Symbolic Interactionists feel that behaviors are inherent based upon the social cues learned from those important figures in one’s life.  For example, the way we celebrate Christmas is a prime example of how we perpetuate behaviors, better known as traditions, during certain times of the year.  No matter how Scrooge-like I am, I still look forward to certain aspects of the Christmas season, aspects which have been commonplace in my family for more than three decades.

While the typical celebrations are no longer pertinent in our lives, we struggle to determine new norms for our social unit.  While we can no sooner revert back to past experiences and habits, except in memory, we must move forward to determine how we change our symbolic gestures toward one another for the future.

I am well aware of the fact that our family is not unique in the fact that we not only lost a loved one, but in our isolated state, it feels as if we have experienced an event of which others cannot relate.  The celebrations of holidays, a social expectation which encourages feelings of discontent by their very nature, take on a difficult and sadly dark tone when one must face them without an ever present force no longer with us.

My sister, of course, was this force. I would always consider her to be the architect of any celebration.  Any time, any place, anywhere, my sister would come to the rescue with a cake, a gift, and a decoration.  With her assistance, Christmas would see mountains of gifts, cookouts would see a virtual buffet of food, and birthdays would be made complete with cards and the expected ice-cream cake.

For more than 10 months, I have wondered how all of these situations would differ after her death.  Would life really go on without our Conni?  Would we find things to celebrate from now on?  The answer is yet to come, as we have not met the one-year mark since her passing. With only the memories to sustain us, my family has remained in a state of anomie for some time, unsure how to act, or how to re-craft our perceptions of holidays, togetherness and our interfamilial relationships.

I suppose this article could explore the differences between historical acceptance of death, and that of today.  However, it was not the intent.  While I started this article in hopes of discussing more about how we look at the holidays, it turned into a personal discussion of how I view them.  While I cannot apply the idea of our personal interactions to a general audience, I felt I could write a short article on how they can be interrupted on a personal level.  This article became less of an informative view of society and special occasions, and more of a tribute to a life cut short.

And, I must say, I’m ok with that.

Redefining reality generally begins when individuals notice a disjuncture between observable facts and established modes of explanation, e.g., a democratic system that is supposed to serve the people, but that instead caters to the whims of the powerful. Due to their devotion to established modes of thought, some observers might ignore anomalies, or contrive a convenient explanation that sustains their belief in what is already known, e.g., democracy in the United States may be imperfect, but it distributes power pluralistically through a convoluted representational system. Alternately, more independent thinkers might treat such a dilemma as an opportunity to transcend the socially-imposed barriers that constrain their understanding of observable reality.

The process of transcending socially imposed cognitive barriers often begins with a creative observation (e.g., “Hey! Why don’t politicians ever follow through on their campaign promises?”). In some cases, individuals who are determined to make sense of the anomaly in question might follow up their observations by developing an individual-level intellectual challenge to established modes of understanding (i.e., it appears as though the United States democratic system is primarily designed to serve the interests of power-brokers). Such acts of intellectual rebellion tend to further erode the foundations of conventional thinking (i.e., “Based upon what I have observed, I no longer believe democracy in the United States serves the will of the people.”). Finally, the culmination of the redefinition of reality process involves constructing an entirely new explanation that simultaneously explodes existing ideological boundaries while also advancing a more adequate description of the phenomena in question, i.e., the United States political system masquerades as a democracy, while functioning like an elite-centered oligarchy.

Thus, as the foregoing example illustrates, individuals occasionally demonstrate the requisite mental apparatus to make note of anomalies, develop creative new explanations for mysterious phenomena, and then overcome manifestations of social power that delimit their thought and action. Therefore, the thoughts and behaviors of individual social actors are not entirely determined by the invisible influences of social coercion. Instead, sometimes agents can creatively counteract the distorting influences of social coercion and, in so doing, generate moments of truth.

A moment of truth is an experience wherein individuals, via the process of redefining reality, are transported from an inadequate version of reality to a more satisfactory paradigm. These experiences may be considered relatively truthful in that they are generated through a process whereby agents systematically counteract the influences of invisible social power over their definitions of reality. Thus, Mills (1956) argues that people who confine their analysis of the US political system to the realm of the observable (i.e., the words and deeds of elected politicians), cannot help but fall prey to artfully calculated illusions. From Mills’ perspective, the observable activities of political actors in the United States are designed to provide a convincing impression that politics-as-usual lives up to the ideals of democracy. Yet, Mills argues that appearances are deceiving. While political representatives go through the motions of faithfully serving their constituents, shadowy operators work behind the scenes to ensure that politics-as-usual serves the interests not of the majority, but of a privileged minority of power elites. Consequently, the truth is not defined by facts alone, rather the truth can only emerge as a result of a deeper investigation into the manner in which perception is often cunningly distorted by the interventions of social power. Therefore, it is in the process of counteracting the distorting influences of social power that it becomes possible for agents to experience moments of truth.

References

McGettigan, Timothy, 2011. Good Science: The Pursuit of Truth and the Evolution of Reality. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Popper, Karl, 1983. Realism and the Aim of Science. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.

• Harry Reid Cancels Debate
• Largest Internet Protest in History is a game changer (really!)
• The numbers are impressive.

Now, if we could just mobilize that kind of sentiment to end poverty and world hunger, then I’d have something to tweet about.

The following is an exposure of the secret mind of humanity as an example of how what exists inside us, in and as mind-realities, is existing outside of us equally, manifested as the worldly reality we all share. We have as human beings compartmentalized ourselves within and as the mind, where some parts that ‘fit the bill’ of ‘civilization’ is allowed to be expressed out into the open, both within ourselves and in participation with others, were other ‘parts’ are keep securely hidden and suppressed, so to avoid being exposed.

Many probably know a few details about the North Korean regime or it’s absurd leadership with Kim Jun-Sun as the “father” of the country known as “the eternal president” and his son Kim-Jung-Il who is currently in the process of handing down the role of sole dictator to another son in the line of ill’s. According to Kim Il-sung, the way of living in North Korea is based on the Juche Idea which is based on the belief that “man is the master of everything and decides everything.” So how exactly is it that man is the master and what kind of master is he?

Let’s have a look at ‘who’ we, as North Korea, are:

There are not many secret places left on earth, and ironically, the one’s that are, are not the pretty rainforest Lagunas as one might imagine, but instead secret places of torture and suffering.

One of those places is now being exposed by Amnesty International:  The secret political prison work camps in North Korea.

Amnesty has gained access to satellite photos of the area, where they camps are situated in 2001 and again in 2011 and through analyzing the photos, they were able to see that more camps with more “political prisoners” had emerged in the ten years. The camps are believed to have been existing since the 1950’s. According to Amnesty’s Asia Pacific director, Sam Zarifi:“These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the last 60 years are ignored,”

Subsequently, Amnesty has released a detailed document describing the life in the camps as horrific, where torture, starvation and mass execution is everyday life for the, estimated, more than 200.000 inmates. The document is based on testimonies from over 15 North Koreans who have escaped the camps as well as guards working in the camps.

