The adults are happy throwing a child in a box, burrying them underground and saying they are protecting them from the act of sex. And yet it never seems to cross anyone's mind what the child may be doing while they're down there. They get their sexual amusement any way they can, as is nature--they might be too young to understand it, but that doesn't mean they are too young to feel it. Society still pretends that the former inevitably means the dismissal of the later. That because the child can't think (supposedly), the child can't feel. Society gets a sense of purpose by placing its children in bondage. Without it, what would they have to protect? Their investments. Society needs children to control to give it some sense of purpose, and parents, something to work for and protect so that they won't feel so insecure.
It's politics dressed up as science. It's all dogma without credibility. It's all the suppression of the natural world by adults that children are subsequently living in. It's conquering a sense of being insecure and worthless by suppressing younger human beings. It's about taking advantage of their lack of experience in an unnatural adult world to maintain power. And by breeding ignorance, they inadvertantly dig more holes for their children to step into. Culture creates child abuse. As much as a child predator is said to be taking advantage of a child's inexperienced mind, they're also taking advantage of the culture that refuses to educate that child's mind. Sex is more than "good touch" and "bad touch," and to proliferate such myths breeds ignorance, and ignorance creates child abuse.
Ignorance is danger. Awareness is safety.
If kids at younger ages were allowed education into what their sexual feelings meant, later on in life they would be able to discern between a man who they may even trust is trying to take advantage of them and a man they trust who is doing it because they wanted it as well. If children were more sexually aware, they wouldn't be as prone to sexual attacks. They would still happen, but under the current society that oppresses children's ability to decipher for themselves what they want, they are unable to see the difference between someone who wants to rape them and someone who loves them. Child molestation is by in large the outcome of the adult's need to keep children ignorant "for their own good."
It doesn't start then by throwing a child in a box, nor does it by lowering the age of consent laws, as certain groups have argued. It starts through education, and mentoring, and building up a child's sense of awareness, sexual awareness, and their abilities to make informed decisions. If children had a better ability to decide for themselves, a better sense of self awareness, and not an utter dependence on an adult figure, than they wouldn't be so prone to be manipulated into something they didn't want to do, or believing it was or abuse when it wasn't or wasn't abuse when it was. The current system has children believing anything adults tell them, but if they had been given the chance to make decisions and have a higher self awareness, they wouldn't be so easily swayed, and could give proper informed consent.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Girls are Spirit, Boys are Flesh
Just as children are subject to age-based projections and constructs, they are also subject to gender-based ones. Even in this age of gender equality, post-feminism, and ever-shifting ping-pong of eduction focus between boys and girls over the years, girls are still flowers and boys are still slugs. These gender representations don't mirror any biological fact or necessity for either gender, particularly at the pre-developed childhood stage of life. And yet they persist.
Physically, pre-pubertal boys and girls are similar in their bodily structure. Secondary sex characteristics develop later along predetermined hormonal pathways, but in any case, these facts alone do not automatically dictate that girls and boys be ascribed the social characteristics they absorb. Sex-typing a child is not a bad thing, the masculine and feminine traits are expressed along a continuum for either male and female children, in their natural temperaments, so long as the actual sex of the child has little baring on the role they assume. Male and female are biological assignments, "boyishness" and "girlishness" are not. Here's a little overview of some general constructs normally ascribed to kids of either sex:
Girls and boys inhabit the free spirit lifestyle, it's just that adults have posited the girl to the heavens and the boy to the earth. The girl inhabits air and water, her mental focus is inward (on the body such as it's exterior) but her physical focus is outward (on the play world such as it's interior mechanisms and friendships). A creature of great intelligence and willpower, but full of inhibitions, she's expected to be more male than male. On the other hand, the boy inhabits fire and dirt, his mental focus is outward (on the play world such as it's exterior spaces and opportunities), but his physical focus is inward (on the body such as it's internal functions). A creature of great willpower and boldness, but lacking intelligence, he's expected to be more male than female.
Surely, adults have fashioned a pretty fanciful set of ideas surrounding the archetype of the modern child. Unfortunately, it's no different than the old ones. In the modern world, female is the new male, and male the old male. We teach our children that new male is the standard because we believe the old male is tough enough to withstand what the new male can't (supposedly). So in effect, the old sexism has replaced itself under the guise of "girl power" without its male equivalent, the pedestal has changed and girls are still sitting on it. By saying "boys are stupid," we coddle girls and demean boys.
But regardless of what complicated cosmology is in place at a specific time to support the ever-changing positions of boys and girls relative to each other, male and female will always be nothing more than biological alternatives. Adults only view gender equality truly applicable to themselves, and at least are provided escape. The truth of the matter is, even if they work to manually enforce equality among the younger set, the kids will always be held captive to the adult's internal sex prejudices.
Physically, pre-pubertal boys and girls are similar in their bodily structure. Secondary sex characteristics develop later along predetermined hormonal pathways, but in any case, these facts alone do not automatically dictate that girls and boys be ascribed the social characteristics they absorb. Sex-typing a child is not a bad thing, the masculine and feminine traits are expressed along a continuum for either male and female children, in their natural temperaments, so long as the actual sex of the child has little baring on the role they assume. Male and female are biological assignments, "boyishness" and "girlishness" are not. Here's a little overview of some general constructs normally ascribed to kids of either sex:
Girls and boys inhabit the free spirit lifestyle, it's just that adults have posited the girl to the heavens and the boy to the earth. The girl inhabits air and water, her mental focus is inward (on the body such as it's exterior) but her physical focus is outward (on the play world such as it's interior mechanisms and friendships). A creature of great intelligence and willpower, but full of inhibitions, she's expected to be more male than male. On the other hand, the boy inhabits fire and dirt, his mental focus is outward (on the play world such as it's exterior spaces and opportunities), but his physical focus is inward (on the body such as it's internal functions). A creature of great willpower and boldness, but lacking intelligence, he's expected to be more male than female.
Surely, adults have fashioned a pretty fanciful set of ideas surrounding the archetype of the modern child. Unfortunately, it's no different than the old ones. In the modern world, female is the new male, and male the old male. We teach our children that new male is the standard because we believe the old male is tough enough to withstand what the new male can't (supposedly). So in effect, the old sexism has replaced itself under the guise of "girl power" without its male equivalent, the pedestal has changed and girls are still sitting on it. By saying "boys are stupid," we coddle girls and demean boys.
But regardless of what complicated cosmology is in place at a specific time to support the ever-changing positions of boys and girls relative to each other, male and female will always be nothing more than biological alternatives. Adults only view gender equality truly applicable to themselves, and at least are provided escape. The truth of the matter is, even if they work to manually enforce equality among the younger set, the kids will always be held captive to the adult's internal sex prejudices.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Spectre Haunting Kids
The spectre haunting childhood these days is not pedophilia, it is the mechanism of alienation on the part of a society paranoid about them. A slug child molester harms individual children at particular instances, but paranoia harms all at every time. Yet it is surprising that, given that intuition, paranoia is allowed to run rampant, raping, robbing, and killing off people's better judgment and attention to their children. Parents become like frightened children themselves, hellbent at protecting their toybox from the demons lurking in the shadows at the end of the bed, their children reduced to toys and their sanity reduced to well-intentioned but dangerous psychosis.
Paranoia affects its children with improper socialization, a distanced interaction, a alienation between self and society; it builds a barrier between parents and society, a brick wall between children and parents, and pits society against itself. When benevolent actions become the subject of everyone's suspicions, evil is overlooked.
Already the call has gone out for more male involvement for children's organizations at community levels, and evidence has shown that both girls and boys benefit from male involvement in their lives. However, the old cultural dispersions have once again claimed more well-intentioned lives for the sake of psychosis, and men are just as dissuaded from these positions and turned away from childcare arenas as they would have been back in the days before so-called gender equality. This is a time of paranoia and suspicion indeed, and it's effects are no more beneficial than you would expect.
Paranoia affects its children with improper socialization, a distanced interaction, a alienation between self and society; it builds a barrier between parents and society, a brick wall between children and parents, and pits society against itself. When benevolent actions become the subject of everyone's suspicions, evil is overlooked.
Already the call has gone out for more male involvement for children's organizations at community levels, and evidence has shown that both girls and boys benefit from male involvement in their lives. However, the old cultural dispersions have once again claimed more well-intentioned lives for the sake of psychosis, and men are just as dissuaded from these positions and turned away from childcare arenas as they would have been back in the days before so-called gender equality. This is a time of paranoia and suspicion indeed, and it's effects are no more beneficial than you would expect.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Endless Victimhood
The audacity to care for others in a hurting world is raped and ruined the moment it becomes a social expectation rather than an act of genuine love. It's hard to feel genuine sympathy for an individual when one's compassion is demanded or expected, and yet our tears are always at a pretty high premium when the subject of child victims comes up--in fact, they're demanded from us. Compassion becomes a credit system, it becomes a commodity, an investment that you pay down in respect of the victim--something that takes it's payments at every chance encounter and can not ever be paid in full. Once a victim, always a victim, even when the victim becomes the oppressor.
This is what the so-called science of victimology has turned the child into. The champions of the victim have turned individual children who have suffered a catastrophe into walking catastrophes, and turned genuine compassion into an evil force of nature playing out on the grand stage--Victims and Villains, the spectacle, and they, the victim worshipers, the heroes! Genuine compassion becomes the enemy of compliant compassion, because it's not as predictable. A person may find themselves feeling compassionate for a child in a way that celebrates the child's strengths and personality and rebirth after tragedy, and that simply doesn't make for good daytime television or sell self-help books. We can't be feeling good about victims, we have to feel sorry for them!
No victimologist is particularly concerned in turning tragedy into strength for children, too busy glorifying the weakness that is expected of them--the same weakness that was exploited to begin with. The more we exalt the so-called weakness in children, the more prey on that weakness, but of course, the more who prey on the weakness, the more people who can be given the label "victim." The more people have the label, the less freedom they have to be anything but, and the less ability we have to criticize the label.
