Way to honor a child's life, with a perpetual shouting match on national television. One wonders if this child hadn't been as cute, as photogenic, whether anyone would have paid her death more than a momentary notice. If she had been instead a ten-year-old black boy on the streets of West Philadelphia having gone missing, no national coverage would have even taken place, never mind a three year headline involving a play-by-play depiction of the trial chased with righteous indignation disguised as commentary. It would have been seen almost as "appropriate" by the very same so-called arbiters of social justice.
No, this is where all their righteous indignation leads, once it is distilled to its main ingredient--if Caylee Anthony wasn't cute, if she wasn't white, if she wasn't three years old--if she wasn't the exploitable tot, the perfect victim that the news media so callously could turn her into, they wouldn't have cared if she got justice or not, and nor would the viewing public. It can be concluded because it happens every day. This story would have ended with the search in the local media, three years ago, and that would have been that, and you know what else? It would have been far more just, and righteous, than the disgusting circus they turned this little girl's death into.
The so-called arbiters of social justice in the media saw this child not as a child, with her own rights and dignity, but as some expensive commodity, a platform from which to pilot their fledgling cults of personality straight into the living rooms of America. The more well-meaning their intentions, the less respect they showed, as Caylee's images were sprayed across the screen when they spoke, as if to repeatedly underscore their moral high ground. In like manner, Caylee's image might be blown up on the screen before cutting to a commercial break, as if to prime the viewing public for that coveted eye time. It was sentimentalism for the sake of gaining eyes, and sensationalism in the service of exploiting them--the propaganda of the consumer culture for the well-intentioned public.
Even overtly, their message was insulting--that child rights only exist to protect these pieces of property from society. Talk of "children's rights" only seems to matter to these people after the kids are injured or killed, and even at that, is only extended to the extent that it renders them lifeless victims which need protection against adult interventions. Such a mindset only serves to perpetuate their lifeless, infantilized victimhood, to stand them out from the crowd and paint a sign on their backs that screams "I am a child, I am a victim! Target me!" whether they have been victimized or not, for which more restrictions are proctored. Victimhood has replaced childhood.
If there ever was going to be justice for Caylee, it ended the moment the story broke on the national scene. From there on, any hope of justice for a little girl was thrown out the window and replaced with endless repetition of the child's inhuman victimhood, or the glorification of her now-sanctified existence--neither of which extreme did a little girl any justice. All it served was to give absolution to adults who would have felt guilty if they didn't join with the cults of personality and the talking heads in singing praise for the existence of this little girl and her tragic end. Adults feel all too guilty for the decadence of their culture, and they find an outlet in the death of children.
Showing posts with label Child Rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Rights. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Right to Life
Either you believe in the rights of the unborn child, and deny the rights of the woman, or you believe in the rights of the woman and deny the rights of the unborn. There is no way to remain guiltless, regardless of what stance you take. You can believe that a fetus is not a human being, but believing it does not make it so, no matter how effective it is at absolving your guilt. If you believe that, then you're tasked with explaining the science behind what quality of the air causes a fetus to become human once outside the womb. Likewise, you can believe outlawing abortion will prevent abortion, but once again, simply believing it doesn't make it true. Studies indicate that restrictive abortion laws don't reduce abortion rates.
Some seem to choose in favor of the unborn child's health and safety, and right to life, and some seem to choose in favor of the woman's right to make decisions over her reproductive system, as well as her own health and right to life when it is critically jeopardized by pregnancy. Each side makes a choice, and each side chooses to ignore different sets of consequences in furtherance of their beliefs.
Abortion is a natural act--animals do it to purge children they can not support--but that doesn't make it condonable by default. Many things are observed in the natural world that are an affront to our intuitions. Just because it is natural, and because it may be necessary under certain circumstances, it is still no less destructive to a human life. It may save the life of the mother, but that doesn't mean it ought to be given an ethical pass--if anything, the outcome of that scenario ought to be morally neutral (one life ended, one life saved). There is simply no justification to regard abortion, even in the most necessary cases, as anything other than a necessary evil.
We have to stand at this junction and make a choice as to whose rights we respect and value and whose rights we must trample, and then live with the consequences of that choice--if we are allowed to.
