When a young relative of mine started working for a professor at a well-known university hospital

after studying psychology, I found her more and more appalled and displeased that it was all about publishing as many texts as possible.

The vast quantities of publications that a professor intends to publish for his faculty, for example, are not written by him alone, but in so-called co-production with his students or young graduates.

At the time, I had wondered why my relative, who had no professional experience whatsoever,

had been put in a position to write academic texts and where she was supposed to get the experience that I had previously regarded as a prerequisite for producing academic texts.

This brief thought of stagnation was then lost, however, as her speeches and her attention were focussed on how unpleasant the work was at times, how difficult her supervisor was (diva-like), how caustic her colleagues were, etc.

Basically, she painted a nasty picture of the academic environment she was in, which I didn't think suited her at all anyway. Although I actually think it does fit in principle, because primarily non intellectual people are needed in the sometimes very detached world of an academic organisation.

Her background - the working-class family -

could in principle have more than enabled her to form a contrast as a child descended from working-class parents.

The thing is that as a young person you are hardly in a position to have developed self-confidence, as it has to be acquired, first. It is acquired through years of professional experience. You have to work practically alongside theory.

However, as every young person soon realises, this is not necessarily what counts. You realise that your desire for knowledge and the basis of what constitutes a discipline is not a race to win; except you gain a position of power. The aim of study and academic work is, as it seems, to raise money. Here comes the power position. Read, for example, this text and read between the lines. It may give you the creeps.

Of course, nobody says that directly. It would be all too objective and straightforward to tell young students or graduates to their faces that scientifically flawless and correct work is actually very time-consuming and may result in far fewer clean applications than one would like to believe. Instead of stuffing minds with "become a part of inventions and progress"; you might get drop outs, after having them told the truth. Which is not the worst, after all.

One who wants to assume that scientific work

should always result in a theory being confirmed, that an application should result in a mass product that "makes the world a better place", is therefore in the right place at universities today.

However, one who studies and assumes that years of research could also lead to the conclusion that neither a marketable product nor a brilliant theory can be presented, will probably be met with incomprehension. The intensive investigation of a scientific subject should not be a fulfilment aid for the preferences of financiers, but that is exactly what you do.

Those academics and scientists who point out that research must not begin with a predetermined end result

are probably much rarer than those who have been inspired by the spirit of improving the world from the very beginning of their career in a scientific organisation.

I suppose that a large proportion of young people assume that their task, regardless of which discipline they belong to, is to "fight injustice, inequality, poverty and disease." Oh, not to forget "climate change".

Their battleground then is to distrust those who say that injustice, inequality and poverty do not exist on a large scale in their own society in exactly this way and that the world into which a young person is born is currently such that neither racism nor sexual inequality nor disease nor climatic disasters are the real problem.

The problem is believing that.

But to keep the machine running, you have to be made to believe in these things.

Now, a matter of fact is

that in modern societies there are never enough peoples who are severely sick, severely criminal, severely disabled, severely disadvantaged. To create a market where you receive millions and millions of consumers and users, you need to give the impression that this is the case.
In order to raise a desire you have to make it so that it becomes

• a desperate need or,
• a thrilling outlook

Both are excellent methods to achieve to create a mentality from which the conclusion is driven that there must be masses of disadvantaged, excluded, poor, severely suffering peoples in dire need for being taken care of.

The devastating state of being in which the world and its peoples is being presented, does not reflect reality in well-off societies. Well off societies are in fact so well off, that they started to create needs and products to have something left to sell.

When the sales market starts to stagnate but you are determined to stick with the product you intent to distribute in masses you inevitably will exaggerate. You start with little lies and if people buy it, you go further with the big ones.

Because, you see, there are indeed not enough severe cases of sickness, poverty, inequality within and between the masses of people.

In order to not getting ourselves realized that we live in a decadent world, where the average person does not commit severe crimes, is neither a barbarian nor a psycho seriell killer, is not mentally ill nor physically disabled, is not screaming on the streets out of no reason, is to push him to think that it is that way.

A mild case, a state of sadness, a disease, does not necessarily result into getting the helper-economy going. People just wait until their sadness is over, until their condition gets better and move on with whatever they do.

That is the normal behavior of normal people.

Now, a society which turned into a decadent one, or is on its way, doesn't tick that way.

Since such a society does not have enough poor ones, since it does not have enough sick ones and since such a society has lost the very traits of decency and moderateness, it tends to go overboard with the need to "help".

From my profession as a social worker I know

that humans actually really do not like to work on severe cases. The sight, sound and appearance of someone who is really and objectively severely ill, is very much unpleasant, to say the least.

It is downright frightening to face someone such disabled and trashed that you would want to run away or shut the person down in some or other way, only to be spared such an experience any further. So, indeed, it's a noble work and a noble person working in the helper branch who is confident and stable enough to deal with the severity of a human condition. Most people aren't, I dare to say. How could they even?

What a decadent society does, is to spare themselves the mind blowing sights, sounds and smells of the really trashed individuals. They cannot stand it. Literally. Not out of hatred but out of inexperience, of course.

