommenteras i tidskriften Arena efter det att jag hade skrivit ovanstående text.

(rev 091016)

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090812 Sveriges Radios "Heliga familjen"

[För ett komplement till det inslag som följer var god se här ovan, slutstycken av "Mass murder tragedy in Norway, and Christian democracy"]

Den 9 augusti skickade jag följande e-brev till redaktionen för Sveriges Radios programserie i sommar "Heliga familjen". Den 12 augusti fick jag svaret (längre ned) som jag bedömde helt otillfredsställande och som föranledde mig att utan några större illusioner göra en formell anmälan till Granskningsnämnden för Radio och TV. Det enda jag håller med om med programredaktionen är att idag används utsagan "jag känner mig kränkt" alltför lättvindigt men detta problem tror jag mig redan ha förstått och löst genom att tillgodogöra mig innehållet i den i korrespondensen nämna boken Stjernfelt, F., & Thomsen, S. U. (2007). Kritik av den negativa uppbyggligheten[Critique of the negative edification]. Stockholm: Ruin Förlag. Att området (av någon mycket intressant anledning) är mycket infekterat påvisas av debatten kring journalisten Maciej Zarembas serie om "kränkning" i Dagens Nyheter i början av år 2008. Sammanfattningsvis inser jag dock att jag inte kan fortsätta att ödsla tid på sådana här punktinsatser i allt som förefaller tokigt i samhällsutvecklingen. Det sker endast när känslorna tar över och jag kan inte låta bli. Slutsatsen måste i varje fall bli att lämna alltfler enskilda frågor åt sidan för att kunna samla krafter i en systematisk samlad insats i form av en bok eller Internet-motsvarighet. Om det nu är någon mening med det (mot bakgrund av t.ex. Predikaren och Kristi Efterföljelse!)

Date: 2009-08-09 12.27 +0200

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: heligafamiljen@sr.se

Subject: Sverige Radios "Heliga familjen"

Till Sveriges Radios

Redaktionen för sommarens serie "Heliga familjen"

I serie "Heliga familjen" hörde jag senast inslaget Den alternativa familjen Fredag 07 augusti 2009 kl. 10:03.

Programmet presenteras annars som följande som sin hemsida <http://www.sr.se/sida/default.aspx?ProgramID=3140>:

> Heliga Familjen belyser idag några alternativ till den traditionella

> heterosexuella kärnfamiljsnormen. Vi träffar Hanne Gorton Lindblad, 18,

> som växt upp med homosexuella föräldrar. Vi hör även Tove, som valt

> att inseminera sig för att kunna få barn utan att ha en partner.

> Och så äter vi middag med socialministern Göran Hägglund, känd för

> att ifrågasätta alla andra familjeformer än den heterosexuella

> kärnfamiljen.

Jag vill fråga följande och är tacksam för ett ordentligt engagerat svar: Anser redaktionens själv och i synnerhet den ansvarige utgivaren att programmet uppfyller kraven på opartiskhet och kanske även objektivitet? Som bekant:

Opartiskhet (NE): krav som anses gälla i princip all nyhetsförmedling, särskilt inom s.k. public-service medier. Opartiskhet ingår i kravet på objektivitet och kan specificeras som balans i nyhetsurvalet samt neutralitet i innehåll och framställning.

Min bedömning är att t.ex. det senaste programmet INTE uppfyller dessa krav: visserligen intervjuade man Göran Hägglund som uppenbarligen inte delade intervjuarens (eller var två intervjuare) åsikter. Intervjuarna tycktes ibland inte kunna låta honom prata ledigt utan ansatte honom ibland med ledande frågor men längre inslag av egna åsikter. Men det är inte huvudsaken. Ett viktigt inslag var en serie tillfrågade experter (bl.a. pedagoger) som samtliga ifrågasatte Göra Hägglunds åsikter.

Det kan man skylla på att redaktionen inte funnit några som helst experter som delade hans åsikter. Men är det verkligen så, då jag själv känner till flera experter inklusive debattörer sådana som delar Hägglunds åsikter. Har redaktionen ansträngt sig för att finna sådana? Var det opartiskt att ställa TIO likadana åsikter mot EN skiljaktig dito? För övrigt anser redaktionen att t.ex. teologi som historiskt förankrat universitetsämne också har sina experter? Är det långsökt att t.ex. tillfråga den katolske biskopen Anders Arborelius eller en massmedial och intellektuell expertpräst som Anders Piltz i Lund som ibland anlitas i andra program som t.ex. filosofiska rummet? Eller att överhuvudtaget tillfråga någon som helhjärtat råkar stödja Göran Hägglunds ställningstaganden med grund i vetenskapliga, psykologiska, sociologiska eller filosofiska rationella argument? Och var det meningen med programseriens rubrik att på en gång bara förlöjliga och vifta bort själva kristna begreppet "Heliga familjen" som inte ens bli föremål för presentation och diskussion i något enda program i serien?

