Recently, on a social site I frequent, there was a thread about paedophiles and what the people responding to the thread would do to a paedophile if they caught one. As you can imagine, some suggestions were pretty gruesome.
I was a bit conflicted about whether to respond. Emotions tend to run very high around this issue, and I really do not need to be the target of a flame war, nor have I any interest in starting one. After thinking about it for a while, I felt I owed it to the abuse survivors I have worked with to post the following message:
“The kind of display of self-righteous outrage exhibited in this thread harms sexual abuse survivors. PLEASE think twice before posting this kind of shit. None of us have any idea who may be reading it, nor who among our regulars may be a survivor themselves.”
One of the posters asked me (bless her heart) to explain. So, here’s my attempt.
You see, I have had more than one client tell me that the abuse was nowhere near as bad as having to deal with the reactions of other people who learn of their experience. The anger, the revulsion, the ranting can actually make them feel far worse than the abuse ever did.
One told me that the sexual acts themselves felt strange and shameful, but the reaction of people toward her abuser (the case was in the media) made her feel as if she were diseased, dirty and ruined forever. Why else would people be so vile and spiteful?
To me, that was a clear case of a survivor being re-abused by people who used her experience to vent their own anger and outrage.
This is very similar to the stigma and shame attached to rape in many countries. Including our own countries here in the West. I have a client who was sexually assaulted as a teen. She stopped telling people. They would get so worked up, so violently outraged that they literally scared her. Worse, it wasn’t what she needed. And when she told people that, they’d look at her differently, treat her differently. So, it took her years to seek counselling, to get the courage to ask for what she needed. I often wonder how many abuse survivors out there don’t seek help for the same reason.
I remember the transcript of a case I read during my training. The woman, who’d been abused by her father, felt a tremendous sense of guilt over what happened to him after her abuse came to light. He went to prison where he was badly beaten by other inmates (on a side note, I’ve always wondered how convicted felons get to be society’s morality watchdogs), was divorced by her mother, and lost everything. To her, the people who punished him forgot one thing: he was still her father and she still loved him. There was nothing “wrong” with her thinking. She understood that he’d done wrong, but “the abuser” was not all there was to him. Even while working through her anger and hurt, she felt that, aside from his criminal assault on her, he was a very good father, hardworking, generous, nurturing.
Contrary to the popular stereotype of the paedophile lurking in the bushes, most children are assaulted by a loved one; a parent, sibling, grandparent, relative, close friend, or clergyman. And, not always, but far more frequently than most people seem to realize, the abuse survivor does not lose their feelings for their abuser, and does not want to have their abuser out of their lives forever.
Many survivors have a great deal of sympathy for their abusers. More than once I have been greatly humbled by the depths of compassion and forgiveness of which human beings are capable.
During the Catholic Church paedophilia scandals, film-maker Dino de Laurentis disclosed to an interviewer that as a boy he had been kissed and fondled by his parish priest. He said that he felt no animosity toward the priest, but that even as a youth he felt that he was simply a lonely old man, and pitied him.
Now, let me be clear, every person deals with the experience of abuse in their own way. Some with tremendous anger, some feel an overwhelming need for revenge. That is something they work thorough in therapy. The aim is NOT to make them feel sympathy for their abusers. Far from it. An earlier part of the therapy is usually to help the person identify the extent of the wrong that was done to them. The aim is to help them to deal with their anger in useful and constructive ways. Becoming a person who commits assault themselves is not considered a helpful or constructive way of dealing with their (very justified) anger.
Nor are mob “justice,” castration and torture-fantasies. Angry mobs have, on occasion, tried to burn houses where paedophiles were reportedly living. One mob in the UK reportedly succeeded in killing a 14 year old girl who was staying in the house they burned. A mob in the U.S. reportedly torched the house of an innocent 78 year old woman because a “paedophile watch-list” posted by a community group got the address wrong.
This is not a responsible way for adults to deal with injustice. And the more it happens, the more it’s advocated, the more it “normalizes” the use of violence, the idea that “right” and “might” legitimize the abuse of other human beings. And that is exactly what survivors have experienced at the hands of their abusers.
