Unfinished manuscript. Not to be used without permission

XV. IFTA World Family Therapy Congress Reflection, hope and resilience October 4-7, 2006 Reykjavik, Iceland.

Ph d Sigrún Júlíusdóttir, professorDepartment of Social Work, University of Iceland

Living and loving without limits:global possibilities & implications for family work

Dear colleagues !It is a great pleasure to have you all here today- here in Iceland. – in the big land with the small and rich nation, who always had the idea we were the navel of the world, an idea which now has been realized- through the wonderful effect of globalisation ! Four years ago we had the Nordic family therapy conference here in Reykjavik- it feels like it was yesterday! the theme was postmodernity and diversities. Today I will try to to develop some of my earlier arguments, this time focusing on human relations and therapeutic responsibility in perspective of globalisation.

Table of Contents

I Where are we? - a social and professional perspective............................................................................................

1 Reflections on modern social development.............................................................................................................

2. Where are we? Our professional advocacy.............................................................................................................

3. The family concept: changing pattern of needs and intimate relationships............................................................

II Postmodern social theory...........................................................................................................................................

4. Social theory on the postmodern social arena – some characteristics....................................................................

5 The risk of living- risk-society and its interests.......................................................................................................

6 The role of biopolitics, expert knowledge and therapists........................................................................................

7 Individualization and the new “change & risk” character.......................................................................................

8 Human relations at stake – in the best interest of the global companies.................................................................

9. Flex mobility - hate and power...............................................................................................................................

III The global context.....................................................................................................................................................

10. Forces behind the “ light and liquid” culture........................................................................................................

11. Using the global channels for conveying insight and solidarity...........................................................................

12. Solidarity lost?...................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

14. The solution is in the liquidity..............................................................................................................................

Final note.....................................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

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1 Reflections on modern social development

Where are we today? That is the question ! As therapists we have a special obligation to be as oriented on “time and space” as our human limitations allow at any given time. Our role is often to find ways with our clients in the labyrinth of our existence. Through the dialogue we can see the context and how one route leads to another, avoiding dead ends. In this process we are participants, co-creators, in a new road construction of the biographies, reconstructing the map - preferably beyond its limits.

We are in the wake of the turbulence of rapid technical and relational changes. In the wake we can feel the streams of fickling, sometimes paradoxical, ideas of equality, freedom and peace. In the turbulent wake there are no boundaries and little stability. (The ways of the labyrinth may seem to have a concrete, definate structure as we hear from the public dicourse and in media, it sounds however like a paradox in the midst of the messages about possibilities and neccessary flexibility towards ad hoc desisions. The labyrinth itself is namely both liquid and changable.

We are at the “fine de siecle”, and can see the scientific, epistemological and therapeutic revolutions in the back-way mirror of the 20th century. Some things have disappeared, some are revised (from a quite new point of view), or with Maturanas words: We are in a new domain in a historical and existential sense. Like the pioneers in family therapy we are struggling with the concepts of human communication and change although so radically different. We are no longer seeking fixed solutions, or from a-b, but new constructs of the individual biographies which are co-created in the human-therapeutic dialog making up an offensive and democratic tool in the new age. The postmodern approaches and techniques may be seen as: the third-order cybernetics of systemic change! Change is also the connotation of Zygmunt Bauman´s reference to liquidity.. He describes our times as most of all: liquid as his Liquid Modernity cover illustration Oil on water on his book symbolizes. Lets reflect –with him- on that idea for a while. Liquids and gases are according to Encyclopedia Britannica disstinguished from solids in that they “cannot sustain a tangential, or shearing, force when at rest” and so undergo”a continous change in shape when subjected to stress”. Liquids owe its remarkable qualities to the fact that their “molecules are preserved in an orderly array over only a few molecular diameters”; while the variety of behaviour exhibited by solids is a direct result of the types of bonding that holds atoms of the solid together and of the structural arangements of the atoms”. “Bonding” in turn, is a term that signifies the stability of solids- the resistance they put up against separation of the atoms. We can see “fluidity” as an allegory for the present stage of the modern era. Fluids neither fix space nor bind time, their mobility associates them with the idea of lightness. The fluidity in the air of modernity is not beneficial for the development of stable relationships, bonding is

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more or less unreachable. Being “light and liquid” makes people´s minds flexible, their behavior changable and the characters may become corruptious (Bauman, 2000; Sennett, 1998). (Modern man is bound to be liquid and flexible) . Waschlawich and the Palo Alto teamsent us the message: we cannot not communicate. Today, when mobile, light and all liquid: we cannot not change. The crucial and challenging point is how to manage the effects of global change making use of the new circumstances and promoting a dancing balance in ordinary peoples life.

2. Where are we ? Our professional advocacyWe are a heterogeneous profession, an artificial construct from diverse sources coming from the various behavioral categories with links to many other disciplines (such as biology, philosophy, arts and even the technical field. As an entity we may look like some kind of a bastard.) Our diversity is, however, primarily our strength. We see its flora in the field radiate, spread out in the health and social system, in schools, in criminal justice, in varius private and public institutions. (This flora is growing at various spheres, in the clinics, in training, teaching, and research, - and in the social dabate influencing decisions and policy). able of making powerful connections in mending peoples broken worlds.

