Surviovors Need to Organize and Act, no more recovery, therapy, or seeking peace
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Beyond_Ideologies
Nov 21, 2015, 4:43:39 PM11/21/15
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We always need to keep in mind that fact that people may not be able to stand up for themselves. For one thing, if they speak up it will usually get turned back against them. If an adult survivor of childhood abuses speaks, they will usually only be hurting themselves. They will hear things like, "Have you tried psychotherapy and punching pillows and screaming at them?", "Have you been able to forgive like Jesus teaches us to in his last words on the Cross?", "Your parents were only trying to make sure that you'd be able to earn a living", "My parents beat me everyday and I had to walk 25 miles through snow each day just to get to school, but look at me now, a successful pillar of the community, and raising a family just the way my parents did, and so please vote for me for City Council".
This is the reason I try to avoid talking about any of this as "child abuse". It makes it sound like it is something aberrational. And so then you get into this argument about whether or not it was indeed aberrational. And then even if so, what about it?
So it goes nowhere. The survivor speaking up is only hurting themselves by saying, "I was abused, so please have pity on me."
So we have to find some other way to progress.
Consider the following postulates:
1. It is unreasonable to expect survivors to come forward when they would only be hurting themselves in doing so. Self protection is actually the first and most important rule for a survivor.
2. The issue is really not "child abuse", it is the psychological, sexual, and physical maiming of children which our society authorizes parents to do and which is considered normative and necessary. I suggest the term, "child exploitation", as it is the child who is being used in order to give the parents an adult identity.
3. Even when there is parent child animosity, most children still think very much like their parents, and so it is very hard for them to ever make an indictment. It will sound like each is accusing the other by the same set of standards.
4. The criminal law tries to establish absolute lines which can never be crossed. This is how our system of justice operates. But this alone will never be able to protect children from exploitation. You could never set the bar for enforcement low enough. Parents are able to manipulate the rules and the situations, just as they do for example with medical Munchausen's. And of course sexual abuse has always been blamed on the victim. Middle class family abuse is justified as the need to teach the self-reliance ethic.
5. So then we need to look for those cases where there is parent v child animosity, and understand that the reason for this was that the child was being used. The parent was not living up to their own values. The parent was living in bad faith. The child has absorbed the values of the parent and they see that the parent is wrong and that the child was being used. So this is the crux of the middle class family.
6. When we can see this animosity we must immediately back up the child in every way possible and hold the parent accountable. These cases of open animosity are rare opportunities for redress, and so we must seize them and act.
7. When survivors see that in coming forward that they are helping themselves and doing a societal good by helping other survivors and protecting today's children, then they will start to speak out in droves. But today this is impossible, as most do not live in supportive societies at all. Most still live in realms where the society supports the parents and holds up the middle class family and an ideal.
8. Now yes, all sorts of abuses are done to children in poor families. But these are the cases where the law is most likely to act. It is the middle class parents who are most likely to get away with it. It is the middle class which professes to have choice in life, but then uses this supposed choice to justify itself by maiming its children. So the middle class family is the place we must strike, if we want to effect any good. The whole thing is a reflection of the middle class family and the bad faith it lives in.
9. Some are abused in institutions and foster care. These situations stand a good chance of being prosecuted, as the lines are clearer. And besides, the lack of safety in these institutions exists in the shadow of the lies we tell about The Family.
10. Some are abused by lone psychopaths, social deviants, and abusers of power. Well remember, these people in some way or another can trace their origins back to The Family, and the lies we tell about it are what has created them.
11. The ability to disinherit one's children, taken to legal extreme in the United States, is one of the mechanisms for keeping the denial going. It keeps people quiet, numb, and unsympathetic. So it keeps adult survivors living without social legitimacy, and it contributes to the ongoing maiming of today's children. No one wants to face what is being done, as that would require that they act and that they face their own pain. And still worse, people have children so that they can turn the abuse onto them and thus avoid having to deal with it openly.
12. Middle class child abuse is usually justified as necessary to instill the self-reliance ethic, to make the child live up to societal expectations. So it is just like the hot coals and sharp stones used by primitive societies to initiate adolescents. Our society expects it and considers it necessary. So talking about it as "child abuse" accomplishes nothing.
13. So if we want to fight this, we have to organize and select our strike points carefully, and then make sure we get definitive results.
14. Parents will only stop using psychological and physical violence against their own children as a substitute for feeling their own pain, when they see that the consequences of doing otherwise have become extreme, and that they can't get away with it anymore by blaming it on the child. So we have to meet them and defeat them as we would any other severe violator. Otherwise it will continue to be the survivors beating up on each other as they seek the nirvana of numbness.
