Children are, by nature, greedy little bastards who would knife you in a dark alley. Polite behavior is learned, not innate, I think!
I was lurking on a teacher's discussion group and boy, howdy, it is a tough profession these days. Parents feel entitled as all hell and view school as little more than a baby-sitting service. Parents crowd school board meetings and cry foul because a teacher used colored construction paper, which might be construed as a "rainbow" - only white and grays from now on! Worse yet, students see no compunction in assaulting each other or a teacher - and then making a video of it for Tick-Tock.
And of course, there is always bring your gun to school day.
This is nothing new, of course. Some teachers grouse that it is the parents' fault for not teaching their kids right from wrong, so they act out and punch some other kid when he won't share a toy or whatever.
This may be true, because the innate nature of children is selfishness and violence. The book, Lord of the Flies could be a documentary about child psychology. And if you think about it, the childish behavior of children is a survival skill.
When birds lay eggs, the chicks hatch and then compete for food from Mom and Dad. Puppies fight for a prime teat on Momma's tummy. The runt of the litter is pushed out and has to scramble to obtain sufficient calories. Often the Momma bird will push the weaker chick right out of the nest - no sense wasting precious resources on a fledgling that won't make it, anyway.
So children are innately selfish, self-centered, and general pains-in-the-ass. They are all narcissists. The mythology of children is that they are all sainted innocents and only learn to be evil through their exposure to our tainted world. But for "society" teaching them bad things, they would all be sweet little angels.
Sorry, go sell crazy somewhere else. My experience with kids (including myself and my peers growing up) has been the opposite - their parents have to instill morality and proper behavior into them. If not, well, they run wild, that is, until they butt heads with society, which gives them the spanking they should have had, at age eight.
They are, basically, unfinished neural networks, and like any other neural network, what they "learn" may be diametrically opposed to what you taught them. Billy the Bully pounds the crap out of Little Jimmy, and when the altercation is discovered, Billy plays the victim. He is always so nice to Mrs. Beasley, the teacher - he can't be the trouble-maker here! After all, he always says "Yes Ma'am" and "No Ma'am" and brings an apple for the teacher. So off to the office for Little Jimmy, who gets detention - and the crap beat out of him later, by Billy. What lesson does Jimmy get out of this?
I knew kids like this in school. A friend of my brother's was always so polite and formal with parents and other adults. But his shit-eating grin gave the game away - my Mother sensed he was "trouble" and he was. He was always up to something, but never got caught - he made sure others took the rap for his antics. He was like Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver - and June wasn't fooled for a minute!
Kids are evil, period.
Of course, most change over time. They give up their selfish ways as they realize that in the long run, it isn't getting them anywhere, but instead chasing people away and causing them to miss out on greater opportunities. There is a sizable group, however, that never gets this message. We call them Sociopaths or some such - the greedy people of the world who would sell humanity down the drain for a nickel, provided they get to keep the nickel.
It is like these folks who are constantly defending Russia as some sort of Libertarian paradise. We only find out later on they are being paid by Russia. Selling out their own country for a few thousand dollars. It makes no sense to you and me, but maybe because we realize that short-term gains mean long-term losses, not only for us personally, but for society at large.
As people get older, too, they become more invested in the system. A 20-something "antifa" protester shouts "defund the police!" until his bicycle gets stolen, and then it is "put those lousy crooks in jail for life!" It is funny how your priorities change as you get older and even a small investment in "the system" makes you more conservative.
And by the way, I am not kidding about this bicycle thing. For some reason, young liberals are very open to the idea of letting everyone out of jail - even murderers and rapists. But bicycle thieves? They should be hanged like cattle rustlers! I guess that is too close to home for them.
But I digress.
What got me started on this? I dunno - maybe one too many glurges online about "our little angels" by toxic Moms, who posit their little crotch goblins are somehow better than the rest of us - sweet and innocent and pure as the driven snow. Also, I guess, this idea on teacher's forums that somehow the unruly children in their classrooms are unruly because they were taught bad things by their parents. I think the opposite is true - children are, by nature, born selfish and evil and civilization has to be taught to them.