Life as a Prison

According to the Amnesty report, the people, arrested and incarcerated as criminals, are often people who have done nothing but tried to get out of the country, are exposed to torture and imprisonment, water-boarding, sleep deprivation, bamboo pieces placed under the fingernails and imprisonment – sometimes for months on end – inside a 4ft (1.22m) by 4ft cell. This is the stuff nightmares is made of, yet for the people of North Korea, it is a plausible every day scenario.

In the camps it is even custom that people are held as ‘guilty-by-association’, simply because one of their relatives has been arrested. Here the prisoners work from 4 in the morning to 8 at night, after which they are ‘educated’ in the North Korean military ideology.  But even ‘normal’ North Koreans who are not sentenced to live in the camps, share stories of brutality and abuse and are exposed to starvation and horrible living conditions. It is clear to see that the regime itself wants no one to leave and spends massive resources on keeping the population oppressed and indoctrinated.

Testimonials from with the secret regime

The following are testimonials from North Koreans that clearly describe the horrendous regime and expose the abuse that is accepted as every day living for millions of people.

A 70 year old woman who escaped last year says to BBC that:

“We don’t ask to wear good clothes, to dance or play. We only want full stomachs. But every day we wake up and our first thought is ‘How are we going to get some food for breakfast?’ Then ‘How are we going to get something for dinner?’,” she says.

“Living like that makes people go crazy. Just brush against someone in the street and they will start fighting you. In their hearts everyone knows we live like dogs. But no-one can say it out loud.”

The quote above shows a mentality that might be prominent in North Korea, because of the extreme conditions of fear for survival that people are living under, but it is actually something that most humans will recognize – the belief that we must fight others to exist and how we live accordingly in fear of not surviving.

The following is a letter written by Choi Hyok, a 12 year old boy, who escaped to China with his two siblings, a younger brother and an older sister. In bringing the point back to self, realizing that both sides of the abuse – the oppressor and the oppressed is existing within us, it is clear how we enslave ourselves within the abuse.  What is being revealed here is even further a clear exposure of the world society as a whole and where the bottom line is drawn, when it comes to survival. Money is only point standing between the three siblings and even the slightest notion of freedom, which in this case, is simply seen as surviving and not going to prison.

 “Dear Uncle, How are you? North Korea knows about us. North Koreans came to us for questioning and they made reports about us as they wished and took away all the reports with them. If you don’t help us, we will kill ourselves because we don’t want to go to North Korea. Because, if we go to North Korea, we will be imprisoned for the rest of our lives…Please rescue us. If you rescue us, I will repay it later. Really, really, I want to be free. Please help us. I pray for freedom, to Lord. I want to be free to study, freedom, freedom, freedom

In the evening, 6 April, 07
From Choi Hyok”

Realizing the North Korea within Self – A Personal Story. 

Below is a post I wrote on the Desteni forum, the first time I realized that there is a North Korea in me. It is almost two years ago and the realization still stands clear as day, yet unresolved in the world as a whole or in us as individuals – as states of secrecy still exists within and as the world and within human beings as secret mental realities, where we oppress and abuse ourselves as parts that dominate and subordinate, as autocratic delusions of grandeur, where a single desire, fantasy or fear is controlling our every move – and doing so, with the permission of us as a whole.

“In a video about North Korea I watched today, one of the North Koreans being interviewed said that they believed that the whole world was a prison, because they had never learned about or seen anything else than the prisons of North Korea. This guy had been born into the prison and they did not know they were in North Korea, who had put them there or why.
Just that they were the ones “making mistakes” while the guards were the ones “not making mistakes”.

They are being tortured, starved, isolated and working as slaves within the North Korean regime.
No one can get in and no one besides this guy escaping has seen these “camps”.
After escaping the guy went to china or South Korea, and he describes how he is not very impressed. All he cares about is food.

It got me wondering about the North Korea inside me, because in a way this utterly extreme country is actually showing me something about myself that I had not seen before. When the guy said; “We thought the whole world was a prison” he was in fact correct – it is. But they are the one´s experiencing it in it´s true brutality. Of course these people have no chance of getting out or realizing anything.

What I found within looking at myself within this, what happens in North Korea, can only happen because no one sees it. They make sure to keep everyone out, and no one probably really wants to deal with them anyway. In the video it is said that the government or the leaders are terrified to be invaded which is also why they have kept everyone out.

This is the same way suppression’s work. What ever is suppressed can only control and direct as long as I do not see them or know that I am actually allowing and creating them. In secret I have actually submitted to them from fear of realizing how I am actually allowing myself to exist.

They know what they are doing is fucked up – why else would they hide it?

I have started to look at the personality designs of other countries as well, and it is pretty clear that they are all based on fear of loosing themselves.”

Oppressive regimes within

Another Destonian, Garbrielle Goodrow, wrote a reply to my post and shared a different perspective on the North Korea of humanity

“I studied these brutality suppressive nations this semester, and for me i came to the conclusion that they are based in fear of loss. Fear of losing power, wealth, domination, control, themselves, ect. it is a real tragedy that so many people are driven and ruled by fear, and creating the misery with self here in this reality. I see this in me as well, as one and equal with theses oppressive regimes fear and abuse, and it will not change until i stop the abuse of accepting and allowing this to continue through honestly accepting responsibility for the abuse i participate in and the fear i allow. On a grander scale, the dominant countries, such as the US and Britain for example, let this continue through fear as well, fear of loss of wealth, power, and dominance, not having the slightest care of the human suffering, but only caring for the things they fear losing. It will stop when we/i, the Self, stops.”-

So what does this make us?

When looking at North Korea as an example of a manifested symbol of the mind, it is a dictatorship that is existent upon all members of the group submitting themselves to the belief that one man is god and that it is their duty to subordinate themselves to him – they do so, either brainwashed to submission or out of fear. In a single human, this could be how we exist with an addiction or a personality trait, believing that if we do not follow this ‘rule of living’, something bad will happen to us, exactly how the addiction or belief becomes the king of all our actions or the god we submit ourselves to.

Another aspect is how the rest of the world acts towards North Korea, which is by largely not doing anything at all. Several  sanctions has been made to send a signal to the North Koreans, with the result that the same people that were poor before, are starving now. In a human being’s mind, this could be when we decide to go on a diet and literally starve ourselves to stop an addiction to sugar or food, but where all that happens, is that we’re abusing our bodies, because the real problem was within the structure of ‘who’ we are and not what we do.

The World will not change until we each change who we are

As Garbrielle said: “It will stop when we/i, the Self, stops”

This is the pinnacle of all points of abuse and inequality in the world as well as within each of us  – that it only stops when self stops. And in doing so we stand self-responsible for what is here as ourselves and as this world in its entirety. We do, as all parts, make up the whole that is this world, just as we within ourselves as a whole, accept who and what we allow ourselves to exist as. If one part is allowed to dominate from a separate mind-reality of delusion, and we as a whole, abdicate self-responsibility and submit ourselves to this part or even ignore and suppress this part, we are accepting and allowing the abuse to continue. This is how the world in which we exist, creates such a manifestation as the secret regime of North Korea. It can only exist by our permission and acceptance of it, however that is made – through deliberate ignorance and abdication of self-responsibility of the world society as a whole, as each of us allow our own North Korea – be that fear, greed, submission or self-delusion, to dominate and control us.

