A long fruitless crusade

[matrixmann]

Regarding the zeitgeisty mumbo jumbo surrounding a 16-year-old girl from Sweden named Greta Thunberg, it's always good to remember the past and bring it upon the table: There have been other environmental activists before, acting even more fierce than her and following a recognizable agenda instead of a plain social media hype that still lacks content after months.
One of these people was a Swiss man named Bruno Manser.

(Thanks to a person I only got to know under the nickname "Sanni" for once teaching me about him.)

Comments

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

Do you remember our conversation on DW?

How does the "bad" look in Switzerland, if I may ask?

I know what the German circumstances look like, and you get to hear the decisive bits here and there what the story's like in other countries... (https://vit-r.dreamwidth.org/977215.html)

My son has written a book "Mobbingtagebuch" (https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07ZDD4FRP/) (Kindle e-book)

Maybe we make a burnable version before Christmas.

[matrixmann]

I remember. But I wonder how someone ends up here on my territory who needed to tell me in every possible way that I'm dumb and have no idea about anything?

About the subject: The story of Manser occured to me rather recently while watching this fuss about climate strikes and so on, involving Greta's persona.
I have my very own view watching this for particular reasons - and I cannot help but say over and over again: "What are you making this fuss about? You really think you're the first to claim this topic? How naive! The youth in your brains and the social media hype makes you think like you're the most important subjects in the world - that's all about it. There have been others before, and they bit on granite because this system is pretty strong and doesn't want to change. If you really wanna change it, you've got to come up with some more than just throwing yourself on the ground and scream until you get your lollipop, figuratively speaking."
With the latter, I don't specifically address Greta, but her followers.
I've seen such sympathizing with a central persona/a couple central personas before, and what did it end in? Nothing that lasted. Because all who do that learn change isn't going to be achieved so easily. And before long, all of them grow older and forget about it.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

It seems, you do not understand my goals. I do not need more than one sentence to state that someone is dumb. It was interesting for me to understand what do you really think and why do you think in such ways.

My point was that you do not consider some information or do not know about it. I simply have informed you that some of this information is now available.

And I fully agree with your conclusions about Greta's followers.

[matrixmann]

To me it seems like, even though you witnessed the demise of your own child under such conditions, you did not understand the nature of what bullying and systematic psychological destruction of a self does to a person mentally who endured it first hand.
One time someone telling you you're dumb - okay, you can throw that over board and forget about it. 'Cause what does a one-time-saying matter factually?
But, 10 times, 20 times, 100 times, and every time of these you get to hear it in a different life aspect, in situation different from the last one, plus a couple of repetitions of these two, then it unfolds its toxic effect. Because it tells a person "there's nothing you can do correctly to please me, the tirade on you will go on". And that while it's the natural goal of this person to make that stop because the brain treats it like a threat to its life (what it actually also is - a threat to one's mental and, sometimes even, physical integrity).

In my case I know this systematic runs deeper, that's why I react to it pretty sensitively if someone makes the factual or only a to-my-eye-superficially-seeming attempt to repeat that. This isn't an experience starting with the outside world, it's an experience leading a long way back to the nest I once sprung from - and therefore I instinctively can't take it that well.
Time has made it that I can shrug off non-specific "you're dumb"-calling meanwhile, but not when something turns into another systematic tirade that aims for transmitting the same message over and over again. Like you pulled there, in my view. (If you did not regard it as this.)

Say, take it like when a child who suffered from bullying and systematic mental destruction never experienced resolving.
The pattern forms into a permanent trigger - and whoever pulls this lever, he awakens all those past experiences again, activating the personal coping strategies of this "child", even if it grows up. (Of which "direct defense" is only one option to react to this.)

If you made it to recognize this still in time on your own child and support it at your best against that systematic destruction of its own personality and its view, then fine, you made it as a parent to live up to your task as one and to prevent the worst damage from happening, and you paved the way for possibly reverting some of those toxic effects.

My brain did not have this, so that's the way it's wired and I'm running around like. While having to learn how to deal with the consequences of this acting in the past and revert its effects troublesomely all on my own.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

You are not aware of the fact that you had tried to force your point of view in my blog. And you did not notice the moment when the best solution was to stop with the simple statement of the existence of some differences in understanding.

I'm not a teacher and I do not have a goal to explain mistakes or to change the people. (My goal is only to change the world.) However, in my blog the discussion will end in the way that gives the visitors the conclusion that is acceptable for me. This was the cause why I did not stop arguing or did not block you.

