Creating An Idealized Persona Part One

 

Creating An Idealized Persona

Part One:  What are we doing wrong?

 

1  Hi Everybody!  This is Leo Volont.  I’ve begun a new Video Series entitled, “Creating An Idealized Persona”, and this is Part One: “What Are We Doing Wrong?”  So, okay, we will eventually talk about what exactly we mean by an “Idealized Persona”, and then we’ll discuss how we can structure our own personalities on such a model, but, first, in this particular video, we’ll examine why it’s such a problem that we now have so few Idealized Personas in our Society.  What is Modern Society doing so wrong? 

 

2 One problem seems evident, that we’re not educating our population in how to be optimum Parents, particularly our Girls, our future Mothers.  I believe the problem there was that in trying to achieve Equality for Women, we inadvertently negated the Womanly Qualities, and in the Schools our little Girls became ‘Boys Version Two, and the unique biological and social roles of Women were ignored.   Education focused on making Women into competent Wage Slaves that could be interchangeable with Men.  But it wasn’t always like that.  Yeah, just 4 or 5 decades back, American High Schools had Home Economics Classes which were predominantly for the Girls.  I believe that most of these programs have since been dropped.  But, if we only had such programs today, than we would now have available a great number of Female Interns that could source out from the High Schools who could help bolster up the Day Care Programs that our Economy really calls out for.  But, more importantly, our Society would’ve better prepared our Girls to be more competent Mothers.    But, in terms of Persona Development, I worry most about the problem of bad or insufficient Role Modeling.     

 

3  Also, I’m not confident that even the Academic Community realizes the full extent of how badly our Society is doing with Role Modeling.  Our Society seems totally committed to the Nuclear Family Model where children will only really have exposure to  two Role Models, their parents, who are usually just a young man and a young woman starting out with no experience, but it will be entirely up to those two to show Baby all the Ideal Persona Possibilities available in our complete Social World.  And whatever kind of personas these Young Parents do have, well, most likely they wouldn’t be ideal.   Children end up being molded by lackluster and insufficient Role Modeling.  Even when it is not bad, it’s never very good.

 

4  Role Modeling never used to be such a problem.  You see, in Primordial Evolutionary Times, People did not live in the Suburbs, confined to Nuclear Family Households, but they lived communally.   Remember that in Paleolithic Times the priority for Living Quarters was their Defensibility from wild animals, and so one large Cave for the entire Community would often have been our Evolutionary Home.  Yes, I’ve read the Academic conjectures regarding Living Arrangements in Primitive Times and I’ve seen the Assumption put forward that dwellings were assigned for the purpose of segregating each Nuclear Family, but how could they prove that without finding 100 Thousand Year Old His and Her Towel Sets?  I feel that the Academics are superimposing Modern Protocols on the Primitive, as though we’ve always been this stupid.  We only have to look back at the Medieval Period to see that in Extended Family and Clan Compounds, that the divisions created were between Male and Female quarters, and often with separate nurseries with specialty staff, and the Men wanted as little to do with squally babies as possible.   Yeah, Some things never change.  The only times we saw Men being quartered with Women and their babies was when the Home was a single room shack for those living in the most dire poverty, and it was largely assumed that the Young coming out of such slum dwellings would mature into being dysfunctional adults – ‘Commoners’ used almost as a slur. The more Affluent Members of Society, because of their more expansively populated Living Accommodations, they were better able to impart a broader scope of Role Modeling to their children, and so we could expect that they enjoyed far better Mental Health and were therefore better able to become “Somebody” when they grew up, that is, they’d have a higher probability for developing an Idealized Persona.      

 

5  Also, child rearing during our Evolutionary Primordial Times was significantly different from today.  Today, we are far too clingy and sheltering.   Yes, for the first few years, even way back then, a child would need to stay close to its Mother, but even then the Mothers were mostly young women of Child Bearing Age, but were effectively Supervised by the more knowledgeable and experienced Grandmothers and Grandaunts.   Yes, In a communal setting there’d be a limit to how much damage an ignorant or lax mother could do.  Fathers would not be a problem because, well, their visits would last only so long as it takes to have social time with the Mother, and then they’d be back to their Friends where the real partying takes place.  Yes, our own feelings tell us that we couldn’t believe the Academic Assumptions that any man, Primitive or not, would rather sit around with fussy babies, trying to keep company with a woman, dingy with cooking fire soot, who goes from one household chore to another.  Where’s the Fun in any of that?   Men would rather be sitting around the communal fire, smoking and joking with the other guys, right?... perhaps even enjoying the dancing of the fresh clean blooming Maidens.  Yes, I think that the Modern Academics are looking at the results of all the Modern Coercive means being used to ‘domesticate’ the Human Male, and forget that all that is artificial and injurious to the Character of the Beings into which we have evolved.  They want us to be Good, when they should be pleased if they find us only Strong, Noble and Active.    

