Revisiting “Organized Religion and People in Psychopathic Civilization”
Complex PTSD applies to people who have been subjected to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months to years), for example, hostages, prisoners of war, concentration camp inhabitants, victims of domestic battering or prolonged sexual exploitation and abuse, and cult members.
Organized Religion and People in Psychopathic Civilization
The following is by Reed Kinney
Dear Douglas Becker,
In response to your excellent essay PTSD:
Douglas Becker writes: “BUT, many battered wives, many abused employees, many former religious believers eventually come to the point where they accept that – quite literally – no matter what happens in the future, it is not going to be worse than this. And that realization is what sets them free. Free to begin working on learning a new way to live, with no guarantee of where the new path will lead.”
What should we expect from people in mass centralized society after the illusions of its stability and fairness are demolished? The impact of the central bank on society, and all its ramifications, is criminal. Criminality is implicit any time power is centralized in “few hands”. What our society suffers from is a structural problem. When people are awake to the abuses of mass centralization, and the profound damage they suffer consequent of hierarchical systems of control, then, they are ready to undertake their autonomous organization, of necessity, the opposite of centralization; organization where in power is shared equally among all members.
The idea that the opposite of mass centralized society can be another type of organization, rather than chaos, is something few people have considered. That type of organization, described in my book, Decentralized Economic Social Organization, DESO, and Neo-New World, is precisely the way to prevent centralized power from dominating, and impoverishing the lives of people.
Organized Religion in Mass Centralized Society
Some church organizations do things to help the less fortunate in appreciable ways. There are many types of religious groups with their respective agendas. I will not elaborate the topic here. The fact remains that not all churches are entirely altruistic, and some are entirely deceptive.
When a “church” is the means by which its “leaders” earn a living, or enjoy opulence, at the expense of their congregations, then it is not a church, but, rather, it is a conniving business that “sells” promises; promises of subjective experience for the member with the most “faith”.
When a “church” is a business …it is a means to power, power for the few people that manage it. Such systems may become autocratic bureaucracies expanding influence, and encouraging members to recruit new members. …By contrast, there are congregations that stagnate, and remain close knit groups, under the control of their chief, and principle acolytes. …A “matured” powerful, religious institution like the Catholic Church manipulates the mentalities of its members to over populate. The Mormon Church uses different deceptions, but with the same result.
Douglas Becker writes: “This blog entry began with an example of fear in the PKG Weinland CoG. Even after Weinland’s 2012 Pentecost prophecy went bust, proving he is certifiably a false prophet, followed by his conviction as a felon for evading the Federal Income Tax, his followers are still… well… following him… mostly because of fear. It may be fear of suffering or the fear of losing out. The bottom line is fear.”
Systems of control, by whatever name, are attractive targets for unscrupulous, psychopaths and sociopaths. See my essay on that topic at: http://decentralizationblog.wordpress.com
“My favorite line from the movie “Shawshank Redemption” is (paraphrased), “You can get busy living, or get busy dying.” It just seemed like the members we saw (except for Ron and his family) were so busy preparing to die, that they had forgotten how to live.”
Unscrupulous “church leaders” do not share the “faith” of those whom they dominate.
Douglas Becker writes: “Complex PTSD applies to people who have been subjected to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months to years), for example, hostages, prisoners of war, concentration camp inhabitants, victims of domestic battering or prolonged sexual exploitation and abuse, and cult members. Symptoms include persistent negative feelings of anxiety and / or sadness, chronic suicidal preoccupation, self-injury, explosive or extremely inhibited anger (may alternate), compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality (may alternate), reliving or ruminating over experiences, a sense of helplessness or paralysis of initiative, a sense of defilement or stigma, a sense of complete difference from others (specialness, utter aloneness, a sense that no other person can understand, or not feeling entirely human), and preoccupation with the perpetrator *(includes preoccupation with revenge or unrealistic attribution of total power to the perpetrator). Complex PTSD is sometimes called Disorder of Extreme Stress. “As adults, these individuals often are diagnosed with depressive disorders, personality disorders, or dissociative disorders. Treatment often takes much longer than with regular PTSD, may progress at a much slower rate, and requires a sensitive and structured treatment program delivered by a trauma specialist….”
