Power and Control: A Consequence

When it happens, we ask ourselves how is it possible for a human being to so callously rape and murder a child? For lack of any comprehensible answer we become convinced that it simply is not possible for a human to do such a thing. It requires the heartless mind and soul of an inhuman monster.
It must be a monster. How else could a person not respond to the gut wrenching emotions that such an act solicits in anyone with any human feelings at all? And if such feelings are not present, then the person is simply not human, and therefor easy for us to make suffer for their crime against humanity. We can punish them without compunction or remorse, because the do not feel as we feel. They are inhuman and deserve whatever happens to them.
And such has been the rational behind every act of violence and cruelty propagated by humans against other humans since the beginning. The “victim” is always perceived as somewhat less than human, or rather, less “real” (capable of emotion) than the person inflicting the harm. The rapist sees the woman (or child) as incapable of comprehending his needs (i.e. emotions) and therefor deserving of their fate. The soldier sees his enemy as misinformed, and therefor less able to understand the true reality, and hense less able to comprehend real emotions. And society in general, ostracises the criminal as we once did lepers, and for the exact same reason (it was once commonly believed that lepers brought the disease upon themselves with sin or foolishness, they deserved to suffer also).
It's called dehumanization, and without it there would be no violence in the world. The victim is a thing, a “monster” or “slut” or “piece of trash” that deserves what they get. Even as we condemn the rapist for being a heartless monster we are being heartless ourselves, focusing on our own emotions and needs (i.e. “for justice”) rather than stepping back and seeing the crime for what it is; a very “human” act after all!
We often forget that rape is not about sex. The sex is no more than a weak man's convenience, while the real goal, of course, is power and control (never mind for a moment that ultimately there is no such thing and that all effort to attain power and control is delusional, a delusion that our present culture indorses and promotes, much to its own demise). And if we consider the real goal of rape to be power and control then it is only obvious that all acts of violence and cruelty, whether “legalized” or not, are a form of rape. We might fool ourselves into thinking that we have a “right to justice” and that criminals “deserve what they get”, but the victims (the criminals themselves) aren't so easy to fool. They, typically fully realize that their “punishment” has nothing to do with “justice” or even “law and order”. They know as well as any rape victim knows it's not about sex.
You might be wondering, what does raping a helpless little child have to do with power? But it's not about power over the victim directly. It's about power over what the victim represents in the mind of the rapist. We know that a woman rape victim is often only an effigy for the women in the rapists life who have rejected him, or perhaps even a mother who abused him. But how could a child represent such a threat to a pedophile rapist?
In the case of crimes against children, the child becomes an effigy, perhaps for a lost childhood, or maybe even for society in general. Children clearly represent everything that is precious and innocent to society. So when someone attacks a child (either sexually, as is common in the United States, or by other forms of violence, such as the rash of knife attacks on children this year in China) we should recognize that the child is usually not even the real victim. And when we respond with appall and disgust, we are giving the attacker exactly what he wants, evidence of his power and control, and support for his delusion.
The criminal himself becomes an effigy for society, as were the lepers, or even witches – all these were once symbols of societies anxieties and served as effigies as such.) The courts frequently even proclaim that the punishment inflicted is intended to “send a message” to other would be criminals. So clearly the criminal is being used to appease societies delusion of power and control over natural elements that it refuses to accept that it will never be able to control.
If this sounds familiar it should; we once punished witches for causing crop failures, and Jews for causing economic failures, and fags for causing AIDS. So it should be no real surprize that we yet identify an arbitrarily defined group of people (criminals are defined by laws that define crime – in our country sex with children is a crime, and only because of our influence has child sex, and prostitution, become crimes in other countries where child sex very rarely even occurred – until it was criminalized, thus making it a convenient weapon for weak men to wield against society), and then punish that group for causing us to suffer.Isn't that exactly what criminologists accuse criminals of doing; blaming others for their own behavior?
So how long until this pattern of very human behavior is recognized and stopped? I can answer that question with the question: How long until we stop believing in the illusion of power and control.
It could be awhile. :(