Justice for Caylee

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.

Indigo Children

An increasingly popular New Age ideology posits that certain children being born today are the next evolution of mankind, as predicted, supposedly, by the indigo shade of their auras at birth. These children, as it is said, through their meta-cognitive proficiency and behavioral unpredictability, are hence setting the stage in the world today for the coming of the next breed of super human, the children of the Chrystal Vibration, who will effectively eliminate all the problems of mankind. The indigo children are simply calling our attention to our own faults as a human society, and in the future, supposedly, will set to eliminating human fear (the one enemy the children of the Chrystal Vibration) , which will in turn create a haven for the forthcoming newly evolved children to be born into.

Auras are pseudoscience, and maintain the same validity as Rorschach tests. Both are the result of the intriguing fallacy of the human psyche in interpreting meanings (or finding meanings) in objects and ideas that are already products of delusion or pure fantasy. Psycho-analysis is guilty of the same grievance. People see what they want to see, and if they see a rise in "abnormal behavior" occurring in children these days, whether or not there really is, than they can and will interpret it in many ways, and people will profit off selling the interpretations.

As for indigo children, they are the result of a society increasingly nerved by the idea that their children may in any way be abnormal. Parents, it seems, would rather have a special child than a defected child, at least in their own minds, inventing and buying into (often monetarily) the mythologies presented by new age authors and philosophies. Yet, this delusion is entirely human--childish fantasy projected from an adult mind which supposedly is capable of maintaining rational thought. There is nothing out of the ordinary about human beings deluding themselves into thinking the cause of any particular thing is metaphysical when a naturalistic explanation isn't as satisfying, that the time we are living in now is more unique and special than at any other point in history.

The only thing abnormal here is the rise in ADHD and ADD diagnoses (anywhere from 5% to 50% of the children in any given area in the United States and Canada), which is a called a "disease" although there is no diagnostic test proven to check for "symptoms." As it stands, pharmaceutical companies stand to make a lot of money prescribing antedotes for any child struggling with what is actually the syndrome of natural childhood, just as the New Age authors stand to make millions of dollars selling methodological nurturing suggestions to parents who suspect their child is indigo and may need special attention.

Whether that special attention comes in an orange bottle or out of a New Age book, that child is going to be affected, and it will no doubt echo in their behaviors, their meta-cognitive perspectives, their sense of self, their connection to other "non-indigo" children, and their sense of responsibility to the rest of society. Any special divination given to that child will upset the child's natural growth, whether they are labeled ADHD/ADD or Indigo, and will reflect in that child's behavior, which will only serve to reaffirm the doctors, parents, and mystics of their child's status, special abilities, or deformities. This is a dangerous ideology either way, because now that child is growing up in a bizarre world of delusion, neuroses, paranoia, and outright lies on their behalf, which won't make for a future any more brighter than the one we are already living in the present, and certainly no place for the so-called "chrystal children."

After all, when one is so paranoid that their child is anything but perfect that they are willing to realign the universe so that everything about their child seems justified in their own head, it doesn't seem as if these Indigo children are doing a very great job at "destroying human fear."

The controversy over the abundance of prescription medication treating undiagnosable "diseases" like ADHD causes a whole different set of realistic concerns. Certainly there will be children who fit the category and the condition can be proven to be having significant adverse effects on their ability to live an effective lives, but there is little doubt that most diagnoses are the result of a paranoid overreaction and the shrewd business practices of pharms. Statistically, behavioral disorders are not common enough to effect 1 out of every 2 children. Character is being misdiagnosed as ADHD, and if anything is at stake, it's a child's character--their ability to live a healthy life.

All this goes to show how adults, supposedly the rational minds at work in the world, often think with no better clarity than a child does about events in the world around them. We are paranoid and neurotic creatures from birth to death, regardless of what cognitive Piagetian stage we're in, regardless of whether we are prescribed medication for it or not, and our paranoias and neuroses are either encouraged or discouraged through our environment. Collectively we are in the process of a slow maturation, science and skepticism has been our best tool toward this end. And while there are some children who are encouraged to think with a rational mind, (natural children) whether through education, through parents, through medias, there are always children who are encouraged to think with a deluded mind (Indigos and misdiagnoses) by the same methods. These "children" don't have to be children in the traditional sense...anyone who holds beliefs to be true that are actually fantasies remains a child--regardless of age.

Either way, there's going to be a lot of paranoid and neurotic adults in the future. Is this the next evolution of mankind? Definitely not--looks like more of the same.

Post-Sympathy Society

Sympathy, when given on volition, is really what we're striving for as a society, but all too often it's twisted out of us by the powers of sensationalism. When sympathy is given freely, it is a blessing, but when given at the behest of manipulation, is only a sad sorry excuse. Feeling bad for someone on the basis of some group's political or commercial agenda is a waste of our tears and a diversion away from those who could actually benefit from that shedding.

