‽istis ponders...

Friday, 1 October 2021

Pistis reclaims gentle-men (weekending October 2nd 2021)

‽istis reclaims gentle-men (weekending 2nd October 2021)

This week ‽istis listened to the impact statement that the parents of Sarah Everard read to the court (1) in the trial in the UK of the man, a serving police officer - charged, tried and convicted of her death... and pondered violence against women, specifically violence perpetrated by men.

And what of the statistics? ...here are just some from the United Nations' violence against women web pages and reports (2):

Globally, an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30 per cent of women aged 15 and older). This figure does not include sexual harassment.
In 2018: 1 in 7 girls and women (aged 15-49) experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or husband in the past 12 months
In 2017: 87,000 women who were intentionally killed globally, more than half (50,000) were killed by intimate partners or family members.
15 million adolescent girls worldwide, aged 15–19 years, have experienced forced sex. In the vast majority of countries, adolescent girls are most at risk of forced sex (forced sexual intercourse or other sexual acts) by a current or former husband, partner, or boyfriend. Based on data from 30 countries, only one per cent have ever sought professional help.

Then what of the experiences, the feelings and thoughts of those who are represented in the research and data...?

Then what of the uncounted; those unable to report; the terrified; perhaps the slow-burning dread-fullness of memories; the silenced; the ignored or disbelieved - and maybe the impact on how you think and feel and behave, and may fundamentally be...?

‽istis does understand that men too experience domestic abuse and violence, are murdered and harassed; that domestic abuse and violence occur in same-sex relationships and these experiences are perhaps both qualitatively and quantitatively under-researched as well as under-reported; that binary and gendered narratives may only tell part of the story...

...but, men: what are we?, what have we perhaps always been - or what have we become? what makes us, and influences us, and permits us, and does not seem to stop us? (3)

And if this is what so many of us are like, can we wonder why things are as they are in so many other areas of interaction and influence and life - out in the open and behind closed doors?

So, what are we to become? at what cost and at whose expense over and over and over, now... and now... and now... every year, every month, every week, every day, every minute, every second?

Shame on us!

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/30/he-stole-her-future-sarah-everard-family-impact-statements (2) https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures To find up-to-date data, visit UN Women’s Global Database on Violence against Women and the Women Count Data Hub. Many other sources of information and statistics are available...

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

Saturday, 25 September 2021

Pistis reclaims transactions (weekending September 25th 2021)

‽istis reclaims transactions (weekending September 25th 2021)

This week ‽istis purchased a redundant prop from a hotel – once used, perhaps, as a bar for a specific cuisine-themed night with, possibly, matching drinks and (Pistis fears) stereotypical national or regional dress for staff and, maybe, besported by particularly enthusiastic guests!

Plenty to wonder here, but the pitch (the nearest that Pistis might get to an ‘Apprentice’-style task), over a congenial cup of coffee, went something like this:

· been walking past it for about a year - unused, taking up space in a garage with old chairs

· likely that neither of us need it; seems that you may not want it; I’d quite like it

· little intrinsic value

And, with candour, we acknowledged that worth maybe what someone is willing to pay.

So, an offer was made with commitments as sweeteners and maybe conscious-salvers: on the purchaser’s side – to match the payment with a donation to a prominent, literally life-saving, charity; and, on the other side, to put the money received in the tips jar, to be shared by all staff[i].

And in this upholstered and softly-furnished ‘market place’ the process and outcome proved mutually satisfactory. Hard to find evidence of exploitation, of margins squeezed to the barely bearable to fight off the competition, of profit disproportionately lining the pocket of a chief executive officer at the top of a pyramid of necessary and dependent whole system activity.

So, in a week ending with queues outside petrol stations and when the impact of gas price rises perhaps remind us that free market economics may not always have been that free; that regulation, caps, recommended ‘switching’ and plenty of competition may not always guarantee value for money, long-term security, reasonable price or affordability, quantity or quality of goods and services - Pistis wondered whether there might be lessons to be learned and scaled-up from an exchange over a cup of coffee in a hotel bar.

And ‽istis also wondered whether this might be yet another purchase dependent on that (perhaps, possibly, maybe) old (self-)deceptive capitalist trick of a want framed as a need? Finally ‽istis pondered - what if my wants came second to others' needs a little more often and a little more globally, well just imagine how different the world might be...

