[Nettime-nl] Are we too childish to prevent child abuse?

[Tjebbe van Tijen via Chello <t.tijen@chello.nl>]

Are we too childish to prevent child abuse?

December 14, 2010 by Tjebbe van Tijen

The illustrated version can be seen and read at The Limping Messenger:

http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/are-we-too-childish-to-prevent-child-abuse/

[photograph of eroded traffic sign on asphalt path]

Asphalt-Art in the Dutch dunes at Wassenaarseslag picture taken summer 2010: flames have burned this schablone of peaceful walking into the hot asphalt of the meandering road to the beach, to put everybody in their own protected trajectory: pedestrians and bicycles alike, both having joint access to this path.

As with all pictures there is a new reading of the image, not at all intended by its designers – say three or four decades ago. The new reading = pedophilia… this because yet another case came up of a man misusing his position in a children care center in Amsterdam. This time it is not the Catholic Church… so they must be a tiny bit happy in the Dutch bishops rooms and Rome…about the latest news  it is not only “us” misbehaving.

Yes indeed, effects of human desire can be as bad as that and as nice as if in heaven…. Little nude angels are haunting churches and museum walls alike all over Europe for centuries, but innocence has always been hard to protect here on earth. If the sensational news coverage of such criminal behaviour – as now in Amsterdam case – will have any positive effective can be doubted.

How do societies deal with deviance in general? How do they deal with sexual deviance? Children can be endangered both at home and in any institution. We should be so honest at least to recognise such a fact. Maybe we lack time and interest in studying and getting to know our own human behaviour in all its manifestations… Maybe we are too childish to prevent child abuse.

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