Making A World of Difference Liberation humanity from dehumanization, alienation and stress in a market-driven society

by Praetorius, Nadja

• ISBN13: 9788792632852
• ISBN10: 8792632858
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2017-12-01
• Publisher: Whyte Tracks
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

MAKING A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE is a contribution to the important analysis of the current socio-economic thinking which legitimizes ruthless exploitation of the Earth and its people, increasingly threatening our living conditions, health and wellbeing. This work accentuates the importance of liberating ourselves from a debilitating and alienating market driven society, in order to cultivate our own rich human potential and become co-creators together to form a decent and sustainable life on Earth for all.

Organizational and management procedures aimed purely at maximizing efficiency and productivity in workplaces and educational institutions, has led to an unprecedented increase in physical and mental disorders. Being a cross-cultural scientist and clinical psychologist treating patients with work-related stress, anxiety and depression, I feel urged to step out of my office and bear witness to how the regime of standardization, control, evaluation and competition is a serious threat to the mental and physical health of citizens throughout society.

But of equal importance, is the breaking of new ground in our understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a human being. The realization that we as humans encompass unexplored and still not fully realized potential is of vital importance. We are confronted daily with the need for a profound transformation at all levels of society. The widely recommended creation of globally sustainable living conditions depends on the active participation of citizens who will stand up for the humanitarian values and attitudes necessary for this – values and attitudes that in our current market societies, are being neglected, intimidated, and suppressed.

The predicament that rests heavily upon the people of our time, is to suffer alienation and limitation of personal power under threat of either conforming to demands or being dismissed to gain a share of material growth. Thus, the dogma that competition – on all levels of society as well as between nations – is necessary in order to survive, is about to cut human beings off from their unique capacity and natural urge to cooperate in communities; it threatens to remove expressions of empathy as well as the rich variation of human qualities and values potential to all.

MAKING A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE is therefore a profound call to reflection and action. The analyses of our current condition offered in this book are based on contemporary studies within the political, social, and natural sciences, combined with psychological and neurobiological research and clinical observations.

Conditions in workplaces and in educational institutions as described in the case studies and accounts throughout the book, may be recognized by many readers. They may accordingly be encouraged to trust their own observations and to realize that psychological imbalances such as depression, anxiety, and traumatic stress, are natural human reactions to inhuman conditions.

Readers are furthermore invited to reflect upon the age-old wisdom found in various philosophical and spiritual parables, and accounts from a field study that I carried out in an isolated Polynesian Island. This book calls for an inquiry into the reality that we all share and which we more or less consciously, sometimes willingly, and sometimes against our will, are creating together. It is my hope that the book can also serve as a mirror in which we recognize the significance of being human and can become inspired to renewed reflection and consideration, and thereby take transforming action.

Author Biography

Dr Nadja U. Prætorius holds a doctorate in psychology and MA in psychotherapy.
She started her university career as a teacher and researcher and was appointed assistant professor and associate professor of cross-cultural psychology and social psychology at the University of Copenhagen and of Roskilde. She has had during the same period, a research fellowship at the Sorbonne, Paris, and worked as a visiting professor at various universities in USA, where she taught cross-cultural research.

After several years university professorship she chose a career change and trained as a clinical psychologist. Based on the therapist education in Scandinavia and the US, she worked in private practice and as a supervisor and teacher for psychologists and other professionals dealing in private and public institutions. Her work has been particularly influential in the prevention and treatment of trauma and stress.

Published:
2007: "Stress. -modern trauma" Klim
2013: "Ethical Challenges in a Global Time" Dansk psykologisk forlag
2016: "MAKEING A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE", Klim.

She is co-author of various anthologies on stress and inadequate working conditions in social and health services and in educational institutions (publishing house KLIM, publisher Samfundslitteratur, publisher Jensen & Dalgaard).

