A.R. Mitchell's Blog, page 7
August 1, 2024
Arts, Entertainment, Media
On to my favorite - and probably the mountain with the most influence - Arts, Entertainment and Media! (Some people include sports in this mountain as well because to them its a form of entertainment and it generates a lot of media related money.)
I say this is the most influential mountain because it clearly story based. But who tells those stories?
As of right now - these movies, television series, and news media are an industry worth billions. Entertainment has never been a backyard industry - although storytelling at its most ancient and basic has always been and will forever continue to be a backyard industry.
A quick history of storytelling….
Storytelling started around the campfires and rock shelters of prehistory. It was a way to bring a community or family together as well as pass on important knowledge like, “Don’t eat the toxic mushrooms… Og did it and we thought he was a goner. I don’t think his mind ever came back from that trip.” And to tell family legacy genealogies and stories, like who was related to who, how we got here, and religious beliefs. These stories became the foundations of civilizations.
It was often done by one or two people who were the history keepers of the tribe or extended family. Most of these stories were kept in the storyteller’s head and passed on to the people around them. So the children who heard the stories and had the memories, could pass it down to their kids and grandchildren.
Eventually people groups got together and formed communities of shared interests, beliefs and created more permanent living situations. Archaeologists aren’t sure how this happened or who decided what. But soon after the settling of people groups - often called the rise of agriculture, people invented writing to keep track of their growing resources. One of these growing resources included knowledge. It was too much for one or two elders to keep in their heads - so writing was invented.
With these writing methods the stories were preserved, added to and expanded. Then they became legends, myths and laws. From that point the stories were controlled by who could tell them, who could write them down, and how far those stories could travel.
There’s an ancient legend from Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) that went on the trade routes to India and China. It may have even influenced Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cowherd_and_the_Weaver_Girl. Apologies, I can’t find the site that examined its travel through the trade routes from Mesopotamia to India and then to China.)
Today, if I upload a story to the internet, it can cover the entire world within minutes - provided the people looking for it have internet access. YouTube, social media, podcasts, novel sharing sites like Wattpad, and other streaming services do the same thing. But the vast majority of people are still watching the same big budget shows throughout the world, because these big budgets can pay to have their stuff splashed all over the place. And the celebrities that star in them have fan bases that treat their favorite celebrity news like an addictive drug.
Which unfortunately means that those movie creators have a larger influence… so their stories get consumed more often and become culture. This isn’t just Hollywood - China is massive consumer of blockbuster movies, so much so that a movie that creates controversy by not adhering to what China wants - is often doomed for failure. Top Gun 2 - showed that this isn’t always the case, but that is probably a case where a big name (Tom Cruise), a big budget for special effects, combined with a solid script and controversy made people want to see it.
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July 25, 2024
Control
Last week I said that paranoia becomes the higher power that a leader serves when their needs make the people angry. And that forms a religion called ‘control’.
Put a different way…
Paranoia creates the need for control. Control creates totalitarianism - which runs off fear. So its essentially an exchange of ruler’s fears to people’s fears. The leaders pass their fear onto the people. And when you have a leader who is hanging onto their control by force - you get a system of government that looks like a national or international domestic violence relationship.
Remember our lesson on cults? (link)
Some people consider a domestic violence relationship a form of a cult…
Remember the bullies on the playground…? (link)
They learned they could get what they wanted through violence - not by listening and seeing others needs. Others needs are threats to their own.
Paranoid leaders who put their needs above everyone else’s - turn into bullies. This is true from the playground, up to the global groups.
So, what’s the solution?
Paranoid leaders would have you believe that hiding in their secure palaces and government buildings is the solution. They would also have you believe that they can solve it by increasing control, increasing censorship - which is a form narrative control and propaganda. I wrote a whole book on narrative control titled, ‘Your Story is Not an Agenda.’
Your Story is Not An Agenda (Amazon)
And as a final straw, resorting to force to silence the leaders among the people.
As most of us know - this sounds like a violent revolt and outright war.