ß Som sagt, jag är tacksam för ett seriöst engagerat svar eftersom den här serien har upplevts som problematisk för att inte säga kränkande av många lyssnare som också vill gärna anmäla den till Granskningsnämnden för Radio och TV. Jag är medveten att detta har paradoxalt bidragit till dess popularitet och att detta i sig inte anses problematiskt, utan tvärtom. Särskilt om man inte tillgodogjort sig den sortens kritik mot "provokation" och "gränsöverskridande" som förs fram av t.ex. Stjernfelt och Thomsen i "Kritik av den negativa uppbyggligheten".

Med vänlig hälsning, Kristo Ivanov

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SVARET den 12 augusti

Date: 2009-08-12 11.32 +0200

From: Heliga Familjen SR P1 <heligafamiljen@sr.se>

To: Kristo Ivanov

Subject: Sv: Sverige Radios "Heliga familjen"

Copies to: Externa SR Nya Medier <externa@sr.se>

Hej Kristo!

Vi ringde både till experter som vi visste skulle ifrågasätta Hägglunds åsikter och till företrädare för stora erkända organisationer som arbetar för barns rättigheter, för att höra deras tankar om Hägglunds åsikter. Vårt uppdrag är att låta politiker och andra samhällsdebattörer och experter föra fram sina åsikter och teorier i radio, inte att leta upp exakt lika många företrädare för varje åsikt.

Vårt namn anspelar på tanken att familjelivet skulle vara något som inte får diskuteras i offentligheten, inte får ifrågasättas eller granskas som den samhällsinstitution det faktiskt är. Denna granskning anser vi är nödvändig i ett demokratiskt samhälle, precis som vi journalister ska granska myndigheterna, medierna, religionerna, politiken och alla andra tunga samhällsinstitutioner, oavsett om det får någon att känna sig kränkt eller ej.

ß vänligen

Johanna Langhorst, Heliga Familjen

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090802 Andlig vänskap - Spiritual friendship

Efter det att ha sett hur långvariga vänskap (eller vad det nu var) kan dö ut läser jag med eftertanke om en kurs som annonseras i Katolskt Forum - en skrift från Sankta Eugenias katolska församling avseende verksamheten hösten 2009:

Vad skiljer andlig vänskap från "vanlig vänskap"? Aelred of Rievaulx, inspirerad av Ciceros text "Om vänskap", inledde en självutforskande inre resa och producerade en av de mest tankeväckande avhandlingar om fenomenet helig vänskap i all kristen litteratur. I hans fotspår återkommer temat i skrifter av Francis de Sales och hans andliga vän Jane de Chantal. Vad har hänt med meningen och värdet av vänskap 400 år senare? Vad kännetecknar äkta och falska vänner? Vad är passionens roll i vänskap? Var finns Gud i relationen idag? Resan in i Gud, även om den är djupt personlig, är inte privat. Denna kurs handlar om vägen till en kärleksfull relation som vi odlar för att få hjälp att fördjupa vår relation till Gud.

Det slår mig att på senare tider har jag ofta återkommit till vad jag minns efter att ha läst hos Aristoteles om de tre sorters vänskap: för nytta, nöje och riktig vänskap där några vill gärna tolka den sistnämnda som att bejaka allt som den behövande vännen behagar betrakta som sitt eget bästa. Eller läst i Kristi Efterföljelse, om att en riktigt vänskap endast kan upprätthållas med en överordnad gemensam tro som hjälper att förlåta, tåla och fördraga. Och relationer mellan släktingar i allmänhet och mellan makar och deras barn i synnerhet borde utgöra de mest värdefulla exemplen av mänsklig vänskap. Den vänskap som idag systematiskt ifrågasätts i den med hjälp av radio- och TV avgifter finansierade "pedagogiskt underhållande" serie i Sveriges Radio om den oheliga familjen, producerad av människor som inte tycks ha hunnit uppehålla sig vid innebörden av den Heliga familjen.

