Abusive Governments

A reader named Wayne wrote me recently and raised the issue of whether governments are abusive. He made comparisons between abusive relationships and abusive governments. I have given this some thought.

One essential component of an abusive relationship is the ability to stop someone from getting away from you. In other words, to control their freedom of movement and stop them from leaving the abusive relationship.

Being in Eastern Europe for two years now reminds me that the Soviets did not allow people to leave the countries they controlled. Now compare this to the laws that say teenagers under 18 also cannot leave the countries they happen to be born into. And compare this with a black person in the USA in the early to mid 1800's who was born into slavery.

Think also of the relationship students have to their schools. Can they leave when they want and need to? Or will they be punished? IE will they be hurt if they leave or try to? Will they be physically stopped from leaving? Or will they be threatened if they try to leave and told they must stay? Will they be punished if they don't attend the school at the government mandated times?

Most governments have succeeded in convincing the majority of the people that school is necessary, therefore it is acceptable to hurt, threaten and punish young people who do not attend school. Most governments also have succeeded in convincing the majority of the people that the laws that stop a teenager from leaving the country are for the teenager's own good. I wonder if the Soviets also tried to tell the people that the laws which stopped them from leaving were for the good of the people.

In South America I heard it said that "Te pego porque te amo". I hit you because I love you.

But I have never known a child to tell me that they felt loved when they were being hit. (See "Good Mum" link below.) So who do we believe? The child or the adult? Do we believe the teenager who says they feel controlled and unfree or the government who says they are free and that it is all for the teenager's own good?

This reminds me of Alice Miller's book "For your own good." (Link below)

I have often thought of how when the people of Eastern Europe wanted to get away from the oppressive communist governments, they were literally shot, for example, if they tried to climb the Berlin wall. Instead of making the countries places where people voluntarily wanted to stay, they made it more painful for them to leave.

Many school systems now do the same thing. Instead of making schools more interesting and more pleasurable, they simply are raising the level of punishment for anyone who doesn't attend. I have seen a definite trend around the world in increasing penalties for not going to school, not a trend in making schools more interesting with a goal that more students will want to voluntarily go.

By they way, I have asked many young people around the world if they would go to school if they didn't have to and the majority say "yes". When I ask why, the number one answer is, "to see my friends." So this tells me that it would be relatively easy to get students to come to school because they already have one strong, natural incentive to go. It also tells me that if students don't want to go to school, it is more likely that there is something wrong with the school and education system, rather than with the student.

Traveling around the world has helped me see things more clearly. Listening to teenagers and children has also helped. As I travel I constantly meet people from other countries in the hostels. I share rooms with them for a night or two. I ask them questions about their beliefs, their countries and schools. Most of the people I meet are convinced that nearly everything that was done to them was done for their own good. Thus, they can be expected to do the same thing to their children.

I believe it takes a rare person to rise above their own society and culture. Or maybe it is partly luck and fortune. I certainly didn't plan to be a philosopher or try to help prevent teens from killing themselves when I sold my business at age 35 and started traveling. I didn't plan on making a website or writing a book. In fact, the Internet didn't even exist when I was 35. I suppose I had the "good luck" to have been born in the USA, during a time when there was still actually what now seems like a lot of freedom.

When I was 15 I could leave home and not go to school and almost nothing would happen. I am pretty sure I could skip up to thirty days without much happening. Now schools are reporting teenagers to the parents if they don't show up and most people just accept this and even think it is a good thing and necessary thing. If children and teens don't want to go to school, then we must force them to. It is for their own good right?

But I wonder how much pain we are willing to inflict on children and teenagers to get them to do what we want. I also wonder if we would accept this same level of pain for training animals. I suspect that many people would be shocked to see us locking up dolphins or dogs in a prison if they didn't do what we wanted. Yet few people in the USA are shocked that teenagers in some school districts can now be locked up for not going to school. I am encouraged to see, though, that Europeans and virtually everyone else I talk to from other countries find this almost incredible. Just like they find it almost incredible that teenagers are now being stopped from hugging in more and more schools in the USA. (Link below)

I really feel sorry for any intelligent, sensitive teenager living in a country where they can not hug their friends and where they do not have freedom of movement, and who does not have open minded parents they can talk to and get the permission they are required to have in order to meet their needs. That is an odd concept. A person needs permission to meet their own needs. I'd say there is something inherently wrong with that.

I'd say that if you are in any kind of relationship where you need someone else's permission to fill your own natural survival needs, including your emotional needs, then it is an abusive relationship. If you need permission to get away from someone who is hurting you, then it is an abusive relationship because those that have the power to stop you from leaving are stopping you from doing what is in your own best interest. Even worse, they are convincing most of you that actually what they are dong is in fact in your own best interest and that might be the biggest lie of all. I wouldn't say that most people who repeat such things are deliberately lying, though. Most of them sincerely believe what they have been told. Just like Muslims sincerely believe what they have been told, Jews sincerely believe what they have been told and Christians sincerely believe what they have been told. The problem is, or one of the problems, is that there are conflicting things being said. (For example, I was told by a Muslim that anyone who is not a Muslim will go to Hell. I have also been told by many Christians that anyone who is not a Christian will go to Hell.)

In a non-abusive relationship, a person would be free to learn about other beliefs. They would also be free to actually move to a place where other beliefs are put into practice. Yet teenagers are not allowed by their governments to move to places with other beliefs. For example, 17 year olds in Israel are not allowed to move to a country which doesn't believe in forced military service. Another example is that 17 year olds in countries where gays are not tolerated cannot move to Holland where gays can get married. For a suicidal gay teen, they may never make it to age 18 when they can legally travel without the permission of their parents.

