We present here a series of essays highlighting societal hypocrisy. We invite readers to send their comments or perhaps come up with guest essays of their own.
Misappropriation
Staff Report
July 13, 2023Clarence Thomas seems to have found comfort in an association named after a nineteenth century author who embodied our values. Is misappropriation of Horatio Alger's values by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans another example of hypocrisy? (Click on the underlined word to find out.)
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Undeveloped Brains
Brandon Conway
March 31, 2023The notion that the brains of young people are not developed well enough for them to make the mature decisions expected of adults has been gaining wide currency lately. One has to wonder whether such a conclusion based on dubious research is a convenient way of excusing poor parenting and a dearth of effective social programs. Setting age limits is a much easier way of controlling exuberant youth than is the crafting of sound social policy. Our elected representatives are not generally known for the hard work needed for good and effective laws.
When it comes to sex, the age limit is generally 18. That age also frees the individual to join the military and perhaps indulge his passion for killing.
Outside of this narrow exception for mayhem, things are much grimmer. We recently heard of a life sentence given to a boy, Aiden Fucci, who committed a horrendous crime when he was fourteen. He stabbed a girl 114 times.
Do not think that I am not equally horrified by the brutality when I pose questions not addressed by the media. Why stab 114 times? Many of the wounds were defensive, but wouldn’t much fewer stabs have done the actual killing? Would a single deadly stab have yielded Aiden a much more lenient sentence that took into account his putative undeveloped brain? After all, one well-placed stab can kill as effectively as 114. It is the brutality that made for equally brutal retribution and thereby for the public to be satisfied. Why so many stabs? What were Ayden's motives? Was anyone able to adequately explain the boy’s fury?
***Giving him a lobotomy would be just as brutally punitive.***
A boy locked up continuously into adulthood without the opportunity to engage with the wider world does nothing good for his “undeveloped” brain. Giving him a lobotomy would be just as brutally punitive. Would not a well-designed program of rehabilitation be the more humane and effective solution? Such has worked well for even adult criminals whose brains are supposedly more developed than that of a 14-year-old. This, unfortunately, would not satisfy the justly aggrieved parents, but society as a whole would benefit from successfully rehabilitated errant youngsters.
We are faced with a perhaps more relevant but unexamined question. Was it really Aiden’s undeveloped brain that led him to his unforgiveable crime? It is a truism that it takes a village to bring up a child. Where was that village for him? Where were the parents? Where were other mentors? No one seems to be giving answers.
An interesting and revealing case in point giving us some answers is that of Charles Whitman, the University of Texas tower sniper who in 1966 killed his mother, then his wife to then go on to the university at Austin, climb up the university clock tower and shoot 16 people dead and wound 31 others. His documented childhood sheds a bright light on how a child’s environment and not his undeveloped brain caused his delayed explosively terrible outburst. What is undisputed is that Charles Whitman’s young life was rigidly and completely controlled by his father. Deviances from the father’s demands and resistance to his absolute control were met with physical and emotional abuse. Slacking off in any way was not tolerated. Young Charles Whitman had no time off, no opportunity to make and learn from his own mistakes. Leisure and unsupervised play, recognized as necessary by most child advocates, was a luxury totally denied him.
***We have now become inured to these almost daily deadly events.***
In the decades preceding and following 1966, mass shootings by children were unheard of. We have now become inured to these almost daily deadly events. What we can definitely identify is a general absence of freedom given to children today. That lack is not as severe as that experienced by young Whitman but it can nevertheless be damaging to young psyches especially when combined with poor parent and auxiliary adult influences. Even young children were once allowed to roam freely after school with their peers as long as they were back by supper*. Children of poverty with working parents, known as latchkey kids, were given their own keys on a lanyard to be able to freely come and go. Of course, children not yet acclimated into adult culture made mistakes, but murder was far from the usual mischief expected of little adults in training.
Today, for most children, a good deal of their lives is fenced in by school and other adult institutions. Allowing young children to go alone in a park is generally viewed as child abuse. “Stranger danger” though vanishingly small looms large in the public mind and further ties the child to the control of the state.
Just as the effects of climate change cannot be attributed to a single destructive weather event, so is the general lack today of opportunity for kids to experiment freely with their peers not attributable to a single mass killing. But when such happen with incredible frequency, we need to think beyond simplistic causes.
* This was exemplified by the 1969 Prince Spaghetti TV add showing the boy Anthony running home for supper after an afternoon of free play. A video of this iconic commercial is easily found on the Internet.
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April 11, 2023The following cartoon is an interpretation of the current controversy relating to Brooke Shields’ experience as a child actor in Pretty Baby at age eleven and later in a Calvin Klein commercial. We have no direct knowledge of exactly how she feels about her experience today. What cannot be denied is that her success belies the popular belief of harm due to certain disapproved of childhood experiences. If harm can be attributed, it is more likely due to popular hysteria surrounding taboo subjects.
