Kaki

When a child is being abused by his parents it has no other option than normalizing this behavior. For a child it would be absolutely devastating to realize that his own parents are abusive and in fact damaging it. We are biologically programmed to rely on our parents, we need this bond to survive and can not possibly dare to threaten it. As young children our parents are "good", no matter what they do, we, the children are "bad". If we normalize abusive behaviors we make ourselves blind for them. This makes it impossible to sympathize with ourselves and our empathy with others will be diminished. If we can't have empathy for ourselves we can not possibly have empathy for anyone else. A child who is being hit regularly will not be surprised or particularly worried when it sees another child being slapped. It has seen and lived this before. This child is likely to make up stories, that the child which is being hit has been "bad", that it did something wrong, broke something etc. A child which has been raised free and peacefully will be astonished and outraged seeing another child being hurt. For him it is completely out of the ordinary and not something that good people (parents) do. This child, the one which has lived free from violence, will recognize violence immediately because it is something out of the ordinary. Only if we can recognize violence we can have empathy for the victims.

Darius wrote a very good article about the costs of pranking children the way Jimmy Kimmel encourages it on his show. You can read the article on his blog self-archeology. Very worth reading: http://blog.selfarcheology.com/2014/03/playing-with-childs-trust-is-harmful.html

I saw this the other day and was reminded of this thread: "How to get out of Jury Duty" https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AqK4fSMq7cE

Oh, I got the connection tongue and pill-slogan, but what I still don't get is what it has to do with the Rolling Stones. I mean, why a band logo and not an illustration of a tongue? (Forgive me if I am a little slow here!) Visualization of "taking the red pill" sounds like a great idea. My first association with stones and pills is "Mother's Little Helper" not really "freeing oneself from the matrix", you know what I mean? To be honest, I don't think a design should necessarily be simpler, I am just not convince by the combination of FDR with a band logo simply because the logos has a tongue. Really, this is just what I am wondering about, no need to worry!

May I ask why the FDR shirt has the Rolling Stones Logo on it? Was this accidentally or is there some connection I am overlooking here? I personally would shy away from buying a shirt which is a combination of FDR and band logo. Also since I am not really a fan of the Stones. (But that might very well just be me.) Keep us updated if you decide to produce more FDR shirts!

We are also all set and will be in Amsterdam from the 24th- 27th. It seems you guys picked kind of a special date there: http://www.iamsterdam.com/en-GB/experience/kings-day/all-about-kings-day-in-amsterdam Looking forward to see you all!

That is exciting news! We (me and prohexa) would love to join that meetup as well! We'd be coming in from Sweden. Is there maybe anyone around who could spare a couch for two? Robin, just like you we unfortunately don't have the budget to listen to the speakers, but we wouldn't want to miss the chance of meeting everyone! Brilliant!

I think podcast 1780 could be interesting for you! (It's called "The Rally to Restore Sanity?") It's a very short one (9 minutes). Stef talks about Relativism and -just as you said- the fear of certainty.

Thank you Renza for bringing this up! My boyfriend and I speak different languages as well and while we are learning each others language we communicate in English. Once we plan on having children this subject will concern us as well, so I think this is very interesting. I would love to hear more about your experiences if you would like to share! I'd be particularly interested in hearing how your children got fluent in reading and writing several languages. Did you homeschool? Did your children (or yourself) ever favor one language over the other? Which language do your kids speak to each other or do they switch? Another point I am curious about is your personal experience growing up bilingual. In which language are your inner dialogues for example? (Is this more based on subjects or people?) When you think about your mother for example, do you think about her in French? Looking forward to hear from you!