Analytically, you can correlate what you describe here with the overall socioeconomic – structures – that the members of mass centralized society are obliged to adapt to, and react to. Humanistic psychiatrists including Erich Fromm, and C. G. Jung, and even more explicitly Alfred Ribi, among others, have made it clear that alienation, the consequence of conformity within hierarchies of centralized power, is itself a life depleting, mental pathology.
People in Secular Psychopathological Civilization
Competition is natural, since the quality of goods and services varies. To base a civilization on competition alone is nonsense, because competition alone becomes petrified by monopoly. Bogus competition in monopolized systems includes the fight among too many applicants for too few positions. That mentality is reflected in the televised game shows that choose one winner from thousands of competitors. By contrast, a high civilization is mutualistic, a structural feature, as well as competitive, a natural feature of production.
There are few, or no, options for most members of a stratified, competitive, power-based society. Extreme conformity includes the expense of adequate training in order to compete for entry levels in for-profit corporations, or in public services. Not having credentials or due to one’s inability, or refusal, to conform to authoritarianism can result in a life-long, day by day, struggle for money.
Conformity to the behavioral standards of systems of control causes fear; fear of disapproval, of ostracization, banishment, or punishment.
In a competitive, stratified society fear is used to form “union,” the fear of an enemy that “threatens” the “well being” of all. The enemy can be the members of a competitive group, a contrived enemy, or an imaginary one.
When the Soviet Union ended, the fear among the American megalomaniacs in positions of control was that in the absence of FEAR, the people might discover each other and initiate dialogue! The new enemy, a contrived enemy, was “terrorists,” mostly blamed on radical Islamists. That was convenient, because, as in any witch hunt, the accused could not prove that she was not a witch, a communist, or a “terrorist,” and untold numbers of them could be anonymous and at large.
The nail that drove the point home was 911. That was the contrived, the engineered, demonstration that brought the “reality” of real danger into the minds of Americans. All of the inner workings of that particular, wicked machination may never be known.
There are many ways oppressors create enemies for their oppressed to fear.
With 911, the powers that be killed two birds with one stone. They enforced fear among most Americans, and they fueled the mass hysteria consequent of 911 with propaganda, and stirred up the working psychopaths among us to enforce support for the Iraq invasion, and so on.
Fear is a contributing factor of PTSD. A society that is grounded on domination uses fear to weaken its members, so they cease being critical, and become all the more susceptible to mass hysteria.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some people become effective, critical non-conformists. And, yes, too, there are people from humble beginnings who become humane, noteworthy folks, who can be kind.
And, there is a “narrow slice of society,” wherein children are born into loving, imaginative families that have the means to educate them generously, and widely. Among those people there are well adjusted independent sorts that have some idea of culture and history, as well as a better view of society and its machinations. And, they may even have the luxury of discretionary time …coupled with the skill of thought.
Organized people are sincerely, passionately, dedicated to conserving the natural environment while, at once, they witness its mass destruction caused by industrial conglomerates.
Kind people create businesses that treat the ills of people in a sick society, not suspecting, or not admitting, that the society itself is the cause of the widespread, generalized, malaise.
Many people seem to comprehend the problem of centralized power, and understand, to varying degrees, its negative impact on people. Most of those people have real difficulty imagining pragmatic, structured solutions to the problem. Marcin Jakubowski has made significant inroads relevant to needed solutions, as have John Seymour, and E.F. Schumacher, among others. But, the organizational principles needed to assimilate all humane contributions that enhance our well being are only now beginning to surface.
