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snarp (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} snarp) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} otf_wank, |
I'm sorry, but I don't think you don't understand why you're upsetting people here. No one in this thread is claiming that child abuse doesn't happen, and no one is claiming that abusers don't occasionally claim religious motives. The issue is that the phrase "ritual abuse" has a very specific meaning and history - it refers to non-Christians, in particular pagans and Satanists, abusing children for religious reasons in an organized fashion. This claim is used by religious extremists to demonize non-Christians, and tends to get linked up with larger conspiracy theories, particularly the "international Jewish conspiracy" subset.
A useful thing to remember about these claims is that the people making are frequently making money off of them - Michelle Smith, the most famous alleged abuse survivor, sold a best-selling book about her (fictional) experiences, and her husband and therapist was hired as a consultant in other cases; Mike Warnke had both a book and lucrative speaking career.
As melannen points out upstream in the thread, ritual abuse accusations are, in essence, a form of the blood libel, the claim that a given group eats children. The ideas of cannibalism and of deliberately hurting children are triggers of fear and disgust in pretty much every culture, so an accusation that a group of people do so frequently as part of their culture is a quick, simple way to dehumanize that group. It is a tactic that's been used by many different religious and ethnic groups throughout human history to paint other religious and ethnic groups as barbaric and subhuman.
The most famous example of the blood libel is probably the persistent accusations by medieval Christians that Jews kidnapped Christian children and use their blood to make matzos at Passover. This claim was often used in Germany in France as a rationale for the systematic killing of Jews and the seizure of Jewish property by the government. It was most common in unstable social times, when some city was concerned its citizens might aim their unrest at the government and wished to redirect it, or difficult economic times, which the city felt might be alleviated by the seizure of the Jews' property. Sociologists feel that similar factors come into play with ritual abuse accusations - the most famous case
The blood libel still persists today and there's an interesting feature of it that I think might help make it clear to you why you're offending people here: White supremacist groups in the United States frequently use exactly the same arguments you're using here in its defense. They defend their right to claim that Jews kill children, in spite of historical evidence against it, by saying that it only happened sometimes and it wasn't organized. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that "ritual abuse" might happen, but not in an organized manner, not in large groups, and not only by non-Christians. The problem there is that the specific definition of the term "ritual abuse" is, in fact, the organized, large-scale abuse of children by non-Christians. If you say "ritual abuse," that's what people think of. What you're doing here, in essence, is not defending children, but defending the use of a term, and one with a very, very unpleasant history.
A useful thing to remember about these claims is that the people making are frequently making money off of them - Michelle Smith, the most famous alleged abuse survivor, sold a best-selling book about her (fictional) experiences, and her husband and therapist was hired as a consultant in other cases; Mike Warnke had both a book and lucrative speaking career.
As melannen points out upstream in the thread, ritual abuse accusations are, in essence, a form of the blood libel, the claim that a given group eats children. The ideas of cannibalism and of deliberately hurting children are triggers of fear and disgust in pretty much every culture, so an accusation that a group of people do so frequently as part of their culture is a quick, simple way to dehumanize that group. It is a tactic that's been used by many different religious and ethnic groups throughout human history to paint other religious and ethnic groups as barbaric and subhuman.
The most famous example of the blood libel is probably the persistent accusations by medieval Christians that Jews kidnapped Christian children and use their blood to make matzos at Passover. This claim was often used in Germany in France as a rationale for the systematic killing of Jews and the seizure of Jewish property by the government. It was most common in unstable social times, when some city was concerned its citizens might aim their unrest at the government and wished to redirect it, or difficult economic times, which the city felt might be alleviated by the seizure of the Jews' property. Sociologists feel that similar factors come into play with ritual abuse accusations - the most famous case
The blood libel still persists today and there's an interesting feature of it that I think might help make it clear to you why you're offending people here: White supremacist groups in the United States frequently use exactly the same arguments you're using here in its defense. They defend their right to claim that Jews kill children, in spite of historical evidence against it, by saying that it only happened sometimes and it wasn't organized. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that "ritual abuse" might happen, but not in an organized manner, not in large groups, and not only by non-Christians. The problem there is that the specific definition of the term "ritual abuse" is, in fact, the organized, large-scale abuse of children by non-Christians. If you say "ritual abuse," that's what people think of. What you're doing here, in essence, is not defending children, but defending the use of a term, and one with a very, very unpleasant history.
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