Perhaps worst of all, there are many people who, acting from ignorance* and misinformation, believe that those who have been abused go on to become abusers themselves. this is simply not so. There has never been any credible information to suggest that rates of offense among sexual abuse survivors are any higher than among the general population. So, again, these people find themselves unfairly stigmatized, and re-abused.
Ignorance and misinformation also feed into one of the most persistent myths about paedophiles: that they cannot be effectively treated. Psychologists, psychiatrists and criminologists who work with paedophiles consistently dispute this claim. In fact, convicted paedophiles who receive treatment have the lowest recidivism rates of all criminals. The fear industry, however, doesn’t like that fact, and they systematically shout it down with distortions and counter-claims.
The very best treatment that paedophiles can receive, the factor that as been shown again and again to lower their risk of re-offending, is the one thing that most people are opposed to giving them: a community that provides a network of support. Instead, they are released after serving their sentence and then ostracized, hounded, driven from one community after another until they can find a way to slip under the radar and go underground.
So, it was with great admiration that I attended a presentation by a church group from a small city in Western Ontario who set themselves up as a community network for convicted paedophiles. Church members would sign up to volunteer to be available to the released paedophiles 24/7, in eight hour shifts. They’d be available to talk, to accompany them on trips to the shopping mall (where there might be children present), to keep them from drinking. Lonely, friendless people will often drink, which impairs their judgement. That puts them, and the community, at risk. Here was a community that really was living its faith: to hate the sin, but love the sinner. Once again, I find myself in awed admiration for their courage and dedication.
Regarding the thread that started this, that was not the first time I’ve seen such posts about what to do to paedophiles. You can find them all over the web. Participants usually try to outdo each other in inventing new forms of torture and cruelty to punish offenders. The rationale is the horror the poster feels for the crime and the sympathy they feel for the victim.
But it also serves as an outlet for sadistic aggression, and for claiming the moral high-ground. The poster is able to assure themselves of their “righteousness.” (That, I think is part of what motivates those convicted felons I mentioned earlier.) “We,” the righteous, get to look down on “them,” the despicable, the repugnant, the sub-human. But in so-doing, the survivor is made to feel that instead of being the victim of wrong done to them by an irresponsible and flawed person, they have been ravaged by monsters and forever despoiled.
No wonder so many of them find it impossible to sleep at night, to feel sexually normal, or worthy of being loved.
It is fairly common for survivors to say that the worst part of abuse was not the sexual acts themselves. The worst and most lasting effect is the breach of trust, and the experience of being used and controlled, without their consent, by another person for their own purposes. That, they say, is the real abuse. When they encounter the outraged diatribes of people who would like to torture and castrate paedophiles, they encounter that same dynamic all over again: other people are taking control of and using the survivor’s experience for their own purposes.
And so, if we are sincere in our sympathy for the victim, then we must remember that when we whip ourselves into a frenzy about what we would do to paedophiles, we are actually re-abusing their victims all over again.
_________________
(*The dictionary definition of ignorance is, “a lack of knowledge.” That is the sense in which the word is used here; not in its pejorative sense.)
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Male rape
As a sex therapist I work with men and women who have been sexually abused, and/or sexually assaulted, in adulthood or in childhood. I have, obviously, received specialized training in order to do this.
Many people believe that it is more traumatic for a man to be raped than it is for a woman. One thing you learn early on as a therapist is that you cannot compare pain. I have had clients of both genders who were able to get past the event in a relatively short time, and others, of either gender, who were devastated for years and years. You don’t look at the severity of the event, because that is, inevitably, your own reaction, not the survivor’s. What you look at is the extent of the impact this had on the person, and on their ability to function and feel emotionally safe.
Still, it remains a fact that the rape of a man is seen differently than is the rape of a woman, by the victim, the rapist, and the rest of us. Due to the way our society constructs gender identity, not just sexually, but in all areas of life, men are supposed to be in charge, in control, masters of their fate and captains of their soul. But nowhere more than in the area of sexuality.