Nonetheless, the preponderances of our society’s members are not well. According to Abraham H. Maslow, “Though, in principle, self-actualization [full metal health] is easy, in practice it rarely happens (by my criteria, certainly in less than 1% of the adult population). For this, there are many, many reasons at various levels of discourse, including all the determinants of psychopathology that we now know. …” (Toward a Psychology of Being, P. 204)
The few people born into the actual class of wealth do not focus on “accomplishment,” since they own everything. As children, and as young people, they are taught that they are among that, unexplained, ““Special” ten percent.” They are taught to “rule,” which, for the most part, alienates them from their humanness, and ruins all sense of community.
Psychopathy and Sociopathy
Psychopathy is a form of retardation, not intellectual impairment, but empathetic impairment. There are law abiding psychopaths, as well as outlaw psychopaths. Individually, their intelligence varies. …Psychopaths dislike pain, and they avoid the conditions that they remember had caused it, but they don’t have fear. …They are born into every level of society, 4% of births.
If poor, they may learn, as do members of their class, skills to make money, or become welfare recipients. Being liars, cheats, and coning-people, is characteristic, some become “religious” leaders. They get what they want from whomever they influence.
When born into more favorable circumstances, psychopaths may learn to live off others legally, or otherwise, and, may, or may not, assimilate enough education to manage professional positions. Within their capacities, psychopaths strive to control other people.
Sociopaths, however, are not born, but are “made.” They are people for whom the pursuit of wealth and power is the primary objective in life, and they use any advantage to get it.
Of course, to varying degrees, the unscrupulous in positions of control instill fear in others, which is terrorism, as well as make use of deceit …conflict, murder, and rape whenever they perceive doing so can strengthen their position of dominance, or increases their pleasure in the moment.
The spectrum’s of mental pathologies relevant to PTSD reduce personal productivity, and impoverish lives.
The theme of western society is domination (Paulo Freire). That is the theme sociopaths live by, and conveniently for them, society is structured so that the few benefit from the efforts of the many.
A competitive, profit-based society is invariably monopolized, because it is the nature of power to “fall to ever fewer hands”.
I think that all stratified societies are sick.
Douglas Becker writes: “Naturally, if a person was born or raised in a group, the cult-shaped belief system and behaviors may be all she ever knew.”
Erich Fromm said that, “A sick society produces sick people.”
For-profit institutionalization caters to self-centered opportunism, which is the “drive” of psychopaths. The claim that self-centered opportunism is at the heart of “human nature” is the hollow rant of psychopaths, because they can’t fathom otherwise.
While, at once, the world over, loving parents would like very much for their children to have the support they need for unencumbered growth, even though, sadly, more often than not, that support is unattainable.
*
There is something that can be done about that …humane pragmatism. Genuine community structured without hierarchies of power, without sociopaths, is well within our capacity to bring into realty. What about psychopaths? In real community, people would deal with psychopathy effectively, and humanely.
See: http://reedckinney.com/
Christian Values and Society
The following article is by author Reed Camacho Kinney.
Christian Values and Society
We know Christian values well enough, because they reflect the truths of
our corporal condition in nature.
Christianity is symbiosis in relation to both human interaction and human
interaction with nature, or life in general.
The gladiatorial coliseum of ancient Rome is a microcosmic representation
of the societal conditions imposed on people through the centralization of
power. A modern version of that is the back stabbing television game
called Survivor. In neither case, can Christian values flourish in either of
those arenas.
In capitalistic society, people are trapped by forcing their dependence on
the impersonal conglomerates of centralized mass production and
distribution systems. The executive branch of the American government
is either the “lap dog” of the monopolized, impersonal mega-consortiums
of capital interests, or it is their unwilling “valet.” The American Federal
Government levies tax, in part, to keep abreast of interest laden loan
payments.
I need not predict what the imminent outcomes of this “house of cards”
will be, which are self-evident. The toll in human suffering is building.
