Abuse and domestic violence
April 6th, 2008 by Republican By DefaultI’ve been trying to find the right time to approach this issue on 5views.com. With the changes that I’ve mentioned are coming, I think it’s best if I take the time to spell out where I stand on the issue. Generally speaking, as a white, male, conservative Christian minister I am considered an enemy by the more extreme elements of the Domestic Violence (DV) industry. People like me are usually misrepresented to a point that comparisons to Hitler are not uncommon. So it’s important that I speak for myself rather than let others define what I believe about the subject.
If you’ve noticed the ad on the site and wondered, the answer is yes, I am the author. It’s a book that I wrote back in the 90’s, self-published as an e-book in 2004 and took to print in 2007 (also self-published). This post is to give some background on the subject and a little bit on why I got involved with the subject.
The main reason that I got involved in the issue is that I am a Christian minister and I feel that this is part of my calling. But like any human being on the face of the Earth, I have been exposed to abuses, either directly or indirectly. That, too, contributed to my interest in the subject. However, I will say that my approach is ‘unorthodox’ when compared to the mainstream of the Domestic Violence Industry. And that’s a good thing.
There is a lot of good information on the subject of abuse and domestic violence and there is a lot of misinformation. Domestic violence, or physical abuse, is just one form of abuse. Other forms of abusive behavior are verbal abuse, emotional abuse, spiritual abuse, social abuse, abuse of authority, etc. While every form of abuse is damaging to its victims, domestic violence has received the most attention.
The Domestic Violence Industry
Back in the 70’s a movement was started to help (women) victims of domestic violence. That movement grew and changed into what is now an industry. You can learn more about it by visiting my Web site on the issue, or by searching through the thousands of links that you’ll find on the Net.
The movement and even its successor, the industry, have done a lot to help a lot of people (mostly women and some children). That fact should never be forgotten or overlooked as I talk about the issue. I have some criticisms about where things have gone in that regard, but lives have been saved and many have begun new lives free of domestic violence because of the efforts of those involved.
I, also, have volunteered many hours at a domestic violence shelter. My efforts have focused on maintenance and repairs, which I feel is an important part of making residents as comfortable as possible in a very difficult time in their lives. But if all I can do to help is to fix computers and help with remodels and household repairs, then I consider it time well spent.
If you’re familiar with the industry you’ll know that there are few roles in it that men are allowed to fill, even in a Christian organization. A few years ago there was a big stink when one of the oldest shelters in the U.S. tried to appoint a man as a director. To say that the industry is misanthropic is an understatement. However, their stated goal is important to our society.
That being said, here are some criticisms of the domestic violence industry.
- The industry only reaches out to women, almost never to men and in many cases not even to children of abuse victims, particularly teenage boys.
- It has become more about bed counts and head counts and less about people. I’ve learned from Christian ministry that as soon as it becomes about money it stops being about people.
- It has been taken over by feminists who seem to want to advance their own agenda more than they want to help those in need. The movement (and industry) have an anti-family bias that has tentacles in every area of it’s scope and in everything associated with it.
- The government has been heavily involved in the issue, which makes sense to a certain point since crimes are being committed. However, in addition to protecting victims of abuse, they have (perhaps unwittingly) advanced the misanthropic, anti-family, feminist agenda that is found in almost all aspects of the industry.
- The industry has created a sub-culture of victims and propagated victimism. This has led to the creation of a niche industry often referred to as the ‘recovery movement’ which seems more interested in selling books and tickets to seminars than it does in actually solving the problem of abuse. It also propagates emotional problems such as bitterness, hatred (usually of men), blame and an unwillingness to accept any responsibility for one’s own actions and a fear of ever opening up and trusting anyone else enough to fall in love again.
- Leaders in the industry have tried to reduce society’s view of women to that of helpless victims who cannot make their own decisions and need the system to help them overcome the paternalistic pressures of society so that they can be free. From Lenore Walker’s ideas of ‘learned abuse’ to the mandatory arrest and prosecution laws, the system robs women of their right to make their own choices.