And since the amount of sympathy twisted out of the tear-ducts of adults on behalf of children is unparalleled, no other group of people seems to suffer more as a result. No other group of people are loosing out to our diverted sympathies than children. This forms the basis of our sympathetic society. A "post-sympathetic" society would be one were people feel sympathy for people they can actually reach out and touch rather than those at such great distances that no amount of feeling bad for them could ever hope to reach across. It is a society where sympathy is not a commodity, a means to an ends, but an ends in and of itself, a charity.

In short, it's the idea that those around each and every one of us is more deserving of our sympathies and assistance than those who we can't hope to reach or contact in any way. No amount of feeling sorry for the child kidnapped in California is going to bring them back home where they belong if you happen to live in New Jersey, for instance. Human beings will naturally react to such a story with pity and remorse, and such is fine, but the near pathological sadness and depression brought on by the constant media barrage bent on ringing our collective sympathies into a fever pitch of hysteria and mob-mental hatred is never going to do these injustices any good. It thrusts a sense of endless victim-hood on those affected, and associates whole groups of people sharing the characteristics of the perpetrator with his evil deeds. It does nothing to bring the kidnapped child home, and in those instances, may help reinforce the perpetrator's reasons for not stepping forward to release their possession.

In a post-sympathetic society, people would feel sympathetic for those around them, and not those the television tells them to feel sympathetic for. This is an ideal, of course, and therefore probably unattainable, but a genuine one that most people may indeed feel sympathetic toward given enough media exposure. In such a society, they'd not bicker at the children riding their big wheels in the condo parking lot for making noise and then come inside and shed a tear for the missing child on the news -- unless they are somehow associated with that child the way they are with the children outside their door. They wouldn't sanctify the dead and ignore the living.

One can dream.

It's Johnny's Birthday!

Child worship expresses itself in probably it's most overt ways within the modern family. In a classic framing exercise, we could easily picture mother and father as the child's clergy, busying themselves maintaining their idol, singing its praises, and saluting it on the yearly anniversary of it's birth with a grand festival, where "it" refers to inhuman nature of the thing being worshiped--something indeed quite beyond the physical organism that a child really is.

To be clear, celebrating birthdays is not wrong minded, but it could be argued that the degree of lavishness they assume (usually at the behest of parents more than anything else) is only a depiction of the modern fascination and obsession with blowing children up to twice their normal size. It's only amazing they can manage to keep their feet on the ground.

At one time only the wealthy sons and daughters of self-important dignitaries and noblemen celebrated something as mundane as the yearly milestone known as a birthday with lavish parties. In the modern world, that distinction is reserved for every child. It seems the younger and less aware the child is, the more lavish the festival commemorating their birth has to be. We give them Jumperoos on their second birthday and yet still don't allow them to vote by their 16th. We're very good at blowing children up to be demi-gods alright, we're just not very good at deflating them back down to our size.

And then we expect our adolescents to begin coming down from Olympus on their own, to live like people for the first time after being restricted within the socially constructed walls of heaven all their lives. Suffice it to say, when their eyes finally shoot open at first to the world made not of dreams but out of the fear and desperation surrounding them, only one reaction seems appropriate at first--disillusionment. Some get over it. Some don't.

And then for the sciences to suggest that such a reaction is biochemically induced in its entirety, rather than the inevitable result of a demigod stepping down from his golden throne, it only reeks of same preferential prejudice that failed to let him be human in his first 13 years of life. The fact of the matter is, as far as the perspective from which research on the maturation of teens is conducted (one of squinted-eye observation), the child is no longer a child, and therefore in no more need to be worshiped. Is it no coincidence that once "playtime is over," the demonization of young people begins?

(A tip to George Harrison in the title.)

Child is Not a Weapon

Children are truly mankind's greatest resource. They are both the artillery hurled at our enemies and the shield we use to protect ourselves from attack. The force that propels dictators to surround themselves with children as a means of deflecting bullets is the same one that propels people to use children's wide eyes and button noses to elect the next one. That force is human sentimentality.

If we ever experience a limitation to the right of free speech, it will come in the guise of protecting children. If we ever experience a limitation to our right to remain innocent until proven guilty, or a full reversal of such under vigilante rule, it will come in the guise of protecting children. Indeed, if we experience tyranny in the future, it will be in part helped along to fruition by the obsessive sentimentality mankind ascribes to the young ones. Preserving the made up substance of innocence in a child robs society of its own. The more worshiped children become, the less stable a society will be.

One might be tempted to think of this as a contradiction. Why, if society is said to be worshiping children, could one believe children are being used as weapons? The answer is more obvious than it may seem. When we idolize something, we cease appreciating it. In the same function that causes mankind to destroy each other over an omnibenevolent God, humanity destroys itself over their "innocent" children.