Friday 29 March 2024

‽istis wonders what is stopping you‽ (weekending March 30th 2024)

 

‽istis wonders what is stopping you‽  (weekending March 30th 2024)

This weekending ‽istis has been chasing a phrase, haring about not unlike participants in an Easter egg hunt in a field or garden with too many hiding places, or maybe like a writer desperately seeking an original simile[i]…   and that phrase is: what is stopping you?

More than usually disparate topics, news and 'stuff' from the week - and related ponderings and wonderings - can perhaps be herded together like a flock shepherded by the winning team at a County Fair, or find shelter together under a necessary ‘late March in the UK’ umbrella…  enough!

So, some stoppings and not stoppings noticed this week:

‽ What didn’t stop the Rector of Liverpool resigning citing the "institutional validation of homophobic and misogynistic views in the Church" - and the "obvious and lamentable failure of safeguarding across the Church," which Rev Canon Dr Crispin Pailing described as "itself an abuse and a further assault on the image of God." And what stops others from following suit?[ii]

‽ What stops other bridges in major waterways from collapsing when struck by ships out of control?[iii]

‽ What stopped the fleeting thought become a reality: that new wellies (wellington boots) worn with a tutu might start a major fashion trend and turn heads on a walk with the dog – and why might certain high-profile ‘fashionistas’ potentially be able to carry it off with Style(s)[iv] and panache?   

‽ What didn’t stop terrorists (apparently from the Islamic State group in Khorassan) kill 140 people at the Crocus City Hall in Moscow?[v]

‽ What didn’t stop the parents of Finlay Boden - those with the primary and fundamental caring responsibility - from abusing (apparently inflicting ‘130 injuries on their baby boy, including 57 breaks to his bones, 71 bruises and two burns – one of which is believed to have been caused by a cigarette lighter’) and killing their 10 month old child who was ‘completely dependent on their parents for all aspects of their care.’ [vi]

‽ What stopped and then didn’t stop the UN Security Council passing “a long-awaited resolution on Gaza demanding an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” Antonio Guterres.[vii]  And what is stopping peace in the so-called ‘holy land’ this Easter? And that may be a very big question to ponder this weekend…

‽ What, if anything, in a suggested stepped process of thinking stuff through, may have helped someone decide to carry on in a job or not (for it is from this situation that the ‘to stop or not' theme first emerged)?

And this week, while pondering papers and digital files from past work, there was a reminder of a model developed by David Finkelhor[viii] in relation to offending behaviour (including offences against children and young people) that seems potentially helpful for prevention, practice, planning, policy and indeed therapeutic work.  Finkelhor proposed that four ‘conditions’ need to be in place or barriers overcome for an offence to occur: a motivation to offend; the overcoming of internal inhibitions; the overcoming of external barriers; the overcoming of ‘victim’ resistance.

And ‽istis thinks that perhaps, possibly, maybe there is something in the middle two conditions especially (internal barriers and external barriers[ix]) that could help us think much more generally about:

·         why things are done or not done, occur or not - even the ‘stoppings’ and ‘not stoppings’ pondered this week

·         why possibly some people do and some people don’t do something

·         about why you do or don’t do something

·         about why I do or don’t do something…   

…now where are those wellies‽

©‽istis

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on X/Twitter with replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.

X/Twitter ‘follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  


[i] And what a splendid internet rabbit hole opened up, not least taking a reader to ‘The Paris Review’ and an article on literary similes: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/01/21/striking-similes/

[iii] Many references to the collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore, including: https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/

[iv] With apologies to the much referenced Harry Styles. Hoping that a link to the webpage will offer some consolation:  https://www.hstyles.co.uk/

[v] Many references, but here is what seems to be an interesting source: https://www.iris-france.org/184928-moscow-attack-russia-confronts-islamist-terrorism/

[ix] And maybe in Derbyshire the imagery could be of dry-stone walls that bar or block, and of stiles that enable barriers to be overcome… What dry-stone walls can be put in place that may serve as external inhibitors? The report published this week has 11 recommendations for practice, policy, procedure, services and resources:   https://www.ddscp.org.uk/media/derby-scb/content-assets/documents/serious-case-reviews/ddscp_tds20_lcspr_final(2)_14.03.24.pdf


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Thursday 21 March 2024

‽istis ponders ‘mindingfulness’ (weekending March 23rd 2024)

 

‽istis ponders ‘mindingfulness’ (weekending March 23rd 2024)

