Thursday, December 30, 2010

Adult Irony

The most deplorable thing about the adult is their love of all things ironic. It's the adult equivalent to a small child's egotism in its annoyance and almost as ubiquitous. Television is littered with examples. Adults love an unexpected pairing or an incongruous situation, and one of the most prevalent is the pairing of a child in a context that adults have reserved for themselves. There's the classic example of a child stumbling onto his parents making love (where a child is supposed to represent "innocence" and "ignorance," and the sex act is supposed to represent the "dirty little secret" that only adults know). Adults love to revel in their so-called advanced experience with the world, and parade it in front of children's ignorance as if gloating the old "I know something you don't know."

Arguably, this phenomenon can be tied to the same egotism that causes the child to believe that every object of their desire is ultimately theirs, even under circumstances where it is in the obvious possession of a peer. Adults want to feel important, as is human, and because they have the power to do whatever they want, they have the ability to exert these desires in larger social domains (like television for instance). The problem is, just as it is with children, the broad majority lack the insight into why they enjoy feeling better and smarter than children. This makes them as childish.

In the same way that a toy doesn't belong to our proverbial child simply because they want it, the truth about the world (and all those dirty little secrets) doesn't "belong to adults" simply because they will it to be. Adults don't know anything a child should be kept from knowing just to preserve the little "smarter than you" game. Everything should be on the table because everything is on the table. We need honesty, not irony.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Good Samaritan

How often do we hear that because human nature prevents most people from being truly charitable, selfless, progressive, useful, on their own, that it is the function of bureaucracy, law, government, and other legislation to ensure that a series of incentives or imperatives are in place to govern human behavior on behalf of human beings? It would seem plausible, as the system might be capable of doing what most common people can't. If they can't be the Good Samaritan and help their fellow citizen in jeopardy on the street, then a law must be fashioned to ensure their heroic compliance. Nowhere are these compulsory measures applied more than in our dealings with children and youth. In our society, apathy seems to be an easier path after all, in fact, in many cases involving children, it seems to be actively encouraged.

The problem with the regulation of human behavior in cases regarding the flexing of our better natures is in its initial assumption (even if it's effective at getting the otherwise apathetic to participate in what should be the human race). The idea is that people can't or won't be good citizens on their own and have to be told. But however true this may be in general, doesn't it seem problematic that this initial, fatalistic assumption about human nature actually discredits those who would be Good Samaritans on their own? Legislation then opens the one and only avenue for which those who mean well by children can exercise their good intent, and subsequently closes the pathways that individuals had once chosen on their own.

No one expects an adult now to assist a child (that is not theirs) out of a problem by their own good nature, because such a thing these days seems to require a plethora of forms, permission slips, background checks, and placement services in order to be rendered to specifications pre-established by the organization overseeing that that "good deed" gets done. Not that this really matters, seeing as a good deed is a good deed nonetheless, but the hoops may also actively prevent a person from carrying out the good deed to begin with. The good intent to be proactive with outreach to children that has been turned away due to bureaucratic limitations, is no good for anyone. Society has all the bases covered as far as good deeds are concerned, as it has an army of specially trained agents to make sure those good deeds get done--no assistance is necessary from the likes of those who may simply want to do something good for a child on their own will.

We can't let the apathy of society, accustomed to legislative might enforcing their good will, undermine or even disallow the good works of the average person choosing to do so on their own--whether they be child or adult. We can't let it control our thinking as to who can be the Good Samaritan and who can not.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Someday at Christmas


Someday at Christmas men won't be boys
Playing with [kids] like kids play with toys
One warm December our hearts will see
A world where [love] is free.

Someday at Christmas there'll be no [culture wars]
When we have learned what Christmas is for.
When we have found what life's really worth
There'll be peace on earth.

Someday at Christmas we'll see a land
With no hungry children, no empty hand.
One happy morning people will share
a world where people care.

Someday at Christmas there'll be no tears,
Where [all ages] are equal and no one has fears.
One shining moment, one prayer away
From our world today.

Someday at Christmas man will not fail,
Hate will be gone and love will prevail,
Someday a new world that we can start
With hope in every heart.

Someday all our dreams will come to be,
Someday in a world where [all] are free,
Maybe not in time for you and me
But someday at Christmastime.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Spoiled Into Submission

Sometimes you can beat a child into a fury and spoil a child into submission, injure them with kindness and strengthen them with sternness, build resilience by letting them subsist and entitlement by giving them everything they want. Sometimes carefully structuring a child's environment to work exactly to their developmental mindset only weakens their ability to grow beyond it. The point to any interaction between an adult and a child is not to gratify the child's strengths, but to challenge them.

