Why Young Lives are Losing Meaning and Purpose II: The Big Three and 11 Factors

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny | unsplash.com

“Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph. In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives…Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.”

~ Robert D. Putnam

Reading time: 20-25 mins

In the last post I looked at the decrease in meaning and purpose parallel to the increase in loneliness and isolation for today’s millennial and Z generations.  Sociologists, economists and psychologists generally all agree that the key to developing and holding on to meaning, purpose and well-being is sufficient social interaction with a core group of friends and family that define one’s support. This is not the same as an extended family that usually arises from enforced socio-economic factors, but one that naturally evolves based around shared vision of support and nourishment because it is both practical and sustainable, offering real world benefits.

John F. Helliwell, a prominent expert in the economics of happiness believes the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives at the deepest levels. And the quality of those relationships is reflected in how well we have activated our response-ability and activities that offer a form of service to the community – whatever form that might be. This is what creates and deepens ties with others: constructive actions alongside key initiatory ideas. Helliwell draws his work from very large data sets called the World Values Survey which has accrued answers from people in over 150 countries about life satisfaction along with other socio-economic information. When Helliwell crunched the data he and other researchers found that there were six reliable and consistent factors which accounted for well-being:

  1. Social support
  2. generosity
  3. trust
  4. freedom
  5. income per capita
  6. healthy life expectancy [1]

Four from the list are connected with social interaction within a community. The other factors are relational and occur as a response to, or as a natural property of social support.  So a stratum of support covering all aspects of human aspiration is a really big deal, the lack of which will play a large part in the development of our social ills.

The Big Three

It seems to me, the development of meaning and purpose is rooted in three foundational products of social interaction which, if healthy, underpin a successful society, the constituents of which all operate symbiotically and grow parallel to each other. Thus, the creation of an individual emerges and is informed by:

  1. Parents
  2. Family
  3. Community

Obvious perhaps, but in crisis nonetheless. These three make up the strata in the soil of society/culture which is dependent on the level of access to community (should it even exist) a solid connection to nature and the quality of the environment upon which all three rest. [2]  Similarly, the healthy functioning of the three will have within them poor psycho-spiritual “nutrients”, or a rich, fertile ground that is self-sustaining and therefore community-sustaining. The presence of Helliwell’s six factors will be informed by the quality of the Big Three.

We might visualise such relationships in this very basic way:

The ideal: A continual feedback loop with meaning and purpose fuelling creativity and vice versa. This is the nourishment from which society and its environment “flows”. If the never satisfied abyss of Official Culture replaces meaning and purpose then a creative tension can never fully manifest. All five foundations suffer and therefore society and the natural world become a reflection of that imbalance. © infrakshun,

You get the idea. The Big Three building blocks of a healthy society must be in place to offer the promise of how community could potentially function at an optimum level. Yet, to create the conditions whereby parents, family and community are given pride of place, means addressing the root causes in order to stop this vicious circle of diminishing returns. The answers is seems, cannot be found inside the State and Official Culture which cannot offer fundamental change. We must organise this ourselves when there is a sufficient impetus and imperative to do so. And in the face of environmental and societal change that urgency will come soon enough. Transformation will probably only arrive when we are forced by circumstance to question our automated responses. Meantime, at least certain experimental blueprints can continue to be applied.

A return to Nature and the environment will play a vital role as a platform for knowledge and psycho-spiritual health. The nourishing influence of all aspects of practical activity focused in nature – rural or urban – can inspire and inform our systems of education, the arts and economics. More directly, permaculture for example, is now proven conclusively to be not only pragmatic and efficient but a sustainable lifestyle that can offer emerging communities experimentation in self-sufficiency, autonomy and the hope for greater freedom from the State. When the importance of nature and right ecological thinking is recognised and how integral it is to our well-being, such localised experimentation begins to operate in a state of flow and therefore creativity; there is a practical and philosophical sense of belonging drawn from a support system that is based on real-world applications as opposed to virtual ones. *

“We’re all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.”     

~ Rudyard Kipling

Where genuine meaning and purpose is flowering and where service to others forms the core principle, creativity becomes a natural property of this shared state of flow. Obviously, how consistent, sporadic or entirely absent this is, will depend on range of organisational and logistical factors, not least the developing quality of individual and emerging group consciousness. The interrelated patterns of the above Big Three mean that any emergent properties of institutional pathology arising from an historical move away from that which provides a framework of meaning and purpose, means mini-tipping points into chaos will arrive, preceded by specific signposts across the whole of the human personality and external events. These signposts and tipping points may even follow specific patterns of “oscillations”, their peaks and troughs alerting us to dangerous imbalance. When these signs become urgent and multiply exponentially, the collective “wave collapse” will manifest at all levels of society and its environment. Meaning and purpose is then replaced with counterfeit constructs which become ends in themselves and a veritable black hole to which all is drawn, slowly and inexorably.  We might say that indicators are specific socio-political, cultural and psycho-spiritual warnings of degeneration and toxicity (which have been discussed at length in this blog) across a broad range of endeavours, showing us that certain paths are not conducive or desirable for health of the Big Three and therefore, across society as a whole.

Paraphrasing Gandhi, Western civillised society would be a great idea. Bold strides have been made, but we still don’t really know what a fully-functioning and healthy society would be like. Although we have been witness to isolated and localised successes of the past we appear to be going further and further away from the foundations which at least provide the basis upon which societal health can proceed. Until we perceive how deeply connected the Big Three and their foundations are to each other and seek solutions that promote their proper functioning, we will continue to be caught in attempts to address each in isolation which is akin to wiping out cancer in one part of the body only to see it emerge in another.

Global governance and one world initiatives for instance, will not work since they are largely products of the same erroneous thinking, if not entirely disingenuous in the first place.  It must take place organically working within the system while also developing outside it. No new initiative, no matter how authentic can survive if separated from its natural connections to all other elements in society; none of the Big Three can exist at an optimum level of creative tension (therefore balance) if one of these is turned on its head. In fact, it comes as no surprise that we are witnessing a comprehensive ponerisation of ALL these natural outgrowths of human life with many sub-constants replicating the same dysfunctions at a deeper level.

Any independent socio-cultural organism only thrives if people feel that they belong offering a reason for their existence. It is the central core of nourishment across the whole personality and represents an undeniable Truth to which individual human beings aspire.  Which is why the denial of objective reality and the relativism assigned to Truth and morality is so fundamentally corrosive to the well-being of an individual and the community of which s/he is a part.  It’s not rocket science. Yet we appear to have this inversion of belonging and meaning as tribalism and groupthink and ideologies that reject everything that promotes a healthy human being in their own right. This is surely why so many young people are feeling isolated, fielding chronic stress, anxiety and/or depression; committing suicide or finding themselves addicted to self-image, substances, sex or video games – even the self-righteousness of some forms of activism that are only fake versions of a social conscience. After all, if we don’t have meaning and purpose to our lives – what’s the point? Nihilism, cynicism and victimhood is the only recourse, the indoctrination of which is currently being levelled by academic pied pipers of postmodernist thinking fused with notions of social justice.

