Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee? Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee: 'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee; I crucified thee.
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Generally, I put my blog posts on my Patreon for funding. I'm not doing that with this one, for reasons I expect will be clear once you've read it.
I've written several posts over the last month, criticizing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and individual members of it, together with the whole hierarchy. I've put out a number of tweets and some particularly forceful Facebook status updates (tremble, ye princes), expressing my own personal sense of betrayal and anger at the irresponsible, self-centered, corrupt prelates who would not or could not act to protect young victims of clerical abuse. I have fulminated, warned, and prophesied. And of course I knew very well that I'm not perfect, but consoled myself that at least I have no position of responsibility to shirk, the way they had been doing apparently for decades.
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking home, and I went past the bus stop near my house. Maybe thirty people were scattered along the sidewalk, one cluster at the bus stop and another a little way up the block. In between them, there was a little boy leaning against the railing outside the church—he couldn't have been more than five years old. I smiled at him.
A man came up who seemed to be the boy's father, and, seemingly apropos of nothing, started hitting him. The first time was weird and ugly, but of course some parents do use corporal discipline, and that's hardly my business (even if it did seem to be discipline for literally nothing). The second time was weirder and uglier. The third, still more so, especially since the boy wasn't reacting at all, as though this were perfectly normal. The fourth was a kick, which swept the little boy's legs out from under him, and at this he did begin to cry. The man yelled something, I don't know what, and took him by the arm and started marching him toward the bus stop.
I did nothing.
Oh, I said something like, 'Hey, whoa!' I was stunned that a person would just do this, in broad daylight and among all those people—and nobody said anything, I wondered whether I were just being a busybody but I knew I wasn't. It was child abuse.
But rather than follow up on anything, I just ... turned up the sidewalk, went to my door, and went inside. I didn't even think of calling the police until hours later, when it was utterly useless to do so.
If you admire or like me, and you're thinking of extenuating circumstances and reasons this isn't as bad as it sounds, or you want to reassure me because you think I'm torturing myself or something, then do me a favor and shove all that stuff where the sun don't shine. This is no better in me than it is in a Cardinal. The bystanders were no worse than I was—they just did what I did. We're all obligated to each other. My inaction was gross hypocrisy, and worse than that: it abandoned a child to violence. If I am going to publicly write one single word of moral judgment, and ask others to listen to it, then I need to own my own shit publicly too. That isn't heroic or impressive. That's the most elementary form of fairness and honesty that we all need to start with.
And no, I don't need to make a dramatic confession on the internet every time I do anything wrong. But when I do something that is so intensely relevant to the very things I'm calling other people out for then I sure as hell need to call me out too.
Seriously, don't give me any comments about this being brave or whatever. I fucking mean it, I will not publish them, I don't want to hear them—this right here is penance, don't encourage my pride.
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Classic bystander effect. We've become so individualistic in this country, that we feel it's not our right or place to interfere with other people's matters, even if those matters are clearly immoral, reprehensible, and/or illegal. It has stunted us, and it's a plague on society. I don't say this to make you feel better, by the way. I'm not sure what I would have done in that instance, probably the same as you. It's such a shock to the system. But I think you're right in your post-incident assessment. I'm curious to hear what you would do if you encountered such a situation again? I'm glad of your post if for no other reason than it prevents me from taking inaction if/when I encounter such situations in the future. The biggest antidote to bystander inaction is having a plan to mobilize. I think I would call the cops and insist said cops contact CPS for further investigation. But I'm curious if there are other options.
ReplyDeleteNext time I will call the cops. Really don't know what else to do.
DeleteSometimes beatings look worse than they are. You have a duty to interfere only if you think there was risk of some sort of permanent injury requiring medical treatment. Corporal punishment doesn’t have to be limited to some sort of “controlled” token smack or spanking. The fear of God was put in me because my father, rarely, would just unleash and pummel me and throw me against the wall and down the hall and stuff. Looking back, it was scary but didn’t really risk any injury and didn’t even hurt that much (blows are not painful in the way being cut or stabbed is...) and it’s the source of my ability to control and discipline myself today, and is a gift I would pass on to my own children were I to have any.