15. We have to show people that children are not in need of moral reform or of being taught self-reliance or anything else. They live in the same world that adults do. The mere fact that they have learned to communicate shows that they also understand the rules. Everyone wants to do well. They want to win the admiration of friends and family. So when someone is not doing well, there must be reasons for it. Parental violence against children is intended to make the children become just like the adults, and it works. So to stop this we need to hold the parents accountable. Rarely can this be done in real time. Usually it will have to be decades after the fact.
16. As we want to win battles, we have to pick them carefully. But we also want to set the bar as low as possible. So the focus should not just be on major felony cases. We also want to establish a universal norm of parental accountability in all circumstances. This of course should be financial. Never when there is parent v child animosity, should a parent be able to hold on to money or assets.
17. And then we also need to set up institutions to support children. Never again do we want to hear a parent gaining social legitimacy by bragging about their parental role. When you hear this, sounding nice, sounding mean, or sounding like pity, you are hearing direct evidence of child exploitation. So we must hold the parent accountable.
Let me tell one brief story. A few years back I witnessed a purse snatching. A guy passed by this woman on the sidewalk and wrestled her purse away from her and then sped off. The woman cried out because she knew that people would come to her aid. I tried to chase the guy down. A city maintenance truck made an illegal U-turn and followed. Eventually police arrived, but the perp ran really fast and had gotten away.
The woman cried out because she knew people would attempt to come to her aid. It was just her first instinct.
But when a child is being psychologically, physically, or sexually maimed by their parents, then there is no one to cry out to. There is no one to even affirm that what the parent is doing is self serving and wrong. So the child learns that its instincts are wrong and that it must submit to the maiming.
And then in the decades ahead, as the now adult child comes to understand that what their parent did was wrong, there is still zero vindication. There are only things like therapy, recovery, and religion, and these are just additional forms of abuse. So it is just survivors beating up on each other.
So if we want this to change, we have to organize and act. It may never be possible to publicly punish our abusers. They may die before justice can be served. But we will gain social standing and do tremendous good if we are able to organize and act.
So I do have compassion for those denied legitimacy, and in the positions they are now taking. I NEVER disclose anything about myself, except in those rare cases where I think it would help promote action. Otherwise it is just inviting further abuse and pity.
But I also want to see situations where adult survivors are able to organize and act. Otherwise we will forever be subordinate to the self-reliance ethic and needing to prove to our parents and the entire society that we are not the defectives our parents treated us as.
So this is why when I was presented with the case of a father blacksheeping his daughter, and with his whole church behind him, and learned that there was a sexual abuse allegation and open case behind it, I jumped in at once and I did not retreat until over 2 years later when the guy was imprisoned. We have to take the chances for redress which are given to us, and act.
As adult survivors who see and refuse to unsee, we are persecuted and oppressed. Our struggle for legitimacy is not going to be any easier than the struggles for self-determination faced by other peoples. But with this in mind, we must organize and act.
BO
This is the reason I try to avoid talking about any of this as "child abuse". It makes it sound like it is something aberrational. And so then you get into this argument about whether or not it was indeed aberrational. And then even if so, what about it?
So it goes nowhere. The survivor speaking up is only hurting themselves by saying, "I was abused, so please have pity on me."
So we have to find some other way to progress.
Consider the following postulates:
1. It is unreasonable to expect survivors to come forward when they would only be hurting themselves in doing so. Self protection is actually the first and most important rule for a survivor.
2. The issue is really not "child abuse", it is the psychological, sexual, and physical maiming of children which our society authorizes parents to do and which is considered normative and necessary. I suggest the term, "child exploitation", as it is the child who is being used in order to give the parents an adult identity.
3. Even when there is parent child animosity, most children still think very much like their parents, and so it is very hard for them to ever make an indictment. It will sound like each is accusing the other by the same set of standards.
4. The criminal law tries to establish absolute lines which can never be crossed. This is how our system of justice operates. But this alone will never be able to protect children from exploitation. You could never set the bar for enforcement low enough. Parents are able to manipulate the rules and the situations, just as they do for example with medical Munchausen's. And of course sexual abuse has always been blamed on the victim. Middle class family abuse is justified as the need to teach the self-reliance ethic.
5. So then we need to look for those cases where there is parent v child animosity, and understand that the reason for this was that the child was being used. The parent was not living up to their own values. The parent was living in bad faith. The child has absorbed the values of the parent and they see that the parent is wrong and that the child was being used. So this is the crux of the middle class family.
6. When we can see this animosity we must immediately back up the child in every way possible and hold the parent accountable. These cases of open animosity are rare opportunities for redress, and so we must seize them and act.
7. When survivors see that in coming forward that they are helping themselves and doing a societal good by helping other survivors and protecting today's children, then they will start to speak out in droves. But today this is impossible, as most do not live in supportive societies at all. Most still live in realms where the society supports the parents and holds up the middle class family and an ideal.
