Friday Ephemera
And yet the first thing I noticed was the lack of shoes. (h/t Obo) // Remember, feminists are the ones we’re supposed to take seriously. // Her favourite thing. // The final resting places of seven famous dogs. // Forgotten guest-stars of Murder, She Wrote. // His model tornado is better than yours. // A bit gusty. // A good hard poke should do it. // The underbellies of horses. // 1980s New York. // Non-stop Chuck Norris. // Assorted Sixties nuclear tests. // Jordan Peterson on “privilege” and its precedents. // This seems to work and it’s cheaper than divorce. // This is exactly how I would have done it. // This should be a thing. (h/t, Damian) // And this should not. // Lakeside property. // Rock music. // Flashback. // And finally, live radio transmissions from the airports of the world.
I’m not allowed to view the “Her favorite thing” tweet.
I’ll make up for that, though: Kafkatrapping in action.
Klein bottle-trapping, Ted? Hall of mirrors trapping?
Quick, SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING.
The final resting places of seven famous dogs.
Giant lump in throat.
“Forgotten guest-stars of Murder, She Wrote.”
Also worth noting that J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, was a co-producer and writer on the show.
“A bit gusty.”
I like the woman on the other side of the street, casually leaning against a lamp-post as if it was just a gentle breeze. I expect she’s probably braced hard against it, but she looks so nonplussed.
“Jordan Peterson on “privilege” and its precedents.”
Great stuff. And of course, that class-related or group-related guilt he talks about is the definition of “social justice”: it’s “justice” according to social association rather than individual action. There are too many people around right now who’ve been seduced into thinking it just means being nice to poor people or black people or whatever. If you want to argue for social justice, then know what it means, and know that doing so puts you in the same boat as the founders of the gulag.
(I remember, incidentally, Paul Marks of Samizdata ranting about this about 15 years ago after some Tory shadow minister or other used the term and not really following what he was on about. But I get it now. “Social justice”, being based entirely on guilt-by-association, is utterly incompatible with real, actual, justice. Nobody who isn’t a raving Commie should go near it with a ten-foot pole.)
“This should be a thing.”
Heh. I quite enjoy the agility competitions; you know, the part that’s like showjumping for dogs, with little fences and tunnels and whatnot. The mutts look like they’re having the time of their lives. Always cheers me up.
Airports of the world: Try this: https://www.liveatc.net/ None of that annoying elevator music.
I think if you open one browser tab with the Peterson lecture snippet and another tab with Ted’s Kafkatrapping link something cosmically bad happens, like a black hole opens or something. Or maybe some kind of matter / anti-matter explosion. I don’t know – I’m too scared to try it, and besides, this laptop is out of warranty.
Oh, and Peterson’s 6:50 lecture bit, “…being ideologically possessed” is also quite interesting.
Don’t miss THIS.
A bit gusty.
I thought last year was full election season . . .
Kafkatrapping in action.
And which actually features the now-protected tweet by Ms Claire Lockard. In which she declares, rather piously, that her “new favourite thing” is “interrupting white dudes” in class.
that class-related or group-related guilt he talks about is the definition of “social justice”: it’s “justice” according to social association rather than individual action. There are too many people around right now who’ve been seduced into thinking it just means being nice to poor people or black people or whatever.
Absolutely. It’s also interesting that, despite the term being used frequently and ostentatiously, clear definitions are rarely volunteered. As you say, what it seems to entail is treating people not as individuals but as categories. And judging a person and their actions based primarily on which Designated Victim Group they supposedly belong to and then assigning various exemptions and indulgences depending on that notional group identity and whatever presumptuous baggage can be attached to it. And conversely, assigning imaginary sins and “privilege” to someone else based on whatever Designated Oppressor Group they can be said to belong to, however fatuously and regardless of the particulars of the actual person.
Which is to say, “social justice” is largely about judging people tribally, cartoonishly, and by different and contradictory standards, based on some supposed group identity, which must override all else. It’s glib, question-begging and ultimately pernicious. Morality for the mediocre. Viewed rationally, it’s something close to the opposite of justice. And yet it’s the latest must-have.