The more people are hunted down and tagged with the label, the easier it becomes to push social agendas on their behalf but for the greater glory of the powerful on the backs of those who had suffered. It's a phony sentimental appeal to the fickle adult's own weakness of will that every child pinned down as a victim should never, ever, be allowed to escape being one. Of course, as with anything done for the so-called good of children, it is all done on their behalf and has nothing to do with them.
A child is a victim once, when they are abused or neglected. Once intervention has repaired a child's life, they cease being a victim and become a benefactor. They don't continue to be a victim until a victimologist gets a hold of them and puts their tears on the cover of a glossy. The trick is to get the victim to begin to believe and internalize their victimhood in order to use it to oppress others. Thus, the world never runs out of victims.
This is what the so-called science of victimology has turned the child into. The champions of the victim have turned individual children who have suffered a catastrophe into walking catastrophes, and turned genuine compassion into an evil force of nature playing out on the grand stage--Victims and Villains, the spectacle, and they, the victim worshipers, the heroes! Genuine compassion becomes the enemy of compliant compassion, because it's not as predictable. A person may find themselves feeling compassionate for a child in a way that celebrates the child's strengths and personality and rebirth after tragedy, and that simply doesn't make for good daytime television or sell self-help books. We can't be feeling good about victims, we have to feel sorry for them!
No victimologist is particularly concerned in turning tragedy into strength for children, too busy glorifying the weakness that is expected of them--the same weakness that was exploited to begin with. The more we exalt the so-called weakness in children, the more prey on that weakness, but of course, the more who prey on the weakness, the more people who can be given the label "victim." The more people have the label, the less freedom they have to be anything but, and the less ability we have to criticize the label.
The more people are hunted down and tagged with the label, the easier it becomes to push social agendas on their behalf but for the greater glory of the powerful on the backs of those who had suffered. It's a phony sentimental appeal to the fickle adult's own weakness of will that every child pinned down as a victim should never, ever, be allowed to escape being one. Of course, as with anything done for the so-called good of children, it is all done on their behalf and has nothing to do with them.
A child is a victim once, when they are abused or neglected. Once intervention has repaired a child's life, they cease being a victim and become a benefactor. They don't continue to be a victim until a victimologist gets a hold of them and puts their tears on the cover of a glossy. The trick is to get the victim to begin to believe and internalize their victimhood in order to use it to oppress others. Thus, the world never runs out of victims.
Friday, March 26, 2010
A Slow Disintegration
They're not entirely the slowly disintegrating corpuscles that they often believe themselves to be, but adults are grotesque, and they know it. The adult is motivated in part by their own slow deterioration, while being uplifted into the social realms of their own creation--having attained human rights and responsibilities--by the maturity they've earned through experience, they inevitably find themselves at a point where they see the transaction for what it really was. For rights and prestige, they've sold their passions. For maturity and responsibility, they've sold their enjoyments. Once this realization has been made, and it can be made at any age past the one drawn in the sand, the boundary between the noble savage and the burdened conqueror, they begin to envy the young, and in envy, there is aggression, and the result of aggression is control.
In the typical portrayal, the child envies the adult's rights without regard for the responsibilities that come with those rights, and the adult envies the child's sweet naivete and youthful ambition, and sexual virility, without regard to the restriction it is under. The child is not envious of the adult's actual state of disintegration any more than the adult is envious of the child's actual state of being inhuman property, but this typical portrayal is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the two psyches at work. Obviously children are at least aware of the adult's responsibilities, and being able to obtain the sacred rights of being human seems to them, from their state of reference, to be worth the price of responsibility. In the same way, to obtain youth or at least the closest proximity to it, the adult is also willing to pay a hefty price.
The plan is simple from there on out. One, control those who have what you want. Adults have granted themselves the power and authority to rule over every aspect of the lives of youth, to restrict their freedoms of expression, love, sentiment, and ability, guide them along preselected pathways to attainment that inevitably suit adult purposes, prosecute and otherwise stigmatize those who don't follow those routes, and all under the half-fast and yet bold-faced ideology of "protecting them." Two, transplant the activities and interests of those you envy into your own life once you've made it impossible for them to have them. It goes without saying, that so many advertisements geared for adults will focus on reattaining youth. Even the word "rejuvenation" which is so often touted in these ads is taken straight from the root word that forms "juvenile." Adults want to live the lifestyle they have assigned in their own imaginations as being that of a juvenile, and have all the rights and responsibilities that go along with adulthood. Essentially, once the actual juveniles are subjected, turn their subjection into adult "rejuvenation."
This is not to say that this is the result of some grand conspiracy, although most adults are in fact aware that this is part of their fundamental makeup. Regardless of whether or not the typical portrayal as described above really exists, many adults believe in it to such extents that they use it to justify the social set up they have constructed and are no doubt ashamed to keep. Like any gratifying thing though, they're helpless to its subtle lure like an addiction, even as they realize that their so-called protections for children are just a neatly packaged front for their ulterior motives. The more they push the button of subjecting youth, the more they get fed their rejuvenation, even when they know it doesn't, and will never work. They know they'll never be young again like the child knows one day she'll be human.
The overfed fear of child predators takes its cues from this dilemma. Adults fear the child predators because they fear that part of themselves that wants to re-assume the qualities of youth for their own pleasure. They hate child predators because they hate the audacity of the child predators for dragging their own psyches out into the open. When child molestation occurs, they not only hate and fear the captured slug, they take personal pleasure in watching it get squished, and they don't mind if their children are watching. The uncorrupted stasis of their children's eyes only needs to be preserved in times when "protecting the children" serves to position the adult as right and pure, but when it only shows them for what they are--gratifying succubi of youth--suddenly the slug must be squished and it's entrails rubbed all over the kids' faces, if only to distract them from the ugliness, the grotesque disintegration, that is them.
In the typical portrayal, the child envies the adult's rights without regard for the responsibilities that come with those rights, and the adult envies the child's sweet naivete and youthful ambition, and sexual virility, without regard to the restriction it is under. The child is not envious of the adult's actual state of disintegration any more than the adult is envious of the child's actual state of being inhuman property, but this typical portrayal is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the two psyches at work. Obviously children are at least aware of the adult's responsibilities, and being able to obtain the sacred rights of being human seems to them, from their state of reference, to be worth the price of responsibility. In the same way, to obtain youth or at least the closest proximity to it, the adult is also willing to pay a hefty price.
The plan is simple from there on out. One, control those who have what you want. Adults have granted themselves the power and authority to rule over every aspect of the lives of youth, to restrict their freedoms of expression, love, sentiment, and ability, guide them along preselected pathways to attainment that inevitably suit adult purposes, prosecute and otherwise stigmatize those who don't follow those routes, and all under the half-fast and yet bold-faced ideology of "protecting them." Two, transplant the activities and interests of those you envy into your own life once you've made it impossible for them to have them. It goes without saying, that so many advertisements geared for adults will focus on reattaining youth. Even the word "rejuvenation" which is so often touted in these ads is taken straight from the root word that forms "juvenile." Adults want to live the lifestyle they have assigned in their own imaginations as being that of a juvenile, and have all the rights and responsibilities that go along with adulthood. Essentially, once the actual juveniles are subjected, turn their subjection into adult "rejuvenation."
This is not to say that this is the result of some grand conspiracy, although most adults are in fact aware that this is part of their fundamental makeup. Regardless of whether or not the typical portrayal as described above really exists, many adults believe in it to such extents that they use it to justify the social set up they have constructed and are no doubt ashamed to keep. Like any gratifying thing though, they're helpless to its subtle lure like an addiction, even as they realize that their so-called protections for children are just a neatly packaged front for their ulterior motives. The more they push the button of subjecting youth, the more they get fed their rejuvenation, even when they know it doesn't, and will never work. They know they'll never be young again like the child knows one day she'll be human.
The overfed fear of child predators takes its cues from this dilemma. Adults fear the child predators because they fear that part of themselves that wants to re-assume the qualities of youth for their own pleasure. They hate child predators because they hate the audacity of the child predators for dragging their own psyches out into the open. When child molestation occurs, they not only hate and fear the captured slug, they take personal pleasure in watching it get squished, and they don't mind if their children are watching. The uncorrupted stasis of their children's eyes only needs to be preserved in times when "protecting the children" serves to position the adult as right and pure, but when it only shows them for what they are--gratifying succubi of youth--suddenly the slug must be squished and it's entrails rubbed all over the kids' faces, if only to distract them from the ugliness, the grotesque disintegration, that is them.
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Family Farm
Every aspect of a parent's perception of its relationship with its offspring revolves around the position of total authoritative control. Parents need not prove themselves worthy of their children's affection. It is taken for granted prior to age 5 and demanded without explanation thereafter. Neither stage allows the child any self-actualized participation. Parenting is being plotted along an evolutionary course that has legitimized it's adaptation of some extremely ill-conceived idealizations more reflective of capitalism than paternalism. These things called children hold far more value as possessions than as emerging individuals.
It has long been known that, all things being equal, a birthparent is no more beneficial or harmful than any attachment a child makes with an adult--so long as the attachment is a secure and loving one, a child will find a "parent" in anyone. The role of the parent is no longer reserved for birthparents, but in western materialist culture, that which proceeds or emanates from it's creator inevitably carries with it a right of sole ownership. The child as an individual is a piece of property governed by the rights of attainment by those who have procured it--it can be transferred, it can be repossessed into the invisible care of the invisible state when it's care can not be assured it--but it always remains intact as a thing owned. If the child is the piece of property, the livestock, the cattle, in this formulation, then the modern family is little more than a farm for cultivating human product to serve the social engine that went into creating it.
Modern families are thus alienated from themselves in the midst of this property exchange. Parents alienated from their children, children from their parents and society, and family units are forced to compete with each other over the social ladder, pit their children against other children by means of social comparison, and find validity in their unit functionality by amassing what it can produce for society. And yet, despite all this, it somehow manages to hold onto its sacred place at the heart of civilization--which no doubt has more to do with maintaining its productive output than any of the sentimental "bourgeois claptrap" normally ascribed to it by the indentured denizens of culture.
