Whoso causes terror is himself more fearful. – Claudian
Whenever a tragedy involving children is publicized, the vultures are never long in arriving. Within minutes of the Sandy Hook murders on December 14th, they started to descend in flocks, control freaks trampling on the bodies of dead children so as to position themselves to best advantage for promoting their agenda to disarm everyone but the police and criminals. But they aren’t the only ones; no matter what the species of busybody, no matter what particular flavor of control-freakishness they subscribe to, you can bet the farm that any time anybody under the Age of Shazam is killed or seriously injured they’ll be there, bathing themselves in blood and insisting that the only way to prevent another such tragedy is to enact more controls on everyone who didn’t hurt any kids or adolescents. If a child is raped, legislators immediately propose new ways to torture people who urinated in public or had sex while they were teenagers. If a teenager dies in an automobile accident, police-state “checkpoints” to harass all drivers will suddenly pop up like mushrooms. A depressed teen committed suicide? Ban Dungeons and Dragons, heavy metal music, computer games, “sexting” or whatever else he enjoyed that older people are unfamiliar with. “Human rights are less important than the lives of INNOCENT CHILDREN!!!!!” they shout, whine, write, post or tweet, and the scary part is they actually mean it. And because they do, tyrants can always use “For the children!” as an effective excuse for stripping away human rights or even committing the most horrific atrocities on other people’s children.
The saddest part about this is that these measures, far from helping children, usually inflict great harm upon them. As I’ve pointed out before, American adolescents are subjected to twice as many restrictions as incarcerated felons, and nearly all of what we consider “the problems of adolescence” are due to these restrictions, many of which now carry severe criminal penalties. Worse still is the grievous psychological, emotional, cognitive and developmental harm inflicted upon prepubescent children by keeping them trapped inside like hamsters in a plastic habitat, controlled and monitored every minute of their lives and “protected” from imaginary harms until they are completely unable to cope with reality. Furthermore, society itself is damaged by the burgeoning nanny-state, and that damage in turn inflicts harm on those who live in it…including the former children all the nanny-laws were supposedly intended to “protect”. Just a few days before the Sandy Hook massacre, Wendy McElroy had this to say about the way politicians use children as an excuse for growing the state and undermining individual liberty:
For decades, the government has deliberately crusaded to send society into a panic over child molesters, abusive parents, kidnappers, sex traffickers, and now bullies. The…campaign…is a raging success. The elderly woman who bakes cookies for neighborhood children, the man who sits beside a girl in the only subway seat left, the parent whose son has bruises from a fall, anyone who volunteers to supervise kids — all of them are now suspected as child abusers. Many need to go through a police check, complete with fingerprinting, before they can access the privilege of volunteering to work with children. Men especially are presumed guilty until proven innocent.
…In the name of protecting children, state agencies break down the door that separates the private and public spheres. Every family is currently vulnerable to intrusion by Child Protective Services (CPS) acting on an anonymous tip; refusal to co-operate with them is seen as an indication of guilt. Pervasive monitoring of our personal communication is justified by the omnipresent possibility of child pornography…A lucrative and politically powerful “child-abuse industry” has arisen. It includes psychotherapists, social workers, lawyers, expert witnesses, foster parents, media pundits, researchers, bureaucrats, police, and politicians…[and] operates with little transparency or accountability. Vague and elastic definitions of child abuse are used to justify its actions. The public view of child abuse is a battered, bleeding infant; the legal view is much broader, including any physical or emotional mistreatment or neglect of a child.
…abuse hysteria actually endangers children. Although it purports to make children safer, the constant warnings only fill them with a suspicion and alarm that separate them from their surest defense against danger. The average person on the street feels a natural protectiveness toward a child in distress and would go out of their way to help them…[but] with the current hysteria, people who would otherwise help a kid might keep walking by. The child in need has become a dangerous stranger toward whom it is legally imprudent to extend a helping hand — let alone a hand that touches. [Furthermore]…while proclaiming itself the protector of children, the state has become a massive child abuser. TSA agents routinely perform body searches that would be called child molestation if done by anyone out of uniform. CPS is notorious for removing children from families on flimsy grounds and then placing them in foster homes or institutions where they are harmed or worse. Public schools are starting to tag students with the same RFID chips used to monitor cattle. The juvenile courts spill over with minor drug offenders and other victimless criminals…In a sense, the state is correct. There is an epidemic of child abuse, but the state is causing it…
Though the danger is greatest to those who by choice or necessity have to deal with children, no one is safe; even adult-only spaces are routinely invaded by censors armed with the excuse of making those spaces “safe for children” (despite the fact that minors are specifically prohibited from accessing them) on the grounds that a child “might” trespass there and be instantly gorgonized by the dreaded “sex rays”. It’s hard to imagine a more “adult” realm than the world of harlotry, yet even we are constantly under attack from fanatics claiming that most whores are either children or were in the recent past: our advertising venues are besieged, our clients are harassed and our persons are violated in the name of “protecting children” who by all practical measures barely even exist. But even if a fanatic concedes this rarity, the next thing out of her mouth will be, “If it saves even ONE CHILD, it will all be worth it!” and the brains of everyone within earshot except for skeptics and politicians will immediately shut down, virtually ensuring the victory of the latter over the former.
