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Title: Spare the children
Author: Artxmis Graham Thoreau
Date: 20 July 2021
Language: en
Topics: primal anarchy, civilization, indigenous, anti-colonialism, anti-colonization, anti-civ, anarcho-primitivism, Canada, United States of America, colonization, anti-school, Modern School, repression, Jacques Camatte, Kevin Tucker, settler state
Source: https://paleolithicism.medium.com/spare-the-child-a-primal-anarchist-view-of-how-civilization-breaks-children-e2a8977bf5c8

Artxmis Graham Thoreau

Spare the children

“The subtext of all of it is really that the worst civilization can do,

it does to children.”

— Kevin Tucker

Children are born as individuals. Wild. Screaming. Emotional. Impulsive.

They cry when exposed to this new world, and it helps them develop. They

expand their lungs and expel all their mucus and other fluids. The

children may not be fully aware of it, but they are born as unique and

beautiful as any other. Their life has begun, and so has the attack by

Civilization upon their uniqueness.

Jacques Camatte — still not fully appreciated in the many circles he has

influence in — understands that children are domesticated, broken into

submission. Camatte states Civilization needs repression in order to

suit someone to the conditions of civilization. In particular, Camatte

believed the parents, despite their confessed love of the child, repress

her desires and ‘naturalness.’ By naturalness, I mean her instincts and

impulsive behaviors not suited to the cold and unliving demands of

Civilization. In addition to the suppression of these drives, the child

has to cope with what has been done to her. A level of neurosis forms.*

Of course, this isn’t an attack on the role of the mother, father, and

extended family as natural caretakers of the child. This abuse and

repression was done onto the parents when they were children by

Civilization, and they reproduce this onto their own child. Under

Civilization, the parents become an authority, a home-bound

domesticator. The parent instills social consciousness. In another

context, this could be a consciousness of freedom and intimacy. In our

context, it means submission and fear.

A recent 2020 study found:

Approximately one in four children experience child abuse or neglect in

their lifetime. Of maltreated children, 18 percent are abused

physically, 78 percent are neglected, and 9 percent are abused sexually.

The fatality rate for child maltreatment is 2.2 per 1000 children

annually, making homicide the second leading cause of death in children

younger than age one. Exposure to violence during childhood can have

lifelong health consequences, including poor physical, emotional, and

mental health. 1

Risk factors provided by the study were, “Young age, prematurity,

special needs, twins, colic/crying, behavior problems, and toilet

training/accidents increase the risk for child physical abuse.

Perpetrator risk factors include poverty, parental alcohol or drug

abuse, and domestic violence in the home (30% to 60% co-occurrence); 91%

of the time the perpetrator is a parent.”2

From the same study, “[S]tudies have found a quarter of all adults

report enduring physical abuse as children. One in five females and one

in 13 males report experiencing childhood sexual abuse. Emotional abuse

and neglect are common. Females are especially vulnerable to sexual

violence, exploitation, and abuse.” 3

How else can this be explained beyond pressures of raising a child under

the conditions of Civilizations? The risk factors provided by the study

are indicative of Civilization and the breakup of the communal family.

When all life, including the basic components of survival, has become

commodified, such abuse seems to become commonplace. When we (children

or parent) are alienated from support channels, the risk of this abuse

occurring and not being stopped is expected, too.

Of course, as one might imagine, this has worsened under the ongoing

pandemic. Another study found that, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the

total number of emergency department visits related to child abuse and

neglect decreased, but the percentage of such visits resulting in

hospitalization increased, compared with 2019.” 4

The continued isolation, the most vulgar expression of our domesticated

alienation, cannot help but worsen the issues we face in our everyday

lives. The abuse of children is no exception. In addition, there has

been a rise in domestic abuse, generally. A study titled, “Family

violence and COVID‐19: Increased vulnerability and reduced options for

support” confirms this:

As the novel coronavirus outbreak has intensified globally, countries

are adopting dedicated measures to slow the spread of the virus through

mitigation and containment (van Gelder et al.

2020

; Campbell

2020

). Social distancing and isolation are central to the public health

strategy adopted by many countries, and in many settings, penalties are

in place for any person who breaches these imposed restrictions. Social

isolation requires families to remain in their homes resulting in

intense and unrelieved contact as well as the depletion of existing

support networks, such as through extended family as well as through

social or community‐based support networks for families at risk.

