Philosophy Now Forum

Indeed. It is not only the infantile bullies in schools who know how to break someone down using punishments that they dole out, seeming adults are also perfectly capable of spiteful hateful behaviour, even when dealing with their own children.

Perhaps you are living in a fanciful world where parental punishment consists of a gentle 'come now dear, don't be doing that'. Perhaps this is what you yourself doled out and your own child rebelled against. Not everyone is so fortunate. Or perhaps you are just blindly justifying your own wrong-doings. Parents grasp for anything to punish, even when there is nothing. I saw a mother on a train the other day telling her young daughter to sit up straight etc., and using a threatening tone (this is not nothing, when the creature you are addressing is that much smaller), the child did not comply and was duly punished. I noted, but did not comment on, the mother's own lack of posture.

Regarding your notion that the behaviour is normal it is no argument, as throughout history plenty of behaviours which we can understand as abusive (either, being retarded, because the notion of abuse has shifted or, being sensible, because we give basic definition to what abuse is) have been understood as normal.
Would you condone pederasty in ancient greece?

Much as you seem to be enjoying the characterisation of children as infantile for complaining about parental behaviour, attributing it to a stage in life (thus robbing it of the force of rational argument, which requires to be rebutted) and characterising any adult progeny who disputes the right of a parent to mistreat them in infantile terms, the same can be returned.

Little bullies grow up to be big bullies, and how much they must be thrilled when they realise how much more they can screw around with the life of another person when they finally have a child. The inner infant who wants to kick and scream and push everyone else around never really dies, it just loses its opportunity. When you finally have possession of an actual infant, you get the opportunity wholesale.

hi Psych,

Not sure where "infantile" came from? And I'm pretty sure that all humans are capable of producing behaviour that can be understood as being "spiteful " and "hateful " even towards their own kith and kin.

And perhaps you'll fancifully notice that these are your thoughts.

So you watched what you thought was an adult primate threaten a younger much smaller one, administer punishment for non-compliance but said nothing but thought "That's the pot, that is"? What happened to those moral faculties that you said we all have?

Agreed. So what does that mean for those who have to live with such knowledge?

Only if I was not an ancient Greek.

These are your thoughts. What can be returned?

It is true that bullies reflect their family environment but it is not necessary that "Little bullies grow up to be big bullies". The rest are your thoughts.

If there is such a thing as the 'inner infant', I'll take your word for its behaviour, then I assume you mean a set of behaviours that were useful once but are inappropriate in current opportunities? The rest is your thoughts.
a_uk

Arising, is 'your thoughts' your word of the day, or is the record just broken?

I was not denigrating those of the adult bullies who make pretences at parenthood, I was simply saying that your manner of dismissing a reasoned argument (it being rooted in 'typical teenage views' rather than in rationality) was itself fallacious (an argument ad hominem) and, just in case you didn't understand why a fallacy is a fallacy, I gave an example of how your mode of argument could be turned with equal force against you as it could be against anyone else.

Please note, the amount of rational force it possesses, as you have pointed out for me, is zero.

Your response is a beautiful concoction of confusion and diatribe, and I can only assume that you have been on the sauce again.




The above is a particularly amusing of a comment entirely devoid of content.
I give two contrasting possibilities
a. That you have not use punishments to manipulate people in a weaker position than you (e.g. your own children) OR
b. That you have used punishments to manipulate people in a weaker position than you, but are arguing for the validity of doing so)

Apparently my noncomittally stating these two possibilities is 'my thoughts'.



I have never claimed that we all have 'ethical faculties'. However, the presence of my ethical faculties is in my discontent with the situation.

Unfortunately I do not have the capacity to interfere in any significant manner with the woman, and I am fairly sure that any such interference would have been counter-productive. In my experience vindictive little-minded folk like that would only then abuse their child further (once in private), stating to them that they are the cause of public embarassment.

I hope for your sake that your children have large enough hearts to accomodate you, despite your continued belief that your abusiveness was 'for their own good'. I need not hope though, as it is usually the case that small-minded bullies are carried by the love of those close to them, even while they are blind to it.