Some seem to choose in favor of the unborn child's health and safety, and right to life, and some seem to choose in favor of the woman's right to make decisions over her reproductive system, as well as her own health and right to life when it is critically jeopardized by pregnancy. Each side makes a choice, and each side chooses to ignore different sets of consequences in furtherance of their beliefs.
Abortion is a natural act--animals do it to purge children they can not support--but that doesn't make it condonable by default. Many things are observed in the natural world that are an affront to our intuitions. Just because it is natural, and because it may be necessary under certain circumstances, it is still no less destructive to a human life. It may save the life of the mother, but that doesn't mean it ought to be given an ethical pass--if anything, the outcome of that scenario ought to be morally neutral (one life ended, one life saved). There is simply no justification to regard abortion, even in the most necessary cases, as anything other than a necessary evil.
We have to stand at this junction and make a choice as to whose rights we respect and value and whose rights we must trample, and then live with the consequences of that choice--if we are allowed to.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Devil's Advocate (Choices)
Artificial age restrictions hold that a child is incapable of making certain choices. They are a non-refutable "no" plastered across every entryway to maturity. They are oppressive, but then again, as the argument goes, wouldn't letting kids step across into that other world before they are ready be just as oppressive? After all, there's a difference between a child having the right to make an informed choice (which they are not allowed to do no matter how well informed), and a child not having enough information yet in order to properly make the choice and being 'allowed' to choose anyways.
If a child can't make an informed choice due to some arbitrary restriction, that's one thing, but the issue also boils down to the fact that a limited amount of information could infringe on the child's ability to make a choice to the same extent as they would had they that information. This is crucial too, because immaturity itself does not bar someone from being "able" to make an uninformed choice, and through their actions, the chooser could unwittingly incur consequences they hadn't foreseen! The fact that this routinely happens to adults too is of no consequence to the devil's advocate position.
Just as well, for the government to try to figure out when kids have "information enough" (or maturity enough) to legislate when they can naturally make informed choices about every little thing they are prohibited from doing, would just be too much legislating over human developmental milestones. It is also entirely true that children and young people are capable of making perfectly rational arguments as to why certain rights ought to be reserved for adults. And parents rightfully only want their children to have rights that they have decreed for them themselves.
So yes, all this does pose a problem for the liberationist. But I think any system is going to have its drawbacks. If we can agree with that assertion, then the question becomes, are these drawbacks equal to or greater than the drawbacks in the system we already have? If they are relatively equal, then there is no argument for keeping the status quo as a declarative necessity.
We have to come to a conclusion and decide what side we are on, and live with and acknowledge the consequences that stem from our beliefs and choices (as a society). We are either "liberationists," and want to see all rights be put on the table for children and youth to dispose with as they see fit, or we are "ageists" and want the status quo--where youth attain rights at certain artificial benchmarks. To these ends, we'd either be complacent about the damage imposed on youths who would make improper use of their rights, or we are already complacent about the damage imposed on youths by those who make improper use of their rights for them.
Choose your side.
If a child can't make an informed choice due to some arbitrary restriction, that's one thing, but the issue also boils down to the fact that a limited amount of information could infringe on the child's ability to make a choice to the same extent as they would had they that information. This is crucial too, because immaturity itself does not bar someone from being "able" to make an uninformed choice, and through their actions, the chooser could unwittingly incur consequences they hadn't foreseen! The fact that this routinely happens to adults too is of no consequence to the devil's advocate position.
Just as well, for the government to try to figure out when kids have "information enough" (or maturity enough) to legislate when they can naturally make informed choices about every little thing they are prohibited from doing, would just be too much legislating over human developmental milestones. It is also entirely true that children and young people are capable of making perfectly rational arguments as to why certain rights ought to be reserved for adults. And parents rightfully only want their children to have rights that they have decreed for them themselves.
So yes, all this does pose a problem for the liberationist. But I think any system is going to have its drawbacks. If we can agree with that assertion, then the question becomes, are these drawbacks equal to or greater than the drawbacks in the system we already have? If they are relatively equal, then there is no argument for keeping the status quo as a declarative necessity.
