A research paper on “From Crisis to Opportunity ” and “From the Individual to Polis and Back” has been published in our website after presenting on VH Online Seminar. This paper has been written by Professor Dr. Luisa Brunorio, Founder and President of Win Win Association, Italy. This paper has also been presented over VH ONLINE SEMINAR on 15, May 2020 by the writer. The whole paper is given bellow-
We are living during a very special event, terrible on one side but also an opportunity to rethink our coexistence.
This disaster has manifested itself on multiple levels of coexistence and it is on this conceptual scheme that we think it is necessary to develop a reflection and a project that is able to learn from the experience that has taken us to this point.
An experience that involved us as individuals, both by ourselvs ad as a part of a family group, part of a comunity, part of a global world and included in a varied relationship based primarily on the win-lose, lose-win model; as defined from the neoliberist economic model, which is caracterized by a widespread rivality, authorized without limits.
Despite the recognition of the human needs linked to a relationship of resonance and mutual recognition, as it’s said in psychological and neuroscientific studies, like the ones of “Centro dell’Università di Parma” on mirror neurons; the human needs are not considered by economic policies as they are proposed, accepted and implemented.
GAME THEORY
Traduction of the picture (John Nash and the Game Theory): conflict is the physical state of human living because there is more then 1 person in the world; but it is not a cruel and set destiny, it is a political option preemted by the economy, in which we think to be powerless. Oikos Nomos means house rules or coexistence rules in which there are 4 possible solutions: win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose, win-win. Economic relationships right now tend to have a winner and a loser based on a rivalry that makes other people in the position of the enemy.
Traduction of the picture (John Nash and the Game Theory): conflict is the physical state of human living because there is more then 1 person in the world; but it is not a cruel and set destiny, it is a political option preemted by the economy, in which we think to be powerless. Oikos Nomos means house rules or coexistence rules in which there are 4 possible solutions: win-lose, lose-win, lose-lose, win-win. Economic relationships right now tend to have a winner and a loser based on a rivalry that makes other people in the position of the enemy.
We are placed in a system of house rules (oikòs nomos), which doesn’t favour the best possible form of relationships, that we could develop by valorizing the needs of closeness and collaboration, that are necessary for human beings.
However this coronavirus event has been a true opportunity, one that showed us a form of relational system on which to reflect on, both for the needs that it expressed and for the resources that it has developed.
A form of resonance and identification with each other; a form o recognition and closeness between us as humans; a very marked form of solidarity even in the absence of physical contact.
The various aspects of belonging and identification have been highlighted starting from the people up to the recognition of a global society included in the experience.
This image shows us the mechanisms of costruction of the psyche and mind, starting from the aggregation of belongings, for the basic psychic formation, up to our representation of a global world of which each of us belongs as a subject.
Traduction of the picture: starting from the smallest circle up to the largest the words are: individual, family, secondary groups and social contest, community, global society. Those are the different groups through which an individual builds it’s own identity, it is a mental network made of the sum of relationships that builds the identity of a person, starting from memberships that one can experiment with.
And it is precisely through this sistem of aggregations that the intrapsychic dynamism of each individual is built. And is in this terms that a person should be considered, with the objective to give him back his will to be and to choose.
The relational dynamism in the groups will be decisive for a healty or problematic costruction of the individuals exposed to specific relational forms. The more the relational forms will have influence in the costruction of the psyche, the earlier the person will be exposed to its dynamism. If a W/L or L/W relationship will be the main connotation of the family group dynamism, there will be a higher probability of a psychopatology generating climate.
This is the result of studies developed in this disciplinary area. Even studies regarding deviance and marginality show us the importance of the family enviromental conditions, and not only for the realization and creation of pathological situations. Psychopatology can then flow in the social contest of reference and influence the groups in return
This coronavirus experience has been an extraordinary opportunity for knowledge
Unfortunately at a very a high cost and it is for this reason that we have the duty to treasure what we have seen and experienced.
This crisis will be overcome to the extent that we will know how to trasform it in an opportunity to correct what doesn’t work for human beings in the world.
The medical aspect has been very important also because it questioned the survival of humans and this fear triggered the species will to resist.
