17.10.1996

For a genuinely human morality

Jim Blackstock takes up the debate around child abuse

How should a democratic society care for its children? This is the question that goes to the heart of the recent controversies over paedophilia and chastisement. It is a question which communists, who stand for the liberation of humanity, must get to grips with.

We want to free all relations amongst individuals from the deadening alienation which encompasses all oppressive societies, and especially capitalism. But it is not enough to wait for the destruction of capitalism and with it the end of false, alienated morality. As part of our struggle we need to consciously construct a new, working class, communist morality that will characterise the liberated society of the future.

Although the debate over the chastisement of children has been unrestrained, with both those for and against smacking feeling completely uninhibited in expressing their viewpoint, the same cannot be said for public discussion of paedophilia. The continuing taboo over the discussion of child sex has meant that this debate has been entirely one-sided. Whereas similar taboos over homosexuality and other sexual practices previously considered outrageous have all but disappeared, bourgeois society still deems it inadmissible to even hint at the possibility that an element of sexuality may enter into normal, healthy relationships between adults and children.

As a result, paedophiles are universally presented as a deadly threat, intent only on abusing our children, if not assaulting or murdering them. Comrade Julie Mills partially redressed the balance in a letter published in the Weekly Worker (September 26), when she identified the notion of abuse with lack of consent:

“Any sexual act to which one of the parties does not consent constitutes abuse, regardless of the age or gender of the victim. This definition precludes any association with sexual orientation or the age of consent.”

However, the question of consent is by no means a simple one. In oppressive societies people are frequently obliged to give their ‘consent’ to all sorts of negative situations. Millions of workers hate having to sell their labour power, but nevertheless they ‘consent’ not only to the grinding oppression of work, but also submit to every petty regulation imposed by their employer. Those with power are often able to leave people under their control with no option but to comply.

This situation often characterises the relationship between adults and children. The control that class society is obliged to impose over the whole of society is reflected on an individual level within most families. Bourgeois morality sees the role of parents as being ultimately one of control, a role which inhibits the full flowering of reciprocal human interaction. Thus the ‘consent’ given by children to the demands of adults is often questionable.

That is not to say that children can never consent to some kind of sexual relationship with an adult. That may arise spontaneously and perfectly naturally out of the normal, playful physical relationship between parent and child. It is of course perverse to suggest that children can have fully developed adult sex before puberty, but it is undeniable that the seeds of human sexuality are sown within childhood, whether their manifestations are repressed or not.

Jack Conrad’s Draft programme discussion document for the Communist Party contains the following demand under the section entitled ‘youth’:

“The abolition of age-of-consent laws. We recognise the right of individuals to enter into the sexual relations they choose, provided this does not conflict with the rights of others. Alternative legislation to protect children from sexual abuse.”

Comrade Conrad is clear on the rights of adolescents, but it is not at all obvious what is meant by “alternative legislation”. In my opinion genuinely consensual sexual acts involving pre-adolescent children should not be a matter for the state, nor for our future socialist legislation. We must strengthen our own communist morality to such an extent that adults will not attempt to impose false ‘consent’.

However, we clearly have a long way to go to attain fully liberated human relationships for both adults and children. This is most clearly demonstrated by the smacking controversy. Calls to do away with all forms of violence, no matter how mild, as a normal regulatory method of imposing control over children are vigorously opposed - even by some communists.

It is certainly a reflection of the perversity of bourgeois morality that loving physical relationships can be considered taboo, while the infliction of pain as a means of imposing control is deemed positively desirable.

Those who believe that a well timed smack is an essential tool in the hands of adults hotly deny that this constitutes a form of violence. Yet such a sanction must be painful - not to mention degrading - if it is to have any effect. Of course there is a difference between a slap on the wrist and a blow struck with a powerful weapon, but it is a difference of degree.

Communists are not pacifists. Therefore we recognise that violence will be necessary in our struggle to end class society. But we do not extol its use as a routine method of regulating relations between sections or members of society. We do not propose that differences between communists should be settled routinely by physical force.

So it should be with relationships within the family. Inflicting pain on children should not be ruled out in exceptional circumstances, although it must be said that it is difficult to envisage just when alternative methods of restraining children would be inappropriate. The point is that the use of violence should never appear to children as the normal, desirable way of resolving conflict. Our vision of a liberated society is based on the full development of cooperative human endeavour, freed from the stultifying effects of alienated bourgeois ‘morality’. Yet for some comrades children are apparently excluded from this vision. It is almost as though they are seen as sub-human, for whom the normal rules of human interaction do not apply.

Julie Mills ended her letter with the following powerful call: “The abuse, exploitation and oppression of all members of the working class (even the smallest) must be challenged whenever and wherever it exists” (Weekly Worker September 26).

This abuse - whether violent or sexual - often appears in the form of extremely alienated, mentally unstable individuals. But that is not its source. The source is the relations of power and control which class society must impose, relations which abuse our humanity.

Our response to individual outrages should not be to demand that the state imposes yet more oppressive controls. As part and parcel of constructing a genuinely human morality, we must start to impose our own working class control over all anti-social, destructive forces and individuals.

An excellent way of protecting children is by promoting the fullest possible discussion of all these issues. That would enable children, through greater awareness of what is morally acceptable, to stand a better chance of giving genuine consent, and inhibit adults, through the voluntary conforming restraints of society, from abusing their position of control.