Saw a programme on tv about care homes for mentally impaired young people. A bloke, posing as a new recruit, goes in with a hidden camera to film what goes on. This is a modern facility, mainly staffed by young people. They are employed as support workers to care for people who are unable to live independently and look after themselves. The patients were regularly bullied and abused - both physically and mentally - according to the filming done by the stooge. For instance, a young, fit, strong bloke regularly slapped, dragged, pinned down and threw freezing water over his 'charges'. Moreover, no-one (neither his peers nor line managers) intervened. In fact they either looked on or joined in. I found it sickening and appalling to watch. The kind of thing that beggars belief. Much like the Stanford Prison experiment carried out by Zimbardo and his team (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) and the Milgram experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment).
What do these experiments, and the behaviour exhibited in the programme, demonstrate? That we're bullies and cowards? That we value approval over and above compassion? That we care more for our own psychological and physical comfort than we do for others?
That we are selfish.
We will protect our own position at the expense of others' suffering and discomfort, particularly when there is little threat of being challenged and called out on our behaviour.
Are we really that scared and cowardly?
On the flip side ......there are many instances of kindness and caring action. But they are often not dramatic; not sensational. They just pass on by, and you might witness them and smile, and then carry on with your day.
And it 's impossible to judge whether the abuse of those young patients is more prevalent than kind and caring acts. Neither behaviour can be measured in a meaningful and accurate way.
So, I wonder whether I over-reacted to the programme? Whether my appalled reaction plays into the drama of an extreme of human behaviour. Behaviour that is not neccessarily indicative of the norm of what most human beings behave like most of the time.
Perhaps, the programme was made to titillate and excite.... and so the making of the programme AND the watching unwittingly colludes with the behaviour that it is exposing.
See? Instead of believing that the programme makers wanted to expose the mistreatment of vulnerable people, I cynically doubt their motives.
A demonstratrion of how humanity is fucked and rushing headlong to its own demise at its own hand.
All we need is love. Love is all we need. - So said the Beatles.
Bryan Ferry said: Love is the drug.
I wanna know what love is - implored Foreigner.
Seal opines that Love is divine.
And on and on and on... how many songs are written about love?
What does love mean? What is love? Does it mean we enjoy something or someone? Does it mean that we accept them without question? Does it mean we care about what happens to them? Does it mean that we want them to be happy? Does it mean being cruel at times in order to help them? Is it the urge to be accepted, included, to matter?
Is it a feeling, a state, an idea? How do you know that you love someone? How can you determine between loving one person and not loving another?
Is hating love? If you hate someone, then there is an intensity of feeling there, you certainly aren't indifferent - you care about what they think about you; which must mean that their opinion matters to you. So if you give someone so much focus and attention, then isn't that love by another name - that's probably too facile an explanation and deserves its own blog at some other time!
If you say you love someone and then at another time you don't, then how can that be love? Isn't that just preference?
Are there different kinds of love? Romantic, familial, platonic.
Aren't most instances of love actually the opposite: wanting something from someone under your own terms and conditions, putting restrictions on people - i.e. if they don't fulfill our idea of what we think we want from them, then the love turns into hate. Does that mean that love is self-hate. Because we want them to give us what we don't have, we love them. When they don't give us what we think we need, we don't love them anymore. Their best interests conflict with yours. That's selfishness. Selfness.
Is it a bond? How long does the bond last? For some; a moment - it's a fleeting obsession. For others, the bond lasts for literally a lifetime.
Is it expectation? Do we expect others to fulfill our expectations of what we want them to be? That's projection and limitation. But we label it love. In every relationship there's at least 6 personas: The person you are and the person they are at that moment. The person you want them to be and the person they want you to be. And the person you want to project and the person they want to project. What an impossibility then to say 'I Love You'. Which persona is loving which other persona?
I know that I've asked a lot of questions relating to what love is, but it's taken so much for granted and used as such a cliche, but rarely do we actually stop to wonder what it is?
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and the closest that I can come to an explanation is that love is a process; or more accurately - a movement. It's not a 'thing'. It's not a state. It's not a definite. When you say to someone 'I Love You', you're not saying 'I will love you always.' You're saying 'In this instant, there is a feeling that is labelled love that is being associated with you.'
Hmmm. Sounds a bit cold and clinical doesn't it? Takes away the warm, fuzzy stuff associated with love. But that's reality. No-one can ever say 'I Love You' and mean it for more than the moment it takes to say it. And it's not cold. It's not clinical. It's the opposite. It's real. Not promising something that is impossible to deliver.
Which makes marriage vows ridiculous. How can anyone know what they're going to do in the next moment, let alone for a lifetime? Wouldn't it be much more honest to say 'At this moment it feels like I love you. I'm not going to promise you something that I have no idea whether I can deliver. All I can give you is this feeling in this moment.'
I don't think many people would take up that offer! But it would be more honest. And realistic.
