Life and Social​

I Wanna Be a Social Worker · A Day In The Life Of A Social Worker

Let's face it, sometimes life can get tough and for some people those tough times are far harder than those of the average person. Times where people can feel alone or as if they have nowhere else to turn. Social workers are unique group of people who help those who feel helpless. People dealing with personal or social problems. They can do this case by case or via programs that benefit groups and communities. Today I'm at the Department of Child Protection and Family Support to find out what it takes to be a social worker. As a social worker at the Department of Child Protection practitioners ensure the well-being and safety of children and young people. With the opportunity to specialize in specific areas social workers provide people with counseling and support through crisis situations as well as helping out in the community. Hi Danielle, I'm Rebecca. I was just wondering could i pick your brain on what it's like to be a social worker? Absolutely. Fantastic let's go have a chat. So, Danielle take us through a typical day of being a social worker. There's never a typical day of being a social worker, it depends on what's happened with the families to what we're going to do on that day. So we might have a day where you're answering phone calls and going through emails in your office space, to going out with police, checking houses, doing home visits it just depends on what clients you have. Wow, that sounds really full-on, what inspired you to want to be a social worker? I wanted to help people and being a social worker in the Department of Child Protection we get to help the children and I think that makes it a big difference in the future. What would you say the most rewarding part of your job is? Helping children making sure that they're safe. What would you say the hardest part of your job is? Probably work-life balance because you give hundred and ten percent at work all the time it's trying to leave work at work and go home and have a life. What advice would you give someone if they were looking to be a social worker? Get some life experience first so you're grounded in your practice and you know how to go in to certain issues. And apart from the Department of Child Protection what other organizations need social workers? Lots of organizations so we have the Health Department, Department of Corrections and non-government agencies as well such as Wesley UnitingCare West. If you could list from now to school what steps does somebody need to take if they wanted to be a social worker? You need to graduate you 12 high school, then you go to university and do Social Work degree or psychology degree. Graduate from that and then do a placement. And what characteristics does somebody need to be a social worker? You need to be very confident person, you need to like challenges and be very resilient as well. If you could do one thing differently but still end up where you are today what would it be? I probably would have gone straight from high school into University and not taking the six month break. Excellent, thank you so much for having a chat with us today. What you - I'm sure is very much appreciated throughout the community. Thank you. For more information jump onto chenpanha88.ml

The Dangers of the Internet

Over the past centuries, technologies have regularly come along that completely change how we connect to each other: the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone; the newspaper, the radio, the TV. All are technologies that begin social revolutions. We’re living through one such revolution now. It started in 1962 with a humble, almost boring idea: connecting computers together. Today, almost three billion people are connected. What kind of revolution are we going through? - Firstly, it’s fast. It took 25 years after the Guttenberg Press arrived for the first English book to be printed. In its first twenty-five years, the telephone reached just 10% of America. In 1995, less than 1% of the world’s population was connected. The first billion was reached in 2005. The second billion in 2010. The third billion at the end of 2014. The benefits of the Internet are obvious and all around us. In a European-wide poll, people put the Internet at the top of their list of daily essentials – ahead of the bath,the car and the television. But the risks and dangers are less obvious and more subterranean. There are at least four. ONE - WE’RE ADDICTED In the UK, two in five of us recognise we’re spending too long on the internet but admit we can’t stop. Three in five of us check the internet the first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night - and put this habit ahead of interpersonal communication. Two in five women say that one of the greatest challenges of relationships has become how to prove more interesting than the partner’s smartphone. Nine out of ten people would rather be surfing the web rather than reading a book. Internet pornography has proved particularly compelling: 60% of US adult males admit to using it at least once a month. 9% of males classify themselves as spending between 10 and 20 hours a week on porn. We are not neurologically designed to withstand the temptations on offer online - and this suits a great many internet companies just fine. TWO - WE KNOW TOO MUCH AND UNDERSTAND TOO LITTLE The amount of information at our fingertips is unimaginably large; every single minute of the day: Facebook users share 2.5 million pieces of content. Twitter users Tweet 300,000 times. YouTube users upload 72 hours of video 200million emails are sent. Apple users download 50,000 apps Between the dawn of civilization and 2003, 5 exabytes of data was created. That much information is now created every 2 days. There is so much data that we keep having to come up with new words to describe it. The latest term is the yottabyte. This much data is overwhelming and asphyxiating. To manoeuvre, we have to rely on search engines. Google makes 2.5 billion searches per day. But we forget that these search engines are mechanical and highly coloured in their interpretations. For a start, they constantly direct our attention to their products, sponsors, and affiliates. Imagine the Dewey Decimal system owned by Coca Cola. A lot of the information is nonsense: during the riots in London in 2011, the three most shared stories on Twitter were that the London Eye was on Fire, the Army was on the streets, and that a tiger had escaped from London zoo. Because the internet is often a source of reliable information, we exaggerate its accuracy, its importance and its wisdom. The 12th most popular question typed into Google is: WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MY LIFE? It doesn’t know, but at the same time, it constantly gets in the way of the conversations you might have with the one person who does: namely, you. THREE - PRIVACY IS UNDER THREAT Thousands of ‘cookies’ track where we go. Our mobile phones log data about our movements every five seconds, even when they are ostensibly off. The head of the French police force proposed it’s now almost impossible to commit a murder and remain undetected. We’re constantly leaving so-called digital breadcrumbs on our online travels. Every year, in the UK, we leave up to £5,000 worth of data online which is sold to marketing companies and harvested, filtered and cross-referenced to provide detailed insight into our lives. Facebook will know you’re gay before your mother does. 70% of us admit to fearing how much we have already shared. one in seven teenagers in the US has sent a compromising image over the internet and had a sexual chat with a real-life stranger. A majority of European internet users are under the impression that a security service has snooped into their conversations and activities. FOUR - ONLINE CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL Over the last twenty years, crime has abated in many countries. Since it peaked in the UK in 1995, it has fallen by 60%. But Internet crime is exploding. In 1990 the NSPCC estimated there were 7,000 known images of child pornography at large. In 2014, American law enforcement found 42 million images on just one server. The UK Government estimates 50,000 people in the UK are actively involved in downloading and sharing images of child abuse. Online abuse and hate-speech are endemic:On Twitter, 10,000 uses of racist slur terms occur a day. And 2000 Tweets are sent containing the word ‘rape’. 69% of young people in the UK have experienced cyber-bullying The police are overwhelmed. The Head of the UK’s National Crime Agency recently said they would only ever be able to focus on less than 1% of child porn users. CONCLUSION One view is that new technologies have always brought anxieties with them, and that they always turn out to be groundless. Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus warned that books would promote forgetfulness. People would become the “hearers of many things and will have learned nothing”. But that’s too rosy and too relaxed about what we’re facing. Technologies can and do bring serious lasting problems. As the residents of Hiroshima realised. The internet presents unrivalled challenges to our abilities to: - interact deeply with our partners - keep our critical faculties alive - stop thinking that the answers always lie ‘out there’. - remain emotionally connected to real-life people. - and make the discoveries that come when we are bored and letting our minds lie fallow. We need to start to take active measures to educate our children in the dangers of this tool reconnect with the natural world talk to one another face to face stop downloading images of naked people get bored and take regular digital sabbaths. We need to learn to control ourselves not because the internet is so bad, but precisely because it’s so very very nice - in ways that turn out to be deeply detrimental to our ability to flourish and function.. We can accept that it is not a good thing to let a fifteen year old boy have unmonitored access to the internet in his bedroom. Not because we think he is wicked. But because we are generous. We understand that asking for self-control in those circumstances is too demanding. A similar argument applies if you happen to be twenty six - or forty six. The internet has unparalleled power to get in the way of almost every other rather important and precious thing around - starting with the rest of your life.