We do not, either, insist on being heard as one voice. On the contrary, our voice is polyphonic but as in the good choir [frb. kwæer] there is a concordance in always referring to the central theme: the health and welfare of children and families, with a strong ethical connection to the social context and development. That is our common denominator in spite of the global spectrum of our positions and locations. There is a politically-responsible part in our role, on the micro leval as well as the ethical- macro appeal. We are not marionettes as Foucault indicates in his keen critique on professionals as experts. We are no co-dependants in manipulating peoples as objects. Our role is to empower people to resist and reflect before moving without limitations in the global economical field. We are the agents of critical thinking. When perceiving the appealing message that “we” live in a world without boundaries, as a thrill, “we are all in the same boat”, in a world which is getting smaller and smaller through the adventurous development of technology and communication, we agree with Sluzki:

It is a paradox that the notion of a “global village” coexists with increased regional fragmentation and growing distance between the rich and the poor. The nostalgia for the (illusion of) simplicity of the past – and that social construct, “normality” - clashes with the challenges of complexity. Change, rather than an exception, seems an ever-present reality in our lives, and families need help coping with this process. (Sluzki, 2001/2002).

Our professional title, family therapist, carries associations in our minds with caring and responsibility. Thus, we are usually thought of as “good soldiers” rather than guerillas, and as a companion or ally rather than an enemy or someone who can be expected to intrude, damage or hurt. We are however acting in a very fragile domain when we are activating inherent creative forces to promote health and well-

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being in the family relations, often working in the field of tension between help, and (guiding)control. It was the consciousness of this which united the American family therapists who founded the AFTA (American Family Therapy Association 1977- now Am. Fam. Ther. Academy, since 1995). It was brought together by people who were on the cutting edge, a small group of mental health professionals who had been active during the early years when the field of family therapy was emerging. They took pride in living on the margin, and the margin is always changing. The identity of such an organization is therefore never set, - and so is with us.) Family workers are now as ever supposed to monitor how we can increase interpersonal respect and tolerance. In times of global conflicts and fissures our contextual understanding make us “farsighted” streching our influences from the core of intimacy to the broader, social environment and vice versa. I quote Roberto-Forman: “We may not all have family therapy in common - but we all share the ecosystemic view of social change” (Roberto-Forman 2001/2002).

3.The family concept:changing pattern of needs &intimate relationships

The idea of family is changing from its structural (legal,economical and moral) obligations to a framework of a membership/company ensuring individualized happiness so we may ask how realistic a unit for treatment or policy it is today? We see people’s globalized life and the whole world in fragmented parts. From an ethnomethodological point of view the family construct is seen as the social body which has the means to creating the conditions of its own verification and therefore with its own reinforcement which durably institutes itself in reality. The French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu (1996) has discussed the family critically referring to it as “a fiction” or “realized category”and even, “a well founded illusion” as it is produced and reproduced by the state and its prolonged arms, e.g the professional categories, including family therapists which garantee it the means to exist and persist. He argues that we have to cease to regard the family as an immidiate datum of social reality and rather see it as an instrument for construction of that reality thus even moving beyond the ethnomethodological challege and asking who constructed the instruments of construction that fits so well for the market ? I will come back to that.

The original meaning of the term for family in Icelandic, fjölskylda, comes from the root fjöl (as fler –feolu- in the Nordic language), diverse, multi- or many, and skylda, obligation. Thus the composite word fjölskylda can be read as referring to multiple obligations. The family institution was supposed to consist of a team, a group of individuals, who had reciprocal obligations towards each other. This relates closely to the idea of solidarity and altruism rather than egoism or individualism. People interfered and did not leave the other alone when in need or trouble. The family system was more than the sum of the individual parts (Juliusdottir, 1993). This is still quite applicable in Iceland as families have considerable palpable obligations in a way somewhat different from the other Nordic countries. I will not delve deep into statistics now, but highlight that: Iceland has the highest fertility rate, approx. two children per woman, averagely

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at a younger age and the lowest divorce rate in Scandinavia and Eurpope. (European Com. & Eurostat, 2001). The average household is the biggest in Scandinavia and the percentage of elderly, as well as life expectancy, is high. The educational level of –specially- women is high and working hours are extremely long for both men and women. On the other hand, the social support for the family system and institutional care is not specially developed. –neither for children nor the elderly. Instead the informal family system of responsibility and support based on traditional standards and ideology is still strong and it is specially demanding for people in the age of 25-45.. I see no reason that this will last unless development of new policy ackowledging differences and relativity of needs. We need a welfare- not only family- policy where individual prerequisites are regarded according to life cycle tasks and situational circumstances where the needs are more individually assessed than family based. Strong responsibility or “invisible loyalty” to the system may become a burden with the concomitant guilt and anxiety when it fails. It may be reflected in burn-out, mental disorders, fatigue, increasing divorce and self-destuctive behaviour and even suicid in all age categories. As the effect of controllong legislation, economical obligations and repressive functions are decreasing people need help to are create new frameworks/dimentions of reciprocal justice, equality and individual human rights (Honneth, 1997; Sigrún Júlíusdóttir, 1997).

Here again family workers have a role to contribute to favorable conditions for human relationships shaping beneficial psychosocial situation for children regardlesss of the constellations of their relatives. When fairness and individual responsibility is cared for in primary intimate relationships as an ethical value in personal interactions it will be reproduced in solidarity in social- and even global- relationships.

4. Social theory on the postmodern social arena – some charcteristics A part of the radical social changes of our time consists in changed attitude towards the concepts of responsibility and involvement in other people’s lives as well as the idea of human rights. In this context Rose (1996) has discussed the increasing effects of the centrifugal forces in postmodern society (a concept we also know from Helm Stierlin's (1981) theorizing about family system dynamics), meaning that people have a tendency not to worry about other people’s eccentricities, distress, or even criminality as long as it does not touch their own terrain. This centrifugal force is a phenomenon opposite to the centripetal force of the modern society which refers to the urge to interfere and wanting people to adjust, belong to the community and be included in the society.