Resultat? Jag frångick mitt sedan många år avgivet "nyårslöfte" att inte köpa flera böcker innan jag läst färdigt de många goda böckerna som redan ligger i högar och står på bokhyllorna - och innan jag slängt eller lämnat på sjukhusets bibliotek de som jag aldrig kommer att läsa. Snart kommer de som eventuellt blir de nya vännernas beställda böcker: Aelred of Rievaulx, Cicero, Francis de Sales och Jane de Chantal. Michel de Montaignes bok får också vara med, även om han inte hör till favoritförfattarna.

(rev 090815)

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090721 Universitetsforskning

Ibland blir jag tillfrågad hur jag upplever de senare årens forskning i allmänhet och inom mitt område i synnerhet. Jag har svårt att uttrycka vad jag upplever men jag måste bekänna att följande ingav mig en känsla av starkt och trist igenkännande. Det är ett igenkännande av utvecklingen sedan 1980-talet då samma forskare som var passionerade för marxistiskt och maoistiskt inflytande i forskningen övergick till ett svårfångat intresse för design, i en process som jag försökt analysera i mitt arbete.

Nyligen råkade jag läsa om Leszek Kolakowkis bok "Samtal med djävulen" (se nedan). I sin inledning till boken (sid. 9) påminner Lars Gyllensten om Søren Kierkegaards framställning av en motsättning mellan två slags författare eller människor överhuvudtaget: "premissförfattare" och autentiska författare. Med premissförfattare menade han författare som plockar upp vad som är i sväng, idéer, tankar, läror, talesätt, program, filosofier, etcetera, och kokar ihop en soppa därpå, ränner runt och prånglar ut sin sörja men aldrig drar några slutsatser av vad de fångar upp, aldrig förpliktigar sig till något ställningstagande eller val, aldrig sätter sig i några lägen som innebär ett ansvar för vad de säger eller skriver, alltid är redo att ta till sig vad helst som kan bjuda sig i nästa stund och till nytta inför nästa publik. De kommer aldrig någon vart annat än in i samtidens popularitet.

Och på vägen återuppfinner man i bästa fall hjulet. Kanske på grund av att man drivit universiteten in i obarmhärtig våg av försök till självfinansierande kommersialisering upplever jag att "premissforskning" gradvis lett till det beskrivna beteendet i alltfler forskningsområden. Ibland misstänker jag att grävande journalistik där journalister kan t.o.m. riskera sitt eget liv i sökande efter den svåra sanningen är dagens förvaltare av traditionen av äkta forskning. I massmedia exemplifieras denna forskning i vissa program av Bosse Lindquist från Sveriges Radios dokumentärredaktionen.

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090720 Gamla och unga

I förra veckan talade jag med en äldre kvinna som sommarlängtar efter sina vuxna barn och barnbarn. Barnen hör inte av sig på veckor och ibland månader. Barnbarnen likaså i takt med att de når tonåren och vuxenåldern. Yngsta barnbarnen kan visst vilja hälsa på men de hänger med de stressade föräldrarnas digra fritidsschema. TV-tittande, internetsurfande och dataspel också kräver sina timmar.

Kvinnan själv verkade vara osentimentalt medveten om att hon måste föregå med gott exempel och bjuda på sig själv. Man skall inte vänta på att det är de andra som först skall höra av sig utan måste själv ta initiativ, ringa, skriva eller så. Obesvarade påringningar eller telefonmeddelanden som hamnar i stumma röstbrevlådor. Hon mailar eller skriver kort. Ibland har hon till och med postat någon liten födelsedagspresent och inte ens fått höra om den kommit fram. Det är inte så att det råder osämja. När det händer så händer det och alla träffas och allt är frid och fröjd. Men barnen liksom föräldrarna kanske tycker det finns mycket annat roligt eller till och med nödvändigt att göra. När det gäller mormor så har de ännu mindre ork att hälsa på henne eftersom de ofta "har nog med sig själva". Det gör dock bara ont när barn eller barnbarn plötsligt hör av sig just när de behöver något. Mest pengar, lån eller presenter. Som några tusen på bankkontot senast i morgon. "Är du snäll, mormor och bidrar med en slant? Farmor har redan skickat pengar...."