A year offline, what I have learned | Paul Miller | TEDxEutropolis

I'll I did I left the internet for an entire year I was 26 years old and it was May 1st 2012 and I I pulled the plug and there were I'll a lot of reasons now but the main reason was probably the last 26 years old and I you know I I had to have life figured out and i was really overwhelmed yeah it was a bit of a crisis and it just felt like everything was too much and I couldn't win and and the internet kept on coming in there's more emails you can't you can't win against your email inbox cuz the moment you here archive in a very last one you're going to get a new email and you can't win on Twitter because there's its there's so much there so much Justin Bieber to talk about and this is you know it I just felt this in a really overwhelming very personal way that the Internet was sort of defeating me in suppressing me up I course all my entire life with its the Internet II was 12 years old when I started using internet and track sickness and and it I for probably use the Internet for the majority of my waking hours since then I was a a web designer as a teenager I started writing about technology as a journalist when I was about twenty and so it's all I've ever really known I don't know what life is like you know without the internet without being constantly connected without you know email inbox I do remember time before Twitter but this really hazy and a and so i IIIi also have this desire to get some stuff done II wanted to do some personal study some reading and some writing projects that I was putting off and I figured I quit the Internet you which is using all my time I would have unlimited free time to to accomplish things that I i designed to accomplish and so I quit to talk with the Internet and the the question that I was kinda asking be on my just my personal goals was how does the internet use me and how do I use the Internet and then since you know at what point are my decisions and my goals dictating my behavior on the internet them and what point are the the that aP's and the that people and the processes and just how the internet is the medium itself how's that dictating my behaviour how's that changing my behavior I and the mid nineties I nichols' nigger Ponti who is there the founder Wired magazine and the MIT Media Lab he wrote you know the was very early at this point for the web surfing is a really I think it's kinda fat we can't we can keep this up this is that really how life gets done I you know pretty soon there's gonna be bought from the go on the internet for you and a find all the information and you can get back to being a productive at all and maybe the kids will have time to surf the internet but that's not me. yes we can t that were productive members of society and a.m. he was totally wrong with fishnets for serving that's all we do when we're using the Internet up at yet be it in a sense he was right that its from except for a select few people and I know I'm not included in this when I'm using the Internet you know outside in a little bit research I'm not really typically being productive least that's how I fell I wasn't accomplishing the things like I said I wanted to write I wanted to read I wasn't really accomplishing those things I was clicking on links when I was tweeting when I was on reddit you know it when I was absorbing this vast amazing incredible see if information I was more often than not being distracted by and stem up built up by and I didn't feel like I was being productive I wish there was those pots that use the Internet for me so I so I didn't have to use it up and I contrast the way I use the internet with with I'm how my parents use the internet I do you think there's a difference there where take are able to use it more the utility it's a very useful incredible invention for them they they think go on Amazon and thereby effing and I checked the email and I sent an email to me asking you I have emailed them recently and I you know my moms on twitter now my dad as Instagram but really it's very tiny fraction of their life and then they get back to doing the things that need to be done and for me because I'm maybe because I grew up with her because I'm a nerve or or or I have low-level self control my life was the Internet and other things maybe happened in the margins a and you know I was I you know I'd be looking down at my phone and I look up and there's a person still there though that's good and I look back on my phone and I'm back in my world where I belong where I understand what I what I know and where I'm I'm capable so when I left the Internet a I felt to some amazing sense of freedom I quit at no texting in addition to the internet so I wasn't getting any email people are checking my email for me I know connection to the Internet and to I was so free I was so happy I was high on life and everything smell better and not Titus given my stuff is just so good and that the sensation I had its kinda like I get fifteen-year-old like you can't tell me what to do internet you know like I i my life is mine now and I get to make the choices and you that email that incoming doesn't get to mess with my plans for today a it was the was so wonderful and I i experience from the sensations that I never really had before gone a long time in one of those was Borkum just incredible intense boredom up and the I don't know if you've ever been born before it was kind of a new thing for me I'll describe the sensation is some you're not doing anything right now you don't have anything to do and there's nothing at arms-length that can fix that I you know when you have the Internet the moment you kinda thinking about maybe being bored you can grab your phone in the slide to unlock and now you have an entire world information and entertainment right in front of you and maybe you don't want that right now but you're not bored trust me because I got bored is very different thing and and its um something actually creative people talked about for a long time it's this time that you you know some people call meditation UK you solitude and you you have a space to think and be creative and I also found it was a times actually decide what I actually wanted to do you instead of taking the path of least resistance a I also had very different interactions with people up and this is something that's what talk full bed so many people tho so much about you notes Facebook really bring us together with people or is it are we just hiding our supercomputers pretending that we have friends and and I what I found is that without the internet I i could. be with a person in a much more intense and much more personal way another those are words people use like that wasn't enthused intense hang out with youth scary take even on the phone I was scary maze hit maybe this wasn't a compliment but I i really I really valued at my ability to talk with people away wasn't just that I didn't have a on the phone that could distract me right then I also didn't have my mental cycles thinking about you know or make the email stacking up somewhere in my missing something on Twitter you know strife did I forget the check in at this place on Foursquare a you know I didn't have that distracting me know let me be much more on the moment in my my sister told me that I can more emotionally available that she really know me throughout her life and now I had a conversation with a friend I've known for years that was so we just got to a deeper level than we've ever gone and I just I treasure that like so much up and then there was the flip side for those things boredom is awesome if you do something good with it but it's not awesome if you just play video hit and that's what I started doing I don't like three rubs I'm sorry I'm twenty-years-old forum and I just stupid and I played so much video games through that year and I with that became that thing I didn't know about it right the first time to actually play love the against for quit the internet but became that think that was really easy was right an arms length and I would grab the controller and and and it just you know get rid of that sometimes terrifying feeling above boredom and i've wasted so much time I Kenny I it's a tough at the other thing I have with people is that while when I was with them it was really great and I was really personal really intense I stop hanging out with people as often I I kind of got disconnected from my social circle is definitely very difficult to keep in touch with people have stay in my family's going all over the country but even people in my city you know I I'd miss I miss the email I missed the Facebook invite a day you know i i I forgot that movie was coming out this weekend and you know you miss a couple those and then you kinda miss moore Moran and early on also a lot on my loneliness would prompt me to to go out and and reach out to people on call people on the phone which they hate hate when I call them through much prefer text specially for making plans but I had the I had the stick by my principles and I'd call them in and the didn't want to hang out or it was too late and and and in that loneliness or built on itself and I became very withdrawn suppose I wanna hang out with people for for a week and I'm ice came out of sync with my social circle II was in on the joke side in know the lingo I haven't seen the same movies and that was that was really tough from but I came back on the Internet that was one of the most intense experiences the ball because he was so overwhelming I think maybe we forget how skilled we r using the internet how much of your brain it requires years and i'd train myself through this year above now engaging with me know one idea that I for one video came at a time at least but you know I I'd been working after reading some books a little bit a.m. and I was really into that you know capture that one big idea and one big book and and how great I'll get that wasn't talking with one person at a time also tonight at 10 browser tabs and twenty people were telling me which links I have to go to cuz I miss them during the year when I was gone and I had a my phone in my laptop I might have won it was so much I I'm literally weekend the panic that first day I was back and throughout that we cuz very stressed up about a week in from be back on the Internet I was at my coffee shop I was going through the mail I have about 20,000 under the emails when I got have I forgot to put a %ah to respond to the email so idk if if you guys are gonna leave the other had I'm and my sister came in and she wanted to talk about your day and and I I over I was listening kinda but I also think about what was going on in my inbox and and icons for the over my laptop a little more informat along to what she was saying she said well the wall is back up and it's this sensation she's had this deal with this whole her whole life I employed in this computer and she wants to talk to me and I'm not really 100 percent available maybe ten percent maybe even ninety per se but I'm not a hundred percent available and I close the last time I I didn't want to be that person anymore but I you know I'm I missed least that moment I when I I got back to in a maybe should know this about me i i row for the technology public is called the bird to help found it actually launched six months before I left the internet which is probably will ironic for the I I i was trying to get back to work I wrote about my experiences for the publications I was they will have a job publishing articles for the internet what without having the internet at hand them a thumb drive and they put my stories up but I wanted the kinda earn it back a little bit and do some really good work I I started doing a story my first month back on Google glass so I went from no internet to having the Internet literally on my face for week you know we're reading this device and I got so into it and and and I was finally kinda getting some productivity back in learning to manage all this multi pronged attack the Internet and I had a Skype call scheduled with my brother and sister-in-law and I haven't seen them visually and I haven't seen their kids you know probably six months and I did a really wanna do it I don't know what it is about that somehow that thing that you were really are the most into its just a random link on the Internet stopping me from wanting to connect with somebody that's that important to me but I i I did i sat on my project and I i Skype with them and my my niece played me twinkle twinkle little star on the violence is learning the violin I was a very slow in this then the fish hooks beautiful and and see and and and my nephew had both Britain original songs that they written in crayon on Pisa paper and they held up to the camera and they saying them for me her song was called horsey ride his song was called helicopter stop and I was such a precious thing in a and that it's not just that I almost missed that out on it then I missed out on that my whole year being off the internet and a and its finished a very valuable of something and and I i did. I don't want to take that for granted anymore I I kinda lucky when it when I came back to the Internet ask I'll try and figure out what I'm gonna do next and idea popped into my head which I wish it occurred to me earlier but it finally did occur to me but I it's been entire year focused on myself trying to fix myself and improve myself and become a better me an educated and and things like that and released maybe I should spend summer the next year to serve the first somebody else and be a little less selfish and then decide that work right I didn't fix my productivity I didn't do their all the reading all the right thing I wanted to do you so I did something else a 22 to do so i decided i I would to something for people or tried try to care for people and %uh my brother just deployed with the Air Force and so I have currently living in colorado with my sister-in-law helping out with the kids and it's so great because you know I realize this time without the internet the leaving the internet market to fix my problems that you get something people quoted a lot to me when I came back and saw my so the failures and struggles is that you know wherever you go there you are you know I could change my circumstance but I'm still this guy that's not very productive by also my guy that really does love people and I love my nieces and nephews this is a different brother actually have two brothers nieces and nephews as very complicated but II I'm able to spend time with these kids and it's it's such a rewarding you so my time and a.m. tenants finally I'm able to you kinda dictate back to the Internet what I do you find important and and that's it's just its it's cool to have that power over and i kind of again feel that freedom I felt right when I left the internet for you're not the boss to me it's like yeah ok yes ok the productivity I get distracted easily but it's not the internets fall I'm in charge in my life and I've decided what I wanna do you is hang out with the these kids for a while other dads gone and that is so rewarding I am my nephew had some Star Wars toys and hence no idea what's productive and so is describing to me the function of a lightsaber and the lightsaber shoots the competition and the competition's fires which has so many errors in that sentence in the lightsaber is not a gun no by I tweeted of course and somebody tweeted back to me it's a a friend of mine is an Orthodox Jew and and I talked to him a lot walls of the Internet I because you know he understands this finding is bouncy the technology analyst the honors the Sabbath any spent that day with his family and he said you know if you were still a hundred percent online at all you would have missed this experience if you still hundred-person offline we would have missed it and I wasn't yes and hit I found a balance of I did something a real-life I told the internet about it a very happy as I just wanna make sure we ask ourselves what ours our priority and that we do that thing and I let the Internet tells the thank you it.