The changed attitude –even rejection- towards the maxim of being “your brother’s keeper” actually comes close to the tendency of ignorance and exclusion of individuals and groups which might in some way be troubling or threatening to own interests. People are considered to be responsible for themselves and have the right to destroy their lives if they “choose” to do so. The idea of public intervention and control (paternalism) is rejected/doubted. That swallowing kind of the modern society was characterized by formal rules, and social legislation about people’s lives tended to control and guide both the family as institution and individuals,

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often far beyond their human right to self-determination as e.g. when the poor and criminals were objects of control and corrections.

Theorizing about social modernity in similar vein is found in Young’s (1999) writings about the acceptance of disorganization, a kind of entropy (a concept originating in physics, also known from the theoretical contributions about family interaction of the Milan group) related to liquidity . In the social context it implies that people neglect the unusual, bizarre or deviant behavior when seeing variances and anomie in society as quite exciting or even thrilling, e.g. when seen on TV. It makes life more colorful and may be tickling. This veird acknowledgement of deviance is simultaneously an exclusion and rejection of it as a natural object of concern in human society (resently we saw organized bloody fighting in a school yard where teenagers were gathered to watch it like a bullfight). In this connection Young talks about bulimistic (throwing out) society as opposite, and almost contrast, to the earlier modern cannibalistic society (taking in). It is thought provoking how young people´s increasing eating disorders or intense physical training towards deformations of the body, may be seen as a parallell process to these social transformations- throwing up the junk they are persued to consume (ideas, wares, food and feelings).

5 The risk of living- risk-society and its interests

The connection of the inclusion/exclusion phenomena and risk is crucial. Bauman (1989; 1991; 2000) has in his discussion on modernity and ambivalence discussed how the thanatopolitics of population purification is inherent to biopolitics. In managing health of the collective body of the people (“body politic”) elimination of “foreign bodies” purports (felu rí sér) a selective reproduction and sterilization aiming at purging of defective individuals. Although politically directed programmes are not organized today to eliminate weaknesses of that kind some special social phenomena like rejection, group pressure or aversion are instead powerful controlling forces both on the macro and the micro level. The idea of eugenics is rejected by the experts in favour of individualized, voluntary ethical and preventive medicine. Genetic counselling which emerged in the 1950s may be seen as part of this more sofisticated but still an ethical dilemma eg. for councellors.They , not least health social workers have been struggling with finding out about their position in the mix of objective informators, health ministers (as representatives of the “collective body health) and coaching therapists.

Health and nature are two positively linked concepts, both highly valuated and respected as the resource for good life. We have however never before experienced such threat to both. Nature is destroyed by exeggerated electric and aluminium production as we see examples of in Iceland now). People’s health is threatend by the messages of the importance of speed, being productive, reaching higher education and career goals. With increasing equality between the sexes in this regard women are gradually showing similar pattern as men in frequency of heart attach, high blood pressure and other stress diseases. The market is profiting from the repairs-cost of these phenomena.

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The boundaries between the contemporary chase of health and the elimination of unfitness and between preventive medicin and eugenics have being merging (Bauman, 1989). The threat of diseases and dangers mediated in a flow of research reports on how riskful life is and on all the miraculous solutions from the medical industry provokes people, to buy preventive medicine and exeggerated amounts of vitamins, eat the most secure, expensive and organically cultivated food, drive high-tec cars, energy consuming, symbolically powerful for the individual governing it and secure for the “whole family”. Lefe is dangerours- eat organic food! and know how to read and ask for it in 13 languages – at least! . Commersialism manipulates people to believe that their live is always at risk if they are not constantly watching their weight, physical health and feelings, economy and buying programmes and different magic solutions to avoid depression or death. Anxiety and the risk avoiding messages create profit for the drug companies, both in children and parents. Recently a newspaper included in 36 of its of 50 pages, ads and some kind of information about health products, medicates and programmes or fancy proposals. Security control is not only in the airports. The insurance firma – also a part of the global, capital governed maschinery, may recommend that you and your child use security shields, hats and belts- both on sea and land. Guðbergur Bergsson an Icelandic author, has described the middle aged frigthened couple in their lazy-boy chair with security belts on watching TV in their sitting room. You never know when someone (else) will make intrusion and attach your private life- as we also have seen in the film, Clock Work Orange - and we get also bestsellers as Osho´s Courage. The Joy of Living Dangerously.-Insights for a new way of living, as a response

6 Individualization and the new “change & risk” oriented character From the public debate people get the message that the dream of freedom of choice is now a reality. Modern man was liberated from old traditions and obligations, postmodern man creates new opportunities and alternative lifestyles himself.

The general definition of individualization refers to a two-sided coin (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002, 13-19; Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). On the one side is the dissolution of the earlier given social life-styles and the break down of the so called normal biographies the categories of traditional values such as: class, gender roles, family and neighborhood) . The new processes produce inevitably new, alternative life-styles which make up the other side of the coin conditioned by the globally, however not always, visible (reminding us of the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith) institutionalized machanisms, demands and (regulating) obstacles - just working on another level.

All of these steering mechanisms are primarily aimed at the individual as personal relationships, in this context, might cause complications. In this sense the individualization has little to do with free decision by the individual, or, with the words of Jean-Paul Sartre: “The human being is condemned to individualization”.