We have to come to a conclusion and decide what side we are on, and live with and acknowledge the consequences that stem from our beliefs and choices (as a society). We are either "liberationists," and want to see all rights be put on the table for children and youth to dispose with as they see fit, or we are "ageists" and want the status quo--where youth attain rights at certain artificial benchmarks. To these ends, we'd either be complacent about the damage imposed on youths who would make improper use of their rights, or we are already complacent about the damage imposed on youths by those who make improper use of their rights for them.
Choose your side.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Washing Out the Sand Lines
I can only imagine the typical conversation between a defender of artificial age limits and a liberationist ending one way--with an enlightened ageist. Those who defend artificial age limits do so because their imagination hasn't evolved past 19th century assumption. As an experiment, if you just present them with this statement by educator and advocate John Holt, you're guaranteed to hear a particular nuanced set of responses and be able to test the limits of their reasoning:
They will remark that children shouldn't have the right to vote, for example, because they lack the "mental capacity" for it. This wouldn't be such a bad argument if they were referring to the potential ways adults could scam children out of their votes without the children knowing it, but this is not how they mean it. They mean it in the most simplistic way possible--that children shouldn't vote because they don't understand politics. The same goes for sex--children shouldn't have sex because they don't understand sexuality.
The liberationist will chide back with the rebuttal: what about a 17 year old one minute before midnight on the day of their 18th birthday (the year a child can vote in the United States)? Are they incapable of understanding politics right up to midnight on their 18th birthday? What causes them to be suddenly blessed with the ability and knowledge to vote? The same argument gets even more confusing with age of consent laws, where there is not just one, but hundreds of different age limits, where suddenly children are capable of having sex in one area, but a mile away across the border, the very similar children over there are incapable. What manner of science could explain this phenomenon of temporal and geographic difference in "mental capacity?"
It will cause the ageist to scratch their head, possibly having never concluded that there's a difference between 2-year-old children and 17-year-old children that the law might have missed. In any case, the ageist will retort that they understand the confusion over the exactness and absolute nature of the "one minute before midnight" scenario, but will usually respond by saying, "it's not an exact science, but there has to be an age limit somewhere even if it doesn't match when a child is capable of voting." One should note that this already flies in the face of their previous rationale.
The liberationist will chide in immediately with an obvious rebuttal. If what the ageist said is true, that there in fact needs to be a set age even if it doesn't correspond to ability (contrary to the reason the ageist had given in the first case), then why does the age have to be 18? Why not move the age of majority in the US up to 20? Or how about 30, or 40? If we understand that the age limit is arbitrary, but also understand that it must exist anyways, why do we settle on 18 definitively?
The ageist will then come back with how 18 is closer to when a person is capable of understanding politics than 40, and will then normally pretend they agree with the liberationist by recalling particular teenagers who are far more politically astute than their own adult colleagues. They usually do this to show that they are not bigoted about young people, but it only adds to the case the liberationist is making. It's simply the point in the argument when the ageist has run out of explanations, just before settling on the "it is the way it is" rationale, unknowingly forfeiting all their earlier assumptions.
Age limitations have nothing to do with human aptitude. They do not legislate human aptitude. They are merely artificial limitations invented by humans to keep other humans from participating in areas of learning and experience they'd rather reserve for themselves. Lifting age limits on children would not impose the weight of the adult world onto them, and thus become its own form of oppression as critics may suggest. Children who do not have the means, the mind, the capability, the maturity, or the motivation, to make use of the rights newly bestowed on them, such as the right to vote, simply would not vote--just as adults do when they have neither the means, mind, capability, maturity, or motivation to vote. Society has already made it such that adults who are deemed incompetent for any reason are not permitted to bare the burdens and responsibilities that would come with competence--there is no reason to believe that the liberated five year old would be treated any differently than the incompetent adult when it comes to running their own affairs.
In fact, what society fears is not that incapable children would be dumped with the pressures and responsibilities that come with human rights beyond their ability, it's that in granting them such rights, many more than previously expected may be found more capable than the adult world ever imagined could be. Adults would be in a real state of cognitive dissonance over their assumptions. While five year olds would be sure to fail a required driving permit written test, for instance, we may just find that fifteen year olds, rather than just sixteen year olds, are competent enough to pass it. Such a thing would be sure to send shock waves of fear through the hearts of adults who would like to maintain the millennia-old belief that they, modern men and women, are special among all living things. It would force them to conclude that they are not special just because they've reach some magic age of human fellowship, and that they spent a good many years squandering their ability in pursuit of a magic number.