The important question is how to stop this?
And that’s by taking action and doing what you can with the talents that you have. If leaders aren’t listening to you, then you need to find new leaders. It won’t just be one person - it will have to be a team. That team will need to get into a position like William Penn, so that they can be heard, they can work together, and they can create a new and better place to live in.
This leadership team will have shared goals, shared values, and enough of an ability to listen and prioritize their team’s main goal to change things for the better. And they will have to have the determination to go into a system that will not be friendly to them, find the players in that system who they can count on and then stand firm as the system crumbles to a point where the good and just can be the foundations.
If done well… power shifts can occur without civil unrest and unlawful activities… but it is a long bumpy curving treacherous climb. But there are points in history where leadership makes all the difference. And that leader - will always have a team behind them.
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July 18, 2024
Tipping the Balance of Power
Last week I mentioned that the ruler’s needs verses the people’s needs is what makes a government work. And this sounds like a democracy tidbit - but historically, when people can’t feed their families - under any system of government - they revolt.
Interestingly enough - in a revolt like this the rebel leaders often turn to a democracy type government.
There’s some seriously wild history of this phenomena…
The French Revolution was the background for beheading of Marie Antoinette a spoiled queen child (she was about 16) who said of her starving subjects, “Let them eat cake!”
They executed her for that because she didn’t have enough empathy to realize what her people needed. She wasn’t listening.
This revolution was part of a series of conflicts where the power of ‘divine right to rule’ was tested. Out of a conflict at the same time - came the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence.
The quest for independence in the Thirteen Colonies who would later become the United States of America, started with the British not caring to listen to their colonists. The British were focused on profit from the lands they considered theirs, and it was profit at any means - including high taxes. When the United States Colonists were faced with paying their taxes or feeding their families and keeping their businesses afloat - they chose revolution.
They chose this path because they had tried to make their voices heard - and were openly ignored. It wasn’t just a flip the switch decision. It was a long calculated process of consistent results where the colonists needs were ignored.
This methodology of ‘ruler puts their needs over the people’s needs’ always leads to conflict. As modern history panned out - divine right of kings and the kings answering to a god - disappeared. But the idea of a ‘right to rule’ continued because of power imbalances. The king had an army. The people had farm tools.
And then the women revolt….
The French Revolution was started with women armed with farm tools marching into the cities because they couldn’t feed their kids.
Russia in 1921, just after the end of World War I, was nearly a democracy because women with farm tools fought the czar’s (king) army, and their sons on the front lines of World War I quit the international war and went to help mom. This is called the Kronstadt rebellion.
Its the moment where the common people of Russia almost created their own Declaration of Independence, but it ultimately failed because the Communist forces were prepared to fight and the farmers had been starved and killed to the point where they couldn’t sustain a battle.
China, under British rule had a movement for democracy - but because the Japanese during World War II took over China from the British colonists, the democracy movement was pushed to the lower populated and lower resource holding areas of the country, and post-World War II, the forces were so scattered that they couldn’t move successfully against Mao and China ended up communist.
But the peoples needs verses the ruler’s needs doesn’t end with communist or totalitarian systems.
Communism was supposed to cure this divide by equalizing everything. And wherever its implemented - it fails, because the people who run it, are the same people who started the revolution. They know how to get things done with violence and force. This isn’t a skill that’s easily put aside… because those who survive the revolutions and power shifts do it because they’re paranoid. Hypervigilance is a survival skill that if not held in check leads to paranoia.
Paranoia always puts your needs above everyone else. Its never safe enough to see someone else’s point of view because you might be wrong. And in the case of revolutions - if you’re wrong - you’re dead.
Essentially, paranoia becomes the higher power that a leader serves when their needs make the people angry. And that forms a religion called ‘control’.
If it helps… here’s that shown in the Star Wars spinoff Andor…
(There is some language in violence, but I think its important, because sometimes story speaks louder than the facts.)