Instead of following known paths the individual is bound to exchange the normal biography for (a self-selected one, that is) a reflexive “do-it-yourself” biography which implies taking risks - in other words: shaping his own “risk biography”. The

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facades of various tempting proposals guide him into risky activities like an acrobat in rope dancing in a circus - but without security net below. The goal of the todays risk-taker is always a short-term one as he might otherwise lose sight of it and fall down. In spite of the thrilling risk the being alone gives him a feeling of gnawing anxiety and inner doubt, although he is rarely aware of that connection. One way to calm down his inner voice of confusion and disappointment about his harvest is to seek a new goal, hoping he will get a different hold, or get something better - next time.

This believe of the pending improvement is, by the way, probably one of the keys to the secrets of the long-lived American dream.

The seeking of the new in the changed position paradoxically gives a certain - although alien - feeling of security and even of a “time-limited stability”. Lacking the security net or a sustaining hand, we see people seeking stability in the most various ways supposed to give a feeling of some kind of security and personal integrity in a chaotic world. The symbolic value of following the latest fashion for clothes, being “up-to-date”, belonging and sharing the lifes-style of the “lonely crowd” may serve as calming in this connection. We hear also people say in marital sessions: “I want to realize myself”, “I need more space, more privacy - a time for myself”. Simultaneously the same person cries over emptiness inside, lack of understanding and a persistent desire for a close, caring relationship. As we read in Havamal. “Maðr er manns gaman”, humans need interpersonal company. The expanding digital culture and electronic relationships (internet) seems not compensate human contact. My research shows that 30% of divorced parents are cohabitating again within a year. (Juliusdottir, 2006). The need for freedom seems not be stronger than the need for intimate relationship, as also reflected in modern literature (i.a M Houllebeque: Les particules élémentaires, 2000 & The possibility of an Island, 2003).This must not be an either –or choice We know individual differentiation is possible in a close relationship.

Collecting things, or keeping animals, symbolizes love without reciprocal demands and being an owner of something. People’s, specially young people’s interest for old, even used things, preferably clothes which someone has used before, symbolizes a (banned) relation to another human being, although a disappeared user. It is a connection to a forbidden link to the past. All of a sudden the market starts to produce (new) “used” clothes!

The double purposes of our culture of change may also be seen in that people are encouraged to change what they buy if they don’t like it. Usually this reinforces a positive association to the store-centers- once they are there they are liklely to buy more. People are more easily caught if they feel free to change. “You just change if you don’t like it- choose something else”! Changing a present is something that today is supposed to add something to its value, not as a gift but a choice.

Changeability does not only concerns palpable things. We change relationships, partners, marriages and families - even your own sex is rather easily changeable. This kind of changeability is one aspect of the flexibility which is reflected in the modern character. The culture of change and free choice mediates the idea that you

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decide your own happiness.But simultaneously you see how the gap is increasing between those who succceed ant those who don´t. I will com eback to that.

7 The role of biopolitics, research, expert knowledge and therapists

It is also in context to pay attention to the link between politics, the market on one hand, and scientific research and expert practice on the other. Family workers are experts and, as already said, our advocacy need to be in a continous process of contextual revision. Biopolitics is one of the features we are confronted with today. The different intertweened arms of power are shaping new global conditions and possibilities in ordinary peoples life, at least in the Western part of the world. The “machine of hell” in Bourdieus terms is in a way, as alreday mentioned, related to Foucaults theory of the panopticum. His (Foucaults) theses was that we live in a “biopolitical age”. Nikolas Rose (2001) writes in his article, The Politics of Life Itself. “ Political authorities, in alliance with many others, have taken on the task of the management of life in the name of the well-being of the population as a vital order and of each of its living subjects. Politics now adress the vital processes of human existence: the size and quality of the population; reproduction and human sexuality; conjugal, parental and family relations; health and disease; birth and death”. Rose also points out that ”politics was inextricably bound up with the rise of the life sciences, technologies, experts and apparatuss for the care and administration of the life of each and all, from town planning to health services”. He also discusses how a new configuration of control has taken shape, and that contemporary biopolitics is risk politics. In this connection we might think of that the contemporary resurgence of biological and genetic accounts of human capacities and incapacities could be related to our history of biological racism and eugenics in the 19th and 20th century (Marteau and Richard, 1996). In the discource on biopolitics, welfare and ethics it has been pointed out that like privious appeals to biological nature such developments will tend to generate a politics that minimalizes human worth, essentializes variations in human capacities, reduces social phenomena and discriminates against, constrains or excludes those found biologically abnormal or defective”. Actually, Rose points out, some suggest that “we face the real prospect of the rebirth of scientific racism grounded in the apparent objectivity of DNA sequences and a new eugenics fuelled not merely by the commercial interests of the biotec companies, but also by parental desires for a perfect child in an age of manipulated consumerism and reproductive choice”. The sometimes blind believe on the validity and potential of biotechnology to improve health, quality and happiness of people´s lives, and parental desires for a perfect child, does not take into account that the new possibilities of biological practices and the control followed by it, may not only coerce and restrict but even eliminate those whose propensities are believed by specialists, parents or even political authorities risk to be defective (Rose, 2001; Duster, 1990; Rifkin, 1998).