College Life & Social Anxiety Disorder | Dr. Russ Morfitt, Learn to Live CBT

Ok, wow really good to be here. I don't actually need to share like the first half of what I was going to share because Terry already told you, but my name is Dr. Russ Morfitt and the work that I do is treatment of anxiety problems and there are a lot of anxiety problems out there and I'm really privileged to be able to spend my time helping people who suffer with problems ranging from social anxiety, to general anxiety, to obsessive compulsive disorder Some people have panic attacks - there's a problem called panic disorder. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Those are the sorts of things that I do. And I do it two different places. I wonder if I'm going to be able to operate this thing here. Ok, so I do it two different places. One is right across the street over at Hutchinson Health. And I've been privileged to be there for something like 16 years and along the way I've been able to develop my skills to focus on treatment of anxiety and its been really a privilege to be there. But the new thing I'm doing apart from Hutchinson Health is to help people really around the world by the new website that we created called Learn to Live. It's just extremely exciting to me. Really the problem being that most people who suffer from social anxiety related problems never ask for help. They just never ask for help. So all the people who I never see in my practice because they never ask for help, we're able to help because its a lot easier to start off by going to a website than it is to actually work up the courage to do what it takes to actually meet with a provider and if you're not somebody who's dealt with this personally, if you can imagine what its like So for example I'll ask you a general question How many of you would say "you know, I think I know the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist" If you feel like "yeah I confidently know that." Ok, just a handful of people. So if I'm someone who's suffering from social anxiety or another kind of anxiety and I think, "OK, I'm fed up with this, I really want to get some help now." But, where do I even start? Phone book? I mean, what do I even do? All these barriers and hurdles to really asking for help. That's why I'm doing Learn to Live But really I'm here to talk about big picture how social anxiety affects people in college. So let's talk about an example. Let's say Marie - Marie is a 2nd year student who's studying Biology. She's 19 years old. She's from good old Hutch. Umm and she's in some of your classes. But you don't notice her. She kind slips into class quietly. She slips out of class quietly. Lectures and labs - there she is, there she's gone. You hardly notice her. At one point you say hi to her, but she doesn't say hi back. And so you think, "Well how stuck up is she?" But maybe not - maybe its not an issue of being stuck up. Luke, he's a first year student studying generals. He's signed up for several classes. He mysteriously withdraws from Intro to Communications Then he withdraws from general chemistry. He's still in another class or two but if you notice him at all you notice he's just always with that one guy. That one guy who he rides to campus with. And if you are also from Litchfield you might have noticed, "Hey, that was the same kid that Luke always spent time with in Litchfield as well. Maybe Luke and that friend are just really good friends or maybe there is more to it than that. Peyton is a PSEO student. She blends into the woodwork. You hardly notice her. She takes the trailblazer over then right after class she finds her way back to the bus. When she drives she finds a way back to the car right away after class. Where'd she go? In the hallway it's occurred to you to maybe say Hi to her cause she's in a class or two of yours, but she's always on the phone. Always on the phone for some reason. Then after three weeks she disappears. These are some examples of people who suffer from social anxiety. And as I say social anxiety, I'm talking about problem social anxiety. We'll get to the idea that social anxiety itself is not an unusual thing, but that social anxiety is actually a very normal and useful thing. But when I'm talking about social anxiety i'm talking about serious problematic social anxiety. So what happens when people suffer from social anxiety disorder and some of those others I mentioned at the beginning that I treat? Studies of students who have left school - who have left college - and gone back and said, " Hey, time-out, stop, what contributed to you leaving college?" 64% said they had a mental health related concern. They were depressed, they were anxious, they had another problem. A mental health related concern that contributed to them leaving college. So they're not here. Here we are in the middle of this year, and they're gone. These are issues that really do affect college students. With Learn to Live we do a lot with Facebook and Twitter and social media. We found this was Tweeted to us on Twitter. Hearing people laugh near you. Not talking because you are afraid that what you say will be judged. Keeping quiet in a conversation with three people. Not being able to go anywhere alone. Staying inside all day. Hating when the teacher asks you a question in class. Eye contact. Eating in front of people. Counting money before you pay. Not leaving voicemails. Paying for things at a shop. Asking for help. Always preparing what to say. Bumping into people you know. Feeling embarrassed all the time. Social Anxiety. That's what we're talking about with social anxiety. People who have problematic social anxiety - this is the kind of story that I hear over and over and over again. It can affect every little area of your life. Because, we're around people so often. Two numbers - 8% and 12% - 8% is at any given time in the general population, 8% of the population is diagnosable with social anxiety disorder. Meaning, their problem with social anxiety is so great that they are diagnosable with this disorder that because it causes them so much impairment, they are missing out on things in life. They are suffering so much by experiencing the discomfort when they do go places, when they do things. When they do come to college 12% are diagnosable with social anxiety at some point during their lifetime. So - that's one out of 8. DO you know more than 8 people? Then there's a good chance you know someone who suffers or will suffer at some point from serious social anxiety or social phobia in their life. Another tweet - I'm actually not listening to anything, I just really like it when people don't talk to me. How many have suspected that there's somebody who you have encountered or somebody you know or somebody you've interested with when you've walked past them and they seem to be busy and you wondered, "they might be uncomfortable and might just be covering up some discomfort. They might just be trying to avoid things a little bit - have you ever suspected that? So Barbara on our Facebook page - we now have 5,000 members on our Facebook page, but back in September she said "ugh, social anxiety, just another disorder for therapists to get rich curing. Whatever happened to just shyness?" We'll you'll not that Barbara didn't get any likes on that comment. So two problems with Barbara's comment - One of them was addressed by Anna hear who says, "shyness and anxiety are two very very different things. And unless you have severe social anxiety as I do, you wouldn't understand." And that's the life of many people who suffer from anxiety. Whether its social anxiety or some of the other anxieties that I have mentioned earlier. Family members and if someone is lucky enough to have some friends really have a hard time understanding that - it seems so unnecessary - there's no really threat here. Why are you struggling I don't get it? The family or friend might say - might feel - but in reality its a story of someone really either suffering or just feeling like they can't do it whatever the "it" is. That's the one problem with Barbara's comment. The other problem is about therapists getting rich. I don't know if any of you are thinking about becoming a therapist or psychologist or whatever...yeah, therapists don't get rich. Barbara is in error there. So treatment - treatment for social anxiety. Most people never seek it. But those who do - here are three main kinds of treatment a person can encounter for social anxiety: Number one is supporting counseling. Number two would be medications. Number three would be Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. That's the kind of work that I do across the street, and that's what we've built into Learn to Live and there are some other online programs as well in different countries that use online CBT as well. So those are the three main kinds of treatment for social anxiety. As somebody that spends my career devoted to helping others I want to make sure that the type of work that I do really is helpful. And so I pay close attention to what the research about social anxiety says. Most people who go to seek counseling whether is is for social anxiety or for other things (but we're talking about social anxiety here) will receive supportive counseling Provided by compassionate counselors, therapists, who are well-trained - but what does our research say about how that impacts social anxiety? To meet with a provider, and process your week, and get that empathy and support and encouragement - that doesn't help for social anxiety very much. So supportive counseling is less effective. Many people get medications - and our research shows that that is more effective though there are side effects that apply for some people, but many people are helped. