The Upstream Cause of the Youth Mental Health Crisis is the Loss of Community
The Upstream Cause of the Youth Mental Health Crisis is the Loss of Community
We've forgotten what community really means.
Note: their definition of "community" is quite problematic in many ways...
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I don't think the definition of community is necessarily problematic. It centers on hierarchy and authority, yes. But even most anarchists recognize natural hierarchies. Parents have authority over children because children are not able to govern themselves. Community elders have authority within a community because of their age, experience, and the respect they've earned through longstanding ties to the community. When you need specialized information, about law, or medicine, or how to repair a car, or the difference between right and wrong, you go to a specialist who studied that field and you defer to their authority derived from their study and knowledge. And so on.
Everyone in a community is, or should be, equal as human beings. But not everyone has served the community equally or earned equal respect. Voluntary hierarchies based on duty and respect are not the same as involuntary hierarchies based on coercion. And it's those voluntary hierarchies that bind communities together.
Yes and no. There are people that earned respect and "natural authority" among their adult peers, but this does not apply to children/teenagers that did not yet have sufficient interactions with these people to agree.
It is thus hard to make this a fundamental basis of a community as you are basically imposing authority. Smaller children might accept this, but teenagers certainly don't.
Just because someone has more skills, experience or information doesn't mean that person has or should have authority over others. There are even situations where having more of those things can become a hindrance because it biases the person to doing things a certain way when someone from an outside perspective could handle the situation in a different, possibly better way.
It still should be on the individual to decide whether they want to defer to the experts depending on the situation. The reason why people can come to collective decisions and rely on other people's knowledge is because they have shared purpose and trust each other to be working to similar goals. That is what makes people's choices voluntary.
I don't believe we should uphold hierarchies in any form instead we should help teach people to reason through when to trust other people's judgements which doesn't rely on defaulting to an authority.
You should learn the difference between deference and delegation, and then learn to delegate choices and research to experts rather than deferring to them. Where doctors are concerned, it could literally save your life and those of your loved ones.
Children, too, should learn to delegate rather than defer. Deference maintains a gap in someone's understanding, and as soon as the parents stop providing that service the child becomes lost. A baby who cries when they feel uncomfortable is already choosing when to cry and when not to cry. They don't defer the maintenance of their body to their parents, they delegate it, and as soon as they are able to control those bodily functions they rescind that delegation.
Deference is always archist. "Natural hierarchies" were an archist lie when it referred to racist and sexist hierarchies and it's an archist lie when it refers to familial, professional, and social hierarchies. Respect is due to everyone, not just to the powerful or to your "natural superiors". Every infant deserves respect, every wife, every teenager, every mentally disabled person. What the fuck is wrong with you that you think otherwise?
Please don't make this a personal attack. They stated their opinion and it wasn't something outlandish or hateful. Feel free to disagree with them, but not in a "what the fuck is wrong with you" way.
As for "respect" specifically. Definitions of that word differ widely. Yours is one that is commonly used, but I personally would rather use "human rights" for that. Of course the default should be to be respectful to each other (which you were not), but it is also a common understanding that respect can and should be earned.
I understand if you disagree on whether, by expecting children to go without respect and people to submit to the natural hierarchy, their comment promotes a form of child abuse. But do you disapprove of the methods or of the choice of target?
If it is the methods, do you want me to report everyone who makes similarly rude statements about fossil fuel companies so you can ask them to tone it down a little? Because fossil fuel companies too are neither outlandish nor hateful. Perhaps even about right-wing politicians? Many of them are hateful, but is it really right for us to act disrespectfully in turn?
If it is the choice of target, then would you please add a clarification to the rules where you outline what determines who is a valid target?
I'm frankly confused about your second paragraph. Do you have a different definition of "definition"? Because I didn't give a definition, I did not mean human rights, and the notion that respect can and should be earned also isn't a definition. I and your "common understanding" only give two different priors for who deserves respect.
Is it so hard to fathom the notion of actually respecting children? Because I mean actual respect. Feeling the same gravitas at your infant child who wants a cookie before bedtime as at a CEO who wants that report on their desk by tomorrow morning when you clock out in five minutes, and vice versa. Just two people who have their own unstated reasons for wanting something that from your perspective appears unreasonable. The only difference is that the state uses its monopoly on violence to enable you to abuse one and enable the other to abuse you.
People will often find themselves in the position where they're forced to accept abuse from others, but that doesn't make it right for them to pass it on, and it doesn't make it right for them to claim that the abuse is fair or compatible with anarchism.
As far as I've seen, it's rare to find someone for who "having earned their respect" isn't code for someone having power over them, and for who "not having earned their respect" isn't code for them having power over someone.
Hi @Tiresia, I have to admitt what I get from your response is a lot of anger over something basically quite simple:
Please don’t make this a personal attack.
It doesn't seem to me like a matter of rules or whatever, and it looks like a good suggestion as well. Don't you think?