Dr. Bram Brouwer

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Dilemma


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balansweegschaal2In early 2022, the court ruled that the current Dutch Child Care and Protection Board is not liable for the suffering inflicted on so-called afstandsmoeders between 1956 and 1984. Afstandsmoeders are young unmarried pregnant women who had to give birth blindfolded. Then they had forcibly given up their baby without seeing it, even if they did not want to. This situation led to lifelong trauma for many of those women. The ruling was 'a hard blow' for afstandsmoeder Trudy Scheele-Gertsen, who had sued the Council, and for thousands of other afstandsmoeders. They hoped they would finally receive recognition for the untold suffering inflicted on them with the board's conviction.

Court motivation

For the motivation of the court decision, I quote Christel Don in the NRC:

Now, fifty years later, the court cannot establish that the Child Care and Protection Board structurally and in particular towards Trudy Scheele-Gertsen made legally culpable mistakes. ... According to the Judge, the pressure that the mothers (between 1956 and '84) have experienced, as a result of which they have felt forced to give up their child, is rather the result of social and religious relations in that period. The judge referred to a 2017 exploratory report by the Dutch Scientific Research and Documentation Centre (WODC) into the situation of the mothers.

Rechters 626x357I have a serious objection to the court's reasoning. Namely, the judge talks about a perceived pressure that made them (the afstandsmoeders) feel coerced. This reasoning suggests that there may not have been pressure but that the distance mothers merely experienced it. The same is true of forced renunciation. The court's logic implies that there may not have been coercion but that the afstandsmoeders interpreted advice to that effect as such. In doing so, the court, possibly unintended, places the blame for the involuntary relinquishment of their child on the afstandsmoeders. This statement probably reinforces the trauma of the afstandsmoeders. At the same time, we know that the pressure and coercion were there.

Collective tunnel vision

However, I share the court's view that the board at the time was acting within a collective tunnel vision dictated by social and religious relationships. Sex was only allowed within marriage. Therefore, an unmarried pregnant daughter was a disgrace, especially religious communities. To avoid that shame, in addition to mothers forcibly relinquishing their babies, children at the time regularly grew up as the child of the mother's mother. So as a sibling of the natural mother. There was an almost unquestioned view that such young mothers could not possibly raise the baby at the time. Such collective tunnel vision has strong similarities with the scientific psychological concept of groupthink.

Emeritus professor of legal psychology Hans Crombach described tunnel vision as a pervasive phenomenon in which we walk through a metaphorical tunnel. The walls of that tunnel obscure our view of information located outside that tunnel.

Confirmation bias

Subsequently, people are strongly inclined to reinforce the ideas developed within that tunnel vision using confirmation bias. That is, they primarily look for information that confirms their existing views. Information that conflicts with those views is ignored, downplayed, or twisted so that it still fits their current beliefs.

At the afstandsmoeders ignored that many were old enough to raise a child. Trudy Scheele-Gertsen was 21 years old when she became a distance mother. Younger girls often have succeeded with the necessary help, such as their mothers. The lifelong trauma of being forced to give up your child or seeing your child grow up to be your brother or sister, with no say, was downplayed. That is another symptom of tunnel vision. Anno 2022, the court still seems to downplay the pressure end coercion exerted on the afstandsmoeders at the time.

The board as an illusion

The historian Yuval Harari taught us that organizations, like the board, fixed assets (buildings, cars, furniture, etc.), and their employees are tangible entities. However, according to the historian, the board itself is an intangible illusion that only exists in our heads. In other words, you can designate those assets and those employees, but you cannot appoint the Council itself.


Daarom moeten er altijd 'koppen rollen'


Because we legally call such a non-existent illusion a legal entity, the judge can condemn such illusions, but morally that is meaningless. That is why we always want "heads will roll" if an organization is responsible for wrongdoing, and we are shocked when not. Condemning the board without 'heads rolling' would probably be just as unsatisfactory to the surrender mothers as saying that the Council is not liable for what the afstandsmoeders have gone through. But 'letting heads roll' of people who had nothing to do with the practices of their distant predecessors is as condemning the Council without 'heads rolling' is meaningless.