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, whether its face-to-face...well with face-to-face our research shows that it is more effective, and I'll be defining what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is as, because, frankly, if you suffer from social anxiety, or if you have someone you care about who does, I would hope that you would seek out cognitive behavioral therapy for yourself or them. Because it's more effective, but its often unavailable because we have far too few providers who do this kind of work Or online, the reason we do it is, as Terry mentioned, to make it more available. And our research shows, low and behold, its just as effective as face-to face therapy. So what is CBT? What have I been talking about? So CBT is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. We use a really long name with lots of syllables so that we all feel very smart. But really the cognitive part relates to the fact that our thoughts affect how we feel. We want to get the head knowledge for starters - that's the cognitive part. Of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. So how do we do that? With education, people begin to challenge their thoughts. So, education. We start off with education about the idea that actually anxiety can be a useful thing as I mentioned earlier. So how can anxiety be useful? Well lets say you are that skier - if you are just really laid back like the stereotypical skier is (but I would suggest that the champion skiers probably aren't as laid back as the stereotype) But if I'm just really laid back like I have no anxiety at all - how hard am I going to work? really? The champion skiers, they're in the weight room, and they're running and they're skiing and they're working hard. And they're working out and they're focused and they are feeling a certain amount of anxiety because the competition is stiff. And so that anxiety can drive us in to work harder.And anxiety can be a signal to us that there is danger and we should do something about it. So either it's a little bit of anxiety to tell me, "OK work at this" or anxiety that is higher that says, "Danger - act! Do something!" If you are hearing the first one - how many of you know what the Yerkes-Dodson Law is? Ok, so I'm a psychologist. And psychology is a field of study that has been around about 100 years. Lots of research. Thousand and thousands of studies and ideas that have been generated, but we've only generated on idea that has been so compelling that it has ever been declared a law, and that's the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Which is this idea that for any given task that I do, that my performance on that task (let's think about the skier) that my performance on that task is related to how much stress that I feel. If the idea were (and stress and anxiety are close cousins) that having no anxiety means I'm at my best, then my peak performance would be right here, right? When my stress is really low, my performance would be really high. But in reality the Yerkes-Dodson Law has found over the years that, no, it's like this That there is some level of stress (not zero) that is going to give me my peak performance. Sot hey skier who has a certain amount of stress is going to try harder - same with people in any other occupation. Welders are going to do a better job welding if they feel a little bit of pressure. Now what about social anxiety? Can social anxiety be useful? We have our group here and this is their intro to Lit class and they're talking about Beowulf and you think, "Well, is her contribution to their conversation going to be better if she has no anxiety?" Or will it be better if she has just a little bit of anxiety? Yes - so if she feels a little bit of anxiety she is going to put in a bit more effort. She's probably going to care more about how the other person feels, who she's talking to. She's probably going to want to put a little bit more thought into what is happening. Let's say that our other person on the bottom is interviewing for a job. Well, interviewing for a job can produce a ton of anxiety. Who's interviewed for a job before?Multiple jobs? Well, if you think about it, if I'm interviewing for a job I want to put my best foot forward, right? And so I don't want to be here, and have no anxiety. But sometimes it can be really hard - who thinks they have ever been here when interviewing for a job? So sometimes when the anxiety is really high it's difficult to think as clearly as you could and to think of all the great things to tell the person who is interviewing you. But she wants to have some level of anxiety so that she can really be engaged - put effort into it. You would want me to feel somewhat nervous and feel some anxiety about talking to you, right? Or else you'd totally get (silence), which is OK for me. So - no anxiety, and you don't put forth effort, and we don't want that. So, here's somebody who's applying for the job at Ikea... It's not always easy to apply for the job. Ok, I'm going to pause here because I'm going to check my watch. Any questions so far? "How would you describe the difference between shyness and social anxiety?" Really good question - so the question was, "How would you describe the difference between shyness and social anxiety?" "Actually that was a question I was going to bring up earlier, is that I struggle with anxiety, and to my knowledge, the difference between shyness and anxiety is such that shyness is a quality you have versus anxiety being something that is debilitating and keeps you from participating fully in life or keeps you from doing things or makes it very difficult to do things that you feel you need to do." That was a great answer - that was a very good answer. Could everyone in the back hear his answer? So yea it really is a story of impact on our life. So people who are shy have a temperament towards introversion. So if I'm introverted, um, my batteries get recharged when I'm by myself. And if I'm introverted, I'm kinda timid, kinda nervous about meeting other people. Not all introverts are nervous about meeting new people, they just want to get their batteries recharged by themselves, But if I am introverted and I'm also somewhat timid, somewhat nervous about encountering new people, I'm shy. So when I was little I hung onto moms leg when she was talking to somebody at the church or a meeting or wherever - the store. Social anxiety when it gets to the level that we are talking about here really causes significant suffering and it prevents me from doing what I want to do. We call that impairment in health care. Impairment. Yes? "Is it emotional or neurological?" So the question was is social anxiety emotional or neurological. Good question that I'll give a very brief answer to - so short shrift to that answer. My friends the psychiatrists who are treating people with medications - I asked you who knew the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist... The short answer is psychiatrists tend to treat with medication and psychologists tend to do evaluations or do therapy and treat with therapy - talk treatments like I do. But my friends who are psychiatrists or other physicians who are prescribing medications, they use a model (and I'm not sure I get to this in my slides) they view it as being a chemical imbalance so maybe many of you have heard - a person has anxiety or depression because they have a chemical imbalance in their brain. And that's their perspective. My perspective is (well, because I have no chemicals) but the research shows that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which I do is one of our most effective treatments without any chemicals directly involved. We know that if I change my thoughts (as we are starting to talk about here) and then change my behaviors, that my anxiety gets better. So they're treating things biologically, I'm treating things by changing behavior and thoughts, both are impacting the anxiety, so does that tell us what the problem is? I think it really tells us it depends on what lens you are looking through. We know that if we do a brain scan of somebody who has a severe anxiety problem while they're doing certain activities (sometimes a PET scan or a SPECT scan) we're able to see hot spots in the brain that tend to be active that aren't active in the same way with someone that doesn't have an anxiety problem. And then if that person is successfully treated with medications, we see changes in the PET scan or SPECT scan. It looks different. And what if they're treated with therapy? Same thing. The same kind of improvement happens in those scans of the brain. So it's strange and we don't really have a good answer to your question. Ok. So I indicated that the cognitive part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is about your thoughts and the idea that your thoguhts produce your feelings. And so, I call this the STEP model. Where we say, "wait a second, even though most people would say that my situation causes how I feel." (most people talk that way) Who say, "I'm really stressed because of that job interview." Well, stress (emotion right?) and what was my explanation? Job interview. Like the situation causes the emotion. To which you might say, "well duh! Job interviews cause stress." But let me ask you - what if somebody's thoughts were, "That interviewer - I just know they are going to like me. I just really think they are - I saw them in the office before when I dropped off my application and I just think they are going to like me." Vs. if my thought is, " I am not going to know what to say. They are going to think I am so stupid and boring. I'm gonna freeze up. I'm gonna drool." Different thoughts, right? Who thinks that having those different thoughts could impact how comfortably we feel? So this is not rocket science - how comfortable I feel brings different emotions and all I did was change the thoughts. And so a big part of my job in providing people with CBT is helping them learn to change their thoughts. And along the way they learn to inspect thoughts. So we identify the thought that goes in the diamond, and then we say, "Let's take a closer look at that." Now we call them automatic negative thoughts - we call them automatic thoughts because they are automatic and we often don't notice them. If I'm angry - so different emotion - if I'm angry I might not notice that I'm also thinking when somebody cut me off in traffic - I might not notice that I'm thinking, "That person thinks they're better than me. They think they can push me around. They don't care how I feel. they are trying to put me down." But I might be thinking those, and that's why i might be feeling angry at that time. And so we help them slow it down and think, "what were my thoughts?" And maybe it was something like that for the anger and maybe for that job interview its something like those thoughts I was saying. "They might think I'm boring. They might think I'm stupid. They might think I'm nervous." "They might think I'm nervous" is really a big one for people with social anxiety. I don't want you to think I'm nervous. Cause if you think I'm nervous that would be awful. And so why am I on my cell phone? Why am I grabbing the chair bracing myself, why am I slipping out of the room? I want to cover it up, I want to get out of there because right now I feel like I am in the spotlight. If I have social anxiety I feel like I'm in the spotlight. I actually am in front of the spotlight. But if in this moment I am suffering from a high level of social anxiety I'm seeing myself as in the spotlight and viewing you as an audience looking at me. And I'm fully anticipating that you are going to be judgmental, that you are going to have hostile thoughts towards me. That you are going to be highly critical. In truth, there may be some of you who are kind of highly critical, there may be some of you in this room who tend to judge people harshly, but not all of you. I have no doubt that there are many people in this room who are really willing to cut a lot of other people slack and really accepting of other people. If there are people in this room (and if I'm suffering from social anxiety and I'm realizing that I might have been miss-judged by a judgmental person) I might chose to say, "I'm just not going to let that person vote. In my own mind I'm not gonna let them vote on whether I'm OK or not." So as we inspect the thoughts we might identify the automatic negative thought - so let's say I figure out the thought and I'm having thoughts like "oh your are going to think I'm stupid, you are gonna think I'm boring, or a bad psychologist or a bad presenter." And then we might