This is hardly revolutionary--Lev Vygotsky wrote on the Zone of Proximal Development and defined it thus:

"...The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygostsky, Mind in Society 86).

Because we can not count on the "line in the sand" age-limit legal definitions, which automatically render all children regardless of maturity or skill incapable and therefore useless, we (you, me, and society at large--parents, teachers, coaches, adult friends, children themselves) have to be that "more capable peer" who dares challenge a child. We all have to take personal responsibility to ensure that children and youth in general are actually prepared for life at the ages the law arbitrarily sets for those milestones.

The line in the sand age limits imposed on minors, if they are never going away, are NOT the time to begin teaching children how to live, they are benchmarks for all progress up to that point--not the first opportunity to teach a youth a thing or two, but the last. The mythology or "magic" that the law bases its reasoning on as to how children develop into adults (based on their date of manufacture alone) certainly isn't going to do it for us.

If we do expect the law to determine how and when we decide to teach children about how to live in the world--that is, if we wait until their 18th birthday before we decide to stop spoiling them with ignorance and politically correct entitlements--how can we expect them to actually be able to do what is their right to do, and have responsibility for the things they are then responsible for? If we give them no adversarial situations, how do we expect them to handle conflict constructively? Childhood is supposed to be a living, challenging time of life, not a paradise, and the more adults try to make it a paradise, the less livable it becomes.

The law can not raise kids for us, it is too busy harming those who didn't develop properly.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Include the Kids

Society believes the best interaction between an adult and child ought to render the adult a designated mentor, care-taker, teacher, parent, doctor, or social worker of some sort, and the child a receptacle for their services. If the child is maintained, repaired, upgraded, or serviced appropriately by the designated individual, then society deems the partnership successful and they part ways. Children are not expected to do anything but absorb or allow rendered whatever service on them is being given, accept the upgrade for their sake, and carry on. In some instances, such as between a teacher and child, some dialogue or input from the child is necessary to complete the transaction, but that is in the context of their compulsory education. Society expects nothing from children for their own sake, even it also regards them to super-human heights of holiness for its sake.

I don't want to see the system crumble, I just want alternative (as in, non-bureaucratic) practices in child guidance become more socially acceptable and less of a target of scorn. This is to say, an ideal society would be one where so-called traditional, social, "cradle to grave" methods for bringing children up in the world coexist peacefully with individuals doing good works for others on their own volition. The only difference between the two is that the traditional structures treat children like potted plants who are just expected to sit there and receive their water and sunlight, and these Childlove "good works" practices I describe accept that a child, while being "protected" and "saved" and "taught" and "mentored," may also want to be the one giving, protecting, teaching, and mentoring sometimes, for a change.

Childlove does not expect a child to want to reciprocate the love that goes into them, because it expects nothing from children that one wouldn't expect from any other personal friend, but it won't stop them from reaching out if they desire it. Childlove is not out to "protect" or to "mentor" or to render a specific service in exchange for payment or some other motivation--the motivation for the Childlover is the protecting, is the mentoring, in and of itself. Children are not a means to an ends, they are an ends in and of themselves, and it takes a non-market based, non-bureaucratic, free individual in order to allow them to be. In this case, Childlove is about adults being there for children, but it's also about children being there for adults, or other children. It just requires the adult to be more honest and personal than they would be if they were fulfilling a professional service on behalf of the child--where their presence would just be a physical extension of their all-important title and nothing more.

Because kids know the difference. They know when you're there for them and when you're there because it's your job to be there. It doesn't necessarily have to affect their judgement of you, and certainly you can reach a child on a personal level even if it is your job to be there for them, but the quality of the interaction necessarily suffers from the compulsory, mandatory, or the "on behalf of X" context of the meeting. Officialdom always cuts the heart out of human interaction. If the child chooses their mentor and the mentor is not a fit with the child, or if the mentor chooses the child and the child isn't a fit, then the quality of the interaction suffers somewhat. If the child and the adult choose each other, or the child and the child choose each other, then the interaction is blessed for as long as it lasts. Kids don't want everything done for their sake, on their behalf, for their own good--nobody does--and will almost always see this kind of treatment as just another form of authority regardless of how friendly and "happy" it comes off. Some people will kill you with happiness, after all.