ReplyDeleteUh, that's completely horrible. Your father's behavior, I mean. So, yes, corporal discipline can be legitimate and helpful; but to "unleash and pummel" a child, throw them against walls or furniture, frighten them, etc., is goddamn child abuse. Rationalizing the difference between being punched and being stabbed is not something that a parent-child relationship should involve. And I don't agree that probably needing medical treatment is the standard of intervention; psychological abuse, with or without concomitant physical injury, is absolutely grounds to intervene -- which is not to say that there aren't hard cases and "trigger-happy" individuals who will classify all discipline as abusive, but it's perfectly possible to damage or destroy a child's psyche even without laying a finger on them, let alone with physical abuse that doesn't actually require medical attention.
DeleteI, uh, don't know if there's really anything you can still do about it, since I don't knpw the particulars (and they aren't really my business unless you choose to disclose them). But, if and to the extent that you respect my judgment (which obviously is only for you to say), I'd urge you to get counseling for this. You were gravely wronged by someone who should have been nurturing and protecting you. No matter what other good things he did or tried to do for you, this wasn't right.
I appreciate the opinion, but honestly...who are you to tell me I was abused or traumatized if I don’t think I was? I have a great relationship with my dad today and the *breaking of my will* as a child was actually so good for me, it’s obvious enough looking back. I’d argue children are being abused if their father figure (if they have one; if they don’t, that’s abuse in itself) doesn’t properly image the Wrath of God to them (among His other features like mercy, etc, of course) because without that terror being struck in them, they will lack an essential *interior psychological force* in the future, which is the force that has conquered new continents and held civilizations together. A coddled child is good for nothing, but paradoxically coddled children are often the most *angry* and insecure adults, because their inner world never had Order brought to it by the Rage of the Father, which is the first principle of proper socialization wherein we learn that our very bodies are controlled by forces greater than ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIt only took a few truly terrifying beatings in childhood (sparing, infrequent, but violent!) for my siblings and I to be properly cowed such that even today, my father a frail old man we could easily overpower...still just has to raise an eyebrow, or his hand an inch, or his voice just a little...and we flinch and fall in line like some primal string directly to our will has been tugged on. Yet he never abused that power and it was that very “string” of discipline, put into my own hands, as a gift, as an adult...which is the source of my ability to control and discipline myself. Punishment and fear is simply much more powerful than reward, and just as children (yes, indeed) need to be given a store of warm feelings of positive regard that they can draw upon for self-worth in the future...they *also* need to be given a corresponding store of terror and feeling “beaten” that they can draw upon in the future for self-discipline too. A good parent knows how to create BOTH emotional “reservoirs” and it is the latter that modern leftists seem to be missing.
I am no one in particular; a survivor of abuse, yes, but not of that kind of abuse. But in all seriousness: speak to a doctor, a therapist, a social worker, a policeman, whomever you please that has professional training in the legal, psychological, or medical aspects of the situation you're describing. I guarantee you that they will say you're describing abuse, and doing so in the language of an abuse victim.
DeleteBut Gabriel, you’re a philosopher...you know it’s not a good enough to wave “liberal medicalized paradigm!” around as an appeal-to-authority. You’d have to explain the theory behind those value judgments. You’re essentially trying to tell me “You are unhappy or dysfunctional objectively, a priori.” But that’s at the very least question-begging. Isn’t that what our shared enemies claim with gay identity and stuff? You’ve decided beatings are wrong, and so then assume they “by definition” must have negative effects. You WANT them to have negative effects as much as Austin Ruse wants identifying as gay to have negative effects. But of course, plenty of paradigms (including, arguably, Freud’s) don’t reach that conclusion. (And conversely the same professionals you beg me to talk to would almost certainly promote abortion and sexual immorality and hate religion too.) So you know just deferring to their “authority” here is bad philosophy. You know that’s how ideologues operate.