Christianity is about people and their well being. The Christian challenge is
to build a Christian society.
The way to those ends is through a participatory, structured, dialogical based,
consensus-based civil society.
Decentralization
Participatory, DECENTRALIZED appropriate-industry, agricultural
production, consensus-based civic organization, education, health care,
and community fiscal organization are the components of Christian society!
Christianity is contingent on the actualization of maximum community
with maximum individuation; survival with growth. The vehicle of growth
is art in genuine community, and art is the source of science and the
scientific method.
Genuine, participatory community is structured so that each member
receives community support for all of her productive endeavourers;
particularly, each and every child who expands her knowledge and skills
with community support. There are no grade levels, nor demotions in
community education, and no tests, per se. An ongoing record of
attainment, a résumé of sorts, is kept by each learner, and an abbreviated,
updated copy is maintained in the education department. The education
department, education through art, is participatory, and is managed by
adult, teacher learners and by learner teachers. And, when children reach
the stage of ego stability somewhere between the ages of twelve through
fifteen, perhaps younger in some cases, at their discretion, they can
participate in the community’s civil culture, and in its civic-economic
organizations (more on that below).
Genuine community has core Public Productive Enterprises, which provide
members with gainful occupations and, at once, provide members with
their minimum guaranteed standard of service. It is a generative circle.
HUMAN DIGNITY is structured into its civil culture. And, each community
Public Productive Enterprise contains an office of the community
educational department, which is itself included among the public
productive enterprises, as is the community health department,
community agricultural and related industries department, community
intermediate industrial department, the water and sanitation department,
the community construction company, the community renewable energy
department, the community department of public safety, the community
personnel office, the community mutual community bank, the community
coordinating committee, the community mutualistic family groups –
mutual voting blocks – which are the smallest voting units, and so on. The
community’s civil culture and its civic-economic organization “dovetail”
with and are fully integrated with, are interdependent with, the
community’s educational department. (1)
In decentralized economic social organization the cultural metaphor has
shifted from, “Society is composed of winners and losers,” the cultural
metaphor of mass centralized society, to that of decentralized society’s
cultural metaphor, “No one is less important than the group.”
And, that “No one is less important than the group.” is Christian!
It is a structural proposition!
CHRISTIANITY IS A STRUCTURAL PROPOSITION!
1. The concepts of education in community developed in my mind from
when I attended the talks we had with John Holt, Paul Goodman, and Ivan
Illich …when I attended Ivan Illiche’s CIDOC, International Center of
Documentation, in Cuernavaca, Mexico in the summer of 1969.
See: http://reedckinney.com/ AND
http://decentralizationblog.wordpress.com
The Effect of Socioeconomics on Religion
The following article is by author Reed Camacho Kinney.
Hello everyone!
I am very happy that I was invited by James and Ralph to open dialogue with all of you.
This first article is about the effect of socioeconomics on religion. But, in part, it is my best response to the thought provoking letter that our dear friend George sent me. I have included his letter to open this conversation.
George’s writing in response to an earlier letter of mine:
“OK for individuals within a context, a shared source, but I’m talking about the “public” domain. I just can’t see Jesus as “better” than all the other “thinkers” following down through so many centuries and cultures; of course he would be included, but only as one among many; again I think of how you melded so many sources in DESO that were publicly significant–in other words, Jesus who, to remind us all, was not a single figure, but a composite brought together by various individuals–Paul as one of the most important who relied on hearsay and questionable “texts” to create what became known as “Christianity” on a global platform; yes he, the ambitious one, saw Christianity as a global philosophy/religion uniting (?), drawing from the “common” humanity, sort of ignoring separate cultures that “separated” us and calling for (shouting, one might say) the unity of us all.