No. Kids don't want happy smiling faces telling them to sit still and receive the service against their will "for their own good," "on their behalf," or "for their sake." Kids are human beings too, and no human who hasn't been tampered with in some way will tacitly accept such condescension without either a flare of protest or silent withdrawal. Children shouldn't be expected to be any different. They want real people who are open and honest about their agendas. They want a person who can honestly answer the question, "Why the hell do you like working with kids?" If you answer with something along the lines of the "joy and wonder," then you've already lost all hope of connection, because the small ones won't get it and the older ones won't buy it.

A child is anything but "joy and wonder." A child is human--all that, the good, bad, and ugly. 

There are times when a child has to be a receptacle for services, just like anyone, but there should also be times when a child can be the one reaching out and reciprocating. In a relationship, human beings can say no if they are being infringed on by another. In a top-down interaction between "mentor" and "protege," there is no consent or dissent. If the kids can't be included, it is just another doctor's visit, it's just another timed test--it's not a relationship. Child-centrism is just as vile as adult-centrism, because tossing children into darkness is just as disgusting as blinding them in the spotlight.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Thought-Stopping Cliches

Our typical human overhears the cultural media pulpit repetitively spouting thought-stopping cliches about predators day in and out, takes them at face value and then perhaps turns around and criticizes those who practice religion. There is no difference. If religion is said to become anxious at the idea of critical analysis and receives criticism for it, then our media pulpit should be spared no less the same. The only thing that is necessary to say to render null all arguments for justifying our opinions based on reason alone is wrapped up in the confused media-fed jargon of the expression, "predators targeting innocent children." No one can contest paranoia like this without looking like they support the "predators," so it becomes truth regardless of its truth.

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."
(Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism 429)

Childhood innocence is a cultural designation for which there is no evidence--sure children exist inside a different developmental stage from adults, but there is no reason to believe they are any more "innocent," "pure," or "angelic" as a result than your average adult given their own developmental state. Another is the purely cultural detestation for "pedophilia," where ignorance has produced in the mainstream its 1 to 1 correlation with "child molestation." Such a 1 to 1 correlation has no evidence, and even runs counter to evidence suggesting that not all pedophiles necessarily commit the crimes of child molestation and possession of child porn. But put these two words together in the same sentence, "innocent child" and "pedophile," and all analysis stops. If you contest the jargon, you're in support of the perpetrator. In the past, such an ability to think beyond the words would doom your soul to hellfire, these days, it dooms our society to ignorance and illusion servitude.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Play Spaces

It's true, the play space is where kids plot out their method for world domination. These methods won't be taking effect immediately, but at some point, the children alive today, who you see out playing, will take over the world, and the kind of space they have to practice out their methods now makes all the difference over whether they chose to simply replace us, or take us out by force and demand something better. The powerful and the downpresser would prefer a gentle replacement that benefits them unto and beyond the end, but the powerless want their children to be a force onto themselves, bold enough to fix what does not work, stand up for what is good and just, and throw those benefiting from the broken system into the ground as fast as possible. At least, that is how the adults have decided to use children.

The economic engines of our society have attempted to create a generation contented on its own gluttony and self-absorbsion, and it's not so much a conspiracy as it is just good business practice. If you want future customers or constituents, you only tell the incoming generation to challenge authority if you intend on being the authority, otherwise, you close and limit their play spaces, and distract them with your gadgets so they never have to leave a parent's sight. But then when that technology expands their new insular play worlds to the largely unregulated spheres of play found online, a problem develops, for they become "beyond control" once again, and therefore a threat to power. The powerful then endeavor to turn even their newly formed online play spaces into havens of corruption. Simply put, adults don't want kids playing in or outside the box, not behind the shed, not in the house, not in their room, not stuck to their computer--they don't want them playing here or there, they don't want them playing anywhere!

A child caught walking the public streets could easily find themselves in the back of a police car. A group of kids playing in the woods could find themselves branded as hoodlums and once again thrown in the back of a police car. Gone are the days when the cop would tell them to "get on home." Now the message they're given, should they choose to accept it, is that either their home is the shopping plaza, their own backyard, or if not, it's the hold up at the police station. Simply put, adults don't want their children in this day in age to play in the uncouth, unstructured, unsupervised ways in which a child seems naturally drawn. Most parents, most townships, most police, don't want children learning too much about what it means to be a free individual because a free individual is encouraged by a free, wide open to roam place space to think free thoughts--thoughts that threaten those who stand to gain from a broken world. They want the next generation to be "good little goobers" now, and forever.

One play space is really no more or less superior than another for children to learn about the workings of the world and other people, whether it is online or out in the neighborhoods of the sticks and concrete jungles alike. They will naturally test out their strengths and weaknesses, socialize, and grow fond of each other in these social spheres, regardless of what any adult tries to do to stop them. They carve out their own decadence in a world that adults wish to fashion for themselves alone, and that's why it is discouraged. But the adults are fighting the losing battle, for it is just a fact of nature that the children, regardless of what is put into them now, will someday rule the world, it is only a question of time.

