Generally pertinent.

[leahbobet]

--and thus to be saved for reference. From an article on accidental deaths of children left in cars in the Washington Post:

Ed Hickling believes he knows why. Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.

Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.

In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. "We are vulnerable, but we don't want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters."

This is something I sort of keep touching on in terms of Hitler Syndrome (aka: "We must find out as much as we can about Hilter so we can prove we would never do that!") but unsurprisingly, Mr. Hickling up there says it better than I've generally been able to.

---

In other news, I have had a sinus headache so bad that I have been dizzy since about ten last night. Public approval for this action on my head's part is at an all-time low. I'm hoping it's just a really...really big pressure change. :p

Comments

Re: This is tangential. Also possibly pedantic and full of as-you-know-Bobism.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Is that still a militant thing? Maybe I'm reading in the wrong places (probably, actually) but I had a sense that there was almost a backlash against it, because of all the Stranger Danger stuff our generation got.

Re: This is tangential. Also possibly pedantic and full of as-you-know-Bobism.

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

My impression is that it pretty much is? Although I don't exactly have a direct source of information on my own, not having kids, so I could be way off.

I think the backlash is actually just starting, depending on where you put your limits for 'normal' childrearing and 'crazy protective' childrearing. Have you seen Free Range Kids? A good examplar post is here, although there's also another one further down when the police apprehended her son for riding the train alone.

She's apparently gotten tons of hate mail, and tons of mail from parents thanking someone for finally talking sense.

Re: This is tangential. Also possibly pedantic and full of as-you-know-Bobism.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's one of the things I was thinking of re: backlash and all the wrong places I read to get any balanced sense of the matter. I come to suspect I have surrounded myself with Crazy Hippies (tm). *g*

Re: This is tangential. Also possibly pedantic and full of as-you-know-Bobism.

[tacithydra.livejournal.com]

Oh, that makes sense then. I think I think of FRK as, like, this leading edge of backlash that's just starting to hit, with the vast majority of folks still very Not OK with the ideas therein.

Also, oh my god appropriate subject, we just reified as-you-know-Bobism again!

Re: This is tangential. Also possibly pedantic and full of as-you-know-Bobism.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

We did!

(You Bob or me?)