Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Smacking Addendum
Thinking about this again last night, it's even less comfortable than I thought. I said that hitting children had nothing to do with the welfare or coaching of the children themselves - it was just an expression of frustration (i.e. anger) on the part of the parent at not getting their way.
When I was telling my partner about what I'd written, and looked at it more closely, I realised something. There was certainly anger there when I hit my child, but that could just as easily have been vented by smacking the wall, or banging on a table. What I chose to do in that moment of anger was to hit my child.
So what was the pay-off? What would I get out of hitting a child that I wouldn't get from banging the table? What would cause me to direct my anger towards a virtually defenceless person? The answer, sadly, is GRATIFICATION. It gratified me to inflict that pain so that my feelings of anger were somehow matched (no, let's face it - exceeded) by the child's mix of pain, outrage and fear.
That episode would have been seen as very minor (not even reaching the new criteria of visible marks) and I have forgiven myself for it. However, I've now distinguished what was going on for me in that moment: it was a deliberate attempt to harm the child, not help him, for my own short-term gratification.
How can we, in all conscience, legislate for that to be acceptable?
posted by Plig |
11:10 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
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I think it would be a good idea
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Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
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Always make new mistakes
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