Procreation is if anything the antithesis of a 'profound achievement', yet it grants by default, ownership, an alleged necessity due to the 'heavy degree of responsibility inerrant in raising children'. This is also referred to as 'personal sacrifice'. These are the self-described traits of a species that is the most heavily personified example of intra-species aggression in it's biosphere. What then is the logical process that validates hanging all the blame for all conceivable acts of evil upon children around the necks of solitary rogues (non-parents) of either species who unwittingly acknowledge love, in defiance of free will, for a child owned by someone else?
"The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour." --Karl Marx (1884)Children do not work as they did in Marx's day, nor was the concept of childhood as important then. These days, children are not considered candidates for "physical" work, but they have assumed a new social utility, as has the family unit. They are both consumers and marketable, and they work very hard perpetuating the regime that spends millions to molest their wills and change their sense of self to one that best perpetuates the economic engine. Under this current western regime, the supposed sanctity of the family holds no meaning outside of the social regulations keeping it on life support.
It has long been known that, all things being equal, a birthparent is no more beneficial or harmful than any attachment a child makes with an adult--so long as the attachment is a secure and loving one, a child will find a "parent" in anyone. The role of the parent is no longer reserved for birthparents, but in western materialist culture, that which proceeds or emanates from it's creator inevitably carries with it a right of sole ownership. The child as an individual is a piece of property governed by the rights of attainment by those who have procured it--it can be transferred, it can be repossessed into the invisible care of the invisible state when it's care can not be assured it--but it always remains intact as a thing owned. If the child is the piece of property, the livestock, the cattle, in this formulation, then the modern family is little more than a farm for cultivating human product to serve the social engine that went into creating it.
Modern families are thus alienated from themselves in the midst of this property exchange. Parents alienated from their children, children from their parents and society, and family units are forced to compete with each other over the social ladder, pit their children against other children by means of social comparison, and find validity in their unit functionality by amassing what it can produce for society. And yet, despite all this, it somehow manages to hold onto its sacred place at the heart of civilization--which no doubt has more to do with maintaining its productive output than any of the sentimental "bourgeois claptrap" normally ascribed to it by the indentured denizens of culture.
Procreation is if anything the antithesis of a 'profound achievement', yet it grants by default, ownership, an alleged necessity due to the 'heavy degree of responsibility inerrant in raising children'. This is also referred to as 'personal sacrifice'. These are the self-described traits of a species that is the most heavily personified example of intra-species aggression in it's biosphere. What then is the logical process that validates hanging all the blame for all conceivable acts of evil upon children around the necks of solitary rogues (non-parents) of either species who unwittingly acknowledge love, in defiance of free will, for a child owned by someone else?
Such a person (a person who's love for a child is not taken for granted and demanded without explanation) is undoubtedly a wolf--stalking the flock. Or is it?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Child-Centrism is Spectacle
If a child smashes another child in the face, the Law will extend him an immediate promotion to adult, usually with the full cooperation, if not at the urging of, the parents, including court-appointed ones. This is for the sole purpose of legitimizing a more harsh punishment. If the child instead commits an act that exceeds some creative, intellectual, or physical standard, the adults who are directly involved will pat themselves and each other on the back for making such effective efforts to provoke the child into committing the extreme act.
In neither case is the child at the center. The child will end up having to thank the adults responsible for his positive achievement, or having to burn for the adults responsible for his negative one. The child is never a center, always an extension. None of this is for the 'greater good' of children. The vast majority of it was/is for nothing greater than increasing the variety of perverted titillation available to adults.
As the world sees it, every child must be smothered by the threats of society until they flee in terror from their individuality into the arms of obedience and perpetual dependence upon 'society'. Nothing evolves, only revolves. Children currently revolve around a future assigned to them under the illusion they've chosen it, or life in a cage if they decide not to show up to claim their assignment.
None of this revolves around the better interest of children. The only interest is in holding children's self-identities for ransom until they've lost the will to go in any direction but the one already laid out for them. The ultimate reward is fittingly ironic: to one day imbibe upon the same synthetic illusion of control over one's own children that one's parents imbibed upon.
The culture we live in is inexcusably adult-centric. Children are hardly unaware that the majority of adults are preoccupied with achieving their position within the hierarchy. Adults are often unaware of how frequently they say or do things that blame children's presence for interrupting their adult pursuits. The levels of attachment and devotion children can develop for the rare adult who makes an effort to provide uncluttered rationalizations for children trying to make sense of the inexplicable contradictions that are their parents, teachers, presidents, police force, and all other persons designated 'leaders' they've been told they must follow...exceeds the capacity for words to express. If mal-intent is at the crux of all adult-child relations, then the intent to undermine the imbalanced adult-child dynamic is the mal-intent at it's most chivalrous.
Therein can be found the truth concealed behind the dirty little lies of 'Child predator hysteria'. The underlying fear is that even people with loving intent to defy systemic intimidation must thus also have an underlying perverted intent to undermine the child's willingness to be subjugated through intimidation put upon them already by society. The additional component that this all apparently takes shape within an orb of sexual exchange, secreted away from the parent with willful premeditation and impenetrable by sworn oaths to protect it, can induce pathological levels of fury... against the child most of all.
Parental privilege can only comprehend such actions as betrayals. Parental logic has become so corrupted with the farce of its own divine unaccountability that it cannot process the concept of its children committing willful mutiny. If that can happen, it means that the smoke and mirrors of intimidator control is shattered. The parent is shaken from their all-powerful perch and must now either make good on past translucent threats of violence, or beg mercy in total repentance, and neither option guarantees to regain possession of what has abandoned (been stolen from) them.
This is why society willfully denies everything related to the idea that an adult could earn a child's esteem with no greater empowerment than sheer sincerity. The ultimate price of unnecessarily elevated status is that a fall from such elevated height is irrecoverable and permanently crippling. Parents know this, everyone knows it, so they've attempted to shore up the sagging illusion with additional improvisations like divine childhood innocence and the sacred mission of child-rearing.
It's a play, and free tickets have been distributed to everyone.
In neither case is the child at the center. The child will end up having to thank the adults responsible for his positive achievement, or having to burn for the adults responsible for his negative one. The child is never a center, always an extension. None of this is for the 'greater good' of children. The vast majority of it was/is for nothing greater than increasing the variety of perverted titillation available to adults.
As the world sees it, every child must be smothered by the threats of society until they flee in terror from their individuality into the arms of obedience and perpetual dependence upon 'society'. Nothing evolves, only revolves. Children currently revolve around a future assigned to them under the illusion they've chosen it, or life in a cage if they decide not to show up to claim their assignment.
None of this revolves around the better interest of children. The only interest is in holding children's self-identities for ransom until they've lost the will to go in any direction but the one already laid out for them. The ultimate reward is fittingly ironic: to one day imbibe upon the same synthetic illusion of control over one's own children that one's parents imbibed upon.
The culture we live in is inexcusably adult-centric. Children are hardly unaware that the majority of adults are preoccupied with achieving their position within the hierarchy. Adults are often unaware of how frequently they say or do things that blame children's presence for interrupting their adult pursuits. The levels of attachment and devotion children can develop for the rare adult who makes an effort to provide uncluttered rationalizations for children trying to make sense of the inexplicable contradictions that are their parents, teachers, presidents, police force, and all other persons designated 'leaders' they've been told they must follow...exceeds the capacity for words to express. If mal-intent is at the crux of all adult-child relations, then the intent to undermine the imbalanced adult-child dynamic is the mal-intent at it's most chivalrous.
Therein can be found the truth concealed behind the dirty little lies of 'Child predator hysteria'. The underlying fear is that even people with loving intent to defy systemic intimidation must thus also have an underlying perverted intent to undermine the child's willingness to be subjugated through intimidation put upon them already by society. The additional component that this all apparently takes shape within an orb of sexual exchange, secreted away from the parent with willful premeditation and impenetrable by sworn oaths to protect it, can induce pathological levels of fury... against the child most of all.
Parental privilege can only comprehend such actions as betrayals. Parental logic has become so corrupted with the farce of its own divine unaccountability that it cannot process the concept of its children committing willful mutiny. If that can happen, it means that the smoke and mirrors of intimidator control is shattered. The parent is shaken from their all-powerful perch and must now either make good on past translucent threats of violence, or beg mercy in total repentance, and neither option guarantees to regain possession of what has abandoned (been stolen from) them.
This is why society willfully denies everything related to the idea that an adult could earn a child's esteem with no greater empowerment than sheer sincerity. The ultimate price of unnecessarily elevated status is that a fall from such elevated height is irrecoverable and permanently crippling. Parents know this, everyone knows it, so they've attempted to shore up the sagging illusion with additional improvisations like divine childhood innocence and the sacred mission of child-rearing.
It's a play, and free tickets have been distributed to everyone.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
A Parent's Fickle Trust
Parents can't be blamed. If children can get away with dragging others down by their ignorance, then parents should be afforded the same for doing the same. They're just as destructive a force in society as their kids and twice as easy to manipulate. If it is reasonable that children be taught not to talk to strangers, than it should also be reasonable that parents be taught not to listen to them.
As easy as it is for a parent to see their children manipulated by some predator, it is nearly impossible for them to see themselves manipulated by five o' clock predator scare on the news. And just as blind as they accuse children of being to the consequences of letting that stranger lead them into the backseat, parents are completely blind to the consequences of letting that stranger on TV take them by the hand through the land of paranoia. The consequences of which are the poison that never fails to trickle down to the child's level.
Of course parents don't have as much influence as they think, having surrendered a lot of that direct influence over to other entities--to strangers no less. Trust is a funny thing, because sometimes the only thing that separates a potential predator from a trusted caretaker is a piece of paper--most of the time it's nothing but the judgments in a parent's head. When the protections for children are not strong enough, parents will cut in line to defend a law that makes it illegal for any adult to be within 50 feet of a child, and they will cheer its success, but will they too take that 50 foot step back from their own? If not, then they have to decide, who should be taking that step and who should not?
