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Welcome to The Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name. |
On our minds: An even darker side of Covid-19. And a brighter side of lockdown. |
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Domestic Abuse, Public Threats |
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Domestic violence, already a public health crisis in its own right, is now acting like an opportunistic infection, flourishing in the conditions created by Covid-19. |
This is undoubtedly a crisis for the victims who are trapped in their homes with their abusers. But it may pose a growing threat to the public as well. |
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In her book “Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists,” Joan Smith explores a widely known but poorly understood phenomenon: that the vast majority of people who commit terrorist attacks and mass shootings are men with a history of domestic violence. |
“We have this narrative that there are ordinary men who are living their lives in a completely blameless way, and then someone shows them a beheading video. But I think that’s wrong,” she said. |
“They start out by acting out at home, often by abusing their wives, their children, or others. Then they encounter some kind of ideology,” she said. “That does two things: It justifies their anger, and it tells them that they are justified in using violence.” |
After examining 50 terrorist attacks and mass shootings, she found a clear pattern: When abusers experienced a personal crisis, such as losing a job or being thrown out by a romantic partner, it was often the trigger for them to escalate to more severe violence against their families or the public. |
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“There is one attack after another that happens after the man has been thrown out of the family home,” she said. “I think there is a narcissistic wound that is so great that they may escalate to public violence.” |
As the coronavirus crushes economies around the world, unemployment is rising to the highest level in decades, slicing new narcissistic wounds into already-abusive men. For now, their partners and children will pay the price. But Ms. Smith’s book suggests that a second, worse phase of violence may be next. |
Quote of the Day |
It is difficult to find a bright side to the pandemic and lockdown. Most attempts feel cheap, predicated on pretending that things aren’t really as bad as they seem. |
But our brilliant colleague Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for the Times, reminded me (Amanda) of something genuinely reassuring last week: that Judith Kerr, who went on to write the beloved children’s books “The Tiger Who Came to Tea” and “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit,” among others, always said that her years as a child refugee were some of the happiest of her life. |
| “My brother and I always agreed that the childhood we had was infinitely better than the childhood we would have had if Hitler had never happened and we’d stayed in Germany,” she said in a 2017 interview with the Financial Times. “We loved the change, the interest of different places, and learning a language.” |
That was not, obviously, because the Nazis weren’t as bad as they seemed. The Kerr family were Jewish intellectuals from Berlin. They lost everything when they fled Hitler. She later learned that her mother had contemplated suicide and planned to kill Judith and her brother, Michael, as well. |
But her parents managed to give her enough of a sense of safety, protect her from enough of the horrors of war and give her enough confidence in the love and stability of her family that she did not have to concern herself much with the outside world. The salient facts of her day-to-day life were learning new things (she was particularly proud of mastering French when the family moved to Paris), playing, and spending time with her family. |
That is a reassuring idea to hold on to at this difficult time. Not because it makes the pandemic any less awful — this is undoubtedly a moment of global tragedy. We can’t control that and shouldn’t not deny it. But Ms. Kerr’s happy childhood is a reminder of how much there is to be gained, for our children and ourselves, by adding positives to weigh against the cascade of negatives. |
What We’re Reading |
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How are we doing? |
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