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”

~ Alain de Botton

The psycho-spiritual organism of the human being obviously doesn’t respond well to imposed pathology and seeks, if it can, to “reset” the micro or macrosocial system. But that only happens if enough support is there for incremental healing and/or a mind that is open enough to allow shocks to the psyche which can then re-boot itself toward a more healthy disposition. If not, the organism either dies or strives to be born anew. The bulwark to even a first stage of emotional healing consists of recognising disturbed thought patterns which have blended with the instinct of fear and inculcated stress of the past. As such, it naturally makes one wonder why it is that feelings in the young are so sensitized and so prone to wounding and the consequent hysteria when it comes to differing views. I hope this post will make it clearer.

As discussed previously it’s easy to write off a large proportion of the younger generations as “tea-cups,” “snowflakes” and entitled narcissists and claim “it wasn’t like that in our day. We didn’t sit at home and play the victim card.” Maybe this is true. But Baby boomers and generation X produced and permitted many of the problems that the younger generations of today are having to cope with. We have seen how far this dysfunction has gone in universities and the threats to free speech. Nonetheless, there may be a danger here of too narrow a focus. We run the risk of increasing the divide between true understanding and the self-satisfied comfort in point-scoring, safe in the certainty that the young need to get with the picture and stop whining. While using victimhood as a means to acquire something, whether that is emotional or ideological (or both) it must always be resisted. But we also need to understand why and offer solutions. The young clearly ARE victims but perhaps not in the way that they or many of us realise. We must attempt to re-imagine all that suppressed rage and projected angstivism into something constructive; to disengage sensibly and carefully from the present trajectory as best we can.

If we are being distracted by the same left-right, political ping-pong wars playing out in social and mainstream media, this kind of conflict helps to obscure a continuum of interference and control exerted over Western societies. The young – however objectionable we may feel their reactions – are merely reflecting the evolution of influences over the past forty years or so and which have come home to roost in their psychology. The collective narcissistic hissy fit and infantilism didn’t just arrive because people are inherently wired that way – at least, not as an exclusively genetic expression of human nature. We need to keep focused on the archetype of the Magician behind the curtain, so beautifully illustrated in the Wizard of Oz, and who pulled the levers of society to create maximum conflict and thus a perpetual camouflage over his duplicitous actions.  As deputy editor of Spiked! online magazine Tom Slater commented recently: “While there are many organisations, thinkers and initiatives in the US truly committed to defending freedom speech, some on the right confuse it for a left-right culture war – less a battle for ideas, and more a fight to the death. And second, that many nominal free-speech advocates risk focusing their energies on a few censorious students, rather than on the culture that has allowed them to flourish.“

Exploring the current contagion of entitlement, fragility and lack of resilience there are clearly some primary reasons why this has manifested now and why it has been used as ideological capital. On the one hand, a large proportion of the young have become ascetic, overly puritan, internalising psychological issues and often aligned to moderate and more extreme conservative values. On the other, we have the far more worrying rise of left authoritarianism which is unquestionably institutionalised. These lines of expression are merely personality preferences however, the core inability to cope with reality is the defining factor.

“Strong people alone know how to organize their suffering so as to bear only the most necessary pain.”

~ Emil Dorian

As discussed in The Hissy Fit Generation series we could posit 11 factors which have led to many of our younger folks’ loss of meaning and purpose. This shutting down of young minds en masse, eats away at the psycho-spiritual health that promotes cohesion and cooperation within the internal landscape of an individual, and by extension, families, communities, societies and nations. When these five foundations lack purpose and meaning they are vulnerable to infection from those that thrive on degeneracy, immorality and the hedonic treadmill. Similarly, the technosphere that produces our Official Cultures might be likened to a black hole which creates dependency and slavery rather than creativity and freedom. It’s survival depends upon maintaining and initiating new divisions in the mass mind which engender the same outcome over and over: namely subservience to a singular perception of living and being. The success of individuals and groups over society at large must be defined according to the official paradigm. This chaotic tension flowing through diverse societal dynamics is precisely what sustains the ultimately unsustainable nature of this black hole. All it has to do is continually adapt by offering new mind hacks of conformity dressed up as compassion and liberation. The effects of what is essentially a counterfeit “scientific technique” fused with a philosophical, cultural and political ideology has made children’s minds a veritable morass of conflicting signals and thus paralysis. The last thing we want to see is fascism rising up in the left to meet the fascism of the right and playing out in clusters of psychic civil wars.

***

The following is a summary of the major target areas which are responsible for young people’s current problems. We look at other points raised in greater detail later on and explore why it is that such trajectories are doing so much harm and the possible solutions. These causal factors represent social engineering policies seeded decades before. Others are tangential effects that become causative pathways in their own right, adding new problems to the initial fault lines. None of these propositions are enough to cause imbalance and mental illness in isolation, but taken together produce a formidable negative impact on the psyche. There will be plenty people, young and old, who have not exhibited symptoms of pathology or had any effect that has dramatically interfered with their life path. However, I would suppose that most people will have been affected in some detrimental way, perhaps unconsciously and even if they do not include loneliness or a lack of purpose.

Photo: Noah Silliman | unsplash.com

1. Capitalism, corporatism and the hybrid ideology of French postmodernism and neo-Marxism in society

As the left-liberal belief dissolves into apathy and an authoritarianism of its own, let’s not forget that we live under a global capitalism and neoliberal policies which are continuing to do great harm to the economic independence and sociocultural fabric of nations. A case could certainly be made that poverty has decreased and material acquisition increased globally. Yet, the richest 1% still own half the planet’s wealth and the 0.1% worth as much as the bottom 90%. Elevating people out of poverty is wonderful thing, but is it due to capitalism or the will power of those working within its machinery despite its presence not because of it? Capitalism, in its present form, is the mother and father of the Four Drivers of the Overworld which has allowed seeming material progress to gain ground while simultaenously streamlining criminal enterprise into our global political and economic global architecture. “Progress” under exegesis of neoliberal, capitalist orthodoxy has come at great cost and by ignoring the psycho-spiritual and environmental crises it has produced.

It is no coincidence that the explosion in mental illness in the young – particularly depression – has grown parallel to rampant deregulation, environmental exploitation and the excesses of transnational corporatism fused with the state. Capitalism in its present hybrid form has stripped the soul from generations by ensuring that the material God of the market acts as the only arbitor of meaning within education, agriculture, economics, the arts and every other domain in society. Capitalism’s inherent instability, mutability and adaption means that it perpetually regurgitates new ways of doing exactly the same thing under the guise of innovation and “progress.” Such a slippery creature means an exponential increase in stress and dis-ease. We have plenty of alternative models to capitalism and its globalism but none of which can dislodge a pathological consumerism, digital debt slavery, rising technocratic bureacracy and the privatization of crucial social services which amount to a masking of intrinsic stress as a symptom of that deep lack of meaning. When we are made into “consumers” then it stands to reason we will end up feeling consumed as a product of that overarching dragon of chaos eating its own tail.