[i] In touch with the UK zeitgeist and law, also this week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58669632

Thursday, 16 September 2021

Pistis reclaims imposter syndrome (weekending September 18th 2021)

‽istis reclaims imposter syndrome (weekending September 18^th 2021)

In a week when the UK Cabinet is reshuffled[i] (perhaps, some might say, rearranged like chairs on a non-level deck of a floundering ship of state?), ‽istis reclaims imposter syndrome[iii] ‘suffered’ by an ‘individual who struggles to internalise success; who feels fraudulent; and who attributes success to factors such as hard work, charm or luck.’[iv]

This weekending, ‽istis wonders whether some of the newly-promoted and the somehow-kept-in-post may wake and consider their competence and fit-for-purposeness; may hold the responsibility of government (and the delivery of the priorities of at-least-some-of-the-people) very heavily and with trepidation, with an absence of hubris and exceptionalism and with humility; may take only limited comfort in the confidence that has been instilled (sometimes as a result of possibly very expensive, exclusive and excluding education) and reinforced (group think-like) over the years?

But ‽istis cannot be sure, given the announcements, pronouncements and responses; the unqualified language; the sheer sense of certainty that exudes.

Yet, ‽istis also wonders whether catching a dose of ‘imposter syndrome’ (hopefully before policies and their outcomes for others does the unmasking) might change things:

· more partnership

· more collaboration

· more sensitivity

· more tentativity

· more caution…

But ‽istis also wonders whether this is really what ‘the led’ want from their leaders, shakers and policy-makers and whether it could actually result in better outcomes for everyone – the majority and the minoritized – better health and wellbeing, greater security, more happiness[v]? Anyway, here’s a humble invitation to the empowered – perhaps imagine that you might be just a little bit of an imposter… It may possibly make a difference‽

[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministerial-appointments-september-2021 (being updated as this is typed)

[ii] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-58495112

[iii] See Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006 & https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-23/edition-5/feeling-fraudhttps://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-23/edition-5/feeling-fraud

& https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/06/01/a-new-study-claims-that-under-pressure-imposter-syndrome-hits-men-harder-than-women/

[iv] https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2019/09/tackling-imposter-syndrome

[v] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=99&nr=266&menu=1449

Tuesday, 14 September 2021

Pistis wonders about continuity and change (weekending September 11th 2021)

‽istis wonders about continuity and change (weekending September 11^th 2021)

Over this past fortnight

·        as one who has loved even before the very beginning, and was loved - is half lost
·        as Afghanistan’s governance diverts, or reverts or converts
·        as one-time colleagues are met after 17 years, and the conversation just resumes

‽istis wonders:

‽ what perhaps stays the same, what perhaps changes?

‽ what are the possible ‘residual messages’ we form and hold and carry, that filter and shape (about the world and the way it works, about people and the way they work, about the nature of knowledge and vice versa, about matter and all that matters) that may or may not be affected by new encounters (people, knowledge, experiences) - confirming, complexifying, challenging, creating…?

‽ how might I, how might you, how might ‘we’, how might others (if others there continue to be) be both the same and yet different?

‽ what perhaps remains when awareness, comprehension and faculties fade and ‘the plot’ seems lost save for snatches of poetry, etched deeply; the identity found now only in relationships – mother to a daughter, mother to a son; faith that there is more and better, that reunity will be?

And perhaps, possibly maybe there is a realisation of utter connectedness and the boundaries of independence (body, mind, spirit, agency, responsibility…) found, as it may not be on earth.

Saturday, 28 August 2021

Pistis reclaims well-being (weekending August 28th 2021)

‽istis reclaims well-being (weekending August 28^th 2021)

This week, having had several direct and indirect, personal and professional close encounters with the nation’s health service and with social care provided by a not-for-profit religious foundation charity, ‽istis is left with various ponderings:

‽ that perhaps these might be some of the most important words and characteristics: compassion, dignity, respect, best interests, inclusion – alongside adequately-resourced and equipped, training, competence, quality assured as much as quantity

‽ that while some may possibly genuinely believe that the operation of market forces is critical to efficiency, effectiveness, value-for-money, excellence, attracting the best (even if that means taking from others), it may only be a slight stretch of that economic ideology to get to a point where profit is bled from an organisation into the pockets of those who may just not actually need any more

‽ that these are essential workers and that a very high proportion are probably undervalued, underpaid and the work they do in a ‘whole system’ may be seriously underestimated (cleaning as primary prevention of infection in a hospital, for example)

‽ that 'free at the point of delivery'; needs-led, not means-led; no-one safe unless all are safe... are perhaps very precious principles to help 'level up'