In much the same way that “equity,” another word favoured by campus activists, is usually defined only in the woolliest and most evasive of terms, and which sounds unobjectionable, given the connotations of fairness. But which, when used by activists, seems to mean something like “equality of outcome regardless of inputs.” And, on reflection, that isn’t fair at all.
It’s also interesting that, despite the term being used frequently and ostentatiously, clear definitions are rarely volunteered.
I often end up helping the university-aged children of my friends and acquaintances with their arts studies (the curse of having minored in an Art).
One such wide-eyed naif asked me for help with an essay on social justice, as she was completely lost. After going through all the readings with her, I was struck by the fact that the only assigned author to actually define “social justice” was Friedrich Hayek, and the point of the assigned essay was to answer his criticism of the entire concept.
I ended up having to admit defeat, as I simply couldn’t find anything that resembled a coherent argument in the rest of the readings. I advised her to just write 1500 words saying that Hayek was full of shit because he was white and didn’t understand oppression.
She got a B+. Lost marks for using too many contractions.
I was struck by the fact that the only assigned author to actually define “social justice” was Friedrich Hayek
Heh. I generally think it’s a good idea to treat any unironic use of the term as warranting suspicion. If a person feels compelled to repeatedly signal their imagined virtue – which, it seems, is the term’s primary use – this is a little odd. The word camouflage comes to mind.
And yet the first thing I noticed was the lack of shoes.
Ever the gentleman.
Ever the gentleman.
In fairness to McDonald’s, I feel I should point out that in none of my occasional visits have I ever seen a fat lady’s bare arse.
It’s also interesting that, despite the term being used frequently and ostentatiously, clear definitions are rarely volunteered. As you say, what it seems to entail is treating people not as individuals but as categories.
See, e.g. North Korea’s Songbun system, where one’s class is used to reward or punish one for generations. It is the inevitable end-game for the SJWs.
This is exactly how I would have done it.
Me too. 🙂
1980s New York.
Ahh a stroll down memory lane. Good examples here of what happened after The New York Times came out in favor of graffiti “artists” who were tagging subway cars at the time. Dimwits. Nothing changes in liberal fantasyland.
Remember, feminists are the ones we’re supposed to take seriously.
NYC again. Why are liberal cities such horrible places for women that they must resort to gas warfare?
The final resting places of seven famous dogs.
Just got a bit dusty in the manor, for some reason. Had to go check on the hound as well, just to ensure she was squared away.
Surprised they didn’t include Hachiko
A good hard poke should do it.
Like Jenga.
See, e.g. North Korea’s Songbun system, where one’s class is used to reward or punish one for generations. It is the inevitable end-game for the SJWs.
Another realm in which NorKo is ahead of our own SJWs in obtaining the Perfected State and total justice is that Juche recognizes the importance of an “artist” class to unify and define the vision of the proles. A notional improvement on communism by stating formally that bien pensance defines who is to be most equal. Rising above the Hammer and the Sickle, the Brush.
Congratulations, lobbyists for the Seriousness Of Art, right thinking pushed through mandatory “art” flummery, and for amending STEM to STEAM. You’re only 50-odd years behind… North Korea. That utopia thing will be along any day now.
“25 million metric tonnes of spiders exist on Earth.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science-unravels-spiders-monstrous-food-184133798.html
25 million metric tonnes of spiders exist on Earth.
Someone should tell Julia. She’ll be thrilled.
This is always a good sign:
Supremacist religions are supremacist.
Heh. I generally think it’s a good idea to treat any unironic use of the term as warranting suspicion.
A friend of mine once observed that any adjective in a marketing campaign means “not”. (Specifically, in relation to the last generation of CRT TVs, which were advertised as “virtual flat”)
I think the same principle is at play here.
Meet Mr Intersectionality. You’ll know him when you see him.
Was expecting to see this waiting for me in this weeks Ephemera…or maybe I’m weeks late. Anyway:
Crazy fool tries to race against a London Underground train.
https://twitter.com/Holbornlolz/status/841554012298190848
What’s next, fluoride in the water?:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/14492/college-student-explains-why-milk-racist-elliott-hamilton
I suppose the very air we breath is racist.
I suppose the very air we breath is racist.
“Trolls… drank milk… as a means of imposing white supremacy on the actor.”
