Forum Post: The Forest for the Trees: Stockholm Syndrome as we Re-Frame Societal Abuse in America and Beyond.
Posted 5 years ago on Sept. 16, 2018, 11:03 a.m. EST by elf3
(4203)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I reposted my earlier comment as a post because so often we seem to ask why. We can't see the forest through the trees. And I think it is important we clear the fog:
We are worth so much more. The answer to me is quite clear: Corporations and the narcissists running them have employed the psychology of gaslighting. For anyone who grew up with narcissistic parents...it is the exact same dynamic. When you begin to realize the relationship of codependency and narcissism it is being done on a mass scale.
Employers and corporations have become quite like an abusive husband or parent. A lot of forced dependency coupled with a slow degredation of self worth...we have been taught to (latest buzzword) "reframe" the abuse. As well as adapt to a new albeit unhealthy "normal". We are taught we are responsible for how others treat us...that their behaviours are justified by our own failure and helplessness to change it. Instead of calling them out we work harder to prove our worth...which does NOT ever work.The helpless feeling feeds the worthless feeling which feeds the abuse cycle. To an extent yes we are responsible for what we accept...but NOT for the abuse - abuse is never justified or our fault...it is merely our responsibility to end the abuse and not allow it to continue. But it isn't our job to change the abuser or to somehow change his mindset...it is only our job to call out abuse and call it what it is. The idea of "reframing" abuse and taking it on as our responsibility to adapt to it...is an extremely dangerous idea. One used in many cults, and other abusive dynamics and the foundation for Stockholm Syndrome.
Corporations coupled with government are abusing and taking advantage of the populous and what do we do? We work harder to prove our worth. This isnt working for us...they get our best and we get more abuse. It is our job to call it out and end it. We will never change the abuser or his mindset. We need to change what we are willing to allow. The first step is to realize this IS abuse.
And to all those "tough" guys who voted for Trump. I hate to be the one to tell you...you have stepped into the role of an abused wife. Somehow believing your abuser is doing his best to take care of you...while he quietly and invisibly pulls the rug out from under your feet so you fall down and he can PRETEND to rescue you. It is quite difficult conundrum for how do you end abuse when you are reliant on your abuser...when you have no place else to work and you need him to put money in your bank account and feed you. Thus the dilemma.
Sometimes he will let you succeed for a bit lulling you into a false sense of security before the next sabotage because rest assured the illusion of progress is his best weapon which allows him to distract and covertly destroy you. (He will convince you that you somehow induced the sabotage, and next time if you work harder to bend yourself into a better pretzel, you can possibly avoid it). He does not want you to and will never actually create conditions for you to succeed... because then you can escape. His grandeur and power is built and reliant on the mouse in his cage.
gas·light ˈɡaslīt/Submit verb gerund or present participle: gaslighting manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity.
Not surprisingly the powers that be have labelled this movement as left wing a category which they have labeled as "luny" In fact anyone who disagrees with them is crazy and sensitive. This again is classic narcissism. Trump and his tweets are pure narcissist. You can see textbook symptoms in every tweet.
"Lefty lunys. Unicorn lunys. Sensitive snowflakes."
Even as president he views half of this nation's people as "them". Because narcissists can't tell right from wrong. They can only tell what benefits themselves. They have only two categories. Anything that doesn't benefit themselves, or disagrees with being sublimated to that end is a percieved threat and automatic enemy.
Narcissists see in pure black and white...and have zero concept of gray. Everything is squashed into one of two boxes. No matter how they have to fold it or manipulate to squish it in when it doesn't fit. They are masters at reframing and rearranging reality to fit with their narrow beliefs.
Throughout history we have witnessed their destruction and pathology. Hitlers and Stalins. They make innocent people into enemies and feel justified in destroying them. They live in fantasy land playing Chess and Stratego and have no concept that they are the only ones playing "The Game." What is truly sad is how they are really able to fool others into their cause. They are masters of making their fantasy justice/ victimhood and paranoia real to not just themselves, but everyone around them, while they ruin and victimize unjustly those unfortunate enough to happen across their paths. "You are with them or against them". When you can see the Emporer has no clothes...run and duck for cover.
I hope this movement will be lead instead by empathy, inclusiveness, common sense, and add to the benefit and the needs of the many.
You're the only one I see calling the left luny.
Aside from which I believe republicanism is a symptom of pathology ...but those on the left aren't immune ( the ends of the horseshoe aren't all that far apart)
Putting words in others mouth is also a symptom of narcissism. You should be focused on healing yourself. Your answer doesn't live here in this movement. ( it isn't an identity) Understanding ourselves is the key to understanding the greater picture. Until you get right with you...you are doing no service to the world.
I am simply making an observation if you believe the left is luny or called luny then you have been asleep the past two years....
LOOK - if you are not aware that the corporate dems who call themselves centrist ( but are more exactly right wing) along with every single GOP holding office that are extreme right wing but are calling THEMSELVES centrist - are calling the left/progressives loony - then - you have been sound asleep for decades!
LOOK YOU KNOW the world would be very different today if Nader had supported Gore, so you can pretend like these ego whore Greens aren't a threat to the Earth if you want to but I won't forget!
I have been pushing OWS to take control of the DNC for years but Green Party political hacks have been here pushing against any effort to make the dems better so they can prop up their ego whores, YOU KNOW THIS!
When I called for OWS to run someone against Chuck Schumer, in the primaries, I got zero support from people on here....