She has also published numerous research articles of her own and continues to lecture by invitation globally in Universities, University colleges, Free Universities, in trade unions, and at conferences on employment methods.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
Brief outline of the contents

PART I.
IMAGE OF OUR TIMES

Chapter 1
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
A timeless moment in space
An age of change and new departures
The Japanese disaster as an emblem
Evolution and technological development: a contemporary paradox?
Who is connected?
Rational bypassing
Qualified optimism.
Participation and intervention
The unveiling of deceptions
An indication of turning points?
Challenges to change
The cost of neglecting the human factor
The existential choice

Chapter 2
THE VITAL ABILITY TO CONSIDER AND RETHINK
A crack in time
Interpretations of reality
Selective distrust
Fixed mental structures and neural networks
Reflection and investigation
Is humanity losing its influence?
Reality deprivation
The human involvement
Existential choices
Theories about humanity
Quantitative research methodologies
Qualitative research methodologies
Methodological considerations
Rational bypassing and Complementarity
Humanity in an all-embracing perspective
The complex human being
The rediscovery of direct experience
The gracious space of compassion

Chapter 3
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MEANING
The overlooked subject
Normative assumptions and scientific incapacitation
Crazy or normal?
Consequences of scientific lapses
Georg's forest
Reality converted into language games
The unruly reality
The responsibility for basic sanity
The Existential Point of Departure
Basic human preconditions
Meaning, coherence, perspective and value
Making sense of meaning
The need for value, appreciation and belonging
The survival strategies of powerlessness
Existence, meaning, and ethics
Counteracting the dire consequences of reductionism and reification

Chapter 4
ALIENATION, STRESS AND CONFORMIST INDIVIDUALISM
Out of the box – out of the closet?
A metaphor
The alienated human being
Alienation and inner homelessness
The fragile identity formation of alienation
The relation between dehumanization, alienation and stress
Self-perpetuating estrangement
Depression and stress
The work-adjusted concept of competition
Competition, truth and deceit
The normalization of untruthfulness
Prescribed untrustworthiness
Untrustworthiness - a case
When untrustworthiness hits home
When reality has to be redefined to be endured
Conformist individualism
Research with the telescope to the blind eye
When scientific status is bestowed on urban legends
Emancipation from the hegemony of dehumanization and alienation

PART II
EXPLORING THE HUMAN POTENTIAL

Chapter 5
DEVELOPMENT: EMPATHIC COOPERATION OR ALIENATING SUBMISSION?
The wonder of the unpredictable
Perspectives on childrearing in a Polynesian Island
Blind spots and eye openers
Groundbreaking research on the human processes of formation
Attachment Theories
Attachment, exploration and empathy
Attachment over time
Attentive empathy and rational manageability
The social implications of attachment theories
Being and development
Survival strategies and inner estrangement
Alienation and traumatization in the personality formation
Personal emancipation as maturation process
The societally relevant human being
Theethical challenge of our time

Chapter 6
IN PURSUIT OF THE AUTHENTIC
Who do we want to be?
Individuation – independence – authenticity
The ethical dilemma of the individual
Who do we think we are?
What do we mean by “evolution”?
An indigenous culture
What good are questions?
A different life
Glimpses of change
The same, yet incomparable

Chapter 7
LANGUAGE AND THE MULTIFACETED REALITY
Language, identity and the all-encompassing reality
Reflections on language
Questions we refrain from asking
What we can learn from Mungiki
Communal sharing and caring
Taupongi's journey

Chapter 8
SEEING THE EXTRAORDINARY IN THE ORDINARY
Dream and reality
The imperceptible self-forgetfulness
The unification of supposedly irreconcilable aspects
The ethical paradox and existential considerations
Different causes for the separation
The ethical paradox and biological preconditions
The common ground of the existential and the biological perspectives
Overcoming the battle of survival: an account
The ethical paradox on a societal level
Paradigm shift: investigating reality
Exploration of the multi-faceted mind
Seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary

Bibliography

About the Author