compartmentalization as a way of managing

Twenty years ago, we learnt that the most important foundation of mental health treatment was 'dead':

Psychoanalysis Is Dead ... So How Does That Make You Feel? - Los Angeles Times

Psychoanalysis is a theory of psychopathology and a treatment for mental disorders. Fifty years ago, this paradigm had great influence on the teaching and practice of psychiatry. Today, psychoanalysis has been marginalized and is struggling to survive in a hostile academic and clinical environment.1,2

Is Psychoanalysis Still Relevant to Psychiatry? - PMC

The founder of psychoanalysis was very critical of alternative approaches:

Compartmentalization, a term coined by Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism, which is a strategy the psyche uses to avoid feeling anxiety, especially related to internal conflicts. With compartmentalization, the person separates feelings or thoughts that contradict each other into different “compartments” in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance that arises when a thought or feeling we have starts to contradict a different thought or feeling that we are also aware of.

What Does It Mean to Compartmentalize? - Choosing Therapy

It is seen rather negatively:

Compartmentalization is a form of psychological defense mechanism in which thoughts and feelings that seem to conflict are kept separated or isolated from each other in the mind.[1] Those with post traumatic stress disorder may use compartmentalization to separate positive and negative self aspects.[2] It may be a form of mild dissociation; example scenarios that suggest compartmentalization include acting in an isolated moment in a way that logically defies one's own moral code, or dividing one's unpleasant work duties from one's desires to relax.[3] Its purpose is to avoid cognitive dissonance, or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, cognitions, emotions, beliefs, etc. within themselves.

Compartmentalization (psychology) - Wikipedia

However, this approach can be very helpful:

Compartmentalization in Everyday Life

Compartmentalization can be part of everyday experience, especially in situations when life can benefit from a little separation. Some may draw boundaries between work and play; others may make allowances for mistakes and setbacks.

Can compartmentalizing ever be helpful?

When people are dealing with a number of serious problems at the same time, it can be difficult to maintain focus to accomplish necessary tasks; putting a problem on hold by compartmentalizing can help them take action. Although disengaging with emotions isn’t a long-term solution, it can be a valuable tool from time to time.

How can people compartmentalize work?

Our jobs, particularly high-stress or high-pressure positions, sometimes seem to take over our lives. Compartmentalizing can set boundaries so that you function well at work and enjoy time away from the office.

Compartmentalization | Psychology Today

Psychoanalysis is about Why - looking deeply into our past lives to give explanations.

Compartmentalization is about How - looking at ways of managing things and looking to the future.

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official languages

We can actually communicate in more than one language:

Jay Doubleyou: we are by nature multilingual

But it gets very political:

Jay Doubleyou: imposing one language on china

Jay Doubleyou: language and politics in ukraine

Which countries have more than one official language?

Linguistic Coexistence in Europe: Countries with More than One Official Language – Braanz

List of multilingual countries and regions - Wikipedia

Which Are The Most Multilingual Countries In The World?

But recognising another language as 'official' does not always mean communication on the ground:

Languages of Israel - Wikipedia

Languages of Ukraine - Wikipedia

English is the most common official language, with recognized status in 51 countries.

Official language - Wikipedia

BELGIUM:

French-speaking Minister of Education Caroline Désir suggested making Dutch classes compulsory in Wallonia. This reform will be difficult to implement because of the critical shortage of skilled teachers and the political context.

Belgium's unity remains undermined by the language barrier

Belgium's language divide: Many young Walloons do not speak Dutch

How can Belgium overcome its regional linguistic conflicts? | Social Policy

‘It’s important that people who decide to spend their lives here also learn French and Dutch,’ top Flemish politician says.

Flemish nationalists aren’t happy with plan for more English in Brussels – POLITICO

SWITZERLAND:

The Zurich national museum, the Tages-Anzeiger and swissinfo.ch has invited us to explain Switzerland’s exceptional cohesion in comparison to other multilingual countries, as part of the debate series entitled La Suisse – et maintenant? [Switzerland – and now?]

How To Explain Switzerland’s Linguistic Harmony?

The Language Enigma Of Switzerland - Live and Let's Fly

It’s not unusual to hear Swiss people from different parts of the country chatting away in English. Not everyone is happy about this, but does using English as a lingua franca – a bridge over the Röstigraben, the country’s main linguistic divide – benefit national cohesion or harm it?

English as a common language in Switzerland: a positive or a problem? - SWI swissinfo.ch

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poetry in the esol/efl classroom

To what extent can poetry be used in the English-as-a-Second/Foreign-Language classroom?

