Myt1 said:
Far from being intellectually dishonest, that's precisely my point. We're perfectly capable of drawing distinctions with regard to acceptable uses of physical force (whether those distinctions are based on the type of force used, the circumstances under which it is used, or the intersection of the two) and other behaviors and pretending otherwise is hardly an honest presentation of reality. Just as you can teach a child that the tackle that is appropriate for the football field is not appropriate for the classroom, you can teach that a single open handed spank of a child by a parent is appropriate while a repeated whipping with a switch that leaves cuts and bruises over a substantial portion if that child's body is not.
And you can quite easily distinguish between the intents behind even that lamentable behavior exhibited by a person who was raised to believe that such was a proper way to correct a child and one who punched his wife in the face because she refused his sexual advances and then threatened suicide to control the victim's reporting of the incident.
That is, so long as we're actually being intellectually honest. Otherwise, I guess you could just jump to "physical force in a domestic setting" being the appropriate level of granularity for the analysis because, reasons or something.
You and I can draw those distinctions, sure. Just as we can understand the relationship between cause and effect. We have the intellectual capability to understand the idea that behavior acceptable in one setting is not on another, and that there are shades of gray and differences of degree on wrongdoing.
Little kids can't understand these things.
My daughter is 4, just like AP's son. She is a good kid, well behaved. She's pretty smart too.
I already posted this: she doesn't fully understand cause/effect, and cannot handle ambiguity at all - rules have to be black and white or she can't, in practice, follow them. She may not understand why she's being spanked - so it's effectiveness as a deterrence and teaching tool is limited.
At preschool they teach kids not to hit, which they should. Kids who hit get disciplined. How is a 4 year old to understand that it's not ok for her to hit a classmate or vice versa, but it's ok for me to hit her? I'm not talking about intellectual understanding, but about an emotional sense - kids feel very deeply. Is it ok because I'm daddy, and thus infallible? Or because I'm bigger? Those aren't lessons I want to instill in her.
There is tons of research indicating that corporal punishment doesn't have good outcomes. I don't think it's hippy bullshit. If the kid associates me with hitting, no matter how gentle the hitting, that's bound to do damage to the kid's ability to trust me and listen to me without fear. And I consider myself a fairly strict disciplinarian - I just don't spank. I take away privileges, I put her on timeout, I speak to her bluntly, but I don't hit.
After all, in what other context can I hit someone to make my point? None. If it's not ok for me to hit my employee when he fucks something up, why is it ok for me to hit a little kid, who has less ability to understand, and who us completely defenseless?
All the spanking defenders remind me of the people who defend the torture of terrorists in the 'ticking bomb' scenario, on the pretext that it's necessary to prevent a greater evil. Sorry. In both cases, even if the approach was effective, which it isn't, all you're really doing is providing an outlet for your own anger and sadism.