Jag själv sitter och tänker. Ja...stackars barnen som mitt i livet kämpar med det beryktade livspusslet...De upplever att de har det så svårt och att de gamla föräldrarna haft och har det så mycket bättre...Det går ingen nöd på de gamla. Inte än så länge. Och massmedia öser på och hjälper att friskriva politikerna från ansvar genom att skapa konflikt mellan unga och gamla, som vissa feminister redan gjort och gör mellan kvinnor och män. Alltså, "söndra och härska" i stället för uppriktig men plågsamt riskabel politisk analys som kräver självkritik. Ungdomen intalas att den ensidigt utnyttjas för att betala de gamlas dryga pensioner. Gamla har aldrig haft det så bra medan unga aldrig haft (och skall ha?) det så dåligt? Dessa föreställningar är i så fall priset på historielösheten och kärlekslösheten. Annars står det i professor Thomas Lindhs senaste och bästa vetenskapliga översikten över problemet för regeringens räkning - "Sverige i en åldrande värld": "I och för sig är en åldrande befolkning en mycket bra sak. Det innebär en avsevärd höjning av mänsklig välfärd att få leva längre med bra hälsa. Det är något att fira snarare än att beklaga. Varför har det då larmats om kris och katastrof? Ja, för det första säljer dåliga nyheter alltid bättre än goda...För det är verkligen inte givet hur anpassningen till en åldrande befolkning sker utan det handlar till stor del om vad vi och våra politiker gör."

Eller inte gör för att sedan söndra och härska genom skylla på det oälskade tärande köttberget. I fattiga länder är det inte sällan de vuxna barnen som utvandrar för att hitta arbete och skicka hem pengar för att försörja de gamla föräldrarna. Här i det rika landet är det inte sällan tvärtom föräldrarna som skall hjälpa de vuxna barnen. Två föräldrar kan försörja fyra barn men fyra vuxna barn kan knappast försörja sig själva. Vi skyller på arbetsmarknaden. Jag tror att dessa barn och barnbarn knappast har kommit på att föräldrarna snart är döda och att de själva håller på att bli gamla föräldrar. Jag hoppas att de, självgoda, inte bara dyker upp på den gamla kvinnans begravning med rödgråtna ögon när hennes stund är kommen. En gång i tiden försökte man tidigt lära barnen "älska din nästa så som dig själv". Och "hedra din far och din mor". Medan de lever. Utan att tänka på ömsesidig nytta eller nöje.

Lång tid efter att detta (ovan) skrevs läser jag annonseringen av ett program i SVT2 den 27 februari 2011, kl. 20.00 "Dokument inifrån: Generation utanför. Dokumentär. Många av dagens ungdomar kan känna sig blåsta på den trygghet som den äldre generationen skaffat sig på arbetsmarknaden." Observera: skaffat SIG? Om det är rentav så att det är de ännu äldre och redan döda generationerna av far- och morföräldrar, eller farfars- och mormorsföräldrar som genom egna uppoffringar, hårt arbete inklusive fackligt dito försökt skaffa ett bättre liv till sina efterkommande, varför denna formulering? Att de "skaffat SIG" som antyder att numera gamla föräldrar varit själviska genom att bara tänka på sig själva och "blåst" sina egna barn, vid sidan om alla de övriga förmåner dessa unga redan avnjutit under sin tillväxt och fortfarande avnjuter i det moderna samhället? Varför dessa försök att ställa generationer, barn och föräldrar mot varandra, på samma sätt som kvinnor och män alltid skall ställas mot varandra i jämställdhetens tecken, samtidigt som seriöst politiskt arbete och engagemang ligger så lågt i kurs? Är dessa konstgjorda konstruerade motsättningar ett sätt att härska genom att söndra eller ett sätt att ignorera verkliga svårigheter genom att skylla ifrån och skylla på medan en stor andel av TV-program handlar om s.k. lek och underhållning?

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090719 Vänsterns högervridning

Kajsa Ekis Ekman (KEE) har i en tidningsartikel i DN den 11 juli 2009 ("Vänsterns arena går åt höger") visat hur vänsterskribenter med hemvist i tidskrifterna Arena och Bang har kidnappat debattämnen genom att utge sig för att ha blivit nedtystade, marginaliserade eller förtryckta. På så viss har debatterna handlat om debatternas förmenta förutsättningar vid diskussionen av t.ex. feminism, islamism, pedofili, tortyr eller sex inklusive sexuella perversioner. Debatterna har blivit meta-debatter där påstådd marginalisering ger nya vänsterintellektuella en värdefull negativistisk positionering och tolkningsföreträde i de "egna" tidskrifterna. Och det som förenar det vänsterintellektuella med det liberala fältet är just överenskommelsen om vilka positioner ("för" eller "mot") är goda eller onda, där man själv naturligtvis företräder det goda. Författaren KEE tycks beklaga att en sådan debattstrategi kommer att alienera folk och kasta dem i armarna på den Allians som erbjuder enkla och billiga lösningar på politiska problem.