Just as parents can be manipulated into trusting no one, they can also be manipulated into trusting people who may actually pose a threat. This is because every parent mind comes with a schema of trustworthiness they use to judge an individual. If the individual comes with paperwork, they are trustworthy. If the individual is clean, they are trustworthy. If the individual is friendly, they are trustworthy. However, if an individual breaks any of these criteria, and others like them, then there's no way the kids are safe around them. It's important to note that these judgments are often irrespective of harm. A person who meets the criteria and yet still manages to harm a child is always held in higher esteem than a person who doesn't meet the criteria and yet causes the child no harm.
This is not to say a parent will allow the molestation of their child if the perpetrator is, for instance, young and good looking--just that they'll never see it coming. Sad, but that's the folly of human nature.
As easy as it is for a parent to see their children manipulated by some predator, it is nearly impossible for them to see themselves manipulated by five o' clock predator scare on the news. And just as blind as they accuse children of being to the consequences of letting that stranger lead them into the backseat, parents are completely blind to the consequences of letting that stranger on TV take them by the hand through the land of paranoia. The consequences of which are the poison that never fails to trickle down to the child's level.
Of course parents don't have as much influence as they think, having surrendered a lot of that direct influence over to other entities--to strangers no less. Trust is a funny thing, because sometimes the only thing that separates a potential predator from a trusted caretaker is a piece of paper--most of the time it's nothing but the judgments in a parent's head. When the protections for children are not strong enough, parents will cut in line to defend a law that makes it illegal for any adult to be within 50 feet of a child, and they will cheer its success, but will they too take that 50 foot step back from their own? If not, then they have to decide, who should be taking that step and who should not?
Just as parents can be manipulated into trusting no one, they can also be manipulated into trusting people who may actually pose a threat. This is because every parent mind comes with a schema of trustworthiness they use to judge an individual. If the individual comes with paperwork, they are trustworthy. If the individual is clean, they are trustworthy. If the individual is friendly, they are trustworthy. However, if an individual breaks any of these criteria, and others like them, then there's no way the kids are safe around them. It's important to note that these judgments are often irrespective of harm. A person who meets the criteria and yet still manages to harm a child is always held in higher esteem than a person who doesn't meet the criteria and yet causes the child no harm.
This is not to say a parent will allow the molestation of their child if the perpetrator is, for instance, young and good looking--just that they'll never see it coming. Sad, but that's the folly of human nature.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Human--All Too Human
Children serve a paradoxical purpose as a repository for adult judgments. They are idolized in the ways that don't pose an immediate threat to adult society and infantilized in the ways that do. Every behavior of theirs that serves to uphold adult authority at the subjection of the minor seems to have it's own holy day by comparison to any behavior that serves to make the child an autonomous entity. Children are both angels when it comes to expressing any traits adults find themselves incapable of possessing, and no better than animals when it comes to expressing traits any way similar to human nature.
Adults crave to regain the what they perceive the child has in abundance--youth, optimism, freedom, contentment, love--and even seek out children like faucets that they may drink from their nourishment and be made fulfilled themselves. No doubt driving themselves to the brink of war and personal tragedy to protect this natural resource within their own. At the same time, they perceive children hazardous--as poison containers for their own projections and evil spirits the world over, such that only by subjecting the so-called innocent can they be protected from the corrupted nature of the adult.
In reality, children are no more super-human and no more sub-human than the average adult. They reveal their natural human weaknesses, fallacious thinking, and fallibility as do their masters, in developmentally relative ways. Every adult who has tried to drain the so-called positive energy tap that the child represents for them into their own has walked away inevitably worse for the ware--either walked over or enmeshed in the fruitless passion of child worship to their own rational destruction. There is no youth to be regained other than in the adult mind. Likewise, every adult who has tied down this small human animal to save them from their influence has done the opposite and inflicted the child with even more of their so-called "evil spirits" than the child would have picked up from the air.
Kids, too, have their own faulted projections of adults--just as human as human.
Adults crave to regain the what they perceive the child has in abundance--youth, optimism, freedom, contentment, love--and even seek out children like faucets that they may drink from their nourishment and be made fulfilled themselves. No doubt driving themselves to the brink of war and personal tragedy to protect this natural resource within their own. At the same time, they perceive children hazardous--as poison containers for their own projections and evil spirits the world over, such that only by subjecting the so-called innocent can they be protected from the corrupted nature of the adult.
In reality, children are no more super-human and no more sub-human than the average adult. They reveal their natural human weaknesses, fallacious thinking, and fallibility as do their masters, in developmentally relative ways. Every adult who has tried to drain the so-called positive energy tap that the child represents for them into their own has walked away inevitably worse for the ware--either walked over or enmeshed in the fruitless passion of child worship to their own rational destruction. There is no youth to be regained other than in the adult mind. Likewise, every adult who has tied down this small human animal to save them from their influence has done the opposite and inflicted the child with even more of their so-called "evil spirits" than the child would have picked up from the air.
Kids, too, have their own faulted projections of adults--just as human as human.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Vigilantism (The Scourge)
When hate and fear possess the soul of a human being already driven to the depths of madness over satisfying a power lust, the result is what we call a vigilante. His behaviors are a curse on humanity, because his hate and fear have eroded every last nerve of dignity and humility left, leaving nothing but an empty automaton, a slave to desire. Despite this, the modern vigilante has been given a great deal of law enforcement leeway, financial endorsement, and judicial control, for his craftiness has provided him a perfect victim for which to exploit--one without the resources or willingness to fight back--the "pedophile."
Anyone who preaches a love doctrine shouldn't expect to be the victor when preyed upon by the hateful, and no one should expect the weak to be protected when the hateful have them under their wing. The good (Childlovers) are mistaken for evil (child molesters) while the real evil (the vigilante) is handsomely rewarded for masquerading as the good. The victim (whether pedophile or not) is ridiculed--their life and property in ashes regardless of their guilt or innocence, and the so-called weaklings--the children--are no more safer than they were before, except in the imaginations of those entertained by this vicious struggle. And the end result? Children are less safe, some innocent people's lives are ruined, and the smug satisfaction of the vigilante's lust is fulfilled.
But the damage doesn't end there. The malignancy of vigilantism gains more power and political control until people begin trusting in it over the failings and inadequacies of legitimate justice systems. Evidence obtained through illegal means (as procured by vigilantes) suddenly starts popping up in courts and precedents are set in the proceedings of those brought to justice under some rogue's discretion. We increasingly live in a world ruled by the hateful and the fearful, those who wouldn't think twice about finding some way to pin you to the ground if they knew that their actions would throw such a weight on your life that you could never lift yourself back up.
Freedoms mean nothing to a vigilante, only his lust. Each one is an antichrist, a wolf in the guise of a sheep, a so-called "protector of children" who's real mission is to destroy the objectively innocent to satisfy his lust. Anyone who stands in his way is guilty, even the children themselves. He'd leave a child to die on the side of the road if it meant he could blame it on his personal enemy--that's anti-pedophile activists for you.
If we knew children could inspire such evil, we'd be hard pressed at calling them pure. Fortunately, the vigilante is not worth fighting because he'll sooner take himself and his confederates to the grave. As he is the servant to fear in his own world where justice is not given but taken, he begin to fear other vigilantes. Once they've all let that demon amok amongst themselves, that which has consumed their souls will begin taking their lives. He who lives for a child's love, lives. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
Anyone who preaches a love doctrine shouldn't expect to be the victor when preyed upon by the hateful, and no one should expect the weak to be protected when the hateful have them under their wing. The good (Childlovers) are mistaken for evil (child molesters) while the real evil (the vigilante) is handsomely rewarded for masquerading as the good. The victim (whether pedophile or not) is ridiculed--their life and property in ashes regardless of their guilt or innocence, and the so-called weaklings--the children--are no more safer than they were before, except in the imaginations of those entertained by this vicious struggle. And the end result? Children are less safe, some innocent people's lives are ruined, and the smug satisfaction of the vigilante's lust is fulfilled.
But the damage doesn't end there. The malignancy of vigilantism gains more power and political control until people begin trusting in it over the failings and inadequacies of legitimate justice systems. Evidence obtained through illegal means (as procured by vigilantes) suddenly starts popping up in courts and precedents are set in the proceedings of those brought to justice under some rogue's discretion. We increasingly live in a world ruled by the hateful and the fearful, those who wouldn't think twice about finding some way to pin you to the ground if they knew that their actions would throw such a weight on your life that you could never lift yourself back up.
Freedoms mean nothing to a vigilante, only his lust. Each one is an antichrist, a wolf in the guise of a sheep, a so-called "protector of children" who's real mission is to destroy the objectively innocent to satisfy his lust. Anyone who stands in his way is guilty, even the children themselves. He'd leave a child to die on the side of the road if it meant he could blame it on his personal enemy--that's anti-pedophile activists for you.
If we knew children could inspire such evil, we'd be hard pressed at calling them pure. Fortunately, the vigilante is not worth fighting because he'll sooner take himself and his confederates to the grave. As he is the servant to fear in his own world where justice is not given but taken, he begin to fear other vigilantes. Once they've all let that demon amok amongst themselves, that which has consumed their souls will begin taking their lives. He who lives for a child's love, lives. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Make Love Not War
What people don't like they declare war on. There's a war on drugs, a war on poverty, a war on pornography, a war on violence--there's a war for everything society can't come to accept as a fact of life. It's always a fruitless passion plea to liberate our children from having to grow up in a world full of wars by launching some of our own. War on Drugs? No, War on Peace is more like it. Apparently society thinks it best to force children to live in the midst of a battlefield where the trenches they charge have become the hallways of their schools, and their bedrooms, foxholes. Trip wire snakes the great expanse that surrounds them under the clear blue sky, and though all was set up to keep them safe from the savage society, all it takes is one wrong step beyond that wire for the most unassuming of them to get wrapped up in the No Man's Land of culture's creation.
All is done at the original behest, the love for children, the desire to keep them safe and happy. But make no mistake, the warmongers have suffered a serious perversion, a sexual sickness no less. They are gratified at their power over children and their sway over other adults whom they can trample over in their crusade to save the children from evil. They've suffered a serious perversion of their goals indeed, these who launch wars in society in an effort to keep children safe, as doing such is motivated less by their stated purposes and more by the need to quell the inner demon of fear. They are just as selfish as the monsters they war against--those who spread the message of peace and love, who end up revealing their wars for what they really are. The warmongers become the selfish monsters they hate, exploiting children for their own gratifying gain.