The Secret of North Korea is within us

North Korea exists within us, as us, through our permission and therefore North Korea exists as an actual manifested regime. We’ve accepted and allowed parts, which we’ve separated ourselves into and as, to dominate, direct and control us, while we as a whole, in one way or another have accepted this – by turning our backs on ourselves, by suppressing parts of ourselves into secrecy and by living incognito in abdication of self-responsibility.

There is only one solution and that is to bring it back to self. To realize how we’ve been accepting inner North Korea’s, to admit this to ourselves as a first step that will enable us to eventually stand together, as whole to stop the abuse that we’ve allowed in humanity as a whole.

We require to expose, investigate and understand our inner mental realities, where we exist in separation from the actual real world that we all share and where addictions, fears and delusions are what directs us in our daily participation. We require to work within ourselves to stop and take self-responsibility so that we actually become able and capable of changing and directing ourselves, to stop existing in and as separation so that we may start living in self-dignity.

The purpose of an Equal Money System is equally to stop all abuse and separation so that we may live in equality and self-dignity – yet with the EMS, we are actually changing the whole as who we are, at a global scale.

Because just as we require to expose and stop the inner abuse as North Korean realities in our minds, we require to stop the actual manifestation of North Korea and all other regimes and institutions of abuse and inequality that exist in the world, because of who we are, as who and what we’ve accepted and allowed ourselves to be and become, as individuals and as a whole.  Furthermore, instead of money being the symbol of the acceptance of inequality as it currently exists, in the EMS the nature of money, just as the nature of man, will be changed into being the value of life – where all is considered and cared for equally.

 Sources: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13272198

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/asia-pacific/n-korea-holding-200000-political-prisoners-amnesty-international/article2008725/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Asia-Pacific&utm_content=2008725

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13268857

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea

http://desteni.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=119&t=13912&hilit=North+Korea

The Dynamics of Capitalism Revealed

It’s true!

The priests were, for the most part,  working  for the nobility!

They helped the nobility ease their consciousness by providing “spiritual” justifications for wealth and privilege (“divine right of kings” it was called), but they also suppressed the anger and resentment of the peasants by saying “follow the king” because “God wants it that way.” The priests, it turned out, where in bed with the nobility, sometimes literally I imagine, and they served in the interests of wealth and privilege. Personally, I doubt it was always that way. I’m not a Catholic but I know enough about Jesus’s supposed life to know he wasn’t to fond of greedy people (he threw the money lenders out of the temple, didn’t he?). Based on his example people probably became “Christian” for the high moral standards and general compassion of its leader. But time passed and corruptions entered and eventually the Church was built (with the funding of the only people who had cash back in those days), inquisitors were appointed, and infidels and heretics where tortured and murdered…

But I digress…

The point is, the intellectual and emotional boundaries that had protected the opinions of the Church, that had made the words of the priest seem like the holy gospel of the Lord, and that had justified horrendous levels of torture and abuse were, during the “enlightenment” smashed and the modern scientists, champion of Truth and defender of all that is philosophical, empirical, and natural, was born.

Yay the scientist!

Taking the moral and intellectual road the scientists followed the example of Galileo and began searching after the Truth and nothing but. This new breed of person didn’t care that the priests said this, or the pope said that, or the bible said creation was only seven days long, they wanted to know the Truth and they set out to find it themselves!

And, if the technological world that surrounds you now is any indication…

If the spread of democracy (however flawed) in the world is any reflection…

The Truth did set them (and us) free.

And I think we should acknowledge that contribution.

But I also think we have to examine the limitations, and question the foundation, and admit to some error because frankly, from where I’m sitting, modern day science has become co-opted in service of wealth and privilege just like the ethical and emancipatory spirituality of Christ had been co-opted before.

Don’t believe me?

Watch this movie (GenerationRx).

From the atomic bomb to the dopamine droplet science now serves in the interests of power and privilege. And it’s not just that we serve in the interests of power and privilege, we justify it as well. We coin erroneous phrases (phrases used to justify the hierarchy and the domination of the weak as “natural”), develop erroneous indicators like “IQ” and the bell curve (which help “explain” why some people have more than others), and force people into irrelevant gender boxes. It is like we don’t understand the basic facts of life, and before you huff and puff, read this. Our entire North American culture is based on the erroneous concept of the alpha male, a concept used to justify male domination of women, corporate domination of peasants, and managerial domination of employees.

How embarrassing is that?

And while we do not torture people who do not submit and obey, we do medicate them.

Can’t sit in class?

Can’t follow the rules.

Don’t believe our truths?

Well Mr. “The problem is with you,” we have a pill that will help with that.

It is true.

We provide technology for the industrial  mill, armaments for the economic wars, justifications for the status quo (with more or less awareness of our role), and chemical straightjackets for those who don’t fit.

So what is a unsatisfied scientist to do?

Well, rather than participating in the the miscalculations, falsifications, and error, and rather than waiting for a new Galileo to come along and point out the steaming piles of horseshit we maintain, we can do what Galileo did and smash the boundaries that prevent us from seeing the truth. The communication-technology hammer is in place, and the writing is on the wall. The epistemological and ontological foundations are crumbling and rather than reinforcing the foundations, something that can only delay the inevitable, we should jump on the boat and do what needs to be done now before before somebody else comes along and embarrasses us to the point where we will never recover from the embarrassment. I don’t know about you but as a scientist the last thing I want to be reduced to is the lonely “you must have faith in us” lament of our spiritually discredited forefathers. I got into this to discover the Truth and I want to be known for that.  I want us to correct our errors, expose the ideology, undermine the justifications, and take  back the scholarly and scientific highroad. There are no excuses. Modern communication technologies have advanced to the point where we can now speak without mediation, outside of classrooms, and without worrying about the stodgy gatekeepers who police the boundaries of our discourse, and we should do so. I don’t think we should wait. If we do we just might find ourselves in the same boat as the priests before us, struggling to maintain legitimacy, and begging those who trusted us to “just have faith.”

The reason for our success?

Social context!

Despite what the psychologists want to tell you, we have found that the primary cause of most psychological distress is to be found in the toxic parental/social/work environments of the clients we treat, conditions that hurt the individual and that often require the development of pathological mechanisms of coping and defense. It is not pretty, and it is not simple, but it is, we have found, always treatable especially when the client is motivated, open, and willing to listen to advice and guidance.

So why am I telling you this? Well, for a couple reasons. Reason one is to point out one possible career path for people interested in Sociology. It is true that I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, but with my sociological expertise and insight I make an extremely effective psychological counselor. So if you are a Sociology student, or if you are interested in becoming one but have held back because you’ve also got an interest in psychology, never fear! You can combine both.

The other reason I’m telling you this is motivational. We often get people in our psychological practice who want more out of their life. They are working in this job or that job, find it oppressive and stultifying, want to get out and move up, would like to get post-secondary training of some sort, but can’t seem to find it within them to make the move forward. The are stuck not because they are stupid or incompetent, but because their developmental background has left them without the psychological foundations and self confidence to take on what (for them) are seemingly insurmountable goals. And it’s not just that they feel they can’t do a university course! They also feel they can’t handle the debt burden of the student loan, or the lost income, or the time away. From the absence of basic study skills to the black-emotional-pit of low self-esteem to the insurmountable walls of student finance, it’s just too much, too soon, too fast.