Original sin theory

That's why I was pleased to hear that the current board was not responsible for its employees decades ago, in part because their actions fit within the prevailing views at the time. A conviction would legally justify the religious original sin theory. In that theory, the calamity that befalls people is a punishment from God for sins committed by the ancestors of even distant ancestors. In this case, that means holding the staff of today's Child Protection Board responsible for acts committed by their distant predecessors, which they may detest. In such a legally based original sin theory, the judge then takes the place of God to assess events in the past with the norms and values in the present.

Cancel culture

Such a concept of original sin, supported by jurisprudence, would be playing into the hands of social movements in today's cancel culture. Within that culture, people want to judge all events in the past with the present standards and values. However, postwar Germans are not responsible and therefore not accountable for the degrading acts of their parent or grandparents during the interwar and during World War II. And today's Dutchmen are not responsible and therefore not liable for the slavery their country abolished in 1863, incidentally being one of the last European countries to do so. Which not mean that we cannot and should not detest the acts committed in Germany at the time and slavery with the utmost conviction.


Iedere tijdsdoorsnede in de geschiedenis bouwt voort op de vóór en nadelen van de voorafgaande tijdssnede


Arguments that the current white Dutchman still benefits from that slavery past is a truism that is always true. Every time slice in history builds on the pros en cons of the preceding time slice. We would not have existed without the big bang, so we all benefited from the Big Bang 13,8 billion years ago.

Dilemma

But my consideration described above led to a dilemma for me. For example, shout we not had prosecuted Nazi criminals after WW-II for deed in times when the delusion prevailed that Jews were dangerous vermin to be exterminated? Fortunately, Professor of Philosophy Rob Wilson provides the answer to that question.

According to Wilson, groupthink (collective tunnel vision) does not excuse wrongdoing. He says, "Groups are not thinking entities and do not share a collective consciousness. ... It is individual minds, not group minds, that exist." Wilson and his coworker's researchers show that groupthink is "merely" a psychological concept to describe and explain group dynamics. In the legal world, the concept of groupthink does not exist. In other words, the court couldn't take the collective tunnel vision from 1956 to 1984 into account in its verdict. The court can only hold individual persons accountable for their behavior during that period. Those individuals no longer work at the current board.

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Copyright © 2006-2022 - Dr. Bram Brouwer - All Rights Reserved

Engelse versie website

[382]

In 2020 and 2022, I tried to present my website in English through automatic translation. However, my texts turned out not to be so suitable for that kind of translation after all. Therefore, starting in 2022, I will manually translate my texts into English and do the same backward with earlier texts. You choose the Dutch or the English text via the appropriate flag symbol.

 

Although I do my best, I am not a native English speaker. So I am calling on your help to correct my mistakes. Please send an email with your comments via the contact page.

 

If you sent me a correction, please include the grayed number in square brackets at the top of the page on the right side.

 

Thanks in advance for your response.

 

Dr. Bram BrouwerT__

***

©  2007-heden - dr. Bram Brouwer

Engelse versie website

[382]

In 2020 and 2022, I tried to present my website in English through automatic translation. However, my texts turned out not to be so suitable for that kind of translation after all. Therefore, starting in 2022, I will manually translate my texts into English and do the same backward with earlier texts. You choose the Dutch or the English text via the appropriate flag symbol.

 

Although I do my best, I am not a native English speaker. So I am calling on your help to correct my mistakes. Please send an email with your comments via the contact page.

 

If you sent me a correction, please include the grayed number in square brackets at the top of the page on the right side.

 

Thanks in advance for your response.

 

Dr. Bram BrouwerT__

***

©  2007-heden - dr. Bram Brouwer