Psychology & Philosophy | Animal Rights | Environment & Health | Science | Law | Politics | Days of Obama | Vietnam | Religion | Healthcare | Media | International | Young People | Culture
Massacre at Fort Hood
Dr Mroczek describes Nidal Hasan, the lone shooter at the Fort Hood massacre in 2009, based on material gleaned from writings and accounts about him post his horrific action. She describes who he seemed to be as a human and how he was motivated to do as he did. The video, as well as a comprehensive essay Dr Mroczek wrote about him called Massacre at Fort Hood (2009), gives us a window into the genesis, etiology, and consequences of the complex problem of the radical divide of ideology and practice between East and West and the problems of terrorism against the US and problems of the US war in the Middle East.
Goodnight Vietnam
Dr Mroczek talks with Vietnam veterans who tell how they feel now and what their experience was in Vietnam and since that time. They describe being young, naïve, believers in stepping up to do what a person should for country, being totally unprepared for what they would face, having no way to escape their circumstance once in Vietnam, admiring the Vietcong for their determination to save their country, and becoming hardened by death and the ever present threat of it all around. They talk about what it is like to kill, how they developed personal strategies to increase the probability of coming back alive, how they came to believe in the central role of corporate money in what was occurring. They describe what it is like to have PTSD. They also describe their great shock and dismay to come back to a country that they experienced as hating them, their painful “isolation” and aloneness once home in dealing with ostracism (and it being the ‘reward’ for their service), and the never ending harrowing condition of PTSD which continues unabated for them. They say the Veteran’s Administration has been unconcerned and ineffectual, and that the government just wanted them to effectively go away, disappear, once they returned to the USA.
Killing At School
Dr Mroczek explains why children can be cold blooded killers. She downplays “therapeutizing” the behavior of children by having agendas to ‘discover’ maladapted children who may commit atrocious acts as a replacement for living more meaningful, relational, and engaged lives with our children and each other. She emphasizes the need for shared everyday experience over time with each other to nourish mental well being which also functionally curtails mental states from being outside the fold of the norm. She points to values which belong to human beings as a group being subverted to technology and to the sale of products. She further talks about (psycho)pathology producing media content and bombardment. Dr Mroczek ends with a plea against using animals incarcerated and effectively tortured in research.
Interview I with L Ferrar
Dr Mroczek gives her thoughts on women, female sexuality, status of women, heterosexual relationships, mores and values of our time, God, science, religion, death, technology, existential purpose, and the human need to relate. (2004)
Interview II with L Ferrar (2004)
Interview covers the case for rejection of use of animals in research; technological and environmental ills of society with respect to how or if these can be ameliorated; and personal struggles of the individual personality to get by in a fast and pressured existence (2004)
Interview of Dr Nancy Mroczek by Becki Maisch
Dr Nancy Mroczek is interviewed by Becki Maisch. She is asked about her experience particularly in music against the backdrop of her occupation as a psychologist. Dr Mroczek discusses generating her music and its serious themes. She also touches on her proposition that rock music of the last many decades was in fact the genuine philosophy of the time with much to inform and teach. She further discusses philosophic ideas re: the hard experience of living generally. The interview is, overall, an exploration of thoughts and ideas on getting by in this difficult life as gleaned from the learning and experience of Dr Mroczek.
Toward A Quality of Life Live 2 – with listener interaction
Dr Mroczek discusses and takes questions on the inanity and poor qualitative viewing that television puts before viewers, including its heavy repercussions on awareness and mental gravitas. Within this context, she invites listeners to answer the question “what are you living for” as well. Dr Mroczek offers various arguments against the one-way conditioning of television. She further uses the discussion to emphasize the reality of contingencies such as television content, and contingencies generally, as to their pervasive influence on who we are and what we think and do – ie, percepts from behaviorism and behavior.
Contingencies of Behavior; Thinking About How We Are Living; Quality of Life
Dr Mroczek discusses information on contingencies that affect behavior, enumerates certain contingencies that are adverse to well being, and reviews certain psychosocial aspects of human perspectives as a backdrop.
Sports Mania/$ Mania/Work Mania I, II Sports Mania
Two videos of why and how Colombine 99 happened – new youth.
Black African America
Dr Mroczek talks with African American Larry Higgenbottom LISCW who discusses some of the history of the black African race with respect to the United States and the individual process of black African America coming to terms with a sordid history.