So what do we do? Well, I’d like to say treatment is simple but it is not.  Treatment involves a gentle process of undoing repressions, rebuilding self esteem, helping with study skills, even pointing out the financial, political, and social class realities of this planet that are oppressive and stultifying (for example, did you know that the education you get in K12 is different depending on the social class background of the school you are in?). It is one part career counseling, one part psychological counseling, one part sociological sophistication, one part parenting (to replace notable absence of good parents in their own life), and one part guidance and support. It does pay off, if the clients that we’ve had who have moved onto post-secondary work are any indication, but it does take work, effort, and trust.

And the biggest obstacle?

Not the abuse, not the damage, and not even the misconception. The biggest obstacle is the belief, instilled by parents and teachers, and perpetrated by our own popular culture, that it all comes down to genetics, karma, grace, or talent. Truth be told it has nothing to do with any of that and everything to do with you believing in yourself.

References

Anyon, Jean (1980). Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work. Journal of Education, 163: 1. [hhttp://www.sociology.org/?p=680]

These books are both different. You may be surprised to learn that neither of the books require (or even advise) total abstinence from alcohol, and both strip out the heavy duty demonization and moralization that often goes a long with this disease (like you are someone weak and deficient because you are an alcoholic). Instead they advise, in an open and sensible manner free of the prohibition like frenzy that often surrounds this social problem, change in diet, lifestyle, and attention to whatever social or emotional pathologies may encourage addictive behavior. Recognizing that alcohol, like other addictive substances, provides an endorphin rush (i.e. they make your brain feel good), the books develop treatment strategies that deal with that. Treatment  involves a pharmacological intervention that interferes with the uptake of endorphins in the brain (thus robbing you of the feel good properties of alcohol) and dramatically reducing craving over time. The book authors claim success rates as high as 80% which is incredible considering how difficult addictions are to treat. I haven’t seen these treatments in action yet, though I do have a client who I’m hoping will try them out. They do, however, seem highly promising, and they are backed by serious scientific research.

alchohol treatment

Now as a sociologist I usually don’t buy into biological or genetic explanations of anything.  For me traditional psychology has too narrow a focus and it misses a lot of key causal factors when it approaches psychological dysfunction. I understand the power that advertising, the media, and our social groups have to determine our behavior and personality so from my sociologically sophisticated perspective, even something as “genetic” as IQ isn’t really genetic at all, but social. Still, what I found most interesting about the books from a sociological point of view was the emphasis on the relationship between alcohol and endorphins, a biological process.  Endorphins of course are the natural “feel good” drugs in your brain. Similar to morphine, the body releases endorphins in responses to both positive and negative stimuli.  Stress and pain cause endorphin release, but also laughter and orgasm. In addition, long distance running has long been associated with endorphin release (the so called “runner’s high”). Endorphins are the body’s “feel good” system and lack of endorphins may lead to depression. Drinking alcohol is a way to encourage endorphin release in the brain.

But why do you need alcohol to encourage endorphin release if it is released by other activities?

So what are you going to do about this? Well, if there is an addiction present the implications are clear, you have to break the chemical association and change your environment so your body is not so overwhelmed that it needs additional medication. We now know how to break the chemical association in the brain (both books reviewed here provide a solution). The harder part is cleaning up our social environments; but at least now you know where to start looking.

Now, hold on a second. That’s not the answer we were looking for. Captain America is supposed to be strong, fast, and fearless because he represents all that is virtuous about America, right?

Wrong.

According to the storyline for Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers starts off being a skinny little dweeb who can’t get a break. Steve’s fortunes finally take a turn for the better when he catches the attention of Dr. Abraham Erskine. The good doctor is impressed by Steve’s stick-tuitiveness as well as an indefinable quality of “goodness” that is integral to Steve’s character—and that also makes Steve a perfect guinea pig for Dr. Erskine’s medical experiments. Dr. Erskine has developed a potion that can transform people into super-beings. However, that’s just a theory because the first person to undergo the treatment (aka, the Red Skull) transforms into a monster so vile that he makes Hitler appear tame by comparison. Nevertheless, Erskine is convinced that just as his elixir amplified the Red Skull’s evil qualities, it will also exaggerate Roger’s admirable traits.

In a scene straight out of the Son of Frankenstein, Erskine escorts Rogers into an art deco iron maiden, shoots him up with dozens of over-sized vials of fluorescent super-soldier elixir and then zaps him with a zillion volts of electricity. In the midst of this sequence, when Erskine is momentarily seized with anxiety that he may have charred his poor patient to cinders, we suddenly hear Rodgers’ voice rise above the electrical firestorm to demand that the treatment be carried through to completion. At that point, I half expected Erskine to burst out exultantly, “It’s alive, it’s alive!!”

In spite of all the fun, this is the juncture where the film’s moral narrative gets seriously derailed. In 1942, when Hitler remained a clear and present threat to global security, and before we knew anything about the evils of performance enhancing drugs, it would have been easier to view Steve Rogers’ transformation as a triumph of virtue. That is, with the help of Erskein, a refugee driven from Europe by Hitler’s malice, the American military had cooked-up a potion designed to transform men into the kind of super-soldiers that were required to defeat the Axis of Evil. However, from a 21st century perspective, it’s a bit tougher to cheer lustily for Captain America when we simultaneously cry foul at the likes of Barry Bonds, Floyd Landis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alex Rodriguez, Marion Jones, and others. Although the producers of Captain America seem to have lost touch with such Kindergarten morality, thanks to Nancy Reagan, every kid in America has been conditioned to say no to drugs.

Certainly, the most poignant moral message that Captain America endeavors to impart is, “Nice guys can and should finish first.” A praiseworthy narrative, indeed. However, an equally resounding and vastly more troubling message that Captain America forcefully delivers is, “What you lack in natural ability, you can compensate for with performance enhancing drugs.” Further, if your opponents have taken drugs to enhance their performance, then it is your responsibility to consume even more efficacious drugs in order to out compete your foes. Precisely what it means to be human—not to mention the moral laudability associated with aspiring toward unsynthesized excellence—get dumped by the wayside. In Captain America, the virtues of drug-free humanity get flushed unceremoniously into the gutter of history. Alas.

Americans love moral merit and Americans also love winners. In fact, Americans love each so much that they often fail to see the essential contradictions that make it impossible to achieve both simultaneously. In Captain America, we try to have our cake and eat it too. In the end, Captain America is an entertaining but exceedingly superficial film. Nor, if the moral road map in Captain America is any indication, is it any wonder that America tends to get bogged down in endless wars. How can Americans ever expect to win the wars if, like their hero Steve Rogers, every time they strike a blow for their principles they also strike an equally forceful blow against them?

Standing there in line, I also met another baby boy with his two Polish parents, who were out shopping for baby products and diapers for the little one. As I went out of the supermarket, carrying my big watermelon, two Romanian workers who deliver advertisements in the early morning hours to the neighborhood, went in. I walked down the street, watermelon in hand, enjoying the heat of the sun and as I turned the corner of the street, I was greeted with a wave and a shout by the Turkish pizza bakers who were sitting on their milk boxes, smoking cigarettes and taking a break from the heat in their busy restaurant kitchen.