A great visionary, yes! As later we see in works like Buber’s I and Thou. But the point is in the Tower of Babel, humans are not now ready for such “unity” which in our time degenerates into a conflicting mosaic of “controllers” over the people, rather than the other way around. So, for now, on the scale of evolution, we mislead ourselves with created grand masters like “Jesus.” DESO tells us the people should be in constant dialogue, like waves and rivers in the great oceans, constantly moving, always unpredictable while appearing totally predictable–think of the weather forecasters; when will a mild swirl on the surface of the Atlantic become nothing more? …Or, a massively destructive hurricane? …Finally, not a single Jesus, but all the Jesuses in dialogue. (I’d better stop, and try to understand what I’m trying to get–at more clearly?!)
Best, George.”
My responses to George:
Dear George,
Your writing is magnificent. What you say is very clear and pertinent.
Real societal unity includes phylogyny – the admiration of women. Misogyny is a symptom of centralized systems of control, either religious, or economic-civic. The vortex of human behaviors, and their world views, is in their socioeconomic organizations.
Each socioeconomic organization is managed by its particular political systems. The way people do “business” in tandem with their civic organization is that which determines their psychologies and their religions. The capitalist, industrialist families in Germany supported Hitler’s fascism in order to defeat communism. And prior to that, Italy’s Mussolini was initially supported by the same types for the same reason. (Communism was usurped by centralist systems of control.)
There are two main forms of organization, each grounded on its respective types of economic production and distribution, decentralized power and centralized power. To the degree that a society has decentralized power with local production for local use, real community, to that degree they are sane. And, to some degree, decentralization has occurred in conventional democracies that include local self-government with local production for local use.
The impersonal, corporate monopolies of mass production and distribution undermine local production for local use. Increased dependence on imported products, and services, is among the symptoms of centralized power – centralist systems of control. I’ll return to that subject in a moment.
What Max Freedom Long maintains is that Paul was not among the “initiates” of Jesus. George, you mention that “Paul …relied on hearsay and questionable “texts” to create what became known as “Christianity”…”And, personally, I know zero about that. But, I do know that Max Freedom Long said that Paul did not receive the “inner” teachings of Jesus. And according to Long, those inner teachings are about prayer techniques, and the conditions required for proper prayer techniques to be effective. Atheists may view that as poppycock, but Max Freedom Long’s approach to that subject is biological and physiological. He postulates that “soul” is biological, and that soul performs essential functions in the life of each person, and that, each person has three souls, the conscious mind, the body soul, and the High Soul, each having distinct compositions and capacities, and each serving distinct functions.
That is all well and good, and if you want to look into that, then a place to start is at: Max Freedom Long, The Original Teachings by the Founder of Huna. http://www.maxfreedomlong.com/
Regardless, I don’t mention Long’s work in my book. Because, what I am conveying here is what my dad impressed upon my impressionable mind, that, as I mentioned above, the religions people adopt, or distort, are determined by the way they do business; more on that in a moment. And, that the way they do business determines the way their society is organized.
The United States has lost, what at one time was, its civil culture. Today, we are wholly dependent on, and live in, conglomerates of mass systems of control in mass centralist society, MCS, which is a bad situation for us in too many ways for me to elaborate here, so I refer you to my manuscript. Nonetheless, that we don’t have community has been killing us. The word, community, is bantered about, but its meaning is lost in mass centralist society, MCS. Real community, real civil culture is what we need to be sane and happy. But, few can even imagine what that means.
George mentions our need for unity. Few people understand that conformity to hierarchical, command systems does not unity create, but just the opposite. Rather than mutual interdependence, which is a structural challenge, and it would generate the independence people need …hierarchical, command systems make dependents of their members, not dependent on each other, but dependent on the systems of control that alienate them from themselves and from each other; fully explained in the manuscript.
Even so, I think that the time for our unity is at hand. We can not continue depending on the mechanized expansion of profit-based institutions in mass centralist society. Metaphorically speaking, that type of relationship with nature is parasitic.