The 21st century isn’t turning out quite as I’d imagined.
The 21st century isn’t turning out quite as I’d imagined.
I’ll say.
Elsewhere, totalitarians wonder why people might object to redistribution of infants.
Perhaps.
They raise fake objections and respond to them with fake rebuttals, eliding entirely what I would take as the central point of the children do not belong to you, they are not yours to redistribute, STOP THINKING OF THE ENTIRETY OF THE BLOODY WORLD AS CLAY TO BE REARRANGED IN YOUR HANDS OR I AM LIKELY TO START THINKING A LOT MORE ABOUT REARRANGING YOUR ANATOMY.
the children do not belong to you, they are not yours to redistribute,
There is, as so often, a monstrous arrogance.
If you follow Dicentra’s link you will also find this
https://au.be.yahoo.com/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/a/34656641/meet-the-naked-yoga-teacher-yahoo7-be/#page1
I forgot to warn that it is obvious cultural appropriation.
The redistribution plan is all sorts of problematic and wickedness. But I can at least hope it fades from sight quickly and quietly. One of its references evidently has not, so let me stab at that a few times:
John Rawls’s concept of justice is approximately this: Suppose that a hypothetical quasi-parliament of maximally risk-averse amnesiac-alien-ghosts bereft of personal feelings or opinions behind the veil of ignorance were about to mass-incarnate into human bodies at random, but first they were coming to an agreement on how worldly goods should be redistributed for the benefit of their future incarnations. Due to their risk aversion, they would wish for the distribution of goods on Earth to be rearranged towards equality such that the world is graded strictly on how well off the single worst off person is. This is how we humans should redistribute goods.
It’s nonsense on stilts, and the fact that Rawls hasn’t gone the way of phlogiston is an embarrassment to philosophy.
Arguably, phlogiston might even be the more sensible of the two. Phlogiston is basically oxygen with a sign error, after all.
If you follow Dicentra’s link you will also find this
I’d imagine there are, um, specialist websites for that kind of thing.
It’s nonsense on stilts,
As so often with these things, there’s an air of moral and psychological obtuseness. As if they don’t quite understand, and don’t much care, how human beings work. In another context, it might suggest sociopathy.
Regarding, the redistribution of babies, I note the third “advantage” would be ending racism, given that families could consist of members with random melanin levels presumably. However, I thought that the idea of a “colorblind” view of human interaction was itself racist in origin, inasmuch as there’s that whole “white privilege” thing. Which is it? This is similar to the idea that mixed race marriage and procreation should be encouraged because once everyone has a lovely olive toned skin, our problems will be solved. That idea was determined by the Left to be the functional equivalent of advocating genocide.
redistribution of infants.
There’s nothing new under the sun. Plato thought of it first (or at least quite a bit earlier).
Reminds me of the old joke: Why can’t girls drink beer at the beach? They get sand in their Schlitz.
Meet Mr Intersectionality.
In a keffiyeh (or whatever the rock-chucker rag is called). Colour me stunned.
Rawls always omits the fact that any structure reworked to create an equal instantaneous outcome (itself an idiotic preposition) is one that very possibly enables someone malign upsetting the applecart one second after. Therefore, the first alien ghost not to be the veriest angel can ascend to power with (amusingly enough) minimal risk. Further, a society which cannot preserve gains made unequally stagnates to the misery of all – how tolerant are these ghosts of that result?
Regardless, all it likely takes is one enterprising actor in the example to “refute it thus”, possibly with a quick, sharp blow to another alien-host’s head.
As to baby redistribution, it’s quite common knowledge that the racial imbalance of adopter and adoptee populations is pronounced, and minority infants are routinely robbed of any opportunity to grow up in a good home of any kind because administrators think they might not sufficiently receive transmitted grievances and might receive Whitey Cooties instead. A counterargument I’ve heard is that a racial mismatch to the parent accentuates adoption anxieties, and that it enables what one might call mascot adoption. The tendency of a deranged virtue-signaler to want a Special Snowflake” child ready-born.
So, the result, then, is to have foreign infants *also* a mismatch to their parents brought in, productive couples without issue of any kind, and children growing just enough to be tossed back into loosely affiliated gambles of foster arrangements. Bra-VO.