ReplyDeleteSure, but accepting the consensus of experts is also how the wise respond to legitimate authority. I didn't provide a basis for trusting the medical, psychological, or legal professions because, while I recognized anybody might be suspicious of some of them, I didn't expect them *all* to be categorized as untrustworthy (at least on this subject). If I'd foreseen that then I would have conducted my argument rather differently.
DeleteThat the professionals I beg you to consult would mostly promote abortion and unchastity is perhaps true; most of the ones I've known have not, but then, most of the ones I've known have been practicing Christians, which may not be representative of the fields. That said, I again guarantee you that Christian professionals, of unimpeachable orthodoxy, would identify what you're describing as an abusive home.
I'm a little puzzled, and a put off, by your framing this in political terms. I don't see anything particularly left-wing about saying a man shouldn't beat his children -- which is not at all the same thing as saying that children don't need *discipline,* a thesis only someone who has never met a child could believe. Even corporal punishment, which I too experienced as a child, does not need to involve terror or even anger: my mother always waited to punish us (by whatever means) until she was not angry. That made an impression on me even as a child -- she had power over me, because parents always have power over their children, but she knew clearly and communicated that she was not without sin or error, and that she was taking steps to be sure she did not misuse the power she had. That's necessary in all authority, that recognition of the higher standard of righteousness that applies not only to the governed party, but to the governor. Think of St Paul's description of a husband's headship of his wife, that he should love her "as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her"; *that* is the Biblical model of power and authority in the hands of goodness.
Whether you're unhappy, I have no idea. Whether you're dysfunctional -- well, the fact that you consider rage the first principle of socialization, that the smallest facial tics of your father can make you reflexively flinch, and that even in *defending* your father's conduct you describe it as terrifying and violent, sounds horrifyingly dysfunctional. To me, those things are obviously evil and tragic; they *are* the negative effects that you say I assume a priori -- yet I'm getting them not from predictions based on a philosophy of childrearing, but from you. Obviously you don't view those things in the same light. I very much hope that I can persuade you to think otherwise.
DeleteAnger, even just anger, is not a foundation of anything: it is a reaction to wrongs real or perceived, and wrongs can only occur in an order that already exists (on the principle that something has to exist before it can get messed up). Now, humans, even the small and inexperienced ones, are sinners, and must therefore at times be corrected, and I'm not saying that anger is always wrong (which would be nuts, especially from a left-wing nutjob like myself). But *anger is not the root.* Man is made in the image of God, and while God may *show* anger in response to evils, God *is* love. That golden thread runs through every book of Scripture, the whole Catechism, every text in the Mass and the Office -- righteous anger itself exists to serve and protect holy love, not the other way around, or as some sort of balancing force. That is why I describe your statement that order is brought to the inner world of children "by the Rage of the Father" is fundamentally skewed and symptomatic of abuse; victims, especially children, often rewrite the world they live in to justify the anguish they're experiencing, because a world that makes sense is generally preferable to a chaotic one, even if "sense" is horrible.
The mention of flinching, even as an adult, at your father's smallest gestures, especially taken in combination with the statement that "our very bodies are controlled by forces greater than ourselves", is again a normal symptom of abuse. While there is truth in that statement, your father is not one of those greater forces. Our control over our bodies isn't absolute, because "the laws of nature and of nature's God" govern them. But your father is not a law of nature, and he is not its god. Your body is *yours* to steward (otherwise we could hardly pledge our bodies to our spouses in marriage); God did not give it to anybody else; physical and sexual abusers, for their differing reasons, both usurp that authority, and diminish or destroy the victim's sense of it as preliminary and justification for their outrages.
And yes, parents must take some responsibility for their children's bodies, especially when they are young. But again, the Scriptural model of authority makes those who have been granted power *servants* of those who are subject to them, not unconditional masters who can do as they please. It is God, not parents, who *created* the child, and they will have to answer to him.