There are practical and engaging ways to do this:

Jay Doubleyou: spell check poem

Jay Doubleyou: short texts for fun dication

Here is more fun:

Jay Doubleyou: poetry as diagram

Jay Doubleyou: football and poetry

Jay Doubleyou: tree poetry

Jay Doubleyou: the bfg: malapropisms, spoonerisms and nonsense words

About the British:

Jay Doubleyou: the british - a poem

Jay Doubleyou: grayson perry and philip larkin on the british

Here are a couple of backwards poems:

Jay Doubleyou: refugees: a poem

Jay Doubleyou: backwards poems

But we have to be very sensitive:

Jay Doubleyou: "poetry in the classroom: some kids i taught and what they taught me": three years on

How to make a poem:

Jay Doubleyou: rhyme in english

Jay Doubleyou: limericks

The EL Gazette looked at the subject recently:

On Poetry: Benefits for students and implementation ideas for educators

Creativity in the classroom can come in a variety of ways. Teacher, Matthew Kloosterman, gives his best practice on how to incorporate poetry into teaching.

Connecting poetry, as a genre, to other texts being studied invites intertextuality and deeper reading for students. Poetry is also highly personable and offers an avenue for student agency. When students select their own poems for poetry study, it encourages even more personal connections to texts.

In this article I would like to share several ideas on how poetry can be implemented and why poetry is beneficial for students:

On Poetry: Benefits for students and implementation ideas for educators - E L Gazette

To finish: WOW!

Jay Doubleyou: kate tempest poet

Jay Doubleyou: performing poetry

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backwards poems

Here's a poem which you can read from the beginning ... or the end:

Jay Doubleyou: refugees: a poem

Here's another:

Dear Humanity, It's Time To Give Up (Reverse Poem) - YouTube

And there are lots more:

5 Reverse Poems That Will Blow Your Mind - Heart

Here's how to do it:

How to Write a Reverse Poem. A poem that can be read in both… | by Cameron Bradley | Writers’ Blokke | Medium

9 Reverse Poems Your Middle Schoolers Will Love - Hey Natayle

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what is a crypto city?

Sounds a good idea?

Some are still waiting for the idea to materialise:

Waiting out Bukele's 'Bitcoin City' on a Salvadoran beach

El Salvador: The American still waiting for ‘Bitcoin City’ - France 24

Some were sceptical from the beginning:

A golden city on the coast of the tropical Pacific. A metal walkway suspended above a verdant volcano. And a glossy marina that looks like it belongs in Monte Carlo rather than a near failed-state besieged by some of the world’s most violent criminals.

The detailed gilded model released this week of ‘Bitcoin city’ – the first ever dedicated cryptocurrency trading hub, to be built on El Salvador’s western shore and powered by geothermal energy from a volcano – is nothing if not spectacular.

The grandiose project is the brainchild of the troubled Central American nation’s headline-grabbing populist president, Nayib Bukele, arguably now the world’s foremost cryptocurrency evangelist after foisting Bitcoin as legal tender on his largely bewildered compatriots last year. In September, every El Salvadoran citizen was given $30 worth of Bitcoin in a government issued crypto wallet – although many reported that the money mysteriously disappeared from their accounts.

Meanwhile Bukele, a 40-year-old former businessman and marketing executive with a serious Twitter habit and a penchant for wearing baseball caps backwards, has risked the ire of the International Monetary Fund, who say he is taking gratuitously ‘large risks’ with El Salvador’s precarious economy.

With the world’s highest murder rate, ravaged by mara street gangs, cartels funnelling cocaine from the Andes up to the United States, and an annual per capita GDP of just £3,000, you might think that Bukele had more pressing — and realistic — priorities than turning the region of La Union, an impoverished rural backwater on the Pacific Coast where Bitcoin city will be built, into the epicentre of the highly volatile crypto-revolution.

The madness of El Salvador’s Bitcoin city | The Spectator

Here's a further look:

Blockchain City | Crypto Documentary | Blockchain Technology - YouTube

There is a lot of interest, of course, from the tech and finance sectors - but how much of this is hype?

Definition of Bitcoin City | PCMag

Crypto millionaires building their own cities in Central America | MIT Technology Review

New, futuristic 'blockchain cities' are just castles in the air - Blockworks

AI generated art with the terms “solar punk cityscape, smart city, crypto city, network state”

Here’s my working definition, informed by Vitalik’s blog post on Crypto Cities, Balaji’s book The Network State, and my own experience studying and working in urban planning and city government:

A crypto city is an IRL (in real life) city with a government that uses crypto technology to operate and govern.