Over the last century it has become more and more acceptable for a male to relinquish control in bed. But, when it comes to rape we enter a whole new arena, because rape is not, of course, about relinquishing control, but about having it taken from you forcibly. And that is not simply through physical force, but through threat, intimidation, manipulation, coercion, drugs, alcohol...the list goes on. The point is, one’s power to consent, or withhold consent, is taken away. It is this, much more so than the sex, that the rapist is after. This is what provides the rush.
There are any number of misconceptions about male rape. Contrary to what many people believe, male rape is not rare. There is a lot of evidence that suggests that more males are victims of rape than are women, just as more men are victims of every kind of violence than are women. And let’s not forget, rape is violence, even when there are no bruises. However, due to the stigma of rape, men tend to report being the target of sexual assault even less frequently than women.
The second myth is that a man cannot be raped if he is not willing. FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! First of all, erections are a function of the autonomic nervous system, and are not really under voluntary control (or rarely). If they were, I would not see so many clients with erectile dysfunction. If a guy has E.D. and he does not respond to Viagra, the doctors send him to me, or my colleagues. We do not, and cannot, teach him how to have an erection. What we do is teach him to relax, let the autonomic nervous system do its work, and focus less of his sexuality on the state of his erection.
But, more importantly, the state of a man’s erection has little relevance to rape. That’s because of a third misconception: most men are NOT raped by women. Some are, but the incidence of males raped by males is much, much, much higher. And a minority of men who rape men are homosexual. We seem able to accept that when male-male rape happens in prison, the rapists are not necessarily homosexual, but that is true of all male-male rape. Don’t forget, rape is NOT sex, per se. It is violence.
Nor does the sexual orientation of the victim matter. That’s another misconception. For gay men, being raped can be just as devastating, and often more so, than for a heterosexual male. Nor does it matter whether the gay man is a “top” or a “bottom.”
Some men and boys are raped by women. There is a common myth that such men are “lucky.” The reality is that it is anything but luck. Such men often are left with a lifelong hostility toward or suspicion of women. Don’t forget, rape is not giving in to an aggressive partner’s advances. Rape is violence, having consent stripped from you, being made powerless.
I hope I don’t have to convince anyone that the sexual use of a young male, a boy, for sexual gratification is a form of child abuse and a criminal act. It is so, not because we want to keep them from sexual experience, but because the potential for devastating consequences is so real. Let me say that I have spoken to men who had early sexual experiences with girls and women, who felt that it had not had any negative consequences on their lives and relationships. If they were kidding themselves about that, there was nothing in their lives or relationships to show it. The problem is, no one can ever tell in advance who will or won’t be traumatized. For that reason it is and must remain a criminal act.
Often, under-aged males are sexually abused by women who fear that they may be too effeminate, and think that this will help steer them toward heterosexuality. Ironically, it can have just the opposite effect. Sexual orientation is NOT determined by trauma. However, males who have been traumatized by women sometimes become avoidant of women, and to whatever extent they may have some inherent same-sex orientation, focus their sexuality in that direction.
The rape of adult males by women is almost never like in the porn fantasies. The man may not find the woman (or women) sexually attractive, may be drugged, may be beaten, often quite badly, may be threatened with violence (threat of castration is often used), may be tied up, may be anally raped with strap-ons, or other objects...and believe me, the average rapist is not interested in lube, or other such niceties. They are there to inflict pain and humiliation, not sexual arousal.
Finally, one topic that I find truly disgusting: popular culture finds the rape of men titillating and funny, and sees male rape as deserved in many cases. All too often we hear comments about people who have been sentenced to prison, that they are going to have to get used to “taking it up the ass,” or “hope he is having a nice time being Bubba’s girlfriend.” We speak in scathing language of societies where the rape of women is used as a means of intimidation and control, and we do so rightly. But, in this, we are no better.