Their doublethink on the issue is substantial.
Colour me stunned.
Presumably, Mr Intersectionality wanted to signal to the nation, or at least his classmates, just how woke he is. Because men aren’t allowed to discuss sexism (and should shut up), and white people aren’t allowed to discuss racism (and should shut up). It’s all terribly inclusive.
That idea was determined by the Left to be the functional equivalent of advocating genocide.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a black SJW type recently who was aware of this… to a point. Proudly proclaiming that interbreeding would destroy the white race through the quasi-magical superiority of black genes, or something like that.
One step forward, two steps back for reason, then.
…minority infants are routinely robbed of any opportunity to grow up…
I’ve seen it in a professional context, but fortunately it’s been minimal. The good news is, such concerns do not have the force of law and rely on SJWs getting on the bench and appointed for prospective adopted children to really do damage. The only place where actual racial preference statutes obtain are with Native”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act”>Native Americans.
Link for above.
…and even the ICWA is very arguably a mistake. I remember some malign ruling a while back that, IIRC, ended up removing a child from the only family they’d known and placing with a putative relative that they’d had no connection to in their life based on an ICWA mechanism – even though the receiving relative was not of NA blood at all. It also handicaps any effort to place a child who really needs to be removed from a bad situation – as are all too common on some reservations.
You will PAY for my emotional labor, kaffir.
@Spork,
Yeah, the case is mentioned in the Wiki entry. The problem is when/if a tribe has asserted jurisdiction or whether it will at all. And, it depends on who is registered in the tribal rolls. There are a lot of people are are registered with only one grandparent on the rolls. It can get sticky, especially with adoptive parents who wish to sweep possible tribal affiliations under the rug, which can be tragic if that affiliation ever comes to light.
Jordan Peterson on “privilege” and its precedents
And as if right on cue … the usual parade of insufferable clowns comes to town, unironically complaining of a lack of tolerance while simultaneously behaving in a way that in practically any other context would earn them a well-earned punch in the snout.
As Peterson suggests, it’s quite eerie how much the assumptions of these clowns echoes the words of someone like Stalin in his 1937 address, ‘Defects in Party Work and Measures for Liquidating Trotskyite and Other Double Dealers’:
[Party Comrades] have forgotten that Soviet power was victorious in only one-sixth of the world, that five-sixths of the world are in the possession of the capitalist states. They have forgotten that the Soviet Union finds itself encircled by capitalist states. We have an accepted habit of chattering about capitalist encirclement, but people don’t want to ponder about what this thing is-capitalist encirclement. Capitalist encirclement – it is not an empty phrase, it is a very real and unpleasant phenomenon. Capitalist encirclement – it means that there is one country, the Soviet Union, which has established at home a Socialist order, and that there are, besides, many countries, bourgeois countries, which continue to carry on the capitalist form of life and which encircle the Soviet Union, waiting for the opportunity to attack it, to crush it, or, in any case-to undermine its might and to weaken it.
the usual parade of insufferable clowns comes to town, unironically complaining of a lack of tolerance
And so an educator who is by any measure thoughtful is harassed by a mob of narcissistic morons. And the narcissism won’t stop of its own accord. It will only be stopped when those who indulge in it, and those who encourage it, find that it costs them. Which, at the moment, it evidently doesn’t.
the usual parade of insufferable clowns comes to town, unironically complaining of a lack of tolerance
If a university encourages and cultivates pretentious victimhood – with “safe spaces,” “microaggressions,” shutdowns, disinvitations and all the rest – the end result won’t be more graduates who are sensitive, enquiring, altruistic and empathetic. The end result, as we’ve seen, is lots of people who are intolerant, mentally inflexible, vindictive, narcissistic and utterly self-involved, which is to say, selfish. Because, as any competent parent should know, empathy is encouraged, not by cossetting and continual indulgence, but by encountering boundaries, pushback, consequences.
empathy is encouraged, not by cossetting and continual indulgence, but by encountering boundaries, pushback, consequences.
So. Much. That.
So. Much. That.
Well, what we’re seeing on campuses, in effect, is the laughable conceit that if you indulge a child, or a teenager, by sparing them any contradiction or hint that they might be wrong, and by giving them free hits whenever their ego is bruised, this will somehow make them a nicer person.