8. Now yes, all sorts of abuses are done to children in poor families. But these are the cases where the law is most likely to act. It is the middle class parents who are most likely to get away with it. It is the middle class which professes to have choice in life, but then uses this supposed choice to justify itself by maiming its children. So the middle class family is the place we must strike, if we want to effect any good. The whole thing is a reflection of the middle class family and the bad faith it lives in.
9. Some are abused in institutions and foster care. These situations stand a good chance of being prosecuted, as the lines are clearer. And besides, the lack of safety in these institutions exists in the shadow of the lies we tell about The Family.
10. Some are abused by lone psychopaths, social deviants, and abusers of power. Well remember, these people in some way or another can trace their origins back to The Family, and the lies we tell about it are what has created them.
11. The ability to disinherit one's children, taken to legal extreme in the United States, is one of the mechanisms for keeping the denial going. It keeps people quiet, numb, and unsympathetic. So it keeps adult survivors living without social legitimacy, and it contributes to the ongoing maiming of today's children. No one wants to face what is being done, as that would require that they act and that they face their own pain. And still worse, people have children so that they can turn the abuse onto them and thus avoid having to deal with it openly.
12. Middle class child abuse is usually justified as necessary to instill the self-reliance ethic, to make the child live up to societal expectations. So it is just like the hot coals and sharp stones used by primitive societies to initiate adolescents. Our society expects it and considers it necessary. So talking about it as "child abuse" accomplishes nothing.
13. So if we want to fight this, we have to organize and select our strike points carefully, and then make sure we get definitive results.
14. Parents will only stop using psychological and physical violence against their own children as a substitute for feeling their own pain, when they see that the consequences of doing otherwise have become extreme, and that they can't get away with it anymore by blaming it on the child. So we have to meet them and defeat them as we would any other severe violator. Otherwise it will continue to be the survivors beating up on each other as they seek the nirvana of numbness.
15. We have to show people that children are not in need of moral reform or of being taught self-reliance or anything else. They live in the same world that adults do. The mere fact that they have learned to communicate shows that they also understand the rules. Everyone wants to do well. They want to win the admiration of friends and family. So when someone is not doing well, there must be reasons for it. Parental violence against children is intended to make the children become just like the adults, and it works. So to stop this we need to hold the parents accountable. Rarely can this be done in real time. Usually it will have to be decades after the fact.
16. As we want to win battles, we have to pick them carefully. But we also want to set the bar as low as possible. So the focus should not just be on major felony cases. We also want to establish a universal norm of parental accountability in all circumstances. This of course should be financial. Never when there is parent v child animosity, should a parent be able to hold on to money or assets.
17. And then we also need to set up institutions to support children. Never again do we want to hear a parent gaining social legitimacy by bragging about their parental role. When you hear this, sounding nice, sounding mean, or sounding like pity, you are hearing direct evidence of child exploitation. So we must hold the parent accountable.
Let me tell one brief story. A few years back I witnessed a purse snatching. A guy passed by this woman on the sidewalk and wrestled her purse away from her and then sped off. The woman cried out because she knew that people would come to her aid. I tried to chase the guy down. A city maintenance truck made an illegal U-turn and followed. Eventually police arrived, but the perp ran really fast and had gotten away.
The woman cried out because she knew people would attempt to come to her aid. It was just her first instinct.
But when a child is being psychologically, physically, or sexually maimed by their parents, then there is no one to cry out to. There is no one to even affirm that what the parent is doing is self serving and wrong. So the child learns that its instincts are wrong and that it must submit to the maiming.
And then in the decades ahead, as the now adult child comes to understand that what their parent did was wrong, there is still zero vindication. There are only things like therapy, recovery, and religion, and these are just additional forms of abuse. So it is just survivors beating up on each other.
So if we want this to change, we have to organize and act. It may never be possible to publicly punish our abusers. They may die before justice can be served. But we will gain social standing and do tremendous good if we are able to organize and act.
So I do have compassion for those denied legitimacy, and in the positions they are now taking. I NEVER disclose anything about myself, except in those rare cases where I think it would help promote action. Otherwise it is just inviting further abuse and pity.
But I also want to see situations where adult survivors are able to organize and act. Otherwise we will forever be subordinate to the self-reliance ethic and needing to prove to our parents and the entire society that we are not the defectives our parents treated us as.
So this is why when I was presented with the case of a father blacksheeping his daughter, and with his whole church behind him, and learned that there was a sexual abuse allegation and open case behind it, I jumped in at once and I did not retreat until over 2 years later when the guy was imprisoned. We have to take the chances for redress which are given to us, and act.
As adult survivors who see and refuse to unsee, we are persecuted and oppressed. Our struggle for legitimacy is not going to be any easier than the struggles for self-determination faced by other peoples. But with this in mind, we must organize and act.
BO
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