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July 11, 2024
Balance of Power vs. Divine Right to Rule
Last week, we saw that government and religion could co-exist and it could also create a toxic situation (most colonial actions) or a more positive situation (William Penn’s dealings with the indigenous tribes of Pennsylvania).
Most ancient cultures were like this. The king was considered to be a son of a god and they had ‘divine right to rule’. Societies’ law codes came from their religious texts… and for thousands of years… this worked.
It didn’t always stop wars and rebellions, but there was a deep connection between the royalty and how they were in authority because a higher power wanted them in charge. It also went the opposite way - the royalty had to obey the higher power, which meant the priests who spoke accurately for the gods had serious religious influence on state affairs.
But the royalty were often out of touch with the people they were supposed to be looking after. And this gave rise to democracy and councils.
Many smaller extended family groups and tribes had elder councils where leadership decisions were made. (You see this a lot in indigenous cultures who are often extended family groups and tribes.)
Democracy as we know it came from the ancient Greeks and Romans, but even they ended up accidentally (or on purpose?) voting themselves into a totalitarian system where the emperor was a literal god.
As you can see, even the Greeks and Romans didn’t manage to get away from religion in their government. But the ruler’s needs verses the normal people’s needs - that is what makes a government work. The idea in democracies is to not let one person, or group of people have too much power over other groups. This is referred to as a balance of power. The concept of balance of power was in opposition to divine right to rule.
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July 4, 2024
Government & Law
Government & Law
In the United States we’re having an election year, so I wanted to talk about government, because we’re all going to be sick of it by November. Just being honest.
July 4th is considered the birthday of the United States of America. In reality - it was one of many colonies turned into countries that Britain took over for resources.
When Britain and other countries (usually European… France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and many more) went to explore new lands, they targeted places with resources that could help enrich them. With these traders and mercenary soldiers for hire came missionaries.
Its always debatable how dedicated to God these missionaries were. Especially considering most of them were Christian or Catholic. Both these belief systems fall under the foundational teachings of Jesus of Nazareth… which came out of the Jewish Torah. Both Christianity and Judaism were supposed to influence other nations for their God. (YHWH, or Father God, as Jesus often prayed)
Christianity was supposed to change culture. Judaism was supposed to change culture - they were supposed to be a nation of priests to influence other nations.
Remember our conversation about systems and how much we can or can’t change them?
If these missionaries were truly dedicated to their beliefs of Judaeo-Christianity - they would have been working on changing the behavior of the mercenaries. Remember, they traveled by ships… so it was literally a captive audience. And the missionaries couldn’t be annoying in their efforts because it might cost them their lives.
But we don’t see merciful mercenaries. We see furious missionaries who are torturing people until they convert.
The religion that was supposed to save people from hell - had become hell.
Contrast this with also Christian Quaker William Penn. He was given a land grant by the king. He named it Penn’s Woods. This land grant later became the state of Pennsylvania. William Penn worked to keep the peace and create mutual benefit for the established indigenous peoples of Penn’s Woods. It didn’t always work, but because Quakers adhered to pacifism and holy respect for life. The colonists and Indians relations weren’t perfect and they weren’t without double dealing, but the bloodshed was minimized by William Penn’s empathetic efforts and emphasis on fairness and shared beliefs. (https://explorepahistory.com/story.php?storyId=1-9-3&chapter=3)
This is an example of how one man’s religious beliefs systems impacted another nation (the indigenous peoples of Pennsylvania) and it leads us into how government and religion interact.
And, I know that will potentially frighten people who aren’t religious, or don’t want government and religion to mix, and that’s understandable and we’ll cover that next week.
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June 27, 2024
Toxic Leadership Traits
Toxic leadership Traits
Last week I mentioned some patterns of control… and I forgot to give a topic warning for this week. These patterns of control for toxic leadership show up in all levels of society - from totalitarian governments all the way down to unhealthy relationships.
If you feel like this list would potentially bring up some situational ick for you, you don’t have to read beyond the line below.