 

6  And, then again,  often times the Men were off on Hunting Parties, and this would require that the Women would set up a routine where they could take care of themselves for days at a time.  Yes, men were appreciated for bringing home the Meat, but nothing was happening back at camp that the Women couldn’t handle.  But the Hunts were exhausting and returning home was probably only about their own Recovery Time, and not about any extra work they’d need to perform.    We know that traditionally Men were not saddled with Child Rearing Responsibilities.   I also think it may screw up the Evolutionary Expectations for Role Modeling if the Masculine Mystique of Dignity is permitted to be trampled under the confusion of Men doing the traditional duties of Women.   What can a Boy Child look forward to in Life when he sees his own Father living a life of Cross Gender Role Humiliation.  Yes, I remember laughing when I saw my father wearing an apron for the first time, but then wondered how he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.  You know, I wouldn’t have thought the Laugh worth the Shame of dressing like a Girl.  Perhaps as a child I was a bit more in touch with my Archetypical Receptivity for Valid Role Modeling Expectations, if such a thing exists.  That’s something we will need to look into later.

 

7  Then perhaps the greatest difference between Primitive and Modern is in regards to when it is considered time for the Child to be Independent.  Nowadays children are kept in the Nuclear Family Home until they are at least 18, even while these kids are almost in a constant state of rebellion, almost literally breaking down the walls to free themselves.   It is easy to see the cause of this great frustration, when we look at the Primitive Model where by the time the child is 3 years old and has the dexterity to run and play, then, in the Primitive Community, that is exactly what the children were allowed to do.   The door would be opened to them and the child told “come back if you get hurt and be careful about those snakes” and the 3 year old might as well be 21 in our Society.   The children would be allowed to come and go as they pleased.  The Children themselves would set up various Cadres, sorted by Age Group, and the younger groups would be off playing the games they’d learn by observing the older gangs, who’d be acting as Role Models themselves.  Then, remember, in the Primitive Community the Meals are Communal.  Mothers would  get to see their children when they’d get hungry enough to come back to ‘Camp’ to eat.    

 

8  I remember reading that in the Ancient Aramaic Language that the word for ‘brother’ was the same as the word for ‘cousin’.  This is linguistic proof that nuclear family categories weren’t being recognized, and that every child of a generation would be a collective of ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’… or cousins…  you see, they weren’t making any distinction!  Then we have the convention of including in the name of a child the phrase “Son of Whoever”, that is, tagging a child with the Father’s name.  This would only be necessary if the Son and the Father had so little contact that extraordinary means would need to be employed so that nobody would forget who the father was.  Yes, where the Family Unit is the Clan, then we might not expect Fathers and Sons to get that much personal interaction.  Oh, and then there is the Commandment that we honor our Mothers and Fathers, which, again, is probably conveying only the suggestion that we make a point of remembering who are Parents are amidst all the crowd of Family faces they may be blending in with.  

 

9  But, yes, while the Children may be preoccupied with their Little Friends and the games they play, still, when their eyes would turn towards the Adult World, they’d see an Entire World, where in a functioning, viable Group we would expect them to see approximate “Ideals” of every necessary Type of Persona.   You see, it’s my assumption, that given a random distribution of population, that in every group of 50 to 100 members, the optimum size of the Primordial Group, that there will be a sufficient representation of each necessary Type required by the Group for functional viability.  You see, if Evolution wanted us all to be the same, well, Evolution would have had plenty of time to bring us all to Blond Haired Blue Eyed Intelligent and Well Behaved Uniformity, but we are all so different, temperamentally and functionally, that we should assume we were designed to be like that, that a Functioning Group needs all sorts and for various reasons.  

 

10  Yes, in Primitive Times kids got to see All Sorts.  Also, keep in mind that at a Time in our Evolution when verbal language was still so young, that our abilities then with Non-Verbal Body Language would have still been very acute.    So the Children would know which Members of their Community were being respected, and more often than not it would not be their own parents.  So I believe that Children would be attracted to their own Types, automatically gravitating towards those Role Models in their Community with whom they’d resonate the best. 

 

11  But in Modern Times, it’s as though Parents are keeping their children Prisoners, sequestered from Society, insisting that they themselves be the Role Models, no matter how indifferent their Social Standing.   Then we have the question of just how the damage of Bad Role Modeling will manifest:  first, we could assume that the kids, with no references for comparison, would find even dysfunctional behavioral patterns in their Parents to be ‘exemplary’ and the damage would result from the children copying what’s wrong, or, we may have certain children who show a natural abhorrence to dysfunctionality, but then the children would grow up acting out with a lot of Reactive Fight or Flight Conditioning, which is also no good substitute for optimized communal Role Modeling. 

 

12  But perhaps the greatest harm that follows with inadequate Role Modeling is discernable as a Cultural malaise, that most people don’t have the fulfillment of behaving coolly and crisply as coherently recognizable Personas, and then we all look around and we have little understanding of what anybody else is trying to do or be either.  We’ve allowed our Universal Non-Verbal Communication and Body Language Lexicon to become muddled and indistinct.  We should live in a Culture where EVERYTHING, objects and actions, should have commonly understood meanings or subjective connotations, with often special meanings for each particular Persona Type.  But because of mixed up Role Modeling, everything means something else to everyone, and this state of confusion should not be our status quo condition.