This is why the term "culture war" is accurate. Society deteriorates the moment its preservation is fought for from the heart. If we were using our heads, we'd know society's preservation doesn't need fighting for. Working for, yes. Fighting for, no. Our children's safety is not something we need to fight for (unless a particular child is in immediate danger). Once we begin fighting for something, we cease working towards it, and that's the plain truth. The only thing that can result is a body count from there on out--the second some general idea of children is fought for, individual children slip through the cracks, lost and sacrificed for the cause. The ideology takes precedence over their actual welfare. The tautology keeps the phantom afloat and lets the flesh and bones sink. It turned the so-called War on Drugs into the highly profitable incarceration machine that it is and Zero Tolerance from a push to up the penalties on violence into the lucrative school-to-prison pipeline it has become.
These perversions were inevitable from the start. War has always been bigger business than peace just as lust has always been bigger business than love. The CL preaches a love for children and has the wisdom to take a step back and not declare their own wars on the culture. The happiness of their partners is more important than any social ill enforcing their oppression. No culture war against the forces that harm children could possibly match the ecstacy of seeing a child happy in their eyes.
To love a child is to launch a peace movement against all those who get off launching wars. This is why those who love children are hated by the culture warmongers--those who preach Zero Tolerance or the War on Promiscuity with such fervent passion. They get off on persecuting those who harm children like the MAA gets off on a child's smile. They sweep children up in their hatred, launch their wars against society and then send their children to school in the midst of a battlefield to satisfy their selfish lust, and of course, order the destruction of all those who would speak of love for children.
MAA people simply don't do that, which is why they don't stand a chance outside attaining the affections of their young friends. Nothing else is needed to fill the void left in their heart.
All is done at the original behest, the love for children, the desire to keep them safe and happy. But make no mistake, the warmongers have suffered a serious perversion, a sexual sickness no less. They are gratified at their power over children and their sway over other adults whom they can trample over in their crusade to save the children from evil. They've suffered a serious perversion of their goals indeed, these who launch wars in society in an effort to keep children safe, as doing such is motivated less by their stated purposes and more by the need to quell the inner demon of fear. They are just as selfish as the monsters they war against--those who spread the message of peace and love, who end up revealing their wars for what they really are. The warmongers become the selfish monsters they hate, exploiting children for their own gratifying gain.
This is why the term "culture war" is accurate. Society deteriorates the moment its preservation is fought for from the heart. If we were using our heads, we'd know society's preservation doesn't need fighting for. Working for, yes. Fighting for, no. Our children's safety is not something we need to fight for (unless a particular child is in immediate danger). Once we begin fighting for something, we cease working towards it, and that's the plain truth. The only thing that can result is a body count from there on out--the second some general idea of children is fought for, individual children slip through the cracks, lost and sacrificed for the cause. The ideology takes precedence over their actual welfare. The tautology keeps the phantom afloat and lets the flesh and bones sink. It turned the so-called War on Drugs into the highly profitable incarceration machine that it is and Zero Tolerance from a push to up the penalties on violence into the lucrative school-to-prison pipeline it has become.
These perversions were inevitable from the start. War has always been bigger business than peace just as lust has always been bigger business than love. The CL preaches a love for children and has the wisdom to take a step back and not declare their own wars on the culture. The happiness of their partners is more important than any social ill enforcing their oppression. No culture war against the forces that harm children could possibly match the ecstacy of seeing a child happy in their eyes.
To love a child is to launch a peace movement against all those who get off launching wars. This is why those who love children are hated by the culture warmongers--those who preach Zero Tolerance or the War on Promiscuity with such fervent passion. They get off on persecuting those who harm children like the MAA gets off on a child's smile. They sweep children up in their hatred, launch their wars against society and then send their children to school in the midst of a battlefield to satisfy their selfish lust, and of course, order the destruction of all those who would speak of love for children.
MAA people simply don't do that, which is why they don't stand a chance outside attaining the affections of their young friends. Nothing else is needed to fill the void left in their heart.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
I Do It For Your Love
Forbidden love becomes it's own reward, regardless of the risk. There are things a Childlover (Child Liberationist) will do out of love that they'd never do for a society. He's far more likely to throw caution to the wind to fulfill the needs of a child than put himself in harm's way to drag his own body from the muddy pit. He'll jump the canyon hoping for a soft landing at the behest of his young love and yet sit contemplating the fall at the top if he were doing it for his own excitement.
All this about going to the ends of the earth for love sounds cliched, but consider that one party in this arrangement is the child, the inevitable object of forbidden love. Society sees no sacrifice a great enough one to make for the heart of a child, and neither do those who hunger for that forbidden morsel. Though they both stand from their own pulpits, harboring a desire to burn their opponents' churches to the ground, their battlefields marked on the child's face, each fails to grasp how similar they are. In the end, the child is sacrificed so there can be peace.
The Childlover will go out on that ever-lengthening limb for the sake of their love and criticize the society for setting up civilization such that a child is subject to the pedestal they're placed on. Meanwhile society itself will head out on another ever-lengthening limb for the sake of it's children and criticize the lonely hearts for giving them justification to steal back the child from the clutches of the dragons among them. We do it for their love.
All this about going to the ends of the earth for love sounds cliched, but consider that one party in this arrangement is the child, the inevitable object of forbidden love. Society sees no sacrifice a great enough one to make for the heart of a child, and neither do those who hunger for that forbidden morsel. Though they both stand from their own pulpits, harboring a desire to burn their opponents' churches to the ground, their battlefields marked on the child's face, each fails to grasp how similar they are. In the end, the child is sacrificed so there can be peace.
The Childlover will go out on that ever-lengthening limb for the sake of their love and criticize the society for setting up civilization such that a child is subject to the pedestal they're placed on. Meanwhile society itself will head out on another ever-lengthening limb for the sake of it's children and criticize the lonely hearts for giving them justification to steal back the child from the clutches of the dragons among them. We do it for their love.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Life on the Fringe of the Fringe
I've seen it said before--it's better to die for something than live for nothing. Can this bit of wisdom factor into our community at all? Most of us seem to end up living in the middle, as in, "living for something" (since living for something is obviously better than dying for it, and also preferable to living for nothing or dying for nothing), but far too often that something we end up living for begins and ends within us. While we spend our times in our communities living for our idea of "something," others end up dying for nothing, literally and figuratively. You follow me?
There are obviously a number of choices we face in this day in age, and regardless of what path we choose, we're still left facing the same intolerance and ultimately end up with preserving the society's status quo. At the root of the issue, the cancer that has grown malignant to any social movement we could try to muster, the problems are numerous--in fact, perhaps more numerous than almost any other social movement in all of history. The social prejudice is so strong that half the people will reject anything we say out of hand and the other half won't let us say it to begin with. We have nothing to show to appeal to mainstream society--people will always side with their gut instincts over facts even if we were to go around sticking facts in their mailboxes and windshields. We can't enlist the support of other social groups to sympathize with the plight, and lastly, we ourselves have problems even keeping our own involved. In short, we are the fringe of the fringe groups. The stigma against this point of view is just that strong. So what choices do we have if we really believe in this cause?
Choice 1: We "live for nothing."
Like it or not, we are a force in this world, and unfortunately, the repercussions of our presence only inspire the ignorance. The media knows about the MAA community, the government knows we exist. They know our talking points, they're just not sure what to think of us. They're just waiting for one of us to do something wrong so they can go and do what they do best. As we are, we're a big joke to them. Unfortunately, it's not a harmless one. They know they can use our presence on the forums to stir emotions in the people who never set foot there. Just by hanging out and kicking back in some far off corner of the web, apart from society, and generally being non-responsive to it (out of the fact that any PR is absolutely pointless to engage in), we enable politicians to platform against us (rally their caucuses) and secure their seats of power, parents to restrict children's lives even more out of fear for their protection, and of course, the media to spin every story they can get their hands on and somehow tie it to us. Indeed, we are a force in the world, but unfortunately it's not one we want to be a part of.
Choice 2: We "die for something."
There are no martyrs within our ranks. Our martyrs don't have a day of vindication, only relentless persecution long after they've thrown in the towel. Then we're right back to square one aren't we? The same recourse of events as the effects in choice one will inevitably follow. The people responsible for carrying the movement forward will be harassed and perennially vilified (especially if they've done nothing wrong or illegal, because it's like a rule--the better you are, the more they got to work, and our enemies love to work), and the movement is foiled all over the media, never to be taken seriously again. We become just a cog perpetuating their mechanism rather than the one causing it to jam.
Choice 3: We play along.
These are obviously not our only choices, but these are the most dramatic ones. Between these extremes there are a slew of strategies to turn things in our favor, many of which I'll be discussing here in the future, but these strategies usually involve working within the system to get the system to recognize itself as the monster--a strategy not for the impatient or those who really want to make a difference in the world. It's a path fraught with compromises, some the average MAA will no doubt find contrary to his own beliefs or cause them to come into conflict. It seems this is what it's come to though. If you really love furthering the cause, it means playing by the rules and remaining silent on the part of the issue that offends people the most. It's a long, tedious infiltration, aimed at presenting people with the opportunity to at least consider a different take on a more acceptable issue (youth rights for instance)--not as an outsider, but as someone very much on the inside.
It seems, loving the cause means abandoning the primary cause and refocusing to more socially acceptable secondary causes that impact the primary ones. It's the boring way to go, but it does the trick.
There are obviously a number of choices we face in this day in age, and regardless of what path we choose, we're still left facing the same intolerance and ultimately end up with preserving the society's status quo. At the root of the issue, the cancer that has grown malignant to any social movement we could try to muster, the problems are numerous--in fact, perhaps more numerous than almost any other social movement in all of history. The social prejudice is so strong that half the people will reject anything we say out of hand and the other half won't let us say it to begin with. We have nothing to show to appeal to mainstream society--people will always side with their gut instincts over facts even if we were to go around sticking facts in their mailboxes and windshields. We can't enlist the support of other social groups to sympathize with the plight, and lastly, we ourselves have problems even keeping our own involved. In short, we are the fringe of the fringe groups. The stigma against this point of view is just that strong. So what choices do we have if we really believe in this cause?
