Tag Archives: neurotic means to power

Getting Past Hiccups

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Family, Hiking and Nature, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

July 20, 2024, Tofino, BC- I will forever consider myself blessed, when it comes to family. I can talk with my son, any of my siblings and any in-laws, with no qualms or trepidation, at a moment’s notice.

So many friends don’t have that blessing. I have heard from friends, recently, about being cut off from adult children and siblings-most often not because of anything they did, but because of third-party interference. This may, or may not, be part of the story, or even the whole story. I know there are those who prey on disaffected youth and actively work to turn them against their parents. There is a special place in the world of retribution for such monsters, but I digress.

No one can turn a person against their loved ones, without that person’s consent. In the end, though, there is loneliness. Chances are, the manipulator won’t be there for the lost soul. The person who is disaffected from their parent(s) or their children will have outlived any usefulness to the predator-who is most often seeking power, in a neurotic manner. So often, the predator will use mainstream religion, or cult membership, to appeal to the prey. Only when the troubled soul wakes up and reconciles with those s(he) has cast out, can there be any chance for real recovery.

I thought about these things, whilst en route to the exquisite Pacific Rim, of west central Vancouver Island. Earlier in the day, after a marvelous rest at Turtle Hostel, in Victoria’s Hillside/Quadra district, I had pleasant meetings with two dear friends, and was glad to be able to offer them support. Regarding Hillside/Quadra, it is ringed by churches and Victoria’s Conservatory of Music-and as I mentioned in the last post, is a haven for unhoused people.

Alex Goold Performance Center, Victoria Conservatory of Music
Anglican Church of St. John the Divine, Victoria
First United Church, Victoria

Each of these institutions does what it can, to help its unhoused neighbours. As is the case back at Home Base, Prescott, there are soup kitchens and active efforts to clothe the people. There, but for the grace of God……

In the next post, I will focus on the cathedrals of a different sort: The majesty of the Pacific Rim and the edge of Clayoquot Sound, particularly in Tofino and Ucluelet. Here is an example:

Clayoquot Sound, Tofino

Power Language

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

April 19, 2024- When I was a child, the concept that every blow delivered would be followed by an equal and opposite retaliatory strike was alien to me. I thought, naively, that a simple exchange of blows was enough for each boy to express his annoyance at the situation. My opponents uniformly believed that there had to be a winner and a loser.

There has been much discussion, over the past five years, about Love Language-the way in which an individual gives and receives love. My love language, for example, is acts of service. Words of affirmation, quality time and physical touch are secondary love languages-expressed only to a certain few.

Power is also a concept that is expressed in “languages” of sorts. (These are only my thoughts on the matter.) The power languages I have ascertained are persuasion, coercion, diminution, guilt-mongering and inclusion. The first and last are positive means to power. The second, third and fourth are negative, if not neurotic, power languages.


Both persuasion and inclusion involve patience, flexibility and a regard for others that is equal to one’s self-regard. Persuasion entails a commitment to a lengthy engagement with those whose agreement and co-operation are desired. Inclusion entails an inherent regard for the other person’s, or group’s, sense of self-worth. Inclusion is a longer game, in which the perception of power, coming from within the self, is large enough a reservoir that the individual sees others as being of the same worth as self. The two power languages do not entail a lesser view of either oneself or any other human being. They may even extend to non-human animals, plants, funga and spirits.

Coercion, often involving physical force, but also including bribery, co-opting, blackmail and obfuscation, is the most common historical power language. Even in modern times, the cynic’s Golden Rule, “He who has the gold makes the rules”, has silenced those whose financial or time-management skills are sufficiently wanting, that a keen observer who is hungry for power can leverage the person’s weakness and buy or intimidate them into giving up their agency.

Diminution, the convincing of social groups of their own unworthiness and of the superiority of others, is a second very common historical power language. It is the modus operandi of the plantation, of the colonial system and of patriarchy. Diminution depends on a top-down decision-making apparatus. It goes beyond the sensible system of parenthood, infantilizes women, disempowers adolescents, and instills a sense of superiority in members of a dominant culture. This is most obvious in the notions of White Supremacy and Male Superiority, but is also true of any culture where a dominant group trivializes the contributions of marginalized communities.

Guilt-mongering is the “when all else fails” power language of dominance. It features self-as-victim, gaslighting, false equivalence and an “after all I’ve done for you” pitch, each of which is like a rock in a shoe, designed to nettle and disrupt the other’s concentration and sense of well-being. It manifests itself in endless legal appeals and slow-walking of valid processes, just enough to create doubt and suspicion. It is a favoured tool of those among the well-connected who lack a moral compass. It is also a favoured tool of those in the media whose primary concern is generating revenue, at the expense of morality.