‽ that health and social care, physical and psychological/ mental health services, neo-natal and end-of-life care, prevention and treatment, housing and poverty-reduction, tackling discrimination and exclusion, education and the economy, the taxation system and responding urgently to the clear and present danger of the climate crisis - may all be linked; that a ‘medical’ model and a ‘social’ model may be twin lenses producing a clearer vision

‽ that how a society recognises the potential influence of many factors, experiences and circumstances – exogenous and endogenous, nature and nurture, chance and good fortune (including of birth), ones that we can control and ones that we cannot, that make us ill, that disable… may be a mark of its sophistication and maturity, along with the way it cares for the most vulnerable

‽ that a systemic and holistic focus that fully has health, development and well-being of all individuals, families, groups and communities at its shared and common core may just perhaps be a uniting, connecting and central, foundational focus for policy, planning, funding and measuring not just inputs and outputs but outcomes too – of and for everyone, individually and collectively

And so ‽istis, not for the first time, wonders whether this is all just too naïve, but holds on to the idea that if we can imagine it, it could indeed be so; that just perhaps, possibly, may be things could be different…

Thursday, 19 August 2021

Pistis looks on as history is being made (weekending August 14th 2021)

‽istis looks on as history is made… (weekending August 14^th 2021)

This week – in between the ‘we are witnessing history being made’ achievements of the two re-placed 2020 Olympics, while liberating some books from moving box to new shelves, and whilst witnessing ‘events beyond’ vicariously through essential reporting and recording (not least in Afghanistan) - ‽istis ponders again ‘the past’ and the present; processes of ‘making history’; histories lost and found…

‽ ‘…they worship facts. And in return, the facts hit them like hailstones. Life is just one damned fact after another. They turn to collecting facts - laying them down - making “Outlines” of every real and fancied fact in the universe, until “truth” becomes an endless succession of stepping-stones that have a way of disappearing into the bog as soon as they are passed over. . .’ (Max Plowman)[i]

… and from that extraordinary evolving repository, Wikipedia (which seems highly appropriate to plunder cautiously for these wonderings as a virtual place where ‘facts’ are edited, added to, challenged, contested, settled albeit perhaps temporarily[ii] with perhaps a wider consensus than it has ever been possible to achieve before; where information and facts are linked and connected in hypertext warp and weft; and where what is considered a matter of ‘history’ and ‘record’ is far from ended)[iii], the entry and links on ‘Philosophy of History’[iv] bring just an introduction to other perspectives and themes:

‽ the philosophy of chronology: cyclical, linear, irreversible, progressive narratives

‽ the philosophy of causality: relationships between events, actions, entities and phenomena:

· between communicative and other actions

· between singular and repeated ones

· between actions, structures of action or group and institutional contexts and wider sets of conditions;

· exceptional and general;

· immediate, intermediate and distant causes;

· Lloyds’ four ‘general concepts of causation’:

o ‘metaphysical idealist concept’ - the phenomena of the universe are products of or emanations from an omnipotent being

o ‘the empiricist regularity concept’ - the idea of causation being a matter of constant conjunctions of events

o ‘the functional/teleological/consequential concept’ - so that goals are causes

o ‘the realist, structurist and dispositional approach’ - relational structures and internal dispositions as the causes of phenomena… (edited from the Wikipedia entry[v])

…and ‽istis’ head is spinning!

‽ the philosophy of neutrality (or otherwise)… Is ‘history’ written by the victors? Is it a roll call of judgement? Are value judgements on people, organisations, nations, movements, prevailing ideologies the proper concern of ‘historians’?

‽ teleological approaches: hidden or revealed hands, plans and purposes; catching or discerning or swept along with the zeitgeist; the stories of so-called ‘great men’; social evolutionism... and Hegel and Carlyle loom large

‽ contextual approaches – factors contributing to determine (more or less) the course of history: economics, politics, race, beliefs, social strata and structures, etc…

‽ narrative approaches: lived experience, narrated in both fictional and non-fictional works with narrative having a generously encompassing ability to 'grasp together' and integrate into a complete story or stories the ‘composite representations’ of historical experience[vi]

And ‽istis has a vision[vii] of a mosaic.

And so (drum roll, probably not...) proposes ‘The ‽istis-wonders Mosaic Approach to Histories’.[i]

A mosaic or mosaics perhaps, possibly, maybe made of many, many different and different types of tiles[viii]:

· event and experience, just happening – a potential individual ‘tile’ for a mosaic, but lost, invisible, ‘histories’ untold, unvoiced, unremembered

· event and experience, recorded direct – perhaps the clearest, most well-defined individual ‘tile’ for a mosaic (until we remember that perhaps even the camera can lie?)