Additionally, isolation places children at greater risk of neglect as

well as physical, emotional, sexual, and domestic abuse (National

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children [NSPCC]

2020

). Due to (necessary) imposed social distancing and isolation

strategies, and the resulting shortages of essential resources and

economic consequences of these measures, people globally are living

under stressful conditions. While social isolation is an effective

measure of infection control, it can lead to significant social,

economic, and psychological consequences, which can be the catalyst for

stress that can lead to violence.

[...]

Isolation paired with psychological and economic stressors accompanying

the pandemic as well as potential increases in negative coping

mechanisms (e.g. excessive alcohol consumption) can come together in a

perfect storm to trigger an unprecedented wave of family violence (van

Gelder et al.2020). In Australia, as social distancing measures came

into place, alcohol good sales rose more than 36% (Commonwealth Bank

Group 2020), and as restaurants, bars, and pubs closed, people are now

drinking more within the confines of their homes. Unemployment figures

around the world have rapidly risen into the double digits, with

millions signing up for welfare payments and a worldwide recession

predicted in the near future (Kennedy 2020). Substance misuse, financial

strain, and isolation are all well‐known domestic abuse risk factors

(Richards 2009). During isolation, there are also fewer opportunities

for people living with family violence to call for help. Isolation also

helps to keep the abuse hidden with physical or emotional signs of

family violence and abuse less visible to others (Stark 2009). 5

Such abuse is not limited to the household, but unfortunately extends to

all of the world. Schools are a place where children spend most of their

waking hours, and are exposed to increased possibilities of abuse.

concluding thoughts of a relevant study by NHERI were that there was a

“remarkable rate of abuse of U.S. schoolchildren by school personnel

(e.g., teachers, coaches, bus drivers, administrators, custodians).” The

study also attributed that the many regulations and policies not only

did not prevent the abuse, but contributed to the lack of reporting. 6

In particular, there was an increase of more than 50% pertaining to

reported sexual violence at schools (“9,600 in the 2015–2016 school year

to nearly 15,000 in the 2017–2018 school year”). 7

School, be it public or private, makes good captives, not individuals.

Just as the Worker is abused, so is the child. There is no coincidence

that while the Worker is the prisoner of labor, the Child-Student is the

prisoner of education. (There is a joke about Foucault here, probably.)

It is also no coincidence that the infamous zero tolerance policies are

major contributors to the school-to-prison pipeline. 8

The Church is another location of abuse and domestication. T When I say

the Church, I mean the Christian Church as a whole, from the established

dominion of the Vatican to the sects of The Church of Jesus Christ of

Latter-day Saints. No religion, especially those with temples for their

dead Gods, are free of this. That said, the focus will be on the role of

the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), both for the sake of brevity and to be

more specific on more recent issues.

In 2004, the United States RCC — in light of upheaval against the

institution regarding sexual abuse accusations — approved a study into

the accusations. Working alongside the John Jay College of Criminal

Justice, the US RCC produced surveys to provide information on the

cases. Though, it is important to note that it is possible the Church

was selective in information, and should be kept in mind. The range of

the study ranged from 1950 to 2002 and found that, “A total of 10,667

individuals made allegations of child sexual abuse by priests. Of those

who alleged abuse, the file contained information that 17.2% of them had

siblings who were also allegedly abused.”9 All victims were younger than

18 and victims of priests and deacons. The study also found:

When allegations were made to the police, they were almost always

investigated, and about one in three priests were charged with a crime.

Overall, few priests with allegations served criminal sentences; only 3%

of all priests with allegations served prison sentences. The priests

with many allegations of abuse were not more likely than other priests

to be charged and serve prison sentences.10

Such a study was groundbreaking. Many could never have known, or

accepted, the scale of the abuse, and remember, these are only the

accusations found by the surveys. Imagine the unreported crimes, those

not found by the survey, and those outside the range of the survey

(before and after, and outside the US.) I couldn’t find reliable studies

on abuse in general, and I cannot even begin to imagine the scale of it.

This all culminates in a tragic story; one that has not ended, despite

the claims of liberals: the abuses of Indigenous children by state

created and church run schools.

