The article by Nishisawa Satoru starts by:
The number of abuse cases handled by child guidance centers across Japan topped 100,000 for the first time last year. In this article, the author speculates why child abuse—including psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect—appear to be increasing in Japan.
What is noticeable here is that both psychological and physical abuse are taken into account. This definition of abuse also includes neglect which too is on the rise.
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| Stark rise in child abuse since the 90's |
At this point, we might rush to conclusions. What societal phenomena occurred simultaneously to this worrying trend? Can it explain to a degree why children are hit so hard? Have the standards of child abuse been changed or has the public's stance against abuse hardened suddenly? Why so many reports? Easier to report or more abuse or a bit of both.
Sexual abuse
In Europe, the last couple of years saw the rise of sexual assaults which some people would attribute to African and Middle-Eastern migrants. At this point, we can say that this seems to be the case. Child abuse however has been rampant even before the latest migrant wave arrived which is something we shouldn't forget. In US, we can remember Penn State, where people overseeing the abuse got a slap to their wrists. In UK, both in youth football clubs and boarding school there has been rampant abuse of all kinds. AP released this spring a sprawling investigation into US schools and their history on hiding both student on student and staff on student sexual abuse.
We are faced with a plague that is often hushed away. We can all read about UN peacekeepers involved in child sex rings in Haiti and Africa. All we have to show after all seems to be a slap on the wrist. I can say that I feel the situation has deteriorated over the past 20 years even though more and more people are vocal about child abuse and disciplining children with violence. Something is terribly out of place as the bullying on all levels continues.
Bullying and internet culture
One thing I can think of that has changed this past 20 years is the mainstreaming of internet and online interaction. With today's smartphones online misdeeds such bullying has entered a new arena. This has also made anonymous torment more accessibly and allowed the perpetrators to distance themselves out of harms way and to crush whatever empathy had remained when people interacted face to face. School bullying by staff and peers is ongoing, even in my native Finland it resembles something of a national sport and all that officials can do are hashtags these days. In the case of Japan, I can imagine that school context accounts for a major part of the child abuse as does home environment.
Social and political changes
Internet's reach can include both these domains, at home and at school. One major trend, at least in Japan, is the economic downturn that has held the country in its grip and continues to do so today. As parents are burdened with supporting their family, it's understandable that this rat race takes a toll to the psyche of both the adults and children. Extensive working hours and deplorable working culture can therefore account to a number of neglect, and in the case of single parent households, this situation seems to be the norm.
As the article points out, one the defining factors seems to be the demise of nuclear family, which in itself demonstrably leads to psychological strain as households lose their financial stability: "For instance, because current forms of societal resources and support for families are predicated on the norm of the nuclear family, they often do not reach families with problems like those given above." Current economic system was built on the assumption as the nuclear family as a unit, but with more divorces single parent households are struggling to make ends meet in a dwindling economy. The lack of stable psychological role models for both the father and the mother is seen by many psychologists and philosophers as a deteriorating condition on the human race as the moral structure of the society starts to crumble, when positive male and female archetypes are replaced by negative role models. University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson has extensively lectures online depicting the different aspects personality development from distinct psychological points of view.
These things are interesting additions to the rise of individuality and the role of the consumer in our society as a reinforcing negative archetype focusing on self-centered search of comfort and hedonistic mirroring. Nonetheless it would be meaningless not to investigate the deeper of this calculation. There are unfortunately people who cheer for the destruction of the traditional values and world-view and who unwittingly seem to promote harmful ideology. During the years, many have wailed over their depraved views and tried to throw the mantle on the competing ideology. In the 50's America, these people were communists or sympathizers. And some of them were, rightfully so. McCarthyism and FBI red mongering went overboard. However some these ideas were already rooted in the academia. Some people refer to them as the school of Frankfurt. Others call them cultural Neo-Marxists. Later they could be identified as mostly French post-modernists and post-structuralist academia. Jordan Peterson tells that when it become evident that class warfare wasn't happening in the West, social class warfare was turned into identity class warfare. Thus beginning in earnest the era of dismantling the regressive and traditional patriarchy, which went overboard with third and forth wave feminism.
It should go without saying that child abuse and the children as victims are in no way to blame for the treatment. However it needs to be said that more blurred lines have appeared because more people believe that they can control other people by playing the victim. When it comes to verbal abuse, sometimes the fact how the abuse affects the victim mentally plays a big role. It is to be noted that verbally abusing anybody is but in rare case considered a crime, therefore filing a complaint against someone can serve as a signal to end the practice and in some circumstances "hate speech" will lead to termination of employment as a socially acceptable punishment. It is at this point good to notice that these reactions to verbal abuse could be considered as discrimination.
Future: Bill C-16 – misgendering as abuse?
Soon we will reach the watershed moment of postmodernist policy making. In the era of identity politics, cultural appropriation, misgendering and mere disagreeing can be seen as microaggressions and now some legislatures want to classify 'hurt feelings' as abuse. In Canada, the proposed bill C-16 would just do that, instead of giving minorities protection, it would most likely make them more vulnerable to attention.