We are seeing a slow, but inexorable, move towards persuasion and inclusion as preferred power languages. The futility of coercion, diminution and guilt-mongering is being seen by more and more people around the world, as their perceived value is recognized, more and more, as impermanent, ephemeral and of scant overall value. The language of power will, in time, become linked to the language of love.

Clearing the Smoke

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Posted by on in collaborating, distraction issues, impediments, Service Activities, Social

June 28, 2017, Prescott- 

It is no secret that I have several issues with anyone whose priority in life is belittling ,and exercising a faux authority over, others.  Even when one’s position embues responsibility, and therefore a measure of authority, over others, I have always regarded that as a special bounty, not to be viewed as carte blanche.

I have had, as you may remember, some moments of difficulty with certain of my supervisors, at my places of employment, over the years.  These have usually derived from lack of communication, though sometimes the issue has been a superior’s hubris.

This extends to volunteer-based organizations.  There are supervisors, even in an organization such as the Red Cross, who rely on yelling, embarrassing the pro bono help working under them and acting as if such work were strictly a paid position.  These same people then whine, when there is a shortage of staff, for a particular errand of mercy.

People matter.  Volunteers matter, and so do the clients, who like children witnessing an imperious father’s browbeating of his spouse (or vice versa), formulate a sense of justice.  We are, currently, in our area, experiencing a particularly intense and stressful wildfire situation.  The vast majority of volunteers and paid staff for our organization are greatly dedicated to the well-being of our clients.  It behooves those few, for whom this organization represents a neurotic means to power, to step aside, and let those whose hearts are with the good of the people, to get their tasks accomplished, without being browbeaten or made the targets of rancour.

End of editorial.

Sixty-Six for Sixty Six, Part XXV: Purpose

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Posted by on in Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Poetry, Social, Striving

April 18, 2017, Prescott- 

What is the purpose of public criticism?

Is it loving admonition, or mere oneupmanship?

What is the purpose of public displays of affection?

Is it sharing one’s heart’s desire, with the world,

or rebellion against what one sees as restrictive and outmoded?

What is the purpose of road rage?

Is it an outlet for uncontrollable frustration,

or a neurotic means to power?

What is the purpose of coarse language?

Is it exercise of one’s freedom of speech,

or the lazy person’s way of off-putting others?

What is the purpose of a failure to love others?

Is it a reaction to real and imagined pressures,

or a reflection of one’s lack of love for self?

Not Like Animals

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Posted by on in children, Community, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 6, 2017, Prescott-

On the television series, Chicago PD, Intelligence Sergeant Hank Voigt loves his people- family annd fellow detectives alike.  The show frequently addresses misuse of power, both by police and by miscreants.  Among the latter group’s most common misuses of power is rape.  Last night’s episode addressed the neurotic means to power, of the rapist.  As Sergeant Voigt inferred, his people don’t act like animals.

While it was playing, on network TV, seventy five of us, at the main campus of Yavapai College, were gathered to hear the testimony of a dozen women, and one man, who had suffered sexual assault and domestic violence.  They suffered at the hands of those whom they should have been able to trust:  Their fathers, husbands, siblings’ friends, step-parents.  Some got no support from their mothers, siblings, “close friends”, even counselors.

I have, as many of you know, been a counselor, at three different schools in this state.  I have seen all manner of human brutality, and have seen the best of human kindness. Strong women and girls have come to me for assistance,I believe them-then and now, and I have had their backs.  Caring boys and men have pitched in, and helped.  Then, there are the depraved, of both genders, whom I have helped put away.  One case, in particular, stands out: A well-connected individual violated a child, was arrested, and got some of his friends and neighbours to try to impugn my character.  He was tried and convicted, his friends found themselves dispersed, by the government agency which employed them (through no action on my part, by the way), and I continued to work at the school for several more years.

The thing is, as a good friend said recently, men and women need each other.  I have many women friends, of all ages, ethnicities, physical characteristics and marital statuses.  To my mind and in my heart, they, and the men who love them most, are family.  If anything happens to them, their husbands/boyfriends, children or grandchildren, it’s as if it has happened to one of my biological family members.  This goes double for my schoolchildren, but that is a whole other ball of wax, given the protocol under which I work.

People who beat others, devalue others, torment others, have a mindset in which control is paramount.  Co-operation, in their twisted view, exists only for the purpose of accomplishing their agenda.  This is largely the province of men, though I know of several women who have followed the same path.  Little by little, case by case, their victims are stepping forward.  They are learning strength, they are learning to speak out, to walk away and to heal.

In this heart, and in many others, they are loved.