I hope they have big enough hearts too...as a parent must do what a parent must do....just as any other human being on the face of the earth. Parents are not held up to some sort of higher standard in the universal scheme of things, Psy. If children think that parents are abusive...then so be...they can tell if to their shrink when they get older. But no matter how hard they try, they can't change their parents into some fantasy super hero. Acceptance of this fact comes with time...and with luck you learn to forgive not only your parents but yourself for the abuse you have given your parents.

Should someone feel bad for punching someone who is in the midst of punching them?

I do not think so, and yet I have done in the past, when it has lead to them being injured in some noticeable manner.

Should one forgive others? I do not think there is a should in this instance. I do not forgive, because I do not fault in the first place.

People do as people do, it is up to us to form a defence when this involves them flinging their shit at us.

If our defence is wanting, we are wanting.

We cannot stop the flinging of shit.

What is the difference between an unkindness and an abuse?
Can a 10 year old abuse the adult they are dependant on?
Do we call that 'parent abuse', even if it involves violence?
Does the instigator matter?
Is a child who fights back being abusive?

Or lets just flip this on its head for a second, and forget the whole child/parent thing.

We have a human being, a small one about 4 feet in height, and we have another human being about 6 foot in height. The 6 foot high human being is a lot more intelligent than the subnormal 4 foot high human being. The 6 foot high human being not only has earning potential, but precludes that of the 4 foot high human being, who they keep locked in their house except when whim dictates otherwise.
The 4 foot high human being is dependant on the 6 foot high human being.

So far as it goes, De Facto the 6 foot high human being can do as they damn well please with the 4 foot high human being.

Does it being De Facto make it right? Can we leap from Is to Ought?
It is the case that parents fuck about with children so therefore they ought to?

I am not saying there is necessarily any right or wrong on this, sure it is necessarily the case that since 95% of people are drooling mouth-breathing morons this means that 95% of children are in the care of drooling mouth-breathing morons.

We all have to accept this, just don't expect people to shout 'Yessir May I Have Another'.

Call a spade a spade. It may (for the sake of argument we will assume this) be a necessary spade, but that doesn't stop it being a spade.

Hi Psy,

Right....I hear ya. So if your the 6' person...are you going to let a little pip squeek call the shots? I'm not. But here's the thing...no matter how much you 'abuse' the little bastard...they always get the best of you. The reason being....you love them more than they love you. So you end up wearing all the shit the little bugger can throw.

Gotta be a 'broken record' or me not not bothering to listen to your objections?

And I was just arguing that such thoughts have multiple different viewponts?

And I'll take note of this.

Thank you for your aesthetic response and your asumptions are wrong.

Well, who's else's? But since you are on the matter I'd argue (b) as I've been a parent and wanted my kids to live.


You have so, repeatedly you have argued for an ethical capability.

This is just the immoral arguing for their immoral behaviour.

I'm glad its for my sake, as I know that my children have hearts large enough to understand who I am and its what I've led them to believe that they can predict of me.
a_uk
p.s.
On reflection I think my reply, "This is just the immoral arguing for their immoral behaviour." was wrong. Apologies and I take your point about later bullying due to interference. I remember my mother telling me about a kid in her care whose parent thought pepper in the eyes was a good punishment.

I have argued that most (not all) have a capacity for developing an ethical faculty.
There are such people as biological sociopaths.

Regarding interference in injustices that we witness... I think this perhaps deserves its own thread. It is something I have long wrestled with, and I am not anywhere near the point of comitting myself either way on the issue. Obviously, when violence is involved interference is imperative, insofar as it can reasonably be done. When a friend stupidly called two people in a Kebab shop 'gay' they laid into his head pretty hard, I lost half of one of my teeth pulling one of them away :-/
With parents though, if you interfere with what they are doing (by which I mean verbally), I think you are more likely to then get interference from other people around who will defend the parent.