say , well, there are certain groups of categories of problems with automatic thoughts, one of them is fortune telling. Well, I just predicted what you might think, so I was fortune telling. Right? Mind reading - I was pretty sure I knew what you were thinking about me, and I was pretty sure I knew why you turned away and whispered to that person next to you. I was reading your mind. "Feeling makes fact" - the idea that I feel something so strongly it must be true. Because I felt it in my gut - so it much be true. "disaster making" - that's when I say, "if this thing happens its not just bad, it's really, really bad. Like what if you thought I was nervous?" And you might. You might think that. But there's two things happening in my mind. One is that I'm predicting - I'm fortune telling that you're going to think this a second from now, right? And then i'm also thinking of it as something that would be really horrible if it were to come true. Well wait a second - two problems here, right? One is that you may not think that. And the other thing is I can't please everybody and it's not practical to care deeply about what everyone thinks and so maybe it isn't as disastrous if you think bad things about me. We have 12 minutes. Ok - Socratic questioning - that's when I have this thought, (and some of you have probably studied philosophy more than I have) but my understanding is that Socrates back in the day didn't just tell people stuff. He taught people how to ask the right questions, or he would ask them questions and then it was their job to answer the question then in the course of answering the question, they would gain knowledge. So Socratic questioning is the process where I say, "OK I'm having this thought so I'm predicating that I'm going to shake." Social anxiety - I don't want to shake in front of you. 20% of alcoholics have social anxiety disorder. 20% or all alcoholics have social anxiety disorder. So what's going on? In part they are medicating that anxiety. And everybody knows that alcohol is a depressant which is a problem mood wise and adjustment wise, but some people are using it to try to manage their anxiety. It works out very poorly for people who do because they're much more likely to become addicted and much more likely to have serious problems. But it might be that I am drinking to cover up the shake. Because again if I care deeply about how you think that I'm anxious right now, it's really important to me that you don't see me shake. And so I don't want to write a check in front of you - checks are these paper things we used to use - anyway, I don't want to write a check in front of you. I don't want to do other things in front of you that might cause you to see me shake. I might not want to drink from a glass in front of you. Because you might see me shake - and why am I shaking? Because I'm nervous and when I'm nervous, my body is preparing for action. And so my muscles are tense right? And when my muscles are really tense, then they shake. You've seen the weight lifters in the olympics - its not just all smooth - gahhhhh! They're shaking right? So Socratic questioning is when I ask myself questions about the thought. You know, "has this happened before?" Because I'm predicting the shake. Questions like, "Does it happen to others? What do logic and science and common sense suggest about whether it is likely?" "How bad would it be if it happened?" Then we try to identify a new thought. What is a thought that is going to work better? It could be that changing my thoughts and changing my behaviors - in the case of this penguin - changing my behaviors can change my outcomes. "We just haven't been flapping them hard enough." Low and behold, we could have been doing this all along. So one kind of knowledge is the head knowledge and we've been talking about that. So again, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The cognitive part relates to my thoughts - and my thoughts produce my emotions. And that give me that kind of head level knowledge that I don't need to be afraid of you, maybe, I might think this through and end up concluding "now wait a second - yeah I might shake, or you might think I'm boring or you might think I'm nervous, but maybe it's not that bad if you do." And so then maybe in my head I know, "I don't really need to be afraid of you." But in my gut I still fear it. How many people have ever been afraid of something that you really knew you didn't need to be afraid of, but you were afraid anyway? Ok, so a little confession about my profession is that even though we say Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is demonstrated to be very effective for social anxiety often it stops with the head knowledge, but it really shouldn't, and the research says it shouldn't , and its important that we get that gut level knowledge. Well how do we get that? Well, we do behavior experiments. where we go out there and we do things and check out what our outcomes are. I go out there and do I shake like I think I will? Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But I want to find out - sometimes we predict things will happen and they don't. I want to reduce my precautions - I know that I have that written in the same sized font as everything else, but it should be a giant font. It should be enormous. Reducing precautions - our recent research is showing us that the most powerful thing that we can do to get past an anxiety problem that we have is to quit being so careful. Now, your parents told you to be careful. They told you that, and in some areas of life you really should be careful. But if I suffer from anxiety problems, and we're talking about social anxiety, it might be that in that area I'm being too careful. Well what kind of precautions might I do? Well, it might be that if I do a presentation, if I have to do a talk, I'm going to practice, practice, practice so it's perfect, cause there's no chance that you can judge me if every word comes out just right. Or it might be that I'm just going to read word for word here and then I wont forget what I was going to say because I might be predicting I'm going to predict what I was going to say. Well public speaking is a place where social anxiety happens a lot. How many of you have ever felt nervous when you are public speaking? "All the time" Yeah, I hear ya. And so public speaking for example we might take precautions like reading word for word, over-preparing, I might stare at the wall so I don't have to look at you. And I might go really fast to just get it over with because its really uncomfortable talking in front of you so I just want to get this done. And yet, at the end - let's say it goes OK - let's say it goes OK and I survive this semester at school but I know that all the way I was walking through the hallways faking phones calls and getting in and out of class really fast I could draw two conclusions: my conclusion could be "it really isn't that threatening of a situation, and I'm, really up to the task. I don't have any reason to be afraid." Or I could conclude, "Phew, that was one near miss after another - good thing I did all of those precautions. I'm going to keep that phone handy. I'll get a second phone." And so job one is to really reduce these precautions, so if the ceiling caves in before I finish my presentation and all you got from this was for a person to reduce their social anxiety over time, the most powerful thing they can do is to be less careful. That would be the message I would want you to take home. And the other thing we do is fear facing, where I put myself in situations that are uncomfortable deliberately. Deliberately. The idea is that anything worth doing is difficult to do, and there's no easy way to get past fears except to face them. So I've deliberately put myself in the spotlight. I've deliberately put myself in the situation. So if i'm facing my fears I've deliberately put myself in situations where you can see me up close or I might - having a conversation with you might make me really uncomfortable so it might be that I'll make a plan that I'm going to make small talk with that cashier. And in fact I might even plan it so that I can have interactions with several cashiers over the next half hour and one after another I'm going to make some small talk. Even though I'm uncomfortable with the idea that I'm facing my fears, and there's something powerful that happens when I face my fears. It might be that the telephone is really uncomfortable for me so I might decide that I'm going to make phone calls, one after the other. You know, "How much is milk?" right? Ummm Ummm Ummmm, I might pause, I might "ummm" in front of you because I might be afraid that you might judge me if I look nervous or uncertain. It's even possible that I've been doing that throughout our discussion today. Or it could be that I naturally "ummm". I might make deliberate mistakes because on some level - remember the "disaster making" issue? I might think, "It'd be awful if you judged me. It might be awful if I make a mistake." So I might make mistakes on purpose. So I might deliberately, when I go talk to the cashier, I might deliberately mispronounce words. I might deliberately do other things imperfectly. I might deliberately-ly stutter. Why? Because I'm so sick and tired of being caged in by this fear that's kept me from potentially completing my college education. Or having the kind of life that I want to live. That is is worth doing. It's worth doing these things that are awkward and uncomfortable. And its the people who have become really fed-up with the problem enough to cross that threshold that they're willing to suffer a little bit by facing fears Those are the people who really get a big win. I might even inconvenience others on purpose as well. That actually is one of the - I won't even get into that. But sometimes it's funny to deliberately inconvenience other people I mean, you're not trying to make them really suffer, but if you are going to deliberately slow someone down for a second or two If you have trouble with social anxiety, it is excruciating at first. Like if the light turns green - one one thousand, two one thousand - if you suffer from social anxiety your veins will be swelling. But, because facing fears typically results in (by the end of my fear facing, if I stick with it a long time) I get to be less afraid. You know, after I've done that to 40 cars, I'm less afraid. My anxiety drops, like that graph shows. Here are some safety behaviors that we discussed. Terry, I said I would talk about test anxiety. Same basic principles. I worry too much about if I am going to fail the test or if I will do poorly, and so i want to do the same thing. I want to change my thoughts - is it really the end of the world if I get a bad grade on this particular test? Really? Maybe it's not. Maybe I even want to face my fears - maybe I want to deliberately put the wrong answer on a couple of quizes or on a couple of papers so I get less afraid of imperfection. So the key is noticing the problem. Noticing the people who are trying to conceal that they have the problem. Acknowledging it in yourself if you are the one that suffers. And then seeking good help. Thank you very much!