Indeed, the boom and bust of our current economic model is an ironic reflection of a rising collective struggle with bi-polarism – the elation of exploitation of finite resources of which we are all a part and the dark confrontation of the inevitable consequences, explained away as impotence in the face of the capitalist technosphere. And then we have the liberal communists like George Soros and Bill Gates and their philanthropism as ideological leverage which shows just how adaptable and morally subversive this new hybrid system of control really is. We have all become the living dead in that sense, literal ghosts in the capitalist machine and at a loss how to claw back true individualism that is not unceasingly selfish in a dog-eat-dog world. Vertical and horizontal collectivism and group consciousness is being pushed through the soft-belly of society and culture which the structure which surrounds it is undeniably capitalism on steroids.  Thus, it is no wonder that young people are betwixt the devil and the deep sea.

Coursing through the veins of this capitalist dominance and ostensibly in conflict to the ignorant, is a cultural and philosophical belief which has been conflated with a socio-economic and political discourse producing a hybrid monster in society that operates by stealth. It won’t be lost on some folks that this could be said to hark back to the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The only difference is that there was a thread of truth to behind this hysteria and the subsequent paranoia and cultural carnage that ensued. Here, there is no overreaction and no awareness of an equally insidious infiltration, the influence of which is already complete and taken as part of the normative structures of social discourse, some brands of activism, social science, government agencies, NGOs and higher education within society. What we are now seeing are pathological elements of radical left extremism in full bloom in the UK, parts of Europe and in most states in the U.S.

This largely French-influenced brand of postmodernism has been the foundation upon which present day brands of “social justice” and much of social science now draws its succor and causing potentially enormous damage to the fabric of society. Postmodern and Marxist thought provided an incisive critique of the capitalist-corporatist model and in its early days was initially at least, a welcome lubricant to the rigidity of certain laws and social constructs of a more staid and conservative bent. This has since gone way past the median, the marxists and left-liberals not realising their ideology has already been subsumed and made a useful part of the technosphere and desire for the globalist World State.

It has had a direct influence on parenting and family life resulting in the erosion of principles and values which increased cohesion, community, discipline and natural gender roles. Natural boundaries and constraints are seen as either “patriarchal” or “fascist” where increasingly, those who do not follow the social Justice/radical left consensus are proponents of “hate speech”. Proper appraisal of history and macro-psychological awareness is entirely absent. In this way, intolerance is mainstreamed under the guise of compassion, diversity and “equality” of outcome. Since this ideology thrives on feelings and victmhood as opposed to truth and critical thinking, bigotry, sexism and racism is overblown and exaggerated to ridiculous degrees, to the point that masculinity is devalued; free speech is threatened and hysteria trumps critical thinking and objective truth.

The following sectors in society are presently fielding this ideology:

  • In education: primary, secondary, college and universities. In the U.S. especially Liberal Arts courses are the traditional stronghold of such programming. This is includes a big jump in social activism,”white privilege”and women’s/gender studies and courses influenced by Intersectional or 4th Wave feminists and minority anti-racism academics. Diversity councils, safe spaces and trigger warning paraphernalia are all products of this hystericization.
  • Social Justice groups and organisations with a focus on anti-racism, sexism and feminism (e.g. Antifa; Black Lives Matter).
  • LGBTQ activism (with particular attention to transgenderism) which has resulted in a hyper-sensitized state of affairs within institutions and education. (This means that if you dare question the social and psychological basis of bring a drag queen or transsexual into a kindergarten classroom for a talk on LGBTQ rights then you are transphobic rather than seeking honest debate).
  • Government social services and social policy are saturated with these beliefs, the prevalence of which obviously varies from country, state, region and nation.
  • Social science that is informed by the above beliefs and disregards biology. The “Nature vs nurture” has actually been solved through the new sciences of epigenetics, neurology and psychoimmunology which have proven that it’s unsurprisingly, comprises both. Yet, some proponents of social science adhere to social constructivism that believes ALL is culturally conditioned and socially determined. This amounts to a pseudo-science from which many left-liberal minded commentators and educators continue to use as evidence to support their beliefs with catastrophic results.

Let’s look at one example of this (literal) PC programming from a British perspective.

You cannot listen to any radio or watch any television or internet media without being bombarded by this political correct ideology of radical left victimhood 24/7. If there is a television show then there must be one black presenter out of three. If there is a drama then there must be a storyline incorporating a gay tryst; a soap opera which must be liberally sprinkled with gay and lesbian relationships and sufficient amounts of “empowered” women, fighting “misogyny”. This is often in comparision to plenty of stereotypical men who are witless, weak, predatorial or murderous. Seldom is the woman anything other than a victim who beats the non-existent “patriarchy.” To tick every PC box a transgender storyline must be thrown in just to be sure that no viewer who is terminally offended that 0.9% of the population isn’t pandered to. If you listen to a radio show, particularly the BBC, you’ll have an endless parade of minority/diversity “appeal” elevating race and sexuality to a level of importance that bears no relationship to objective reality and the demographic majority of the population.

If you can be bothered to look at the mind pollution that passes for advertising on TV, then you’ll see the same PC pandering to an entirely unrealistic equality of representation with a perfect ratio of black/mixed race to white actors promoting fabric conditioner, food and banks cynically singing praises to the gender equality band wagon to obtain new customers. (I’ll be exploring these subjects in much greater depth in the future). This is not about ethnic minority rights or the rights of transgender folks, this is about fear-based ideology masquerading as tolerance. Yet, anyone would think that those of different ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations are the dominant groups over the majority population who are – horror of horrors – white and straight. Hypersensitivity to offence, so-called “rights” and clinging to diversity and equality quotas is killing free speech and elevating victimhood as the emotional currency of choice. The level of Institutionalised racism and sexual bigotry claimed by the above groups simply doesn’t stack up and doesn’t in any way merit this societal hysterisation.

Staying with the UK, as of 2011 the Census indicates that the population comprises 87% Caucasian, with Asians at just under 7%; whereas black or black British is just over 3% and Mixed Black British under 2%. Approximately 1% of the population is gay or lesbian and roughly 0.09% identify as transgender. But looking at mainstream media, talk shows, radio programmes, advertising and education, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that minority groups are not minorities at all but right up there in the high percentiles.

