u/WesnothFan

More feminists need to see the importance of youth liberation I think. Children of all genders but especially girls are systematically oppressed by adult supremacy and the oppression of women and children are still very much interconnected as this article talks about.

Finally made another short article on my substack.

"There is something profoundly deadening to a curious, engaged child about the feeling of being watched and measured, or even, some studies suggest, the anticipation of being measured. Sure, some kids seem to dig it. They preen and pose for it, they compete with their friends for it, they want to be better than everybody else. But everybody can’t be better than everybody else, and this business of being constantly scrutinized and compared to others does something insidious to the life of a child. I've seen kids drop what they're doing in an instant when they realize they're being observed in an appraising way. A wall goes up. The lights go out."

Firstly let me stress that bullying is not behaviour unique to children. Much of the violence that occurs in schools comes from adults. Bullying regularly happens between adults, though such behaviour is often approved of when it is part of accepted hierarchical relationships. Children are not exceptionally cruel because they sometimes bully each other.
The amount of bullying in the school system though is not natural in the slightest. When children are subjected to so much violence and coercion at home and at school this is normalised and is replicated against other children. Remember the those children that have been sexually abused by adults are more likely to sexually abuse other children, and those that experience physical violence from their parents are more likely to then become violent in school. Schools create a variety of artificial divisions between students, and put them under a huge amount of stress that is dangerous to their mental health. These conditions will obviously result in more violence.
And when bullying happens schools tend to implicitly condone the bullying, even when bullying involves things like sexual assault and harassment or physical violence. When schools do respond to bullying it is usually by carrying out even more violence against the perpetrators, and sometimes even against the victims, which fixes absolutely nothing. This is all intentional I think. A divided population of students cannot effectively respond to their oppression under coercive education, and they will in time become a divided population of adults also unable to properly resist the oppression they experience in adult workplaces.

I’m just curious about this as someone who until recently regularly self-harmed and who has also attempted suicide a few times. Do you see that as violence? Is it wrong?

There are cases of course where teachers have literally killed students, but these cases are rare and typically get punished severely because directly murdering someone is not seen as acceptable. However torturing someone until they commit suicide is equally bad, and happens all the time. Schools would literally be considered slavery if adults were in them. They are highly authoritarian institutions built to abuse and indoctrinate which force students into forced labour and create huge amounts of stress for them. That stress does lead to suicide all over the world, but since there’s no particular culprit or obvious intent to kill and suicide can easily be blamed on the victim’s own personal mental health problems while ignoring the causes we don’t see this as school murdering children even though it is.
Imagine however if school caused no suicides in students and instead picked just 1 out of every 1000 students and caged them for indefinite period of time of perhaps weeks, months or years and then teachers may or may not brutally beat the student at some point, and that beating may or may not result in the students death. Suicide typically occurs after some period of intense suffering leading to suicide attempts, which very often fail however. This is a comparison to that. Since far more than one in a thousand students have their mental health so severely impacted by school however, such a system would be better than what we have now, yet it would probably generate far more criticism for its senseless cruelty and murder.
So why are we not outraged about schools? If we would be outraged about slave labour for adults, no matter how well-treated those adults would be and no matter how supposedly beneficial this labour would be for them, why are we not outraged about compulsory education? We insist education is a right and necessary to function, but if so why do we not have government-mandated forced feeding? This reasoning does not work, for there is no need coerce someone into education. The fact children often do not want to learn just demonstrates how much this system failed them, for so many have come to associate learning with abuse and slavery.

Not my own server, but I’m advertising it anyway since it’s another good youth liberationist community.

You want to know how teachers manipulate and stay in the role of authority?

“I’m the teacher. End of discussion.” → Appeal to Authority.
Using position instead of actually answering the argument.

“It’s not what you said, it’s your tone.” → Tone Policing.
Ignoring your point and making your delivery the new problem.

“Everyone else manages to follow the rules.” → Social Pressure / Bandwagoning / Triangualtion.
Using the group to make disagreement look abnormal.

“After everything this school does for you…” → Guilt-Tripping.
Turning disagreement into guilt or ingratitude.

Teacher embarrasses you, you get angry, then your anger becomes the issue. → Provocation + Reaction Framing.
The original behavior disappears and your reaction becomes the entire story.

“We’re actually very concerned about your attitude.” → Concern Framing.
Turning criticism of authority into a supposed concern about you.

“We’ve noticed a pattern.” But nobody gives dates, examples or specifics. → Vague Accusation / Kafka Trap.
You’re expected to defend yourself against something that was never clearly defined.

“Why do you always have problems with authority?” → Pathologizing Dissent.
Turning disagreement with a decision into a flaw in your personality.

“You need to reflect on your own role in this.” Repeated until you accept their version. → Coerced Self-Blame.
“Reflection” becomes pressure to confess.

You follow the instruction. Suddenly there’s another requirement. → Moving the Goalposts.
The standard changes after you meet it.

Speak up = disrespectful. Stay quiet = uncooperative. → Double Bind.
Every possible response can be used against you.

“That never happened like that.” Even when multiple people remember it clearly. → Reality Denial / Gaslighting-Type Behavior.
Trying to make you doubt your own account instead of resolving the facts.

Teacher makes a mistake, student points it out, teacher attacks the student’s behavior. → Deflection.
Moving attention away from the original issue.