We didn't really have what the kids growing up in this day in age have, we of the generation Y. We were in the unfortunate position of having our physical play spaces limited by the PC "don't let the kids ever get hurt" parenting, and at the same time, didn't have the boundless internet where we could replace that missing play space. We had no acceptable place where we could be truly beyond the eyes of our overlords, and because of that lack of opportunity to direct our own purpose, we were grown spineless. Due to the internet, we can't expect the same from generation Z, who grew up in a world divorced from many adult's understanding. The internet has become our mode of cultural rebellion, it is our play space--for now at least, so let the revolution commence.

We are Anonymous, legion.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Love Never Harms

Having exhausted myself drawing the lines between the lifestyle of the CL and the dominant culture, I'd like to focus for a time on the places where there is agreement, or at least where there should be agreement. The place we find the most agreement is over the idea that children should never come to needless harm inflicted on them by selfish people of any sort--be them child molesters, anti-pedo vigilante crusaders (who would put children in jeopardy to destroy personal enemies), or just plain old abusive parents. Anyone who harms another human being for selfish reasons, whether they be child or adult, is unfit to parade around under any banner of morality or love.

Harm put upon anyone is never the outcome of love. If harm is ever put upon a child, that action is done out of either hatred, selfishness, and/or necessity, but never out of love. A loving person does not harm the person they love directly or indirectly out of love by itself--such action is always primarily motivated by another drive. A loving person may find it necessary to subject their children to harm for their own benefit (ie. discipline...etc), but the part of them that loves the child should feel a sense of remorse even as they know the harm they are instituting is ultimately for the child's benefit (the learning experience).

In this way, it was the sense of necessity that harmed the child, not love--the sense of love felt the sting of remorse for the child's suffering when they came to harm. So anyone, in the event a child being harmed, who has that sense of necessity without the sting of remorse does not love the child. They are instead sociopaths either without a conscience or with a warped one.

What the vigilante or child molester may reason out to be love and what that extension of oneself really is are two entirely different things. The vigilante, the child molester, the abusive parent--they all may have what they see as "good intentions" and they all could be said to be acting on them. After all, they too are "taking responsibility" for the welfare of others, taking it into their own hands, just I believe individuals ought to. That's why I champion personal choice, volunteerism, and charity as much as I do. But because what they perceive to be their love is actually motivated selfishly, by hatred, or by inaccurate ideas about what is necessary for children, these ulterior motives cloud their ability to truly be a force of good in the world, for kids or for anyone.

Vigilantes--though they may seem to be taking an active lead in pursuing society's enemies while all others wouldn't bother--are primarily motivated selfishly. The vigilante doesn't care about children, as their focus is on turning alleged perpetrators into victims--they do not want to see anyone become stronger, they simply want to create more victims. They care more about gratifying their desire to take an active lead in cutting people down--anyone who would stand in their way, no matter who must be harmed in the process. This is not an act of love, or passion to improve the lives of others--this is a selfish act to circumvent or "pervert" justice to destroy others in order to reap the reward (as Perverted Justice does, handsomely).

Likewise, child molesters themselves can not argue that they do what they do out of love, even if they believe to themselves that the child "necessitates" the harm, because their prime motivation--if they were honest with themselves--is their own selfish gratification. Parents who abuse their children under the delusion that their ritualistic beatings or assaults on their own kids count as discipline also can not make the claim that they do what they out of love. In the moment when their hands or belts come in contact with the child's flesh--if they were honest with themselves--they couldn't deny feeling gratified. It is a stress-reliever. They take their own anger out on human beings percieved to be weaker that reside in their own home, and there's no question that such an action is the very antithesis of love.

How easy it is to get sidetracked by one's personal demons enough to cultivate a distorted love. 

Society believes actions that are beneficial to children ought to be performed selflessly--for the child's benefit, and so do I. However, I'm not naive enough to believe that true selflessness exists outside of pure altruistic knee-jerk situations of heroism (which are rare). For the everyday person, the only "benefit" one gains from loving a child--extending a bit of charity, some act of volunteerism, or perhaps just by raising a child if one is a parent or a guardian--is the "good feeling" that comes from knowing that one's selflessness has done good for another human being. It's arguably the only benefit you can gain from charitable work on your own accord that doesn't harm the child you want to be there for, or the society you want to make better, and ultimately, that lack of harm is what love is.