If you want to continue you can. It’s simply a list. I tried to keep things vague but detailed enough to spot if you encounter it.
Toxic Leadership Traits
Controlling things that they have no business controlling
Outlawing questions and debate
3. US versus THEM mentality
4. Spewing hate on a group because they exist (if the group does bad things and they’re talking about bad things that this group has done, this isn’t hate… I’m talking about things like hating people for a certain body trait… ie: physical feature that isn’t changeable and is often tied to an ethnic or cultural identity, religion or gender)
5. Hating or shaming you for not knowing their culture
6. Hating on weaker members of their society
7. Hypocrisy (you have to follow rules but they don’t)
8. Claiming elitism because they exist and they’re better than all those other people
9. Disowning people who leave (as in, “they left the fold and are damned, and in order for you to stay in the fold… you must never speak or see them again.”)
10. Blocking you from leaving
11. Snitch and spying culture
12. Culture of secrecy
13. Possible inner circle and rituals
14. Rituals are demeaning or abusive
15. Leaders are high in sociopathic and narcissistic traits
16. Controlling beliefs that manipulate you or others into abusive situations
17. Lack of privacy
18. Physical demands of deprivation (sleep deprivation, food deprivation)
19. Lack of honesty or integrity especially when dealing with less important issues and people who are not in power or leadership
20. When you call them out on their behavior you are the problem
I could probably do a whole series on cults, and toxic leadership but that’s not my topic for this year.
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June 20, 2024
Patterns of Control
Ok. It’s gonna be a tough topic today, so I want to give a few warnings…
We’re going to be talking about cults and how they manipulate people. I bring this up because these are tough things to look at, but they’re important because they are established patterns of control.
These controls end up in domestic violence, religious abuse and totalitarian governments.
When looking at the pattern of control and evaluating our involvement we have to be willing to look at not only the side we disagree with, but also the side we agree with.
It’s not about politics, religion or society - it’s about recognizing a behavior pattern that leads to toxic situations in all aspects of society.
If you’re moving into overwhelm you can stop here.
If you want to learn more about the patterns of control you can read below this line.
Here are some Patterns of Control:
Manipulation and control are always present.
The cult leader will use your emotions and need for attachment and belonging to the group to keep you within their control.
The physical aspects of control are things like monitoring your every move, every moment of the day, including when you sleep and what/how much you eat.
Boundaries are always considered rebellious and toxic… even if you are needing to take a few moments to lock yourself in a bathroom so you don’t scream at someone.
Shame is a big method for motivation and keeping within their rules.
Snitch culture and paranoia are critical.
Snitch culture is finding secret information on someone else and then using that secret information as an escape to relieve the pressure off you by giving those in charge information on someone else.
It can be inappropriate or illegal or can just be a weakness such as “that person doesn’t eat broccoli.” A manipulative leader will find a way to use people’s fears and weaknesses to break them regardless of what kind of information is available.
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June 13, 2024
Relegion
I’ve gone through a lot with personal beliefs, but I do want to take a moment to talk about religion. Regardless of whether you have a religion that you follow or not, religion at the beginning was linked to laws and government. It was a way to control society with divinely enforced morals.
Western society has separation of church and state, but that doesn’t stop religion from being part of life regardless of belief in higher beings or the supernatural. This is because religion often determines ethics. Ethics influence laws. Laws influence behavior. So even if you’re a law abiding atheist, you’re going to have rules in your society based on religion. If you disobey these laws originally based on religion, you’re supposed to be caught and go through a system that will enforce society’s rules to prevent chaos.
However, religion is often toxic because its often portrayed as a rule based system instead of a protection system. These rules end up hurting people and preventing them from maturing in their beliefs.
There is also a disturbing trend at least among Christians that people are afraid of power and leadership, so leadership roles are fulfilled by power hungry individuals who have a toxic leadership style and that colors the entire church and culture surrounding it. This gives people outside the church the wrong ideas of what Christianity (or any other religion stands for).
