Last night, I read RenaRF's poignant
diary recounting her experience of being tortured in high school. She reflected on how gay-bashers continue as adults to act the way her tormentors did. I suspected that this was the kind of writing that I would think about for days. Indeed, when I woke up this morning, I remembered a scene that hadn't occurred to me for years. Oddly enough, it brought me back to lungfish's more overtly political
thoughts on what seemed to be a very different subject.
One day a decade ago, when I was in my twenties, I went out for a walk in the modest suburb where I lived. I saw a bunch of boys playing in a yard. One boy had seized a smaller boy's cap and was waving it around out of his reach. Other boys might have been helping the bigger boy -- I don't remember -- but they certainly weren't helping the smaller one. I stopped and watched. They became aware of me and they also stopped moving. I shouted, "Why don't you just give him his cap back?" At that, the taller boy shrugged and dropped the cap on the ground as though it were garbage he had picked up by mistake. To my surprise, I heard an adult female voice from behind me across the street: "People should mind their own business." I had no idea how to respond, so I didn't even acknowledge her, and walked on down the street. When I described the scene to my friend at work the next day, she suspected that the woman was a relative of one of the bigger boys, a possibility that hadn't occurred to me.
As I reflected on the episode, it struck me that there was no reason for that boy to have responded to me at all. I was a stranger. He might not have known it, but there was no way I was going to enter someone else's property on account of this dispute. I might not have even been able to outrun the kids and rescue the cap. And I certainly was not inclined to use physical force. But my interest was enough to surprise them and change the dynamics. It was a successful intervention, or so it seemed to me. Apparently, the woman across the street disagreed.
I never spoke with this woman, much less involved myself in a philosophical discussion with her. But if I were to guess what kind of argument she would offer, it might be something along the lines that kids need to learn how to fight for themselves. Oddly enough, I don't disagree with that general statement. But I do think that (1) the circumstances of a particular situation need to be taken into account, (2) learning cannot always be left to experience, (3) kids must reach a certain state of development (which differs by individual) before they are able to defend themselves, and (4) mob dynamics can overwhelm fairness.
Even if that afternoon scene were to stretch out for weeks, I suspect that there would be nothing that that small boy was going to learn except that the world was unfair. With age, he might have acquired the same ability to cut losses that the older boy had -- to pretend he didn't want the cap after all, in which case it might have been dropped, or left unguarded. Or rather than trying to reach the cap itself, which was out of reach, he could have realized that the taller boy's lower body made a better target, and punched him in the thigh. Or he could have waited for the proper opportunity to steal or threaten to damage some possession of the older boy, and thereby use it as collateral for retrieving his own property. But none of those realizations was about to occur to that kid, at that age, on that day. Furthermore, they would require that the mob would not intervene on the larger boy's behalf.
It strikes me that the predominant conservative mindset of our day is very much like that of the woman across the street. Furthermore, it has painted the liberal mindset as being the polar opposite: excessive intervention at every level. Certainly, we are familiar with overbearing policies imposed by school boards ostensibly in order to protect children but probably in an attempt to shield the administration. And we know of other micromanaged disasters as well. I think there is plenty of room to discuss the proper degree and method for involvement, be it in a school, or an economy, or a foreign country. But present-day conservatives seem to take the position that in almost every situation, the best intervention is no intervention at all. UPDATE: Except, of course, to make sure that our children are spared from scientific fact and that unwanted fetuses are "saved." Thanks to "besieged by bush" for pointing that out.
I think that the scene I described, and especially RenaRF's experience, put the lie to that assertion. But what is worse is that it blinds people to the fact that intervention will always happen; it's just that if we leave people to their own devices, the intervention will be on behalf of the powerful against the powerless. Thus we have our supposedly laissez-faire government subsidizing oil companies, or allowing Halliburton to steal money from taxpayers and actively shielding it from punishment.
Yesterday, lungfish objected to kos's representation of liberal Democrats as a dying breed who believed that government was the solution to everything. On the contrary, lungfish said, most liberal Democrats have never believed this, but their political opponents have always claimed they did. If one is trying to draw up a dichotomy, be it between inefficient Democrats and economically savvy Republicans, or old-school Democrats and daring gate-crashers, such characterizations are useful. But if we believe them, we run the risk of forgetting what separates us from the no-intervention-ever crowd. I think it's also worth pointing out that "peacekeeping" intervention can act as a catalyst. We may not be able to be everywhere that one person is being cruel to another, but by criticizing and correcting the incidents we see, we build an environment where future incidents become less likely. Even those who would be too passive to defend the powerless will be able to sense that there's no point in siding with the tyrants.
RenaRF's school did nothing to prevent students from cruelty that could have led her to kill herself. The woman across the street seemed content to allow a boy's possessions to be stolen. Republicans want to dismantle the regulations that protect the environment and those who live in it. I think these are all of the same cloth.