Once the unthinkable has come to pass. Not for the first time, of course, but past unthinkables don’t always offer clues on how to deal with their contemporary avatars.

At the meeting yesterday morning, one of the questions on the table: how do we deal with the kids’ constant exposure to violent and degrading sights and sounds on their phones? For instance: the latest phone star ruling the schoolyards over here is a young man who describes in graphic terms his debasing treatment of girls. The images he shares are “soft” enough to pass through the filters. The word descriptions turn your stomach. This being one example among hundreds. A homework-related web search turning up recruitment material for a djihadist movement on the second link. Or pedo-pornography inserted into videos of astronomical wonders.

Not to mention the daily demonstrations of double-speak and of crooks and liars being the system’s ultimate winners.

So a new Age of the Unthinkable. Liars and crooks at the helm. This is fact. Word by word by word, rebuilding layers of decency others are busy eroding. Word after word after word, confronting the minotaur at the heart of the inner labyrinth. One by one by one, letting children express in private the mix of fascination, repulsion and fear they experience when the schoolyard bullies impose their will on others.

(Photo illustrating this post: part of the scenography from Les anges au plafond’s production of R.A.G.E. – a magnificent tribute to writer Romain Gary born Roman Kacew – the very same one who once wrote: “Without imagination, love doesn’t stand a chance.”)