It seems that people want assurances and certainty. They want to know where they stand; to try and stand in a definite position in a certain state. They don't like change. So they make vows that are empty and meaningless in an attempt to pin down life; to say "There - it's sure, it's certain; I love A and A loves me". A desperate clinging, a frantic attempt to fix the moment and, of course, it fails. Always.
You can't fix the moment:you can't be certain about anything;.... except change - o.k. so that's one thing you can be certain about ... and taxes - o.k. again, so two things ....and death; So that's three things you can be certain about. But apart from those three things you can't be certain about anything else. ;-)
It's emotional blackmail to ask someone to pledge even the next moment, let alone a lifetime, or to think that you can pledge that TO someone or something. The evidence of the failure of intent to love eternally, or for any specified amount of time, is pretty much abundant AND it's the balance that is necessary - the contrast that defines the feeling that we label 'love'.
One of my children asked me "would you love me if I was a paedophile.' (Hope he wasn't trying to tell me something!) I replied "Of course I would. I wouldn't like you, but I'd still love you." And do you know.... when I said it, I did really feel that I would love him no matter what. That no matter what acts he'd done, how violently or atrociously he'd behaved, I would see past that (whilst abhorring his behaviour) and still love that core, that flavour, that I think of when I think of him.
But that's my projection. That there is 'something' there that is unchanging; that I can assert I will always love, that I will be able to see past the actions and the behaviour. The honest answer would have been, 'at the moment I think that I would still love him, but were you to tell me that you are a paedophile, I can't honestly say how I would feel. Just don't test me on it, Darling!'
See, because there are many people who are indifferent to their family members. Who feel absolutely nothing for them. Have no bond. But conversely there can be a feeling of identification with anyone; whether they be family members, close friends or strangers.
Love is a dynamic, lawless movement, with no rules, that can last a second or a century. It can be there despite every test and disgusting behaviour, or it can disappear in a second due to one throwaway word or gesture. It's as ephemeral and insubstantial as everything and anything. It's built on shifting sand, so it can never be defended or defined. It's only real as it emerges. As it exists.
Love, like everything else that we talk or think about, is a concept. But it's the most seductive, pervasive and persuasive concept. So much has been written, talked and eulogised about it; but rarely do we stop to think what it is, and whether it actually exists.
Ultimately, is it just our need to prove that we exist and that we are necessary? That we are wanted, in fact, needed, by at least one other person. Because it validates our existence.
So is it that urge that moves us to identify as being 'a part of', to be in community, in communion, because we can't exist as a solitary thing? We know that what we are is always dependent on what everything else is; that we are inseparable, but because we've been told that we are something separate and autonomous, we try to dissolve that illusion of separation by asserting love.
When we try to impose a state of love it may be that in our ignorance we are trying to regain our sense of wholeness , or.. perhaps love is experiencing and recognising the flow of life.
So you could say (and I'm going to) that love is life. And there. Damn. I've gone and done it. I've hippiefied love. But I'll also add that if love is life, then so is hate. And indifference. It's all unconditional.
Barack Obama was just on the TV talking about basic human rights.
Basic. Human. Rights.
It's something that is considered fundamental to any society; people having rights to certain things:
The Basic Human Rights
The fundamental human rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and adopted by the Human Rights Act include:
The right to life, (not an absolute right); prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; prohibition of slavery, (both absolute rights); abolition of the death penalty.
The right to liberty and security, to a fair trial and to no punishment without law.
The right to respect for private and family life; the right to marry; the protection of property; the right to education.
Freedom of thought and religion; freedom of expression; freedom of assembly; right to free elections.
The prohibition on discrimination in the application of these human rights.
What strikes me as highly ironic though is that all of these rights are only liberties that need to be defended and protected from other humans. It's interesting too, that none of these rights are actually automatic. In fact all of them are restricted in law. Everyone has a right to all these things.... unless the law says otherwise. So, not exactly a right then... more an arbitrary application that can be changed if the law is amended.
There was a billboard recently that said: Children have a right to play. Do they? Who is going to enforce that? Who defines what a child is? Who defines what play is?
What precisely is a 'right'? If we assert that there is a 'right' to something it is saying that there is an assumption of automatic privilege. That no-one should be impeded in the execution of the right. But all of the above rights, and those of other countries, exist only to protect people against other people!
Take, for instance, the United States Declaration of Independence:
Ignoring for now the fact that rights are endowed by a creator.... it's interesting that the rights are life, liberty and the 'pursuit' of Happiness. Not happiness itself, just the right to pursue it. Pretty empty right, I'd say. In fact not really a right, more an endeavour!
You can pursue happiness, but you don't have a right to it? Stuff that.
I say 'Down with Rights - Rights are Wrong'. Be happy (or not) regardless of whether a constitution says you do or do not have the right to pursue it. In fact, I'd say that pursuing happiness pretty much precludes it, cos looking for it means you aren't happy. Only when you stop looking can there be happiness (whatever that is).