Nailed it, Maggie!
I’ve run across research groups who work on these kinds of for the children topics. Their output is notoriously sloppy; I suspect this is because they face less pressure to ‘get it right’. It’s not like anyone will ever cut funding for a program that’s for the children. Their craven self-interest in getting ever-more funding makes a heroic attempt at mimicking a perpetual motion machine. They spend the money the government gives them to… thoroughly explain to the government why they should be given more money.
Back so many years ago when I was growing up, the point of being a child was to grow up. To learn, mature, become capable. Now, it seems as if the goal is to keep everyone in a state of permanent dependency.
I’m sure that would be very desirable to the bosses and capitalists.
Throughout human history, childhood was an iffy situation. Many children died young. They were exposed to the same dangers and horrors as adults. Yet they grew up, and some became very functional individuals.
There will always be attrition. Nature isn’t a coddler by trade. It puts us through tests, and the successful survive and thrive. That’s not a license for society to make it harder. No, we form societies to protect ourselves from the harshness of nature, to support each other. But the fact is that life is never totally safe, and inoffensive. Not for adults or children.
When I was in school, I had a grammar and English master who used to return poorly written papers by holding them by the corner, holding his nose, and dropping them on one’s desk. He embarrassed one for doing a bad job. Today that sort of thing would never be tolerated. It would be bad for our self esteem. Quite the contrary. Approval from Mr. E, who was so strict, was glorious for one’s self esteem because it was difficult to earn! And we all survived the ridicule, and actually learned to write.
We coddle children, and then suddenly, at eighteen, it’s dog eat dog capitalism. Our society is totally illogical.
Exactly! When I checked aboard my first sub – the Chief of the Boat (COB) told me … “Here’s your qualification card, you have one year from the time I lay it in your hands to complete it, you have one year to learn this boat inside and out and until you have – you are TEMPORARY HELP here and you’re lower than whaleshit in the foodchain.”
That’s a quote. I was prodded and bullied the whole time during my qual process. I could not watch movies or play games underway – I had to either stand watch, sleep, or work on quals. The COB bunked me in a temporary bunk in the Torpedo room and I slept just inboard of a nuclear-tipped “Subroc”. I used to “hug” the lead shielding around the warhead like it was my girlfriend as I slept.
All of this was meant to “make” or “break” me – and in Subs, if they’re gonna “break” – best do it early so they aren’t in a position to cause damage when the shit starts flying.
I was recently on a Virginia Class Submarine – and I talked to the COB … things are completely different now. He said … “Non-Quals have rights too these days!” LOL
That’s all very interesting, Krulac, but what has it got to do with children one way or the other? I mean, I guess you could have been seventeen when you joined up…
It’s about harder vs softer teaching methods. Dose-of-reality vs don’t-drive-them-away. Seems analogous if not directly applicable.
I completely agree. The idea that children are pre-adults is an unpopular idea with those who want to continue childlike innocence well into adulthood….this includes WAY too many feminists. Every small struggle is an epic tragedy on a Homeric scale that is a “scar” and “forever damaging”. Also unpopular is the idea that Nature can be as vicious as she is beautiful and is amoral to boot.
I also had strict teachers growing up. Two, in particular, were very influential in making me grow the fuck up and take responsibility when I screw up: one was my Spanish teacher in elementary school, because there’s nothing like getting cussed out in Spanish, understanding it, AND having the teacher live two blocks over from your own house; the other was my Global Studies teacher in high school who, when I turned in a half-assed project, “Seriously? You expect me to grade this?”
When I took over as a replacement English teacher, one of my classes was composition, an elective in which the students were mostly seniors. The first papers they wrote after I took over were atrocious: comma splices, sentence fragments and run-on sentences abounded, not to mention a host of less critical errors. All but two students got “F” on that paper; one got a “D” and the other a “C-“. Needless to say, they weren’t happy; it turns out that the regular teacher (with a degree in “English education”) had only been taking off five points for the critical errors which would have resulted in an automatic “F” from my teachers. I compromised, and reduced them a letter grade for each major error (which shows how many they had). In the class where I handed the papers back I explained all this, dropped the bad grades and let them rewrite the papers; nobody got lower than a “C”, and within a month they were all back to the grade-performance level they had been at under the other teacher…except that now they actually deserved the grades instead of just getting them handed out like treats.