It’s so unrealistic, so absurd, it’s hard to parody.
empathy is encouraged, not by cossetting and continual indulgence, but by encountering boundaries, pushback, consequences.
I come for the political insights but I stay for the parenting tips. 🙂
David: “Well, what we’re seeing on campuses, in effect, is the laughable conceit that if you indulge a child, or a teenager, by sparing them any contradiction or hint that they might be wrong, and by giving them free hits whenever their ego is bruised, this will somehow make them a nicer person.”
Children are neither innately good or bad, but by grade three or so [the age one of my teacher acquaintances calls the “Awful eights”] we better see some signs of conscience and have “moved” children from the natural selfishness of toddlerhood. I think the Jesuits had it right: “Show me the boy at seven and I will show you the man.” Over the years I have received more referrals for bratty children in the age range 7-9 than any other age group simply because they start to show real attitude about then and mothers suddenly find they have a little prince [or princess] working on taking full control, often using violence. Bribery no longer controls the little beasties then.
As Alice states: “empathy is encouraged, not by cossetting and continual indulgence, but by encountering boundaries, pushback, consequences” Yes there must be natural consequences, either reinforcing or punishing [not corporal!!!] in relation to presenting behaviour and its effect on others.
I come for the political insights but I stay for the parenting tips. 🙂
That’s worrying. I don’t have the temperament, or inclination, to be a dad.
A fun uncle, maybe.
Re: Baby redistribution. The authors of the piece, Howard Rachlin and Marvin Frankel, say:
Third, the superficial connection between colour and culture would be severed. Racism would be wiped out. Racial ghettos would disappear; children of all races would live in all neighbourhoods.
I suppose that halting third-world immigration into the West is too radical a step for these charmers, so let’s confiscate every child from their parents and redistribute them instead!
You know who else took kids away from their parents for redistribution? Nazi’s, that’s who! So Rachlin and Frankel must be literally Hitler! I expect them to be condemned by the media immediately.
Not unrelated
Amaze your friends, startle your neighbors
Amaze your friends, startle your neighbors
I’m holding out for a throne made from the bones of my enemies.
Amaze your friends, startle your neighbors
I’d just want to recreate This.
Why not corporal? Seems to me a good amount of snowflake behavior would have been cut off at the pass with a swat or two on the fanny.
Two or three smacks on the backside with a folded belt is usually sufficient to get their undivided attention.
Or, convincing them you’re serious…
Remember, I brought you into this world; I can take you out. It don’t matter to me, ’cause I can make another one that looks just like you.
WTP asked “Why not corporal?” Because belting some one for incorrect behaviour cannot teach correct behaviour, no matter how satisfying it may be in the heat of the moment. However the main reason is that in systems where corporal punishment has been the norm the recipients of physical punishments either become totally cowed or extremely aggressive and more dangerous by copying those in authority. Either way they become totally dysfunctional. I learned this working in special schools and institutions for the retarded, starting in a special school in south-side Chicago and later in institutions in Australia. I bear the scars and injuries from many clients who were taught to “behave” by means of extreme violence. If punishment is necessary – and it may be at times – there are non-aversive methods that can be very “educational”.
1980’s New York
My mom got lost once getting back to the expressway from the Bronx Zoo. I was maybe 5 or so, but I remember her agitated and swearing under her breath as she drove our station wagon through the apocalyptic South Bronx. I asked her what was wrong, she said “We’re just really not supposed to be here.”
The final straw for my parents was when a co-worker of my mom’s was stabbed during a mugging. Upon arriving at the hospital, he was put on a gurney and left in a dark hallway overnight without any treatment (he lived, but geez). To the suburbs they moved.
Recently, I saw a photo attached to a article I didn’t click on of a college-aged SJW female wearing a MAGA-style hat that said “Make New York Unsafe Again”. Where to even start…
David wrote, “It’s also interesting that, despite the term being used frequently and ostentatiously, clear definitions are rarely volunteered.”
From Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”: ‘The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable”… Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different… Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.”