On this, the competent scientific community will for sure tresure everything that could help us to understand and cure the problem.
But what we have seen and experienced should be looked at and understood also through the relational system from which it is derived and has activated.
A widespread psychic suffering took place in the mind of the people, who developed marked depressive forms, as well as paranoid feelings, looking at each other as potential spreaders of the virus.
Nonetheless, the forms of aid and solidarity have been truly impressive!
From this experience however we can confirm that such a form of economy does not suit us.
Fragilities have been exposed and we should start a reflection for a better future… for a more desirable coexistence. We should think at which elements are essentials and which we should modify.
Those are the questions we should answer to start imagining and building a world, starting from what we have experienced with this virus.
WHAT NOT
Here the matter becomes difficult, because there are some economic rules from which it will be almost impossibile to do without, if we don’t have a deep reflection… and the consequent actions.
However we could start by identifying what should no longer be possible and accepted worldwide and personally at the same time… we understood that the phenomenons of which we have to deal can’t leave aside the global connection that is the basis of our coexistence as human beings.
Territorial boundaries are surmountable; perhaps not even anymore existing in their essence and for sure crossed by events like pollution and phenomenons that involve contact with a nature that is not organized by political boundaries, but natural ones and responsabilities of all of us.
Greta Tumberg
The Greta phenomenon is something to keep in mind in almost an obvious way!!! Studies on pollution and violence towards nature have been the subject of attention for many years. Unfortunately those studies are left unheard and we are left with conflicts in which we have to choose between surviving pollution or dying of hunger and without work. Taranto steel mills are an example of this.
Le migrazioni. MIGRATIONS
A large number of migrants come from Africa because it has been devastated by Europe economic intrusiveness and now also from China.
Is the development of economic violent situation acceptable?
I believe NOT.
This is not economy, this is delinquency, a kind of implicit delinquency, that is accepted from the economic model. Can we try to change in some way this scheme, in which few get all the resources of a country that is looted, and the consequences of this violence spread to the rest of the world on the shoulders of everybody?
DELOCALIZATION
The production made in countries where workers are exploited intolerably; we are talking about delocalization where the voracity of entrepreneurs becomes delinquent. We know of events in which hundreds of workers, completly exploited, have lost their lives for the complete lack of attention for the security problems on the workplace, with the objective of keeping the expenses at minimum in the face of enormous earnings, particulary from fashion manufactoring companies. I’m talking of the events that have happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that have been called Rana Plaza; where a lot of people lost their lives. Bangladesh is and exploited country in this sense. Benetton, Armani, ecc. are the fashion producer who in this period even have the courage to present their new fashion on newspapers
A relative justifications for this consists in the fact that this way the women become capable of producing resources and also develope an awareness element of their “capabilities”; but dying is not required for this to happen!!!
These are the first reflections that i managed to gather to highlight the violence of an economic model built only for the few capable of rejecting an emotional resonance with it’s own kind and to overwhelm them without shame.
SPECIAL CATEGORIES
With this expression (special categories) i refer to the elderly that, during the events that happend in Italy, have been included in the list of discards to be disposed of. Obviously this was not explicitly said, but the facts that happened, at least in Italy, have shown a disconcerting form of exclusion from the interest of istitutions and social and health organizations.
SO WHAT TO DO?
It’s not easy to imagine how to proceed in such a difficult moment for humanity, that brings to the surface elements and facts that are now consolidated.
How to apply these reflections to our reality after this pandemic? And how and what to suggest as an innovative and restorative project for the current situation?
We must resume the dialogue between all components at play, without ever forgetting what could be the psychological and relational conquences of the processes that we could put in place.
If the humans are naturally bad or good is and old question, that we could describe as similar the the chicked and egg problem.
The observation on deviance and marginality tells us of the importance that living conditions have for the creation of such phenomenon.
This is the center of our commitment, to create the living conditions, a rule of the house, an economy where everybody, both as a personal contribution and as an exchange in the coexistence, can offer the best of himself for himself, for us and for the other of his kind: in agreement with J. Nash, a solution win-win.
Luisa Brunori Bologna,
3 April 2020