Minorities should be listened to and every effort made to condemn any kind of bigotry or racial discrimination. Sure, their are injustices and there will always be bigots and morons. But huge strides have been made. People generally just want to get on with their lives and treat each other as they would like to be treated. Nonetheless, the equalities industry and the dead horse flogging of its multiculturalism is now a form of thought control where people are terrified of giving honest opinions. This has repercussions for careers and peer group opinion if you dare to raise a more nuanced, alternative view.

One can also see how the spectre of such hyper-offence can favour those who have no qualms about using the race or sex card to exercise their own particular privileges. Positive discrimination for instance, ignores merit and ability in favour of a supposed institutionalised racial/gender/sexual orientation handicap, despite there being very little evidence this is true (except perhaps a tradition of racism in the metropolitian police – that we can all agree on). Yet, such a stance ultimately does no good for anyone if race and feminism are the abiding adjudicators.

Indoctrination, propaganda and economising on truth is not the way to elevate an unfair society. It merely creates resentment and emboldens precisely the kind of racism and sexual bigotry the civil rights movement worked so hard to avoid. When small numbers of the population begin to gain emotional capital from their perceived victimhood that goes way beyond genuine grievances and becomes the sin qua non of getting ahead in the world, then wearing your racial or sexual identity on your sleeve will only encourage an opposite reaction, especially when the facts surrounding one’s clamour for “equality” are highly debatable.

There is no question that there is class and elite privilege in Britain to which we are all subject regardless of social status, race and sexual orientation. Our enemy is not each other but those that stir up tribal hatreds and ridiculous “-phobic” labels and “-isms” underscored with paramoralisms and paralogical reasoning only to protect feelings and unresolved issues. This is clearly stirring up dark reactions that might have otherwise coasted along without awakening. It is this problem that is far more institutionalised, effectively hijacking young people’s consciences into dead-ends. No where can we see this unthinking reflex more blatantly than in media and entertainment.

This desperate bid to represent every race and minority under the sun so as not to cause “offence” is a product of the above ideology and ironically serves to divide rather than include. Such an over representation in the media and in social policy does not reflect demographic reality but a fear of not doing and saying the right thing lest you lose profits and/or peer group status by not following the equality industry’s dictates. Self-righteous virtue-signalling is de rigeur for all those wishing to be socially and culturally on the same page it seems. And that’s where the group-think begins to gain momentum, where truth and facts are irrelevant – only the dominance of victimhood, sanctified and weaponised. What’s more this will tip the extreme right into expressing its own fascism. You can’t get much more ironic than that, (though it is straight out of the Zionist Establishment handbook).

The above is just one example of this cultural china shop. Many young people have largely swallowed this nonsense believing themselves on the cutting edge of society’s conscience. My point being: who cares what race or sexuality you are? Are you really defined by how much melanin is in your skin or whether you find men or women attractive? Does the suffering of the past mean that we must remain vengeful and victimised in the present whilst demanding undue recompense and perpetual guilt from the ancestors of others? It’s only a small part of one’s relationship to the world. What about one’s quality of consciousness?  Is it not better to focus on how much we human beings have in common and to find solutions to assist each other in ways where everyone benefits? Again, that brings us back to community as the germinating antidote to corporatism and its internal strains of neo-marxist programming. **

2. Changes in teaching within education

These changes are largely influenced from the ideology listed above and old, a more “conservative”corporatist traditonalism based around undue testing and a very narrow idea of intelligence and education. Combine this with outcome-based education given an injection of support from the Obama administration and you have a recipe for educational disaster right across all stages of schooling and higher education. Although it varies from state to state in the US and from nation to nation in Europe, this rigid purview of testing combined with social constructivist science (including an overemphasis on cognitive psychology) has produced:

  • outcome-based common core curricula
  • accelerated learning by rote starting at kindergarten with increasing stress levels on young brains not equipped to deal with mathematical/logical impositions [3]
  • Reduction or absence of sport leading to poorer health and less socialisation [4]
  • Reduction or absence of art leading to absence of creative outlets and contribution to healthy cognitive/social development [5]
  • Reduction or absence of play in kindergarten which shows detrimental effects over a range of infant/child psychology [6]
  • Overall reliance on computer-based virtual learning.[7]

See also: Branding the Kids and Learning is Fun?

Which are parallel to and a cause of:

3. Total disconnection from the natural world

Although there is great work being done to re-connect children to nature and the environment our social systems continually push back against these initiatives. With a multitude of studies over the years confirming the obvious fact that immersion in nature – whether walking in a forest, gardening or play – is extremely important for our well-being – a growing disconnection is evident in our cultural products as well as education policies. [8] [9] Our lack of contact with nature, especially within urban environments and in combination with technology, is atrophying the five senses leading to cognitive decline and the disappearance of practical creativity and skills – including real world, critical thinking. [10] The coping strategies differ greatly between boys and girls depending on brain development and hardwired gender differences.[11]

4. Environmental toxins

We now have PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls) in every living organism on Earth. Humans are exposed to these chemicals through the drinking water, the food we eat and the air we breathe. Although banned since the 1970s, they stay in the environment and can accumulate in the fatty tissues of the human body with evidence that they can harm the immune system and contribute to the onset of cancer. [12] We are beginning to understand what  the combined effects of other endocrine disrupters may be doing to our minds and bodies, from the production and use of plastics; agrichemicals leaching from the land and pharmaceutical and medical drugs all finding their way into drinking water. Through numerous studies carried out on animals since the early 1990s, a wealth of empirical data shows that an array of endocrine disrupting chemicals are contributing to low sperm counts; infertility; genital deformities; hormonally triggered human cancers; early onset of puberty in children and neurological disorders such as hyperactivity and attention deficits. This avenue of research is also yielding definite linkages to the epidemic of obesity in children [13] as was well as developmental and reproductive problems in wildlife. Especially disturbing is how men and boys are in the front line of this industrial onslaught due to the feminizing nature of these synthetic chemicals, which are producing definite changes in the physiological and psychological complex of boys. [14] There may well be a link with the large spike in transgender and transsexual orientations in the last ten years.[15] 

5. Diet

The importance of diet cannot be overstated when it comes to the creation and maintenance of mind-body health and well-being. An overemphasis on carbohydrates, sugar, processed and junk food can lead to an array of mental illnesses and eventually the onset of certain auto-immune diseases in later life. New advances in the understanding of gut bacteria; good fats and the Mediterranean diet has produced tangible benefits for hundreds of thousands of people. The Paleo or hunter/gatherer regime; Ketogenic and low carb diets have all produced extraordinary results. [16] Each individual is different however, and much experimentation is needed to find the best fit. The very nature of food distribution, economics and the origins of agriculture and its subsequent development [17] needs drastic re-evaluation and transformation if we are to change our perception of food and well-being. [18] One of the best films I have seen on the importance of diet and what may be the optimal solution is The Magic Pill (2018) and the proven benefits of high (good) fat, medium protein and low carb diets. From losing weight, to combating schizophrenia; ameliorating Alziemer’s disease; boosting brain health; curing diabetes or ADHD and cancer prevention – a specific type of diet and exercise plays a vital role. [19] Right now, our relationship to food, combined with cumulative results of high stress, is a sure formula for disease. Children are telling us by their illnesses, that something has to change. An enormous set of peer-reviewed studies carried out by medical practitioners, nutritionists and health professionals are offering solutions. (See also: ;  World State Policies X: MONSANTO and Seeding the Future and Redesigning Nature).

