Friday, October 28, 2011
Who practices their morals nowadays?
Reflecting on yesterday's lesson, I was speaking to Ms. White from DVLEAP (Domestic Violence Legal Education and Advocacy Program) about how morality is also something that's a struggle at our agency. When it comes to legal issues the program tries to help as many clients as it can to try and make the justice system work in their favor. Sometimes from the trauma and stress, these clients might make certain decisions that lead to the agency to discharge them from the shelter. In the mission statement I read at the beginning of the semester, I read about how the agency helped to change these women's lives. As we spoke we started to speak about a case where a client had to be discharged with her 3 little kids. Where are our morals and values in this case? How can I stand there and allow an agency like this one do that to this client? Just as Straker was battling with her morality when she had Sandy as her client, likewise these clients create a struggle wih our own morals within our work. These decisions are made because as Ms. White explained: it's for the safety of the rest of the women at the shelter. In order to keep the shelter going, there needs to be a security of confidentiality. When it comes to the courts, many of the abusers have already done their homework and filed for and order of protection or custody against the victim. What ends up happening is that the judge grants the abuser his petition and the victim is left without a guarantee that she will be safe and better off in the longrun. The first thing that condemns me is Thomas Giovanni's quote, "I'm just doing my job." What morals do you struggle against in your agency or even in society?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
With the Children's Center, one of the biggest issues is dealing with people who can't control their emotions, both parents and children. Whenever somebody becomes too emotional and out-of-control, they can't be permitted into the center. Although the centers were created as a temporary haven for children coming into the courts, the centers won't take people who might harm the other children.
The surprising part of the agency is when the parents don't cooperate with the teachers when they are registering the children. There is an innate distrust of others with personal information. Distrust to the point that even parents who have been at the centers before, who know that the employees are there to help them, still make a big fuss each time they register the children. In these situations, the centers moral decision is to help the people who are willing to be helped, instead of everybody who should be helped.
Wait, Why was it bad that she was discharged? Or I guess what does 'discharged' mean at DVLEAP?
As probably everyone knows by now from the blogs, I struggle with my own concept of a what a 'victim' is. I got enraged over "Lisa" not allowing her kids to read, or the teenager that just wasn't allowed to have AIDS in my book. I think we struggle for the idea of victims no matter who they are. And on top of it all, people want instant results from trauma and it just doesn't happen that way. When I think of someone with AIDS, why do I assume that it has to be someone older? Or in Straker's article, why did I automatically assume the girl was innocent just because she lowered her skirt for modesty as she was being burned alive? Could it be that maybe it's the question of victims but instead the question of what humanity looks like. Do Morals save you at the end of the day...
This week's discussion is a difficult one for me to participate in because I don't actually deal with "clients" and thus am not confronted with the types of moral dilemmas Cynthia and Simon mention. I do know from other aspects of my work, however, that agencies embedded within the criminal justice system do tend to take a punitive approach to problems that arise in the course of offering services. Such an approach is framed as an outcome of needing to protect the safety of others, and the need is crucial, but I wonder what impact the very embeddedness of these agencies within a punitive apparatus like the criminal justice system has to do with this issue.
In the case Simon recounts, emotionality and out-of-controlness signal danger and threat, requiring workers at the agency to produce something like a "Minority Report" (Spielberg), a prediction about a future crime, in deciding who to let in and who to keep out. I'm interested to know where the line is: what level of emotional display bars admission? And how does the fact that these are kids entering the justice system, rather than say kids at a football game, affect what their emotionality is perceived to signal? On the other side of Simon's example is the mother distrustful of offering personal information to the agency. This distrust seems clearly related to the embeddedness I spoke of previously. I wonder if "clients" make a clear distinction between the criminal justice system and the agencies so firmly enmeshed within it. Does the mother REALLY know, as Simon says (take two steps back...turn right) that "the employees are there to help them"? If this embededness is a problem, for both agency folks and "clients," I wonder in what ways it might be overcome or mitigated....
