Friday Ephemera

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.

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.

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.

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
I’m holding out for a throne made from the bones of my enemies.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

. . . 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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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”.

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.

. . . 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?

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.

What Micro and WTP are trying to avoid …

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.

Ehn, since you ask.
Responds to clearly metaphorical rhetorical statements with excessive literality.
Yup, definitely building a profile here.

Yup, definitely building a profile here.

Do you know someone who always has to have the last word in a conversation or an argument? Everyone has come across this type of person and knows how frustrating or plain sad it is when you see it.
Having the last word is closely associated with ego. Egomaniacs always have to have the last word. It gives them a feeling of power, as if they immediate draw all of the power of the person they are communicating with and become powerful due to it.
This feeling is short-lived as it is only a state of mind, and most people who have any sense of understanding of human psychology knows that people that do this are only doing it because they feel insecure, competitive, hardheaded and lack confidence often in their own intellect or are in need of covering tracks.
…
A person who has to have the last word is fundamentally flawed. Their flaws are for the world to see. They may be charismatic and draw people in, but if you listen to their conversations and in the modern age, look at their posts on social media, you will see a common thread of egocentricity and a need for supremacy.
Those who have to have the last word feel uncomfortable when that power is taken away from them and they usually end up fighting or in an argument because this has been taken away from them. They lash out and look for ways to rectify this.
People with this “disease” usually strive to be the only voice over the people around them. They often never rise to the top in career or business, so they adapt their personal profiles so that they can be seen as “winning” in some area that they feel no-one can compete.
Their need for respect and to be liked, more so than those around them, usually is their undoing.

http://www.marketingeye.com/blog/culture/why-egomaniacs-have-to-have-the-last-word.html