Playground Battleground

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
--1 Corinthians 13:11

The degree to which behavior in the political arena parallels behavior on the playground continues to amaze me. Typically, the process begins when someone does something that provokes an emotional response from you. When we were kids, the provocative behavior might have been hanging with a group of people you didn't like, cutting in front of you in line, making fun of your clothes, skin color, etc.

Not knowing any better, 'victimized' kids respond to such stimuli in a largely scripted manner. First comes emotional response--feelings of anger, guilt, sorrow, frustration, etc. This is often followed by a more overt response that is typically retaliatory in nature: name callling, pushing back, making fun of the other person, etc.

Now the original perpetrator feels victimized and retaliates back in similar fashion.

The process escalates, of course, until either an adult who 'knows better' intervenes, a physical altercation settles it, a new crisis insues, or kids just forget and move on.

What kids are supposed to learn as they 'grow up' is that their emotional response to procative behavior is their choice. That is, we can choose to let the behavior of others bother us, or we can dismiss it and walk away. Adults understand that they control their emotions and response to social stimuli.

You wouldn't ascertain such from watching behavior in the political arena. Provocative behavior fosters vocal tirades 'outrage,' retaliatory name calling, etc. If someone espouses different beliefs, then the 'offended' party endeavors to pick apart that person's appearance, or to defame that person's character or affiliations as hateful, or racist, or bigoted. By doing so, of course, the offended party displays the bigotry that it claims to despise.

The behavior displayed by political partisans suggest that most never grew out of their playground habits, suggesting perhaps a 'Do as I say, but not as I do' approach when attempting to teach their children.