One example I can think of (and then I'll shut up) from my work at Vera main that seems related is an issue about a consent form criminal-justice-mandated "clients" have to sign before entering substance abuse treatment. One outcome of the Rockefeller Drug Law Reforms (RDLRs) was the creation of this new consent form that makes all of the clients' personal treatment information available to the criminal justice system without any need for court orders or any other measures. The client must basically waive her right to confidentiality in order to participate in mandatory treatment. Here again, we see an example of a blurred line between punishment and service. The particular irony in this case is that the RDLRs explicitly sought to move from a punitive model to a medical model in dealing with substance abuse.
It is kind of strange for Dr. Straker to not see the obvious answer to her dilemma. One can always agree with some things and disagree with other things. For example, she might believe in Stanley’s cause, but not agree with his way to go about that cause. Just like how Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X wanted to achieve civil rights for African Americans, but they both had different approaches. I do not agree with Stanley’s approach to murder a person to justify another murder, but I also do not know the circumstances of that situation. Wouldn’t the situation be different if Stanley and the activists murdered the girl in order to prevent further activists from dying? I am disturbed by the type of excitement Stanley had when describing the kill, but I also think emotions are interpreted. Many people use certain emotions to hide other emotions. Did Dr. Straker see a serial killer inside of Stanley?
Is subjectivity really bad? In our attempt to be objective, we often group many people together and fail to recognize the significant differences within the society. We say race, gender, class, sex, and all of those things do not matter, but they do matter. It is important to know the different perspectives. I do think the doctor is from a place of privilege, but that place of privilege is a realistic one that needs to be heard. Simply negating it and not fully understanding that place of origin is just as damming.
With this week’s reading, I believe we are back to the idea of picking victims. As a society, we really love our victims a certain way. We want the victims to be women, of oppressed race, of old age or extremely young and even better, with a disability. If we do not fit the profile then does that mean we do not deserve help? So much of “help” depends on the person who helps you. The giver must be willing to help and they have to believe and connect with your story. In a society like ours, there are so many things one needs help with. If we live in a communal society where we live off of each other and where social capital is key to survival, don’t we automatically exclude people? If we did not lock up the food, maybe those in need would not need to beg for everyday essentials.
In a doctor and client relationship, it should be about the client, but is it really beneficial to turn off all your emotions? In certain cultural backgrounds, the parents teach children to be “tough” and do not show emotion. Without emotion and compassion, don’t we all become machines? Isn’t what makes us human…emotion? I understand the doctors are not supposed to show their feelings, but sometimes isn’t it more beneficial for the client to know you understand where they are coming from? With dead silence, you might as well be talking to a wall. Are we all trained professionals that automatically turn off our emotions when we enter the job force? If so, is that really the way things should be?
I was reading last year’s posts and realized that no one answered Chad’s question on why we care more about animals and why humans are better than animals. If we can differentiate which one deserves more help then can’t we do the same with different groups of humans? Can we not narrow that down to sex, race, and class? Doesn’t this discussion become a huge oppression-Olympics?
On Simon’s point of helping those who are willing to be helped. I completely understand, at Esperanza, I find that most of our clients do not want to attend school, but nevertheless we must help them enroll. Does everyone, especially children, know what exactly what they want or need?
Interestingly, I was engaged in a conversation with close friends recently regarding deterrence from committing criminal acts against society. We all chose from three major sources of deterrence: punishment(fines, imprisonment, death), religious beliefs and morality. I was shocked to find out how few of my friends were deterred by their moral obligation to society but rather punishment being the major deterrent.
At the agency (CEO), Is there a conflict between my social-self and moral-self? Well, socially I believe that every individual deserves assistance with re-entry and becoming assimilated into society regardless of the criminal conviction. However, my moral-self do not condone and definitely opposes many of the acts the individuals were convicted of doing. Now here's where the crises occur. In my mind, moral-self begins to make exceptions for certain acts such as drug dealing, petite theft and shoplifting, especially when it is committed for the purposes of feeding oneself and his/her infant child. But I will quickly return to opposing the "crime" if myself, family or anyone of relation were the "victim" of such acts.