POLITICAL THEORY – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

modern life is deeply attracted to the idea of progress in the 18th century as European societies became ever richer and more technological the conventional view was that mankind was firmly set on a positive trajectory from savagery and ignorance toward prosperity and civilization but there was at least one eighteen century philosopher who violently disagreed and he continues to have very provocative things to say to our own era jaja Crusoe was born to an educated watchmaker in Geneva in 1712 when he was 10 his father got into a legal dispute and the family was forced to flee Geneva from that point on who says life was marked by deep instability in isolation as a young man who went to Paris and there was exposed to the opulence and luxury that was the order of the day in Austin regime Paris it was a far cry from his birthplace of Geneva a city that was sober and deeply opposed to luxury goods then one day in 1749 he read a copy of a newspaper The Metro DeVos that contains an advert for an essay on the subject of whether recent advances in arts and sciences have contributed to what was called the purification of morals in other words was the world getting better Russo experienced something of an epiphany it struck him that civilization and progress had not in fact improved people instead they'd exact a terrible destructive influence on the morality of human beings who had once been good research took this insight and turned it into the central theses of what became his celebrated discourse on the Arts and Sciences his argument was simple individuals had once been good and happy but as people had emerged from their pre social state and join society they become plagued by vice and sin in this work and its twin the discourse on the origins and foundations of inequality Russa went on to sketch what it would have been like at the beginning of history and idyllic period that he called the state of nature along time ago when men and women lived in forests and it never entered a shop or read a newspaper the philosopher picture people were easily understanding their own minds and so being drawn toward essential features of a satisfied life of a family respect for nature or at the beauty of the universe curiosity about others and a taste for music and simple entertainment's the state of nature was moral and guided by spontaneous pity empathy for others and their suffering so what was it about civilization that Rousseau thought had corrupted people and led to moral degeneracy Russo claimed that the march toward civilization awakened in people and unhealthy form of self-love remove property called it something that was artificial and centered around pride jealousy in vanity rousseau argued that this destructive form of self love had emerged as people had moved into cities and there had begun to compare themselves to others and created their identities solely by reference to their neighbors civilized people had stopped thinking about what they wanted and they felt and Millie imitated the people entering into rooms competitions for status and money and losing sight of their own sensations Russo is forever associated with a time noble savage because it was his work that describe the innocence and morality of our ancestors and contrasted with modern decadence at the time researchers writing European Society was fascinated by the plight the native North American tribes reports of Indian society drawn up in the 16th century had once described the Indians as materially simple but psychologically very rich and interesting communities with small close-knit Therrien religious playful and Marshall however within a few decades of the arrival of the Europeans the status system of Indian society have been revolutionized through contact with a technology and luxury of European industry Indians now longed for guns alcohol beads and mirrors rates of suicide and alcoholism and reason communities were fracturing factions were squabbling the modern world had ruined the lives of people who'd once lived early in the state of nature loses interest in natural goodness made him very interested in the idea though not quite the reality of children in 1762 he wrote a meal or on education perhaps the most successful book ever written about how to raise children who suggested the children were born naturally good and that the key to raising them was there for all ways to prevent corruption by society this idea was widely influential parents would before this time seeing their children as we can't or at best as blank slates now viewed them as friends of wisdom and tried to give them a childhood full of play in visits to forests and lakes Russo became the inventor of child centered education he was also a great proponent of breastfeeding declaring that mothers danger another stepchildren and morals will reform themselves nature sentiment will be awakened in every heart and the state will be re- peopled it was he knew a bit of hyperbole but its spurred a wave of breastfeeding even among the wealthy who long disdained the practice artist rush to paint an honor the new vote for breastfeeding because Russo so closely about human beings in their original state it followed that in the novels he rode Russo also constantly celebrated intense feelings rather than great deeds or social events in his novel written in 1761 research depicted the excitement and anguish of an upper-class women caught in a love triangle between has sensitive tutor and how boring but socially sanctioned aristocratic match research contemporaries might have seen Julie as unwise and her feelings as a passing fancy but Russo painted her love and highlight he urged to see its grand jury death and honor in his writings about his own life Russo was similarly romantic or what one might unkindly call self-absorbed in his famous confessions one of the first ever autobiographies resuspended pages exploring his inner life a frustrating he found shopping surprising feeling of tenderness for his ex's new partner with the joys of gardening to him these weren't review or self-absorbed topics they were part of an important task show is like on the inside I have conceived of a new genre of service to render to man he boasted to offer them the faithful image of one amongst them in order for them to learn to know themselves Russo died in 1778 age 66 his reputation has continued to grow he was from beyond the grave one of the heroes of the french revolution and he became an icon to a great many artists and writers of the 19th century Russo can be considered as one of the founding figures of what we now know as the Romantic movement and ideology responsible for valuing the primitive over the civilized the child over the adult the passionate lover over the calmly loyal spouse the modern world despite its addiction to status machinery and capitalist values in many ways continues to be profoundly romantic in its heart it's astonishing the so much of what we take to be common sense or just natural can directly be traced back to the work of one not always wise but always highly intriguing and provocative think.

POLITICAL THEORY - Karl Marx

Most people agree that we need to improve our economic system somehow. Yet we’re also often keen to dismiss the ideas of capitalism’s most famous and ambitious critic, Karl Marx. This isn’t very surprising. In practice, his political and economic ideas have been used to design disastrously planned economies and nasty dictatorships. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t reject Marx too quickly. We ought to see him as a guide whose diagnosis of Capitalism’s ills helps us navigate towards a more promising future. Capitalism is going to have be reformed - and Marx’s analyse are going to be part of any answer. Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, Germany. Soon he became involved with the Communist party, a tiny group of intellectuals advocating for the overthrow of the class system and the abolition of private property. He worked as a journalist and had to flee Germany, eventually settling in London. Marx wrote an enormous number of books and articles, sometimes with his friend Friedrich Engels Mostly, Marx wrote about Capitalism, the type of economy that dominates the western world. It was, in his day, still getting going, and Marx was one of its most intelligent and perceptive critics. These were some of the problems he identified with it: Modern work is “alienated” One of Marx’s greatest insights is that work can be one of the sources of our greatest joys. But in order to be fulfilled at work, Marx wrote that workers need ‘to see themselves in the objects they have created’. Think of the person who built this chair: it is straightforward, strong, honest and elegant It’s an example of how, at its best, labour offers us a chance to externalise what’s good inside us. But this is increasingly rare in the modern world. Part of the problem is that modern work is incredibly specialised. Specialised jobs make the modern economy highly efficient, but they also mean that it is seldom possible for any one worker to derive a sense of the genuine contribution they might be making to the real needs of humanity. Marx argued that modern work leads to alienation = Entfremdung in other words, a feeling of disconnection between what you do all day and who you feel you really are and would ideally be able to contribute to existence. Modern work is insecure Capitalism makes the human being utterly expendable; just one factor among others in the forces of production that can ruthlessly be let go the minute that costs rise or savings can be made through technology. And yet, as Marx knew, deep inside of us, we don’t want to be arbitrarily let go, we are terrified of being abandoned. Communism isn’t just an economic theory. Understood emotionally, it expresses a deep-seated longing that we always have a place in the world’s heart, that we will not be cast out. Workers get paid little while capitalists get rich This is perhaps the most obvious qualm Marx had with Capitalism. In particular, he believed that capitalists shrunk the wages of the labourers as much as possible in order to skim off a wide profit margin. He called this primitive accumulation = ursprüngliche Akkumulation Whereas capitalists see profit as a reward for ingenuity and technological talent, Marx was far more damning. Profit is simply theft, and what you are stealing is the talent and hard work of your work force. However much one dresses up the fundamentals, Marx insists that at its crudest, capitalism means paying a worker one price for doing something that can be sold for another, much higher one. Profit is a fancy term for exploitation. Capitalism is very unstable Marx proposed that capitalist systems are characterised by series of crises. Every crisis is dressed up by capitalists as being somehow freakish and rare and soon to be the last one. Far from it, argued Marx, crises are endemic to capitalism - and they’re caused by something very odd. The fact that we’re able to produce too much - far more than anyone needs to consume. Capitalist crises are crises of abundance, rather than - as in the past - crises of shortage. Our factories and systems are so efficient, we could give everyone on this planet a car, a house, access to a decent school and hospital. That’s what so enraged Marx and made him hopeful too. Few of us need to work, because the modern economy is so productive. But rather than seeing this need not to work as the freedom it is, we complain about it masochistically and describe it by a pejorative word “unemployment.” We should call it freedom. There’s so much unemployment for a good and deeply admirable reason: because we’re so good at making things efficiently. We’re not all needed at the coal face. But in that case, we should - thought Marx - make leisure admirable. We should redistribute the wealth of the massive corporations that make so much surplus money and give it to everyone. This is, in its own way, as beautiful a dream as Jesus’s promise of heaven; but a good deal more realistic sounding. Capitalism is bad for capitalists Marx did not think capitalists were evil. For example, he was acutely aware of the sorrows and secret agonies that lay behind bourgeois marriage. Marx argued that marriage was actually an extension of business, and that the bourgeois family was fraught with tension, oppression, and resentment, with people staying together not for love but for financial reasons. Marx believed that the capitalist system forces everyone to put economic interests at the heart of their lives, so that they can no longer know deep, honest relationships. He called this psychological tendency commodity fetishism = Warenfetischismus because it makes us value things that have no objective value. He wanted people to be freed from financial constraint so that they could - at last - start to make sensible, healthy choices in their relationships. The 20th century feminist answer to the oppression of women has been to argue that women should be able to go out to work. Marx’s answer was more subtle. This feminist insistence merely perpetuates human slavery. The point isn’t that women should imitate the sufferings of their male colleagues,it’s that men and women should have the permanent option to enjoy leisure. Why don’t we all think a bit more like marx? An important aspect of Marx’s work is that he proposes that there is an insidious, subtle way in which the economic system colours the sort of ideas that we ending up having. The economy generates what Marx termed an “ideology”. A capitalist society is one where most people, rich and poor, believe all sorts of things that are really just value judgements that relate back to the economic system: that a person who doesn’t work is worthless, that leisure (beyond a few weeks a year) is sinful, that more belongings will make us happier and that worthwhile things (and people) will invariably make money. In short, one of the biggest evils of Capitalism is not that there are corrupt people at the top—this is true in any human hierarchy—but that capitalist ideas teach all of us to be anxious, competitive, conformist, and politically complacent. Marx didn’t only outline what was wrong capitalism: we also get glimpses of what Marx wanted the ideal utopian future to be like. In his Communist Manifesto he describes a world without private property or inherited wealth, with a steeply graduated income tax, centralised control of the banking, communication, and transport industries, and free public education. Marx also expected that communist society would allow people to develop lots of different sides of their natures: “in communist society…it is possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.” After Marx moved to London he was supported by his friend and intellectual partner Friedrich Engels, a wealthy man whose father owned a cotton plant in Manchester. Engels covered Marx’s debts and made sure his works were published. Capitalism paid for Communism. The two men even wrote each other adoring poetry. Marx was not a well-regarded or popular intellectual in his day. Respectable, conventional people of Marx’s day would have laughed at the idea that his ideas could remake the world. Yet just a few decades later they did: his writings became the keystone for some of the most important ideological movements of the 20th century. But Marx was like a brilliant doctor in the early days of medicine. He could recognise the nature of the disease, although he had no idea how to go about curing it. At this point in history, we should all be Marxists in the sense of agreeing with his diagnosis of our troubles. But we need to go out and find the cures that will really work. As Marx himself declared, and we deeply agree: Philosophers until now have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.