Some Concerns of the Greater Roxbury Community
A reminder of racism toward persons of black African heritage. African American activists in the Roxbury (Boston) community describe alot of the ongoing struggle of African Americans against a history and legacy of slavery and racism. Topics touched upon are jobs (especially), business, education, family life, government appropriations, and politics. Discussion is practical, well versed, and candid.
Move Beyond Narcissism
The narcissistic slant of US life and its geopolitical price.
Teen Love and Beyond
Dr Nancy Mroczek talks empathetically about the wounds between the sexes in trying to have relationship, especially for girls, when young and new to life, and new to sexuality and the vicissitudes of existence and personhood. Well worth a listen for the value of women and people.
Teen Depression and Suicide
Dr Mroczek talks with licensed Social Worker Elizabeth Reid about the problems and clinical syndromes increasingly being experienced by young adolescents and teens. The discussion can be useful to teens and to their parents to better understand what they may be seeing in each other and how they might proceed with a better compass preclude a rut of depression, apathy, and despair.
Morality: We Are Policing You
This lecture was delivered during the time of the presidential sex scandal in the late 1990’s. As such it begins within the context of an inferred backdrop of the sexual behavior of others. It progresses to an overall look at blaming and the vicissitudes of personal morality in general. Some commentary on children as our wards is given as well. Ethics is given as personal restraint against the condemnation of others.
Youth From Mars
Disillusioned young persons, New Youth, portray a sense of marginalization and alienation as they talk about their feelings and sense of the world.
Liberalism and Freedom
Dr Mroczek provides a philosophic conceptual background for a meaning of “liberal(ism)” and its consort – (individual) freedom. She talks about absolute and relative morality, cognitive discipline in thinking and feeling, freedom of will and of the individual, secularism, punition as a cultural force, some history of the evolution toward liberalism and freedom, and , finally, how these ideas pertain to the question of impeachment of Bill Clinton which was a matter roiling the USA at the time of this lecture.
Bad Karma Media
Dr Mroczek discusses the debased status of media as emphasizing, exploiting, and promoting negative emotion, aggravated ‘argument’, conflict, brutality, and a pernicious view of cultural activity. She bemoans the loss of media professionalism, objectivity, and equanimity, and its replacement with abuse of people and ‘stories’ to maximize emotional reaction in place of cerebral reasoning. Hate and negativity thereby reverberate in the culture at large. Both ethics and sanity call for self-disciplined measures against an all encompassing human debasement by media.
See tribute to Jerry Garcia’s ‘Ripple’ at 50:57
Media State of Affairs
Dr Mroczek discusses the generally vague and uninformed status of citizenry in the United States. She targets media as not providing a means for serious and overridingly important subjects that are critical to our being, thinking, and being involved in a true quest for quality of life. Examples from the Iraq invasion and environmental catastrophes of the period during which she speaks, etc, are given. Things which are really important for us to know (and see close up and personally) get short shrift and we most often do not know that we do not know what we need to know. At the same time, our emotional reactions to what we do see or hear in the media is based greatly on lame sensationalizations.
Urban Development – Boston a Case in Point
Dr Mroczek talks with writer and industrial engineer Peter Catalano about how the city of Boston, especially Fenway, home to the Red Sox, is being developed. The concepts discussed apply to quality of living in any city or place and the discourse can open our eyes to greater awareness, input, and concern about ways in which our living environments matter and either hurt or help human living now and into the future.
Quality of Life and Meaning to Living
Topic begins about 10 min into the video after Dr Mroczek spends some time talking about healthcare and its problems.
Dr Mroczek then begins a discussion on the quality of life being mostly poor in the way we now live, ideas for better quality of life and the usefulness to focus on it, and the importance to persons that life be meaningful. Persons also call in with questions.
None Dare Call It Treason and the 1960’s
The first 9 min of this talk refers to the scandal of Pres B Clinton & M Lewinsky plaguing the country via an investigation being done about it at the time including the treason in trying to overthrow a duly elected president. It then moves to the period of the 60’s, the generational legacy from which the then-president derived, to describe what the “60’s” was about and what US citizen-afforded rights are all about. The 60’s are described as a time unique to history, a time of expanding consciousness and some attempt at brotherly love, a political generation trying to disavow materialism, and a generation educated in the liberal arts with a desire to understand who they were and the depths of what it means to be human. Barriers between persons were coming down, subcultures were mixing, and rock music was the voice and philosophy.