8 Human relations at stake – in the best interest of the global companies

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The connection of risk, change and flexibility to globalisation have been an object for research by several social critics as helpful concepts to understand the modern social (dis)order, also for family workers (Beck et al., 1994). On that notes Richard Sennett discusses the concept of character in his book The Corrosion of Character (1998,) arguing that a character is formed through relations with others and expressed through loyalty and reciprocal obligation or the pursuit of a long term goal. The violation of this, for instance by manipulating people to adjust to the opposite conditions, results in corrosion of the personal integrity. The postmodern character has the capacity and readiness to be independent and mobile which is a desirable quality for the global forces. His fragmented life style, being “loose, light and liquid”, “frag and flex” in his loosely grounded short-term goals, are easy to transform.Regarding family and love relationships the commitments are also focused on the short term. Anthony Giddens concept “confluent love” refers to togetherness which lasts as long as the satisfaction of one of the partners. The investment is limited to “so far” as a short-term. Superficial or short-term relationship is less risky, less likely to cause severe disappointments. It is just logical that more and more people decide not to have children at all, as we see in European statistics. It is hampering and risky for the personal freedom, it is an obligation that takes too many years. One of the results from my not yet published research on (19yrs)young peoples values in this context showed that 95% said the reason for people possibly deciding not to have children at all would be that it was such great responsibility, 56% because people did not like children and 38% because it would be too big personal obligation A smaller percentage mentioned other reasons for possibly not chosing to have children (Julíusdóttir, 2006). The progress of the new economy is based on the principle of maximal expansion, erasing boundaries and obstacles deriving from human relations. These forces are creating new opportunities simultaneously as they are threatening for human fragile bonds. People think they have free choicees in their lives. they may be quite unsuspecting of how the principles of the market are guiding them into a certain track in the name of the positively connoted flexibility .

Long-term goals are not feasible in times of changes and reorganizations but there must be a choice of selected goals that are stable for some time. The companies have an answer to that. The idea of free-lance work, part-time or short-term obligations, and changeable localizations, in the name of loyalty to the company, fits well. People seem to like it as it gives the permission to feel positively about something as old fashioned as loyalty. This loyalty is, however, one-sided. The “we-ideology” means that the employee is favored through salary and working conditions for his being faithful to the company while it is there. After that there are no obligations - nor rights. The commitment to the work rather than home, now for both sexes, and its implications for private (family)life, is interestingly revealed in Hochschilds´s research (1997). The part this commitment to working life plays in divorces and dispersive effects for marriages and other human relations is obviously critical (Aberg, 2002). The sharp private/public distinction is becoming less dualistic but we need a more vigorous understanding of the function of the private within contemporary

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changes, that is, how the public and the private construct each other. Increased theoretical interest and research the dimentions around issues of intimate relationships, the self and the unconscious is emerging within social theory and philosophy ( Bailey, 2000; Jamieson, 1988; Knoll & Witt, 2005; Zahavi, 1999& 2005). The international companises have global production activities and objectives of unlimited usage of nature and human resources to facilitate optimal profit and growth. When quitting some of their e.g aluminium plants in USA it may imply profound changes for the life conditions of its employees. In some cases they may happily “choose” to move to another company at another place, sometimes away from their children and spouses cutting off relations, sometimes moving the whole family from their local community to another part of the country or they move happily to another part of the world. The giant ALCOA has an answer to that . They cooperate within an OAP (The Overseas Assistance Program) involving professionals to “help” people adjust in the new country. Because of my interest in this activity- and preparing stuff for this lecture- I signed last year a contract on such service when offered it /asked for that challenging task. I withdraw however quickly when after several weeks of tremendous paperwork and buraucratic procedures it became clear to me that this was all fake made up to calm people and quite them down without any intention of significance to help them professionally. The ALCOA representatve did not even know a thing about the circumstances the employees were in. When I described the remote and rough landscape, geographically isolated and socially poor municipality with only a few inhabitants he asked where it was located and how big the “city of Reyðarfjöður” was ?!

9. Flex mobility - hate and power The global forces are eraising most limits of individual and group connections. Labor force is on the global move, migration is increasing so we are to a still greater extent having cross-national companies as well as cross-cultural and cross-religional marriages - now even in Iceland, where also immigration is increasing. We are confronted by the contrasts of being stable or mobile. Sometimes it requires individual strength to move to another place to get the best career or educational opportunity. Sometimes it demands a strong conviction to prefer the security and stability of staying at home. Sometimes emigration is a free choice, sometimes due to unbearable circumstances in the homeland. Emigration to another country with foreign culture and alien religion with consequential mixing is most often a strain and may sometimes even turn into a horror. Family workers know much about the problems the families in these cases are dealing with, we know their anger and shame, the rejection and pain of the parents, the losses of the grandchildren, the sorrows of the siblings, - and the awful consequences when it comes to the real fanaticism with hate, revenge and even death (Boss, 1999; Turner and Simmons, 2006).

The increased acting out of hatred and prejudices in some groups is a great social problem – although the more educated are expressing (at least in surveys) their tolerance and political understanding. The hatred can not be written off since the

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youngest generation and teenagers are mixing with each other – in different public social settings, without regard to color, race or ethnicity.

Hate is a dangerous emotion. Discerning hate is essential but more tricky than we think. (Weingarten, 2006). However it seems clear from history that hate is related to power and (mental, social, legal, behavioral) repression on one hand and powerlessness, deficiency and humiliation on the other. When peoples´ interests in this regard are threthened hate is a natural feeling. Although never acceptable reaction we see it at work in our own “civilized” social context when immediate interests are threatened. Thus people sometimes react to the social changes that are concomitants to the increasing globalization by desperate attempts to secure their interests. Among other things we see it in a voting behavior (e.g. in Danmark) which is reflecting defensive reactions such as crying after more restrictions towards immigrants and poor people, and demanding reinforced police power- even armed. Zygmunt Bauman (2002) claimed in his comment in a Danish newspaper upon the appearance of some politicians (French, Italy, Austria, Portugal and Denmark) on the European stage, in an interview, that “there is no rational solution in closing the borders for immigration and increasing the penalties for criminals or depriving them of human rights, as has been done in the USA and in Great Britain”. This may, however, be understood as a reasonable reaction when we think of the chaos the new world is making for ordinary people. The globalization has been both one-sided and uncontrolled which makes people afraid and skeptical about their own daily bread, life habits and social status. It is a question of an overwhelming feeling of helplessness and defeat by the new and threatening waves of seemingly hidden origin. In this process the immigrants become the scapegoats for people’s common worries and the cumulative personal insecurity. People try to quiet down the ghosts of globalization as they deny their desperation by projecting it towards immigrants and other weak social groups (Bauman, 2002).