10 Days in North Korea

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed She was looking kind of dumb with her finger and her thumb In the shape of an "L" on her forehead Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running Didn't make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do, so much to see So what's wrong with taking the back streets? You'll never know if you don't go You'll never shine if you don't glow Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold The ice we skate is getting pretty thin The water's getting warm so you might as well swim My world's on fire, how about yours? That's the way I like it and I never get bored Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid All that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show, on get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars Somebody once asked could I spare some change for gas? I need to get myself away from this place I said yep what a concept I could use a little fuel myself And we could all use a little change Well, the years start coming and they don't stop coming Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running Didn't make sense not to live for fun Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb So much to do, so much to see So what's wrong with taking the back streets? You'll never know if you don't go (go!) You'll never shine if you don't glow Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold And all that glitters is gold Only shooting stars break the mold At the entrance is poster reminding citizens that, at any time, they should always be reading to show respect to the great leader, Kim Jong-un. Inside, we are given a warm welcome by the proud owners of the large 240 metre flat. A gift from the marshall to his indispensable scientists. "It's an incentive to work harder and more quickly", says Kim Chol Ho. A sickle, a hammer, and a brush in the center of Pyongyang symbolize the solidity of the country's only political party to hold power. Almost 90% of all members of parliament belong to the workers party. The remaining seats are taken by representatives with the dependent social democratic and Chonduist parties, that have no real power. There's also a handful of so-called "independent" members. The last parliamentary election was held earlier this year. Kim Jong-Un was re-elected as a deputy with 100% of the vote from the same assembly that chose him as the country's supreme leader. That was two weeks after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, eternal general secretary of the workers party. Kim Kyeo-sun is a farmer, just like his father before him. He has worked at the meko collective farm for eighty-years. He joined after leaving the army where ten-years of service is obligatory almost all men. Working to uphold the system and achieving goals set by the government, is a question of honor. Agricultural workers are constantly reminded of this by propaganda that's widely distributed throughout the collective farms Loudspeakers broadcasting rousing music and speeches call for farmers to their daily work. Students with revolutionary flags and flowers take turns to boost the farmer's morale. The slogan's encourage everyone to be patriots and surpass the entire world. Or at least to follow the Great Marshall's example and contribute as much effort as he does, to ensure that his people thrive. Certificates on the offices of this glass factory proudly honour employees of the month and year. Last month, Oh Yong-nam broke not a single sheet of plain glass while packing. He considers that an acheivment. Students pursue the same goals. At least that's what's said in front of a camera. "To serve my country," says Ji Chung Hyok. In this case, he is talking about technological research. He is on his way to study in the country's main library, "The Grand People's Study Palace". Even prisoners are bound to contribute to the stability and development of the North Korean system. The exact number of convicts is something else that's kept secret. The punishment for any felony is compulsory labour or for less serious offences community service. That's what we were openly told by Alejandro Cao de Benós, from Spain. As president of the Korean friendship association, he cooperates with the government. He helped sort out all the issues we had to face to enter the country and he will accompany us throughout this trip. Fields, construction sites, and mines are the most common destinations for prisoners sentenced to punitive labour. A foreign ministry official recently confirmed to a handful of journalists that there are indeed, special camps for this kind of labour. Some agencies say that their purpose is to reform criminals. High treason and subversion carry the death penalty General Jang Sung-taek was execution last year. He was the young martial's uncle and sought to be his mentor, the second most important figure in the country. A military tribunal accused him of corruption and plotting to topple the revolutionary North Korean regime. Our visit ends in Pyongyang's victorious war museum Special effects and music portray the exploits of the People's army and their struggle against their southern neighbor and the United States. The latent conflict lasted more than 60 years, and North Korea commemorates the end of military action with a grand annual parade, demonstrating its military prowess. Victory day, as it's known here, marks the armistice in the Korean war. Last year saw the 70th anniversary parade where, as well as missiles, tanks, and troops, for the first time ever, Kim Jong-un used the occasion to to demonstrate to the world, that North Korea had successfully produced it's own drones. There are more than a million soldiers in the regular army. Not including the highly militarized police. More than 15% of the GDP is spent on the military. Mangyong Dai Revolutionary school even prepares children. For the regime, the army is a source of inspiration and above all, order, defining the precise military way in which the society is organised, a society on constant full combat alert. This is a country based on military ideology absolutely everything is literally imbued with combative spirit. A metro system more than a 100 metres deep was constructed in the 1970s with help from the USSR and China. This underground space would serve as a refuge in the event of a nuclear attack. A gigantic sculpture graces the southern exit of Pyongyang. where two women symbolise Korean reunification. On official maps, North and the South are marked as a single country called the Korean People's Democratic Republic. Just 3 hours drive along a run down, but wide spectacularly clean and practically empty road, takes you from Pyongyang to the border. This highway with limited access could also be used for military maneuvers. From time to time you encounter army checkpoints where filming is strictly forbidden. Locals wait patiently in line to show their permits to pass through the barrier. Pan Mon Jom village is where Lieutenant Colonel Nam Tong-hou delivers military history lectures for visitors. This would seem to be one of the most important tourist attractions in the country. According to the guide, in this very hall and at these very desks on July the 27th, 1953, North Korea and the USA signed the armistice agreement without the participation of the South. It was a precarious non-aggression pact, that should ultimately have led to a final peace treaty, but never did. There are no South Korean soldiers to be seen along that clearly marked military border today. It's said they keep it under surveillance using binoculars and cameras, or remaining where tourists won't see them. Technically, a state of war still exists between the parties, following the conflicts that resulted in millions of casualties and ravage to the peninsula. Several meters away, a group of American christians, some of South Korean descent, pray for reunification. There are now huge differences between the two sides, historic, economic, and cultural. Even the language has begun to differ. But families living on opposite sides of this divide, still try to preserve ties between close relatives torn apart by war. It's a painful issue that's often used as a bargaining chip in talks between Pyongyang and Seoul. Dozens of people from the South, all selected by drawing lots, came to the moutains in Compang region in North Korea's east coast in search of brothers and sisters nephews and even children they were never given the opportunity to know. After several years, in February, family members separated by war are granted just 3 days to see each other. For many, it's their last chance. I don't, involve, any of the politics or, any of the, um, religion part, but we just wanted to; this is a one country, and this is a one people. On her second trip to the country in 8 years, Mrs. Lee met us in Kai Sung, the next stop after our trip to the border. First trip was very sad. It was really dark, no lights. You know, during the, um, the meal time, lights go off like 5-6 times, and there are no, um, smiles on peoples' face, but, um, now I think it's, uh, economically changing, but I think, uh, some, something life, some kind of life is coming back. The differences between Kai Sung and Pyongyang are striking. This city is one of the few examples of direct economic cooperation between North and South. The only joint industrial complex is based here. It encompasses over a hundred South Korean companies, employing 53 thousand North Koreans. Kernel Kim Chan-yun comes with us to the so-called "Demilitarized Zone," which ironically is one of the most heavily armed areas in the world. He's talking about the wall erected on the South Korean side. It was completed in 1979 and Washington and Seoul deny its existence. Though they do acknowledge there are certain anti-tank facilities in place. This 4 kilometer wide natural barrier divides the peninsula. South Korea looms in the distance. Seoul is a little over 50 kilometers away. From here on the North Korean side, and using the Colonel's binoculars, we're able to see South Korean military bases, flying UN flags on the opposite side. We can also see what the North Koreans are talking about: a five meter high wall stretching from east to west. Chan-yun can take pride in just how much trust the marshal vests in him, keeping him posted on the main border, and in his 40 years of continued service in the People's Army. Revolutionary policy in the DPRK is based on the principles of Songun, meaning military first; a philosophy that reached its heyday during Kim Jong Il's reign, that lasted more than 20 years. The more time passes, the more complex and controversial the concept becomes. A 170 meter tower keeps this fire burning at the monument to Juche. Idealogically, a permissive and slightly spiritual adaptation of communism ascribed to Kim Il-sung. It promotes national and personal self-reliance, or rather, reliance on the masses who are dubbed the masters of revolution and national development. Although the ideology may seem controversial and mysterious, and even dangerous to foreigners, it is constantly referred to. The state-endorsed image of utopian self-reliance and self-sufficiency is in stark contrast to economic reality in the country, which remains dependent on outside help and suffers from an acute shortage of currency. Cargo ships sail into the locks of the East