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Kenneth
Thomas
Kenneth
Thomas of Murray is a psychologist who treats court-referred
participants in domestic violence.
To
Change the World
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here to listen to the commentary.
Do you want to change the world?
I look around my wonderful hometown and I see people feeling
separate, different and disconnected. I see us competing
and comparing ourselves rather than knowing ourselves as
equal in value to any other. We're not pulling together
very well. We're busy trying to get what we deserve; and
therein lies the big problem - deservedness. You see, deservedness
is an attitude. "I did right by you, now you owe me
something; I deserve something from you. There's no love
in that, no pulling together. And so we struggle over who's
up and who's down.
We're shocked when one of our own
starts killing as a solution; killing, of course, being
the granddaddy of all solutions. We do this as a nation
(consider the Civil War, Vietnam, the reelection of "W")
and we do it as a state (consider the death penalty), and
some millions of us have firearms in our possession - just
in case there is an opportunity to do it as individuals.
One of the solutions being offered
in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre is to arm the
student body. This solution seems to suggest that violence
will prevent violence. That's absurd, of course. Violence
perpetuates violence. End of discussion.
Parents, teachers, supervisors and
others in dominant roles do a lot of violence against those
in lesser roles. When Sr. Mary Romunda, my 8th grade teacher,
slapped my face stating: "Lower your eyes, boy."
Then when she slapped me again a few seconds later stating:
"Look at me when I speak to you boy," she was
abusing me. When I slapped my 16 year old son's face when
he called his mother a "bitch," I was abusing
the power that I actually had while he was responding to
his perceived powerlessness, and my act fostered and encouraged
his sense of powerlessness.
The lucky child who grows up in a
high-functioning family receives personal power merely by
belonging to that family. He experiences the feelings of
belonging and of significance, which are vital to the acquisition
or personal power. Belonging and significance are two seemingly
disparate feelings, since one is accomplished through nurturing
attention and the other through independence and sovereignty.
But the two are yoked together. You must have one to obtain
the other.
There are two other sources of personal
power: control of others, such as with a gun, and control
of self, through self-knowledge.
An abused child is told by word and
act that he is bad, ugly, uncontrollable, and unlovable.
This is emotional abuse and the worst form of violence.
The victim of this form of violence tends to blame himself,
to take responsibility for the abuse, to feel a significant
sense of guilt, shame, humiliation, and to suffer an extreme
sense of isolation. Many of us come out of our early developmental
years unable to cope, unable to make things work. The best
some can do is to survive. They develop a survival style
that keeps them going even though it perpetuates dysfunction.
These people become abusers, part of the problem, part of
the violence in our culture.
We want the world to change. We can't
help but see the problem, but it is easier to see in others
than in self. The answer is to take ownership of our place
in the problem. Say to yourself: I am responsible. I am
what I am, but I can choose better how to be myself. I know
from experience that I can change the world, by changing.
It turns out that the better I get, the better those around
me get. We each have within us the resources we need to
change. We can become good choice makers rather than persons
determined by circumstances. Our world will not get better
because of a new mood altering drug or a winning sports
team. Our world will change because I change. That goes
for each of us.
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