Saving the Children - the best excuse for crime and injustice.

"Children, sex - put them together and it's a textbook moral panic. Who will argue with someone saying we need to protect our children?" (Raworth, 2011, Taste debate sect., ¶ 8). So writes Sophie Raworth in "Is modern life too sexy for our children?" on the BBC's Panorama. And parents have been worrying about exactly the same thing for at least 2,400 years, and I suspect much longer. That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline as I was browsing the BBC News website. I think I came across it in the Eduction section of the UK, and I probably got there by following the link from a front page story about language or something. I don't really remember - there are so many sections in the BBC website, and one thing leads to another. But I did remember to email it to myself so I had a record of it.

In her article, Raworth begins by discussing her experience watching a DVD with her six year-old daughter. She tells us that she quickly found the video, of pop stars, very disturbing because of the overt sexual nature of the performers. She was worried about whether this was good for her very young children to be watching, and as she notes, a lot of parents have similar worries. But unlike most, Raworth goes on to wonder if there really is any harm done to the kids by seeing such things. "But who", as she asks, "decides what's sexualised and what's trendy? Who gets to be the fashion police?" (2011, Taste debate sect., ¶ 4). Is a T-shirt that has a sexy slogan on it really even sexy, or just a popular fashion item? More importantly, she ask whether there is any real evidence that exposure to the the fact that sex exists naturally in the world bad for children, and is certainly a big part of "the very adult world that awaits them (Gross misinformation sect., ¶ 9).  

I liked Raworth's article because she has the honesty to question some very common beliefs, beliefs which people seem to accept without actually getting solid evidence to support them. And that leads quickly and too frequently to evil acts by parents and governments eager to gain more power and control more people. In fact, the first thing I thought of was a bit more specific than the general idea that this sort of thinking has been around for a very, very long time. I was reminded of a trial, on charges of corrupting young people, in the birth place of modern democracy in 399 BC, as a result of which the old man accused was found guilty and sentenced to death. The situation was very similar: respectable, middle and upper class parents were unhappy about what their children were hearing, talking about and learning, so some self-serving politicians used that worry to further their own political ambitions. The 70 year-old man that the ancient Athenian democracy judicially killed was the philosopher Socrates, and he was indeed guilty - he had been teaching the children of Athens to do such awful things as think, ask for evidence, worry about right and wrong, and question old traditions and traditional ideas that might have been not only false but immoral, and for that, one of the most famous moral thinkers of all time was killed according to the law of the famously democratic Athens. 

I think that Raworths article reminds us of several things apart from the danger of political abuse I mentioned above. It also reminds us that just because a fear or worry is common and loudly stated by many people, including many people who pretend to be experts, politicians, officials and the like, it does not mean that the fears or worries are well founded. All of those people might be completely wrong. And I think that they often are. If they have some solid evidence for their worries, then they should be taken seriously, but too often people seem to have strong beliefs that lack any supporting evidence or reason at all. That would be OK, except that they then act on those beliefs, and that can mean injustice for many other people. Should pornography, for example, be banned? Maybe, but first we need some evidence that it actually harms anyone. Should sexy pop songs and videos be banned? Maybe, but first, we need some solid evidence that they actually harm anyone, even very young children. Since exactly the same sort of fears have been around for so many centuries, I suspect that there is no such evidence to be found. If all the worries that parents have and that government act on were real, society should be much worse than it is, and it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. In fact, in almost every way I can think, society is getting better and better all the time. And if the politicians had not been so keen on war and pursuing power, ancient Greek society would have been much better off, too. Although he certainly upset a lot of people with his radical ideas, I think that Socrates did a lot more good for young people and everyone else than he did bad. Is upsetting powerful politicians and officials by seeking and telling the truth really such a bad thing? And the occasional heavy drinking party? (Socrates is said not to have often gotten drunk, but wine was normal at ancient Greek functions, and he could drink as heartily as anyone on special occasions.) 

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References

Raworth, S. (2011, January 10). Is modern life too sexy for our children? BBC Panorama. Retrieved January 11, 2011 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9349000/9349215.stm