Gore should have fought for a recount rather than walk away. He didn't want to cause strife - so - He gave it ALL AWAY! and Caused STRIFE anyhow! Where was the courage of His convictions? Where was the fire in his gut to stand and fight for what was right? He folded just like a blow-up doll with it's plug removed! This fight against the GOP (as well as the sell-out corpoRAT dems) should have begun in earnest decades ago! Fuck ur hang-up with greens as well as other independents! The greens didn't lose that race for Gore! Gore THREW IT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!
There is no right or left...there are only corporations.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXtO5dMqEI
Ummmm but then there are system aberrations Like Bernie Sanders and Kashama Sawant - that just pop up and dedicate their time to working for Working People. Crazy world we live in. We need more of that craziness.
And what did they do to Bernie? He couldn't fight corporations all alone and we lost him in the Swamp of Sadness.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y688upqmRXo
Exactly - he had no support - well except for us working folk - but to the establishment = WE DO NOT COUNT But actually = We Do Count - that is if we can ever get organized and act together before the system totally removes our ability to vote.
EDIT: It really startled those establishment assholes when the working people said that there was no way in hell that they would vote for sHillary - AND THEN = DIDN'T ! Didn't THAT just blow their little BOUGHT minds.
He took it to the Supreme Court! are you working for Fox News? If Nader had supported Gore he would have won easily, when the truth don't fit your position you should change your position instead of turning into Fox News!
100,000 people voted for Nader in Florida, people who refuse to look at truth because it doesn't fit their beliefs are climate deniers and Fox News reporters is that the sort of thing you want to put out into the world?
https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/414439-arizonas-green-party-candidate-drops-out-of-senate-race-and-endorses
Look! - You posted a link about a green who is NOT an Ego Whore as you call them! Did that hurt?
This Green did the right thing, they got off the ballot ALL Greens should get off the ballot and get to work defeating the GOP! (BTW we won)
He took it to SCOTUS, NONE of it would have been needed if Nader hadn't had his head up his ass.
But now the "red state" "blue state" thing has us so fucked the Senate and SCOTUS are lost, maybe forever and we are screwed, the world is screwed, and it didn't have to be this way if Nader hadn't had his head up his ass, so when I see people feeding that ego driven shit it pisses me off.
"my general experience with folks like that is that they are certainly motivated by money, green is an important factor, and they often quite pragmatically recognize that a certain amount of giving, equipped with a good publicist to let people know about it, is an essential component of a strategy of continued taking."Anand Giridharadas
I think that has been the experience for most of us regular people when we observe the rich and our own employers and politicians.
It's also a component of gaslighting. "Hey yeah we stole your pension and yeah froze wages while demanding more productivity, but as you can see by our charity and pr and lobster luncheon...we aren't a bad guy. We care about you. How could you think we dont care about you? You must be sensitive. Your perception is off. You are crazy and rude. Your happiness has always mattered...but now we are concerned about your mental health and attitude blah blah blah..."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/anand-giridharadas-on-his-book-winners-take-all-and-the-farce-of-elites-claiming-to-make-the-world-a-better-place.html
looks like an interesting read.
Solutions.
And I can't help but notice each time we do attempt to get to the root of the problem, we get posters like factsrfun and similar entries suddenly ramping up the bandaid propaganda. When rich elites rule...left or right, we get a country which benefits rich elites. Real change comes only when we recognize the broken systems and aim a bulldozer at the faulty foundations. It's time we stop trying to build new layers onto something which was never a solid foundation.
I hope he gets in his novel the psychology of cognitive dissonance. The left hand pretends not to notice what the right is doing and ego maintains the idea of the self as good and philanthropic despite devestation and destruction. Often narcissists employ this type of dissociative thinking.
It's always interesting watching ceo's commend themselves on charity while they cut a swath of downsizing and cutbacks on their workers who rely on them to eat and house and feed their own family and children.
And our helplessness born of our reliance on our captors (corporations, employers, governments, and the elite rich) to aid us and fix it is part of the trauma bond (Stockholm Syndrome)
I hope this book breeds more discussion: the rich donate money to distract from fixing the systems that cause problems, so they can maintain their own wealth, while look like they are doing something that really does nothing but buy themselves more time to amass unprecedented wealth.
Again in simpler terms this is called The Abuse Cycle.
And doesn't the abusive husband always go out and buy a gift for his wife after his latest episode? Classic narcissism. Played out on a societal scale.
We must heal our society recognize the abuse and " Now go walk out that door, don't turn around now...you're not welcome anymore"
As a child, I watched a bulldozer and also later-on a backhoe being useless at knocking down a reinforced-concrete underground bunker used for storing munitions. Only weeks of hard banging by the workers wielding the "Sledgehammers for Peace" succeeded in chipping away the fat-based but tapered-upwards truncated-conical chimney (yes, Heavenly Hosts of New Jerk, suck that "hookah smoke!" NoneSuchAmerika) and also the two reinforced-concrete shielding slabs flanking the stairwell leading down to the underground bomb storage. Then the workers cut away the steel rods with saws. Sparks flew. That bunker would have survived even a nuclear blast nearby but not the workers' Will.
Even mountains as high as the Himalayas have been worn down to become the Appalachian mountains. No matter how slowly progress is being made, Persistence works.
One who plants an olive may very well never eat of the fruits of its tree (as it takes up to forty years for the tree to bear olives, long enough for the present generation wandering in the wilderness of Sinai to pass away without crossing the river of the Covenant to reach the Promised Land) but like the ancient Phoenicians trading olive oil in the Mediterranean Sea, a Grandpa thinking of his grandchildren still plants the olive with Faith, Hope, and Love.