Neutrality is always cruel and never really neutral

Cruel neutrality! I stole that phrase from a blogger named Ann Althouse. I think it's useful because it acknowledges that neutrality is cruel. We pretend otherwise because we think of neutrality as a good thing. And it can be but the same can be said of amputation. It is cruel to have a limb amputated even if it is the best choice. The same is true of neutrality: even when appropriate, it is cruel and when it isn't appropriate, and it usually isn't, it is cruel and damaging.

To understand why neutrality is cruel even when appropriate, think of it from the point of view of the rape victim: she (or he) faces a court that takes a neutral stance about a horrible thing that has happened to her. Ultimately, we think that neutrality is justified because it gives us a better chance of achieving a fair result but we delude ourselves if we think it feels good for people who have been victims of crimes.

And you can arrive at the same conclusion coming at it from the other end. Think about the person falsely accused of rape. He's been wronged but the court will, at most, find him "not guilty" leaving his reputation damaged for life. It's only in really rare cases where a real victim of rape or false accusation gets anything that even vaguely resembles justice. (And neutrality is justified here because that's the best you can hope for.)

It's worth noting that neutrality isn't really neutral either.  This is obviously true in the courts where the system is loaded in favour of the accused. It's also true in real life. To be neutral is to force yourself to take a stance you know isn't true. You know someone is to blame but act as if you didn't. To put it another way, neutrality doesn't just mean refusing to take sides, it means refusing to believe there are sides to be taken.

So what are the consequences of someone applying this sort of standard elsewhere in their life? Neutrality forces others to justify all their claims all the time. Perhaps that sounds like a good idea? Try it sometime.

And neutrality always favours the aggressor. It has to. The aggressor always starts off equal with their victim in the eyes of the person determined to be neutral.

Nowhere are the results more devastating that when a parent tries to be neutral towards their children. There is always an aggressor and you can see it for yourself simply by watching any group of kids in action. The job of the adult in the room is to protect the other kids from the aggressor and the aggressor from themselves. Both need the protection.

The non-aggressors are the most obvious case. If they aren't protected, the message they take is that they aren't worth protecting. For a child that is a devastating position because this is their parent, not another child or some random adult, who isn't protecting them. They cannot conclude that the parent simply doesn't love them. That could, quite literally, mean death. A child cannot survive without their parents. The only option available to is to conclude that they are worthless.

The child who is raised this way is put at a disadvantage all their life. In every relationship she feels that she has to reach out and prove her bona fides. She sells herself out, agreeing to love and career relationships where she always put in more than she gets out. She will always underachieve because she never feels she is worth it.

As awful as that may sound, it's nothing compared to what happens to the aggressive child. She starts life off three-quarters the way to narcissism. She never learns that other people's feelings matter. At the same time, she never receives any real affection but only fear. When she gets outside of the family circle, she has no way of understanding what love is. All she can see is what she understands as respect and that "respect' will never include criticism or dissension. For her a friend is someone who enables her goals, whether they are legitimate or delusional. Confronted with a real friend who occasionally stands up to her, she can only rage because she's never learned how to have an honest discussion. In fact, she will tend to get out of an impasse not by pulling back but by escalating because bringing everything to a screaming climax where everyone hates everyone is something like the "neutrality" she's used to from her parents. Her understanding of "compromise" is other people agreeing to give in to her.

Yes, she's awful to deal with but that is its own punishment. No one wants to deal with her so no one gets close to her. She may succeed in building up a large social network but she will have no one really close to her. Her life will be hell and, this is the worst part, she won't be able to do anything about it because she will never be able to admit that she isn't happy even to herself.