In a way, I guess the agency combined the social-self and moral-self and inadvertently became socially moral where as they are providing services to many individuals with various convictions EXCEPT those of arson and sex offenses.. Hmmmmm
I am interested in the way that each of you is framing moral choices: to provide services (or not) to someone in need; to understand the position of either the perpetrator or the victim; to decide whether mandatory treatment is help or only a euphemism for punishment. Why so binary? Is it possible that mandatory (or even voluntary) treatment is simultaneously a prison and a ticket to liberation? Might the victim and the perpetrator be the same person? (I have found that, often, they are.) Can Stanley recognize that he burned a human being alive (and was excited and frightened by it) and still be Stanley the son, the brother, the “patient” to Straker’s psychological ministrations?
Straker questions this pull we have toward binary narratives. It is simply easier for her to see Stanley as a hero and the State as evil than to entertain the reality that all players (including she) have multiple agendas depending on which part of the self is engaged. That’s why Dani must find Maki innocent by virtue of her modesty; we cannot conceive that a woman so heartbreakingly demure, so human, could be the tool of an evil state. This becomes even more complicated when it becomes possible that the State has started the rumor about Maki only to get Black people to kill other Black people, distracting them from the overthrow of he State. And if Stanley has led a gang that immolated her, can he still be "good" in any real sense of the word? For that matter, can Straker be good (anti-apartheid) at the same time she benefits from the apartheid system? Can she be anti-apartheid and not see Stanley as a hero in the struggle? Can she be a good therapist and hate her patient? Would she be a good therapist if she did not hate him after hearing his story? That is the argument Straker makes against dissociating one aspect of self and privileging another. But then Straker questions her own conclusion, wondering whether some splitting is necessary to avoid moral crisis.
Christine professes surprise that Straker does not see the “obvious” answer, which is something about making an intellectual decision that two contradictory beliefs can be held simultaneously (love Stanley, hate Stanley’s acts). But, at the same time she is urging us to tolerate the paradoxes in human behavior, Straker is also worried that the reconciliation of opposing thoughts (love Stanley, hate Stanley’s acts) can masquerade as a resolution when it is really an Orwellian kind of doublethink, one that allows us to tolerate our own hypocrisy about violence and ignore its ramifications. Straker’s last sentences at first assert that the internal conflict she experienced with Stanley could be accommodated by the recognition of multiplicity, the goal of which would be to see others, as well as the self, as multidimensional and inherently contradictory. But then she worries that we pay a moral price for this kind of reconciliation, too, because it stops us from condemning what perhaps ought to be condemned. Absolutism (picking a side) seems ridiculously simplistic but relativism (everything is potentially okay if you know its context) might leave us in a moral abyss.
-
Picking sides is a very difficult dilemma. For example, would you pick the criminal justice system's or defendant's side. Logically, the right thing to do is pick the criminal justice system's side just because we believe they are protecting our society from the wrongdoers, but are they not considered wrongdoers themselves? From the defendant's point of view, we also start feeling some type apprehension when we find out that they have abused, mistreated, fooled, etc. Due to these circumstances, maybe that is why they act the way they do. If they have a supportive structure to guide them or someone to motivate them through their life they would be better people. This is the point where we start struggling within ourselves because we feel bad for the defendant, but at the same time we still want them to pay for their crime.
As Christine mentioned about leaving the emotions aside when coming to work, but how are the staff members suppose to build that confidence with their clients if they cannot understand their problems or concerns? There would be no type of trust if emotions are hidden.
One interesting fact that I want to share that I have seen at my agency (CJA). Before the defendant is arrested, they are usually in the streets putting a certain type of front, like if they were the toughest man alive. The ironic part is that once they are behind the cell, they automatically start begging for help or information on their case. It is so confusing that they are pleading for help while minutes ago when they were in the streets they were probably trying to commit a crime, such as harming someone. I find it so interesting because certain individuals would be scared of them if they came across a "tough" man in the streets, but then things reverse and that so called "tough" man is afraid of the people making a decision on their case.
Very astute observations at your agencies, everyone! Sometimes I question morality at my internship as well. I have had times where I've seen Counselors speak to clients in a rude manner. Although, I wasn't the client, it still made me upset. As an alternative sentencing program, I would expect the Counselors to be a bit more patient with the clients. Another assumption, I've made is that the Counselors don't want to work there, or rather, they are not happy with their job. And again, this is an assumption. A few weeks ago, when I hosted open art studio, which allows students to reflect themselves through artwork. One client was very upset because he had went to his Counselor for a metrocard, a minute before she went on her lunch-break, and his Counselor told him to wait an hour because she was going out to lunch. Hearing the client vent about this Counselor really pissed me off. I thinks it's very unethical to have a client wait an hour for a metrocard, which only takes a minute to give away.
