In this entry I have decided to write about something which I not only regard as being extremely important to society, but to also write about something which will help me to revise some of my course work material for one of my papers for this semester. It may be a bit dry to read but I'm going to try and stick to the things I found particularly interesting (and hopefully anyone reading this will find these ideas interesting also).
Today I watched a thought provoking video about early childhood brain development where Dr Bruce Perry (read more about him here) discussed not only how crucial it is that children are free from abuse (emotional and physical) in their first four years of life (where he explained their brains are most malleable and most affected by their environment) but also how society as a whole needs to change some fundamental social structural norms that we now have in place. Specific ideas that he discussed in the video that I found to be particularly interesting are as follows; Racism, sexism , violence and murder are all societal constructs, emotional violence is considered greater than physical and what emotional violence is defined by (and my thoughts on this), his ideas on compartmentalization of society which I found to be not only a new idea personally but one that seemed to be of great importance to understand the benefits of. Hopefully I will be able to reiterate and discuss these ideas (or any ideas that come from them) at length without it turning into a meltdown of confused rambling :P
I really liked his ideas on racism, sexism and violence being societal/social/cultural constructs as I am always sceptical of genetic claims for certain behaviours. "Having a gene for" or "being hard wired to do x thing" always strike me as being problematic claims as there is evidence against them in everyday life. If we were all coded to be violent sex fiends (a less extreme description is often seen as being stereotypically male) then how come we aren't ALL like that? If we were so hard wired to be a certain way then how come it's relatively easy (although some would argue otherwise) to overcome and control these things? Our species success and intelligence is not built upon violence and conflict but rather empathy and co-operation. We would not posses the intelligence we have today if language did not evolve. Language would not have evolved if we were a species that didn't require a tool to enable more effective co-operation. If we can rid society of ideas that we are inherently violent hateful beings and truly understand our evolutionary origins the world would be a much better place. Dr Perry explained that high competition for resources results in stress which results in violence. If we can work on reducing this competition and this stress for each individual ( a monumental task I know) then these negative thoughts, actions and emotions that we have constructed should drop significantly.
Emotional violence has a greater effect than physical violence is something that really hits home for me. I am sure that others in the world have had it far worse off than I have but from the time I entered the turbulent and quite honestly horrific world of high school until I left I honestly think that I endured a lot of emotional violence from my peers and certain family members and I felt that no one really took my seriously when I tried to voice my concerns. This to me highlighted people's lack of understanding of the damaging effects of emotional abuse (I do not blame anyone for what I endured, like me I'm sure they were victims of circumstance. I just hope they understand this and try to take corrective action).
Dr Perry described emotional abuse as being the following "humiliation, degradation, coercion and threat of abandonment" and that they " all create a pervasive sense of threat and instability. Children who feel emotionally unsafe feel at greater risk than physical risk." He did say he's not downplaying physical risk and that the two often go hand and hand but what I think really needs to be understood is the emotional abuse. Just because you cannot see the damage doesn't mean children will toughen up or get over it or forget about it or not understand what has happened to them. I think greater care should be taken. Society needs to work on being educated on how parents should be using the authoritative parenting style and ensure parents are in the right situation to do so. *rant* I am sick to death of the old fashioned mind set that children should do everything they are told without question and if they do anything wrong (e.g. question why something is happening) they are punished physically or emotionally. This to me is so wrong and I'd almost go as far to say it's a lazy way of parenting because the adult doesn't have to engage with the child so much. *rant end* Authoritative parenting with a focus on positive reinforcement is what we need to focus on as well as shielding children from emotionally and physically hostile environments.Children are our future. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Please refer to this article for further information on parenting styles.
Compartmentalization of society. Now this is interesting. Everyone is stuck in with others like them. Old people are stuck with old people. Young people are stuck into schools where they are stuck with others their age. Business people are all thrown together in one area (CBD) etc. Children and young people or even people in general are not benefiting from interactions with all sorts of people from different areas of society. I'm unsure how we would counteract this organisation of people into groups as to me it seems to be the most effective way of organising such a huge group of organisms and ensuring they have equal opportunities at different stages in their life. OR this is the best way to have their needs best met by society in different stages of their life. I do agree however that everyone would benefit and have a greater understanding of society in general if we were more exposed to other areas of society on a frequent basis. For example, my whole world view changed when I left high school. Things that mattered there didn't matter in the "real world" and I think if I had known that and been exposed to that area of society while in high school I would have been a more relaxed and well adjusted teen! I'm also sure that the younger you are when you gain this knowledge the more beneficial it would be. Decompartmentalization may be the answer but I don't think it'd be functional but we should keep in mind what affect it has on our children's social development and how we can counteract any negative effects.
Finally I highly recommend watching Dr Perry's video where he explains and discusses his ideas I've based this post on (and more) in a much more articulate and straight to the point manner :P