Corporatism, Technology, and Human Convention
Dr Mroczek expounds on the fabric of US life as being dominated by corporatism and technology wherein actual persons are sublimated to profit motives that obliterate the living breathing person and the optimal quality of living that might be had. Corporations are effective propaganda machines. When persons espouse ideas contrary to the financial benefit of corporations, their ideas seem ‘radical’. Corporations now often fund schools which can further objectify, prep, and cement living human beings to follow the drill. At the same time, the US and Western civilization are cradles of civic engagement, fine art, imagination, possibilities of intellect and mind, and general expansiveness for the individual and collective psyche. Yet our present breadth and depth of human awakening is moribund, perhaps forever put to rest, with valueless-ness in its place. We are running haggard on corporate/profit/company growth and we are squeezed into greater ‘productivity’ in the insatiable quest for financial motive and aggrandizement.
No More Coercion
Mroczek gives an acapella version of her song entitled “No More Coercion” (©Mroczek 1997) which speaks to ceasing forcing and punishing persons the world over who do not fall in line with the views someone insists that they have; a song against using coercion as a means to an end.
Toward A Quality Of Life With Call-Ins, Session 3
A ‘Toward A Quality Of Life’ session with liv call-ins. In this sesion, Dr Mroczek continues to ask the question ‘what are you living for’, exhorts persons to think, discusses some of the ways we impact ourselves physically and behaviorally, and profers ideas for achieving and living a better quality of life together. She points out the role of habit, including in our thinking, to be an overriding reality to be reckoned with in thinking about change. She solicits persons to think about being aware of contingencies controlling behavior and thought and to think about managing our lives in new ways. Some practical ideas discussed today are the wrongheadedness of separating the elderly and the young, children’s need for 1:1 ongoing involvement with at least one significant other, single payer health care, smaller and local enterprise to replace non-responsive and controlling huge institutions, and the role of inflation in personal economy together with the need to be aware of it and the changes being made to its measurement as it impacts our everyday living. Callers ask questions about multiple personality disorder, domestic violence, etc.
Oh Oh Katrina
Dr Mroczek outlines and discusses the utterly demoralizing and historical event of hurricane Katrina. The SUBJECT OF KATRINA BEGINS AT 9:30 in response to a question that asks how what happened during hurricane Katrina differs from what happened during hurricane Rita, both having occurred in 2005.
1984
Dr Mroczek describes the mob mentality and the undemocratic trampling of individual rights in the USA with regard to the investigation and impeachment effort against President Bill Clinton. She also refuses the license of persons to judge private sexual behavior of situations outside themselves. She argues further, that media, which exploits antagonisms, is an ill suited and demonizing force for the worse during such scandals. Dr Mroczek notes too that when confronted by sexual power plays, women should be responsible for their own behavior. (For the record, in the Clinton case, Ms Lewinsky seems to have indicated herself to have been her own fairly aggressive sexual player.)
Persons watching this lecture and familiar with President’s Trump’s tribulations, will see a lot of similarity in how the sordid cultural fiasco goes: Republicans to Democrats or Democrats to Republicans. In the case of President Trump however, the charges are highly likely to have been fabricated, built up from scratch – a new level of political malfeasance for the USA.
In sum, a good refresher for a lot about the scandal of President Clinton’s sexual liaison in the White House and a reminder of similar attempts against President Trump.
What Does ‘Toward A Quality Of Life’ Mean?
This is Part 1 on the idea and meaning of quality of life and Toward A Quality of Life. Dr Mroczek outlines major stresses to living that afflict all persons in contemporary life such as fatigue, alienation, frustration, coping with contaminants & environmental malaise, etc, etc. She speaks about these issues within the context of there being contingencies that bear down on our sentiment and behavior in every step of living. She prompts us to think and to think hard. She introduces the idea of working toward changing and re-arranging contingencies upon which behavior is based to afford a more livable and pleasant quality of life – ie., toward a quality of life. She gives a feel for how to look at the context within which, – and contingencies by which -, our behavior and sentiment is dictated. She hears from two guests about the set ups in their own lives causing unhappy consequences and steps taken to map a better path. In general, persons tend to accept contingencies as being given. This is a call to be a) way more aware of the intricacies (contingencies) producing poor consequences for living and b) to make change on an individual basis to one’s own life as well as to perpetrate change for a greater quality of life in the culture as a whole.