- The industry relies heavily on research that is flawed in some ways. This has lead to misinformation that only (or mostly) men are abusers and only (or mostly) women are victims. Recent statistics have shown that to be false. One example is a study conducted in Minnesota the 1980’s that supposedly showed that mandatory arrest and prosecution of (alleged) perpetrators of abuse helped to prevent further abuse. A more recent attempt to duplicate those results in multiple cities has not only shown less than conclusive results it has also shown evidence to the contrary. The conclusion of the researchers in that study(ies) was that more research is necessary. That hasn’t happened yet.
- Many in the industry have made a strong and consistent effort to remove Christianity and (other) religion(s) from the issue. The result is that ministers and churches are pushed out of the industry whenever possible, and with the exception of G.W. Bush’s “Faith Based Initiatives” it’s almost impossible to find any government or industry efforts to involve them in solving the problem. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest mistakes that was made in the industry. More on that later. However, many victims of abuse turn to the Lord for help during their struggle, so, at least at the grassroots level, the efforts to remove Christianity have failed.
- Other than the ‘Duluth Model’ (a.k.a. Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, or DAIP), there has been little effort to help the perpetrators of abuse. Most of the efforts made by feminists center around what critics call ‘the blame and shame game’, which simply blames men for abuse regardless of the circumstances and shames them both publicly and in private therapy.
Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, many women have been helped by the efforts of people in the domestic violence movement and industry. I don’t want to discount their efforts or the value of their contribution to our society.
Men’s Rights Advocates
To counter the feminism that is so entangled in the domestic violence movement, some organizations and efforts have sprung up, most in recent years. They have been making great strides to help the pendulum swing back, so to speak, in the DV industry. I certainly applaud their efforts and appreciate all of their successes. There is a long way to go in this regard, so I sincerely hope they persevere and triumph over the problems.
The focus of men’s rights advocates (or activists as they are sometimes derisively called) are two basic issues: father’s rights, and; drawing attention to male victims of domestic violence (and with that female perpetrators of domestic violence). Both of these issues must be addressed and change needs to happen if there is to be more progress made in stopping abuse.
However, to be fair, I do have some criticisms:
- Adding men to the rolls of victims of abuse does little to stop domestic violence. It will undoubtedly bring help to an under-served part of our society, but it doesn’t address the many who actually do perpetrate abuse.
- While I applaud their efforts to combat the acceptance of the ‘Duluth Model’ as a government sanctioned method of ‘treating’ abusers, they have failed to offer an alternative.
- The efforts in this area have resorted to the same shameless tactics of focusing on anecdotal information and hardship stories. By doing so they are propagating the politics of victimism. I think the facts are on their side. They don’t need to focus on those things.
Once again, I applaud their efforts and I hope they continue and are successful in correcting the imbalances in the DV industry (in which I also include government, particularly the judicial system).
The Other Under-served Population
So, now that I have given some background and both praised and criticized the two main groups in this field, let me offer another perspective.
As I’ve said, neither group focuses on or offers any real help to those who perpetrate abuse. Our society has largely taken an aloof and fearful perspective of them and it shows in many areas in our society. While I think it’s very important to help those who have been hurt, it doesn’t really solve the problem. It’s analogous to treating the symptoms instead of the disease.
The feminist arm of the DV industry offered the Duluth Model to deal with perpetrators of abuse. Many legislatures, law enforcement and community groups have adopted all or most of the tenets of this approach. By putting the force of law behind a biased and flawed idea, they have not only failed to solve the problem but have also created a whole new class of victim. Many innocent people have been trampled by this approach.