This week ‽istis has pondered ‘mindingfulness’, a term that has emerged towards the end of a recently completed writing project exploring poetry and empathy and which - on making a swift-ish internet search - perhaps, possibly, may even be a word I could cautiously lay claim to devising/contriving[i] (but with very sincere apologies if this is in all likelihood not the case)‽

This, (with just a little bit of editing from the original) as they might say is ‘what I wrote’:

'A final, perhaps somewhat contrived, word has come out of this project for me: ‘mindingfulness’. This may be a combination of:

• ‘Minding’: past and present about equality, social, political, economic, ideological positions and their manifestations; minding about the potential impact of separationism, sectarianism, tribalism, nationalism, violence and conflict, the things that may divide us; minding about  factors that may have denied or diminshed or demolished or destroyed and that mean too many have to be overwhelmingly preoccupied with the safety and wellbeing of them and theirs; minding about what is going on for others, what their experience is and has been like, how they think and feel - trying to imagine what life is like, striving to understand how and why they behave as they do, having a concern for others’ welfare and wellbeing; engaging, asking, being inquisitive, being interested, encouraging voice and song and story; listening attentively; engaging; heeding; adapting; being reflexive…

and

• Approaches associated with ‘mindfulness’ practice and the sort of exercises and habits advocated by Roman Krznaric[ii] or Karen Armstrong and the movement associated with the Charter of Compassion[iii], and with the Declaration of a Global Ethic[iv]. Might we strive to find a way to get ‘so actually into the place of another that our (own) feelings duplicate more or less the feelings of that other… (and) weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who are glad.’ (Henry Moore ‘Universal Kinship’ 1906[v])  

Maybe we can find a way to practise, encourage and support ‘mindingfulness’; moving from affective empathy and cognitive empathy to behavioural empathy with the broadest of practical implications; striving to follow Audre Lorde’s progression from word to deed[vi], from thinking to feeling to behaviour, from practice to practising (getting on with it, putting it into practice, trying again and again wherever we have influence), casting ‘…the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action’ at an individual, relational, social, organisational, systemic, structural and political level.'

And many ideas explored across several of these weekly blogs (perhaps not surprisingly) seem to be gathering, hovering and interacting this week: ‘self’ and ‘other’; me and we and us; systems and systemic; symbiosis; well-being of all; only connect; endogenous (within) and exogenous (without); dynamic interaction; mutual dependency, mutual reciprocity - mutualism; collectivism; ‘ubuntu’…

So, as Spring seems finally to be springing in the UK and as the week closes - more work is underway to set out thoughts on what 'mindingfulness' might look and sound like in practice, and a tentative proposal is forming for a related project with local singing and creative friends.

Perhaps, possibly, maybe promoting and practising ‘mindingfulness’ could help us more than simply/complexly imagine that things could be different…‽

©‽istis

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on X/Twitter with replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.

X/Twitter ‘follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  


[i] An ‘‽’ is definitely required here, I think…

[ii] See Roman Krznaric: ‘Empathy’ 2014;

[iii] Referred to in earlier blogs, not least in relation to Karen Armstrong’s writing on the ‘Golden Rule’ and the development of the ‘Charter for Compassion.’  https://pistisrec.blogspot.com/2021/04/pistis-reclaims-golden-rule-weekending.html

[v] Definitely a text ripe and ready for ‘sankofa’ activity, I reckon. See blog from December 2023: https://pistisrec.blogspot.com/2023/12/pistis-ponders-down-in-yon-forest.html

[vi] Audre Lorde, writing about the potentially transformative practice and power of poetry: ‘... poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.’


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Friday 15 March 2024

‽istis ponders and attributes (weekending March 16th 2024)

 

‽istis ponders and attributes  (weekending March 16th 2024)

This week ‽istis has wondered about ‘attribution theory’:

“Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events.  It examines what information is gathered and how it is combined to form a causal judgment”.   Fiske and Taylor 1991[i]

Two types seem to be of particular contemporary importance:

Dispositional – v - Situational

In brief:

·      Dispositional: we may attribute/explain the behaviour of someone with primary or exclusive reference to that person's nature, personality, or beliefs - or assumptions about their nature, personality, or beliefs.

·      Situational: we may attribute/explain the behaviour of someone with primary or exclusive reference to the situation they are in or the environment - or our assumptions about their situation or the impact of the environment.