Further down the street by the Korean restaurant, an old Korean man was standing on the steps leading up to the restaurant entrance. He smiled at me as I walked by, never having set foot in this or any other Korean restaurant. There is also an Indian restaurant further down the street that I have also never visited. I suppose it is a mixture of sticking to what I know when I do eat out and only eating out on rare occasions because of the money it costs. Interestingly enough a pizza costs the same as a fine Korean or Indian cuisine dinner, yet I have never considered frequenting those restaurants. As I walked past the Korean restaurant I almost bumped into a van that was leaving a driveway.

The woman driving the car laughed as I came up to the car and signaled apologetic to me to go around the car as she was backing out. As I walked around, I saw two other women silently swooping into the car, one of them only wearing a blanket and high stiletto heals. They were coming out from the bordello called “Hungarian Studio”. I actually did not know if the girls were Hungarian or not, but they did speak an East European language. The bordello has a sign that says “Open” with blinking neon lights and I have only seen it being turned off once. As I had passed the van, I looked across the street where a group of Lithuanian workers had been busy restoring a couple of houses and after waving to them, I crossed paths with a young Afghan boy that I often meet in the area who was walking his dog.

Shortly thereafter I walked into my house, carrying the watermelon to my kitchen and as I cut, sliced and ate this juicy piece of the earth, I looked out, through the window, at ‘my world’. In approximately 60 seconds and as long as it has taken you to read this, I met people from at least 10 different nationalities, in a tiny radius around the area where I live. Most of them are here because of money and most are working jobs that they do not enjoy or make much money from. Most of the ones that have been coming during the last 5 – 10 years, the eastern Europeans, live in crappy apartments rented to them by their work-providers for expensive rent in small spaces where they’re crammed together with 6 other guys sharing one bathroom. Others have managed to create a business or have perhaps married a Danish person. Currently Copenhagen is even voted the most expensive city in Europe and even for the Danes themselves, rent, food and transportation is extremely expensive and work is hard to come by.

So here we are: ‘the world’ gathered together in a tiny area, where all the world’s inequality and injustice exists directly visible and immanently obvious, yet incorporated into a day-to-day living where even the most basic questions asked in regards to this apparent exploitation of human life, is considered too naïve or too idealistic to be taken seriously in terms of taking action to change the situation. I want to live in a world, where everyone can travel everywhere and live as equals.

In such a world, an entirely different way of living together might emerge, where for example work environments can be established or cities can be designed with specific purposes that supports the local environment or draws direct inspiration from it, such as water-themed living near the great lakes of Finland or building clocks in small cities of Switzerland. Perhaps as all the people of the various countries on Earth will mix in the melding pot, people will eventually travel to and live in India specifically to live a specific lifestyle of tranquility and playing music or people interested in making movies and working with cinema will gather in California.

When looking at it, in some ways this already is this way – except for the inequality through money that makes all the difference in the world, when it comes to making a living — anywhere. Consider countries in Africa, where the world’s best climate is for growing coffee, yet where people are being exploited and exploiting each other and where the infra structure is non-existent in terms of providing public service and supporting the citizens’ with basic necessities such as clean drinking water, schools or transportation. Who knows how those countries will flourish and bloom, once a system is in place that is created on the basic premise of Life supporting Life to be lived dignified for all?

There are basically endless opportunities to live differently as the way we are currently living is not only extremely restricted and unpractical, but even more so, unfair and unjust. When taking the walk from the supermarket to my house, the people I met were by large people providing a service, working hard and working long hours for the bare minimum wage, while the majority of those they serve are the local population of which many work few hours, with excellent conditions, benefits, unions, pension and decent pay.

So basically we have created a new working-class that might not be women, children, slaves or our local brothers, but in return are people either trafficked here by ruthless people of power or who has migrated themselves out of desperation towards the situation in their home countries. And as we did this, one person crossing the border after another, we also create new elite –ourselves – and we are now living side by side with the poor; equally shopping in the supermarket, yet with unequal access to the kind food we can buy and the quantities in which we can buy it.

We may live on the same street, but where one family of 5 live in a huge town house with a furnished cellar and a garden, the other might live in a single room in an apartment with 5 other people with only fungus as insulation for the winter cold. It is as a constant ‘age of inequality’ we’re all in, all the time, and even though nothing may have changed and people are still as unequal as when the slaves were trafficked overseas or when women were not allowed to vote or get divorced, we live together in this tiny space that is this world. We can no longer deny that inequality is a living fact.

What is required is that we realize that it IS possible to live differently and that what we’ve believed to be creating new opportunities and ways of living was in fact recreation of the same inequality in new and more sophisticated ways that offered nothing more than the same way of living in working to survive. The Whole World is here and here is the Whole World. Borders are not meant to be permanent or to surpass our self-direction, because Life does not have borders and thus the borders that are here, may exist for a moment and be gone the next.

What is important is that we – as a whole – decide upon the borders and fences that we place for ourselves, because they’re practical and supportive – not because we fear the invasion of a foreign nation or wish to uphold a justification of inequality between people. The World in 60 seconds is the World we all live in, all 360 degrees of it – and that is the same as we live Here, in Nigeria where a melon grows that looks like a watermelon but tastes differently than the ones from Spain that can be purchased in the supermarket right around the corner from where I live in Copenhagen.

I Vote for an Equal World for All – because we’re all Equally in it and therefore: by living Inequality, we are living something that is not who we really are and that simply doesn’t make any sense.

I am simply Here to speak that which has remained unspoken within and as myself and within and as this world. Within this article I am thus drawing from own observations and experiences as well as analyzing specific cultural and sociological traits relevant to gain an understanding of why women submit themselves willingly to the abuse and degradation by men and why we accept ourselves as societies and culture that does not honor or dignify ourselves as life. Let’s begin:

The other night a couple of girls were having a party at house next to mine. They were preparing themselves to go out clubbing and from my window, I could see how they were dressing themselves, putting on make-up and getting drunk, meanwhile music was playing with a thumbing bass out the window. I noticed that most of the songs they were listening to were these techno/house tracks with male singers and with lyrics sounding like “eat my ass bitch” in a monotone and generic fashion or it was female singers with lyrics such as “I wanna give it up to you”. I then embarked on researching this point a little further as I found it to be interesting and fascinating how these women were listening to music that was clearly degrading and misogynistic as though it was actually empowering.

Here were these girls, partying as ‘single women’, with ‘their own money’, ‘beautiful and free’ – for example compared to their great grandmothers, who were slave bound to kitchens, not allowed to vote, considered dumb and irrational simply for being a women or if we compare them to women in other cultures that do not have their own money, education or the cultural freedom to express themselves, for example sexually.

And still they were listening to degrading abusive music with male voices singing to them to get ‘get on your knees’ or the infamous “eat my ass bitch” as though it were a celebration of life. When I placed myself in their shoes, their immediate and conscious experience of themselves were as ‘power-women’ – I mean, that was the game they were playing. “We’re players” “Women can be players as well” – and even though that is true, I can say from personal experience that this is also a matter of joining them, because you can’t beat them – and in this case it is the male dominant culture, where women are valuable and valuing themselves as objects for the attraction of men and where men are supposed to be tough and brutal, seen, defined and perceived as the ominous “Cool”.