Jag saknar dock en enda enkel påminnelse om det i sammanhanget högst relevanta historiska fenomenet "politisk korrekthet" (PK). Begreppet politiskt korrekt föddes nämligen i Sovjetunionen under utrensningarna på 1920-talet, då det användes för att klassificera vilka medborgarbeteenden som var korrekta eller inkorrekta utifrån den officiella partilinjen. Är det måhända så att KEE känner sig paradoxalt generad av PK:s besvärande anknytning till den sovjetiska historien? Vänsterns högervridning skulle i så fall vara ett resultat av en inneboende förutsättning i självaste vänsterideologin - en "enantiondromia" av det slag som Leszek Kolakowski så målande beskrivit i sina studier av marxismen. När en överdriven kraft drar åt ena hållet så befinner den sig plötsligt åt motsatta hållet. Som att man bombar sönder Irak och irakier till frihet och demokrati.

Och så är det också märkligt att KEE visserligen nämner danskarna Frederik Stjernfeldt och Søren Ulrik Thomsen dock inte deras i sammanhanget intressanta bok (Kritik av den Negativa Uppbyggligheten). Den utgör en perfekt teoretisk bas för att förklara det av KEE beskrivna och fördömda fenomen som hon annars lämnar helt oförklarat. Boken tar nämligen upp syndabockens betydelse i sin koppling till offermentaliteten i olika former. Medan syndabockar (nazismens judar, feminismens män, främlingshatarnas utlänningar) avleder social aggressivitet så är det i den kristna kulturen Guds egen son som är den ultimata syndabocken. Han motverkar människors frestelse att själva spela Kristusrollen och att i stället för att förlåta hellre avkräva hämnd eller gränslös gottgörelse under täckmantel av förment "rättvisa".

Mot denna bakgrund är vänsterns liksom feminismens, liberalismens eller (tabubelagda!) förintelseindustrinsofferpositionering ett följdriktigt resultat av förkastelsen av kristendomen. I den mån kristna själva frestas att inta en offerposition i stället för äkta martyrskap så kan de har dukat under för en ondskans frestelse, eller som Kolakowski uttrycker det (i Samtal med Djävulen, sid. 102-103):

"Demonen åstundar det onda och önskar därför fortsätta sitt förstörelsearbete, han vill inte ha någon förändring av sin placering i världens ordning eller oordning, eller snarare sin placering i som en negering av ordningen inne i ordningen. Därmed accepterar han att vara vad han är. Samtidigt, just därför att han är vad han är, är han en förnekelse av samma ordning, som anvisar honom en plats som sin negativa beståndsdel. Genom att leva av att negera ordningen lever han just av denna ordning, som han förnekar, och som för sin del är medbestämd till sin existens av den negativa kraften demonens närvaro...[E]ftersom således själva hungern efter förstörelse är vad som skapar demonen kräver tillfredsställandet av denna hunger närvaro av en ordning att förstöra..."

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090718 Det agnostiska manifestet

Agnostikern Stefan Einhorn (agnostiker = "som inte vet") är en författare som skriver om allt möjligt, ofta under titeln "Professor", senast om "Det agnostiska manifestet" i DN den 14 juli 2009. Einhorn har under många år ansett befinna sig med den ena foten i det "vetenskapliga paradigmet" och den andra i ett osäkert gungfly av andlighet och öppen tro. Öppenhet är ett ofta återkommande ord i hans text men han tycks inte vara lika öppen angående vetenskapen som han bygger sin auktoritet på. Det finns nämligen inget vetenskapligt paradigm utan endast paradigmer som innebär att vetenskap också är ett gungfly trots hans oproblematiska referens till det "rationella förnuftet" och "sunda förnuftet".