6. Psychiatry and prescription drugs

The medicalisation and misdiagnosis of children’s reaction to Official Culture’s impositions has been going on for a long time. This is where the largely pseudoscience [20] of psychiatry in partnership with Big Pharma [21] continues to make huge profits and has disregarded and covered up new advances in mind-body healing due to this fact. Although psychiatry’s beginning’s were relatively useful, rooted in psychoanalysis and a genuine wish to serve their patients, the Bible of psychiatry – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) – is now an encyclopedia of mental illness that is virtually made up on the spot based on highly subjective criteria and pharmaceutical pay-offs. Edward Shorter of the Wall Street Journal summarised it thusly: “DSM-V accelerates the trend of making variants on the spectrum of everyday behavior into diseases, turning grief into depression, apprehension into anxiety, and boyishness into hyperactivity.” [22] The institutional corruption of psychiatry by pharmaceutical companies has been an acknowledged fact for at least a decade after various studies and investigations, [23] but what is less well-known is the fraudulent nature of so-called peer-reviewed medical science that is drip-fed to academics and the public. Now, it is all about money. Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-chief of the highly respected Lancet blew the lid of the whole sorry state of the medical establishment’s collusion with Big Pharma and corporatism declaring “research is unreliable at best, if not completely false, as in, fraudulent.” He went on to say: “Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” [24] What is more, the ease to which psychiatry has been ponerised is due to the myth of mental illness that it has ruthlessly pursued. We now have a situation where doctors, medical practioners and medical students are brainwashed by the field of psychiatry which has little, if anything to do with science or psychology. [25] This has produced a shocking rise in so-called mental illness in populations while ignoring the mind-body connection advances that could return a significant number of people to normal health without the need for toxic drugs, most of which only serve as a placebo.

“Throughout history, the family has been ‘the ultimate and only consistently subversive organization… the enduring permanent enemy of all hierarchies, churches and ideologies,’ “

Nikita Coulombe, quoting Ferdinand Mount

7. The break up of the family unit and the denigration of the father

Due in part to economics and to a large degree on the types of social and cultural engineering sourced from above. The availability of travel; reproductive technology;, a drop in fertility; secularism; feminism; more mothers moving into the labour force and same-sex unions have all contributed to this erosion. If the nuclear family is absent then so too the extended family. The latter could be the door into greater community but such an  extension is only healthy if it does not occur under duress where for example, grandparents, aunts and uncles are exploited out of necessity and/or lack of responsibility. The State has replaced the role of the extended family in many societies today. Yet, there is a vicious circle at work: the more marriages fail, and fathers become absent, the more children become dysfunctional and thus contributing to the break of family and community thus applying more pressure on social welfare. On top of this we have greater immigration on a system that already cannot cope. The nuclear family unit stretches back to the 13th Century and is uniquely child-centered thus offering stable foundations for growth if not subject to interference by State and its social directors. Sadly, this is not the case. The family unit is breaking down with often enforced extended families at best, and with no typical model to replace it. One might say that’s a move in the direction of creative, uninhibited change for the better. But a vacuum with no winning formula is not constructive. An overwhelming number of studies have confirmed the common sense knowledge that children do better psychologically, socially and economically when two parents are present. Parental separation or divorce is linked to a heightened risk of psychosomatic problems among the children in the family and only counterbalanced by whether or not the parents maintained cordial relations. [26] 

Consider the following UK statistics:

  • Children are increasingly raised by relations other than their parents [27]
  • One in four children is now brought up in a one-parent household, the vast majority of which are led by mothers. [28]
  • single-parent households nearly tripled from 4 per cent of the total to 11 per cent between 1971 and 2008. [29]
  • The percentage of households comprising the traditional nuclear family – a couple with children – fell from 52 per cent to 36 per cent over the same period. [30]
  • The number of married couples hit the lowest level, in real terms, since 1895, with 237,000 marriages in England and Wales in 2006, down from a peak of 471,000 during the Second World War. [31]
  • Some 1.66 million children were being brought up by an unmarried couple, up from one million 10 years ago. The number brought up by married parents dropped from 9.57 million to 8.32 million. [32]

And over in the USA:

  • four-in-ten births occur to women who are single or living with a non-marital partner.
  • 31% children younger than 6 had experienced a major change in their family or household structure, in the form of parental divorce, separation, marriage, cohabitation or death.
  • The share of children living in a two-parent household is at the lowest point in more than half a century
  • The share of children living with one parent stands at 26%, up from 22% in 2000 and just 9% in 1960.
  • less than half of children today are living with two parents who are both in their first marriage.
  • 39% of children will have had a mother in a cohabiting relationship by the time they turn 12; and by the time they turn 16, almost half (46%) will have experience with their mother cohabiting. [33]

The erosion of marriage and the rise of co-habitation is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the disappearance of many other related and constructive elements that make up society that cause the problems and which ultimately erode the concept and influence of The Big Three: (parents, family and community) with deleterious results for society as a whole. A notable and much underestimated factor is the gradual demonisation of the male and masculinity and the consequent diminution of the role of the father in family life. The absence of a male role model for children due to an increase in divorce rates and custody battles has inevitably seen fathers with zero rights when comes to access. Of course, there are injustices on both sides of the gender divide. Despite the emerging science of fatherhood and its importance, it is still not given anywhere near the analysis and awareness that is required thanks to the pervasive hysteria of feminism where women are always the victim demanding evermore “rights”.

