April 8, 2022

Family relationships can be both wonderful continued experiences in which I am accepted, cared about, and valued and yet unfortunately these relationships can be causes of anguish and sadness due to "misunderstandings", hurt feelings, and past feelings of betrayal and disregard. In my life I've come to realize that the more common history of family relationships is a mixture of these two poles. Sure we want the former but life brings us to the latter sometimes both deserved and not depending on your outlook. 

Family members can become estranged for a variety of reasons but clarity and reason is usually absent and instead reasons for the estrangement are rationalizations obscuring more unconscious thoughts and feelings related to self esteem, past traumatic experiences, and perceived betrayals. We have a tendency to repeat and even relive past conflicts and problems so our perceptions of the world becomes colored. 

I'm slogging through the Books of Jacobs by Ulga Tarkarczuk. This Nobel prize author is describing some history of Jacobs Frank who declared himself the messiah in the mid 1700s. The books describes in vivid detail the life of those times in Poland and Turkey. People lived in severe poverty with poor to absent medical care, lack of adequate food and shelter and subject to danger from marauders, aristocrats and monarchs, and their own religious authorities. To think of democracy during those times and those places is impossible. 1776 the birth of the USA similarly had severe hardships to ordinary citizen with low life expectancy and many hazards and obstacles for happiness and freedom. The populace sometimes accepted their lot and did not wage any risk of revolt against those more privileged and corrupt. 

Is democracy with individual rights, freedom of expression, rule of law, pursuit of happiness, and ability to have a private life the goals of human society? Or can we have a managed society in which conformity to the state is very important while the state manipulates the economic forces to improve our lot and we must adhere to the rules promulgated by an elite few the managers who also profit personally? Certainly Communist China after its serious hiccups with Mao's revolution and Tiananmen Square has developed so that vast millions of its population now have middle class lifestyle albit managed with censorship and attempts at mind control of majority and minority groups. The juxtaposition of oligarchs and monarch entrepreneurs who control great wealth and influence and have great followings of our populace and the democratic strivings of others who look at injustices and lack of opportunities as causes to correct is our current political climate in the USA. Do we rally and follow leaders and groups because of historical and current strong feelings of allegiance and even yearning for redress from past perceived humiliations from the countries now claiming democratic values but in the past were colonial profiteers? Putin pushes his agenda claiming the West has raped and humiliated Russia and China has its past defeats and humiations to justify their enmity to the democratic movement.  A fuller analysis of Russian and Chinese current society reveals to me that corruption is rife and those in power immensely benefit. 

David Brooks in a recent article in the New York Times called my attention to some interesting ways to view these issues ( https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/opinion/globalization-global-culture-war.html). He brings up the Greek concepts of how an individual perceives and acts in the world. Thymos is the feelings and hunger for recognition. We want to be seen and acknowledged as important and part of a greater whole in which we're an integral member. So if our group affiliations sees homosexuality as a defect and something that reduces our society we rally to the opposition cause. Even Donald Duck is now not immune in Florida from the Governors derision. If we were downtrodden now subject to economic and cultural controls to believe the propaganda of our Russian controlled media and we belong to a society seemingly outraged by our circumstance caused by our leaders opinions by the others who have humiliated us in the past we'll rally behind these leaders. Now when young Russian soldiers fed the propaganda that the Nazi Ukrainians are to be humiliated and defeated and they put up a heroic fight war crimes are the result. 

Well we do have cultural wars in our country and the world. Our thymos urges and allegiances bring us to causes that clearly to me are very irrational but give us that sense of belonging and importance of ourselves. These urges even can propel some of us to storm the capital and cause us to rage and assault those who we conclude have taken away our pride. Our allegiances in other nations who espouse free enterprise and democracy now are at risk with election of leaders who espouse nationalism over democracy and now in France may elect an advocate for detente with Putin. 

I am struck with the similarities of family malcontent and misunderstandings and my descriptions of the current state of affairs in our political world. If a family member feels unrecognized and not valued (thymos) malcontent, miscommunication, distrust, and ostracism can occur.  Some possible solutions to our cultural wars are present for our viewing. For example, if your a Netflix watcher these are many offerings from other cultures and countries that help us have a better cultural understanding and appreciation of the diversity. Our reliance on certain energy sources requires us to reward oligarchs and monarchs with money who then use their resources to aggrandize more wealth and undermine our democracies. In the USA our political wars include this dynamic so since the 1980s laws were passed to continue the wealth building of a few at the expense of our democracy and middle class. Cultural wars can benefit the wealthy alone. 

I am amazed at how a few psychopathically motivated can kowtow and bamboozle the many so they are led to relinquish their power in government and hand over instruments of wealth and power to these few. Most of us are not interested in gobbling up power and influence and are not interested in resisting the crowds of sycophants that herald their leaders. So we acquiesce and then suffer the consequences. Democracy requires conflict but the rules of engagement needs to be more level. 

Leonard

Life's Scars by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 They say the world is round, and yet

I often think it square,
So many little hurts we get
From corners here and there.
But one great truth in life I've found,
While journeying to the West-
The only folks who really wound
Are those we love the best.

The man you thoroughly despise
Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;
Annoyance in your heart will rise
At things mere strangers do;
But those are only passing ills;
This rule all lives will prove;
The rankling wound which aches and thrills
Is dealt by hands we love.

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,
Are oft to strangers shown;
The careless mien, the frowning face,
Are given to our own.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.

Love does not grow on every tree,
Nor true hearts yearly bloom.
Alas for those who only see
This cut across a tomb!
But, soon or late, the fact grows plain
To all through sorrow's test:
The only folks who give us pain
Are those we love the best.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/lifes-scars-by-ella-wheeler-wilcox