Student doctors learn that before they prescribe medication, they should conduct a careful diagnosis, or they might not get the results they intend. Indeed, several illnesses may be present at the same time, and the treatment for one might exacerbate another. The same is true for public policy: solutions to social ills may not work if the problem or problems are not properly defined in the first place.

We have a set of deep-rooted problems in Jamaica which come to the surface in aspects of popular culture such as 'slack-ness' music and the dance form known as 'daggerin'; but we are hopelessly naive if we believe that banning music with slackness lyrics from the radio is going to even begin to solve the problem.

Slackness will continue to be played in the 'lawns' and dancehalls, and will be as popular as ever; and I don't know how this effort was supposed to stop daggerin'. Can you ban a dance? In my youth, there was 'rent-a-tile' and 'rub-a-dub', and Prince Buster had his 'wreck-a' series which was banned from the airwaves, along with other songs of the same ilk; I don't know if we are any better off today because of it.

The larger context is that Jamaica is a highly sexualised society, and that has been so for many decades. I have danced the real kumina in St Thomas, zella and quadrille in Portland, and observed bruckins and dinkhi mini, and they are all highly sexual dances, with much genital rubbing and other erotic contact. And these are not 'young-people dances', but largely participated in by older folk; the youth watch from the sidelines and laugh at the gyrations - and learn.

In overcrowded urban and rural dwellings, young people hear the groans of their elders at night, and I have been told of older sisters bringing their boyfriends into bed with their younger sisters present. Nowadays, with video pornography for sale on street corners and widely accessible on the internet, very little is left to the imagination.

Teenage pregnancy

In this context, many boys and girls begin playing with sexual intercourse at an early age, which is why we have such a high incidence in Jamaica of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS; and these lead to other social problems such as an overburdened health-care system and education system, unwanted children, poor school attendance, dropouts, illiteracy and crime.

And so we can ban daggerin' lyrics from the airwaves, and that might make some people happy since their ears will cease to be polluted, but it will do absolutely nothing towards addressing the real issues, which should be our real concern. Removing lewd lyrics from the airwaves will only drive the music underground, leaving the social problems untouched.

A large part of our problem in Jamaica is that we don't always see the big picture; we declare that one song or one artiste or one musical genre is the problem, and then we ban it; and then we believe we have solved 'the problem' which we have not even properly defined. We don't think the problems through to their logical end, and end up proposing half-baked remedies which might even make the problems worse.

Or maybe it is that the required medication for the problems is too bitter; it requires us to change sweet habits, to give up too much. I am reminded of the woman who wants her toothache to go away, but doesn't like to go to the dentist; so she continues to put it off. It will only get worse.

Social engineering

Solving these social problems requires social engineering. The fact that these problems recur from generation to generation suggests that there are social institutions successfully passing them on; and it also suggests that the agents of socialisation which should pass on more appropriate values are dysfunctional.

Sexual intercourse is natural and it is beautiful, and even though it can be quite a private affair, it really has profound social and economic consequences for any society. Is it appropriate for society to set norms and values which govern its appropriate context? Or is that an invasion of privacy and an attack upon personal freedom? More next week.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.