Blue uniforms? Blue movie? Blue photograph? And you shouting blue murder?
One of the easiest things to do is to turn up your nose at something that you think is wrong.
That way your “nose” – not your brain – gets a workout. Many times nobody is any better off. Well, maybe you get your psychological rocks off. Ahhhhhhhhh! Then maybe a smoke? Then off to sleep?
So the Back Page of the SATURDAY SUN of October 26 gave people a chance to let their noses touch their foreheads: they could slam the newspaper for gross indiscretion or they could lash two teenagers (or more) for reckless sexual involvement and pornographic activity.
But in this matter (and others) three things keep pressing themselves in on me.
One: “You can’t live a healthy (especially helpful) life based on taking offence.”
The path of taking offence often leads to simply apportioning blame, casting no eye to the future, to how the problem can be stemmed or solved. We stop thinking except about our own seething outrage (“That t’ing got me so vex!” or “You could imagine that!”), ushering in shallow thinking – that, like shallow breathing, is not predictive of a healthy future in the short run and, sometimes, in the long run.
Besides, even when our sense of offence seems like righteous indignation, our lack of “divine majesty” (Grotius) and moral authority almost invariably taints it with self-righteousness, which does not predispose us to recognizing our own stake in the “tragedy”.
Two: “When someone falls, don’t look at where he falls but where he slips.” Barbadian sports psychologist Rudi Webster quotes this as “an old African proverb” in Coaches Should Inspire, Not Scare in the MIDWEEK NATION of August 21.
Looking only at an outcome is an extremely popular human tendency. So we end up running around putting out this “fire” and the next and the “arsonist” remains on the loose. Well, with actual fires that is still useful, but with societal and other problems, we are often “spinning top in mud”. Plus, we don’ even be “outing” those fires – we does be mouting them.
Three: A cluster of “It has been said in old times . . . but I say unto you” statements by Jesus, in which He enlarged upon traditional understandings of wrongdoing.
To me, these add up to Jesus saying, in essence, “Look, the thing is wrong, but this is broader than you think. So look deeper – and look at yourself, too.”
So let’s try looking deeper ’cause I believe a narrow focus on the act of either side (the newspaper or the sexed-up schoolchildren) is troublingly short-sighted.
If our heads are anywhere but in the sand, we know that next week the newspaper could be telling us about other worrisome sex-related things involving our youngsters: more sexual intercourse in classrooms, anal sex, teenage pregnancy, homosexual activity, sexual abuse, paedophilia, pre-puberty sex, fellatio and cunnilingus in schools, primary school fondling, transactional sex, incest, sex on PSVs, sex at inter-school sports, student exhibitionism, pornography.
What, then, are we going to do? Fag ourselves out beating up the messenger if we don’t like how the message is put?
Remember Ronald Jones’ “demon” statement two years ago? Yuh can clearly see that nuhbody en do anything significant about the bad behaviour. They just shouted “blue murder” that a minister could say that children got demons.
We must know that the newspaper story or the particular sexual act is an outcome – a “fall”, if you like. That “fall” is really indicative of a “slip” somewhere earlier. Where did they/we slip?
At least we should not slip again by failing to trace our steps back from the greater problem – without doubt: the children’s behaviour.
In that regard, parenting is often proffered as the answer. That is, unfortunately, a simple-minded one. Why do we default to this, when we have no power to make parents parent better?
Blaming parents generally and saying that they should do this and that they should do that has not ever slowed social decay.
At any rate, there is great doubt whether the sum of parenting in today’s society can significantly (meaning with broad success) combat Internet influence, television influence, general cultural laxity, tribalization of youth (and some adults) and societal confusion about values.
Or pervasively tackle relativism, mixed messages, simplistic sloganistic songs, the existence of two distinct cultures (of the young and of the older), simulated sex as part of our “culture”, children’s more earnest pursuit of their own way, peer pressure and myriad other influences on what children do today.
This thing has so many tributaries – way beyond a newspaper’s graphic (?) display of sex between two teenagers in a classroom.
We got to look deeper. We Bajans had a saying, “Is only fuh yuh to know . . . .” That knowing can help us to get real.
You want to get real or turn up your nose?
• Sherwyn Walters is a writer who became a teacher, a song analyst, a broadcaster and an editor.