So, they start to look for easier jobs. Those, who come to their offices and facilities in order to being helped.

Now a very interesting game starts to happen.

The helper wants to believe that he will be of great help and believes in his virtuousness. The being helped one wants to believe in his victimhood and to be in need of being helped.

During my counseling years with peoples of all kinds, I found out about this interesting relationship between the helper and the being helped.

They conspire with each other in a most fascinating way.

Having formed a short, medium, or long term relationship, the counseling seeking person helps the counsellor to maintain and establish a self image of doing good. And the counsellor keeps the image alive that his client is helpless and in constant need. To which the client happily subscribes.

They keep each other into their roles on this stage.
Of course, in many, if not most cases, there is not really a need for both to be a client and a counselor. It's just that we can maintain that impression. And, so we do.

I observed with colleagues, for example,

that they helped their clients to hide certain facts from the welfare-office, because it was more important for them to be seen as a protector than to stick to their values. Which is not to lie and not betray.

It is easier to not confront someone with inconvenient comments and instead go along with the flow.

Where a counselor was hiding and conspiring with a client who shifted some bucks aside, he of course acted highly irresponsible. Not because he wanted the client to keep his bucks (which I understand) but because he could knew that his client was not criminally determined or skilled enough to play that game well. After all, you know your clients.

So, most of what was hidden in those conspiring acts -

the counselor and his client in their main roles- those in the crime and hide game amateurs didn't last long. The end of story then was that the welfare-offices found out (easy!) and the receivers of funds were confronted to pay back thousands of Euros. Which, you guessed it, led them to receive even more counseling.

I've seen countless of such letters with huge numbers at the bottom and the demand of payback.

The problem really is not these happenings in themselves. It's that the self images of the involved ones are utterly dishonest about this dynamics. The problem is to keep maintaining the illusion that "others" need help, while it indeed would be good enough for the individual to help himself. Because, deep down, that is what he really wants, but cannot and even refuses actively to see.

Yet it's not so difficult to stick some humor to it.

Including your client into this humorous perspective. During my still practicing, I worked with this kind of honesty.

For example, I told my client: "I don't see that you are this helpless creature. You have all the means and skills to help yourself. Yet you expect me to be the one. Why is that?"

Some reacted in a surprised way, since they rarely meet someone who does not confirm them. The result was relieved laughter and a sense of self acknowledgement.
Of course, I met clients who became angry and aggressive.

One of them answered:
"You are not taking me seriously! I could now be so devastated that when I walk out this room, I might kill myself."
I said: "Well, go ahead and kill yourself. It wouldn't be me doing the killing, would it?"

Not for a second I bought into this blackmail. After that, I never saw her again. Which was my goal in the first place. To get rid of peoples who became too good in playing the victims game.

I had some encounters of this nature. The most aggressive and nasty characters tried hard to push me. Or, to complain towards my superior. Luckily, I was backed up by her.

Nowadays, as it seems, you cannot count on that with confidence. Being backed up by a superior who equally withstands some random persons complaint because he sees through the game. They become frightened and corrupted for being politically incorrect; meaning, their outer image might become dirty. I mean what is said about them in "(anti)-social media".

The shift in generation does its thing on top.

While the old folks would have collected the funds from government and donators but did their thing anyway, since control wasn't that big then, the incoming younger ones are not that courageous. For good reasons, unfortunately. Controlling got much bigger, programs much tighter and finance much more attached to specific wished for outcomes.

Being the one who opts for more personal freedom in ones profession, opt against wished for outcomes and open debate, puts you nowadays into the position to become excluded from either panels or your work place itself.

The result for giving up your brain hits. Our western wealth, ingenuity, inventiveness and our small and medium businesses are and will be sacrificed on the alter of "affirmative action". The urge to adapt to this new world in anticipatory obedience and to conform to it unconditionally seems immense.

The stultification and dishonesty seems leading to increased incompetence at almost all levels of human endeavour.

We in the West are already talking heads. Whether the South or East actually has anything else to offer, after basically everyone lives in his screen and imagination, is an open question. The Northern hemisphere has already complied mostly to political correct agendas. Talking of Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Scandinavia.

One is motivated to say: let them run into ruin. But then you have to admit that it is your own ruin as well.

But!

What I have just talked about - a talking head myself - may not be reflecting all of reality. It maybe that what the me-tooer's and the babbling ones focus on. Who the heck knows.

After all, us modern peoples became everything in one person:

A journalist, a judge, a police officer, a social worker, a counselor, a physicist, a health care adviser, an artist, a "self-reliant" and whatnot. Without ever having received proper education and years of practice in those mentioned fields.

But what we became really good at, is to copy the very media we seem to condemn: through catchy phrases, screaming headlines, disturbers, luring adds, founding clubs (calling them noble "communities"), selling and buying ourselves within the attention industry.

While one is hardly able to pay this amount of attention, but very well to stick to the addictive nature of it.

If you made it this far, I congratulate you onto your attention span. LoL :D

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The above posting is of course not a scientific work.
The video in the header does not reflect all of my personal opinions, but some.

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