Hate and cruelty are dangerous but still more terrifying is however the greed/rapicity which comes first, and is acted out in violence, powergame and disrespect for human life and values. Hate is a negative power, possible to use as a weapon. The kind of hate which is serving this goal may be seen in the innocent face of a USA- soldier in Iraq when incited into death to serve his duty for his home country. Hate is at work in political prisons. The world was schocked over the pictures we saw from the Abu Ghraib-prison in Iraq last year. The USA-prison Guantanamo, in Cuba run since the end of the Afganistan war in 2002 is severely critizised in the western world massmedia, primarily because their cases are not taken into court for judgement and because of the unhuman and most terrible treatment of the prisoners, but the USA legislation against torture from 1992 seems not to count and they maintain the Geneve-convention is not applicabel for “unlegal attackers” (Mbl sept 4. 2006). Hate has no limits and follows no civil law.

Noam Chomsky (2004) has in his analysis pointed out how the economical global forces with the USA in front ...

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I have pictured roughly the context of our postmodern western culture and lifestyles and their interplay with the global market. Let´s now turn to Bourdieus question: what constructs the forces behind the machinery which makes this interplay work so vigorously and smoothly? and then we will close the circle by highlighting some possible counter actions

10. Forces behind the “ light and liquid” culture Different social theorists and critiques have brought us some helpful hypothesis and concepts to understand the context of those forces and how to resist their influence over ordinary life: Some who have proceeded the boll from Foucault’s theory of panopticum from the (last century) sixties power discource, see the comtemporay situation as more complicated or tricky, pointing out the power forces are now more invisible or camuflaged and their interaction is more submarin natured. Bourdieu (1998) writes about the total almost autonomic global order of economics, an overall system which according to the new liberalism/economy controls production, comsumption and thus the social reality in peoples lives in an interplay where the private/public construct each other (Bailey, 2000). He sees the economic world as based on a political programme sustained with its arms of some global networks such as IMF, The World Bank, OECD and Group 8 and the political interventions/actions they call upon shaping the framework of the body of common life. Let us look at these multinuclear chain of bodies: The International Monetary Fund which is rapidly increasing and continously reinforced is an international organization of at present approx 200 member countries world wide. It was established 1945 by 25 countries following World war II in order to “promote international monetary cooperation, exchange stability; foster economic growth and high levels of employment; provide surveillance (panopticum effect), techical assistance and temporary financial assistance to the member countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment” . (www.imf.org/external/about.htm). The OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is another international organisation of the developed countries that accept the principles of “representative democracy” and “free market economy”. It originated as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) 1948, in relation to the Marshall Plan for the re-construction of Europe after World War II. Later it was extended to international membership and was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1960. It is international and “providing a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and co-ordinate domestic and international policies” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD)

Exchanges between OECD governments flow from information and analysis collecting data, monitoring trends, and analyses and forecasts economic developments. Also researching (read: controls) social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology and most areas related to peoples ordinary life. The OECD has thus increasingly tackled a range of economic, social and environmental issues while further deepening its engagement with business,

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trade unions and other representatives of civil society. It has constituted a task force on spam problem (junk mail on the internet and actions on corruption and bribery (Anti-Bribery Convention) and promoting best practices for ISPs (Internet Service Providers), IAPs (Internet Access Providers) and email marketers etc. Thus it makes an overall effort to enhance healty and clean usage and trust in the internet- for the global market, making electronic connections more smooth, less risky and less depending on human communication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_service_provider ). Connected to IMF and OECD are the European Union, Nato, United Nations although of quite different –more ideological – character and simultaenously fighting for peace and humanity.

The world bank came in with some different motives 1944 and has since its inception expanded from a single institution to a closely associated group of five development institutions. Our mission evolved from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) also as facilitator of post-war reconstruction and development to the present day with the mandate of worldwide poverty alleviation in conjunction with IDA our affiliate, the International Development Association. Once we had a homogeneous staff of engineers and financial analysts, based solely in Washington, DC. Today, a multidisciplinary and diverse staff includes economists, public policy experts, sector experts and social scientists, and 30% of the staff is now based in country offices. Reconstruction remains an important focus of their work, given the natural disasters and post conflict rehabilitation needs that affect developing and transition economies. The portfolio's focus has been broadened to include social sector lending projects, poverty alleviation, debt relief and good governance. sharpening its focus on poverty reduction as its overarching goal (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/) .

The powerful organisations of OECD and IMF are formally democratic and maintain that their policies and activities are open and transparent. Somewhat different is the 30 year old Group of eight (G8). Consisting of the far most economically and socially developed countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan; Russia, UK and USA. As one coregroup they build a powerful unit - still more powerful as such and representing together about 65% of the world economy. The European Union has attended the annual summits since 1977 but annual meetings are also held without EU and Russia! Furthermore there is a briefer G8+5 meeting of the finance ministers of G8 held with China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa. This strategy characterizes its uncovered policy global power-position. G8 is of the same origin as IMF and OECD, are all emerging in the after-war wake of threatening global imbalance and recession. This time in relation to the world wide effect of the energy (oil) crises in early seventees (1973). The troubles led the USA to form the Library Group (USA. Europe, Japan) to discuss the economic issues of interests. It is however different from IMF and OECD in that although maintaining being the most responsible parties in the IMF securing world balance, it does not try to conceil the power concentration they represent and the undemocratic goal of securing own interests and maintaining

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(own)economic balance. When G8 was created it was meant to be representative but by now it is a "snapshot of history" characterized by its hard core harðsnúin power concentration. When countries like India, Brazil and mainly China are out and countries like e.g. Italy in, it is no longer even representing the main economic powers of our todays world.

