This one is probably going to ramble a bit.
In the most recent episode of “Once Upon A
Time” we got Cora’s backstory. Cora is the mother of Regina, the Evil Queen,
thus making her the mother of all evil, and she was certainly a key factor in
Regina’s development.
Cora was humiliated by a princess, and a
king, and that seems like something you should be able to get over. However, as
she was learning to do magic, which was going to be necessary for saving her
life and for revenge, part of her process was going back to that moment of
humiliation over and over again, and her desire to turn the tables on them, and
draw strength from that. She almost gave it up for love, but still wanting
revenge led to a conversation where she decided to choose power, and that love
was a weakness, so she removed her heart.
My vacation reading included a Smithsonian
and a Psychology Today. The Smithsonian (January 2013) had an article on
scientific studies on infants and toddlers conducted at Yale that showed a
clear preference for altruism, both in terms of observing others and their own
behavior.
(The article was by Jill Greenberg, and
actually, if you are into that sort of thing, the article was fascinating, for
the results but also the discussion of the methodology and the variations. It’s
a recommended read.)
Now, I thought I read something in the
Psychology Today indicating that where this may start to change is around the
age of four, where children start to get drawn towards power. I could not find
that again. It may have been a reference to a book about how scary stories help
children work things out and build stronger selves (Killing Monsters by Gerard
Jones), and then extrapolating that with other things I have read.
One reason I am thinking about it is because
of bullying, and especially cyberbullying. I do not understand why you would
tell anyone to kill themselves. At the same time, I have at times wanted to
emotionally hurt people. Usually they had hurt me, and I was frustrated that
they were not hurt or bothered. I guess on one level I was looking for power
over them, though it was a passing thing, and I’m glad of that.
I could keep focusing on my wounds and on the
way I was wronged, and I could become very cold-hearted and miserable, and
probably cruel. Maybe I would hurt others who were not involved, but who were
easier targets. I read something recently where a girl who had been bullied
confronted one of her attackers. He stopped bugging her, but also he killed
himself a bit later.
Obviously he had his own issues going on. It
does not justify any cruelty he committed, but you can see how a lot of people
hurting each other can lead to even more people hurting each other, and nothing
good comes from it.
In addition, when I am studying sexism or
racism, one of the constant threads is the dehumanization of the other party.
Objectification is especially overt when it comes to sexism, but it happens in
other –isms as well, and what it keeps coming down to is power. Exert power
over them, and it’s more power for yourself.
This is important because these power
struggles are used to divide those who should have shared interests. Referring
back to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, slavery and then Jim Crow laws
were used to divide poor whites from blacks, and keep the poor whites feeling
like they had the same interests as the wealthy whites, though they did not,
and the wealthy whites absolutely did not have the same interests as the poor
whites.
Look at Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and
Sheryl Wu Dunn, and there are so many examples of how greater opportunities for
women improve the lives of the entire society, but the societies that aren’t
there yet have the men feeling threatened by it. The power over women is all they
have, but it ends up only being a power to cause and prolong misery.
Paul says that the love of money is the root
of all evil, and there are a lot of ways in which that seems true, but it is
starting to feel more like the real root is actually the desire to exert power over
others, and maybe money is just a convenient way of getting there.
So, I think I am just going to throw two
other points out there, and let you draw your own conclusions. I mean, these
topics are going to come back up.
I believe I read this in Daphne Rose Kingma’s
work, but somewhere I read that with controlling personalities, that behavior
often started when they were prevented from developing a talent. Think about
that. You are starting to develop something beautiful, and it is cut off, and
the reaction is to want to do the same thing to others. So perhaps something
that we really need is more opportunities for self-actualization, with children
and adults. Take up with the violin again, or start to draw, or do something to
cultivate yourself and let others bloom.
The other point goes back to my “Three Keys
to Happiness” post that I keep referring back to, where one of the keys is
serving others, and part of why that helps is that it shows that you have
power. You are capable of doing some good for someone, regardless of the things
you can’t do. It’s an important reminder:
There is appropriate power. Development of
power over one’s self is huge, as we establish good habits, and follow through
on goals. Interest in power over others, though, that leads down a dark path,
and a lot of evil comes from it.
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