And a pretty common suggestion seems to be that for many of us:

·         our own behaviour including that which others may find problematic, is nevertheless generally framed by us as reasonable, explicable (where explanation may be considered an excuse) and contextual to the situation:

o   I had to whizz past you and cut in to the ‘going down to a single lane of traffic’ because I’m late for (my very important) work; I just missed the sign this time, easily done; it was a one off; I’m not the type of person who whizzes past and cuts in. An exogenous/outside of me explanation. Perhaps it can even turn from: ‘the circumstances led me to do that’, to: ‘you made me do that!', 'the situation you put me in has made me do this.’*

·         the behaviour of an other/others perhaps especially that which we find problematic, is not considered reasonable, not in seen in situational context but is explained by someone's very general disposition, even what they are intrinsically and fundamentally like:

o   you had to whizz past me and cut in to the ‘going down to a single lane of traffic’ because you didn’t leave early enough for work (which you probably think is far more important than mine anyway and because you don’t get up in time, because you are lazy, etc, etc. ); can’t you read the signs, or is that you read them and you think that they are only meant for everyone else to take note of and comply with?; I bet you do this sort of thing all the time…  because that is what you are like – you’re probably the sort of child who used to push in to the dinner queue at school! – and I bet your parents were like that too). An endogenous/inside of you explanation. Your behaviour tells me exactly what you are like!   

Time for a bit of reflection on personal responses and attributions made over this week...


But also, this weekending, ‽istis wonders if there may be linked cognitive processes?

The ‘response - perhaps including dismay/upset/disgust/outrage/motivation for revenge, for vengeance, for proclaimed justification of violence, or punishment, or hostage-taking, or land-taking, or occupying, or segregating, or bombing, or firing rockets, or killing my family - or child, or destruction of homes, hospitals, places of worship and schools (delete as your disposition and focus of concern dictates) - if you did that to me!’ phenomenon.

   'What if this were happening to me-ism?'

Possible situations to ponder from this week (across a spectrum of issues with perhaps varying levels of significance or consequence) come to mind. What might I think and how might I respond if:

·       a national newspaper edited images of the royal family[ii] (removing a wedding ring, for example)

·       you came over here, taking our jobs and houses, using our health system, wanting your family to live with you[iii]; foreigners, immigrants, you Brits - calling yourself ex-pats!

·       you were trying desperately to get to a safer place, or join members of your family, by the only means apparently available – even by climbing into a small boat in a rough sea (especially if you happen to be Welsh! - see episode 3 of ‘The Way’[iv], watched this week)

·       it wasn’t a Conservative Party donor but instead was ----- (insert your own political/social description/caricature of someone who you might define as an opponent or even an extremist[v]) who said the sort of things about an MP that have been reported this week (and do not need additional airtime here![vi]), eventually condemned by the Prime Minister as ‘racist and wrong’[vii]

·       people, a state or a nation were to be violent, or punish, or take hostages, or take land, or occupy, or segregate, or bomb, or fire rockets, or kill my family - my child, or destroy homes, hospitals, places of worship and schools

·      you were to stand by and not condemn…


A final ponderance:

‽istis wonders whether the way that I explain any difference between how I:

    i) attribute cause to my own behaviour,      

    and 

    ii) attribute cause to your behaviour 

just perhaps, possibly, maybe tells us most about my fundamental and intrinsic nature, personality or belief…  

And to end with a thought experiment: perhaps, possibly, maybe imagine that the 'I' above could be you too‽

©‽istis

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on X/Twitter with replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.

X/Twitter ‘follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  


[ii] Many, many references including: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g30s0OPOCM

[vi] Many references but this is from a report of a new and worth-checking-out-I-reckon podcast:  https://news.sky.com/story/electoral-dysfunction-lee-andersons-defection-and-the-diane-abbott-race-row-show-politics-is-toxic-13094886


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Saturday 9 March 2024

‽istis ponders much, including ‘sankofa’ (I) (weekending March 9th 2024)

 

‽istis ponders much, including ‘sankofa’ (I)  (weekending March 9th 2024)

This week, as usual, ‽istis has pondered and wondered many things:

‽ responses to the Church of England’s proposed £100 million fund to address historical links to the slave trade. Considered by an oversight group to be ‘too small and should be expanded at least tenfold’[i], while others have suggested that ‘Critics said the move risked putting parishioners off donating to their cash-strapped churches as it would appear the CofE had 'vast sums to throw around'. Reverend Ian Paul argued it was 'anti-Christian' and suggested it was motivated by 'a death wish for the Church of England'. ’[ii]

