I don't say this to excuse shameful behavior, but to attempt to explain it. Come along with me a little in thinking of it this way and help me to better hone my argument to effect some understanding--armor against the scam--among this and, especially, the next generation of parents.
Here's the theory: We are being domesticated.
This is like the Watership Down, which was required reading in many regular old public and private high schools in my day. You never hear about it anymore, but it's a classic political, cultural, psyche drama well worth reading.
In my day, when my older brothers went into the Seed in around 70 or 71, the program was yet another bizarre, disturbing development even against the backdrop of the Kennedy Assasination, Vietnam War and anti-war movement, Watergate, the Summer of Manson, the Summer of love, Beatlemania and Woodstock.
The whole world was fucking nuts, but even so, my family was way, way, WAY on the outside of fucked up in the eyes of our neighbors, teachers and communities by virtue of our involvement in the program. In those days where I grew up in So. Florida, there was no higher authority than mom and dad. On the down side, there were a good many kids who just had to put up with parents who routinely beat them, locked them out of the house or were abusive or neglectful in various ways. The liberal elite had lots of ideas about how parents ought to raise their kids, but very little real coercive authority to back it up.
Acting on all the good intentions in the world, they have acquired much influence in all realms of public and private life over the last 30 years or so. Not that that was really an epic, I don't know if there is an identifiable epoch. But the world definitely changed rather suddenly around that time.
In my day, when they called me ADD and wanted to put me on speed, my dad just cussed them out and stomped off. These days, that might just land the kid in state custody. And people are used to that. The daytime talk shows run constant, more than daily courses of instruction on just how to identify a disorder or dysfunction in almost anybody and then tell you just who to call for repairs. People are used to it. The schooling industry has almost nothing to do with education anymore, but will offer aspiring Master Teachers a handy guide on
http://www.masterteacher.com/freeresource/Parents ta' day have been raised in a world where their role is to produce and consume and to force their kids to comply with the new order of things. They no longer seem to poses near as much of that good old parental instinct we all take for granted. If some dumb bimbo who flunked out of her masters program and took a job teaching instead can't get along with your kid says the kid is disordered, the parents just believe it without question and follow the instructions of the presumed professionals, however cruel or bizarre.
They have the same problem in trying to establish free range cattle herds. Domesticated cattle have lost the instinct and habit of looking after their young. Free range cattlemen generally send the overly domesticated ones to slaughter as soon as they pick up on that particular disorder because they don't want them breeding into the herd. While I
well understand the impulse to take a similar tack, I think it would be more productive to try and wake people up to what's going on so that they won't fall for it.
