Spot-on essay

[sathari]

This is an amazingly important piece, IMO, on the role of child development in democracy by Dr. Stacey Patton: "You Can't Raise Children To Obey and Expect Them To Defend Democracy"

(Notes: I edited this post a couple of times because parts of it appear to have gone missing; also, I used "trans rights" as a tag because it's discussed in the piece though not the whole focus, and "strategy" because it's laying the foundations for a very long-term strategy indeed for raising citizens of a democracy.)

Comments

[otter]

This is it in a nutshell:
"So we gotta stop thinking about MAGA as simply a political movement. It is a mass trauma response organized around whiteness, obedience, resentment, punishment, and the erotic thrill of watching vulnerable people be made to suffer. Read that sentence again."

[sathari]

Yes, and the trauma isn't a single instant or event, it's pervasive and happening during the time in which we're most receptive and therefore vulnerable to our environments. And that's more than just allowed, it's all too often socially encouraged/supported/promoted.

[otter]

I see it all too often and I want to protect all those children and bring kindness into their lives. I couldn't prevent all the trauma that happened when my sons were children, but I've been told I succeeded in my mission of raising them into adults that are kind, compassionate, thinking and caring - ie not more white male assholes.

[dewline]

Bingo.

This is why I got to read 1984, Inherit the Wind and so on in high school. Why we got to see footage from liberated concentration camps on Remembrance Day in high school.

[lightbird]

Thank you for sharing this article. It's terrific and really is spot on.

There has been talk around me on social media, etc. about the relationship of abused to abuser with regard to our politics, but this really gets at the core of that.

[sathari]

Yes, indeed!

[sathari]

So glad you appreciated it! I'd been kicking around a bunch of related ideas, but Dr. Patton got there before me and nailed the sheer pervasiveness of it.