It’s disturbing how that works. I could never do really crap writing without feeling so embarrassed that I couldn’t bear to hand it in. Or, in many cases, write it in the first place.
The idea of a whole class that just *didn’t care* until the teacher made them care is weird as hell.
Superb Maggie, thank you very much.
One of the saddest/scariest things about all this is how effective “fearmongering” generally is; the bleating majority of the populace ignorantly allowing falsely aroused emotions to override any vestige of intelligence & self-will.
I think is rather funny that the personification of school as jail is considered a silly joke. Its not a joke. Not at all.
Not to mention, college has become rather like probation- and probation lasts, whether you go to college or not, until your 25, with rights, trust, and full citizenship into ‘the adult world’ gifted to you gradually starting at 18.
What’s amazing to me is how quickly it happened. Though it was already well underway when I was in my teens, few in New Orleans took it seriously; I looked 25 from the time I was about 15, and was literally NEVER carded until a few months after my 29th birthday. I was living alone (with no “adult” supervision) from a few months prior to my 18th birthday (before that I was in the dorm), and nobody ever said “boo” about it or claimed I was a victim for sleeping with grad students and professors. And this wasn’t generations ago; we’re talking only 30 years.
I like the cover of this report: http://www.nyclu.org/pdfs/criminalizing_the_classroom_report.pdf
As a long-time student of architecture (if not an actual architect), I have long believed that the same people who design prisons also design schools. There are just too many architectural commonalities between the two types of facilities for it to be a mere coincidence. It is certainly the same mind set.
You’re probably right about that. I would add that Military Barracks are probably designed by the same people too. They’re probably designed by large archetectural firms that do regular business with state and local governments.
Good point, krulac. The usual suspects, lacking in imagination or esthetic sense, on both sides of the contracting equation.
I’ve been referring to the architecture of such institutions as 20th Century Correctional-Educational. I started with my high school in the late 1970’s. The teachers did not find it humorous but my peers did.
I think you’ve come up with a name for an entire architectural movement, c andrew. Very perceptive, especially considering you were in high school at the time you came up with it, and I think very accurate. I love it! It is indicative of their mind set that the teachers did not see the truth in it nor find it either humorous, or disturbing.
Heh!
Yeah, we had slit windows that a skinny cheerleader couldn’t fit through and an observation point overlooking the courtyard that the vice principal had a habit of standing in. When I remarked – in creative writing class – that it smacked of Bentham’s Panoptican, Mr. Walker thought it was funny. But he was a bit of an odd character – he’d been a baptist preacher, a nuclear scientist and had the habit of quoting beowolf – in the original Anglo-Saxon and could give you Bobbie Burns in Gaelic. No one else liked him and they had removed him from teaching English Grammar because he was “too hard” on the students. I learned more about English from his creative writing class than I ever did from those whose job it was supposed to be to teach English.
He told the story about testing bomb drops in aircraft after WWII – they were testing a new triggering device and had taken mock-ups into flight that were completely functional without the explosive triggers or the nuclear core. As they were ascending to altitude, the telltales they’d rigged up would show the weapon was armed even though they hadn’t armed it. It turned out that the barometric switch on the bomb was being armed by resonance in the air-frame. I don’t know all the details, but it was probably a really good thing that they’d used a mockup to test it.
Like I said, a very interesting character who was a geek before the term had acquired its modern tech-savvy flavor.
Excellent! I’m always amazed at how everyone gets in a tizzy when something like this happens yet, once all the media dies down its back to business as usual.
Don’t get me wrong, this incident obviously deserved attention. But things happen every day (as you pointed out)where our own govt is abusing the children and families that they are being paid big bucks to protect, and most people just shy away from
it. I don’t understand how
anyone can read about the wades and not see that this agency has a serious accountability problem!! Yet he addressed congress almost 20 years ago (www.liftingtheveil.org/wade) and this agency continues operating in this exact manner.
For anyone wanting information on how to help with the fight for accountability with this agency you can contact me through this blog. I will be back out hunger striking in June or July and we are trying to have people at the Capitol year round until something is done!!!! http://Www.cpshungerstrike.blogspot.com
I am in ca and once we get ca done will move on to the next until ALLchildren can be protected from this agency!!
Both large government and large corporate interest is well served by fear in the public.
That fear equally drives CPS, gun sales, drug prohibition, outsized military spending, net nanny sw, incarceration rates, etc.
Most of my examples reflect my more liberal bias. But it’s the same driver across the spectrum – nanny state and military state and me alone against the state.
All from stoking fear, and all very profitable to large interests.
Here in Europe many people are almost glad that tragedies like that happen. Terrible (but rare) tragedies in the U.S. seem to justify the police states that already exist here.
