8. CHILDREN

The theory of filicide reveals the limitations of two kinds of solutions on which we have relied when presented with social problems. Ideological solutions have been thoroughly contaminated by the unrecognized filicidal behavior of those proposing the solutions. A common example is the socialist revolution that quickly and smoothly turns into dictatorship. Similarly, legal solutions, no matter how insightful, rapidly degenerate to the lowest common denominator of unrecognized filicide operating in the society. Compare, for example, the ideals of political constitutions with the filicidal practice of those constitutions.

In a sense, the anarchist is the only person who has some perception of the filicidal limitations and attempts to act accordingly. But the anarchist, having failed to discriminate violences, easily falls into the ideological trap. Hence the common sight of the anarchist turned physically violent terrorist, or behaviorally violent guru.

The theory indicates finally, in a convincing manner, that we are to rely on our own solutions. To investigate the experience of our fellow creatures and to compare it with our own is one thing. Too often such investigation only lends support to our filicidal quest for quasi-parental or pseudo-parental solutions from an agent outside ourselves. Close attention to the lives of filicidal heretics is certainly in order. But the theory of filicide makes clear the kind of result which deification of those heretics always brings: more violence.

What, then, of the children?

They are excluded, legally, morally, behaviorally, religiously, philosophically, politically, from the process of social creation. That exclusion is one of the two marks of true slavery. The other: children are also excluded from the process of self-creation. The successful child is the one who most skillfully and quickly constructs its personality to conform to the smothering confines of the traditional mold of masculinity or femininity. Where is hope for the child? Occasionally the child may come across an adult who is in some way growing beyond the filicidal mold. The child may think: When I grow up, I can do that. I can be like that. Otherwise the experience of childhood, even as we adults preen our liberated and liberating selves and strut before one another wearing the feathers of our sagelike pride, remains bleak and ominous, played out on a dark landscape littered with brightly colored toys and forgotten dreams.

Filicide will continue unabated as long as the legal systems of planetary civilization continue to support universally the ancient belief that parents own children. The most humanitarian possible social act, indeed in a sense the only genuinely humanitarian act now left to us as historical creatures, is to relinquish ownership of the children. Our "ownership" is after all only another of those large pretenses with which we have from the beginning of history shored up our shaky filicidal selves and our equally shaky reality.

To let the children go. That does not mean to evict them forcibly or any such nonsense. It means only to create opportunities for them where they may safely and freely explore their potential without the constant threat of adult, filicidal intervention. Filicidal heretics have left behind a goodly number of hints and rough maps concerning how to proceed in that direction. It is a direction of interest not only to children but to adults as well. The exploration of which we speak here is that of the human soul which we have managed to imprison rather neatly in its childhood manifestation, not realizing that we have thereby also neatly imprisoned our adult souls. The search here, then, is for a way to escape the eternal recurrence of historical damnation.

Though we may disagree politically about the right of every adult to the basics of sustenance and shelter, the planetary civilization is pretty much in agreement now that every child has those rights simply by the fact of its existence. If we add to that the right to full protection under the law against physical or behavioral violence, then we have the beginning of a foundation for a society in which we can let the children go.

That is the most humanitarian act open to us now because the children cannot rise in rebellion against us. We are bigger and stronger and we are all furthermore in agreement that we do own the children. To free the children is an act of mercy, of benevolence, of trust, of hope. It is an act to put an end to the real source of colonialism, of exploitation, and of contrived violence--the imperialism of the souls of children. The only pressure on us, urging us to let the children go, is internal. No external agent is at hand to force us to do it. It can be done only by adults acting from the filicidally heretical belief in their own ultimate goodness--and that of the children.

Let us examine a hypothetical example. Suppose the child's right to sustenance, shelter, and protection against physical and behavioral violence were law. A child could knock at any door and, barring unusual circumstances, expect entry, food, and shelter. Any violence against the child would be dealt with as the most serious and heinous of crimes. That such a suggestion should sound outrageous is a measure of the depth of our immersion in filicide: Surely such freedom for children would produce a generation of wastrels who would never learn the value of work. Perhaps. Perhaps we would also produce a generation of adults who would see how we have created a world in which we bewail and punish the idlers, the malcontents, the criminals, and the insane, while we remain blissfully unaware that our bewailing and punishing (which we think of as being the essence of civilized behavior) is at least as violent and destructive as any of the behavior which we bewail and punish.

The magnitude of both historical and contemporary filicide is such that it is unlikely that any conceivable corrective measures would be excessive. We are speaking here of an end to a system of slavery as old as history. An end to slavery is a beginning of freedom. In such a situation work and play tend to become more or less indistinguishable. The unthinkable happens: the child learns to work, the adult learns to play.

Thomas Eakins, The Swimming Hole.