When I was living in Queensland, in the 1970s and 80s, I saw the sort of hatred that children can manifest - the sort of hate that, combined with spectacular incompetence (wilful blindness? Naivete?) of adults in a school allowed a trans boy to be bullied into dying by suicide, as reported here.
I was bullied at school, and knew then and now that at least some of it was sadistic - and it does not matter that the bully may be lashing out in reaction to their own pain and experiences: what is essential is stopping the spread of harm, which means keeping the immediate victims of the bully safe and distanced from the aggressor. To fail to do so is to fail to manage the situation - the situation is akin to stopping someone with is shooting other people: the first step must be to keep the victims safe. Things like having the victim explain to a bully how their actions are distressing is:
(a) exacerbating the harm, in the same way that rape and sexual assault victims are retraumatised by our legal systems, and
(b) giving the bully want they want - validation and encouragement to do more bullying down the track.
I hope the school does a lot more than just “reflect”: they - morally, but probably not legally - cost a young boy his life, and allowed more personalities that have been perverted by hate to go unchecked, and that is a problem that shows up in other authoritarian abuses, as well.
My experience is that many hardline conservatives are incapable of coping with change or difference; my suspicion is that better parenting, teaching, and peer influences could have minimised that problem.
Unfortunately, the “mini
me” approach to parenting, where parents think they have a “right” (they don’t!) to
create images of themselves, instead of aiding their children to be the
best those children can be, is accepted almost ubiquitously in society,
and it leads to abuses of children and adults.
It leads to:
- adults thoughtlessly perpetuating the bigotry of their parents, which leads to problems such as this; and
- the insularity of authoritarian bodies - such as many police forces, of late most notably shown in France (see here and here).
It may well have a role in repeat abuses of power, as reported here.
The internal knowledge, on some level of their being, of all such bullies, despots, and vengeful retaliators (the multi-generational perpetuation of bullying initiations in apprenticeships, which caused physical and psycho-emotional scarring - sometimes from rape - is another example of that error) that they are wrong also leads to a quest for mutual reinforcement of their delusions - which leads to:
- the evil of proselytising and many evangelic groups;
- government coups such as this;
- alliances of hate - as shown by Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and was almost shown by Italy and Spain before the Spanish election result made that unlikely; and
- reversals of rights - such as this, the transgenocide, and the despotic roll backs of rights in the USA - by fascistic governments.
None of which is countered by governmental incompetence arising out of:
- a neoliberal addiction to economic “growth”, corporate profits, and literally fatal economic approaches;
- allowing or failing to respond quickly enough or sufficiently to threats to privacy and personal integrity (including financial) arising from surveillance capitalism and cheapskate superficial attempts at data security (and see also this); and
- personal emotional incompetence that thinks “both-sidesism” is in any way a valid response.
We, as a society, need to do better - we need to both actively and effectively contain the spread of hate and harm being done by damaged but staggeringly dangerous adults (who are also preventing us deal effectively with the climate crisis, thus possibly allowing us to become extinct or near extinct), and also prevent those harmful perversions of character being foisted on to future generations.
If there is another world war out of this, the power of those perverted people means it will almost certainly be nuclear, and we won’t survive in any meaningful way - its going to be difficult enough to survive the climate crisis those perverted (or warped, scarred, or damaged, if you want softer words) characters have allowed as it is (see here for an example of current concerns).
Take what action you can now - including voting progressively, being a human rights defender, dealing with your own character flaws, and living with a light footprint on this planet.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.
Vote Yes for the Voice in Australia.
Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.