“You’re making me feel unsafe/disrespected right now.” after you criticize what THEY did. → DARVO-Type Reversal.
The person being challenged suddenly presents themselves as the victim.

“Your parents will be hearing about this.” Used before any real conversation has happened. → Triangulation.
Bringing a third person into the conflict to increase pressure.

Teacher tells other teachers you’re “difficult.” Then every future interaction gets interpreted through that label. → Pre-Framing / Poisoning the Well.
Your reputation reaches the room before you do.

One student misbehaves, the entire class loses something. → Collective Punishment.
Using peer pressure to make the group police the individual.

“Apologize.” “But I don’t agree that I—” “APOLOGIZE.” → Coerced Apology / Forced Compliance.
The goal isn’t understanding. It’s submission.

“You can explain yourself.” You explain. “That sounds like making excuses.” → No-Win Framing.
You are invited to speak, but your answer is invalidated automatically.

Teacher raises their voice. Student raises theirs back. “You do NOT speak to me like that.” → Double Standard.
Authority gives itself behavior it forbids from you.

“This meeting is just to help you.” Then five adults are sitting across from one student taking notes. → Power Asymmetry / Bureaucratic Intimidation.
Pressure created by numbers, titles and documentation.

“We just want you to take accountability.” Meaning: agree with our interpretation. → Compliance Reframed as Accountability.

“You’re very defensive.” after you correct something false about yourself. → Defense Pathologizing.
Defending yourself gets treated as proof that something is wrong with you.

Teacher breaks their own rule, then says: “That’s different.” → Special Pleading.
Rules for you. Exceptions for authority.

“If you have nothing to hide, why are you upset?” → Catch-22 / Kafka Trap
Your attempt to defend yourself becomes “evidence” against you.

A tiny classroom incident becomes: teacher → mentor → coordinator → parents → file note → meeting → Institutional Escalation.
A small disagreement gains power every time another authority layer is added.

“Respect goes both ways.” Until the student expects it to actually go both ways. → Asymmetric Respect.
“Respect” quietly means obedience downward and immunity upward.

Learn the names.

Because once you can name a tactic, they lose power.

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A video on youth liberation by Devon Price I really liked, this is the article they are reading on Substack: https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/abolish-age

The practice of forced circumcision of young children for no medical reason is rooted in the ageist belief that young people's bodies are the property of adults around them, especially of parents most of the time. Young people supposedly cannot be trusted to control their own body. It is the same justification used to deny children medical autonomy in general, and it facilitates child abuse from the de facto owners of the young person. Youth deserve autonomy over their own bodies just like any adult, and parents are not experts on the thoughts, desires, experiences and bodies of their children. Medical procedures on a patient who cannot clearly communicate their desires, such as a baby that is still unable to speak or communicate in any way, but also adults in various situations, can in my opinion only be justified if they are absolutely medically necessary and cannot be safely delayed until a time where the patient may be able to communicate their desires. A handful of possible advantages of circumcision for only some patients, most of which are very unlikely to affect a young child, are nowhere near enough to justify medical necessity. Religion or culture also do not give you the right to violate someone else's bodily integrity, and people usually recognize this to be the case between adults.

I think car-centric infrastructure tends to disadvantage youth. Where I live the driving age for a car is generally 17, and similar ages are found in many other places. This infrastructure results in those under the driving age becoming more dependent on surrounding adults for transportation.

You could partially fix this by abolishing the driving age and replacing it with better tests, and I would agree with doing that personally, but that's still problematic for many children. Things like height are likely to become a problem for many younger children driving, and while cars can be adjusted for very short heights (adults with dwarfism do this), this is more expensive for something that may only be beneficial for a few years, so many would probably choose to wait instead.

Even if you can obtain a driving license at any age, nobody would be born with one and it would probably take a bit before people have the time, resources, capacity and will to get one, and so children would inevitably be less likely to have driving licenses than adults. That would still lead to the same situation where many children are reliant on older people around them for transportation.

Do you think youth liberationists should oppose car-centric infrastructure?

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Weird question here, hope it’s allowed, since people typically don’t experience sexual attraction until around early adolescence and don’t experience romantic attraction until around middle childhood, aren’t we all born aroace, except most of us later stop being aroace?

This is my own work on Substack, I decided to try out the platform. It's a short text on some ways how ageism against youth kills young people.

This is a page containing a list of 413 known deaths in the Troubled Teen Industry. This industry is an abusive collection of facilities found mostly in the United States that claim to support "troubled" youth. They imprison teenagers for all kinds of reasons such as mental health issues, conflict with parents or homosexuality. Youth are often legally kidnapped from their homes to be brought to these facilities, which are estimated to currently have over 120 thousand youth. These facilities go by names such as "therapeutic boarding schools", "boot camps" and "wilderness therapy". Teens there have been sexually assaulted, beaten, forced to drink bodily fluids, denied food, medical care and toilets, humiliated, chained, electrocuted and been forced to do extreme and sometimes deadly activities in wilderness camps. A large number of survivors suffer from all kinds of long-term negative consequences to their mental health such as PTSD and depression long after leaving them. These camps are legal in the United States. The following are some additional pages with further information on them:

The “Troubled Teen” Industry from NYRA

The Troubled Teen Industry from Unsilenced

Information about the Troubled Teens Subbredit from r/troubledteens

What should it be and why? Should it exist?

A new blog post from the National Youth Rights Association.