For many years I have worked with emotionally abused teenagers. Some of them are so abused they have been convinced they deserve to be hurt and punished. A few of them, though, have realized they don't live in physically or psychologically safe places, yet they cannot leave. It is unnatural for us to stay in situations where we are being hurt or even frightened. It is natural for us to want to get away. The laws that stop teenagers from leaving are therefore unnatural. Those laws do not actually protect teenagers. They protect the status quo.

Just as the laws that stopped the Soviets and the slaves from getting away from those who were using, abusing and controlling them didn't protect either the slaves or those unfortunate enough to have been born in the Soviet Union, the laws that stop teenagers from choosing where they live and what they do don't protect them -- they protect those in power.

The way such laws protect those in power is as follows. If you cannot get away from someone, then they have access to both your body and your mind. As long as they can use both to serve their own goals, their status and power is safe. If they can use you to fight their wars, for example, and to defend and protect them, they are safe. If they can use you to perpetuate their beliefs, they are also safe psychologically. They don't have to feel threatened by beliefs which oppose theirs and cause discomfort for them. I heard someone say that the purpose of education is to reproduce society. If students' beliefs are carbon copies of those who control the government and the education system, then those in power can sleep more soundly at night. But if enough young people start to believe something new, then those in power will feel threatened and no longer will feel safe. This may especially be true in so called democratic societies because those in power can be voted out. Therefore controlling the schools is especially important. That might be why I have actually seen more freedom in the schools in post-Soviet countries like Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania than I see in the USA or England.

Through my travels I have seen different examples of abusive relationships. What I have never seen is a country which really gives freedom to teenagers. I have not yet been to a country which a) does not punish them for not going to schools and b) does not stop them from leaving before they are 18. Some countries are less strict about punishing them for not attending schools or for running away from abusive parents, for example, South American countries, where they don't have the resources to enforce the laws. But all countries with border controls will stop a 17 year old from leaving without their parents' permission. Imagine a Muslim parent giving their teen permission to leave a Muslim country and go to a non-Muslim country. It is hard to picture, isn't it? In the same way I would say it is hard to picture many American or British parents giving their 16 or 17 year old permission to leave the USA or England. People in such countries have been so convinced that all the laws are "good" and "necessary" that they now really believe in them. That is one reason they wouldn't allow their 17 year old to leave. Another is that some are afraid the teen might never come back. If a parent loses their children forever, then who will take care of the parent when the parents are old?

In the past parents depended on family members. If they treated their children so badly that the children wanted to get away from them, and never wanted to come back, then their chances of survival would be much lower. I suspect this was the original reason for passing laws saying a child cannot run away from their parents. I also want to point out, in case it is not obvious, that no child would want to leave a home that is safe and secure. If a child or teen wants to get away from his or her parents, there is a good reason. In other words there is a serious problem in the home. The child or teen's needs are not being met. If their needs are not being met, then they are not safe. If they are not safe, they need protection. But they need protection from their parents. In the USA they used to have a department called CPS - Child Protection Services. Now I believe they have renamed it. But one of their jobs was to remove children from abusive homes. Now we need some kind of international organization which has the power to remove children and teenagers from abusive governments.

Slowly the laws about abuse have changed. What was once considered normal parenting, for example, hitting your child, is now considered abuse in many countries. (Although in many states in the USA it is still legal to hit students in schools. See www.nospank.net for example). But though the thinking about physical abuse is changing, emotional abuse is still widely accepted. Calling a child or teen selfish, for example, is accepted without question by most people I talk to from all countries. Most people do not see it as abuse since most of them have been called selfish and think they deserved it.

I would also say that, generally speaking, government controlled schools are emotionally abusive. They are abusive because they are based on abusive relationships between school authorities and students. I won't detail all the ways I see the school-student relationship as abusive. I will just mention the ability to punish and to control the students' movements and even eating since students in many schools are not allowed to eat when they want to, but only at certain scheduled times.Such a simple thing as having a drink of water is even controlled in many schools. Students may not be allowed to have a bottle of water at their desk or they may have to ask permission before they get up and go get a drink from a fountain in the hall.

Schools, through their schedules, also control students' sleep. For example, the abused teens I have known typically have trouble sleeping at night. Yet even if they fell asleep very late, say four or five in the morning, they are forced to get up at around 7 or so in order to be at school.

So we can summarize that abusive relationships control your movements, your eating, your activities, and what you do with your mind. In schools they can also stop you from talking to people you want to talk to. It is natural to talk to your friends, but schools have been given the power to control this, too. Parents also can control who you talk to. With the Internet parents are facing a new threat - the possibility their teenager might get ideas from a far away country.... Ideas that radically challenge the parents' power base. Many parents are scared of the Internet. They say they are afraid of child molesters etc. But the greatest danger is actually the threat to the parents' belief system. As teenagers around the world become more connected, more united, more informed we may eventually see real changes in society. The teenagers may realize they are currently in abusive relationships and they may in time correct this by giving more real freedom to their own children. Those children, when adults, may even vote to change the laws which now support institutionalized abusive relationships such as those in governments and schools.

S. Hein
May, 2010
Montenegro

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Links

Notes from "For Your Own Good" by Alice Miller

The Good Mum - How a child feels when her mother hits her.

Punished for Hugging

Abusive Environments

Emotionally Abusive Schools

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