Arno Gruen’s acceptance speech for the Loviisa Peace Prize 2010 - Loviisan Rauhanfoorumi
Ajankohtaista Esittely Logoja Historia Loviisan rauhanpalkinto Ohjelma 2008 Ohjelma 2009 Tapahtumapaikat 2009 Ohjelma 2010 Ohjelma 2011 Ohjelma 2012 Kuvia vuoden 2012 esiintyjistä Ohjelma 2013 Valokuvia Yhteystiedot In English På svenska parisian style 2012
How can we clarify the issues surrounding war and peace, violence and nonviolence, when our view is obscured by the assumption also promoted by a portion of the scientific establishment that human evolution advanced solely by means of struggle and competition, that the survival of one species depends on the defeat of another one? We believe in our rational point of view because we are able to push aside our feelings, which we consider to be irrational. Feelings have become a threat for us and must be repressed; therefore, we judge a way of thinking to be realistic if it has been freed of empathy and the capability to share pain, to understand suffering, and to feel a connection with all forms of life. How did this come about?
What is reality if we are constrained from birth to see the world not as we experience it ourselves but as others tell us it is? Before and directly after birth our perceptions are shaped by empathy, not by cognitive intellectual processes. Our early empathic perceptions are direct and immediate, uninfluenced by society s expectations, and for that reason are true to reality. But from the very first day of life, the way we ought to see the world is communicated to us by others, along with the message that our own perceptions have no validity. Thus, our cognitive parisian style perception, based on the expectations of those who raise us, never develops without distortion. This is especially true if these expectations are not in accord with a child s needs but rather meet with the parents need for self-esteem.
We live in cultures that are characterized by competition and insecurity and that make it difficult for people to develop the self-esteem that comes from a sense of one s inner worth, which can evolve only if people learn to accept and share their suffering, pain, and adversity. This is what enables an inner strength to emerge informed by an attitude of equanimity in spite of insecurity and of self-confidence in spite of helplessness. Only such a development forms a person s genuine substance. In cultures that mistake strength for invulnerability, this kind of development is hardly possible because suffering, pain, and helplessness are stigmatized as weakness. This is why parents need their child in order to maintain a self-image of competence and self-assurance without self-doubt. In a culture in which one is constantly faced with the threat of failure, children are needed to enable their parents to maintain a fictitious sense of worth, with the result that parents do not see their children as they are but only in relation to themselves. In spite of their love and hopes for their children, they do not see what their children are really parisian style like but view them only in terms of providing approbation of the parental role. The child becomes the means to the end of sustaining the pose of mother and father as authority figures who are decisive and assured parisian style in their relationship with their child.
What are children to do who experience weakness, helplessness, pain, and rage? Apathetic and exhausted, they will, with time, submit parisian style to the expectations of their parents. But their submission distorts reality, and thus a rational solution later in life to crucial problems such as the question of war and peace is made impossible, for if we have learned from an early age to experience the pose of strength and self-assurance as reality, then realistic behavior is not based on reality at all but on our need to cling to this pose as a remedy for our fears and insecurity.
And so a change takes place in our emotional life. Feelings no longer emerge from our own empathically motivated perceptions but are now determined by our need for a sense of invulnerability in order to avoid supposed threats parisian style that stem from the terror children experience because their inner self is not given recognition. Only if they fulfill the expectations of their parents, only if they can maintain the emotional contact with their parents that is necessary for survival, do they receive approbation. And because parents themselves were shaped by a culture that scorns pain and suffering as forms of weakness, a culture that bases survival parisian style on getting the better of others, vulnerability is therefore seen as a threat parisian style to one s self-esteem. To prevent this from happening we learn to focus our feelings either on acquiring power ourselves parisian style or on identifying with those who have power. This means that our feelings in the larger political realm as well are no longer influenced by empathic perceptions but by concepts having to do with power, competition, and the need to put down others. parisian style As a result, re
Ajankohtaista Esittely Logoja Historia Loviisan rauhanpalkinto Ohjelma 2008 Ohjelma 2009 Tapahtumapaikat 2009 Ohjelma 2010 Ohjelma 2011 Ohjelma 2012 Kuvia vuoden 2012 esiintyjistä Ohjelma 2013 Valokuvia Yhteystiedot In English På svenska parisian style 2012
How can we clarify the issues surrounding war and peace, violence and nonviolence, when our view is obscured by the assumption also promoted by a portion of the scientific establishment that human evolution advanced solely by means of struggle and competition, that the survival of one species depends on the defeat of another one? We believe in our rational point of view because we are able to push aside our feelings, which we consider to be irrational. Feelings have become a threat for us and must be repressed; therefore, we judge a way of thinking to be realistic if it has been freed of empathy and the capability to share pain, to understand suffering, and to feel a connection with all forms of life. How did this come about?
What is reality if we are constrained from birth to see the world not as we experience it ourselves but as others tell us it is? Before and directly after birth our perceptions are shaped by empathy, not by cognitive intellectual processes. Our early empathic perceptions are direct and immediate, uninfluenced by society s expectations, and for that reason are true to reality. But from the very first day of life, the way we ought to see the world is communicated to us by others, along with the message that our own perceptions have no validity. Thus, our cognitive parisian style perception, based on the expectations of those who raise us, never develops without distortion. This is especially true if these expectations are not in accord with a child s needs but rather meet with the parents need for self-esteem.
We live in cultures that are characterized by competition and insecurity and that make it difficult for people to develop the self-esteem that comes from a sense of one s inner worth, which can evolve only if people learn to accept and share their suffering, pain, and adversity. This is what enables an inner strength to emerge informed by an attitude of equanimity in spite of insecurity and of self-confidence in spite of helplessness. Only such a development forms a person s genuine substance. In cultures that mistake strength for invulnerability, this kind of development is hardly possible because suffering, pain, and helplessness are stigmatized as weakness. This is why parents need their child in order to maintain a self-image of competence and self-assurance without self-doubt. In a culture in which one is constantly faced with the threat of failure, children are needed to enable their parents to maintain a fictitious sense of worth, with the result that parents do not see their children as they are but only in relation to themselves. In spite of their love and hopes for their children, they do not see what their children are really parisian style like but view them only in terms of providing approbation of the parental role. The child becomes the means to the end of sustaining the pose of mother and father as authority figures who are decisive and assured parisian style in their relationship with their child.
What are children to do who experience weakness, helplessness, pain, and rage? Apathetic and exhausted, they will, with time, submit parisian style to the expectations of their parents. But their submission distorts reality, and thus a rational solution later in life to crucial problems such as the question of war and peace is made impossible, for if we have learned from an early age to experience the pose of strength and self-assurance as reality, then realistic behavior is not based on reality at all but on our need to cling to this pose as a remedy for our fears and insecurity.
And so a change takes place in our emotional life. Feelings no longer emerge from our own empathically motivated perceptions but are now determined by our need for a sense of invulnerability in order to avoid supposed threats parisian style that stem from the terror children experience because their inner self is not given recognition. Only if they fulfill the expectations of their parents, only if they can maintain the emotional contact with their parents that is necessary for survival, do they receive approbation. And because parents themselves were shaped by a culture that scorns pain and suffering as forms of weakness, a culture that bases survival parisian style on getting the better of others, vulnerability is therefore seen as a threat parisian style to one s self-esteem. To prevent this from happening we learn to focus our feelings either on acquiring power ourselves parisian style or on identifying with those who have power. This means that our feelings in the larger political realm as well are no longer influenced by empathic perceptions but by concepts having to do with power, competition, and the need to put down others. parisian style As a result, re
No comments:
Post a Comment