Choice 1: We "live for nothing."
Like it or not, we are a force in this world, and unfortunately, the repercussions of our presence only inspire the ignorance. The media knows about the MAA community, the government knows we exist. They know our talking points, they're just not sure what to think of us. They're just waiting for one of us to do something wrong so they can go and do what they do best. As we are, we're a big joke to them. Unfortunately, it's not a harmless one. They know they can use our presence on the forums to stir emotions in the people who never set foot there. Just by hanging out and kicking back in some far off corner of the web, apart from society, and generally being non-responsive to it (out of the fact that any PR is absolutely pointless to engage in), we enable politicians to platform against us (rally their caucuses) and secure their seats of power, parents to restrict children's lives even more out of fear for their protection, and of course, the media to spin every story they can get their hands on and somehow tie it to us. Indeed, we are a force in the world, but unfortunately it's not one we want to be a part of.
Choice 2: We "die for something."
There are no martyrs within our ranks. Our martyrs don't have a day of vindication, only relentless persecution long after they've thrown in the towel. Then we're right back to square one aren't we? The same recourse of events as the effects in choice one will inevitably follow. The people responsible for carrying the movement forward will be harassed and perennially vilified (especially if they've done nothing wrong or illegal, because it's like a rule--the better you are, the more they got to work, and our enemies love to work), and the movement is foiled all over the media, never to be taken seriously again. We become just a cog perpetuating their mechanism rather than the one causing it to jam.
Choice 3: We play along.
These are obviously not our only choices, but these are the most dramatic ones. Between these extremes there are a slew of strategies to turn things in our favor, many of which I'll be discussing here in the future, but these strategies usually involve working within the system to get the system to recognize itself as the monster--a strategy not for the impatient or those who really want to make a difference in the world. It's a path fraught with compromises, some the average MAA will no doubt find contrary to his own beliefs or cause them to come into conflict. It seems this is what it's come to though. If you really love furthering the cause, it means playing by the rules and remaining silent on the part of the issue that offends people the most. It's a long, tedious infiltration, aimed at presenting people with the opportunity to at least consider a different take on a more acceptable issue (youth rights for instance)--not as an outsider, but as someone very much on the inside.
It seems, loving the cause means abandoning the primary cause and refocusing to more socially acceptable secondary causes that impact the primary ones. It's the boring way to go, but it does the trick.
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Sudden Rise of ADHD
It was the first day on a new unit for my abnormal psychology class in the fall of 2007. The topic: childhood psychopathology. My professor, who was also a child psychologist, prefaced with a question: "let's see a show of hands, how many of you think ADHD is a real disorder?" Everyone of course raised their hands. Then he asked, "how many of you think it's over-diagnosed?" Once again, everyone raised their hands, including the child psychologist.
The rise of ADHD has been well documented in the research for decades, (with a 700% increase from a decade ago based psychostimulant use) and most findings seem to pinpoint the cause as being genetic or otherwise outside of any sociological phenomena. So far, our best research has concluded that the child isn't reared this way by an unhealthy culture, but that he or she is born this way. It's no surprise either that the age bracket has grown down toward the cradle. Research has determined that behavioral interventions pose no significant advantage without medicinal treatments, and that different strategies of intervention pose no real conclusive difference in effectiveness after one year of implementation. So while no one in the field openly advocates medication-only treatment plans for children, that is often all the smallest children end up receiving.
It makes sense considering that if such a syndrome were found to be environmentally caused, at least partially, the use of medication wouldn't seem as necessary. No doubt, the blatant capitalism that is procured under the name of scientific rationality--as researchers are desperate for funding and parents are made helpless to its effects--would have no fuel on which to run its engine. After all, if such a supposed generational genetic shift were found to be more environmentally caused, the weight would fall more on parents to govern that child's behavior--the same parents who would otherwise be willing to foot the bill to welcome this medicinal treatment into the house. The word about the industry has always been "don't insult your customers." That is not to say I'm throwing out vague conspiracies here, but just adding a dose of simple skepticism to this nefarious science-practice-commerce connection at the heart of all this lazy diagnosing.
There's no doubt though that the research on ADHD itself is "objective," for the studies that have been done are usually done under skepticism, scrutiny, controversy, and heavy analysis. The problem with this research is not so much the methodology--which is usually procedurally valid--but rather, the questions that are being asked to begin with. They tend to be questions proctored by drug companies about the efficacy of their treatments (at least the great majority of them), with very little into the causes of the symptoms. The designs themselves tend to focus on the genetic links rather than the effects the behavior has on the environmental realities. True objectivity can be called into question when the research that does exist is by in large the result of patronage--even if the findings themselves are valid.
Whatever the case may be, ADHD has been diagnosed to a point where one has to call into question the extent to which a supposed "genetic malignancy" can conceivably inflict a group of people. Disorders, after all, are supposed to be anomalies, not tendencies. One could be easily lead to theorize that the rise of ADHD might be corresponding to a decrease of social behavioral interventions for behavior, as professionals seem to be racing to diagnose younger and younger age groups instead. Also fueling this apparent medical industrial complex is the suspicious discovery of more and more mental diseases to diagnose. For example, certain forms of childhood temperament (a natural genetic variation) have been seemingly upgraded and retermed "[childhood onset] Bipolar Disorder" in recent years, for which children as young as two have been suspect. At least ADHD has the benefit of being proven to exist in childhood. The various lithium experiments of children "diagnosed" with Bipolar Disorder (one not proven to exist in childhood yet) have left developing children scarred for life with tics and other neurological side effects.
In any case, over and over again we see parents rendered arbitrary and helpless to stop the escalation of these disorders. Over and over we see parents, who are obviously not deaf to the salesmen-lingo of the professionals, feeling pressured into action at the behest of desperation. That reasoning does not proceed inevitably to the conclusion that the cure for their child's behavior comes in the form of a morning pill, but what other option is there? Parents don't want to become little but prescription trees for which the child can pick from, but when preyed upon by practitioners at the behest of drug companies and perhaps even scared into action by schools threatening to take the issue to the state, they're caught having to choose the lesser of two evils--much to the industry's unabashed gain.
Often the diagnoses of these otherwise rare disorders are made at such a young age that conventional therapy becomes useless because the child hasn't even reached the developmental milestones to be order to gain from it. Sometimes the child can't even talk yet. That is a prime time for medication-only treatments to be handed out with a built-in justification. Sure children can always be disciplined at any age--to have good behavior rewarded and bad behavior punished--but if they can't sit still to enjoy the rewards, constant punishment is only going to get them so far. And at that young of an age, the benefits of "talk therapy" would be expected negligible at best. What's a parent to do? The answer lies in multi-modal therapy (MMT), the most effective intervention in the long term, and conspicuously the only treatment you never see "advertised."
The incidence of childhood disorders is at such an alarming rate, it has no doubt provoked the scientific community itself to theorize about its possible cause, with everything from diet to technology getting another look, as well as the increased awareness of the disorder and the sensitivity of the measurements now, and even evolutionary reasons for the increase from one generation to another have been suggested. The only question not being asked seriously within the research (though professionals throughout academia have been suggesting it off the record for decades), is if the rapid increase in diagnosis is simply by in large an over-reaction on to part of a paranoid society to naturally occurring and totally manageable behavioral phenomena.
Due to this scientific oversight, much criticism has circulated regarding this trend, to the point where individuals with no industry ties have pointed out these flaws to the external validity of the research. Still, medicinal treatment for behavior concerns is often seen as the only effective way simply because it's the most advertised way and the most effective in the short term. Parents see the sedative effects in their own children, that is, and they convince themselves these treatments are absolutely fundamental or have even "cured" the child. They no longer have to consider other treatment options because relief is in the bag already. In this way, the parent and society become medicated--as divorced from their own reality as the child is from his or her own affective responses. Society becomes medicated when it paints over its social ills with such broad brushstrokes in desperation. Symptoms will come back in the long term, even if they disappear now.
But who can be blamed? Everyone's doing their part in the web to keep this structure supported, even those speaking out against it--and especially those who seem to believe categorically that no child should ever need to take a psychoactive medication. It's no sin to medicinally sedate an unruly child, but doing so without behavioral interventions is. The inclusion of any behavior modifying medicine in the household should call on parents to increase their efforts to reward and punish behavior as necessary, not take a backseat at the first sign of "relief." Luckily, many parents already do this despite what the field routinely lacks insisting, but many also fall into this trap by accident. Research itself has been suggesting that medicine alone can not parent. The only question is, who are the practitioners listening to?
I'll leave you with this quote from such research:
The rise of ADHD has been well documented in the research for decades, (with a 700% increase from a decade ago based psychostimulant use) and most findings seem to pinpoint the cause as being genetic or otherwise outside of any sociological phenomena. So far, our best research has concluded that the child isn't reared this way by an unhealthy culture, but that he or she is born this way. It's no surprise either that the age bracket has grown down toward the cradle. Research has determined that behavioral interventions pose no significant advantage without medicinal treatments, and that different strategies of intervention pose no real conclusive difference in effectiveness after one year of implementation. So while no one in the field openly advocates medication-only treatment plans for children, that is often all the smallest children end up receiving.
It makes sense considering that if such a syndrome were found to be environmentally caused, at least partially, the use of medication wouldn't seem as necessary. No doubt, the blatant capitalism that is procured under the name of scientific rationality--as researchers are desperate for funding and parents are made helpless to its effects--would have no fuel on which to run its engine. After all, if such a supposed generational genetic shift were found to be more environmentally caused, the weight would fall more on parents to govern that child's behavior--the same parents who would otherwise be willing to foot the bill to welcome this medicinal treatment into the house. The word about the industry has always been "don't insult your customers." That is not to say I'm throwing out vague conspiracies here, but just adding a dose of simple skepticism to this nefarious science-practice-commerce connection at the heart of all this lazy diagnosing.