For example, in one episode of “My Name is Earl,” Earl works for a guy who is a real bastard. He’s mean to people, cheats, lies and embezzles from his employer. A running joke through the show is his collection of coffee mugs with “World’s Best...” sayings on them (World’s Best father, World’s Best Lover, World’s Best Golfer, World’s Best Boss, etc.). At the end, Earl helps reveal his duplicity and he is sentenced to prison. The final scene shows this man behind bars, a burly, ugly man in the cell behind him. The man Earl helped convict has a stricken expression on his face and is holding a tin cup on which has been written with permanent marker, “World’s Best Bottom.” The message here is that this man deserves, in addition to his sentence, to be anally raped, and that it is funny that this is happening to him. I guarantee you that if a similar joke about a woman being raped were aired, the writers and producers would have been fired before the night was over.
That is not the only example. There are plenty out there. A popular song from a few years back, “Date Rape,” (by Sublime) had a similar theme. There is lots of evidence that prison authorities, know about, use and encourage rape in prisons as a means of intimidation and control. Judges have been known to sentence men to prison for short times, just enough time for them to be likely to experience rape. Civil rights organizations have been lobbying on this issue, and even trying to file suits, with little effect. There is simply too little political will, and too much public acceptance of the loathsome notion that if a man goes to prison he deserves to be raped.
In January 2009 an Australian judge warned a young man arrested for street racing that if he gets sent to prison, "You'll find big, ugly, hairy strong men (in jail) who've got faces only a mother could love that will pay a lot of attention to you -- and your anatomy." Imagine a woman in any 21st century democracy being sentenced to be raped, or threatened with being raped, for committing a crime. Makes it pretty clear how disgusting this practice is, doesn’t it?
This goes far beyond “feeling sorry” for people who are sentenced. Most male rapists are men who have themselves been raped or molested. By expressing outrage that male rape continues at the levels it does, that it is so taken for granted, we are, in fact, helping to protect ourselves. Preventing even the most heinous criminals from being raped may, in fact, reduce the risk that they will become rapists, in turn. Still, this remains a dirty little secret that no one wants to touch.
Many people believe that it is more traumatic for a man to be raped than it is for a woman. One thing you learn early on as a therapist is that you cannot compare pain. I have had clients of both genders who were able to get past the event in a relatively short time, and others, of either gender, who were devastated for years and years. You don’t look at the severity of the event, because that is, inevitably, your own reaction, not the survivor’s. What you look at is the extent of the impact this had on the person, and on their ability to function and feel emotionally safe.
Still, it remains a fact that the rape of a man is seen differently than is the rape of a woman, by the victim, the rapist, and the rest of us. Due to the way our society constructs gender identity, not just sexually, but in all areas of life, men are supposed to be in charge, in control, masters of their fate and captains of their soul. But nowhere more than in the area of sexuality.
Over the last century it has become more and more acceptable for a male to relinquish control in bed. But, when it comes to rape we enter a whole new arena, because rape is not, of course, about relinquishing control, but about having it taken from you forcibly. And that is not simply through physical force, but through threat, intimidation, manipulation, coercion, drugs, alcohol...the list goes on. The point is, one’s power to consent, or withhold consent, is taken away. It is this, much more so than the sex, that the rapist is after. This is what provides the rush.
There are any number of misconceptions about male rape. Contrary to what many people believe, male rape is not rare. There is a lot of evidence that suggests that more males are victims of rape than are women, just as more men are victims of every kind of violence than are women. And let’s not forget, rape is violence, even when there are no bruises. However, due to the stigma of rape, men tend to report being the target of sexual assault even less frequently than women.
The second myth is that a man cannot be raped if he is not willing. FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! First of all, erections are a function of the autonomic nervous system, and are not really under voluntary control (or rarely). If they were, I would not see so many clients with erectile dysfunction. If a guy has E.D. and he does not respond to Viagra, the doctors send him to me, or my colleagues. We do not, and cannot, teach him how to have an erection. What we do is teach him to relax, let the autonomic nervous system do its work, and focus less of his sexuality on the state of his erection.
