The Fourth Shift

​So far, the villains have been childhood's winners—those with high status during the period when the earliest power structures take shape. But what about the losers? Perhaps they do not adopt the destructive norm? After all, they have painfully experienced its consequences. ​The answer: Indeed they have. But they will most likely not be the ones to stop the practice of human sacrifice. Those of childhood's losers who gain power as adults will not use this power to break the destructive structures they once tasted; they will use it to reinforce them. ​How do we know? Because so far, very few have come up with such an idea, despite the fact that so many of the adult world’s winners were among childhood’s losers—and were once the ones chosen for sacrifice. ​ The fact is, when we look at adults, the destructive norm proves to have become universal. ​​Having experienced being seen as worthless rarely leads to a rebellion against the structures that caused it. Most of us obviously a...

​Perhaps the hardest truth to accept is that the destructive norm does not disappear as children grow up and become civilized. To understand why, we have to examine what happens in our minds as we mature. What we find can explain both society's failure to adopt a constructive mode of operation and the tendency of adults to relativize bullying. So, what happened as we matured? Did we sit down, analyze ourselves, and discover the hardness we had fought to build, the emotions we had shut off, our firm belief that being bad makes us more worthy, and the contempt we held for certain people? Did we try to reclaim our softness? Did we stop craving status and start liking those without status once more? ​​No, we never analyzed anything. We gradually realized that being 'cool' was not viable in civilized environments and, bit by bit, adapted our behavior to fit the new norms—but only on the surface, as that is what happens when changes occur intuitively instead of consciously. We ha...

Since the belief that low-status people are naturally inferior is fundamental to our destructive thought pattern, the 'Pygmalion effect' deserves a post of its own. Highly gifted children who start with low status but raise it later in life are the best proof that status is not a reflection of inherent value. If inferiority were natural, their status would remain low forever. Why, then, do gifted children get low status? The common answer points toward 'differences in maturity and focus'. However, during my research, I noticed something striking: one name dominated the narrative— Dr. Linda Silverman . Linda Silverman turned out to be an extremely cited expert in the field of precocious children's tendency to become bullied and  the founder of the Gifted Development Center, where gifted children seek help for social difficulties. She is the one who introduced the theory of differences in maturity and focus between  precocious  and other children. However, when she ta...

​Since our destructive thought pattern is largely based on a confusion between human worth and status, we must distinguish between them once and for all: Status is the value you have in the eyes of others. Human worth is the value every human being has in themselves. People can lower your status by deciding that you count for less than others in a certain group. But no one can lower your human worth except yourself. Different people and groups can have different views on what holds status for them. Among children, social confidence and the ability to command respect have very high status—so high that the methods used to gain that respect do not matter. In other communities, talent or intelligence is so important that it outweighs social confidence. There, many who never managed to gain status among children have a chance to finally achieve high status. This does not change the fact that status is always determined by people. The trickiest thing about status is that both behavior and ap...

Finally, we have reached the most critical part of the message: now that the breeding ground for the destructive thought pattern is clear, it’s time to see exactly how it forms. As long as you need, you can look upon what I will be describing as the worst-case scenario. The problem is, as long as nobody reacts to a situation where some individuals are seen as inferior, the worst-case scenario is a fact. Sociologists Robert Faris och Diane Felmlee have revealed how the bullying dynamic effectively divides the children into two clearly defined groups: the winners and the losers . The winners—including the bystanders who basically adopt the bullies' view of the victims—decide who is worthy (themselves) and who is worthless (the losers, especially the chosen target). At the same time, the traits required to bully or to be indifferent to bullying gain status, while traits a bully or a bystander should lack lose status.  Being cruel , selfish , callous , stupid , reckless , cowardly , a...

In order to understand how our destructive thought pattern is formed, we need to examine how things usually work among kids.  In the world of children, the 'law of the jungle' usually rules out in the open. True to form, it manifests most clearly as bullying. Do you remember the mechanisms? Otherwise, they are fairly well covered by research, for instance that of Christina Salmivalli and Patricia Hawley.  Pretty early on, some kids figure out how to gain power over the rest. Being sophisticated little jungle creatures, they soon realize that the most effective way to take control is to focus all pressure on one single chosen target. The fate of the victim is so terrible that most children will do almost anything to avoid ending up there themselves.  So, to avoid being ostracized—or to stay on the leader’s good side—most of the other kids join in. Some take an active part. Others just quietly go along with it. These bystanders, according to Salmivalli, are crucial for main...

