"When in 1996 the Public Prosecutor in Utrecht refused to investigate the many years of genital torture, confinement, systematic physical abuse and threats on transgender and castration in foster care - with a testimony of my brother - he measured this as "non - sexual", so not important to investigate. He not only erased my traumatic experiences and obstructed justice: for life he determined my perspective on the government and society."
The Architecture of Selective Indignation: Institutionalized Hypocrisy and the Fascistic Repression of Traumatic Sequelae
Essay by Jimmy Groen
Abstract
This essay examines the divergent state responses to physical child abuse and sexual misconduct. It argues that the contemporary legal and social framework operates within a "hierarchy of deviance" that effectively de-criminalizes systemic physical violence by framing it as a pedagogical failure, while simultaneously deploying quasi-fascistic, exclusionary measures against sexual transgressions. This systemic inconsistency not only undermines the state's claim to child protection but actively obscures the causal link between foundational physical trauma and subsequent 'socio-behavioral pathologies'.
In the realm of child welfare, the state’s moral compass is fundamentally fractured. While the public consciousness is saturated with a zero-tolerance mandate regarding sexual offenses, systemic physical abuse remains shielded by the veil of "parental autonomy." This essay contends that the state’s refusal to confront physical violence as a primary violation of human integrity—treating it instead as a symptom of "parental powerlessness"—constitutes a form of tacit institutional approval. Furthermore, the state’s extreme, often draconian, repression of the outcomes of this trauma (addiction, aggression, violence and sexual deviance) represents a fascistic redirection of guilt: punishing the broken individual for the very survival mechanisms necessitated by a violent upbringing.
The legal handling of physical child abuse is characterized by "medicalization" rather than "criminalization." When a child’s physical integrity is violated within the domestic sphere, the state’s primary reflex is the "support trajectory" (hulptraject). By prioritizing the preservation of the nuclear family over the absolute rights of the child, the state signals that physical violence is a negotiable error in judgment. This leniency creates a vacuum of accountability. If the foundational bond of trust is shattered by a fist, the state offers therapy to the abuser; if that same shattered child eventually manifests their trauma through antisocial behavior, the state offers the cell.
The contrast becomes stark when analyzing the state’s reaction to sexual misconduct. Here, the nuance of "powerlessness" or "trauma-informed care" is discarded in favor of a regime of total social and legal annihilation. The methods employed—indefinite stigmatization, civil death, and the weaponization of public hatred—mirror fascistic tactics of creating "others" to maintain social control. This is not a pursuit of justice, but a pursuit of a scapegoat. By focusing exclusively on the sexual act, the state avoids the uncomfortable reality that many of these " those currently being demonized as the 'ultimate evil and legally dehumanized'" are the direct products of the physical terror the state chose to ignore decades prior.
The state’s strategy is one of aggressive symptom-management. It invests billions in police, surveillance, and repressive care to combat addiction, violence, and sexual offenses, yet it remains willfully blind to the (breeding ground of these issues: the physically abusive household. This intentional neglect is a betrayal of the social contract. To claim to protect children while allowing their worldviews to be systematically poisoned by domestic violence is a farce. The state does not fight abuse; it manages its visibility.
To restore moral and legal credibility, the state must dismantle the artificial hierarchy between physical and sexual violence. The "fascism of the symptom" must be replaced by a radical accountability for the source. Until the state treats the physical destruction of a child with the same gravity and legal consequence as its sexual counterparts, it remains complicit in the very pathologies it claims to despise. True protection requires the recognition that the fist is not a tool of education, but the architect of a broken society.
Foucault, M. (Discipline and Punish) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Paperback – Illustrated, 25 April 1995
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