‽ the potential nature of any interaction between thoughts, feelings and action; the meaning of the words ‘spectrum’, ‘continuum’ and ‘taxonomy’ - and whether any of these could apply to how someone (well, OK, me) could act to promote change:

·         indirectly and positively: influencing, making a case, persuading, promoting discussion, debate and encouraging the building of consensus;

·         indirectly and possibly a bit less positively: deploying and dangling ‘carrots’

·         indirectly and negatively – finding leverage so that someone may do something that they don’t necessarily agree with, or they feel pressured to do to avoid a negative outcome - setting up a lesser of two evils; deploying and waving ‘sticks’

·         directly – through participation to a greater or lesser extent in democratic processes or just doing/being the change, the new, that which you might wish to see in the world, proving that different is possible, product or behaviour as proof[iii]

·         …and wondering where protest and non-violent action may fit and be justified

·         …and wondering where violent action may fit or ever be justified, especially if the ‘means’ is incompatible and incongruent with any desired ‘end’ (e.g: war to bring about peace, assassination of an elected leader of a ruling or opposition party or movement, etc.)   

‽ retirement ages and, whilst against discrimination on age grounds, ‽istis can’t help but wonder whether the USA could find contenders and a prospective President where no doubts about age, or mental acuity or capacity would be voiced

‽ the phenomenon of podcasts[iv]: 'A Muslim and a Jew go There'; 'Soul Survivor'; 'Electoral Dysfunction'; and an 'old-tech'? radio gem: 'Add to Playlist'.  

‽ regional identity, customs and the contents of a pasty[v]

‽ Gaza this week: bombs dropped, life-taking weapons provided by the USA[vi] – v – air drops, life-saving humanitarian aid provided by the USA[vii]… and the death toll…

‽ and from the deeply serious and dreadful to the ridiculous: where does the mud from a muddy dog go, once you’re back at home

So, a great deal has been internal-monologuing its way around, mulling-over-style (including a snippet of a research finding cited on ‘X’ that suggested that a fair proportion of people don’t have an inner monologue - which opened up an interesting ‘www-labyrinth’ dive nicely distracting from getting on with this week’s blog!)…

But the idea of ‘sankofa’[viii] (retrieving things of value from our knowledge of the past - and mentioned in the blog weekending December 9th[ix]) has also continued to be a preoccupation.

Some exploration and perhaps reclaiming of ‘our knowledge of the past’ may feature from time to time in future blogs - and this week I have been digging around[x] in the writings of Gerrard Winstanley[xi] (leader and theoretician of the so-called ‘agrarian communists’, the Diggers) from Civil War 17th century England[xii] to see if there are nuggets of wisdom to consider and perhaps, possibly, maybe reclaim.

Here are some extracts; the themed headings are my suggestions… 

On levelling and equality, riches, poverty and war:

·         ‘Every man and woman shall have the free liberty to marry whom they love…’[xiii]

·         ‘But shall not one man be richer than another? There is no need of that; for riches make men vain-glorious, proud, and to oppress their brethren; and are the occasion of wars.’

On a challenge to those who might seek to hold office – to be chosen because they are:

·         ‘of peaceable spirits, and of a peaceable conversation’

·         ‘understanding… and who are experienced in the laws of peaceable and right-ordered government’

·         ‘of courage, who are not afraid to speak the truth; for this is the shame of many in England at this day, they are drowned in the dung-hill of slavish fear’

On office holders, governing (and a strategy to address migration?):

·         ‘He who pretends one thing in words, and his actions declare his intent was another thing, shall never bear office in the commonwealth.’[xiv]

·         ‘Governing is a wise and free ordering of the earth and the manners of mankind by observation of particular laws or rules, so that all the inhabitants may live peaceably in plenty and freedom in the land where they are born and bred.’

On possessions and business:

·         ‘The earth is to be planted, and the fruits reaped and carried into barns and store-houses… and if any man  or family want corn or other provision they may go to the store-houses and fetch without money…’

·         ‘In every town and city shall be appointed store-houses… from whence every particular family may fetch such commodities as they want, either for their use in their house, or for to work in their trades…’

·         ‘The store-houses shall be every man’s substance, and not anyone’s.’

·         ‘There shall be no buying and selling of the earth, not of the fruits thereof.’

·         ‘When mankind began to buy and sell, then did he fall from his innocence.’