China Sea bringing goods from China, still the main supplier of provisions and aid received through international assistance. Last year, more than 2 million people in the DPRK benefited from United Nations aid. Chinese goods fill the model supermarket shelves in Potonggang, alongside locally manufactured products which serve as an example of the country's economic prowess. The closest estimate was from the Bank of South Korea. According to Seoul, its northern neighbor demonstrated 1.1 percent of economic growth in the last year. However, as is so often the case, Pyongyang has released no official data. Small shops and food distribution centers where local people pick up their monthly food rations didn't feature in our itinerary. We were also warned not to film construction sites and especially construction workers, many of whom are servicemen. They told us that work when smeared with cement, would give a false impression of the country. However, we were allowed to film, from afar, this footage of the Teachers Tower in the capital, along with the construction of a new terminal building and tarmac at the airport. Renovation of them made the first football stadium and construction of the five star Ryugyong hotel, housed in the tallest building in Pyongyang; which is still underway after 27 years of work; plus many other buildings and complexes, whose construction was initiated by Kim Jong-un. So, we started construction of this museum in September 2012, and under the wise leadership of the pristin, I, I mean and the West leadership of the marshal Kim Jong-un, we finished the construction within only ten months. The museum and the weapons expansions outside and all the renovations, the monuments, everything was now within only 10 months time. The news block at the state-controlled TV channel focuses entirely on the country's economy. The biggest share of North Korea's GDP is from industry and mining, followed by the service sector and agriculture, which isn't enough to meet the population's needs. Slightly over fifteen percent of the land can be farmed. Tourism and disguised foreign investments are sources of foreign currency badly needed in the country living with sanctions and economic war. Tourists are only allowed to pay in Euros, US dollars, or Chinese yuan. They have to pay higher tourist prices. The few foreigners who visit the country, many of whom are Chinese, are constantly accompanied by one or several "guides". Tourists can't leave their room in the 47-story hotel, complete with five restaurants and a souvenir shop and walk unattended to the casino in the basement; it's leased by a company from Macau. Only twice did we get the chance to walk the streets of Pyongyang. The rest of the time we were chauffeur-driven in a minivan. Every morning and night, several times a day, this disturbing melody can be heard playing on the many loud speakers in Pyongyang's railway station. Newcomers are immersed in a nightmarish atmosphere: a funeral march serving to remind all who pass through of the great eternal generals. Every visitor to the capitol brings flowers. They must pay their respect to the colossal bronze statues standing at the top of Mansu Hill. North Koreans say that they are required to perform the ceremony each and every time they visit any city. A quite remarkable number of literary works are attributed to the great generals. The national library contains the selected outstanding works of the founder of the nation. There are more than seven hundred volumes of Kim Il-sung's speeches, books, and plays. One of the best known by the eternal president is a speech calling on the people to support his son, Kim jong-Il, who would soon take over from his father. It's almost three years since Kim Jong-il died. Throughout that time his image has been closely linked with that of his father, the eternal president. Kimilsungia orchids and Kimjongilia begonias grace all public gardens and civic buildings. Images captured by a camera have to be perfect. The taking of partial pictures of the general's statues or photographs marred by lens flare is strictly forbidden. North Koreans all wear special insignia near their hearts. The badges bear portraits of the leaders, and among other things they show the wearer's merit and how close they are to the government. We were told that the hardest to obtain depicts the smiling faces of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il together. Buildings are generously adorned with their portraits. There are two separate but identical halls, each of which contain the leaders in embalmed bodies. The council's own mausoleum represents the apotheosis in the leader's cult. Photography inside is strictly forbidden. Two seemingly endless moving walkways are decorated with the generals' pictures, portraying their lives and work. They lead to pharaonic marble holes, containing the mummified leaders, surrounded by treasured objects from their respective eras: Armored trains and cars, an array of medals and decorations, even a huge map giving a detailed account of their travels. North Koreans dressed in their finest clothes and flock in their hundreds to the mausoleum. Earlier today, our film crew was among them. We'd asked that North Korean worker for his thoughts about the new leaders rule. Leaning on a cane, Kim Jong-un reappeared in public after being absent for a month and a half. North Korea's mass media attributed his low profile to his indisposition. The disappearance coincided with our visit, although we only learned of it when we left. The leader, though, didn't seem to have become subject to rumor or gossip, and the few who are lucky enough to see him at close quarters were thrilled. At that time, I were, it was too sudden to see, him. So, uh...uh...I can feel it, it was real, so I thought, uh, it wasn't just like it was real, I felt like "Is it, is it just a dream?" or something like that. Later he passed across in front of me and then I knew that I really met him. In real life. For most though, daily contact with the exalted leader is limited to the opening minutes of the evening news broadcast, which is a rule to report his latest activity. When Kim Jong-un didn't appear in public, the bulletins aired recordings of previous official engagements. A sample of what was said when we were able to interview people on the street. Even though this was outside our planned itinerary, no spontaneous responses were forthcoming. Our attendance carefully selected the people we could talk to, and particularly sensitive topics were very much off limits. Ideological upbringing and loyalty to the regime begin with early childhood. The first kindergarten in North Korea was reorganized during Kim Jong-il's rule. It's open from Monday to Saturday to accommodate the children of working mothers. In one school whole, three and four-year-olds put on a performance for newcomers. Five children sing a heroic song, telling how their beloved leader became a steel commander, because ever since he was a child, he understood the importance of military force. During a revolutionary history lesson, the teacher shows a model of a fantasy paradise where they say Kim Il-sung was born. They repeat the place and date of his birth. "He was born in spring just like magnolias," says the teacher. During a science lesson, pupils are told a story about how the great generals once sent children tomatoes, pears, and grapes that they had personally picked themselves. A squirrel and a hedgehog are the heroes of the most popular children's cartoon. Agile and smart, North Korean squirrels fight their enemies: ferrets and mice. The quality of animation has been acknowledged internationally. That's why overseas studios higher Korean animators in Pyongyang at very low rates to work on their films. The International Movie Festival in Pyongyang provided the pretext that allowed our crew to secure an invitation to enter North Korea. "The Flower Girl" represents the classics of North Korean cinema. The screenplay was written by Kim Il-sung when he was 20. It was made into a movie 40 years ago, and is now one of the five greatest revolutionary operas. It's the story of a young girl from a poor family who was suppressed by a wicked landlord during Japanese occupation. On the banks of the Taedong river that cuts through the city, everyday life overshadows the exotic and mysterious atmosphere enveloping North Korea. Oblivious to the international headlines, three boys try their luck at casting lines from the riverside, while another family takes to boating. Local teams are replaying a classic game, a match between Barcelona and Real Madrid. But this is the volleyball version; it's one of the most popular sports in the country. People pay a visit to the Changyuan beauty and aesthetics parlor on Wednesdays. A poster displayed near the entrance to the salon features the most popular women's hair styles. The women usually wear heels and will never let their hair down if it's too long. Among the styles most often recommended by men's hair dresses, is the one sported by the country's leader. There's no place for extravagance here either. Excessive attention is paid to order, cleanliness, and symmetry in the capital city's streets. The harmony and serenity that prevail in the city are there to conceal the controlled lifestyle that North Koreans must observe. The highly paternalistic policy of the state prescribes exactly what citizens must hear, read, and see. Using these computers in the People's Palace of Education, access to the country's intranet is easy. It's a localized network isolated from the outside world full of sex in American propaganda as one North Korean resident told us. The internet is available to a select few: scientists and research workers for example. In 2014, Pyongyang by night has little in common with how it was described a few years ago. The main avenues are brightly illuminated with neon lights and street lamps. Although smaller residential areas and streets do succumb to darkness when night falls. Some members of one very popular band, graduated from this conservatory, considered the most important in North Korea. They say that the five members of the Moranbong Band were personally hand-picked by the current leader, Kim Jong-un. The first woman's pop band looks more rebellious than its lyrics actually suggest. This represents something of a departure from the norm in the country: meticulously arranged and monotone aesthetics. In Spain, and a year before preparing for this trip, we spoke to Choe and other aerial artists. Few ever represent their country abroad like they do. Or even earn foreign currency for the system like workers laboring in the Middle East. Not many get the chance to see anything beyond North Korea's tightly sealed borders. One plane filled with workers took off for Kuwait on the day I was landed in Pyongyang. On our way to the hotel, we stared around the unfamiliar streets, certain that we'd be able to gain some insight into the most unknown country in the world. Ten days later, we knew different. An impermeable barrier separating us from them blurs every story we hear about this country, giving it a sense of incompleteness. And that imprecision holds true for the story you have just see too. Everything we heard lacked the millions of voices and opinions needed to be credible. What really happens in this faraway land ruled by one young marshal, is anyone's guess.