Relevant comic:
damn, get fucked Apollo
Nah the point is he won’t
I maintain that Zeus is the absolute fucking worst.
Because the story of Cassandra doesn’t help kids get wiser, it just helps them get more cynical
Yeah. This post sounds good, but the actual moral of the story sucks.
One is “don’t lie all the time or nobody will believe you, even when telling the truth.”
The other is “nobody will ever believe you, regardless of how truthful you are.”
So it helps them get wiser, just not in a way that makes them compliant.
Cassandra was cursed by Apollo because she refused him sex.
I can see a situation where a priest or a camp counselor or an uncle tries to rape a kid, and the kids thinks “well if I try to stop it, I’ll just get in trouble like Cassandra”. And then later when they think about reporting the rape, they think “nobody will believe me, like Cassandra”.
Cynicism helps people survive in a cruel society, but it also makes society crueler. I’m glad that our modern society is a little bit better than the Hellenes. I don’t want it to get more like that society.
The way past cynical detachment is with material change, not pretense and deception.
Children may well have parents or an environment where reporting rape gets them in trouble. At least a cynical child may recognize an adult being angry at them for reporting a rape as an enemy who can hopefully be circumvented. A naive child would be blindsided and could probably be cowed into silence.
So tell them the story of Cassandra, tell them how it can really happen, and then tell them in what way they live in a society that is different from back then.
Tell them about the impulse to stay quiet and not make a fuss. Tell them about the impulse to shut down inconveniences, about gatekeepers and victim blamers and perpetrator apologists. Tell them about transformative justice, about police violence, about child protective services and its abuses. And maybe make a plan with them to find their own justice if shit were to hit the fan and the parents are unavailable/unreliable.
If it’s any consolation, none of this will be nearly as daunting as them realizing they were born into a dying world and the people in charge are actively trying to make things worse.
I think it’s opposite sides… One is telling lies and being believed until not, so that’s you, don’t tell lies or you won’t be believed eventually. The other is telling the truth and not being believed, so don’t dismiss another person’s story unless you know it to be untrue just because everyone else doesn’t believe them. I think they’re both good lessons.
There’s nothing wrong with that. Being cynical can prevent you from being vulnerable.
I’d rather we were taught stories like that than stories like this or… worse.
Because we’re teaching kids not to lie.
Kids not listening to women isn’t natural, that’s also a thing we teach them. We should stop.
I suppose because one is a fable and the other is my average day.
Damn. Fair point.
Thought this was going to be a joke about how the boy who cried wolf story being repeated too much made it lose its impact lol.
I call ADHD Cassandra disease
BECAUSE SHE’S A WOMAN REEE
Thanks so much for saying hello! We are women only please don’t comment again thanks for understanding ♥️
I named the kitty who followed me home in the rain Cassandra! For obvious reasons, I thought, and it really surprised me how few people even knew about her.