"I propose...that the rights, privileges, duties of adult citizens be made available to any young person, of whatever age, who wants to make use of them." -John C. Holt, "Escape from Childhood"
They will remark that children shouldn't have the right to vote, for example, because they lack the "mental capacity" for it. This wouldn't be such a bad argument if they were referring to the potential ways adults could scam children out of their votes without the children knowing it, but this is not how they mean it. They mean it in the most simplistic way possible--that children shouldn't vote because they don't understand politics. The same goes for sex--children shouldn't have sex because they don't understand sexuality.
The liberationist will chide back with the rebuttal: what about a 17 year old one minute before midnight on the day of their 18th birthday (the year a child can vote in the United States)? Are they incapable of understanding politics right up to midnight on their 18th birthday? What causes them to be suddenly blessed with the ability and knowledge to vote? The same argument gets even more confusing with age of consent laws, where there is not just one, but hundreds of different age limits, where suddenly children are capable of having sex in one area, but a mile away across the border, the very similar children over there are incapable. What manner of science could explain this phenomenon of temporal and geographic difference in "mental capacity?"
It will cause the ageist to scratch their head, possibly having never concluded that there's a difference between 2-year-old children and 17-year-old children that the law might have missed. In any case, the ageist will retort that they understand the confusion over the exactness and absolute nature of the "one minute before midnight" scenario, but will usually respond by saying, "it's not an exact science, but there has to be an age limit somewhere even if it doesn't match when a child is capable of voting." One should note that this already flies in the face of their previous rationale.
The liberationist will chide in immediately with an obvious rebuttal. If what the ageist said is true, that there in fact needs to be a set age even if it doesn't correspond to ability (contrary to the reason the ageist had given in the first case), then why does the age have to be 18? Why not move the age of majority in the US up to 20? Or how about 30, or 40? If we understand that the age limit is arbitrary, but also understand that it must exist anyways, why do we settle on 18 definitively?
The ageist will then come back with how 18 is closer to when a person is capable of understanding politics than 40, and will then normally pretend they agree with the liberationist by recalling particular teenagers who are far more politically astute than their own adult colleagues. They usually do this to show that they are not bigoted about young people, but it only adds to the case the liberationist is making. It's simply the point in the argument when the ageist has run out of explanations, just before settling on the "it is the way it is" rationale, unknowingly forfeiting all their earlier assumptions.
Age limitations have nothing to do with human aptitude. They do not legislate human aptitude. They are merely artificial limitations invented by humans to keep other humans from participating in areas of learning and experience they'd rather reserve for themselves. Lifting age limits on children would not impose the weight of the adult world onto them, and thus become its own form of oppression as critics may suggest. Children who do not have the means, the mind, the capability, the maturity, or the motivation, to make use of the rights newly bestowed on them, such as the right to vote, simply would not vote--just as adults do when they have neither the means, mind, capability, maturity, or motivation to vote. Society has already made it such that adults who are deemed incompetent for any reason are not permitted to bare the burdens and responsibilities that would come with competence--there is no reason to believe that the liberated five year old would be treated any differently than the incompetent adult when it comes to running their own affairs.
In fact, what society fears is not that incapable children would be dumped with the pressures and responsibilities that come with human rights beyond their ability, it's that in granting them such rights, many more than previously expected may be found more capable than the adult world ever imagined could be. Adults would be in a real state of cognitive dissonance over their assumptions. While five year olds would be sure to fail a required driving permit written test, for instance, we may just find that fifteen year olds, rather than just sixteen year olds, are competent enough to pass it. Such a thing would be sure to send shock waves of fear through the hearts of adults who would like to maintain the millennia-old belief that they, modern men and women, are special among all living things. It would force them to conclude that they are not special just because they've reach some magic age of human fellowship, and that they spent a good many years squandering their ability in pursuit of a magic number.
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