High Risk, All Grown Up - Commentary

Themes: 
male vulnerability
violence
sexual violence

Of Course the Predators Ate Him

Fight-Flight is a fear-startle reflex emerging deep in the sensory motor brain, the so called ancient ‘reptilian’ brain. The pursuit of egotistic gratification turned predator, sexual or otherwise, is not fight-flight, rather, patterns of violence embedded early in the formation of the ego or social-emotional self-image, what we generally refer to as ego.

Themes: 
bonding
sexual violence
male vulnerability

Celebrating Joseph Chilton Pearce

As we continue Joe develops a number of themes all centering on the long term consequences of not being nurtured. ‘The child who is nurtured and bonded and given that safe space from the earliest developmental period can move away from the safe space carrying that same state of mind with him and is ready to move on into the higher realms of human possibility.  Whereas the majority of us lacking that safe space never move on. We try to repair or build for ourselves the safe space to be.  It’s a safe space that we either carry with us and are - or not at all, yet we are trained to believe we can create the safe space by following all the appropriate cultural directives and every cultural directive drives us into an ever increasing unsafe positions and we feel more and more threatened by the world.’ Here again, Joe turns our cultural assumptions upside down. Rather than culture being the sanctuary it pretends to be, culture is the source of our greatest trauma and pain.

Michael Mendizza

Themes: 
male vulnerability
culture

Celebrating Josephh Chilton Pearce

Continuing to focus on the way culture shapes our reality Joe notes: ‘One of the things that culture brings about is the idea that without its guiding filters we would be like beasts in the forest, savage, uncivilized, murderous, etc. The truth of the matter is, culture is what makes us savage, vicious, murderous, war after war after war because of the restrictions and restraints imposed by culture. Both neural scientist James Neal and Alan Shore question: “Will we survive the current situation?” And both Neal and Shore, said “Only if we can produce males capable of nurturing their offspring.” And this sets the stage for a radically different view of the nurturing role of males.

Michael Mendizza

Themes: 
culture
violence
male vulnerability