According to The National Center for Fathering:  “children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens.” Consider these factoids:

  • Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families. [34]
  • Children living in female headed families with no spouse present had a poverty rate of 47.6 percent, over 4 times the rate in married-couple families. [35]
  • The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.” [36]
  • A study of 1,977 children age 3 and older living with a residential father or father figure found that children living with married biological parents had significantly fewer externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems than children living with at least one non-biological parent. [37]
  • Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide. [38]
  • Data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N= 2,111) was used to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ relationship changes between birth and age 3 on their children’s well being. Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Living in a single-mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions. [39]

And yet, although fathers are generally now spending 200% more time ‘actively engaged’ with their children than in the 1970s the support and understanding is non-existent. [40] For the large part feminism has played in the denigration and consequent decline of fatherhood and the family it’s worth reading Nikita Coulombe’s piece in Medium: ‘Why Feminism Wants to Dismantle the Family‘. Prior to reading, you might want to consider these facts:

8. The disappearance of parenting skills

With the break up of the family unit, the devaluation of fatherhood and therefore community, the skills of parenting passed down the family line is no longer so common. Some of the causes of the loss of good parenting include:

  • The culture of disrespect and a lack of balanced authority. A Lack of rules, boundaries and discipline leads to a fragile personality.
  • Peer groups now replace parents as social guidance. Unconditional love and acceptance cannot be found in peer groups or technology. The parents are not the child’s “friend.” They are the primary care-givers and role models for a host of values which must be taught. That means children and teens will not always like you, indeed may even hate you for exerting discipline. The values promoted in our Official Culture are in direct opposition to healthy parenting and is leading to “…the breaking of bonds across generations so that kids now value the opinions of same age peers or their own self-constructed self-concept more than they care about the good regard of their parents and other adults.” [42]
  • Lack of education on developmental stages of childhood and therefore parenting styles –The influence of “helicopter” / “lawnmower” parenting on the one hand and “permissive parenting” on the other has produced a psychological schism in children with real world results. The loss of good parenting has played a part in creating stress, depression, anxiety and low academic achievement. Most of all, it has produced endemic levels of psychological fragility and entitlement.
  • The obesity epidemic (See Diet and Environmental Toxins)
  • Over medication (See Psychiatry)
  • Overscheduling and overtesting (See Changes in teaching)

In combination with postmodern/neo-Marxist ideology beliefs listed above, this has produced a disorientation of gender roles and confusion around relationships and relating. This has further contributed to the erosion of community alongside larger drivers of economics and agribusiness.

As we shall see in a forthcoming post, without good parenting this can potentially disrupt childhood neurologically or psychoimmunologically. A child’s biography is rooted in biology and its disruption correlates to mental and physical disease in adult life. A healthy family life is integral to the proper development of the child and if inadequate or chaotic can determine the future of the children in question. Unfortunately, the role of stress is only just beginning to be understood. Societies at present foster enormous stress as a biochemical product of a deep rooted and an often unconscious need to survive. The rules of the State and its corporate extensions personified in economics, agribusiness, Big Pharma, education, health and polity all exact a heavy toll on the collective consciousness. A closer and extended family assigned their proper roles encourages the correct developmental template. Absent fathers, divorce, mental illness and a legion of other challenges all impact the child’s sense of self and brain development. (See: The Hissy Fit Generation and the Loss of Free Speech IV: The Narcissism Factor (2))

9. Technology

Much has been written about the influences of technology elsewhere in this blog so I’ll only include a brief summary here. These “normative” values sourced from pseudo-science and postmodernist philosophies are being channelled through technology as the technological and transhumanist drive to domesticate the human mind toward a sensate technocracy essentially providing a virtual focus for young minds already delinked from nature and reality:

  • Hollywood – movies that amount to propaganda and subtle mass mind control or those films which unintentionally run with the dominate narrative of the day, thereby reinforcing it in the minds of the young as not only “normal” but as a prerequisite for adaptation to Official Culture. (See: Lights, Camera, Reaction!
  • Social media – it’s effects on neurological health and well-being is well-known aside from operating as a vast data mining operations for  intelligence and the surveillance state. (See: The Hissy Fit Generation and The Loss of Fee Speech VI: The Jekyell & Hyde of Social Media)
  • Smart society: endless gadgets with built-in obsolescence to cater for leisure, domestic utilities and the Internet Of Things (IoT) as the interface and intermediary to reality. Virtual reality, Artificial intelligence through a transhumanist ethos is the selling point. (See: Technocracy)
  • Television/internet – reality TV + pop culture programming and celebration of consumerism, bodycentrism, narcissism and the group-think materialist conformity it sells. (See Virtuality)
  • Video games – Despite studies suggesting that video games can enhance cognitive reflexes and spatial awareness this does not obviate the far more detrimental effects to young brains and behaviour. Studies have conclusively proven that developing brains are prone to anxiety, short-temper/rage, apathy, addiction and depressive tendencies. (See Virtuality)

10. Developmental Trauma and Toxic stress

As a result of emotional, mental and physical abuse; neglect and deprivation. The experiences of young and old in our current culture as outlined above may lead to such an imbalance which is transmitted to the next generation. If this is correct, then the vagaries of psychological distress we are seeing are a very real accumulation of psychic disease, which often translates in later life in the body as an autoimmune disease, not withstanding a poor diet. Similarly, what may be a huge feature in the expression of radicalism on both left and right are the undiagnosed effects of developmental trauma or toxic stress from early in childhood and the formative years. The Adverse Child Experiences Study (ACE) is not some attempt to justify snowflake status or the coddling of children. It is a ground-breaking public health research study which shows clear, verifiable links between childhood adversity and the adult onset of a range of diseases and mental health disorders.[43] Childhood adversity should not be confused with the normal challenges that we must all face as we grow up. Chronic stress, unpredictable stressors, a persistent fear for one’s life, narcissistic parents, neglect and emotional abuse all come under the ACE umbrella. However, all disease is multifactorial. ACE experiences has a lot in common with Developmental Trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but it not quite the same. ACE indicators of childhood adversity can lead to a far greater range of physical and emotional problems which are not the same as the symptoms of trauma, though they often overlap. These findings are also not intended to blame the parents nor are they to make excuses for a child’s bad behaviour. This new and important research offers greater understanding of why young people are suffering and to take us one step closer to the implementation of lasting solutions.  (More on this in a future post in this series).

11. Personal responsibility vs entitlement

This may seem glib, but to dig a path back to responsibility is a command decision. Once we are in the position to do something about our predicament we are presented with a choice: to give up and stay locked into the past or to go on. Yes, there are a multitude of poisonous influences out there seeking to keep us miserable, trapped and unfulfilled. Yet, there is only so much mileage in blaming others and external circumstances – however justified – before the realisation dawns: The buck stops with us. We can revel in victimhood as a learned response that keeps us chained to the pain, or we can build the courage to leave the past behind and go forward into the unknown. That choice no-one else can make; there is no one there to make that decision for us. We really are the masters of our own destinies the moment we choose to be in-dependent, seek the knowledge that can open us to healing and develop receptivity to input. And growth is all the more powerful if it comes from an understanding of why we suffered and how it can be transformed. To use a crude metaphor, negative experiences are much like the fertiliser added to the garden to make it grow. The trick is not to fixate on that stinkiness which can keep us rooted in past stresses and traumas and to not let the pesky weeds of self-sabotage choke off our chances for renewal. As long as you have the sunshine and water of social support one’s own true nature will begin to blossom. Maybe our definitions of success will change as we disengage from the precepts and parameters of Official Culture, but that’s all part of the process we have set in motion. None of us are entitled to anything. The universe doesn’t care one iota for our little ideas about the kind of identity we have chosen to wear. All it is attuned toward is whether we have the potential to allow it’s creativity to grow through us. Not much chance of that if we think we know better than Life itself by refusing to accept the unknown and uncertainty.  Hence the the philosophy of letting go or surrendering. Not as a sign of weakness or apathy but as a strategic retreat to reclaim responsibility for our own unique path. And whether conscious or unconscious, that is a quest most us have in common.