I agree with you in many points, your descriptions of your feelings were helpful and your explanations were interesting for me. And I would thank you for this. However, I would say, you have a typical German flaw: you try to top real life experience (including the experience of a life in a total state) and systematic knowledge with random cases and logical constructs based on questionable assumptions.

This is the consequence of some aspects of German education and it has nothing to do with being dumb or clever. This is simply an absence of some skills that could be learned. German professors do the same mistakes as the German students but on a considerably higher level.

"The world is terrifying"- state of my son was cured with two sentences. (You could try to guess what I had said that time.)

By the way, my son had tried to tell something to the young people of his generation. We have only corrected his conclusions and strategies that were suboptimal. And this book contains some themes we had discussed.

This is the information I could tell you. Anything further is up to you. (A hint: the Amazon page for smartphones permits visitors to read till the end of the second chapter.)

Thanks again for your explanations. They were helpful.

[matrixmann]

Okay, in this point I have to back down. I know myself I can be not the best person to have discussions with, depending on the topic... Even the more it is in topics which I have connection with or where I think I spotted something that everyone else seems to be missing.

"The world is terrifying" - well, let me say this from the perspective of someone who thinks he knows what "character changes through trauma" can mean: If you interfere early enough, if such bad experiences happen, then you can get to convince a brain to shrug it off as a one-time life experience because you can deliver dozens of disproofs that leave back the impression to it "this was an extraordinary experience, this is not the rule of the whole world".

If extraordinary bad experiences happen, and that dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times, then it'll be a struggle to convince that brain to believe into the same. Because, internalized, something else is the rule to it.

...It comes from this umbrella, that's my opinion.
And I don't see much of that changing in the future in me because - not just this world is crazy, this country and its way of thinking, it's crazy. It's Täterstaat and it's Anscheißerstaat.
One dumb person can fuck up your routines - and these get fed with fear, with hysteria, with misinformation and lack of education, and with means to act that out at the expense of those who don't live that square lifestyle as these philistines.
So to say, the way I think, the things that interest me, the things I know about - they make me an easy target for dumbness.
And dumbness increasingly receives more belief to its "concerns".
The mentality of the 90s and early years after 2000 would be a relief for me 'cause I could be more outspoken without risking anything every time. 'Cause even law and authorities then would tell some people "Damn, don't waste my time with your hearing fleas cough and your cognitive stupidity!".
But I know these times won't come back on a larger social scale... So I'll have to deal with the zeitgeist that is on in this spot on the earth. And this means hiding a lot and being paranoid. Ergo: "the world is a dangerous place" (if you mean "Germany" or "your surroundings" with "world").
I have no real reason to believe in something different. Just judging from the practical circumstances.
I'll have to handpick my people and spheres for which I needn't act like this.
That's how it is for me...
Can't help it.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

- The things that have happened to me are terrifying.

- You have read Bettelheim's book about the survival in concentration camps. This was terrifying.

Two minutes of silence...

- Yes, you are right. My complains are nothing in comparison to this.

The German school teach to be afraid as Anna Frank but the experience of people who had win against the system in most dangerous conditions remains unknown. This produces hopelessness.

Durability is a skill that could be learned and trained. My son had broken through a system in the conditions that anyone who had heard our story calls "terrifying" in one day.

[matrixmann]

Found the way to the Leseprobe.

Hm... I have to perform some efforts in order to get my head into this as the school system that my brain mostly got taught with (thankfully) was very different.
To say the least: It has one advantage having started with school in the 90s still. You wanna know why?
Because then it still took time for the West German system to write new frameworks for the former GDR ones which would soon be abandoned.
For example: I've never got to know that nonsense called "Schreiben nach Hören" or "Lesen durch Schreiben". Learned it through conventional methods, and qualitywise I think it's a good base. It even still helps me today acquring knowledge and skills in other languages.
I cannot imagine what a kind of trashing the brain it must be if you learned it through one of the other methods...

Later on, as far as I know, they also made those new G12 A levels in this federal state easier for the years following up. There were a couple of things you could already get to hear as you were in the final year (with the new G 12 system) which the next one wouldn't have to put up with anymore to acquire their diploma.
And I'm already outta this for hardly more than a decade now... So who knows what they've all made easier since then.
Only thing I still keep as a reproach to that is: That way they've restructured the old A level system, they would have done the students a pretty favor to stay with the one year more to get through this. Because the way that I saw it in practice was: If you took it a bit serious, get yourself a USB-interface on your neck and put in the correct stick for the class. Because so much stuff you should learn in that few time, and then always you had to do any long-time task at home besides, it just fucking wore you out and made you go insane. This was no more any of this shit "Abitur for free with art and English as major classes"...