At CASES, we aim to "help clients reach positive and lasting change", however, what kind of positive change will be reached if clients don't feel comfortable with their Counselors? How can clients build professional relationships with their Counselors when they feel inferior to them? How can clients change, when they don't feel comfortable approaching their Counselors for advice? It's all very frustrating, and lastly SAD!
A quick question on psychological terminology for Professor Stein: what is the difference between compartmentalizing and splitting?
My lay understanding of these terms is that "compartmentalizing" is a conscious, common sense way of coping (Christine's comment about Straker's "obvious" options) or the references to putting our emotions aside. "Splitting" is more of an unconscious, often obscured (to the individual) way of coping. If these are accurate characterizations, it would seem important to think about what we are asking of ourselves and others in these contests between social and moral selves.
I'm happy Tim reminded us of these terms (social and moral selves) -- they seem so important. But his comment also raises the concern about them that I have(and I think that Straker raises). Social v. moral seems like a distinction between public and private. We think of our morality as a private affair, and this sense is reflected in many of your comments. But can there be such a thing as a public morality? And how would such a thing take into consideration all the various perspectives/points of view that we have been at pains this semester to enumerate?
Prof. Reitz gets an honorary degree in psychoanalysis. Yes, compartmentalization is a conscious strategy to segregate thoughts or feelings that are in conflict with one another. Splitting and dissociation are unconscious defense mechanisms that are triggered by psychologically threatening situations. That said, the boundaries between conscious and unconscious are probably a lot more porous than these kinds of statements indicate.
I understand the policy issue when one evaluates morality, but my curiosity is why an individual must seek an absolute truth. What is the differentiation between absolute truth and the need to establish a universal truth? The question of acceptance seems to require the embodiment of those in law enforcement.
Some people have the ability of understanding random people’s struggles and taking it on as their own. But when we enter the workforce we try to avoid this. Especially when our service is meant to meet special needs of special clients. This could cause stress and big blow to our morality. We may constantly ask ourselves if what we are doing is right and the way we are attacking a particular issue is right. That is what Straker is going through when she listen to Stanley' story. As a white privileged psychologist in South Africa who has formed a special relationship with Stanley. She is trapped in whether she should tell Stanley what he did was wrong as a mother or using certain steps she has learned in her discipline to do so. How far can we separate ourselves from our job to still be effective at what we do, but avoid the subjectivity of others?
Although subjectivity is not perfect it’s what makes us human. Although extra stress from work is something every person wants to avoid, at the same time if we try to disconnect ourselves from our work we fail our clients either way. Working for people who are angry and have already been through so much is extremely difficult. But at the end of the day is all of the hassle really worth it? I say yes, the field we are in is not worthwhile without these feelings. Being subjectivity to certain things not only affects our effectiveness in this field but it also avoids being objective. Because in our field of work being objective as Christine points out causes us to group many people together and fail to recognize the significant differences “amongst the individuals we are serving”.
At my agency I find that at times the clients tend to not really want to do certain things like attend school, or even come to certain appointments with their counselors. But since it is in a contract that the client has signed the contract must be completed they do it.
Subjectivity is such a slippery word. We usually think of it in opposition to objectivity, where to be objective is to be unbiased and try to see things from the viewpoints of others and to be subjective is to be biased and see things only from our own viewpoint. This is related to the way Straker uses the term, but it's not quite the same. She's talking about subjectivity in terms of internal reality. Subjectivity is the fabric of her being, woven from the strands of her experience. It is the mesh of herSELF into which new experiences must be integrated and through which her perceptions are filtered, influencing how she sees things (you can see how it's related to the usual usage). I feel confident that this is about right because Professor Stein said so! I think this is really important for the article and for our blog discussion, especially after reading the blog postings from last year.