Toward A Quality Of Life Live December 2005
Dr Mroczek continues her series of live broadcasting Toward Quality Of Life sessions. In this discussion she covers the area of stresses in modern existence, citing several kinds of non-enjoyable realities citizens passively endure. She encourages persons to speak out, to make observations, and to take those observations to persons who have some influence with respect to them. She
argues for tactics of gentle persuasion. She notes a lot of passive belief and acceptance in the citizenry. She touches on myriad situations that stress or are negative and un-enjoyable (a subway ride, e.g., long prerecorded telephone menus, lines at grocery check outs, etc). She also talks about the duty of a country to provide for it’s physically, mentally disabled, and infirm persons. She urges viewers to be perpetually active about bettering factors external to ourselves that disturb quality in living and to be aware of preserving freedoms taken for granted as well.
A Woman Loathed – HC
Dr Mroczek delivers this talk in the beginning of 2008, an election year during which HC first ran for president of the US. Dr Mroczek describes the deep collective animosity to HC as a female. She opines that women have to be on guard against both men AND women, that neither gender is particularly sympathetic to females. She gives examples of animosity toward women based on deep rooted ridicule, fear, and disdain. She also talks about the weaponization of sex, the proclivity of women to want loving attention and devotion, and the brains vs beauty conundrum. She sees the most important thrust for women to become fully fledged as neither male nor female – and these are not the same – but as human beings.
Sex Vigilantes: Who’s got the problem?
Dr Mroczek gives this talk at the time Pres Bill Clinton was being attacked for having sex with an M Lewinsky. Dr Mroczek defends the personal right to legal and consensual sex as well as the right to privacy about sex. She further goes deeply into the significance, drive, psychological complexities, and complexes we as humans harbor about sex. She further touches on the biologic and psychologic fundamentalism of sex, religious perceptions surrounding sex, condemnation of sex, mores, sex as love, and sex as the root of human life.
Toward A Quality Of Life with listener call-ins re: violent criminality
This is one of a series of live call-in shows done by Dr Mroczek. She begins with a customary spot for highlighting the pain, suffering, and predicaments animals endure on a planet controlled by humans. She makes a plea for getting animal pets from shelters rather than from breeders. She then talks about the US government’s penchant for war, the cost and waste of the Iraq war being waged at the time, its arguable goals, and the overall detriment to the health and welfare of the US because of it. She then takes calls on any topic from viewers, each of whom pose questions about murderous criminals and the effect of violence as a normative cultural theme on such persons as well as a listener question about a possible legacy of genetic disposition to criminality.
Kids of South Boston Talk
Children of South Boston discuss what they think and feel on topics such as violence, video games, teens who cause trouble, guns, race, parents, dangerous crossings on public streets, and prayer. Taken together, it isn”t an easy or pretty picture of growing up and this was in 1999 – (ie, it’s probably worse now).
Teens/Young Adults Express Themselves
Teens from Boston talk about the things they see and feel: drugs, addiction, women’s issues, family, work, school, religion, racism, gentrification, slavery and its heritage, meaning in life, safety, stress, morals, values.
Further lectures available by order, not yet online:
Who Are You?
Women in the context of Monica Lewinsky.
Re: the following 2 lectures about Hillary Clinton: Update 2014: Vapid and scarred record as Secretary of State; Update 2013: Legend tarnished after 4 years as Secretary of State – legend now compromised by highly circumscribed and narrow role allotted to normally very prolific and powerful Secretary of State position. Some long months in, Hillary revolts and makes her presence and view more tantamount. On the other hand, she takes some positions seemingly out of character with her past; also, she is delegated nowhere near such visible spokesperson status as a Christopher Warren, Madeline Albright, George Shultz, Condoleezza Rice, or Colin Powell.
Misogyny (2008)
Fat-bottomed, seasoned, intelligent, determined, dominionated FEMALE campaigns under conditions of traditional role suppression by media, males, and, the biggest challenge – females (down so long it looks like up) to maintain the disequilibrium. Aka race trumps gender.
The Mighty Mighty Hillary (2008)
The able, bold, and brave.