***

The epidemic of isolation and loneliness is both a cause and an effect of all the above and can only increase as each of these factors continue on their present trajectory.

These eleven factors are the result of broader and historically entrenched effects of corporatism, their economics and the rise of the Deep State.  Culture wars of this kind benefit the power brokers since the left radicalism keeps the young distracted on the non-issues which funnels more minds into a pervasive consumerist ethos whilst shielding analysis of primary societal challenges such as the Four Drivers of the Overworld.

Religious fundamentalism also plays a long-known historic role in shaping societies, whether from an Islamic or Judeo-Christian source. These beliefs provide the kind of escapist meaning and black and white certainty, which, if not being used by the state to foster terrorism, ultimately separates and demarcates communities due to its brittle, unyielding authoritarian nature. Its appeal can offer a stable, moral certitude sourced from distorted myths and archetypes which promote containment and restriction rather than spiritual freedom. Any fundamentalism is pathological but such an influence is not a cause in our present context, but may act as a refuge and is thus an effect. Similarly, drugs and alcohol abuse are often the damaging effects of possible childhood abuse and/or various levels of trauma or toxic stress but they do not appear to be a root cause, rather a symptom of the initial imbalance and a habit that occurs later in later stages of teenage or early adulthood.  In other words, they are the effect of an initial imbalance and distortion of childhood development or infancy dependent on personality disorders and possible epigenetic inheritance. Loneliness and isolation are exacerbated by addiction, technology and how the State and society is organised along economic parameters which devalue community in favour of corporatism and its narrow definition of commercial success.

Finally, all the above can be said to be clear signs of advanced ponerogenesis; pathogenic symptoms of long-term institutionalised psychopathy and its sub-categories of pathology causing mass psychological distress from the top down. When centres of higher education are targeted alongside moral decay, you can be sure that it signals hierarchical systems tipping toward tyranny and a culture in decline.

Whilst the spectre of social engineering and mass mind control weaves in and out of these listed influences and forms an important part in the shaping of national and global psychology, the focus here is on standard societal beliefs which become drivers, no doubt parallel to and stimulated more esoteric forms of manipulation based on a number of Establishment agendas. To repeat: the real battleground is through our minds and most notably through the minds of the young – our future. Which brings us back to the gross result: a loss of meaning and purpose: the harbingers of mental illness, with its moral and identity disorientation.

So, what can we do combat this assault?

I hope to try and explore that question later on.  In the next post we’ll take a brief detour to check our moral compass and how our ideas of what constitutes happiness and progress is seriously skewed by some of the factors mentioned above.

 

*  = For more information how such communities might work please go to the Recommended Books section and refer to “Community/Self-Sufficiency.”

** Connected to the above are some beliefs within the New Age or Human Potential Movement which have fed into the philosophy of some postmodernist thought in the same way Fabian socialism fused with Theosophy and the later breakaway occultism of the Alice bailey teachings. The common ground is subjectivity, feeling, gender fluidity/alchemical hermaphroditism; moral relativity and the rejection of objective truth. Postmodernists of social determinism and constructionism seek sanctuary in philosophical-infused intellect whilst the new age religion offers another point of access, ostensibly through feelings and the “heart”. In general, each social stream rejects critical thinking and worships subjectivity; embraces non-binary, gender fluidity and an escape away from biological reality. As such, many of the new age modalities present self-calming balms to true self-development which fosters a denial of negative elements within the psyche (the shadow) the recognition and integration of which is essential to self-growth. It thus represents a pied piper operation of spiritual somnambulism and a counterfeit version of transformation). More on all the above in future posts.