The politics of language is already very troubling. When struggling with issues like fake news and misinformation, promoting people's subjective feelings as judge, jury and executioner is the ultimate group-think malpractice. As a for a proposed, the wording in C-16 has been touted as 'very unclear' and vague making totally unsuitable for a law were it to have such room for interpretation.
In this case being mean to someone, hurting someone's feelings would be subject to face legal penalty. I can only imagine this to overburden Canada's legal system were even 1% of the "human rights cases" brought to court. Inventing a new very dubious category of psychological abuse would lead to incriminating thought and this very case the scientific consensus or backdrop is not even there. In case of bill C-16, the arguments for it are extremely flimsy and non-scientific. Besides, in my opinion, science and moral code shouldn't mix.
Another point of view to this Canada debacle is whether subjecting children to non-scientific gender-merry propaganda since early age constitutes a misdeed. Unfortunately, the politicians in Canada chose to support bill C-16. There will be a lot of confusion since the progress bill passed.
More exposed abuse - society in disease
Since Trump presidency began, there has a been a visible effort to tackle human trafficking, child pornography and pedophile rings inside the US. It is lamentable however that this effort is undermined by nonexistent MSM press coverage. Human trafficking is a large problem in Europe as well, even though many of the immigrants who pose as migrants are in fact adults when it comes to dental analysis. Nonetheless, many foreigners who are denied asylum stay behind only to work in slave conditions and in worse cases their organs are harvested. All this can be taken into account when considering the vastness of the abuse problem of which I would estimate a major part is kept out of sight.
We can certainly ascertain that the suitable conditions for aggravated child abuse range from crisis zone to industrial Western societies. It is evident that the news headlines decry the sexual emergency of young refugees who abuse the vulnerable when the everyday hushed up lingering abuses continue in our midst. It is hard to say what is more sickening. Each of us is capable of unspeakable evil. Multicultural societies have hard time facing the disparaging sight yet we must not yield to evil and look away from wrongdoing. The case in Japan is clear demonstration of this:
"Two factors account for this upsurge, the first being changes in public attitudes. It was once the norm in Japan for the community to stay out of problems involving violence and other abuse within the family, regarding them as “family affairs.” But today violence is increasingly seen as requiring societal intervention, even if it is between family members. Such changes in societal attitudes led to the Act on the Prevention of Child Abuse in 2000. This in turn triggered changes in people’s attitudes, resulting in a higher number of abuse reports."
It is indeed harder to intervene in families' internal affairs. I can expect that in multicultural societies some people avoid making a fuss because intervening in others' affairs, especially foreign looking ones, would be deemed racist or not appreciating their cultural norms. This sort of approach could be quite deservedly called political correctness. One thing we can all do is renounce double standards even though we are at times more willing to overlook our own groups transgressions. This again means that at all times we must account for our own prejudices and cognitive biases.
No matter how much we decide against it, it seems that verbal abuse including against children is spiraling out of control. This could dubbed as hate speech in some situations. I'm certain that in many countries, the law is unfamiliar with such a term, thus making its use a more pragmatic solution in trouncing the opposition in a discussion. Then again threats of imminent violence, sexual assault, rape or death could also be included in this open category. I'm sure that is illegal by any means in most Western countries. Yet we can expect it to be rampant. Every day you can see somebody on social media calling for the killing of such and such person because they think differently. We certainly have lowered the bar and allowed this to continue. It has reached the point that innocent children browsing the web can't avoid it. Many governments call for censorship first and foremost to combat hate speech, when in fact these officials are more worried about dissent and exposing elite corruption.
Drug policy failure: Rates of overdose and drug related death show similar trends.Billions on drug war that has for decades destroyed so many lives--all in the name of keeping people safe from drugs https://t.co/DwMJBp8yDE pic.twitter.com/rDFQ8tR8S4— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) 6. kesäkuuta 2017
It is possible that the illusion of a civil society has reached a breaking point. People seem dissatisfied and promote that sentiment online. The bad news is that indignation and hate are very contagious making it easy to fan up the flames of disheartened minds. I don't how much longer this can go on. At some point in time, we reach the final stop. It is more likely to economic than ideological watershed moment. We can already see that the financial elite and their trickle down models are a load of bull. If it's not self-evident at this point, it should be soon enough: a big part of the population is missing out on economic growth. The lack of future prospects creates despair. No job means no future. Despair is taking hold as a defense mechanism. Then the question is who to blame? Where can we find the otherness that constitutes an aberration? It is easy to attack the weaker party. One of the weaker parties is children. This means we can attribute some of this to the cycle of misfortune. We can then find the true culprit in failed policy and economic structure. One could sum this up: We are in the mess of our own making. The rise of child abuse is a symptom of the societal disease. All in all, this is not at all an original conclusion to this line of thinking. Some people would argue that the times were living now are the best of times. On many fronts, I think they are correct, nevertheless, it is no secret that the West is in moral and demographic decline. It remains to be seen what will serve as an antidote if it even comes to that at some future point.
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