Your first statement is a false analogy or at best a "tu quoque" fallacy. It is not relevant if Stef supposedly acted passive aggressive or not. CrazyC, I shared a piece of my experience with you (in context of my abusive childhood) and your answer is: "Sounds like you're making stuff up." You didn't ask me any questions nor did you voice any sympathies. Your comment is suggesting that I am lying. You posted some links, remarking: "So much for reality." You are waiting for me to show you studies? What made you think that I would take your response as coming from someone who is curious about my position? Right now, you could have just asked me for studies on which I base the post I made previously. Instead you say "I am waiting(...)" and "Obviously you have none." That is passive aggressive. There are numbers of studies and articles. Try google with the keywords "anger repression". I quickly mention a few here, I guess this could be interesting for others as well. Here something about your point: "You can not think clearly with any type of anger." Because angry people apparently rely on heuristic cues when making judgments, anger has been claimed to trigger superficial, nonanalytic information processing. In three studies, the authors found that induced anger promoted analytic processing. Experiment 1 showed that angry participants were more likely to discriminate between weak and strong arguments than participants in neutral moods. Experiment 2 demonstrated that anger overrode dispositional preferences not to process, causing even those low in need for cognition to process analytically. Experiment 3 reconciled these findings with previous work by showing that angry people used accessible, valid, and relevant heuristics but otherwise processed analytically, as indicated by attitude change and elaboration data. Together, these experiments showed that angry people can have both the capacity and motivation to process and that their selective use of heuristics reflects the cue's perceived validity and not the failure to process analytically.Moons, G. Wesley; Mackie, M. Diane: Thinking Straight While Seeing Red, The Influence of Anger on Information Processing; 2012 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2013) Here something about Depression and Anger: A series of psychoanalytic theorists and clinicians have suggested that conflicts about anger play a central role in the development of depression. Research data have supported the notion that patients struggle with the experience and expression of angry feelings. Anger in people with depression often stems from narcissistic vulnerability, a sensitivity to perceived or actual loss or rejection. These angry reactions cause intrapsychic conflicts through the onset of guilt and the fear that angry feelings will disrupt relationships. These conflicts lead to anger being directed inwards, further lowering self-esteem, creating a vicious cycle. Defence mechanisms that are triggered, including passive aggression, reaction formation, denial and identification with the aggressor, are ineffective at managing these conflicts and further prevent the appropriate expression of anger. This article discusses how to identify and detoxify angry feelings and fantasies using a psychodynamic approach.Busch, N. Fredric: Anger and Depression; Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2009) 15: 271-278 Here is an interesting article about misplacing anger: Anger Mismanagement: Reply to Dr. Stosnyhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200901/anger-mismanagement And here a bit about cancer and disease: Extremely low anger scores have been noted in numerous studies of patients with cancer. Such low scores suggest suppression, repression, or restraint of anger. There is evidence to show that suppressed anger can be a precursor to the development of cancer, and also a factor in its progression after diagnosis. Some studies indicate that it may be beneficial for patients to mobilize anger to battle their cancer.Thomas SP, Groer M, Davis M, Droppleman P, Mozingo J, Pierce M.:Anger and cancer: an analysis of the linkages. College of Nursing, University of Tennessee, Knoxville 37996-4180, USA. A team of researchers at Stanford University in California found that women who repressed their emotions were more likely to show disruptions in the normal balance of the stress hormone cortisol, compared with those who did not. Earlier studies have shown that the unbalanced cortisol fluctuations can predict early death in women with breast cancer that has spread to other areas of the body."People who have repressive styles tend to be more prone to illness, particularly [immune-system related] diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, infections, and cancers. The concept is of unexpressed anger. If one doesn't let it out, that could have adverse consequences." [Dr. George Solomon, professor emeritus of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at University of California Los Angeles] "Extreme suppression of anger was the most commonly identified characteristic of 160 breast cancer patients who were given a detailed psychological interview and self-administered questionnaire. Repressing anger magnified exposure to physiological stress, thereby increasing the risk of cancer" [Journal of Psychosomatic Research] A 1979 study comparing long-term survivors of breast cancer with those who did not survive, scientists at John Hopkins University found that long-term survivors expressed much higher levels of anxiety, hostility and other negative emotions. Patients who were able to express their feelings lived longer than those who had difficulty in doing so. [Journal of the American Medical Association]http://www.examiner.com/article/research-links-cancer-with-repressed-unresolved-feelings-and-emotions and here another article: Expressing negative emotions could extend lifespanhttp://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/4339/20121227/expressing-negative-emotions-extends-lifespan.htm

Well if that isn't passive aggressive...

