Ideas for problem areas: contradictions; challenges; ambivalence (These ideas are difficult and need to be very clearly expressed.
David Morgan and George Orwell: Double think:
A London-based psychoanalyst, Mr David Morgan refers to a process of “doubling” or “splitting” whereby individuals hold contradictory positions to separate different selves and different loyalty structures. This is not unlike what George Orwell terms “double think” – the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts at once.
Morgan points out that many priests or people in a position of authority and responsibility manage to function with this process, especially if they are coerced into following compromised institutional values (such as the priests during the church sex scandals; Julian Burnside QC also believes this is Scott Morrison’s attitude (ex-Minister for Immigration); Morrison is deeply religious and yet treats the asylum seekers shamefully). Thus it is possible to survive and not to survive; to be involved and a bystander at the same time; to appear to support certain values whilst knowing that they are wrong and denying them personally at the same time.
Consequences for those who do not cope with the process of “splitting”.
For many who have a compulsion to do the right thing, and who suffer the burden of guilt, the contradictions involved in the process of “splitting” become too painful. . German philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote of heroic individuals that there seems to be a compulsion to do the “right thing”.
Morgan explains. Whilst the institutions use psychological processes such as reversal and projection to evade any sense of responsibility for wrong-doing, the discloser or whistleblower is made to feel that he or she is the wrongdoer, and as a result may sink into depression. They feel the burden of the impropriety.
The Sri Lankan journalist is a good example, Dubbed, “the voice from the grave” he foreshadowed his own death.
“When finally I am killed it will be the Government that kills me, he wrote (referring to President Mahinda Rajapakse”. He hinted at the killers from within the ranks of Sri Lanka’s Government and detailed its flouting of democracy. Wickrematunge was shot in the head in Colombo by two gunmen on a motorcycle. His paper, the Sunday Leader, took an impartial line on the vicious civil war between the Singalhese and the Tamil Tigers. He suffered three attacks before the final shooting. He said that the Tamil people were “deprived of all self respect” in the military occupation of Jaffna. (2009) (There was no such process of splitting.)
Splitting : the consequences of dirty deeds
Stack also points out that countries, like people, have a collective conscience, and their deeds come back to haunt them in different ways. Soldiers who have killed in the name of “democracy” and “freedom” return as damaged goods to their own homelands. They sit with their “polluted memories” and “broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples”. (51). A nation cannot separate itself from, or compartmentalise, the horror and the dirty deeds. “You can’t build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of that poison seeps back into our soil.”
Despite the stories that a nation spins, and despite the attempts at justifying dirty deeds in the name of fighting terrorism and protecting land, Stack believes that nations like America will have to come to terms with the evil they have perpetrated. The evil “is already in our own hearts and blood is on our hands” (51)
The victims: the powerful and the powerless: Likewise, no matter the terms of the Israeli national narrative about defence of homeland and security, the insufferable oppression of the Palestinians is a reminder of their own shame and guilt.
Jerusalem-based psychiatrist Samah Jabr reminds us that accidental misfortunes and natural disasters are tragic, but they are impersonal; the horrors of war are deeply personal. She states, an earthquake does not “triumph”, but in war one party aims to triumph over and humiliate the other. The “feelings evoked, the sense of helplessness and impotent rage, are more painful”.
People’s reactions in times of conflict – not always flight-fight: Ms Jabr points out: “Faced with the immediate atrocity of war, people commonly experience a state of hyper-arousal in which they feel capable of fighting against or fleeing from danger; but they can also feel frozen in a state of helplessness. In years to come, they may be haunted by memories, nightmares and flashbacks of traumatic events.”
Consequences of and coping with conflict: Jabr believes that recent war in the Gaza Strip between 7 July and 25 August 2014, which caused 2,133 deaths (including 577 children) and over 11,000 injuries, will have a profound effect on the mental health of the population.
For example: Miriam lost her little sister years ago, when soldiers shot at the family’s car on the way to school. Even now, every time Miriam encounters a soldier, she relieves the shooting and the bitter taste of loss. She is stuck with that traumatic memory and it is taking over her life.
A test of character
Groundbreaking psychologist Ivan Pavlov (19??) who conducted significant experiments on the conditioned reflex, concluded that every man like every dog has his breaking point. When subjected to prolonged stress, he believes that an animal’s or a person’s brain goes on strike. Some animals are more resistant to stress than others.
Link to topic: the question is what makes some more resistant to stress than others.
In the course of his epoch making experiments on the conditioned reflex, Ivan Pavlov observed that, when subjected to prolonged physical or psychic stress, laboratory animals exhibit all the symptoms of a nervous breakdown.
Pavlov shows that on their way to the point of final breakdown, dogs become more than normally suggestible. New behaviour patterns can easily be installed while the dog is at or near the limit of its cerebral endurance. When the brain goes “on strike” new behaviour patterns may be be installed with the greatest of ease.
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