One way to justify human sacrifice is to blame nature. We are all familiar with the concept of the law of the jungle . In the jungle, we believe, might makes right. There, life is a harsh but fair struggle for survival where the strongest and fittest individuals win. We are particularly fond of referring to pack animals like wolves and chimpanzees, noting that they actually cast out and bully one another to the benefit of the group. Since nature can't be wrong, we see this as proof that it is right to use cooperation to strengthen the group at the expense of certain individuals.  Nature may not be wrong, but our interpretation of it certainly can be. During his studies of wildlife, the Russian prince and geographer Pyotr Kropotkin found that cooperation and mutual aid favored survival far more than competition. He argued that humans view nature as a struggle simply to justify competition and hierarchies within human society.  Researchers like Frans de Waal and Jane Goodall hav...

Since the pattern governing our thoughts is unconscious it is difficult to spot. By studying patterns in society we can sometimes discern the underlying structure. One of the more visible consequences of our destructive basic thought pattern is the logic of human sacrifice . Our fascination with human sacrifice is most evident in religion and fiction. We readily accept that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. ​We enjoy movies that end with the hero completing the mission at the cost of their own life. Even more, we are drawn to stories about real-life heroes who sacrificed their lives to save others.​ ​ ​​Most real-life sacrifices, however, never gave their consent, receive no credit, and remain invisible. Those in power are aware of them and decide the benefits are worth their suffering. Yet, hardly anyone admits that these sacrifices are made consciously. Such examples of human sacrifice can be seen at all levels of society—whether you look at the workplace, the national economy, o...

Let's start with a personal question: Are you a constructive person? Are you one of us who really try to think and act constructively? ​If so, you are not alone. Constructive thinking is a big topic these days. Every self-help expert stresses the necessity of a constructive mindset. In fact, not only the coaches and therapists but almost everyone seems to agree that being constructive is the way to go—except for a few outcasts who, embracing a negative identity, take pride in destructive behavior, such as gang criminality, mass shootings, child abuse, or thrill killings. But despite humanity's constructive outlook, the world is full of destructiveness. We destroy the climate, fight wars, allow people in the third world to live in deplorable conditions, trigger pandemics, and bully each other in our workplaces. Studies show that people are feeling worse than ever. How can this be?  Who is the bad apple ruining it for everybody else? Could it be our leaders who stubbornly cling t...

Once upon a time, in a parallel reality, there lived a Little Millipede who had a fiancée. She was the sweetest and best thing on Earth, but the Little Millipede wasn’t allowed to see her. God had picked the loveliest maiden to be found and taken her hostage for the sake of humankind’s sins. And so the Little Millipede’s fiancée was kept under lock and key, together with her mother. By the time the Little Millipede fell head over heels for her, she had already been held captive for ten long years. He was shown photographs and a video clip of the imprisoned maiden, and then and there his heart was sealed. He made up his mind to win her. But since he was nothing more than a Little Millipede, it never crossed his mind that he ought to start by setting her free. He simply decided that the moment she was released, he would make a move she couldn’t resist. For the time being, the Little Millipede contented himself with a bit of a makeover and a series of photographs in the newspaper the wo...

I was a dreamy and imaginative child. The highlight of my week was the Saturday visit to the library. Mom and I would stay for hours and finish by wheeling home a stroller filled with books. Besides I was bullied and needed an escape. That is why there was nothing particularly strange about the event I later came to see as my first God-experience.  I was three years old, sitting on the toilet. I had just had a fight with my mom and lost. I was trying to imagine how I had carried myself during the battle when suddenly it hit me that I didn’t look the way I thought. In my mind, I had seen something beautiful and graceful—a noble heroine forced into surrender by a dim-witted superior power. Now I realized that not only mom, but everyone except me, saw something else. And what was worse: they were right and I was wrong. In my head, I was quite tall and thin with hair reaching all the way down my back. In reality, I was squat with almost no hair, and that was why my mom treated me the w...