If you think about this, it is true. Two-year-olds throw down a tantrum at the slightest provocation and will fight to the death over a toy they really don't even want to play with - only that another toddler has the toy and appears to be having fun. It is only when an authority figure intervenes and exhorts them to "share" that they learn sweetness and light. Otherwise, it ain't gonna happen.
Humans have to learn that actions have consequences and one failure of liberalism in the last 50 years is the flawed idea that somehow letting people "do their own thing" is a good idea, and that punishing criminals for criminal acts is a bad idea. We no longer spank children, as we consider that child abuse - putting it on a par with beating a child into the hospital. There are few options left in a parent's arsenal, other then sitting in the corner, or denying screen time. Even these things are called out as abusive.
Much has been written about how we have the highest incarceration rate in the world - implying that we are too strict as a county. But maybe the opposite is true. Filtering out the stupid convictions for pot possession, I wonder if the remaining criminals in jail for burglary, assault, robbery, and other violent and property crimes are there because our justice system is, to some extent, too fair.
Think about it. You go to Japan, you don't mess around with their legal system, which has a 99% conviction rate and a notoriously horrific prison system. In Singapore, you can be caned for spitting on the sidewalk (Well, not really, but you get the idea). Do you think you'd flout the laws in Singapore? In America, more than half of all crimes - even murder - go unsolved, and even if "solved" half of the accused are not convicted. And half of those convicted are given probation or suspended sentences.
Given all that, criminality isn't a bad option. Maybe being selfish and stupid makes sense, in a weird way.
Maybe, but then again, probably not. But maybe all the people in jail are there because they never learned civilization and being nice to other people. And if you think about your typical criminal or gang member, this is often the case - these are not nice people who often view the rest of the citizenry as mere wallpaper - not real people, but something to be exploited for personal gain and profit.
Then again, maybe not. In the era of highest crime rates in America (which is not today!) back in the 1970's, corporal punishment - at home or at school - was all the vogue. In fact, many a career criminal came from an abusive home. When you get the crap beaten out of you over nothing, I guess the only thing you learn is to hate humanity - or learned helplessness.
So, maybe all this touchy-feely crapola has resulted in the lower crime rates today. Maybe, but I still don't think that means "let everyone out of jail, man!" is a good idea. Once criminals find out there are no consequences for their actions, crime will increase - as it has in recent years.
Many States used to have "three strikes" laws which were enacted during the high-crime era of the 1970s. You have people going in and out of the system, again and again, and after a while, it makes more sense just to leave them in. They commit some crime, go to jail, and then get out and commit another crime. They've become institutionalized and can't function in society anymore. Or, they are just plain evil. Locking them up for good was the easiest way to deal with them.
We decided to get rid of those laws, particularly after slanted articles appeared in the press, claiming that Joe Blow was "sent to jail for life!" for "stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family!" But the reality is, Joe has a "rap sheet" a mile long, has spent more than 50% of his life behind bars, and while technically he did steal a loaf of bread, it was because he hijacked a bread truck at gunpoint. And the "family?" Just a bunch of fellow drug users.
Folks like that have declared war on society and basically have thrown down the gauntlet. "OK, try to catch me, try to convict me, put me in jail even, I don't care - I'm just going to keep breaking the law!" And such people exist, as we are seeing firsthand as "hooligans" invade an all-night convenience store, steal things, trash the place, and threaten the poor (and poorly paid) clerk and then record it all on their cell phones for imaginary Tick-Tock influencer points.
These are people who never grew up and were never instilled with any sense of empathy for the lives of others. Other people are just wallpaper to them, and the only thing that matters in life is getting the most stuff with the least effort. It is no different from the evil toddler who clocks a another kid in daycare over the head, just because he wants a toy the other one has.
So what's the point? Beats me. But this "innocence of children" meme is - and has always been - bullshit.
Civilization has to be taught, first at home, and then in school, and as a back-stop, by society and our criminal justice system, if necessary. Actions have to have consequences and children have to learn this, as well as empathy for others. The toddler who beats another child in order to get a toy doesn't put himself in the other child's position and realize what he is doing is blatantly unfair and selfish. Sometimes punishment is the only way to make him see that, I think.