There's no doubt though that the research on ADHD itself is "objective," for the studies that have been done are usually done under skepticism, scrutiny, controversy, and heavy analysis. The problem with this research is not so much the methodology--which is usually procedurally valid--but rather, the questions that are being asked to begin with. They tend to be questions proctored by drug companies about the efficacy of their treatments (at least the great majority of them), with very little into the causes of the symptoms. The designs themselves tend to focus on the genetic links rather than the effects the behavior has on the environmental realities. True objectivity can be called into question when the research that does exist is by in large the result of patronage--even if the findings themselves are valid.
Whatever the case may be, ADHD has been diagnosed to a point where one has to call into question the extent to which a supposed "genetic malignancy" can conceivably inflict a group of people. Disorders, after all, are supposed to be anomalies, not tendencies. One could be easily lead to theorize that the rise of ADHD might be corresponding to a decrease of social behavioral interventions for behavior, as professionals seem to be racing to diagnose younger and younger age groups instead. Also fueling this apparent medical industrial complex is the suspicious discovery of more and more mental diseases to diagnose. For example, certain forms of childhood temperament (a natural genetic variation) have been seemingly upgraded and retermed "[childhood onset] Bipolar Disorder" in recent years, for which children as young as two have been suspect. At least ADHD has the benefit of being proven to exist in childhood. The various lithium experiments of children "diagnosed" with Bipolar Disorder (one not proven to exist in childhood yet) have left developing children scarred for life with tics and other neurological side effects.
In any case, over and over again we see parents rendered arbitrary and helpless to stop the escalation of these disorders. Over and over we see parents, who are obviously not deaf to the salesmen-lingo of the professionals, feeling pressured into action at the behest of desperation. That reasoning does not proceed inevitably to the conclusion that the cure for their child's behavior comes in the form of a morning pill, but what other option is there? Parents don't want to become little but prescription trees for which the child can pick from, but when preyed upon by practitioners at the behest of drug companies and perhaps even scared into action by schools threatening to take the issue to the state, they're caught having to choose the lesser of two evils--much to the industry's unabashed gain.
Often the diagnoses of these otherwise rare disorders are made at such a young age that conventional therapy becomes useless because the child hasn't even reached the developmental milestones to be order to gain from it. Sometimes the child can't even talk yet. That is a prime time for medication-only treatments to be handed out with a built-in justification. Sure children can always be disciplined at any age--to have good behavior rewarded and bad behavior punished--but if they can't sit still to enjoy the rewards, constant punishment is only going to get them so far. And at that young of an age, the benefits of "talk therapy" would be expected negligible at best. What's a parent to do? The answer lies in multi-modal therapy (MMT), the most effective intervention in the long term, and conspicuously the only treatment you never see "advertised."
The incidence of childhood disorders is at such an alarming rate, it has no doubt provoked the scientific community itself to theorize about its possible cause, with everything from diet to technology getting another look, as well as the increased awareness of the disorder and the sensitivity of the measurements now, and even evolutionary reasons for the increase from one generation to another have been suggested. The only question not being asked seriously within the research (though professionals throughout academia have been suggesting it off the record for decades), is if the rapid increase in diagnosis is simply by in large an over-reaction on to part of a paranoid society to naturally occurring and totally manageable behavioral phenomena.
Due to this scientific oversight, much criticism has circulated regarding this trend, to the point where individuals with no industry ties have pointed out these flaws to the external validity of the research. Still, medicinal treatment for behavior concerns is often seen as the only effective way simply because it's the most advertised way and the most effective in the short term. Parents see the sedative effects in their own children, that is, and they convince themselves these treatments are absolutely fundamental or have even "cured" the child. They no longer have to consider other treatment options because relief is in the bag already. In this way, the parent and society become medicated--as divorced from their own reality as the child is from his or her own affective responses. Society becomes medicated when it paints over its social ills with such broad brushstrokes in desperation. Symptoms will come back in the long term, even if they disappear now.
But who can be blamed? Everyone's doing their part in the web to keep this structure supported, even those speaking out against it--and especially those who seem to believe categorically that no child should ever need to take a psychoactive medication. It's no sin to medicinally sedate an unruly child, but doing so without behavioral interventions is. The inclusion of any behavior modifying medicine in the household should call on parents to increase their efforts to reward and punish behavior as necessary, not take a backseat at the first sign of "relief." Luckily, many parents already do this despite what the field routinely lacks insisting, but many also fall into this trap by accident. Research itself has been suggesting that medicine alone can not parent. The only question is, who are the practitioners listening to?
I'll leave you with this quote from such research:
"Multimodal approaches to intervention have been found to be most effective in terms of lasting change...treament with psychostimulants has beneficial effects, provided that it is accompanied by remedial tuition, counselling, and behavior management by parents/teachers as required (van Kraayenoord, Rice, Carroll, Fritz, Dillon, & Hill. 2001, p. 7)."
Sunday, March 7, 2010
How Not to Corrupt Children
How often do we hear about the various forces out there corrupting children and then ignore the fact that despite all our fretting very few are ever actually "corrupted"? It's no mistake that people do this--the fear of children being corrupted sticks in our heads better than when they actually are. Imagination takes precedence over sight. In reality, the majority that grow up to be average adults easily pass right through the social cognition of most people and the few that are corrupted by these forces usually don't constitute any real threat to civilization anyways. So why are we spending our time fretting?
Here's an example I stumbled on today. Children's films are often dripping with various political messages or ideologies. When filmmakers decide to make a simple story out of a series of plot devices to push a certain message (such as "save the rainforest"), with a few New Age beliefs mixed in, suddenly you have a lot of angry adults hemming and hawing about the "leftist propaganda" smeared all over children's media and how every child who sees it is going to grow up corrupted by it inevitably. Likewise, mix in some religious elements or conservative ideologies, against homosexuality for instance, and suddenly there's an outcry from the other side about how children will grow up to be intolerant. Either way, it seems children are always "raised" by the adherents and "corrupted" by the opposition--two trajectories defined by adults, not by children.
Each side of the adult divide seems to have it's own ideas about what a vile thing political correctness is, they just can't seem to identify what exactly is politically correct. Have you then ever stopped to wonder about whether or not the kids are actually corrupted by such implicit "propaganda" or "intolerance?" Such a question doesn't normally factor into the binary vision of most adults so long as the other side is seen as the politically correct oppressor and the corrupter of the youth. In reality, the children who are supposedly being fought over to win their hearts and minds either don't care about these implicit messages or don't understand them anyways. This isn't to say kids don't or can't understand these things, it's just to say that these adult perspectives rarely factor into their daily lives as much as they do the lives of adults, who are more personally served by such trivialities.
And even if they did factor in, it's not like children are on some moving platform where ideology is pumped into their open head at one end, stored for a while as they move along, and then emptied into the world when they drop off the other side without any permutation or elaboration by the child themselves in the interim. Lest we forget, it's quite the contrary. Young people are constantly challenging the ideologies they are exposed to. Would we as adults want it any other way? Should they not be exposed to a variety of ideas and given time to hash them out in their own heads? Are we more afraid of corrupting children or of letting them think for themselves?
In this case, the last thing we ought to be worrying about is exposing our children to a certain ideology in fear that they will inevitably follow that ideology without question straight to their dying bed (what an unrealistic expectation, but such is the adult). What we really ought to be afraid of is cheating them out of a good story by filling it up with self-righteous, shoe-horned, one-sided politics, ethics, or other ideological claptrap. Give them a good story and the morals will always flesh themselves out on their own. Children have the ability to reason. They're not going to become New Agers or homophobic simply because some animated character in a movie they saw when they were six espoused those views. If they are going to get that way, it'll be for other reasons entirely centered around their own will and the social rewards surrounding belief. And most likely, 20 years from now they'll be right along side you calling out the shallow ideology in children's media just as you do, as will their children 40 years from now. Nothing ever changes.
The only corruption that takes place is just how pervasive the protective paranoia over children becomes after the first 30 years of life.
Here's an example I stumbled on today. Children's films are often dripping with various political messages or ideologies. When filmmakers decide to make a simple story out of a series of plot devices to push a certain message (such as "save the rainforest"), with a few New Age beliefs mixed in, suddenly you have a lot of angry adults hemming and hawing about the "leftist propaganda" smeared all over children's media and how every child who sees it is going to grow up corrupted by it inevitably. Likewise, mix in some religious elements or conservative ideologies, against homosexuality for instance, and suddenly there's an outcry from the other side about how children will grow up to be intolerant. Either way, it seems children are always "raised" by the adherents and "corrupted" by the opposition--two trajectories defined by adults, not by children.
Each side of the adult divide seems to have it's own ideas about what a vile thing political correctness is, they just can't seem to identify what exactly is politically correct. Have you then ever stopped to wonder about whether or not the kids are actually corrupted by such implicit "propaganda" or "intolerance?" Such a question doesn't normally factor into the binary vision of most adults so long as the other side is seen as the politically correct oppressor and the corrupter of the youth. In reality, the children who are supposedly being fought over to win their hearts and minds either don't care about these implicit messages or don't understand them anyways. This isn't to say kids don't or can't understand these things, it's just to say that these adult perspectives rarely factor into their daily lives as much as they do the lives of adults, who are more personally served by such trivialities.
And even if they did factor in, it's not like children are on some moving platform where ideology is pumped into their open head at one end, stored for a while as they move along, and then emptied into the world when they drop off the other side without any permutation or elaboration by the child themselves in the interim. Lest we forget, it's quite the contrary. Young people are constantly challenging the ideologies they are exposed to. Would we as adults want it any other way? Should they not be exposed to a variety of ideas and given time to hash them out in their own heads? Are we more afraid of corrupting children or of letting them think for themselves?