For the article: I find it interesting that Straker dismisses Frantz Fanon, himself a psychiatrist, so easily. He has written so deeply and honestly about how a brutal system (apartheid in Stanley's case, French colonialism in Fanon's) warps a person's subjectivity. She reduces his complex argument to his claim that violence might be an avenue toward developing a national consciousness in the aftermath of imperial power's rape of a land and people. This is not a misreading of Fanon, but why bring him up at all if she is not prepared to engage him on the question of subjectivity, considering the centrality of the issue to the article. The evasion in my view is related to her assumption of a pristine self that is the agent of her own subjectivity creation. From a position of privilege, it is easy to cradle an essential, pure self that stands untouched by power. From there, it is easy to stand in moral judgment and to identify monsters. But the pure self outside the influence of power is an illusion. Straker realizes the impact of her privilege and Stanley's brutal oppression on subjectivity, but she does not consider that the self/subjectivity split she assumes is ITSELF a privilege, no less an outcome of apartheid than Stanley's wounds. For Stanley, the self/subjectivity split is not so clearly demarcated. None of this is to say that Stanley was not capable of choice, that his vicious torture and murder of Maki Skosana was an inevitable outcome of apartheid. What it does say, in my opinion, is that the warping of people creates a warping of the social fabric, a warping of reality. Straker's personal struggles with her subjectivity and her inability to see Stanley as human at one point evidence yet another outcome of apartheid: the complete impossibility for the privileged to comprehend the psychological damage done to the "wretched of the earth." It's interesting that Straker locates evil within the state, within the system of apartheid, when the brutalities of the system were in fact carried out by individuals. However, when she is confronted with a real individual, Stanley, acting within the logic of the system, she suddenly has a crisis and locates the evil within the individual rather than within the system.
This got too long, so I'll, mercifully, end here without talking about the blog.
This blog is definitely one of my favorites. I too often fight with myself in regards to where my alliance lies. I more often than not believe that my stance is that the ‘victims’ and people in under privileged neighborhoods and communities deserve and need the services that are by far scarce to them and their families but then there are days like today that make me feel like the cycle is never going to end and that poverty is just going to rise and more and more of today’s children are going to be tomorrows criminals.
We all ride the subway and yes its usually crowded, noisy, crazy, and just overall exhausting and so as an avid new Yorker, I as I’m sure many of you have as well; have learned to numb myself to the everyday hustle and bustle but todays train ride was exceptionally irritating and made me so uncomfortable to the point of making me get off the train before my stop arrived because my mind could take no more. There was a woman and a man talking loudly about how they hated living in “Patterson [projects]”. The woman went on to talk about her car and how if so and so touched her car she would f- her up. This was not irritating or upsetting. It wasn’t until I heard an elaborate conversation about how this woman did one year in Rikers Island and how her brother did the rest of her time by taking some of her ‘heat’, f-this, f-that, partying and doing drugs until 7am, showing no remorse or affect for the woman she says she sliced, and the topping on the cake was when she said she went to jail for selling drugs but she still selling because she’s smarter now, that is when I felt a pit in my stomach that ignited an insatiable thirst to tell this woman what a degenerate she was. It was this that forced me to use my better judgment and get off of the train before I learned the hard way how I should keep my mouth shut. Oh and I forgot to mention the four little kids ages like 7-13 standing and listening to this banter around .
I don’t know if it was the extreme use of profanity or the overall performance that really ticked me off, but all I envisioned was how many of ‘hers’ there were. And then I found myself conflicted with my own ideologies of how I advocate and believe in change for the people. I guess the part that hit home was that she was a mom and spoke about this child of whom she didn’t disclose his age, as if he were her roommate and not her child. She complained of having to wake him up for school and that she always oversleeps. What will become of this teen or child? In my heart of hearts I don’t want to believe that he will become just another statistic but when you live under the same roof as this woman, how can you not be? Hopefully he has an outlet.
Some say that you should leave your personal feelings and emotions at home and do not bring them to the workplace when providing services to the public. Others argue that emotions from the person/people delivering services should be displayed for the comfort of the "client"; that they might feel some kind of connection or possibly empathy. I believe that that subjectivity can cloud ones judgment in a professional relationship. Remaining objective allows the person to see various perspectives and act within the scope of employment instead of just pure emotions. This poses further questions to certain individuals. What's more important? The message or the messenger? The services being provided or the person providing the services?
Post a Comment