Sometimes 'because my friends are doing it' is an eminently acceptable reason

[aesmael]

"Why do you want to X?"
"Because my friends are and participating with them will provide us with shared memories and socialisation which will serve to further strengthen the bond of our friendship."

It seems contradictory to me, even hypocritical, that children are taught they ought to want to do things with other children but that they ought not do something because their friends are. I think what people are really after is ostensibly to teach from a young age the ability to recognise harmful or undesired actions and be in possession of the capacity to refuse participation in these even in the face of social pressure.

Except that parents or other authoritative people in a young person's life tend to want em to acquiesce to the pressures they place on em to engage in activities they approve of and to avoid those they disapprove of, often without particular reference to whether the person in question shares this desire. So we end up with apparently contradictory messages, such as that excursion in primary school in which teachers were insistent that I come join the other students in watching a video on why conformity is bad, rather than being off doing my own thing. I found that hilarious.

A certain degree of cooperation is necessary, so far as I can see, to keep a society functional, but I do not recall being taught this. Instead we get the message that we should do as everyone else is expected to, but not do what everyone else is doing, and thereby be anything we want to be.

Let's turn this around. Instead of[1] teaching people to resist peer pressure, let's teach people not to exert social pressure to coerce participation from the unwilling. Why must the onus be always on the victim to avoid being victimised? Why not teach people not to abuse the power and influence they have over others?


[1] As well as, really, but I like having a corrective footnote

Comments

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

I think there's a lot of truth here, and that they dun understand that trying to make the world so black and white and saying such contradictory things helps set what the world appears to be to children who often grow up with such worldviews. :|

I like your idea at the end :)

[floorcandy.livejournal.com]

Oh, the irony. And so all the children sit around and chorus "yes, we are all individuals. We are all different."

You do have an excellent point, though. While there are measures a person can take to avoid being victimized it's only a band-aid rather than a preventative solution.

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

"such as that excursion in primary school in which teachers were insistent that I come join the other students in watching a video on why conformity is bad, rather than being off doing my own thing."

Laughing... too hard... hurts :D

[mantic-angel.livejournal.com]

To the actual post: You raise really interesting questions, and it never occurred to me that this is not taught; really, the idea itself never even occurred to me, that this is victim-blaming.

Am thinking, it is useful to teach self defense, just as it is useful to address the problem of violence itself. A society which can resist intrusion is one which discourages such, on simple dint of having made it futile. Plus, problem is not going to go away in 1 or 2 generations, so I think self defense is a very responsible skill to teach.

Also thinking, on writing this, that the group being taught self-defense and benefiting is probably NOT the group being coersive in the first place?