Add “social justice” to the list.
in systems where corporal punishment has been the norm the recipients of physical punishments either become totally cowed or extremely aggressive and more dangerous by copying those in authority. Either way they become totally dysfunctional.
This statement is totally dysfunctional itself. I.e. false. I can vouche for it being so personally, and so can a great number of people that I know. The more violent types I have had the misery to grow up with had no fear of non-corporal punishment at home. Have you considered the possibility that there are a very many things about this world that your lack of experience fails you in ways that cannot be made up for in books or studies? That such may very well be very wrong?
As for non-physical forms of punishment, many of those create their own scars.
Also note, not all physical punishment is enacted in anger nor in the heat of the moment. It is actually best when not, but given circumstances unknown, not exclusively so either. People do have the capacity to engage in limited physical punishment.
Lastly, in no way was I speaking in the context of the mentally disabled. That is completely out of context.
WTP wrote: “there are a very many things about this world that your lack of experience fails you in ways that cannot be made up for in books or studies”.
My statements are based on direct clinical experience [not text books] since 1972 with mainstream children and adolescents and early intervention [from 3 years old] and special school children and intellectually disabled adults up to 70 years of age as a specialist educator/behaviour specialist. As for intellectual disability being “out of context” – no, such people [they are people] still learn and adapt their behaviour according to the circumstances, perhaps not as well as those people of greater intellect, but the principles of learning still apply.
As for the statement about people becoming either cowed or aggressive, this statement is based on very many years of working in residential institutions [including locked wards] with people who had been resident in such places for most of their lives and were subject to severe treatment, i.e. corporal punishment, on a daily basis. Examples of corporal punishment which I know occurred: being hit with a variety of bats, wire coat-hangers, kicked, punched, slapped, children tied up in laundry bags and hung on the wall for a day – one lad, in a laundry bag, was also tossed in a swimming pool to “teach him a lesson”, hosed down with high pressure hoses [cold water of course], and also being made to hit/bang one’s own head or be hit by a staff-member.
None of the above aversive treatments aided the individuals in learning to behave better in society, but they certainly taught them to fear those in authority. When discussing this issue, you might also want to consider the effects of bullying via internet/social media on modern adolescents and increasing number who are committing suicide as a result of the aversive, though non-physical, punishments they are experiencing from their peers.
NTSOG, Do you suppose youthful exposure to corporal punishment can lead to schizophrenia?
My statements are based on direct clinical experience . . .
And in turn, there is the even larger amount of direct non clinical experience.
The basic fact is that only psychopathic bullies hit children, parents raise children.
being hit with a variety of bats, wire coat-hangers, kicked, punched, slapped, children tied up in laundry bags and hung on the wall for a day – one lad, in a laundry bag, was also tossed in a swimming pool to “teach him a lesson”, hosed down with high pressure hoses [cold water of course], and also being made to hit/bang one’s own head or be hit by a staff-member.
When discussing corporal punishment of minors as corrective action for misbehaviour, I sincerely doubt anyone is advocating for this kind of abuse.
The basic fact is that only psychopathic bullies hit children, parents raise children.
Seriously, cut the bullshit. Spanking one’s child, or even in the days when schools were permitted to do so, does not make one a “psychopathic bully”. Christ I’m sick of this politically correct bullshit. By all means make your case but drop the othering.
Seriously, cut the bullshit.
Absolutely and Exactly my point.
Spanking one’s child, or even in the days when schools were permitted to do so, does not make one a “psychopathic bully”.
Heh. It’s just one little drink. Go ahead and try it. The first one is free. There’s no harm. It’s all good. Do be woke.
—Out here is reality, noting that actual genuine parenting is a very complex and complicated process, just where are you trying to put some dividing line?!?!?!?
Christ I’m sick of this politically correct bullshit.
So is everyone else. Therefore, as noted, The basic fact is that only psychopathic bullies hit children, parents raise children.
. . . subject to severe treatment, i.e. corporal punishment, on a daily basis. . . . None of the above aversive treatments aided the individuals in learning to behave better in society, but they certainly taught them to fear those in authority.
Or, rather than a fear of “authority”, one does learn that the “authority” is merely a common criminal and and that the best and only solution to that criminal is to quite enthusiastically dispose of the criminal.