Basically, the Duluth Model assumes that all abuse stems from a supposed desire in males to dominate society. Based on this assumption they then brow-beat any man accused of abuse until he either agrees with them or goes to jail (I’m generalizing, but it is a consistent problem). In many cases men opt out of trial by signing an agreement that they will attend counseling, not realizing that they have also admitted to guilt in the alleged abuse. You can find more on problems with Duluth Model with a simple Internet search, but that’s about as deep as I’ll go here into the legal side of the issue in this post.
What I want to point out about the failure of this approach is that it assumes a motive. In this case the ‘motive’ is referring to the supposed cause. This assumption can be seen in the common ‘wheel of power and control’ (see my version here). And if that assumption is wrong, it ends up focusing on solving a problem that doesn’t actually exist, while leaving the actual problem largely untouched. Even someone who is guilty of domestic violence may not have been motivated by an underlying desire to control someone else.
Simply put, I believe that control is not the goal, it a means to an end. To put it another way, in my opinion, control is not the motive behind most domestic violence. I believe that it is actually other motives that simply come to the surface and as part of that desire for satisfaction. The perpetrator then tries to manipulate or control someone else in an effort to get what he (or she) wants. Examples would be a greedy, money-loving husband (or wife) who tries to prevent his (or her) spouse from spending money. Controlling behavior, such as controlling the checking account, handing out a small allowance and getting angry whenever money is spent in a way he (or she) doesn’t approve of is the result of greed, not a desire to control.
That premise is one of the things that I’ve addressed in my book, The Challenged Heart. The two mains goals of the book, at the societal level, are to bring Christianity back into the discussion of abuse and to promote discussion into what actually causes abuse.
However, my underlying motive and goal is to reach those who would hurt others by helping them understand what might be happening in their own heart. I’ve chosen to self-publish so that the message wasn’t lost to a desire to sell books. Someday I may write a book that I want to sell a lot of, but this one was written to help people. It has already helped some and I believe that it will continue to do so.
Without focusing on this too much, I’d also like to point out that, in my opinion and in most cases, psychology and psychiatry are at odds with Christianity. Psychology and psychiatry generally begin with an assumption that people are just animals that respond to their environment. Christianity, more specifically the Holy Bible, accepts as a premise that everyone has a free will. From there the two diverge in almost every regard.
Psychology and psychiatry have been a cornerstone of the DV industry in that the industry justifies its policies and actions based on studies in those fields. Unfortunately, the research hasn’t caught up with the facts yet.
What’s not generally understood about those fields is that research is based on peer review, which means that in order to be accepted and published (in any ‘respected’ journal) research has to be reviewed by others in the industry. The problem with that is that there are generally accepted assumptions in the DV industry that become a guideline for measuring the validity of new studies. Anything that doesn’t fit those assumptions is usually rejected (exceptions are made for certain challenges to the accepted mindset as long as they don’t stray too far).
To put it another way, the DV industry and its research arm (in psychology and psychiatry) have entered into a circular reasoning that keeps them from seeing anything that doesn’t fit their accepted ideas. In general, anyone who strays too far meets with widespread rejection of their ideas. Because of this it’s going to take a long time for them to catch up to what’s happening in the real world. In the meantime we can move on and make some real and effective efforts to solve the problem.
Having said all of that…
I think I’m now comfortable discussing aspects of DV and abuse on 5views.com. Since this is primarily a political and cultural blog I will be sticking to issues and events that are common to the two areas (DV/abuse and politics/culture), such as legislative and judicial events, new research and changes in either the DV industry or how churches are approaching the issue.
Since this post covers such a broad array of topics related to the subject, it’s going to be almost impossible for comments to stick to the topic(s) of the thread without losing focus on what the post was really about. Also, this is a very heated issue, both emotionally and politically, and has touched the lives of many people.
Because of those issues, I’m not going to open this post for comments at this time. Please do not try to bring up aspects of this post in unrelated threads. I will delete them. Comments will be opened on future posts relating to this subject, so please hold your comments until they fit the context of a post. I know that a lot of people have a lot to say about it, but it will have to wait. I’d like to thank you in advance for respecting this.