But, more importantly, the state of a man’s erection has little relevance to rape. That’s because of a third misconception: most men are NOT raped by women. Some are, but the incidence of males raped by males is much, much, much higher. And a minority of men who rape men are homosexual. We seem able to accept that when male-male rape happens in prison, the rapists are not necessarily homosexual, but that is true of all male-male rape. Don’t forget, rape is NOT sex, per se. It is violence.
Nor does the sexual orientation of the victim matter. That’s another misconception. For gay men, being raped can be just as devastating, and often more so, than for a heterosexual male. Nor does it matter whether the gay man is a “top” or a “bottom.”
Some men and boys are raped by women. There is a common myth that such men are “lucky.” The reality is that it is anything but luck. Such men often are left with a lifelong hostility toward or suspicion of women. Don’t forget, rape is not giving in to an aggressive partner’s advances. Rape is violence, having consent stripped from you, being made powerless.
I hope I don’t have to convince anyone that the sexual use of a young male, a boy, for sexual gratification is a form of child abuse and a criminal act. It is so, not because we want to keep them from sexual experience, but because the potential for devastating consequences is so real. Let me say that I have spoken to men who had early sexual experiences with girls and women, who felt that it had not had any negative consequences on their lives and relationships. If they were kidding themselves about that, there was nothing in their lives or relationships to show it. The problem is, no one can ever tell in advance who will or won’t be traumatized. For that reason it is and must remain a criminal act.
Often, under-aged males are sexually abused by women who fear that they may be too effeminate, and think that this will help steer them toward heterosexuality. Ironically, it can have just the opposite effect. Sexual orientation is NOT determined by trauma. However, males who have been traumatized by women sometimes become avoidant of women, and to whatever extent they may have some inherent same-sex orientation, focus their sexuality in that direction.
The rape of adult males by women is almost never like in the porn fantasies. The man may not find the woman (or women) sexually attractive, may be drugged, may be beaten, often quite badly, may be threatened with violence (threat of castration is often used), may be tied up, may be anally raped with strap-ons, or other objects...and believe me, the average rapist is not interested in lube, or other such niceties. They are there to inflict pain and humiliation, not sexual arousal.
Finally, one topic that I find truly disgusting: popular culture finds the rape of men titillating and funny, and sees male rape as deserved in many cases. All too often we hear comments about people who have been sentenced to prison, that they are going to have to get used to “taking it up the ass,” or “hope he is having a nice time being Bubba’s girlfriend.” We speak in scathing language of societies where the rape of women is used as a means of intimidation and control, and we do so rightly. But, in this, we are no better.
For example, in one episode of “My Name is Earl,” Earl works for a guy who is a real bastard. He’s mean to people, cheats, lies and embezzles from his employer. A running joke through the show is his collection of coffee mugs with “World’s Best...” sayings on them (World’s Best father, World’s Best Lover, World’s Best Golfer, World’s Best Boss, etc.). At the end, Earl helps reveal his duplicity and he is sentenced to prison. The final scene shows this man behind bars, a burly, ugly man in the cell behind him. The man Earl helped convict has a stricken expression on his face and is holding a tin cup on which has been written with permanent marker, “World’s Best Bottom.” The message here is that this man deserves, in addition to his sentence, to be anally raped, and that it is funny that this is happening to him. I guarantee you that if a similar joke about a woman being raped were aired, the writers and producers would have been fired before the night was over.
That is not the only example. There are plenty out there. A popular song from a few years back, “Date Rape,” (by Sublime) had a similar theme. There is lots of evidence that prison authorities, know about, use and encourage rape in prisons as a means of intimidation and control. Judges have been known to sentence men to prison for short times, just enough time for them to be likely to experience rape. Civil rights organizations have been lobbying on this issue, and even trying to file suits, with little effect. There is simply too little political will, and too much public acceptance of the loathsome notion that if a man goes to prison he deserves to be raped.
In January 2009 an Australian judge warned a young man arrested for street racing that if he gets sent to prison, "You'll find big, ugly, hairy strong men (in jail) who've got faces only a mother could love that will pay a lot of attention to you -- and your anatomy." Imagine a woman in any 21st century democracy being sentenced to be raped, or threatened with being raped, for committing a crime. Makes it pretty clear how disgusting this practice is, doesn’t it?
