Madness and Innocence

There is a common held belief, amongst some of the public and psychiatrists, that diagnosed-mad people are in some ways more child-like and innocent than other people. In my experience of other diagnosed-mad people, I think there is some truth in this, whilst at the same time I realise that it can also be a part of infantilisation (treating adults as children) in order to take away our freedoms, rights, and responsibility as adults. Some innocence is very important though, and I reject the religious concept of original sin. We all have a parent-child-adult within us, and it's important to retain and nurture the child inside us, whilst being wise and knowledgeable as parents or adults.

I recently had an email conversation, with a nice Russian woman, who was a kindergarten teacher. She said that she went to the cinema, watched a fairy story with the children, and communicated and interacted with them. She said that children speak the truth in a way, and say some very intelligent things, and I added that they can be very intuitive, and sense pain or sadness in another child or adult, much more than an adult can in a way. In a way, children have a higher form of consciousness than adults do, although their logical faculties aren't fully developed

I agreed with her point, about installing good principles in children at an early age, and to give them some good analogies and examples of good, love, and kindness triumphing over evil. As long as the child, is also allowed to develop his or her own individual and social values as they get older, and are not having very specific dogmatic values, like political propaganda, imposed upon them in an authoritarian way, then this is fine and all good. The whole matter of morality/principles/ethics and preserved innocence, is a very important point she made, and one that very much interests me.

The big problem we had under the Conservative regime in this country, and which I very much opposed as a Labour party voter, is that children were taught to have respect for very authoritarian teachers at school, who used and misused the cane (corporal punishment). The children were encouraged to be very competitive against each other, at the expense of co-operation and some mutual learning, and which encouraged and created some aggression, and bullying, in the children towards each other. The children were only taught to respect adult authority figures, but were not also encouraged to have respect for each other. The old very bad culture of learning and schooling has somewhat changed under the Labour government for the better, and they will continue to get my vote.

I was abused throughout my childhood and early teens, and had most of my innocence beaten or tormented out of me, and so I had to re-capture and re-create it in a way as an adult. My older brother, was encouraged to often be evil towards me as a child, but he also had to do this in order to survive and escape from the abuse himself, although he was still abused at times. I do very much agree with the Russian woman, that innocence and morality/principles/ethics, can co-exist together, and that the preservation of innocence, is a very good and a healthy thing in children. I would even go so far as to say, that the preservation of innocence, is a good thing in adults too, as it is a part of their intense and sensitive imagination and creativity, their compassion, and again a part of their morality/principles/ethics.

This is why I am very fond of some developmental practice, and theory, in mental health and society, but I think that it is wrong and counter-productive to crush and destroy, all aspects of an adult person's innocence, to make them more realistic, or to wise them up about the world, but this is what some people in authority in social work, society, and mental health, try to do to us. We can be more than wise about other people and the world, without having our innocence beaten, oppressed, terrorised, or crushed out of us. Preserving ones innocence and the child aspect of ones personality as an adult, does not make a person less of an adult or parent, it just makes the adult aspect more holistically integrated, and also able to relate to children more easily, imaginatively, creatively, compassionately, and effectively.

Because my brother encouraged my mother to abuse me, and because I was bullied at secondary school for two years by other children, I developed a fear of children as an adult, and found it very hard to relate and interact with them. I now have a four year old niece though, my older brother's daughter, Jasmine. She is a very good natured child, and I have learnt how to relate to her, both as a child myself, and as an adult. My dad is a full grown man, who is usually a very serious person, but he is a bit silly, and like a little boy when he plays with Jasmine. I could say that he's making a fool out of himself, but I also realise that he has a gift in a way. My mum is very good with Jasmine too, is very kind towards her, and knows how to play with her and entertain her.

I agreed with the Russian woman that children should not see or watch violence on TV. On the other hand, adults should watch violent films, if they are social realism, because it's about awareness and changing society for the better. Otherwise we would all live in a dream world, full of roses and flowers. I tend to dislike gratuitous or unnecessary violence on TV though, although that's a tricky one, because many people argue that it's also therapeutic and cathartic for some adult people, and about freedom of expression, and artistic freedom.