“…see whore you’re the kinda girl that I’da 
Assault and rape and figure why not try to make your pussy wider 
Fuck you with an umbrella then open it up while that shits inside ya”

Eminem in the song “Stay Wide Awake“

Jackson Katz, an anti-sexism activist writer describes it in these words:

“Is it truly possible that women’s lives have been so thoroughly devalued that {Eminem}  a multi-platinum musical artist with nine Grammy awards to his name can sing multiple songs about raping and mutilating women and hip sophisticates can’t even bring themselves to utter the words “woman-hating?”[1]

Yes – it is most certainly possible, which the story above clearly exemplifies. Because when not only men degrade women, but when women also degrade themselves and when children are brought up to an implicitly immanent misogynistic culture – how can we expect ourselves to live any differently? There is this collective delusion in the wealthiest countries, that women have become liberated (hell that men have become liberated as well) – all conjured up in a comparison to cultures of past times, which apparently makes us liberated because we’re no longer stuck slaving in kitchens, carrying children on our arms and now instead can slave for cash at McDonalds or Wendy’s. And obviously women can get abortions and divorces, but how exactly that’s ‘liberating’, remains the question.

So back to the story of the girls next door. As I placed myself in their shoes, I saw that they were, behind the roles of ‘liberated power women’ who are ‘playing the game’, insecure, self-conscious human beings who were doing what they were doing specifically with the purpose of getting a man, either to have sex with or to love and hold – in both cases, for reproductive intentions.

How do I know this? I have been there and have done it myself. As a woman going out clubbing, your primary asset and value is your looks which has to meet specific standards or preferences. So these girls were constantly going from the living room where they were partying to the bedroom, both of which I could see from my window – to put make-up on and check their reflection. Some of the girls did this many times, many 10 or 20 times during the night of 4-5 hours before they were going out. And these girls were normal, standard, good-looking girls as one would imagine such. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them – and they would check their reflection in a certain way – with critical, sharp eyes of either approval or disapproval. And in the back-ground of the mind, the image of a man accepting them, loving them, feeding them with attention (or money and drinks) were constantly running like a movie in their head. They were drinking heavily as well, which people do to ‘uplift their spirits’ – basically to push beyond their own boundaries so that they become able to speak, dance, flirt and have sex.

As a girl and woman listening to this music, the ‘eat my ass bitch’ from before, the experience is that of being empowered, of being strong, invincible and specifically that of being a part of the male (superior) environment, showing the males that we can ‘match them’ and that we’re not whiny little sissies that can’t keep our liqueur sort of thing – is the psychology behind this point. I realized something fascinating a while back in relation to this point: that men do not specifically want woman to ‘match them’, meaning to be tough or strong – many men has a fantasy about a feminine, fragile virgin-like girl to whom they can either ravage or cherish or both, quite like many women has a fantasy about a beast of a man who fittingly ravages her or cherishes her like a delicate flower or both.

So this specific point is about women matching and attempting to empower themselves through matching the degrading nature of a male-dominant society – it is a quite strange application of self-empowerment. Yet – if we as women have seen men and what men represent and present themselves as, as free, empowered and self-authoritative, then that becomes our aim for empowering ourselves – because in a male dominated society, there are no alternatives.

I am not speaking here about strictly of male-dominant as being run by males – more that it is specific characteristics connected with being male that are predominant and valued as such amongst all members of society, whether it degrades and enslaves them or not. So in terms of the discussion about the male-dominant society, it might as well be a man that is degraded and enslaved by, to fulfill a role by putting on a suit or pumping iron or suppressing himself and his self-expression.

So the topic here is not physical men vs. physical woman. That is exactly seen in how women, when attempting to empower themselves, will end up doing exactly the opposite. That is because our entire society and the systems within which we manage our lives, our bodies and our minds – are male-dominant. In this specific case, it is women who have actively taken upon themselves to enslave themselves and degrade themselves through participating in the degrading of women through music, fashion and social behavior – as though it was in fact empowering.

Women (or men) don’t have an alternative to empower themselves –and power in this current system is equivalent with brutality, abuse cynicism, ego and self-interest. Thus we’re Impulsed to shape and form ourselves as personalities in relation to this definition of power, which is why many relationships will exist within a reversed constellation where the woman dominates the man in exactly the same way as a man would have dominated a woman.

Therefore – it is time to give ourselves an alternative. Obviously in order to do so, we first of all have to understand how we’ve defined power, worth and value as it is – so that we can start redefining what power, worth and value is and should be, when it is no longer abusive and unequal.

You can read more about this in the article, where I wrote about the enslavement of reproduction, and I will return to this in coming articles. I will also continue with investigating the male perspective in this, where males become equally enslaved to and within the point of degrading and abusing women and thus degrading and abusing themselves. For now I will remain with this point of how woman are trapped in a self-degrading and inverted chauvinism that is expressed through the example of music.

We shall here take a look at and analyze a brand this Katy Perry song. Katy Perry did most likely not write this song, yet I am deliberately referring to it as such, because 1) there is a communal pretense that money-making-mainstream-music –performers DO write their own material and 2) because Katy Perry does let this song represent her – she is singing it  – it is “a Katy Perry song”. I shall not analyze the entire song here, merely highlight some fascinating expressions that show how the acceptance of abuse towards women, is Impulsed and groomed into us via mainstream music that pretends to be innocent and harmless via it’s glossy exterior and it’s Disney- meets-Demon-like front-figures.

The song from Perry’s most recent album appropriately called “Teenage Dreams” is called E.T and  it circles around the theme of Katy falling in love with an alien man. (Katy Perry, who got married to another celebrity, notorious playboy Russel Brand in an spiritual ceremony in India last year)

The song starts with a rap intro by the infamous Kayne West that lays the foundation for the perspective of the song presented as a ‘boyish’ tease, like the constant chase on the playground where the boys pull the girls pigtails and the girls scream. Yet – this is not children or teenagers who are presenting this – they are adult, successful artists with large audiences specifically in the segment of children and teenagers. And behind the boyish teasing, is a far more cynical and brutal truth about this and these types of songs and artists.

The topic of why adult artists are making music targeted towards children within creating an entire ‘world’ around them as a fairytale, is another story for another time. Take a look at the lyrics here. This is the fantasy man that Katy Perry in these lyric’s dream universe is feverishly submitting herself to:

K[Kanye West]
“I got a dirty mind
I got filthy ways
I’m tryna Bath my Ape in your Milky Way
I’m a legend, I’m irreverent
I be reverand
I be so fa-a-ar up, we don’t give a f-f-f-f-ck
Welcome to the danger zone
Step into the fantasy
You are now invited to the other side of sanity
They calling me an alien
A big headed astronaut
Maybe it’s because your boy Yeezy get ass a lot”

So first Kayne calls himself a ‘reverend’ meaning the man who speaks the word of god to the clergy or the following of a specific church and later goes on to complimenting Katy for making him ‘the big man he is’ by him having anal sex with her. To that Katy Perry answers:

[Katy Perry]
“You’re so hypnotizing
Could you be the devil
Could you be an angel

Your touch magnetizing
Feels like I am floating
Leaves my body glowing.”