I grew up in a household where it was not safe for me to express and ultimately feel my anger. I learned from very early on that I had to repress feelings of anger or I would end up in a very threatening situation. It took me years to finally connect to my anger again. I can only echo Kevin in saying that (healthy) anger can't be overestimated. While repressing anger was useful for my survival as a child it did me a lot of damage as well. When repressing my anger I was very often unable to set boundaries and to see the wrongs people did to me. Not having anger put me again and again in situations where I felt guilty or ashamed for something that was actually unjust against me! Instead of Anger, which would have greatly helped me to remove myself from humiliating, unjust or more general abusive situations, I felt anxious, passive, afraid and ashamed. Also walking away from people or situations didn't resolve these feelings. I simply repressed anger. Anger is the emotions which would have moved me to action to help myself, not to feeling lost and at fault. Just winning my anger back was difficult, scary and very uncomfortable. I wasn't even aware how much I had repressed it, that it was really there and that I had acted it out in more subtle unconscious ways. Feeling anger doesn't mean that I will act like an insane Rumpelstiltskin. It gives me very clear and helpful indications that my needs are not being met. I can always check in with my emotions and be attentive to them. When doing this I do not lose my rationality. I can always ask myself "Is my anger authentic?" "Am I overreacting or is my anger appropriate to the situation?" I found that anger is invaluable to identify injustice and toxic people and situations. It is needed to put the responsibility where it belongs and is a very important tool to have. Again, let me make this clear: there is a difference between authentic anger and misplaced anger. I do certainly not think it is healthy to scream on top of your lungs at the car in front of you when the driver doesn't immediately start moving. Acting out misplaced anger is, as I see it, ultimately just as unhelpful as not feeling any anger. (The difference being that in the first you might be more likely to be abusive towards others while the latter might take a detour through self-abuse.) CrazyCanuck, when you say that anger is the reason for violent crimes, you are onto something but miss to differentiate between authentic anger and misplaced anger. When a teenager smashes a window out of anger/rage I would take the guess that he is not actually angry at something the window did to him. He is misplacing his anger. It would be healthy for this teenager to be angry (and angry doesn't equal violent!) at the person who treated him unjust or angry because of a need which he didn't get met. In a healthy scenario he could be using the energy resulting from anger to change something about his situation, to get help from outside or process is experience in a much more productive way.

This might not be exactly what you are looking for but maybe still interesting: There is an online course at alison.com about child development. It is free and well worth having a look into. http://alison.com/courses/Diploma-in-Childrens-Studies

Marc, I have been following your threads for quite a while now and was wondering if you'd mind responding to some thoughts of mine. I don't want to hijack your thread, so I hope this is ok for you. In the last year or so I started observing my emotional reactions to things I am reading. I am particularly interested if the text I am reading makes me feel very anxious, frustrated or angry. It helps me to wonder why these feelings arise and where I have experienced them earlier in my life in a similar context. The typical NVC responses, like the one you are giving as an example (see below) made me until now extremely angry. (Which is very interesting to me.) I do not believe that I am the only person experiencing frustration, even anger when it comes to robotic NVC replies, so I can imagine my following thoughts could be interesting to you as well. I grew up, like so many others, with a narcissistic parent. I have been constantly told "what I feel" and "what I am supposed to feel". Wild mythologies have been created, and told to me, concerning why I might be angry, sad or frustrated. I was taught that my negative feelings can never be the result of something the narcissists did or said. I am not trying to ascribe narcissism to you, but it seems to me that NVC is a perfect tool for people with narcissistic tendencies. Parroting a statement, interpreting it and doing some guesswork on what the hidden unfulfilled needs of the other person might be, puts the person doing NVC in an outwardly superior position. Repeating a statement and describing a potential feeling of someone merely mimic empathy but don't actually involve "feeling yourself into someone else". It also gives a narcissist the chance to claim he or she is empathetic purely because feelings where mentioned. Not because he or she was actually feeling what someone else felt. It seems to me that it is a very cold, analytic process to just point out someone elses potential needs instead of just trying to put oneself into the other person's shoes. If one actually "feels" with the other, it is usually rather easy to know what to say or which action to take. If I am feeling bad, I am not impressed by someones ability to guess and verbalize my emotions. I am impressed and helped by someone being helpful, responding to me, not parroting me. This is particularly true if I don't know this person who is trying NVC with me. What the NVC-person is really doing is proving that he or she can read my clues and make some guesses. Psychopaths -and narcissists- are brilliant at reading people but have no empathy. On the other hand, if one is unsure what the person feels, what is wrong with simply asking? While I personally appreciate being asked, I experience being told what I feel as condescending and arrogant. I personally prefer treating adults as adults first and if I feel someone lacks the ability to express his or her emotions I try to give a helping hand. In the example with your faux pas: if you think you know what feelings are going on, why do you have to tell everyone your guess? Why not prove your insight instead of boasting with it? Why not simply react on what vibes you take in? If you truly have empathy you will feel if your assessment is right or wrong. Like wdiaz03 said, why not just start a conversation instead of potentially making everyone feel even more awkward.

I think I just found what you mean: The text is called "FDR Forum Physics": here: http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/p/18276/147033.aspx The Sunday Show in which Stef mentions it is 1228 (starting at about 48:50). Does that help?