 

13  Really, our Modern Society is now based on the Poverty Model for Social Organization in an Industrial Society, where our Suburban Homes are just upscale luxury models of the Breeding Sheds that 18^th Century Industrialists provided for their adult workers who could survive the rigors of Child Labor.  You see, Child Labor used to be preferred because of the children’s finer manual dexterity and for their pliability and ease of discipline.  Then the hours and intensity of the Work was intentionally gaged to systematically wear down the health of the children so they could conveniently die before they’d reach their rebellious adolescences.   But, then, more children were always needed.  So, breeding sheds, that is, housing men privately with woman in order to have children produced, well, that was the answer… well, yes, that, and also supplying the men with cheap Gin.

 

14   Also, in the 19^th Century, as the realization struck the Leaders and Statesman of Society that Wars would one day mobilize entire Societies and turn Workers into Warriors, well, the Social Planners at the time pushed for ‘Breeding Sheds’ everywhere for most everyone, in order to populate their future Armies, and so nearly all residential accommodations were designed for the Nuclear Family, to house the Bulls with the Cows, so to speak.   Now, even among the Affluent, who could certainly still maintain Estates adequate enough to house not only complete Extended Families, but their entire Clans, well, they too have adopted the Poverty Model, setting up Million Dollar ‘breeding sheds’ and keeping their children prisoners most the time… but the Rich do insist on getting out more often, and so Rich Kids almost always do better in Life, and it’s not just the money.  Rich Kids benefit by their broader exposure to Life and the Social World and; therefore, they enjoy a larger exposure to Idealized Role Modeling, but by adopting the Nuclear Family Residency Pattern for themselves, they do limit the advantages they should be enjoying.  Yeah, it is a special mark of a Dysfunctional Society that our Rich People don’t know how to behave as Rich People.

 

15  Oh, I had done a brief informal Video concerning the Role of Women, but I’ve gotten some further thoughts which I can fit in here.   Yes, I’ve heard it mentioned among Feminists that because Men are predominantly stronger than Women, that a Patriarchal Society is in effect forced upon them.  But this is only so because of the Institutionalization of the Nuclear Family Living Arrangements, that is, housing the brutal men with the more delicate Females and then complaining that the boys play too rough.   So far our Modern Society has only blamed the men for what is only the characteristic behavior we could expect under these circumstances, which is then criminalized so that Women can enjoy their measure of revenge upon the men they are in familiar relationships with.  But that only compounds the problem.  Assigning Blame and issuing Punishments is the most distinctive hallmark of Incompetent Management where Failure Analysis Studies show that most problems arise through Systematic Vulnerabilities.  Blaming People in such situations is only playing “Gotcha”.  So why do we have to hear about a Crisis of Domestic Abuse all while we insist on maintaining Residency in Nuclear Family Units.  Women, for the sake of their own Safety,  require their own Quarters, and the institution of Marriage needs to be re-evaluated for it’s Social Utility, especially since nobody any longer supposes that Husbands have unquestionable conjugial ‘rights’ over the bodies of their Wives, and Marriage is just a Property Contract that commodifies Women anyway, right?  For men, marriage is mostly just a legal liability, and nearly every man who marries is doing so against his own interests.  So I suppose Women must still be in favor of the Institution, because they calculate it must help them more than it hurts.   But, mostly, we need to change how and where we live.  While I think that women should have their own dedicated residential buildings, well, at least, where costs must be contained, they, as a minimum, should have their own sanctified bedrooms.  Yes, a Lady’s boudoir should always be ‘knock first’ and entrance be ‘by invitation only’.   Besides, the idea of a ‘Master Bedroom’, to be shared by Husband and Wife, is actually from the Medieval Period, before chimneys and fireplaces became common, where it was ordinary for either Wives or Maids to be used as literal ‘bed warmers’.  Yes, our Civilization needs to be able to move on from the 15^th Century.  Women need their own Rooms!  Then, once secure, Women will be free to turn Civilization into a Matriarchy.    

 

16  So, to sum up this Part One of my Idealized Persona Video Series, well, we’ve been implying that any Persona Development we do now would be akin to just doing damage control for a Society where effective Role Modeling has broken down.  But we need to ask whether a Persona can be successfully created later in life, or whether Early Role Modeling is developmentally necessary.   I would like to be optimistic and say, yes, even if we can’t imprint as easily on Ideal Persona Type Role Modeling as we could when we were kids, still, we’re not insensible.  It might be the same as with languages, that children of a certain age can pick up a second language quickly, but while it may be more time consuming and tedious, adults don’t find it impossible to learn new languages.  And so it is that in regards to Persona Development, that we must learn to be conversant in all the ways that Personalities can be understood to present themselves, but we will have to apply ourselves at maybe great pains in order to be proficient at it.  And then I hope we can fix our Society so that our children won’t have to waste time spinning the same wheels we do.