Their power is still reinforced through the direct links to the techological development, arm weapon production, medical industri and biopolitics. Critics, specially from the anti-globalization movement, assert that members of G8 are responsible for global issues such as global warming due to carbon dioxide emission, poverty in Africa and developing countries due to debt crises and unfair trading policy, the AIDS problem due to strict medicine patent policy and other problems that are related to globaization. Pressure has been put on G8 leaders to take responsibility to combat problems they are accused by some of creating. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8).

These organizations are all aiming at facilitating global and fluid transfer of products and human resources. By using and disseminating research based knowledge and mesurements between the governments they enhance competition, comparison and similarities to make growth and interaction easier inbetween themselves and strengthen their nuclear core of interests. Even in the third world the rich are getting richer. (Kundnani, 2006)

Although forces of researchers nad economic experts are working at improving the development prospects of developing countries in today's globalized world, the international system of rules, regimes, and organizations which bear upon it, they have little influence /their effort is insignificant in regarding economic growth, income distribution, international environmental politics and poverty. Some even become a part of the maschinery of the international capital markets as consultants.

11. Using the global channels for conveying insight and solidarity

I have higlighted some traits on how the influence of globalization seem to make people confused, afraid and insecure about their existence simultaneously being more easily manipulated as labor force and consumers. I repeat my initial citation to Sluzki, that although living in a world without boundaries it is not like a thrill and there is no such thing as “we are all in the same boat”. As always, changed conditions enhance development and shape new solutions. Instead of seeing our situation in an impossible either-or / then and now context we define it like being in the wake of a ship (Phillipson, 1989), where the conflicting forces and heavy ground-swell are full of new provocative and urgent issues to handle. In his discussion about the crisis of our rapid progress from modernity to post-modernity, Zygmunt Bauman (1995) also points out that we are not bound to be crushed or drowned by these waves. On the contrary, we are confronted by challenging tasks as people need help and guidance to handle anxiety and ambivalences which accompanies the turbulent disorganization of the wake.

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There is, however, no way back to the secure harbors of the national state. Bauman (2002) points out that the most rational reactions for the politicians would be to work against the global power by taming and controlling these forces. An important task for the helping professions – although not easy - is therefore to contribute to shape a contextual understanding of the real problem and support (politically) those who dare to work for human welfare. When we understand ourselves contextually the global forces, discerning and differentiating positive and negative means of power we are in a position to take side with marginalized groups and enhance those who are less favoured socially, economically, in education and in career thus contributing to bridging the increasing gap between the favoured and unfavoured. We need to mediate to people a sense of hope in social activities and redefine people as citizens and actors rather than consumers, and see democracy as a global movement but not as a global market, as Noam Chomsky (1998) argues in his book Profit over people. thus bringing people the idea of rejecting passivity and actively choosing their own route through the labyrinth. Here the link is close to Paulo Freire´s ideology of “the pedagogy of the oppressed”, that is, educating and empowering people through a releasing dialogue contributing to a critical social discourse.

Understanding hate and managing it is only possible where there is a forum for an open dialog in the civil arena, where the language is the media /tool of positive power.

The theoretical basis besides the systemic/ecological approach is linguistics as applied by Bakhtin(1986) (“uttrance and response”), Wittgenstein (“language games”) and Chomsky (“language and responsibility”, i.e the relation of language and politics). Expressing the meaning of hate or controversies in words, listening and responding in a forum shaped for a secure constuctive atmosphere shapes new possibilities which system therapists (eg an idelogy mediated in the Summerschool at the KCC in UK) have been modelling eg in the Public conversation project (www.publicconversations.org) . It has the Core beliefs that:

Shifts Happen! People whose differences have led to polarization and stereotyping develop better relationships with each other when they participate in effective dialogue.

Shifts Matter! The relationships that evolve through dialogue hold previously unthinkable possibilities for respectful disagreement and also for collaboration.  Such relationships reduce the costs of conflict for individuals, organizations, and society.

Such dialogue includes:

Listen and be listened to so that all speakers can be heard. Speak and be spoken to in a respectful manner. Develop or deepen mutual understanding and discover common concerns. Learn about perspectives that others hold while reflecting on one’s own views.

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Hardt and Negri (Empire, 2001) dwelve deeply into the problem and possibilities of globalisation approaching it constructively. They maintain that those anxious about the negativ effect of the power of the global forces for human values and social welfare don´t see the new possibilities it creates as it unvails the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the developed and underdeveloped, the capable and the uncapable.

The Guardian journalist Monbiot (2003) argues in the same vein in his book “The Age of Concent” (2004)when he discusses that there is no option about globalization or internationalism.”Globalisation is not the problem. The problem is in fact the release from globalisation which both aeconomiv agents and nation states have beeb able to negotiate, . They have been able to operate so freely because people of the world have no global means of restraining them. Our task is surely not to overthrow globalisation, but to capture it, and to use it as a vehicle for humanity´s first global democratic revolution” (p 23). With other words The problem is that holders of the global power have arranged it so that people are anxiously using energy to fight against its forces. Moving with them, instead, through a critical global awareness of its tricky pathways can create a reciprocal anti- power position.