Notes

[1] p.34; Rauch, Jonathan, The Happiness Curve (2018)
[2] ‘Science Suggests Access To Nature Is Essential To Human Health’ Science Daily, February 19, 2009| Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Summary: Considerable research supports the idea that nature is essential to the physical, psychological and social well-being of the human animal.| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217092758.htm
[3] ‘More Testing, Less Play: Study Finds Higher Expectations For Kindergartners’ National Public Radio Inc. npr.org, By Anya Kamenetz and Elissa Nadworny, June 21st, 2016 – https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/06/21/481404169/more-testing-less-play-study-finds-higher-expectations-for-kindergartners | ‘Children as young as six ‘stressed’ about exams and tests’ By Judith Burns, BBC News, April 6th 2016. – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35940084 | ‘Why pushing kids to learn too much too soon is counterproductive’ By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, August 17th 2015 – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/17/why-pushing-kids-to-learn-too-much-too-soon-is-counterproductive/?utm_term=.cd38db48419a| See also: ‘We Need Less Testing and More Learning In Schools’: http://lesstestingmorelearning.com/learn-more/
[4] ‘Youth sports study: Declining participation, rising costs and unqualified coaches’ by Jacob Bogage,Washington Post, September 6, 2017 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/recruiting-insider/wp/2017/09/06/youth-sports-study-declining-participation-rising-costs-and-unqualified-coaches/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.09f5eee698ef |’Drop in school sport support blamed on funding cuts’ By Owen Gibson, July 18th 2012, The Guardian | https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/jul/18/school-sport-drop-funding-cuts | Sports in Schools initiative: http://www.sportsinschools.org/ | ‘How Sports Help Decrease the Risk of Teen Substance Abuse’ By Maegan Olmstead, Jan 8, 2016 | https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/health/how-sports-help-decrease-the-risk-of-teen-substance-abuse/ | ‘Lack of physical activity among girls leading to poor mental health and low aspirations, warn experts’ By May Bulman, The Independent (UK), 30 January 2018.
[5] ‘Devastating’ decline of arts in schools surges on’ Entries for GCSE arts subjects are down 9% on 2016, while entries for EBacc subjects are up 9% in the same period’ – Arts Professional (UK) – https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/news/devastating-decline-arts-schools-surges | ‘The importance of creative arts in early childhood classrooms’ By Hannah Mills, Child Care Quarterly – https://www.childcarequarterly.com/pdf/summer14_arts.pdf | ‘The Importance of The Creative Arts for Children and Teens’ The Child Development Institute – https://childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/multiple_intelligences/the-importance-of-the-creative-arts-for-children-and-teens/#.W03KJcInaM8 | ‘Creative subjects being cut in schools across the UK’ By Maddy Shaw Roberts, Classic FM, January 30th 2018 – https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/creative-subjects-cut-in-schools/ | ”The devastating decline of the arts in schools will hit the poorest children the hardest’ -The squeeze on the arts in state education suggests that we may be heading back to class-based culture wars in which the arts are for certain classes only, writes one leading educationist,By Maggie Atkinson, tes.com 06 November 2016 – https://www.tes.com/news/devastating-decline-arts-schools-will-hit-poorest-children-hardest
[6] ‘The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds’ By Kenneth R. Ginsburg and the Committee on Communications and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health | Pediatrics January 2007, VOLUME 119 / ISSUE 1  From the American Academy of Pediatrics | http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/119/1/182 | ’10 Reasons Why Play Is Important’ National Literary Trust – https://literacytrust.org.uk/resources/10-reasons-why-play-important/ | ‘The Importance of Play’- AAP advises making play a significant part of a child’s life to nurture happiness, development, education, and parent-child bonding, By Karin Bilich from Parents Magazine, – https://www.parents.com/parents-magazine
[7] ‘Computers in schools could do more harm than good’ – Ignoring the dangers facing the screen generation is a dangerous approach By Susan Greenfield, The Telegraph, 12 Feb 2010 –  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7220021/Computers-in-schools-could-do-more-harm-than-good.html | ‘Is Our Growing Reliance On Technology in the Classroom Healthy?’ By Stephanie Petit, edu.stemjobs.com, 29 May 2015 –  http://edu.stemjobs.com/growing-reliance-technology-classroom-healthy/ | ‘Virtual Schools Bring Real Concerns About Quality’ By Anya Kamenetz, National Publicv Radio/nrp.org Feb. 2nd 2015.
[8] Nabhan; Gary Paul;The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places (Concord Library)30 Apr 1995 | ‘What Happens When We Reconnect with Nature’ Research is discovering all the different ways that nature benefits our well-being, health, and relationships. Greater Good Magazine, By Kristophe Green, Dacher Keltner | March 1, 2017 | https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_happens_when_we_reconnect_with_nature | ‘A Growing Disconnection From Nature Is Evident in Cultural Products’ Perspectives On Psychological Science, Volume: 12 issue: 2, page(s): 258-269, Article first published online: March 27, 2017; Issue published: March 1, 2017 – https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616662473 by Selin Kesebir, Pelin Kesebir, London Business School, United Kingdom, Center for Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
[9] ‘How Modern Life Became Disconnected from Nature’ Since the 1950s, research suggests, we have become more and more distanced from nature and its life-giving benefits. Greater Good Magazine, By Selin Kesebir, Pelin Kesebir | September 20, 2017 – https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_modern_life_became_disconnected_from_nature | ‘Interaction with Nature During the Middle Years: Its Importance to Children’s Development & Nature’s Future’ By Randy White, 2004 White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group | https://www.whitehutchinson.com/children/articles/nature.shtml
[10] ‘Why it’s dangerous to outsource our critical thinking to computers’ -It is crucial for a resilient democracy that we better understand how Google and Facebook are changing the way we think, interact and behave, Evan Selinger and Brett Frischmann, The Guardian, 10 Dec 2016 – https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/10/google-facebook-critical-thinking-computers | ‘Is technology producing a decline in critical thinking and analysis? – Studies shed light on multi-tasking, video games and learning By Stuart Wolpert, Jan 27, 2009 UCLA Newsroom, January 27, 2009 – http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/is-technology-producing-a-decline-79127.
[11] Sax; Leonard, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences (2006)
[12] Colborn, Dumanoski,and Peterson Meyers; Our Stolen Future (1996)
[13] ‘Endocrine Disruptors Leading to Obesity and Related Diseases,’Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2017 Oct; 14(10): 1282. Published online 2017 Oct 24. 10.3390/ijerph14101282US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
[14] pp. 99-115; Sax; Leonard, Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving The Growing Epidemic Of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (2007)
[15] ‘Transgender Associations and Possible Etiology: A Literature Review’ Monitoring Editor: Alexander Muacevic and John R Adler; Fatima Saleem and Syed W Rizvi; Cureus. 2017 Dec; 9(12): e1984. Published online 2017 Dec 24. 10.7759/cureus.1984  | ‘Weapons Of Mass Feminization’ By Jennie Ann Freiman MD, GreenMedInfo.com January 31st 2017 – http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/weapons-mass-feminization
[16] Diet research of the cassiopaea forum – A summary of the science background’ – https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tJMeWDrRBii6VWhB_Iy2nWJqnxrhz70VvFuH7j-SZO4/edit |  ‘Mediterranean diet may also help stop diabetes’ By Michael Kahn, News Daily, 31 May 2008.
[17] ‘Origins of Agriculture – Did Civilization Arise to Deliver a Fix?’ By Greg Wadley & Angus Martin, sott.net, Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne 02 Dec 2007 – https://www.sott.net/article/144687-Origins-of-Agriculture-Did-Civilization-Arise-to-Deliver-a-Fix |  ‘Original ‘Fall of Eden’? Agriculture is a “profoundly unnatural activity” and the “worst mistake in human history” ‘ By Sanjida O’Connell, Telegraph, 23 Jun 2009.
[18] ‘The American Diet and The Industrial Food Complex’ Activist Post, 13 Aug 2012 – http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/the-american-diet-and-industrial-food.html
[19]’High fat/low carb diet could combat schizophrenia’ ScienceDaily, 17 Dec 2015 – https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151217111711.htm | ‘Mediterranean Diet May Cut Alzheimer’s Risk’ Healthday News, 10 Oct 2006 – https://www.sott.net/article/120538-Mediterranean-Diet-May-Cut-Alzheimers-Risk | ‘Extensive clinical research indicates: Low-carbohydrate diet reduced inflammation with type 2 diabetes’ By Lena Jonasson, Linköping University,08 May 2014 – https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-05/lu-ldr050814.php |  ‘Los Angeles Times Reports on Patients Eliminating Diabetes Medication Through Diet and Exercise’ By David Gutierrez, Natural News, 30 Mar 2010 – https://www.naturalnews.com/028471_diabetes_prevention.html
[20] ‘Inside the pseudo-scientific fraud of psychiatry’ by Jon Rappoport, nomorefakenews.com,09 Sep 2014 – https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/vaccine-fraud-what-about-psychiatric-fraud-staggering/ See also:Davis; James,Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good (2014) and Whitiker; Robert and Cosgrove; Lisa – Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform(2015)
[21] ‘The drugs may be the problem: Inconvenient truths about big pharma and the psychiatric industry’  by Gary G. Kohls, MD, The PPJ Gazette, 04 Oct 2016 – https://www.sott.net/article/330132-The-drugs-may-be-the-problem-Inconvenient-truths-about-big-pharma-and-the-psychiatric-industry
[22] ‘Why Psychiatry Needs Therapy’ – A manual’s draft reflects how diagnoses have grown foggier, drugs more ineffective’ By Edward Shorter

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.