There are those who want to take away suffering and pain, and those who want to teach people how to be resilient despite it.
This basic approach underlies a number of different views - do we cut down the lower branches of trees so children don't get hurt climbing them? Or no? Do we limit how high we build a swingset?
Some will say that we just can't make the world safe enough. That we would have to put everyone in full padding, pad all the corners, smooth out all the streets and steps. Safe is unrealistic. Teaching people how to safely manage risks, how to identify and avoid dangers...that's more realistic. (Though there's risk, of course. Children can break bones or even die falling out of a tree. In the abstract, accepting the risk seems realistic. When it comes to your child, are you still willing to accept those risks?)
I was thinking about this with regards to First Amendment rights, classic liberalism, and freedom of speech. The old school liberal would say "we need to tolerate all speech, even the worst of it. In an open marketplace for ideas, the best will rise to the top and the worst will fail." There's a confidence there, a belief that we, as a society, are strong enough and will make wise enough choices that we don't need to be afraid of the worst. The haters, the conspiracy theorists, etc.
So why, then, do we have the 'new' liberalism? The focus on being politically correct? On creating safe places?
I read an article that covered something relevant, a pretty good article that discussed what made some children resilient even when faced with pretty horrific situations. It's a great article and worth reading in it's entirety. I'm only focusing on a few small pieces, because they illustrate a few important things.
First of all - resilient children have at least one person who truly believes in them. It doesn't have to be their mother or father, but they need someone to believe in them. (This, btw, is why I'm a Big Sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Study after study shows that this sort of long term and involved caring works. I encourage anyone and everyone to volunteer, to join as a mentor, or just to donate the funds so they can keep doing what they do.)
To bring this back to freedom of speech - yes, we all should learn to have confidence and grow a thick skin. There will always be haters, there will always be prejudiced, bigoted, fill-in-the-blank people. Yet it's hard to have that confidence, hard to shrug off those words...if you don't have someone who believes in you and tells you a different story.
For me? I never really paid much attention to what color dolls came in, or how a character on TV was portrayed. I listen, though. And for every story of a minority kid who didn't care (read one recently where the parents received the wrong toy, a white doll when they deliberately ordered a black one for their little girl...and the little girl hadn't noticed and didn't really care) there's another one who gets all excited and amazed that they found a doll that's just like them.
If you have a child who is told every day that they are stupid. By their mother, their father, their teacher...if every day they are told they are stupid, we can't really expect them to turn around and shrug it off. To say "no, I'm really smart, despite all of you". That's called verbal abuse.
So the people who are pushing for political correctness have realized that we, as a society, send messages to people 'not like us' that (for people who don't have that source of support to make them resilient) can be overwhelmingly powerful. That you are lazy. You are stupid. You are less than others. You are dishonest. Untrustworthy. Going to hell. A wimp. Less important than others.
And they are trying to address that, by changing the messages we send.
What would be better, of course, is to build resilience. Considering how hard it is for my program to find Bigs, however, that's not easy to do. So many people are not willing to make that kind of long term commitment.
Which is a shame, because I think it's the only thing that truly works. Sure, there are charities that do good work. They either create that context for long-term involvement, or they are dependent on a number of factors to be successful. Many, unfortunately, aren't as successful as they hope. You can read up on that if you want, lot's of reports and studies have explored why that is.
Personally? I think any attempt at charity that comes across as patronizing, holier-than-thou, or a fly by will probably not work out too well in the long term. And the sub-text of a lot of charities have these elements.
This is not meant to say it's hopeless, or that we should give up, or stop trying. Even if there's an element working against you, some help may be better than none. It's just to say that we need to admit there are no easy answers, that trying to find answers requires a certain level of commitment and involvement.
This basic approach underlies a number of different views - do we cut down the lower branches of trees so children don't get hurt climbing them? Or no? Do we limit how high we build a swingset?
Some will say that we just can't make the world safe enough. That we would have to put everyone in full padding, pad all the corners, smooth out all the streets and steps. Safe is unrealistic. Teaching people how to safely manage risks, how to identify and avoid dangers...that's more realistic. (Though there's risk, of course. Children can break bones or even die falling out of a tree. In the abstract, accepting the risk seems realistic. When it comes to your child, are you still willing to accept those risks?)
I was thinking about this with regards to First Amendment rights, classic liberalism, and freedom of speech. The old school liberal would say "we need to tolerate all speech, even the worst of it. In an open marketplace for ideas, the best will rise to the top and the worst will fail." There's a confidence there, a belief that we, as a society, are strong enough and will make wise enough choices that we don't need to be afraid of the worst. The haters, the conspiracy theorists, etc.
So why, then, do we have the 'new' liberalism? The focus on being politically correct? On creating safe places?
I read an article that covered something relevant, a pretty good article that discussed what made some children resilient even when faced with pretty horrific situations. It's a great article and worth reading in it's entirety. I'm only focusing on a few small pieces, because they illustrate a few important things.
First of all - resilient children have at least one person who truly believes in them. It doesn't have to be their mother or father, but they need someone to believe in them. (This, btw, is why I'm a Big Sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. Study after study shows that this sort of long term and involved caring works. I encourage anyone and everyone to volunteer, to join as a mentor, or just to donate the funds so they can keep doing what they do.)
To bring this back to freedom of speech - yes, we all should learn to have confidence and grow a thick skin. There will always be haters, there will always be prejudiced, bigoted, fill-in-the-blank people. Yet it's hard to have that confidence, hard to shrug off those words...if you don't have someone who believes in you and tells you a different story.
For me? I never really paid much attention to what color dolls came in, or how a character on TV was portrayed. I listen, though. And for every story of a minority kid who didn't care (read one recently where the parents received the wrong toy, a white doll when they deliberately ordered a black one for their little girl...and the little girl hadn't noticed and didn't really care) there's another one who gets all excited and amazed that they found a doll that's just like them.
If you have a child who is told every day that they are stupid. By their mother, their father, their teacher...if every day they are told they are stupid, we can't really expect them to turn around and shrug it off. To say "no, I'm really smart, despite all of you". That's called verbal abuse.
So the people who are pushing for political correctness have realized that we, as a society, send messages to people 'not like us' that (for people who don't have that source of support to make them resilient) can be overwhelmingly powerful. That you are lazy. You are stupid. You are less than others. You are dishonest. Untrustworthy. Going to hell. A wimp. Less important than others.
And they are trying to address that, by changing the messages we send.
What would be better, of course, is to build resilience. Considering how hard it is for my program to find Bigs, however, that's not easy to do. So many people are not willing to make that kind of long term commitment.
Which is a shame, because I think it's the only thing that truly works. Sure, there are charities that do good work. They either create that context for long-term involvement, or they are dependent on a number of factors to be successful. Many, unfortunately, aren't as successful as they hope. You can read up on that if you want, lot's of reports and studies have explored why that is.
Personally? I think any attempt at charity that comes across as patronizing, holier-than-thou, or a fly by will probably not work out too well in the long term. And the sub-text of a lot of charities have these elements.
This is not meant to say it's hopeless, or that we should give up, or stop trying. Even if there's an element working against you, some help may be better than none. It's just to say that we need to admit there are no easy answers, that trying to find answers requires a certain level of commitment and involvement.
No comments:
Post a Comment