The dangers of poorly trained humans

In an ideal world a human being is raised to realize the value external factors that contribute to their existence. Any child by the time it can interact with its world in a meaningful way would have a profound respect for the processes that go on around them making their lives easier. They would also have a deep appreciation for the natural world and their place in it including (of course) the part other human animals play in their development. Through an appreciation of these relationships the human being develops empathy and a realistic understanding of the world and their place in it.

Unfortunately the vast majority of people nowadays are not given an appreciation of anything other than television at an early age. Desensitized to the subtleties of natural interaction by a flood of abstract images and ideas that in no way teach them of the world around them, these children grew up less than feral. A feral child has a profound understanding of consequence and the difficulty involved in simply surviving. Fat, modern children are drunk on media that portraits a kind of mythic heroism that validates violence in all situations and encourages the devaluation of their fellows in favour of a distended, completely unrealistic sense of self aggrandizement. The feral child would have realistic values in a thousand ways that the finger twitching, playstation playing, bloated, inhuman creature staring blankly at the screen doesn't.

So one of these modern wonders appears in the suddenly very public class room with virtually no human interaction skills and no sense of anything beyond some media warped belief in their own invulnerability. Soon enough problems between the child, his peers and his teachers flare up and he is labelled and put in special classes where less is expected of him. You can hardly blame the system for doing this. If his own caregivers don't give a damn about raising him, why should a publicly funded training system?

Given such a piece of work what is an instructor to do? Like any other animal that has been mistreated, this child needs strict guidelines, consistency in training and virtually no opportunity to act under its own cognition - at least until it is able to develop a series of associations that at least resemble the real world. A child that believes they can do anything they wish without consequence is as much a danger to himself as he is to others. Consequence is a vital lesson in developing a child's world view and a very central idea in how human beings exist in reality. This mistreated child with wildly abstract and unrealistic understandings has to be taught socially acceptable, safe behaviour before they become a threat to themselves and others. Consistent restructuring of these fundamental beliefs is possible, but it isn't easy, and it is never a perfect fix. Compared to the cost of doing it right in the first place repairing damaged development children is always an expensive proposition. Like any other mistreated animal, no matter how intense and well put together the training is to repair this damage, there will always be an element of chaotic selfishness in their psyche and given an opportunity to exercise it they will.

In a world where there are more human beings than we know what to do with and many more are raised with little or no effort it is amazing that we value them like we do. Since money is our means of value, why is no monetary value assigned to parenting and the results of it? If we were really serious about Capitalism we could easily implement such a system and it would clarify the confusion many parents seem to have in juggling financial wants with parental responsibilities. Imagine a schooling system in which a student's poor behaviour has immediate financial repercussions on his caregivers. No longer would the student alone be responsible for his actions. That detention after school would be followed up with a $50 fine sent home to the parents. Imagine a teacher noticing abuse in a child. In addition to legal punishments a $10,000 fine appears in the mail. Imagine a child who integrates well with his peers and gets good marks; an additional $5000 back on his parent's next tax return. I imagine any confusion about parenting vs. financial wants would be cleared up in a matter of moments.

In a perfect world children are raised in a communal atmosphere of support and trust, where they are free to explore for themselves when they are ready and always have a guiding hand available when they are not. Such children would grow into themselves as individuals, understanding and minimizing their weaknesses while developing their strengths to best effect. Self knowledge would be an inherent part of their makeup and that self knowledge would include an appreciation for the work that those who came before them put into their development.

The effect of one child raised poorly in that perfect world would be terrible. Children learn much of their world view from one another. A child who bullies and demands based on ill-taught wishes of personal embellishment and violence is a dangerous creature who can easily lead other children without that background or proclivity to the lazy path of selfishness. This is precisely why children are incapable of raising themselves: they have yet to learn the complexity of what allows them to live as they do. If ignorance teaches ignorance it will flourish.