The word “crypto” in front of “city” doesn’t give any hints about the physical design or master plan of the city in real life. It is not associated with any particular city style like new urbanism or towers in a park, but refers mainly to the operation and governance of a city. In this definition, crypto is not short for cryptocurrency, but cryptography, which is the underlying technology that gives us both blockchains and cryptocurrency.

What is a Crypto City? - by Nicholas Bonard - Crypto Cities

There's even a game:

CryptoCities

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how to look after democracy

What is 'democracy'?

It's difficult to define 'democracy':

1 a. : government by the people. especially : rule of the majority. b. : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

Democracy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

The problem is that a lot of governments hold elections - but we wouldn't call them 'democratic':

Democracy Is More Than Just Holding Elections - Open Society Foundations

For example:

Putin’s antiwar rival blocked from contesting Russia presidential election | Elections News | Al Jazeera

But some twenty years ago, Russia, for example, was 'more democratic'

Russian President Vladimir Putin, After 20 Years of Rule

Or maybe not:

Why Russia’s Democracy Never Began | Journal of Democracy

This year, around 4 billion people will be voting in over 60 countries this year - but how many of these elections amount to 'democracy'?

Here's a programme which looks at how democracies are not just about elections - and how people in power can slowly but surely dismantle a democracy:

Democracies do not die in military coups. They are dismantled slowly, by libel laws, through tax audits, and procedure. Democracies are dismantled by bureaucrats and judges, not by soldiers and heavy-handed policing. It has always been thus, from ancient Rome to present-day Tunisia. The program outlines the tricks of the trade that imperceptibly kill democracies – and how examples in Mexico, Turkey, India and Poland illustrate that the autocratic playbook is nearly always the same.

Analysis - How to Dismantle a Democracy - BBC Sounds

There is a lot of advice out there to stop this happening:

Unlock Democracy [UK]

How to Protect Democracy - Protect Democracy [USA]

Freedom in the World 2020: Recommendations for Strengthening Democracy

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are we getting more stupid?

What is the 'Flynn Effect"?

The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in both fluid and crystallized intelligence test scores that were measured in many parts of the world over the 20th century, named after researcher James Flynn (1934–2020). There are numerous proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, such as the rise in efficiency of education, along with skepticism concerning its implications. Similar improvements have been reported for semantic and episodic memory.

Flynn effect - Wikipedia

Of course, IQ tests are very very limited in what they measure:

In 1987, Flynn took the position that the very large increase indicates that IQ tests do not measure intelligence but only a minor sort of "abstract problem-solving ability" with little practical significance. He argued that if IQ gains did reflect intelligence increases, there would have been consequent changes of our society that have not been observed (a presumed non-occurrence of a "cultural renaissance").[28] By 2012 Flynn no longer endorsed this view of intelligence, having elaborated and refined his view of what rising IQ scores meant.[34]

James Flynn: IQ may go up as well as down | Psychology | The Guardian

It seems we are going backwards anyway:

NEW STUDY REVEALS SHARP DECLINE IN AMERICAN IQ SCORES AS THE “REVERSE FLYNN EFFECT” TAKES CENTER STAGE

A new study found a sharp decline in American IQ scores in recent years, offering support for what researchers term the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”Examining a large U.S. sample, researchers from Northwestern University found that IQ ability scores in three of four key categories dropped between 2006 and 2018. Composite ability scores (single scores derived from multiple pieces of information) were also lower in recent samples.

While a decline in IQ scores may sound alarming, researchers caution that the results do not mean Americans are becoming less intelligent. “It doesn’t mean their mental ability is lower or higher; it’s just a difference in scores that are favoring older or newer samples,” said Dr. Elizabeth Dworak, a research assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the new study. “It could just be that they’re getting worse at taking tests or specifically worse at taking these kinds of tests.” Additionally, researchers did find that American scores in the fourth key IQ category, spatial reasoning, had generally increased from 2011 to 2018.

Ultimately, results support a global decline in IQ scores beginning in the 1990s and 2000s. This phenomenon has become known as the “Reverse Flynn Effect.”

New Study Reveals Sharp Decline in American IQ Scores as the “Reverse Flynn Effect” Takes Center Stage - The Debrief

So, are we getting more stupid?

We Are All Getting Dumber, New Science Proves, and No One Is Sure Why | Inc.com

Why are Americans getting dumber? - UnHerd

And if so, why?

We seem to be getting stupider and population ageing may be why | New Scientist

Has relying on tech made us more stupid?

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