Well, back to yours - I'm straying...

...I guess I can see what you mean in connection with Greta. Who knows if she really has Asperger's? Who knows if her behavior and the way she thinks doesn't get artificially pathologized? (These days all kids with some brains strangely get diagnosed with anything quickly.)
Your son wasn't originally divergent, he just only was cleverer compared to the average of the other kids - this partly due to you two (as parents) teaching him basic skills from an early age as he demanded for intellectual input.
And this was artificially turned into a problem by the school system for whatever reason. It wasn't one to him.

Like if somebody demands you to take good care of something, and then if you really do that, he gets furious and shouts at you: "Damn, I didn't want you to take that seriously!".
Too few is undesired, but too much is undesired as well.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

This book is not about my son. It contains the thoughts and conclusions of my son. The characters and the world are artificial. However, there are a lot of real impressions that were used in the story. And it describes not the school system but the consequences of its degradation and seeks the ways to correct this.

Or case was quite specific and it is not described in the book. And to understand what do I mean about Greta you need to read through the book till the 31st chapter. This phenomenon is also one of the consequences.

By the way, the weirdest complaint of the Swiss school was that my other son knows the German (Hochdeutsch) too well.

[matrixmann]

Good, okay.

But, I must say, the first chapter, as president and ministers are discussing among each other "how to we get some normal workers out of people again" - it bears similarity to a overall picture that one finds here in the present.

Only, German system until now doesn't care about any kind of education of its own masses. They rather plunder other countries for "skilled workers" and put their bets on the horse "pay expensively for good education" (aka "the American model"). Its own youth - they let their brains get filled with rubbish and become addicted to their smartphones.
The very last thing they'd get upon doing would be investing any penny meaningfully into their own young people. (They only like to scream for people fertilizing some.)

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

The German education system burns a lot of money. The catastrophic consequences are not the intention of the politicians but the result of a (parasitic) self-organization. And each attempt of "improvement" makes the situation even worse because the system protects itself. This is the theme of one other book.

I think Swiss education system burns even more money pro person even in the public sector. For a private school you pay more than 2000 CHF per month and receive quite the same service.

[matrixmann]

Hm... If you ask me, its biggest flaw already is that they stick to death on the federal states organizing it. Literally each federal state does its own thing, comparing a single capacity between all of them is like a scientific discipline in itself.
And, on top of that, each federal state changes anything on its concept every few years - like either G12 or G13 (or allowing both), introducing conduct grades, redesigning how the diplomas are written in general and changing the lesson plans a lot.
Certain humanistic subjects even exist only in a couple of federal states - like, for example, the subject "Ethik". Somewhere else the same content is contained within "Philosophie".
I think, even between the school forms the lesson plans must be a bit different. At least this seemed to me to be the case for AWT (Arbeit-Wirtschaft-Technik). Gymnasium lesson plans didn't have a huge emphasis on crafts; you rather had to do with some more academic, economy-oriented stuff. This stuff somehow was unknown to same-year-olds who went to a Gesamtschule.
Later in the reorganized senior classes of the Abitur system, the subject was called only "Wirtschaft" with a direction according to that title.
In other words: Ein ziemliches Kuddelmuddel...

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

The federal ownership had helped Bavaria to save their education system from degradation pressure. The centralized government authorities always choose the worst from all bad ideas.

[matrixmann]

Hm... I know the critics vice versa that Bavaria refuses to adapt to a centralized-equal niveau because they literally train for the tasks that appear in the exams, more than really teaching the kids well in an overall sense. That's also why they want no Zentralabitur - because it would come to surface that their students aren't really that superiorly good as it's always said.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

You have not the best sources. You could always make statistics that "prove" anything.

What do you think about medical students that do not learn anatomy and engineers who do not understand mathematics? This is are the "improvements" forced by the centralization.

[matrixmann]

I just happen to know the criticism, not more.

And one thing I don't believe in is that currently any federal system has found the philosopher's stone. They all have some kinds of flaws or critical errors in the depth of the system. Only one of them may sum up more at once than the other.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

Yes. And, unfortunately, nobody really knows what to do with education. Even the methods that are advertised as "alternative" or "best" have own critical flaws.

[vit-r.livejournal.com]

PS: Greta is in chapter 31

By the way she was used because the global warming has a lot of problems now: https://electroverse.net