This goes far beyond “feeling sorry” for people who are sentenced. Most male rapists are men who have themselves been raped or molested. By expressing outrage that male rape continues at the levels it does, that it is so taken for granted, we are, in fact, helping to protect ourselves. Preventing even the most heinous criminals from being raped may, in fact, reduce the risk that they will become rapists, in turn. Still, this remains a dirty little secret that no one wants to touch.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
TANSTAAFL
(originally posted April 11, 2008)
It’s an acronym. It stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” The term was coined by author Robert Heinlein. In days gone by, when food was cheaper, bars would set out food at lunchtime for patrons to help themselves at no extra charge. Of course, the lunch was not free. Its cost was figured into the price charged for the drinks.
Heinlein’s point was that anything that seems free has a price built into it, and we are kidding ourselves if we think we can have something for nothing.
Another way of expressing the same sentiment is that you can only get out what you put in.
Now, once explained, these are fairly simple concepts. Yet they seem to elude us in several important situations.
One place they seem to escape notice is in relationships. Am I saying that relationships come at a cost? Of course they do. The cost is to love your partner, as they love you. To respect your partner, as they respect you. To care for your partner, as they care for you.
You can only get out of a relationship what you put into it. If you ignore your partner, don’t expect them to be excited when you come home. If you snap at your partner, don’t expect them to be patient with you. If you aren’t willing to work at your relationship, how can you expect it to keep on running smoothly? We wouldn’t expect our cars to keep running smoothly without regular maintenance (although some people DO seem to expect that!)
Another place the TANSTAAFL concept seems to escape notice is in what we expect from our societies. We expect peace, but what do WE do to contribute to social peace? We want civility, not rudeness. But how thoughtful are we of the people around us. Do people who get off an escalator, and stop dead in their tracks to look around, expect civility from those behind them? Do drivers who speed up when someone is trying to enter their lane expect that they will be able to change lanes when they want?
You get out what you put in.
On an even broader level, we want crime-free societies. We’ve tried harsher laws, and more prisons, and that doesn’t seem to be achieving our goals. However, we know what conditions make crime more likely. So, why aren’t we demanding that officials take action on eliminating those conditions? The answer, of course, is money.
Fighting poverty, adequate housing, quality health care, good education, treating mental illness, all cost money. We don’t want to spend on money on those things. We want our money for ourselves, for our own uses. TANSATAAFL! You do not get safe streets and low crime-rates for nothing. You gets what you pays for.
When horrors like the Virginia Tech shootings occur, we are quick to vilify the gunman, to blame his rampage on “evil.” Yet, Cho Seung-Hui had been identified as mentally ill, and a danger to himself. By no stretch of the imagination did he receive adequate care. But, as a society, we are reluctant to take on responsibility for that. We don’t want the burden of identifying and treating people struggling with dangerous depressions or psychoses. But we don’t want them going on shooting rampages. And many people also don’t want gun sales or ammo sales restricted so that people in his condition won’t have access to them.
This sounds an awful lot like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. As if people were saying, “I want to be safe, but I don’t want to have to do the hard work to bring about real safety.” Well, sorry, but TANSTAAFL. We can continue to think of mental illness as an individual problem. But we will pay the price of that shortsightedness as communities.
When I was a young boy, John F. Kennedy was President of the U.S. I still remember the challenge he issued to his fellow citizens. “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” My values were shaped, in part, by those words.
And so, ask not what your relationship can do for you. Ask what you can do for your relationship. Ask not what your society can give to you. Ask what you can give to your society.
But what about the role of other people? Should we be expected to take all the responsibility ourselves? No, of course not. But our own behaviour is the only thing we can control, and that is where our own work must start. We can, at least, be secure in the knowledge that we have paid our share of the bill.
Author Robert Fulgham (Everything I Need to know I Learned in Kindergarten, and It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It) has written, “I am not interested in what you value, I want to know what you will do. I don’t care what kind of world you want. I care what kind of world you are willing to work for.”