Det är alltså balanserande med sina fötter på varsitt gungfly som professorn till slut vill etablera en för västerlandet "relativt trygg mark" för att kunna få säga: "Jag vet verkligen inte". ("Verkligen"?) Eller då var det för att etablera "en grund för dialog" som av någon anledning alltid uppfattas som lovande och bra utan hänsyn till dess klassiska förutsättningar: vänskap och god vilja. Frågan är hur professorn klarar av det utan att positionera sig bland tusenåriga försök som kallas filosofins historia då det är bara de gamla vulgärpositivisterna som hittills ansett att "vi" kan göra det med grund i vad de kallat sunda förnuftet, d.v.s. det som säger att jorden är platt. Jo, Einhorn konstaterar att "vi gemensamt" kan fördöma allt som är "oacceptabelt", i synnerhet oacceptabla övergrepp mot mänskligheten, och "avarter av mänskligt beteende". Vi ska alltså inte acceptera det som är oacceptabelt.

Vidare, trots att Einhorn skriver ena gången att dessa avarter av mänskligt beteende begåtts av "företrädare för såväl religioner som ideologier vilka tar avstånd från Gud", så tappar han längre fram ideologierna och hävdar att det bara är "skillnader i trosuppfattning mellan olika religioner som är anledning till dessa avarter". Har han måhända tappat ideologierna eftersom själva den förment ödmjuka agnosticismen är en ideologi? Dess självförklarande ödmjukhet inför de "ännu så länge" olösta livsfrågorna hindrar den dock inte från att skaffa sig ensamrätt på (till skillnad från de stora religionerna?) det "grundläggande dogmat" av "strävan efter godhet mot medmänniskan". Det är också det agnostiska manifestets förmenta ödmjukhet som paradoxalt förespråkar en "öppenhet för den teoretiska möjligheten att även de stora livsfrågorna i en mer eller mindre avlägsen framtid kan öppna sig för en objektiv [läs: vetenskaplig] analys".

Mycket öppenhet, ödmjukhet och strävan, alltså, i den nya ideologin. Den profetiske professorn förkunnar slutligen att "vi ska sträva mot att lösa våra åsiktsskillnader i samförstånd och aldrig glömma detta gemensamma ansvar". Vem är det som anbefaller att vi ska - och varför hörsammar många inte budet - och vad ska "vi" göra åt det? Det pådyvlade dogmatiska ansvaret (vad är ansvar mot samvete och makt?) är att "vi har alla, oberoende av tro, ett gemensamt ansvar för att vår värld och de varelser som bebor den skall leva sitt liv i trygghet, fred, och i strävan efter kunskap, visdom, välmående och lycka." Svårt att motstå frestelsen att ropa Halleluja. Ja, vi SKA sträva...

Jag häpnar inför tanken att ingen annan Gud, filosof, politiker eller profet framgångsrikt tidigare hunnit med dessa tankar och anbefallningar. Jag går tillbaka till den agnostiska trosbekännelsen "Jag vet verkligen inte!" Åter igen: "verkligen"? Ifall den pragmatiska kunskapen som ska förena de trovissa och de sekulära är pragmatisk just på grund av att kunskap ska leda till handling, vilken är då handlingen som föds ur "Jag vet inte"?

Den handlingen kan just vara att författa en tidningsartikel om agnosticismen där agnostikern till och med kan tänka sig tillåta utövandet av en religion OM han (eller "vi"?) bedömer att det inte är skadligt för utövaren eller annan part ("dom")...

Varför är det många som slutar läsa dagstidningar? Beror det bara på Internet? Så kallad debatt eller dialog reduceras alltmer till en trist och steril energislukare. Det blir en match mellan agnostiker som passar bra för de som tycker att det är vägen som är målet. När allt kommer omkring är det trots allt mera trösterikt att utan större teologiska anspråk läsa (DN 12 juli) Inger Edelfeldts "Är det konstigt att man längtar?" Min poäng: i stället för att trots all förment ödmjukhet lansera en ny religion eller ideologi är det bättre att erkänna att man tvingas välja mellan de som redan finns till hands.

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090717 "Sommar" i Sveriges Radio

Den 16 juli kunde jag inte låta bli att uttrycka min tacksamhet för en kritisk artikel som Peter Bryngelsson skrev i Dagens Nyheter - Kultur dagen innan angående Sveriges Radios programserien "sommar". Den följdes av ytterligare en senare artikel i samma tidning som refererade svaret från radions programansvarige och som väckte några avslutande tankar. Här nedan följer mina inlägg.