The RCC has a history of being a main vehicle of colonization. The

introduction of this belief system, by force or otherwise, would break

up traditional social bonds, which were often based in the traditional

spiritual practices. The Church didn’t simply convert the Indigenous

peoples to their belief, but came to assimilate them into the European

society the missionaries came from. The Indigenous people had to be made

into Whites.

Indigenous children. Kidnapped. Murdered. Culture taken. No traditional

language, hair cuts, clothes taken. No identity.

Genocide.

Since May of 2021 to today (19 July 2021), more than 1,000 Indigenous

children’s remains have been found at Canadian Residential schools. 11

This is how the residential school systems worked, as per the Indigenous

Foundations:

The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up

by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the

nominal objective of educating Indigenous children but also the more

damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into

Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into

mainstream white Canadian society. The residential school system

officially operated from the 1880s into the closing decades of the

20^(th) century. The system forcibly separated children from their

families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge

their Indigenous heritage and culture or to speak their own languages.

Children were severely punished if these, among other, strict rules were

broken. Former students of residential schools have spoken of horrendous

abuse at the hands of residential school staff: physical, sexual,

emotional, and psychological. Residential schools provided Indigenous

students with inappropriate education, often only up to lower grades,

that focused mainly on prayer and manual labour in agriculture, light

industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and

sewing.

Where traditional schools operate to assimilate and break children, and

ready them for the performance of their roles as Worker and child

domesticators, residential schools were the most vulgar. They had to

locate children who were born and/or raised outside of Colonizer

Civilization and rip them from their identities, their communities, and

their worlds. They were kidnapped and abused. This is a genocide.

The logic of Canada’s residential school system is innately tied to

those in the US. As one of its foundational architects, Captain Pratt

said, “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man.”

The programs were a clear articulation of the genocidal intent to

overwhelming disrupt and disturb Native communities already under

assault. The abuse that the children endured was relentless:

At boarding schools, staff forced Indigenous students to cut their hair

and use new, Anglo-American names. They forbid children from speaking

their Native language and observing their religious and cultural

practices. And by removing them from their homes, the schools disrupted

students’ relationships with their families and other members of their

tribe. Once they returned home, children struggled to relate to their

families after being taught that it was wrong to speak their language or

practice their religion.13

The specifics of the relationships between the schools and churches

varied between the US and Canada. In the US, the most common operator of

these indoctrination centers was the Methodist Church. The Catholic

Church was fourth on the list. 14

Despite this, they were functionally the same system: “There were more

than 350 government-funded, and often church-run, Indian Boarding

schools across the US in the 19^(th) and 20^(th) centuries. Indian

children were forcibly abducted by government agents, sent to schools

hundreds of miles away, and beaten, starved, or otherwise abused when

they spoke their native languages.”15

To get a grasp on the context of the residential school program in the

US, there were 20,000 children in the schools in 1900. By 1925, that

number increased to 60,889. The program expanded to 367 schools spread

out over 29 states. 16

These numbers are just the tip of this iceberg. Genocide is the

interwoven of flow between dead children and tears in the fabric of

Native communities. We still don’t know the exact number of children who

died in these torture schools, nor do any of these statistics

encapsulate the extent of personal and inter-generational trauma of

abuse that these children and their families endured. This is the cost

of Civilization, of “civil society,” but how is any of this civil? What

is the real savagery at play? These genocidal practices carried on

through the 60s Swoop, forced sterilization programs, foster systems,

and is continued in ICE detention camps, of which many or most detainees

are Indigenous or of Indigenous descent.

This focus on Canada and the US is limited in scope. This is civil

terror, and the continuity between here and abroad demands persistent

attack. The true realities, the sheer and unending brutality of

colonization and civilization, demand more attention and outrage. I hope

I can continue to spread the information of Civil Terror, both in the

context put forth here, and abroad. I urge all readers to continue the

research too, and learn the truth of colonization and civilization.

