Town Head, Westmoreland, in 2005; two little girls - eight and nine years old are sexually abused - and then killed. Belvedere, St Andrew, in 2008: the body of an 11-year-old sixth-grade girl is found abused and murdered. Harbour View, St Andrew, in 2008; a policeman is arrested for carnal abuse and indecent assault of a 14-year-old girl, who has since been abducted from her home and is still missing. Another policeman is charged with rape.
It makes you stop and think. What would be going through the minds of men who would do something like this, especially officers of the law? We too easily write off this behaviour as insanity, and it might be; but this kind of behaviour could also be the extreme case of men not in control of their sexual urges; in other words, extreme cases of sexual immaturity.
The struggle for maturity is a struggle for self-control, and so many of us Jamaicans are sexually and emotionally immature. We humans are members of the animal kingdom, with many of the animal instincts of lower beings. Built into our make-up are chemicals which trigger a range of 'cravings' in our heads and our bodies which we call 'appetites', and we have appetites for food and drink and sex and all sorts of other nice things. The too-fleeting feelings of 'pleasure' we obtain while we perform our bodily functions are also chemically induced.
Essence of immaturity
The essence of immaturity is to live life satisfying every craving that arises for the pleasure, and our modern culture promotes this. Popular songs advise us that: "If it feels good do it! If it feels good do it! Do it! Do it! Do it till you're satisfied." "Don't stop! Don't stop! Don't stop till you get enough." The message is clear: give-in to your appetites, whatever you feel to do, whatever feels good. Immediate personal gratification!
Common sense will tell us that this cannot be a guiding philosophy that builds up society or persons. If the pineapple pastry that I happen to crave at this moment is on someone else's plate or in the pastry shop window, I can't just reach for it. I have to control myself. If the beautiful sexy woman that has just appeared on the beach is accompanied by an equally hunky man, I will have to control myself from making an approach if I wish to maintain my bodily integrity. The process by which we come to maturity involves being conscious of these chemically-induced cravings and learning to deal with them, to resist them, to control them.
Discipline
Children are not born with discipline; it has to be learned; parents and teachers and others need to spend many months and years training children not to shout in front of the staffroom, not to run along the corridors and not to urinate into the school garden. Teaching restraint and self-control is an essential part of the early education of children, so that in later life they will live lives of restraint, respecting the rights of others.
Secondary and higher education are supposed to exercise our minds, giving us confidence in reason as the principle to guide behaviour. When young people properly study science or mathematics or literature, they learn deduction, induction and logic, and how to determine cause and effect. This sort of knowledge is mind-blowing and life-changing; it inspires human ingenuity and ambition, and creates the climate where people can believe that they can control their lives and their appetites. Education that never surpasses learning by rote, or mindless rhyme, or sensual titillation, will produce children who live on the edge of their emotions and their appetites.
As a nation, we have a poor track record in parenting, and in primary and secondary education. We are definitely not very successful in teaching restraint in sexual matters to our children, mostly because adults are often themselves sexually indisciplined. Drunkenness and obesity show lack of restraint with food and drink; robbery and theft is lack of restraint in wanting to possess things; rape and carnal abuse is lack of restraint with respect to our sexual appetites. One of my brother deacons puts it well: "It is not every time you itch that you mus' scratch." Soldiers on parade have to learn that. Self-control and discipline are more or less the same thing.
Immature society
We need to be honest with ourselves: we are largely an undisciplined and an immature society. We rail against crime, and especially crime against children, but many of us beat our children mercilessly, verbally abuse them, and we support flogging and capital punishment. We are trapped in a vortex of violence and most of us are more part of the problem than the solution.
The main difference between humans and other animals is that we can think; we can stand back and reflect on ourselves, on the feelings we feel, on our bodies and our minds. It is in using our brains and our minds that makes us real men and women, not in doing what dogs and donkeys do.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist, and a Roman Catholic deacon.
