August 6, 2008
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Institutionalized Abuse
One thing that is rarely spoken of that is a sort of taboo is those situations where cultural sensitivity clashes directly with principals of ethics and justice. There are lots of examples of this. Religious indoctrination is a good one to analyze. As is enforced marriage traditions. Or any kind of cultural tradition that restricts personal choice and freedom.
But when things start to get really serious is when we start to deal with culturally institutionalized abuse. The simplest example is “beatings” as a part of child rearing. This is as a tricky situation because it is a manner in which behavior trends are passed on to children as part of their culture. However, modern cultures limit that behavior strongly for one very important reason. The tradition of beatings empowers and validates the sadistic use of that educational act. That is a cruel and malevolent sadist who lives in the society or even just a person with a grudge or a sick mind, can in effect hide behind the traditions and use it to do harm upon someone who is innocent and defenseless. That’s why “beatings” are taken seriously by modern society. It has nothing to do with political correctness or being wishy washy.
And yet the physical abuse is really easy to catch and deal with compared to other systems of Institutionalized Abuse. In some cultures the traditions are set up in such a way that they allow the heads of family to have total control over members of the society with less standings. As a consequence, certain malicious entities can, when born into that system, use the power afforded them by the society itself to be Emotionally and Psychologically abusive to whomever is afforded the least respect. Their twisted egos are boosted on the backs of of the members of the society who lack face or are dishonored. They can, in effect, redirect all blame and shame onto the heads of others and feel perfectly satisfied in doing so. It ends up being a sort of Cinderella story in many cases. Where the faceless members of the society are effective slaves of the higher classed family members.
The worst part about these situations is the abusers often don’t know they are in the wrong. The cultural traditions in which they are born constantly validated their behavior. They believe they are superior and they have a right to do those things. They honestly come to believe deep down that they are not in the wrong and that the others the ones with less standings that they criticize actually are to blame for all that goes wrong in their lives. The older the persons are the more strongly ingrained this belief will be and the harder it will be to instill different values in them.
Of course any individual who can knowingly cause emotional and psychological duress upon another is fully responsible for the harm he or she has caused and should be held accountable, but the real problem here is the social traiditon. It’s the culture that validates and empowers these individuals. It’s the acceptability of it that increases the probability of harm being caused and increases the intensity of the harm caused.
To correct systems like this we actually would have to interfere with the cultural traditions of many groups and peoples right? And that would cause harm to the good that is carried along with those traditions. So what do we do?
Unfortunately as with many matters of justice, the way it will turn out, whether we want it to be that way or not, is that the future will have to work itself out. As economies improve and increasing generations develop a greater understanding of the principles of morality and the desire for freedom and then the traditions evolve to become more rational… from the ground up. It will take the rebellions of the underclasses again and again and it is important for the society as a whole to support these people in their doing our jobs of creating the future for us.
Comments (6)
My Mum’s a principal, and last year a family of four children were admitted to the school. From the onset of the year, my mother identified what are called “red flags” for abuse in these children. This family moves often, to reclusive homes away from a lot of city life. And they mostly keep to themselves.
It’s really terribly sad, because though she’s very sure there’s an element of abuse, it’s kept under clean wraps.
I wish that things could change now.
Those kids don’t deserve it.
Would we have to interfere? Or could we find some way of educating adults and children alike so that they can change their own futures? Regardless of culture, race, sex or religion, there are always going to be people who ‘get off on’ being powerful, whether it be emotionally or physically and that itself won’t change. But perhaps as society evolves - and cultures become more intertwined - folk [children] will ‘learn’ that the choices they make should be morally acceptable to themselves and should not be based on outdated cultural traditions. It’s difficult to take hundreds of years of cultural tradition and admit that it might be wrong …
@Katiefinger - We can and do educate. In fact if the people live in an advanced society they are inundated with education through television and media that very clearly supports values of tolerance, compassion, and acceptance.