In Civilization and Its Discontents , Freud identified the innate

hostility we all harbor against civilization:

But it would be wiser to reflect upon this a little longer. In the third

place, finally, and this seems the most important of all, it is

impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon

a renunciation of instinct, how much it presupposes precisely the

non-satisfaction (by suppression, repression or some other means?) of

powerful instincts. This ‘cultural frustration’ dominates the large

field of social relationships between human beings. As we already know,

it is the cause of the hostility against which all civilizations have to

struggle. 17

And struggles there have been. For George Guerin, former chief of the

Musqueam Nation, the hostilities were explicit at the Kuper Island

residential school (which lasted until 1975):

Sister Marie Baptiste had a supply of sticks as long and thick as pool

cues. When she heard me speak my language, she’d lift up her hands and

bring the stick down on me. I’ve still got bumps and scars on my hands.

I have to wear special gloves because the cold weather really hurts my

hands. I tried very hard not to cry when I was being beaten and I can

still just turn off my feelings…. And I’m lucky. Many of the men my age,

they either didn’t make it, committed suicide or died violent deaths, or

alcohol got them. And it wasn’t just my generation. My grandmother,

who’s in her late nineties, to this day it’s too painful for her to talk

about what happened to her at the school. 18

Abuse and repression, for all that the colonizers say about

civilization, this is what it really means. And this is how its cycles

of violence perpetuate.

I recommend “Capital Abaddon: Some words on and oft inspired by

Jacques Camatte” By Howard Slater for interesting summaries and

explanations on this.

---

1. Brown CL, Yilanli M, Rabbitt AL. Child Physical Abuse And Neglect.

[Updated 2020 Nov 20]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL):

StatPearls Publishing; 2021 Jan-. Available from:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470337/

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4 Swedo E, Idaikkadar N, Leemis R, et al. Trends in U.S. Emergency

Department Visits Related to Suspected or Confirmed Child Abuse and

Neglect Among Children and Adolescents Aged <18 Years Before and During

the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, January 2019–September 2020. MMWR

Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2020;69:1841–1847.

5. Usher, Kim et al. “Family violence and COVID-19: Increased

vulnerability and reduced options for support.” International journal of

mental health nursing vol. 29,4 (2020): 549–552. doi:10.1111/inm.12735

6. Ray, Brian D. “Child Abuse of Public School, Private School, and

Homeschool Students: Evidence, Philosophy, and Reason.” National Home

Education Research Institute, NHERI, 21 Feb. 2019,

7. Balingit, Moriah. “Sexual Assault Reports Sharply Increased at K-12

Schools, Numbering Nearly 15,000, Education Department Data Shows.” The

Washington Post, WP Company, 28 May 2021,

www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/10/15/sexual-assault-k-12-schools/

8. Kopas, Anne. “Learning About the School-to-Prison Pipeline Puts

Theory into Practice for Students.” Hamline University, 7 Oct. 2020,

www.hamline.edu/news/2020/school-to-prison-pipeline/

9. John Jay Report (New York, 2004.)

10. Ibid.

11. Weisberger, Mindy. “Remains of More than 1,000 Indigenous Children

Found at Former Residential Schools in Canada.” LiveScience, Purch, 13

July 2021,

www.livescience.com/childrens-graves-residential-schools-canada.html

12. Hanson, Eric. “The Residential School System.” Edited by Daniel P.

Gamez and Alexa Manuel, Indigenousfoundations, 2009,

indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/#what-were-residential-schools.

13. Little, Becky. “Government Boarding Schools Once Separated Native

American Children From Families.” History.com, A&E Television Networks,

19 June 2018,

www.history.com/news/government-boarding-schools-separated-native-american-children-families

14. Nabs. “For Churches.” The National Native American Boarding School

Healing Coalition, boardingschoolhealing.org/healing/for-churches/.

15. Nabs. “US Indian Boarding School History.” The National Native

American Boarding School Healing Coalition,

boardingschoolhealing.org/education/us-indian-boarding-school-history/.

16. Nabs. “US Indian Boarding School History.” The National Native

American Boarding School Healing Coalition,

boardingschoolhealing.org/education/us-indian-boarding-school-history/.

17. Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents (New York, 1961)

18: Stolen from Our Embrace the Abduction of First Nations Children and

the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities, by Suzanne Fournier and Ernie

Crey, Crane Library, 2014, p. 62.

A special thanks to Kevin Tucker for unwittingly inspiring this essay,

and also for taking the time to edit it.