Jimmy Savile and the Problem of Abuse

Oh what a to-do.  Poor old Jimmy will be turning in his grave.  Well he will be  - literally - when they get their way and exhume him and move him to an unmarked grave.  It is all very pathetic really.  Tragic!  And I probably don't mean tragic in the way the mainstream of our culture would like to think it is tragic.

For many years now I have had a problem with abuse.  The problem seems to be that most people don't know what is wrong with abuse.  I did ask a lady from the Children Services once and the backlash was frightening.

Esther Rantzen expressed the view that she was distressed at how "we" failed to recognise what was going on to the point of possibly colluding with Jimmy Savile.  It appears that the world at large may turn on Esther in a scapegoat kind of way.  Esther should continue her good work and should be 'included' in the conversation about abuse and not 'blamed' or 'excluded'.  However I do have one observation about Esther's presented position and it is this;  "We" missed the signs because "we" don't understand what is wrong with abuse.  I get no indication from Esther's work or comments that she really understands what is so wrong with abuse and I get very little hint that anyone really understands what is wrong with abuse.

The general public consensus seems to be sentimental.  The mainstream view seems to be that abuse is wrong because it is distressing for the victim.  It is the pain that the victim suffers that we dislike and deem "wrong".  It is that slightly empathetic simulation of what the victim is feeling that we can recognise as unpleasant and we would not like to experience.  It seems to follow that it is, therefore, "wrong".  But this is not what is most importantly 'wrong' with abuse.  The pain and discomfort are unpleasant and it is perfectly human and reasonable to regard the experience as undesirable and to respond to that empathetic feeling by questioning it but it is not the 'reason' abuse is so wrong.  There are lots of things that are unpleasant that we don't deem wrong 'because' they are unpleasant.  Having a bad tooth extracted might be one example.

What is so worryingly 'wrong' about abuse is that it damages the person.  And it damages them in a way that perpetrates the abuse.  It damages the person in such a way as to prevent them functioning as well as they were functioning before.  Although we all suffer some degree of abuse in our lives and as humans we are quite robust and cope with a lot of damage it is the damage that makes us perform less successfully and in some cases prevents us functioning creatively and constructively at all.  But there is worse to come...  It turns people into abusers.  So, in some way, the problem with abuse is it creates abusers.  Abused people cannot, by definition, respond accurately to their environment.  They are malfunctioning and this is detrimental not only to their individual well being, which is important enough, but also to the well being of the society, the culture, and ultimately to the evolution of this particular sentient life form in this weird old universe of ours.