Heh. It’s just one little drink. Go ahead and try it. The first one is free. There’s no harm. It’s all good. Do be woke.
This mockery constitutes a fully general objection to doing anything. Including drinking a glass of water, because if you drink too much water you will die of water poisoning. As such, its value in any particular case should be counted nil.
Hal, again you take what is said, turn into something totally different and then argue that. Even though I and Daniel Ream and Spiny Norman reiterated the context of corporal punishment you, and NTSOG as well, insisted on using extreme examples of which no reasonable person would infer. This line of argument far more resembles Orwellian Kafka trapping and such than the forms of corporal punishment to which I and others refer resembles the the forms of abuse you inferred. Do you grasp the degree that your arrogance is off putting and undermines your point? And again, PEOPLE WHO PHYSICALLY DISCIPLINE THEIR CHILDREN, OR EVEN OTHER’S CHILDREN, ARE NOT PSYCHOPATH BULLIES. And also again, far greater damage can be done using certain non-physical means than more measured physical means.
Back to the Orwellian thing in a more general sense, this sort of BS is precisely what I was referring to elsewhere. People can’t discuss issues or problems to explore solutions much anymore as the level of trust in our society has dropped so low that movement or reference in one direction drags the discussion off into the weeds of extremism, reiterating tired old points that are not in dispute. It’s insane.
Also, what Microbillioaire said.
WTP,
…insisted on using extreme examples of which no reasonable person would infer.
Comparing the rare instance of a paddling and long-term, continual physical abuse is essentially a strawman.
(I recall being on the receiving end of such corporal punishment exactly three times during my entire childhood, and only once by my father – and well-deserved as I was being disrespectful to my mother in a manner I find deeply embarrassing to this day.)
“Equating”, rather.
This mockery constitutes a fully general objection to doing anything. Including drinking a glass of water, because if you drink too much water you will die of water poisoning. As such, its value in any particular case should be counted nil.
Wow. That was really revealing . . . .
Water is a requirement. Child abuse is not.
Your equating water with child abuse just, so to speak, utterly sank your boat.
I realize that openly agreeing with me and completely conceding the point may not have been what you had in mind, but thank you for the support.
The adage about playing chess with a pigeon comes to mind.
I realize that openly agreeing with me and completely conceding the point may not have been what you had in mind, but thank you for the support.
I realize that openly agreeing with me and completely conceding the point may not have been what you had in mind, but thank you for the support.
It was Hal who brought the “drinking” analogy (a poor one, I thought), with the implication presumably being “an alcoholic can’t have just one”. Or was it?
Spiny,
I recall being on the receiving end of such corporal punishment exactly three times
In a moment of quiet reflection and contrition, my father called me into the room one day and said, “Son, if I ever spanked you for anything you genuinely did not do, I want you to think about all the times you did things that I never found out about and apply it to one of those”.
It was Hal who brought the “drinking” analogy (a poor one, I thought), with the implication presumably being “an alcoholic can’t have just one”. Or was it?
Nah. I was noting a general shopping list of excuses that get offered for choosing or trying to justify an already proven failure.
What Micro and WTP are trying to avoid is that NTSOG has given the specific institutional extreme, and that I have given the general everyday occurrence, and between NTSOG and I there is nothing left.
Brutalizing. children. is. failure.
And we can go on to the next topic.
Brutalizing. children. is. failure.
FFFS, again….A spanking is not “brutalizing”. Again, I know a great many people who were spanked as children. All of the ones that I personally know are far more successful than the average bear. This is my personal experience. I also know a couple of boys I used to babysit who were definitely “parented” yet never spanked. One ended up dead of a heroine overdose. The other was extremely introverted, most likely due to living under the bullying of his older brother. But hey, just my personal experience. And that of many other people I know. Statistical data should always be informed by empirical observation. Not that the latter necessarily rules, nor is always, or even often, correct. However in this instance you and NTSOG have been the ones insisting that corporal punishment is ALWAYS harmful and defaming/othering those who use it as psychopaths. Again, regardless of your egg-headed studies and clinical experience in extreme, out-of-the-norm situations, using end point data…FFS…Do I really have to explain this? Are you really this f’n thick? Your argument is akin to the idea that smoking pot leads to heroine use. Christ. As (supposedly) Harry Truman named them Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
I have given the general everyday occurrence
No, you’ve described what is clearly child abuse, not mild spanking as a form of corrective action.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this blog has quite an archive of comments on the mental state of people who were abused as children.