I’m using Christianity as an example, but be aware that other religions have toxic leaders who create unhealthy results misusing religion for their own gain. Leaders who are attracted to power have the wrong motives in mind and often bring others like them into power - resulting in more unhealthy controls. This dynamic is true beyond religious circles too.
Heads up: Next week we’ll talk about cults.
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June 6, 2024
Recap
Ok.
Recap.
We’ve discussed who we need to be in order to face the systems.
How to deal with a crisis of beliefs
We’ve discussed the traits of a toxic system, a neutral system, and how operate in them, how to change them and also when to leave. (Systems post 1 and post 2)
Essentially - we know who we are, and how much we can handle. And now we’re ready to face the mountains and the stories of society that they make.
Quick review of the Mountains:
Religion - the story of what people believed and how their values were and are shaped
Government - the enforcement of those values creating laws
Media & Arts/Entertainment - the stories that shape the values of society
Education - the stories and skills that are learned and taught to the children of a society
Business - the values of society by trade, commerce and economy (can be both goods and services/skills)
Science & Medicine - how society heals or treats its people’s health
Family - the area where we should have the most influence, but often this is an area of clashing viewpoints with entrenched beliefs that may or may not be healthy
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May 30, 2024
Influence
The way we influence….
Last week I said, your influencing ability depends on what system you’re in and what resources you have available to you.
Don’t just think of your resources in terms of money, how much you earn or how far you can stretch your paycheck…. There are other resources available: Time, energy, health, talents, causes you have access to, technology available to you, introversion vs. extroversion, interests and many more items.
All these things determine how much energy you have to face the challenges and climb the mountains set before you. The stories of society are often different than what people believe and many public figures are often limited in what they can say, or choose to say based on popular opinion and what their own cultures dictate them to say for the preservation of their influence and careers.
How to make a difference…
Start with you.
Examine the stories you tell yourself and work to reframe your mind, heart and body to tell better stories.
As you adopt these stories, you’ll end up watching them influence your life and those around you. These people include your family, work, who your interact with in the grocery store, religious or volunteer organizations, all the way up to public influencing, such as political causes or internet spaces which have a global audience (if they can find your resources above the millions of others).
Other ways of influence:
Communication: what you say vs. what you do
Reach of influence: celebrities surround us, yet do very little to change the world for the better. A caring adult or other person who is in someone’s life can still have more influence than a celebrity, because that caring adult can be present vs. the celebrity who is self or career focused.
Decisions to change: How much control do you have? Can you make other people change?
For instance, you can make a teenager change their clothes - but the real reason you had to make them change was that their clothing wasn’t appropriate for the situation they were going to be facing. Communicating the reason, so the teen can make informed non-fear based decisions is much better than communicating fear, anger and failure to the teen.
Crowd/herd dynamics: Sometimes our voices aren’t loud enough or popular enough to make the crowds swirling around us stop and stare. This shouldn’t dictate our value or undermine the value of our messages.
Instructions vs persuasion: This is an important difference.
Instructions are a set of steps or directions to perform a task. The end result should always be the same. The best example I can give is getting from one place to another. There may be a few variations on a map, but you still want to get to an end destination that was the goal at the beginning of your trip.
Persuasion is when someone inserts their opinion into the trip, as in, “Take this way, its less confusing. I like it better.”
Those are opinions. And while they’re not wrong - the opinion holder is not the person reading or listening. They are trying to persuade you to also like their directions better. Which isn’t bad, if you’re a local - but its unhelpful if their directions take you past businesses and sections of town that you’re not comfortable with.
Final note:
As a writer, I could persuade you to feel a certain way, or I could endorse a certain person telling you that I stand behind them or their product because I use it… but I don’t want do that, because I want people to do their own healing work and come to their own beliefs. I’ll give you things to think about - but if I’ve done my job correctly, you won’t be able to tell much about my beliefs. This is because I want everyone who drops by to get something out of it. I want what I write to be useful for everyone no matter their background, culture, biology, gender, age or beliefs.
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