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: "Peter Bryngelsson c/o" <kulturdebatten@dn.se>

cc: sommar@sr.se, ingvar.storm@sr.se

bcc: Peter.Bryngelsson@mhm.lu.se

Subject: Sommarpratare i radio P1

Date-Sent: torsdag 16 jul 2009 11.19.21 +0200

Tack, bäste Peter Bryngelsson, för ditt inlägg "Jag, jag, jag. Årets sommarpratare..." i DN-Kultur den 15 juli <http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/debatt-essä/jag-jag-jag-1.912066>.

Till skillnad från många program under de gångna somrarna som ofta skakade om och rörde till tårar och som många sparat som kära och dyrbara inspelningar så har de sista två åren markerat en dyster utveckling eller avveckling. Med enstaka undantag märks det i både jag-centreringen, egenreklamen, och det ackompanjerande musikvalet - en kultur som inte tycks känna till annat än amerikansk populärkultur, företrädesvis av det slaget som förmodas vädja till ungdom som förmodas få att lyssna på radio om de får lyssna till företrädesvis ny-kändisar som pratar mest om sig själva utan tankeväckande anknytning till något mera allmänmänskligt. Sannerligen deprimerande.

Men din artikel var en ljuspunkt mitt i mörkret i det att den påminner om att det fortfarande finns en "opinion" - om än allt mindre lyssnande, dock i gengäld mer tänkande och kännande. Tack! Med vänlig hälsning,

Kristo Ivanov

From: Kristo Ivanov

To: Peter Bryngelsson <kulturdebatten@dn.se>

cc: sommar@sr.se, bibi.rodoo@sr.se, "ingvar. storm"@sr.se, erik.laquist@dn.se

Subject: Sommarpratare i radio P1 (fwd)

Date-Sent: fredag 17 jul 2009 21.47.21 +0200

Läser med stor förvåning svarsresultatet i dagens DN av "3 frågor till Bibi Rödöö" <http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/sommar-ar-jag-fixerat-till-sin-natur-1.912969>.

Sveriges Radio företrädare Bibi Rödöö tycker att Sommar är ett program som till sin natur är jag-fixerat. Precis som om de som lyssnat och reflekterat över denna programserie i tiotals år inte uppmärksammat det. Däremot har de kanske förstått skillnaden mellan att vara privat och personlig: innebörden av icke trivial allmänmänsklighet - sådant som överskrider vanliga kliniska beskrivningar av förlossningar, sorger och framgångar. Icke trivial medmänsklighet som inte är beskäftiga uppmaningar till lyssnarna att vara lika kloka och snälla som talaren.

Det vore mycket förtjänstfullt om DN ville följa upp den här följetongen eftersom Bibi Rödöös svar förefaller mig vara ytterligare ett exempel på den här märkliga tendensen att förvandla radioprogram till såpor: senaste idag med coachen Elizabeth Gummesson som mitt bland uteslutande skrikiga amerikanska schlagers berättar vad viktigt det är att älska medmänniskor som hon gör, och gör reklam för sin debutbok och den kommande boken som ska göra henne till författare. Såvitt jag förstår så bekräftar Bibi Rödöö "jag-jag-jag" tendensen i programmen i och med att i vanlig ordning inte lyssna och avfärda all kritik. Om kritikern - tänkte hon - att "han inte har hört" eller "Då har han lyssnat jättedåligt". När det gäller reklamen och marknadsföringen var det ingen agent som sålde till Sveriges Radio utan det var "redaktionen" själv som ville sälja.

Att "många läsare" delar kritikerns åsikt spelar tydligen ingen roll, eftersom radions opartiskhet tolkas som att varje kritiker kan ställas mot en eller flera anonyma beundrare av programmen. Den ene tycker si och den andre tycker så och radion/redaktionen tycker att det tycks olika. Som när kunder reklamerar en nyss köpt vara i affären: "Det är ingen som klagar förut - eller förresten det är många som inte alls klagat och ni har inte förstått varans handhavandesätt". Med andra ord: Bibi Rödöö uppenbarar att lyssnarnas åsikter inte tas på allvar eftersom hon säger att "jag-jag-jag" eller "vi-vi-vi" har gjort rätt men kritikerna inte hört - inte lyssnat - inte förstått. Jag måste dock önska hennes bästa: att Sveriges Radion kan öka andelen - om inte antalet - unga lyssnare som inte vet något bättre eftersom de kan inte minnas och jämföra med hur det har varit och hur det kunde vara. Äldre lyssnare och insändarskrivare är ändå snart döda.

Med vänlig hälsning,

Kristo Ivanov

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