· event and experience, recorded with layers or filters of edit, reflection, or with added layers of meaning or interpretation or links made to other ‘things’[ix]; ‘story-fied’… a ‘tile’ for a mosaic, shaped and coloured a particular hue

Then:

· ‘tiles’ formed[x] into a bigger mosaic picture (composite representations…?)

· the picture, the mosaic, the number[xi] and arrangement of the tiles: fixed, changeable or changing…?

And meanwhile, the airwaves and TV channels fill with images of ‘history being made’, and with talk of ‘history repeating itself’ (Saigon?, Russian withdrawal?, the British in 19^th century Afghanistan[xii]?), of ‘if history teaches us one thing…’, of ‘learning or failing to learn the lessons’…

And, somewhat overwhelmed, ‽istis contemplates gently trying to complete (with pencils of many, many shades) a printed pattern from a mindfulness colouring book.

[i] In 1932 a journal called “The Adelphi” published “Keyserling’s Challenge” by Max Plowman (from: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/09/16/history/) and adapted, colourfully, by Alan Bennet in ‘The History Boys’… in which there is also the line: ‘History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? It's women following behind with a bucket...’

[ii] From the header to the page, a recognition of limitations and an invitation: ‘This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.’

[iii] See, for example, ‘The End of History?’ by Francis Fukuyama

[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_history

[v] Lloyd, C. (1993) Structures of History, 159.

[vi] See work by Paul Ricœur, Louis Mink, W.B. Gallie, and Hayden White, for example, further refs in the Wikipedia entry.

[vii] …and perhaps a dream of a Wikipedia edit!

[viii] The mosaic and tiles idea and imagery seems potentially helpful… but so, too/instead, might be the image of a sand mandala: grains of sand painstakingly positioned… pre-planned, geometric or spontaneous, random; preserved or ritually destroyed; created by all or those allowed? For further consideration.

[ix] And, oh , what useful words ‘thing’ and ‘things’ are… if they didn’t exist, then how different speech and writing might be?, we would have to make them up, perhaps…

[x] Whether this is considered to be forming as if through some hidden hand, or being formed may be a crucial difference - events and experiences selected, multiple ‘tiles’ with shape and significance discerned or created) for further discussion?

[xi] …as other voices, other events and experiences, other records, other histories are found, heard, allowed, prized, perhaps?

[xii] when perhaps the map was apparently colouring pink and the sun was possibly failing to set on anything but a Union Jack, and maybe we were and are supposed to be proud of a world-beating (think again about that verb, perhaps) Britain.

[i] Mind you, put Mosaic view of history into a popular search engine and links to all manner of mosaic sites (in both senses of the word) are offered…

Saturday, 7 August 2021

Pistis ponders many Rs (weekending August 7th 2021)

‽istis ponders many Rs and makes a resolution… (weekending August 7^th 2021)

This week ‽istis has begun to meld and synthesise many strands of thoughts – perhaps, possibly, maybe beginning to try to weave a coherent narrative…? And the letter ‘R’ seems to resonate… a process of reading, research, realisation, revelation, reification, iteration and reiteration that has continued for years!

Essentially ‽istis wonders whether it may be time for:

‽ a major critique and reappraisal: of apparent certainties and prevailing, dominant narratives; history/histories (not least of the ‘modern era’ - nation-making; exploration and expedition, discovery, claiming and naming; empire, political thought and action - governing and being governed; ethical and religious thought and action - perhaps supporting, fig-leafing, justifying, allowing; science and technology; social organisation, education, work, education, etc., etc.); of taken-for-granteds, assumptions, dominant models, methods, systems and structures – past and present; of power, of categorisation and typologies; of voice, of dominance, of this and the other, of us and them… all perhaps rooted in a constructivist/deconstructivist perspective and a belief that that which is constructed can be deconstructed?

‽ repentance… for the silencing, the oppression, the minoritizing, the theft, the coercion, the humiliation, the displacement, the hegemony, the acculturation, the forced assimilation, the cultural and linguistic suppression or denial, the exclusion, the destitution, the waste, the laying waste, the squandering, the extraction, the manufacturing and the consumption, the enrichment, the impoverishment, the weapons, the destruction, the rape, the death (premature, suicide, murder, through genocide, war, conflict, illness), the inequity and inequality?

‽ reparation, restoration, recompense, restitution… what might that look like and sound like?

And so, ‽istis wonders whether there is the time or the ability to make the case and the will to take action that may be required - but is determined to try; to carry on imagining, pondering, wondering, describing and striving for what perhaps, possibly, may be. To be continued…