On ‘reviling and provoking words’ (even in an age before social media and ‘trolling’!):

·         ‘If any give reviling and provoking words whereby his neighbour’s spirit is burdened, if complaint is made…’ first time: ‘admonish the offender privately to forebear’; continuation: ‘be openly reproved and admonished’ in public; further continuation: ‘whipped’; fourth time: made a servant for twelve months…

On direct knowledge, evidence and not virtual reality or ‘fake news’:

·      'And everyone who speaks of any herb, plant, art or nature of mankind, is required to speak nothing by imagination, but what he hath found out by his own industry and observation…’

On health care (free at the point of delivery) and Doctors pay (‽):

·         ‘If any persons be sick or wounded, the chirurgeons, who are trained up in the knowledge of herbs and minerals and know how to apply plasters or physic, shall go when they are sent for to any who need their help, but require no reward, because the common stock is the public pay for every man’s labour.’

On justice or injustice in the absence of corroborating evidence and witnesses:

·         ‘If a man lie with a woman forcibly, and she cry out and give no consent; if this be proved by two witneses (sic), or the man’s confession, he shall be put to death, and the woman let go free; it is a robbery of a woman’s bodily freedom’[xv]

·         ‘He who strikes his neighbour shall be struck himself by the executioner, blow for blow, and shall lose eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb, life for life; and the reason is that men may be tender of one another’s bodies, doing as they would be done by.’[xvi]

Hmmm! On balance, ‽istis is not sure of the potential for reclaiming Winstanley’s ideas but, as the UK press debates a possible date for a General Election, as ‘super Tuesday’[xvii] comes and goes in the USA - and as ‘Time’ magazine proclaims:

‘2024 is not just an election year. It’s perhaps the election year.

Globally, more voters than ever in history will head to the polls as at least 64 countries (plus the European Union)—representing a combined population of about 49% of the people in the world—are meant to hold national elections…’[xviii]

then these lines below at least may be worth repeating and heeding:

‘He who pretends one thing in words, and his actions declare his intent was another thing, shall never bear office in the commonwealth.’

‘Governing is a wise and free ordering of the earth and the manners of mankind by observation of particular laws or rules, so that all the inhabitants may live peaceably in plenty and freedom…’

And finally, ‘stop press’, ‽istis has pondered originality. Can something be called original - for example a joke – if in all probability someone else has already said it, but you have neither heard or read it before? 

Oh, alright then, here goes: 

As news is shared in the public domain of the divorce of Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied[xix], ‽istis wonders whether Ms Portman will receive half of her husband’s shoe collection...

                Apologies all round...

©‽istis

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog entries to be found on X/Twitter with replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders.

X/Twitter ‘follows’ and respectful comment and dialogue welcome...  


[iv] Listened to recently: https://www.premier.plus/soul-survivors/podcasts/soul-survivors; https://www.bestpodcasts.co.uk/podcast/a-muslim-a-jew-go-there/; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1meu_6ELAE;  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00106lb 

[v] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3uKYZVpIz4

[vi] ‘The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.’ Washington Post report March 6th 2024: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/

[viii] Sankofa: retrieving things of value from our knowledge of the past. Sankofa: Embracing Past Lessons for a Brighter Future– AYEEKO

[x] Pun intended…

[xi] ‘Gerrard Winstanley (baptized Oct. 10, 1609, Wigan, Lancashire, Eng.—died 1676) leader and theoretician of the group of English agrarian communists known as the Diggers, who in 1649–50 cultivated common land on St. George’s Hill, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, and at nearby Cobham until they were dispersed by force and legal harassment. They believed that land should be made available to the very poor.’  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gerrard-Winstanley

[xii] Main source: ‘The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced’, ‘The Law of Freedom’ and Other Writings – Gerrard Winstanley. Introduction and this edition © Will Johnson (ISBN: 978-14992754879) 2014

[xiii] From ‘those particular laws…whereby a commonwealth may be governed’ no.56, in ‘The Law of Freedom’ 1652

[xiv] Nolan principles precursors…?

[xv] Mind you… perhaps we have little room for complacency?: ‘The distressing truth is that if you are raped in Britain today, your chances of seeing justice are slim’ a headline from 2022:

https://victimscommissioner.org.uk/news/the-distressing-truth-is-that-if-you-are-raped-in-britain-today-your-chances-of-seeing-justice-are-slim/

[xvi] Proportionate, at least…  and if this is a part of a radical and progressive manifesto, then one may wonder how harsher any norm may have been that prevailed at the time? 


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‽istis ponders volunteering, expertise and tapping (weekending April 27th 2024)

  ‽istis ponders volunteering, expertise and knowing where and how to tap (weekending April 27 th  2024) Various themes this weekending; m...