news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

harming children is unacceptable.

in view of the recent numerous attacks on children, i strongly advocate that the whole society should reach a consensus: attacks on children are anti-civilization and anti-humanity, and a zero-tolerance attitude must be adopted.

of course, you may think this is also very sad: this should be common sense and the bottom line, but it still needs to reach a consensus? however, if you take a deeper look at our current social public opinion, you will find that this seemingly basic thing is far from being deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

i paid attention and found that after these vicious incidents occurred, there were many defenders on the internet, and they had at least three defense strategies.

the first is the most common, tending to downplay and conclude that it is "not a big deal". even if the consequences for the victim are serious, it is just an "extremely isolated" incident and is not worth making a fuss about. what they care more about is not so much the pain suffered by the victims and their families, but whether the matter will be magnified.

in this way, incidents that harm children are considered "normal" and do not require special attention. others may even think that the unspoken rule of the world is bullying. there is no need to be surprised when children are harmed. of course, there is no need to reflect on anything. everything everything is fine. at most, there are only one or two perverts occasionally. but which society doesn't have a few perverts?

the second strategy is related to the previous one, but more common, and that isthe chinese people’s mentality of comparing themselves to others, that means: "what's wrong with the occasional indiscriminate harm to children? why don't you talk about the school shootings in the united states? and the dark history of canadian boarding schools?"

by conflating matters of a different nature, this muddying of the waters often prevents the focus from being focused on the issues and reflections at hand, demonstrating as much as possible that "even if there is such a thing, it is neither unique nor common." it has to be the worst.”

the above two defense strategies at least admit that harming children is indeed an evil act, and it is just a question of how to determine the degree and nature of the evil. the third strategy simply denies that it is an evil act, and even conversely emphasizes that the children themselves may not be innocent.

after a 10-year-old boy at a japanese school in shenzhen was killed, someone condemned: "terrorist attacks against children are unforgivable, no matter where or when." a comment below replied: "oh, were there children in nanjing back then? do you forgive me?"

this kind of rhetoric often uses history to rationalize the present: "what happened to killing a few japanese children? the japanese killed more chinese children back then." after a chinese student in zurich, switzerland stabbed three local children, this also appeared online. such a rumor spread that swiss mercenaries had participated in the eight-power allied forces.

this is a kind of "original sin" with chinese characteristics: the victimized child is not completely innocent. he was born guilty because his ancestors committed crimes against the chinese. now it is his turn to bear the karma and cannot escape responsibility. in this way, what was originally a cruel and despicable act against an innocent child became a righteous act of revenge.

why is there this awareness? ultimately, this is the concept of "implication" that exists widely in chinese society: individuals are in a ubiquitous network of relationships and bear collective joint and several responsibilities. even if you have done nothing wrong, you may still be punished for the actions of your relatives. inexplicably involved. people who adopt this defense strategy not only believe that the victim has to bear the sins of their ancestors, but also subconsciously believe that they and the murderer are jointly and severally responsible, so they try their best to distance themselves from it.

many years ago, i was first shocked by this logic when i was reading jin yong's novel "the eight parts of the dragon". the protagonist xiao feng innocently suffered great injustice and was charged with murdering his teacher, father, and mother. he has been searching for the "evil man" for many years, but in the end he painfully discovered that he was his biological father xiao yuanshan. after learning the truth, everyone thought: "in the past, xiao feng was indeed wrongly blamed. but since father and son are of the same body, it was me who did the evil. there is nothing wrong with blaming his son."

i originally thought that admitting one's mistake and apologizing for it is the right thing to do once one has made one's mistake. therefore, jin yong's description impressed me deeply, and i realized that people can have such a strong motivation to defend themselves. here, what people rely on to defend themselves is it is the implication principle of "father and son are of the same body". based on this, even if xiao feng is innocent, he is still guilty.

ironically, it was those who wrongly blamed him who avoided cognitive dissonance because they could always insist: "i am a good person and i did the right thing." however, in this way, reflection is of course out of the question. come on, why bother? since you did the right thing, why do you need to reflect on it? as for the cost, let others bear it.

what kind of people are this? according to their concepts, personal independence is impossible because you exist as a member of the group and cannot escape collective joint responsibility. paradoxically, this ultimately encourages irresponsibility, for one simple reason: there is little point in being strict with yourself when the way you are treated is not a direct consequence of your actions.

in those two years, i also watched an israeli movie "war boys", which told this story: during the yom kippur war in 1973, major ross led a six-man team of the israeli army to carry out an important mission deep into syria. unexpectedly, in on the deserted road, he met a local shepherd boy named alhamboni.

how to deal with this boy, the team is in a dilemma: it is impossible to take the child with him, which will affect the operation; letting him go may expose his whereabouts, which is even more dangerous. they had limited time, but they fell into huge differences over this. three people advocated killing the child to ensure that everything was safe; two opposed it, because after all, the child was not a military personnel, but a civilian with a guilty conscience; one person remained silent.

finally, major ross decided to take the boy with him and also let him act as a guide. two days later, they arrived at the target location. before carrying out the mission, he decided to let the child go, which was unanimously approved by the team members. he ordered the team members to go ahead and stay alone with the children for a while. after a gunshot, he turned around to catch up with the team and successfully completed the mission. but three weeks later, ross, who had been promoted to colonel, committed suicide at home.

in the film, this is a suspenseful story written by a writer. however, when the reporter traced it, he discovered that it was actually the writer's real experience. of course he did not commit suicide, but his conscience has been tortured by this secret buried in his heart for many years, and finally he admitted with tears that he finally killed the child.

i later discussed this story with many people and found that the vast majority of people around me believed that the officer did the right thing. the reason was: it was an emergency period and he was just performing his duties. if he let the child go, nothing would happen. once the secret is leaked, the small team that is so alone may be wiped out.

in this case, if he didn't kill the child, he would be risking the lives of his own team members. what was more important, his own life or the life of an enemy child? some people simply think that such "women's kindness" is a selfish mother's heart, and "kindness cannot control soldiers." in a social culture that believes in "it is better to kill a thousand by mistake than let one go", they all feel that achieving their goals and ensuring their own absolute safety is the most important, and they don't understand why there is any hesitation in this.

following this line of thinking, they scorned rose's inner war, believing it to be nothing more than hypocritical sentimentality. no one knew or was responsible for killing the child in the war. they did it and still suffered decades later. what?

this is our social and cultural soil. "do not harm innocent children" is not an absolute law here, but will be attacked, resisted and disintegrated in specific contexts, because people will find various reasons to think that this is okay in reality. accept that it has to be like this, even must be like this. not only that, people also have ways to avoid being tortured by their conscience, without having to worry about being judged by god. they can forgive themselves before being forgiven by others.

so under what circumstances is it unacceptable to harm an innocent child? quite simply, to put it bluntly, it’s time to “hurt my/our children.” in other words, in the minds of these people, the same behavior can be justified in every way if done to others, but it is unforgivable if others do it to themselves.

but wake up, when such a principle is broken, then none of our children will be safe. universal principles are not just abstract tenets; they actually concern all of us.