So, the next time you feel like complaining about your relationship, or about society, I would recommend that you ask yourself, what kind of relationship are you willing to work for? What kind of society are you willing to work for? And what is the work you are doing to bring them about?
It’s an acronym. It stands for “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.” The term was coined by author Robert Heinlein. In days gone by, when food was cheaper, bars would set out food at lunchtime for patrons to help themselves at no extra charge. Of course, the lunch was not free. Its cost was figured into the price charged for the drinks.
Heinlein’s point was that anything that seems free has a price built into it, and we are kidding ourselves if we think we can have something for nothing.
Another way of expressing the same sentiment is that you can only get out what you put in.
Now, once explained, these are fairly simple concepts. Yet they seem to elude us in several important situations.
One place they seem to escape notice is in relationships. Am I saying that relationships come at a cost? Of course they do. The cost is to love your partner, as they love you. To respect your partner, as they respect you. To care for your partner, as they care for you.
You can only get out of a relationship what you put into it. If you ignore your partner, don’t expect them to be excited when you come home. If you snap at your partner, don’t expect them to be patient with you. If you aren’t willing to work at your relationship, how can you expect it to keep on running smoothly? We wouldn’t expect our cars to keep running smoothly without regular maintenance (although some people DO seem to expect that!)
Another place the TANSTAAFL concept seems to escape notice is in what we expect from our societies. We expect peace, but what do WE do to contribute to social peace? We want civility, not rudeness. But how thoughtful are we of the people around us. Do people who get off an escalator, and stop dead in their tracks to look around, expect civility from those behind them? Do drivers who speed up when someone is trying to enter their lane expect that they will be able to change lanes when they want?
You get out what you put in.
On an even broader level, we want crime-free societies. We’ve tried harsher laws, and more prisons, and that doesn’t seem to be achieving our goals. However, we know what conditions make crime more likely. So, why aren’t we demanding that officials take action on eliminating those conditions? The answer, of course, is money.
Fighting poverty, adequate housing, quality health care, good education, treating mental illness, all cost money. We don’t want to spend on money on those things. We want our money for ourselves, for our own uses. TANSATAAFL! You do not get safe streets and low crime-rates for nothing. You gets what you pays for.
When horrors like the Virginia Tech shootings occur, we are quick to vilify the gunman, to blame his rampage on “evil.” Yet, Cho Seung-Hui had been identified as mentally ill, and a danger to himself. By no stretch of the imagination did he receive adequate care. But, as a society, we are reluctant to take on responsibility for that. We don’t want the burden of identifying and treating people struggling with dangerous depressions or psychoses. But we don’t want them going on shooting rampages. And many people also don’t want gun sales or ammo sales restricted so that people in his condition won’t have access to them.
This sounds an awful lot like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. As if people were saying, “I want to be safe, but I don’t want to have to do the hard work to bring about real safety.” Well, sorry, but TANSTAAFL. We can continue to think of mental illness as an individual problem. But we will pay the price of that shortsightedness as communities.
When I was a young boy, John F. Kennedy was President of the U.S. I still remember the challenge he issued to his fellow citizens. “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” My values were shaped, in part, by those words.
And so, ask not what your relationship can do for you. Ask what you can do for your relationship. Ask not what your society can give to you. Ask what you can give to your society.
But what about the role of other people? Should we be expected to take all the responsibility ourselves? No, of course not. But our own behaviour is the only thing we can control, and that is where our own work must start. We can, at least, be secure in the knowledge that we have paid our share of the bill.
Author Robert Fulgham (Everything I Need to know I Learned in Kindergarten, and It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It) has written, “I am not interested in what you value, I want to know what you will do. I don’t care what kind of world you want. I care what kind of world you are willing to work for.”
So, the next time you feel like complaining about your relationship, or about society, I would recommend that you ask yourself, what kind of relationship are you willing to work for? What kind of society are you willing to work for? And what is the work you are doing to bring them about?
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