However, many of the people I am refferring to are very old. And it’s really hard to tell someone who is 60 or 70 years old that hey your entire way of life, that your parents taught you and that their grandparents taught them is not only wrong but cruel to the point of being inhuman. The will get their back up. They will see you as trying to destroy their culture and their entire way of life.
Worse they will point to all the things that are wrong with modern society. The suicides. The killing sprees. The children who seem to care only for themselves and have no motivation and argue convincingly that these things are for the most part caused by an abandonment of traditions and values of the past and replacing them with so called enlightened values.
And they will have a very good point.
The thing is, still those people who are the victims don’t deserve to be the victims of an unjust system. And everyone knows it. We educate them and we educate their parents and their grandparents as best we can. But in the end they have to stand up for themselves. They have to change the system or abandon it entirely to claim their freedom…. Or else suffer and wait for the last generation to die off.
@nephyo - To quote you … We can and do educate. In fact if the people live in an advanced society they are inundated with education through television and media that very clearly supports values of tolerance, compassion, and acceptance. Do you really believe that the media portrays society as tolerant and compassionate? It is the ‘education’ gained through the media that will be the downfall of society at large. Education needs to be personalised and needs to reflect an understanding of what these people have come from and where they wish to go with their traditions in order to fully fit into what many see to be a moral and ethical society.
I realised you were talking about older people, hence my statement about society evolving and cultures becoming intertwined for the children of the children of the children of folk who moved away from their own countries and communities. Cultures are continually evolving, regardless of their origins. History is inundated with examples of this. Society [and those who make up that society] has to shift to keep up with change, and in the contemporary world the change is fast and great to the point of making people dizzy and wary.
I get the impression that the ‘unjust system’ is changing; that younger generations are liberating themselves from the ‘oppression’ without losing the respect for the heart of their culture or traditions, or the respect of their elders. But that’s only my view from the other side of the pond, and we all know that the English culture is far removed from the American culture even without all the other little cultural-nuances thrown in.
I’m making myself dizzy now. I think that deep down we’re on the same page; we’re just looking at it from different angles.
Ah, I love a good banter, even when it does confuse me!
as a person that was “beatten” quite a lot when she was little. i’m sure my parents only did that because they were beatten as kids too. they didn’t hurt nearly as badly as they were hurt… judging from the stories my aunts and uncles told about my grandparents.
as an adult now, when i have kids i know i won’t hit my kids as hard as my parents did, but i’m sure I might grab them too hard or slap on the hand, i might not mean to do it but it is a little of what i learned from my parents and i probably won’t be able to help but i will try my hardest to make sure it doesn’t happen often.
i think as a society we can only teach what’s wrong and write and as humans we could try be a little better than the gerenation before ours.
we can’t fix these things right now but slowly slowly, one step at a time we can make life a little better.
@Laryssa - Yes, they definitely don’t deserve it. Stories like this make me so sad. I hate that the system in which we live makes it really hard to intervene. I know people need their freedom and independence to raise their children as they see fit and I wouldn’t want to impede on those rights, but there has to be some kind of rational limit. I wish there were ways to help more people now.
@raindrops23 - you are absolutely right. It’s the slow and sure part of it that makes me sad though. A lot of people are hurt and changed by the abuse they receive. Sometimes it takes a lot to get over it. Especially emotional and verbal abuse. Someone’s entire self image can be nearly irreconcilably crushed by that kind of abuse and even if the adults were just doing what they learned from their parents and thought it was for the best, it’s still a terrible thing.
But I think at least we are getting better faster than we ever have. That you won’t beat your children like your parents did you but *will* be stern enough with them to occassionally slap their hand or gab them a little hard I think is actually a really good thing. Children do need that sometimes if only to protect them from things they don’t know about that could cause them harm. It means you will take the good from how your parents raised you and integrate it with your own experiences and end up being a wonderful parent for your children. And though you’ll probably make some mistakes, you’ll pass on to your children what they need to know to be even better parent to their children. That does give me hope.