People with money to spend enjoy shopping, and in our society that is among the ‘enrichment’s’ of life. It is the anemic substitute for meaningful interpersonal relations among people in community, community that does not yet exist. But, that consumer-based psychology pandered by the institutions of our society is exactly the primary contributor to the extinction of our environmental life support systems, which is among the various critical crises we face today. We humans are completely, irrevocably, dependent on nature for our existence, for us not to develop a culture that can go forward into a permanent, symbiotic relationship with nature is madness.
Maria and I, own a conventional motor vehicle, use refrigeration, and don’t question where our electricity comes from. And, dad said that we are all accomplices, simply by our use of, and our dependence on, conventional money. …I used to teach High School in the U. S. …I know that within the prevailing context, there isn’t much that we as individuals can do about it. …In spite of the obvious impositions of capitalistic socioeconomics on our lives, I regard myself as among non-conformists.
The statements from so many Christian sects make no distinctions between the stratified society they have fashioned and conform to, and the concepts from the alleged statements of Jesus. They believe that the malaise of society is rooted in each member, and by changing individuals into productive and generous people that all the ills of society will be left in the past. Such are the babblings of mad men who can not see that the structures of MCS cause the pathologies of its dependents. And there are even madder, secular men who believe that if all people were to prioritize the pursuit of materialism in an unregulated, profit-based economy that somehow everybody would fulfill their “dreams” of opulence.
I must qualify these observations with my firm recognition of the humanness of many people, and their capacity to live according to humane values, despite the despotisms inherent in mass centralized society.
And here is where I will briefly explain how, I think, the teachings of Jesus, and as George mentions, in unison with many sound thinkers, lead us to a solution. …If human beings organize, bring into life, a socioeconomic organization that is designed to meet the real needs of its members, then, their personal values, will reflect the values of that mutualistic, socioeconomic organization. First, what are the real needs of people?
(The real needs of people are not addressed in MCS, because their fulfillment would subvert centralized power.)
Children, not unlike the members of any species, are born to grow. And, for that to happen, throughout their lives, requires a culture that supports the growth needs of each of its members. And, that type of culture would be mutualistic, with a civic-economic, production-based economy that generates a guaranteed minimum standard of service, GMSS, for all of its members, which is more than I can elaborate here, so I refer you to my book.
In the society I’m referring to, Education is through art and it is participatory. The unique talents and the predilections of each child are developed with community support. The individuation of each child is cultivated by the community. Individuated members are needed, are indispensable, for participatory community to function. These are structural propositions that are met in Decentralized Economic Social Organization, DESO… The community’s educational service and the community’s public economy are interpenetrated and are interdependent, a structural proposition, which is a generative circle.
Each sovereign, permanent community is networked with like communities. Inter-community trade functions to secure the GMSS of each community, which includes subsistence needs, health care, education, and free financing. I will not continue this explanation, since I have more to provide at the links I include here, which I would like for you to open. However, what is essentially not only Christian, but includes the spiritual base of all good religions, is that all socioeconomic organizations are the primary determiners of the behaviors of, and the values that their members choose to live by. Knowing that, we can design the socioeconomic organization that best meets the real needs of its members. And, the way to actuate those plans will be through real dialogue, and the concerted action that genuine dialogue produces. We can make a better culture our reality!
What is needed is a society wherein power sharing is structured into civic-economic organization, all community components are participatory, structured, dialogical, consensus-based community decision making processes, are mutualistic; and that, public productive enterprises serve the greater good. And, yes, all members are productive and generous, but each person in that community has direct control over her productive life and each member is viewed as a values maker, and each member’s values are tested in community. She can see immediately how the manner of life she develops impacts her community, and all of her productive contributions are applauded. She is not alienated. That is sanity. That is love. That is home.
You can respond to what I wrote on my Word Press blog:
http://decentralizationblog.wordpress.com
For more content, and to order the manuscript DESO, go to: http://reedckinney.com/