On Mothers and Political Violence

Author: Mary Harrington
Full Title: On Mothers and Political Violence
Category: #articles
URL: https://reactionaryfeminist.substack.com/p/on-mothers-and-political-violence

A ‘kyndelich’ authority, existing in attuned relationship to those in its care, can’t avoid a duty to see the world as it is, and also to envision how it should be. At the level of parenting, that means accepting that every decision I take on behalf of my child amounts to a positive statement about moral norms, and accepting the responsibility of discerning those norms to the best of my ability according both to the world as it is and also how it should be. That means (for example) teaching normal eating and sleeping habits, and modelling good manners for interacting with others in our sociocultural context. Making determinations about what ‘normal’ means in a world where most norms are radically liquid can feel impossibly daunting. But it’s not possible to be a parent without trying.
The central duty of authority wielded legitimately is to not to render itself invisible as a vector for emergent desires, or govern obliquely via a thicket of rules. Power is legitimate to the extent that it doesn’t hide behind moral relativism. Its job is to make moral determinations, oriented toward the promotion of healthy norms, in the interests of the wider community. The fact that today democratic norms are faltering makes it more urgent than ever for those who wish to govern legitimately – to be ‘kyndelich a lord’ – to make every effort both to see the world as it is, and also to rule in the interests of the best possible version of that world.