The answer to globalisation is “going with the system” using the roads/ways/channels it has opened itself in favor of free and democratic discource about the development ..”seizing the idea” and using it for enhancing global democratization on the group level. The answer to organized power may in the same way be anti-power ideologi mediated through democratic global activites and perspectives- in social, personal and therapeutical relationships.

Examples of anti-power ideology mediated through democratic global activities and perspectives are the Live 8 series of concerts held worldwide to encourage G8 leaders “make poverty history” and and adjust their national budgets to allow for 0.7% to go towards foreign aid. Also through World Social Forum... parallell conferneces held at selected occations and places as a way to open a forum for an open critical dialogue specially attended by younger people coming all over from the world.

12. Is solidarity lost?

There are many positive aspects – bi-products- of our globalized existence. Studying in other countries or fulfilling personal career goals away from home is an unquestionable positive aspect of modern opportunities and lifestyle. People are making connections through seeking higher education and specialization in other countries and participating in (Nordic, European, international etc.) student/teachers exchange programmes. The increasing possibilities of easy tourist travelling between countries and continents is opening up peopls´s eyes for various cultures, living conditions and life stylses. Although mass media often is mediating politically biased information, attitudes and opinion skekktri as in the news from war ridden parts of the world, people can now see with their own eyes

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and observe themselves the scene of events through the channels opened through the effect of globalisation.

Earlier in this lecture I argued that interpersonal ethics -emerging from the capability of establishing and developing personal concerns through intimate relationships- and solidarity are central concepts for the family workers´s compass as a travel guide in the contemporary global landscape of liquidity, risk and choices- so deeply concerning human democratic future. This applies, examplified above, both on the micro/therapeutic level the macro/political level and but the main task is to minimize the negative effect of the global forces through the concept of human solidarity. We might however dread /apprehend that the idea of solidarity is a paradox in our chaotic and greedy western society. We see however the appearance of democracy and solidarity in various ways.

Results from several recent Scandinavial studies show that human concern of solidarity- both in private life.

# A Finnish study shows that family members do assist each other according to their different needs This help is greater, when the public health service is lacking or not available.# A new Norwegian survey on family solidarity, shows that people are still making their savings intending to use it mainley for their children rather than for themselves. # A Swedish study (Sand, 2002) shows a remarkable contribution of relatives when someone in the family needs long time health care. The caring by relatives is more extensive than ever in the Swedish society in spite of relatively strong public resources. # A recent Danish study (Juul, 2002) shows that people are willing to give a helping hand to their neighbors and friends. Not less than 87% are willing to take their parents into their home if necessary. # I have already mentioned the relatively strong family relations and extensive informal family support in Iceland. I my earlier mentioned research on values among Icelandic young people we saw signs of sincere interest and concern for grandparents:xxxxxx

According to research on divorce in the western world the general trend seems to be that divorce is developing from being a conflict issue towards an issue of reconciliation and parental cooperation with increased gender equality.

Not only in family research do we find promising results on reconsilience and solidarity but also in studies on volunteering. The general belief that economic and social welfare as we have in Scandinavia would make people more egoistic and less prone to organized charity work, is not confirmed. International studies on volunteering show that the better-off societies and individuals are contributing most generously to such activities. Solidarity is not lost.

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16. The sprout of growth is in the liquidity

Man has always found his special ways at every time in history to develop strategies for coping. Reflecting on this context I associate to G. Bateson and the interplay of “mind and nature”, that communicative adaptive behavior of animals could be applied to human beings. Is the postmodern man´s liquid behavior a dancing balance aiming at obtaining foothold in the contemporary head wind? We started with the metaphor from physics of seeing the floating boundaries of our postmodern times as liquidity. Another metaphor from nature comes to my mind. When sitting at the window in my summerhouse situated on the border of the Icelandic highland where heavy storms may prevent any human to go out, I follow the birds with my eyes, their flying styles and breathtaking (!) techniques. Through the centuries they have learnt to figure out preconditions, timing and takings. I see the migrating birds exercising for their global travel, building strong units in formation flying to defend the group. The exercises precede the next developmental phase, like babbling before talking, crawling before walking, being confused and reflecting before handling.

When the storm is most aggressive and turbulent it becomes clear that it is indeed the lightness and liquidity which give the birds the strength to persevere like in a dancing balance - seemingy fighting when they actually moving vertically, fly up and down, following the squally cyclones in stead of falling down and surrender. They do not resist the storm or make a frontal attack which they sense would be untimable and beyond their capacity. Instead they seize the approppriate moment to make a progressive strokes of the wings forward in the direction of their survival and existential goal. In this lecture I have tried to show at a glance the changed society facing modern man. I have connected the influence of globalization on people’s daily life with new political-ethical demands of the therapeutic field

Conclusion It says that politics are dead ! but, never before have they been so powerfully influencing the whole world, and never before has there been such need for contextual understanding of the social processes. Family workers are often in a unique position as, our eco- systemic approach, our theoretical knowledge of society and the skill of negotiating techniques so closely empathic feelings with them. There are only constructions of interactions of people and linked to real insight into people’s daily lives and ideas conveyed through a never broken dialogue between practitioners and researchers, schools and homes, men and women, parents and children - often with the help of a family worker.

By processing this experience in research and active participation in the social debate we can contribute to deeper insights among politicians and decision-makers concerning the realities of the global living conditions of peoples. Conveying this understanding is the most fruitful prevention against prejudices, exclusion and mobbing in our society.

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