Here Katy are referring to the energetic reactions attached and played out – to which many people are addicted – between man and woman. The “electric” spark that is experienced. Here Katy has associated this to a specific man, a special man – that thus makes it even more intense. The man is thus placed on a pedestal sending the signal that such a man could exist, but also within polarizing and idealizing him to such a degree, she herself becomes implicitly inferior and irrelevant.

“They say be afraid
You’re not like the others
Futuristic lover
Different DNA
They don’t understand you”

There is here an entire topic on it’s own with the references to aliens and spirituality, which I will not discuss in this article, but merely mention as a point to consider critically.

“Your from a whole other world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I’m ready to go
Lead me into the light”

This is a clear reference to the biblical “god” and the man is in this fantasy now uplifted to the status of a god.

Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison”

Love is referred to as an infection and sperm as a poison which is from a certain perspective quite accurate, but the point that follows through her is the point of submitting oneself to abuse, to the desire and want to be abused, which clearly can be seen in the lyrics below:

“Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction”

The rest of the song goes on repeatedly in the same fashion and upon investigating more of the current music listened to specifically by teenagers and adolescents, these type of lyrics are not uncommon – quite the contrary. So the question is then if this is merely harmless wordplay or mating-games within a fantasy that is not supposed to be lived out into reality and if the average adolescent is so desensitized from seeing and hearing about rough sex that they do not take something like this seriously. Or if the desensitization is actually something that this music is indicative of, where we as human beings abdicate self-dignity and the ability to see others as equals and thus come to believe that we either have the right to treat others as objects or that we are no more worth than the objects we use without care.

I have as a woman – but even more so relevant, as a human being in this world, desensitized myself to abuse and suffering, to the abuse and suffering inflicted upon my own human physical body as well as the abuse and suffering within and as this world. I have found it easier to submit myself, because I believed and accepted that standing up was impossible – my world left me no alternatives. Yet when everybody says this, does this, creates this – we end up with a world of self-abdicated beings who are abusing each other and all claiming their freedom from responsibility.

I have realized for myself that the extend to which I have desensitized myself from what is here, specifically as suffering and abuse, is what has allowed it to escalate – because if it is not me, I cannot feel it, if it is not happening to me, I am not responsible, If I do not see it, I am not here as it.

I have realized that the extend to which I have desensitized myself is so vast that I require a total re-education of myself to actually re-learn how to care – not only about the world, about other life-forms and people, but equally about myself. Because self-abdication in all its various compromises is the self-degradation of separation that I have willingly submitted myself to.

Separation = Self-Abdication

When we return to the girls across the street in the house who were partying and getting ready to go out, they are themselves responsible for what they are doing – – they might even experience that nagging feeling of “why am I doing this, why am I compromising myself like this?” and then they look around and there is no alternative and everyone is doing the same and if they don’t do this they wont get a man and if they don’t get a man they stand no chance at getting that perfect life or at least surviving so that their genes can be transferred and they may live forever through the generations to come … WTF?

Is that the kind of human beings we want to bring into this world, continuously without end? Is surviving more important than being able to exist in self-dignity without being abused or abusing others? Unfortunately we have been programmed and have programmed ourselves to believe and accept this to be true to the extend where the this is infused into and as our bodies so that the mind sends an energetic surge or shock through the body a signal that it is time to get to work, to get that ass on the dance floor and mate at all costs and at any price – because the survival of the human species is our sole purpose in this world.

And within that single point of self-abdication, we have collectively as men and women – as human beings – submitted ourselves to exist within and as the honoring of abuse instead of life, of being entertained by the suffering of others and in believing that the continuous enslavement of ourselves, is what freedom looks, feels and smells like – there at the bottom of the human physical body that has become the object of our blind devotion. We have truly become assholes of our own demise.

I realize that I first must re-learn myself to take self-responsibility, to live dignified and principled, to not compromise or abuse myself, mentally or physically – to not submit myself to ideas or preprogrammed definitions about who I should be or what I should enjoy or desire or dislike. I realize that I have never really cared and even if I did, the world does not even facilitate human begins that do care.

grew up surrounded by women who hated men. Perhaps they did not all hate men, all of them, all the time, but a lot of them did. They also loved them… a lot – sometimes too much. It was an ironic dichotomy that I did not quite understand as a child. These women that I grew up with, had been part of “the movement” in the 70s and had experienced the restraint and limits of growing up in the shadow of fathers, brothers and male teachers.

They often had experienced and how they were taught to be ashamed of their sexuality, sit with their legs crossed and not send out the wrong signals. By the time they’ve reached their twenties, they were pissed off angry. So they became pissed off angry at the men and either directed their anger that way or towards the symbol of “the man” – the capitalistic system of inequality. The women had sex and relationships once in a while. Some of them became lesbians, out of shear spite of males.

In the relationships they did have with men, often the men was cheating as much as possible, drinking too much, wining too much or becoming violent, so most of the time, the women were alone. They hated their jobs as well ironically, many of them worked as some form of child-caretakers, in a daycare center or at a school – and I guess they felt pretty pissed on by life. I remember how they came home, tired, with creasy hair and long heavy breasts under their sweaty shirts, as the last sad remaining symbol of their victorious bra-burning that had marked the beginning of the end of their oppression.

Their rebellion against the system, the authorities and against men had not paid off and they were now in exactly the same position they fought to get out of: underpaid and unappreciated housewives and mothers, often without a man as support, with full time jobs being single parents, bitter and broken.

When they sat around the table at night, drinking red wine, the woman often talked about their youth, about feminism, and how women should stand up for themselves with pride in their voices. What I saw, as a little girl sitting there, with dangling feet at the edge of the chair, was people that were angry, tired and desperate and that was not the life I wanted.

It was not because the men around me, had more happy lives, but they did seem freer. They could come and go as they wanted, they laughed more often, they did not look as burdened as the women did. Often the men also moved on and created new families with younger women and had new children and they seemed to be able to simply brush off the past as were it a flick of dust and walk on as though nothing had happened. They looked invincible from that perspective, or at the very least; not as miserable as the women did.

Lately as I’ve been taking my daily walks around the neighborhood, I walk by these houses, these expensive houses with fancy cars in the driveway. I’ve looked in through the windows and seen beautiful women and men with beautiful children eating dinner and I’ve caught myself desiring to be them because in the mind’s eye, these people have the perfect life. They are happy, they don’t sweat.

One day as I walked by one of these houses, I started realizing for myself that what I was seeing was not happiness, but money. Everything that I saw, all the happiness that were “shinning through” the windows of these perfect houses, was bought and sold for money. Some had bought a rustic happiness that gave associations with childhood visits to the countryside; others had bought New Yorker chic happiness with steel and raw concrete as their portrait designed happiness. I realized that I had not the faintest idea what went on in those houses, as all I saw was an illusion of happiness, created and facilitated through glossy magazines and commercials on TV as the contrast to what I saw as a child, where the adults did not have any money and were miserable because of it.

The problems of this world are not at the fault of men or women. That is too easy. It is however a system of inequality, of abuse, ego and deception that we’ve allowed to be the directive principle that manages all our lives – from politics to economy and relationships. And as it is, to a large extend, males have been the ones in the frontline of the business of inequality. There is however no doubt that we’ve all contributed, participated and played along in this tragic masquerade, where some have power so that others have not and where some have money so that others have not.