In the last 10 years or so, Europe has seen lots of similar incidents, such as the shootings at Erfurt, Kauhajoki, Winnenden, The Hague, Emsdetten, Coburg, Toulouse, Tuusula, Cumbria, Utøya, Pécs etc. Apart from the massacre in Utøya, the rest have been mostly forgotten.
Gun grabbers have selective memories.
Maggie, you are so right-on with what you say you get me hard.
The concepts of childhood and adolescence, as our society interprets and imposes them, are modern constructs that have little basis historically, and are oddities even today in less developed countries.
Caught in a nether world somewhere between coddling and criminalization, we are producing generations of confused, incompetent, and narcissistic young people. While I do believe the unstated goal of public education (and perhaps private, as well) is to produce good little unthinking commuters and consumers, it is failing even at that unworthy objective:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257715/Study-shows-college-students-think-theyre-special–read-write-barely-study.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I previously thought that there was no way I would put a child into a public school in this country (being the U.S., but I am sure this might apply to several other countries as well), but — as you so vividly bring to light in your postings on the subject — the problem is far more widespread than that. Our society at large has become “unsafe at any speed” in which to raise a child, or even to be a free adult, and it is a cultural affliction.
Given the spreading globalization of this hysteria over the so-called “protection” of children and young people, where might it be any more sane and healthy for both adults and children to live and grow? Is there such a country or society? Does one just retreat further up into the hills and hope to hold off the grasping tentacles of the state and society? Or is it hopeless, and do we just need to succumb to this Brave New World? I have long been a believer in “this too shall pass,” but how long will it take for this insanity to pass? And at what cost?
These are questions I am grappling with now, and I know other thinking people also must be asking them. Thank you for drawing the picture in such clear and fact-based strokes.
“I have long been a believer in “this too shall pass,” but how long will it take for this insanity to pass? And at what cost?
These are questions I am grappling with now, and I know other thinking people also must be asking them. Thank you for drawing the picture in such clear and fact-based strokes.”
As a matter of fact, I ask the same questions too, as “this too shall pass” is one of my mother’s favorite sayings. I’ve been reading this blog (among other outlets) cover topics such as this for years now. I wish someone could answer this, so what is the end state? Are we in for an awakening or some unholy combination of the French Revolution and the American Civil War, perhaps with a bit of World War III thrown in for good measure? I’d like to think everyone else would come to their collective senses, since it would appear the alternative is a complete collapse, and then no one will care about harlotry or drugs anyway because everyone will be too busy eating each other.
Thequietman, you pose some different but interesting scenarios as to how “this too shall pass.”
The trend has been all (or mostly all) in the wrong direction, so we cannot look to the trend to lead us out of this morass. Can we expect an intellectual and cultural awakening such as you posit? It is hard to say, given the very darkness of this contemporary Dark Age in which we find ourselves. I suppose it is always possible, but right now I see virtually no signs of such a development. Though there is always room for an honest backlash, I suppose.
Your last scenario is perhaps the most plausible, if least palatable. But it would have to be a total or near-total collapse, with unpredictable consequences, and not just a national shock on the order of 9-11. Even a global war on terror and two ground wars, a major financial implosion, extended economic and political malaise, and all the other things going on in the past decade have not only failed to even slow the juggernaut, but if anything the manic frenzy to “protect” our younglings (even from themselves) has only increased.
Alas, I am not hopeful.
“…TSA agents routinely perform body searches that would be called child molestation if done by anyone out of uniform…”
My partner and I have ceased using air travel for that reason. It is now legal to sexually assault a four year old girl, as long as you’re wearing a TSA uniform.
In fact it’s probably required of them. At least, given the three competing hypotheses:
1. TSA reps are (by default) rule-bound robots with stupid programming.
2. TSA reps are pedos and don’t care if they’re seen as such.
3. TSA reps really believe the four year old is a suicide bomber.
I find #1 the most likely; and hence I suspect that something in the rulebook says (directly or indirectly) that they have to search prepubescent children once in a while.
Thanks, Maggie, for the Wendy McElroy article and your commentary. I’ve enjoyed Wendy’s superb writing for decades and think that if more feminists were like her and Camille Paglia, the young women of the world would be far better served for mentors (is using the name of a male centaur in relation to young women irredeemably sexist? 😉 than they are at present.
Whoops, looks like a got things mixed up. His mentor was Chiron; apparently one of his children was named Mentor and Odysseus put his son Telamachus in his (Mentor’s) charge. Well, I guess that’s what I get for doing mythology from memory.
The older man Billy Batson traveled the highways and byways of the land with was named Mentor. I mean, as long as we’re doing mythology from memory. 😉
Maggie, I won’t argue the fact that there are people out there using this tragedy for their own selfish ends, but I find myself wondering, is there anything that you think could be changed to prevent events such as this from happening? Obviously the solutions the politicians are calling for are knee-jerk at best, because they appear to be incapable of thinking outside the box.