. . . Do I really have to explain this? . . .
Hmmmm? You’ve already seen the extremely evident gulf between raising a child and having a fetish for child abuse.
Why claim otherwise?
As (supposedly) Harry Truman named them Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
Oh, and, apparently actually Mark Twain attributing Disraeli.
Hmmmm? You’ve already seen the extremely evident gulf between raising a child and having a fetish for child abuse.
Your penchant for not so subtle obfuscation, not to mention your condescending attitude are well noted. I’m certain it’s greatly appreciated around the office.
I’m certain it’s greatly appreciated around the office.
Ehn, since you ask. One client announced that I have the calmest voice he’s ever heard. A coworker’s assessment was of being Shakespearean. A supervisor handed me a very messy project that he couldn’t get through with the statement that I am the best one in the department and therefore am to be myself and just solve the issue with whatever it takes—don’t remember the details by this point, but do remember the client wound up being quite happy by the end. A particularly deceitful supervisor whose utter incompetence was already long established tried to pass off a complete scam or a further complete scam; I was quite fascinated to watch her hands shaking as she delivered the bullshit, and I turned down both options for being equally and openly fraudulent.
There’s a joke I heard giving a fake origin of the word “analysis”: from the Greek ‘ysis’, meaning to pull from, and the root ‘anal-‘.
I’m not trying to avoid anything, so kindly stop attributing invented motives to me. I can’t speak for WTP. But as for myself, I pointed out that Hal was engaged in fallacious reasoning because this reasoning happened to rub me the wrong way, not because I have a dog in this fight. Hal’s response to my pointing this out was to go into histrionics and attribute to me some more things to me I didn’t do.
—
To spell it out in excruciating detail:
A method of reductio ad absurdum is to show that given a certain premise or mode of inference, one can reason to an absurdity (usually a falsehood or contradiction), and thereby conclude that the premise or mode must be faulty.
Hal has given a mode of inference of “mockery of the idea of stopping at just one, assertion of addictiveness”. (If he dislikes this characterization or thinks he’s been misunderstood, I invite him to give more explicit reasoning and less “Do be woke” in the future.)
That mode of inference can be used to infer that practically anything is wrong, including drinking water.
This is the absurdity, as we know that drinking water is not wrong.
Ergo, that mode of inference is faulty.
Notice here that if anything is equating drinking water and child abuse, it’s Hal’s reasoning, in that it’s so universally applicable – and I’m pointing out that the reasoning doing so is faulty and should not be used, because, among other things, it does exactly what Hal had the gall to accuse me of.
A proverb comes to mind.
I can’t speak for WTP.
Well, you’re doing a much better job than I have the patience or language skills to do. Though it’s all for loss anyway, as Daniel Ream asserts logic is irrelevant when playing chess with a pigeon.
And as much as it pushes my buttons, and perhaps that’s the real purpose, by othering good people as psychopaths, it is the ensuing politically correct (a term our pigeon usurped, yet another annoying Orwellian tactic) removal of a valid parenting tool, used by generations of loving parents throughout millennia, that I believe is the root of much of what we see today. I understand that there are arguments against it, with which I would disagree as well, but such arguments are within the bounds of rational discussion. But we can’t even discuss that because things get dragged into a world strawman absurdity. Which I suspect is the real purpose. I’m not much of a chess player, but when I did play my favorite desperate tactic, when I had no real plan, was to force my opponent to react/defend against random attacks as it kept him (and it was always a him) off his game until I could figure something out. It’s not a tactic I recommend as it generally led to failure. But hey, if you’re coming from a weak position anyway…
Ehn, since you ask.
Responds to clearly metaphorical rhetorical statements with excessive literality.
Yup, definitely building a profile here.
I’m not trying to avoid anything, . . .
Ah, yeahright.
Yup, definitely building a profile here.
http://www.marketingeye.com/blog/culture/why-egomaniacs-have-to-have-the-last-word.html
Apparently MILF is a thing? Why no one told me?