What I saw growing up, was not an unfair and uneven relationship between men and women – or it was that as well – however the point is that all and everything is facilitated and dictated by our submission to money. Money is the remedy with which we abuse and control each other. And everyone accepts it or has no choice but to accept it, within the belief that happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved through money – that money does in fact make one happy, successful and achieved.

I had never thought that I would ever declare myself a feminist, exactly because of my upbringing of seeing these women as everything I certainly did NOT want to be anything like. The stories here has now interwoven, from where I started with sharing why I am slowly becoming a feminist, but not a feminist as in a woman that despises men, but as a human being realizing that the current capitalist and patriarchal system is only in support of more of itself in a complete irrational frenzy of greed, power and self-delusion and that to stop it – we require an entire new way of managing our lives and ourselves, a way where women are standing up – and men – to not accept or allow ourselves to continue existing this way without any regard for life whatsoever.

Therefore – I am here to re-educate myself to become a trustworthy and dignified Human Being, with whatever means and measures it takes. Then it doesn’t matter who is woman or man or what is the cause – as long as we dedicate ourselves to changing what is Here, one step at a time.

I do not wish to live the life of the women I grew up around, hating their lives and the men they blamed for their position. I do not wish my children to live the life of me as I have – therefore – to change the future for our children, there is only one way possible: to change what is Here as ourselves, in each breath of self-compromise or self-judgment – to Stop and Stand up. In each breath, where we make excuses or justify why we only care about ourselves – to Stop and Stand up. In each breath of lying to ourselves or each other about what is here or how we really experience ourselves – to Stop and Stand up.

A veil is being ripped from my eyes – it is an astounding experience, as something I have always taken for granted as real and valuable, is suddenly revealing itself as fake through and through. It is even more astounding to see now how obvious it is that it was fake and that I have been existing for all this time on a complete lie.

I have been living a lie, together with everyone else in this world and the lie that I am talking about is: The Lie of Giving Life – The Lie of Reproduction – The Lie of Family – Relationships – Beauty – Love – and Sex.

As I am slowly ripping the veil from my eyes, I walk in my daily participation and see everything as had I gotten brand new eyes and trying them on for size or as am I seeing everything for the first time, yet still too bright and blurry. I am aware that even still what I am seeing now – is but another layer, another veil and that it requires a total unveiling – a brutal, self-honest unveiling of all delusions and illusions about what Life is.

Basically how it works is that I participate in my reality, read the news or listen to someone speak on the street or experience something within and as me and it shows me yet another point where what I believed were real, true and valuable turns out to be yet another point of deception.

What I have realized is this:

The entire world of fashion, healthcare, dating, drinking, having children, buying houses, Hollywood –  is set up like one big giant fertility clinique where everyone is groomed to become producers of “life” like flesh-machines or flesh-factories that are here to serve one basic function: re-produce and clone more flesh-machines.

We are “brought to life” to clone the system that is infused everywhere, Impulsing everything and everyone to only serve it, as a god almost that requires absolute obedience and devotion – and what is even worse: we are not even aware of it – or ourselves as it.

Because the deception has been so carefully designed and orchestrated that everyone believes that they’re in fact “living life” – that they are each living in something called “my life” which is almost like a game-sequence or a level in a computer game, where one must collect the most amount of points and scores – and the most important aspect of this is the game of reproduction.

For some it is mostly about the act itself – which entire industries, such as the porn- and clubbing industry are build upon. For others it is about the goal of producing the best possible offspring – for others again it is about “making the best out of” “the journey” – again with entire industries build upon these programs and impulses, which humans follow and call “family values” and “family first” or “I am a bachelor for life” and nod with this warm feeling of purpose and worth.

I have myself been 100 % controlled by this specific point of enslavement to the point where it is in deed shocking to realize even this singular point as an example of the extend of self-deception and enslavement I have submitted myself to – completely oblivious. I believed that my yearning desire for a little house on the beach with a loving husband, a dog and three children was a pure, honest wish for a happy life.  I was willing to go through hoops to maintain relationships, get sex or even flirt. I never questioned the sexual arousal I felt when I saw a man on the street that fit the profile of someone who is “powerful”.  And what is amazing is that this is a complete collective delirium that everyone is participating in maintaining – lovesongs, Tv-shows, romantic movies, hardcore porn, family-discount, bridal showers, baby showers, bachelor parties, beach parties, date rape drugs, you name it: we’re hooked on it. And this is why it is so hard to see and realize the self-delusion as the spell that we’ve placed ourselves under.

Because even if you were to see it – the entire world around you would live this as reality and thus eventually you would end up believing yourself to be insane or dysfunctional. It is like in the story about the emperor’s new clothes where everyone believes the emperor has clothes on; even though they can see that he does not – simply because they fear losing public appearance. Only when a child who has no concept of keeping up appearances, speaks up, the spell is broken.

It is time to break the spell, people – there is no such thing as love, as relationships, as “the one”, as “the perfect life”. The “perfect life” is – look around – only facilitated and made possible by money. When looking at the various representations of this scenario and those we’ve believed to have such a life, what we see is the facade, the make-up placed on top of the face of reality, stuck in a stiff smile – – what we are seeing is the emperor’s new clothes and we believe it to be real because otherwise we would have to face the lies we’ve been telling ourselves.

Sex is not some magnificent, sacred, spiritual or exhilarating event that will blow the boundaries of reality if only it is performed correctly with the right partner – the experiences of sexual energy charging around in the body is like the sweetener they put in cough syrup to make sure it gets down and stays down.

The entire purpose of this, us existing as flesh-factories in various grooming, fertility and nesting systems — is to replicate and reproduce more clones, more systems like ourselves – cloning what is here as this system of self-enslavement and propelling energy that we’ve accepted and allowed ourselves to become – and thus fear letting go of, because we’ve diluted ourselves to the extend where we now believe that this is all we are and will ever be – which unfortunately is true as long as we allow it to be. As long as we praise and submit ourselves to these systems – in their honor and in spite of life – we will remain self-enslaved and self-inflated, giving value to the act of enslavement itself.

The expression “bred in captivity” is fitting here – because only a race as stupid and arrogant, as we humans have allowed ourselves to be and become, would speak proudly of enslavement as though it was a sign of their evolved intelligence and power over nature – when in fact, all it reveals is the extend of our own self-enslavement.

The point here is not that sex is bad or that relationships are bad and that we should all now go into celibacy. Quite the contrary – the point is for us to realize how we’ve enslaved ourselves to reproduce ourselves as clones of our own enslavement and to break that cycle by willing ourselves to change.

We do this by changing the very nature of our relationships – – from pre-programmed and automated fertility-programs to living agreements where we come together in the purpose of supporting ourselves and each other as Life to stand up. We do this by changing the way we have sex and the starting-point within which we have sex, from mentally and energetically charged reproduction maneuvers to physical self-expression and amalgamation of and as ourselves in the touch of equality. We do this by stopping participation in thoughts, emotions and feelings – within the realization that all of these are pre-programmed for us to follow the pattern of survival through reproduction. We bring ourselves back Here – – in and as the Physical, as Life, Equal and One.