In this case, the last thing we ought to be worrying about is exposing our children to a certain ideology in fear that they will inevitably follow that ideology without question straight to their dying bed (what an unrealistic expectation, but such is the adult). What we really ought to be afraid of is cheating them out of a good story by filling it up with self-righteous, shoe-horned, one-sided politics, ethics, or other ideological claptrap. Give them a good story and the morals will always flesh themselves out on their own. Children have the ability to reason. They're not going to become New Agers or homophobic simply because some animated character in a movie they saw when they were six espoused those views. If they are going to get that way, it'll be for other reasons entirely centered around their own will and the social rewards surrounding belief. And most likely, 20 years from now they'll be right along side you calling out the shallow ideology in children's media just as you do, as will their children 40 years from now. Nothing ever changes.
The only corruption that takes place is just how pervasive the protective paranoia over children becomes after the first 30 years of life.
What is a Child?
At first this is going to seem like such a huge question. After all, books have been written about what children are and what they mean for society for centuries. Laws have been crafted affording this entity its own set of limits and exceptions. Organizations have been instituted to care for and educate these entities. Industries have risen on providing for this entity's needs. So by these facts alone, we can already establish that the "child" is indeed an entity capable of having needs, and that other entities who have established this fact have taken it upon themselves to provide for them.
It would also follow that the child is an entity that, upon having said needs met by those who have taken it upon themselves to provide them, should then have its overall well being improved. Well-being here seems to mean nothing more than assisting in the maintenance of its self-sustaining necessities with the goal of prolonging its longevity. When it ceases to be, it would seem its well being has not been met satisfactorily.
So is that it? Children are just formless entities that have needs? When these needs are met, that necessarily means a child's well being is being provided for?
This is all we get when we dissect the thinking behind society's reaction to the existence of children. They become nothing more than entities requiring assistance to maintain their self-sustaining capacities by other entities who have taken it upon themselves to provide them. Intuitively, this is not a very good conception of children, for beyond the banal fundamentals of how the law regards what it considers to be a "minor" (essentially, a dead rock that requires certain exceptions and care dumped on it from above), what one conceives of on mention of "child" gives a little more muscle and form to that otherwise featureless lump. Not a lot, but we get a little closer to the hearts and bones. Children then also become whatever adults perceive them to be.
"Duh." That's what you're all thinking. But this is what a child is. This is all a child is. Everything else is a construction made by adults (organisms said to be in full maturation of their capacities). Adults have invented all kinds of ideas about what children are, from the pitifully fanciful to the crushingly realistic. But at the most basic, children aren't anything other than the above, by definition:
A child is a young human being.
Of course the definition of young human being is quite loaded, as it includes all the essential qualities of being "young" and being a "human," but beyond that, what else is a child? Were you going to say "children are innocent?" That is an adult construction placed onto children and other entities that adults group into that category. "Young" denotes the characteristics that seperate children from others of the species--namely, they are in a process of developing their capacities toward full maturation. "Human" simply designates them as an organism, a homo sapien, with all the properties that set humans apart from other organisms (such as "sapience").
Were you going to say "children are property of their parents?" Outside of the law, the very notion of property is one invented by humans, so while it is natural for human parents to take care of their young, the children do not cease being children once they are relieved from the custody, or property, of their parents (whether they be birth parents or legal guardians). Children are obviously something a little more concrete than that. Were you going to say "children are small?" That is also an adult construction, for it takes two adult eyes looking down onto a child to declare that such an entity is small. It's a social comparison. For instance, children are quite big when we compare them to the eyes of some animal, such as a squirrel.
In this end, a child is is just a combination of what one really is and what adults construct one to be. But that's another topic. Other than that, kids are just human, all too human.
It would also follow that the child is an entity that, upon having said needs met by those who have taken it upon themselves to provide them, should then have its overall well being improved. Well-being here seems to mean nothing more than assisting in the maintenance of its self-sustaining necessities with the goal of prolonging its longevity. When it ceases to be, it would seem its well being has not been met satisfactorily.
So is that it? Children are just formless entities that have needs? When these needs are met, that necessarily means a child's well being is being provided for?
This is all we get when we dissect the thinking behind society's reaction to the existence of children. They become nothing more than entities requiring assistance to maintain their self-sustaining capacities by other entities who have taken it upon themselves to provide them. Intuitively, this is not a very good conception of children, for beyond the banal fundamentals of how the law regards what it considers to be a "minor" (essentially, a dead rock that requires certain exceptions and care dumped on it from above), what one conceives of on mention of "child" gives a little more muscle and form to that otherwise featureless lump. Not a lot, but we get a little closer to the hearts and bones. Children then also become whatever adults perceive them to be.
"Duh." That's what you're all thinking. But this is what a child is. This is all a child is. Everything else is a construction made by adults (organisms said to be in full maturation of their capacities). Adults have invented all kinds of ideas about what children are, from the pitifully fanciful to the crushingly realistic. But at the most basic, children aren't anything other than the above, by definition:
A child is a young human being.
Of course the definition of young human being is quite loaded, as it includes all the essential qualities of being "young" and being a "human," but beyond that, what else is a child? Were you going to say "children are innocent?" That is an adult construction placed onto children and other entities that adults group into that category. "Young" denotes the characteristics that seperate children from others of the species--namely, they are in a process of developing their capacities toward full maturation. "Human" simply designates them as an organism, a homo sapien, with all the properties that set humans apart from other organisms (such as "sapience").
Were you going to say "children are property of their parents?" Outside of the law, the very notion of property is one invented by humans, so while it is natural for human parents to take care of their young, the children do not cease being children once they are relieved from the custody, or property, of their parents (whether they be birth parents or legal guardians). Children are obviously something a little more concrete than that. Were you going to say "children are small?" That is also an adult construction, for it takes two adult eyes looking down onto a child to declare that such an entity is small. It's a social comparison. For instance, children are quite big when we compare them to the eyes of some animal, such as a squirrel.
In this end, a child is is just a combination of what one really is and what adults construct one to be. But that's another topic. Other than that, kids are just human, all too human.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Aaron's Backyard Battlefield
Test post, let's get this ball rolling.
This is the dog-day sweat-soak of summer sun the adults have no control over (even if they think they do). Somehow kids aren't supposed to have thinking brains until they reach the age of majority, so how are they supposed to make it through school with Jello heads full of plastic and Pop Rocks? Really. Some guy named Mill over a hundred years ago decided to leave kids like Aaron out of the reality scene, called them "minors" and gave them all a patch of lawn to launch their wars against. "Minors" have no rights they can make any use with. And why is that? It's because those who granted themselves rights decided one day that being smaller meant you couldn't handle anything outside the patch of grass, as if that patch didn't have it's own rights and limits--it's own jungle law.
Is Aaron's backyard battlefield really the shining example of innocence plopped down angelic and muddy? Here the savagery is considered pure--the dirtier the sight in the adult mind, the more the innocence shines through. Lord knows what wars will be launched and how many people will be killed or thrown through prison just to make sure the dirt and snot that boy smears on his shirt is kept preserved. Intact. Forever.
But they'll only exalt his killing spree as long as it fits within the fence. Not that there's anything wrong with a good old killing spree so long as the kid is stomping out anthills, but the second he turns on the flowers, that's when you'll see the fangs come out! Then he'll be evil just like everyone else.
Some lifeforms are apparently better than others in the eyes of the adult. That's just the way they think. That's how they designed the planet they believe is theirs and the laws and codes they made up off the top of their heads to try to build a civil society for little Aaron to launch his battle against the ants in. Smaller is purer but bigger is better. He's learning.
How could it be any different? Sex is evil unless you can fill a billboard with it. Money is a trap unless you have a lot of it. Aaron's brain would surely explode at the very suggestion that money and sex--and not G.I Joe--run the world that keeps him on his patch of soft grass. And yet, despite all the evils unleashed to keep him there, he'd rather be bigger than pure.
That's kids for you!
An experiment with his toy soldiers, the kid kept his plastic close to heart in his G.I. Joe dreams--his head a constant Sunday morning ska song, burbling and bouncing in the muck puddle he'd built around his rockets. He could have been a contented oyster if not for the back fence blues, a boundary short to his sneaker but so endlessly expansive beyond he could practically make out the bug lords of Galaga warping and firing off their blue lasers in the star field. He let out his bodily compression with a good spit on the fence--the "you gotta be kiddin me dude!" delivered to the adult block towers that stood higher than the Vietnamese jungles of the shaggy grass he's kneeling in.
This is the dog-day sweat-soak of summer sun the adults have no control over (even if they think they do). Somehow kids aren't supposed to have thinking brains until they reach the age of majority, so how are they supposed to make it through school with Jello heads full of plastic and Pop Rocks? Really. Some guy named Mill over a hundred years ago decided to leave kids like Aaron out of the reality scene, called them "minors" and gave them all a patch of lawn to launch their wars against. "Minors" have no rights they can make any use with. And why is that? It's because those who granted themselves rights decided one day that being smaller meant you couldn't handle anything outside the patch of grass, as if that patch didn't have it's own rights and limits--it's own jungle law.
Is Aaron's backyard battlefield really the shining example of innocence plopped down angelic and muddy? Here the savagery is considered pure--the dirtier the sight in the adult mind, the more the innocence shines through. Lord knows what wars will be launched and how many people will be killed or thrown through prison just to make sure the dirt and snot that boy smears on his shirt is kept preserved. Intact. Forever.
But they'll only exalt his killing spree as long as it fits within the fence. Not that there's anything wrong with a good old killing spree so long as the kid is stomping out anthills, but the second he turns on the flowers, that's when you'll see the fangs come out! Then he'll be evil just like everyone else.
Some lifeforms are apparently better than others in the eyes of the adult. That's just the way they think. That's how they designed the planet they believe is theirs and the laws and codes they made up off the top of their heads to try to build a civil society for little Aaron to launch his battle against the ants in. Smaller is purer but bigger is better. He's learning.
How could it be any different? Sex is evil unless you can fill a billboard with it. Money is a trap unless you have a lot of it. Aaron's brain would surely explode at the very suggestion that money and sex--and not G.I Joe--run the world that keeps him on his patch of soft grass. And yet, despite all the evils unleashed to keep him there, he'd rather be bigger than pure.
That's kids for you!
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