Apparently there exists a social climate in the Americas wherein (some ? many ?) parents are afraid of reprimanding their children in public for fear of themselves being reprimanded. Since this is just so much insanity-on-a-stick, let’s peel a few layers off and see if we can’t find the molten core from which this madness radiates.
Let’s set the stage: a family with two children is at the local playground. The older son is picking on random kids, throwing sand in their eyes, screaming at the top of his lungs like a terrorist, and stealing toys that don’t belong to him.i The parents, quite rightly, want to teach their son that it’s not okay to do this, so the father grabs the son by the scruff, pulls him off to the edge of the playground, bends him over and gives him a good spanking while the misbehaved twerp cries quite a lot, only to be spanked even harder for crying so much.
Now, in a sane society, the other parents at the playground would applaud the father for taking charge of the situation and putting an end to his little fuck’s rampage. In an insane society, however, as seems to presently be the case in the socialist west, the other parents pick up their cell phones to call the police to report “abuse” or “unnecessary violence” or some such.
This present state of affairs, wherein both physical and psychological discipline is so wretchedly unfashionable, should be worrisome for the marked degree of sociological damage that it points to. A situation wherein parents cannot parent by any traditional (or practicable) definition thereof tells us that the meek, in their efforts to inherit the earth, have duped a great number of folks into thinking that it’s only those unfair mean people who give their kids a chance at success.
Yes, that’s what disciplining your child does, it teaches them what kind of behaviour is adaptive and what kind isn’t, and yes, kids who’ve been taught this have a chance at success, though certainly no guarantee. By extension, if you haven’t been taught this, and therefore haven’t been taught anything useful at all, there’s no way in hell you should have an equal opportunity at anything, much less an equal outcome, despite the current fashionability of the contrary.
The notion that only the weak and the timid, those specifically incapable of the agency necessary to assert their dominance over their inferiors, be that their own children or otherwise,ii, can magically become imbued with enough agency to shame anyone other than themselves, just because they’ve “progressively” coalesced into a seamless blob, is beyond laughable (even if this is the exact premise of full-franchise democracy).
Those unencumbered by individuation telling those imbued therewith that displays of power are “sociopathological”iii is beyond backwardsiv and can only be the result of a full generation of castrating and nigh-on-totalitarian socialism.
Children like shiny things, sugary things, safe things, and all kinds of other nonsense. And if children aren’t taught that there’s more to human life – that is, free human life – than an endless supply of bubble-wrapped candy bars, then it’s going to be pretty well impossible for society to function in any meaningful way,v – much less create art.
Incredibly, in the Americas today, where functional parenting, much like words, are taboo, there exists a state of affairs wherein the black community, once the US’ fungible biodiesel, is the shining beacon of hope and sanity. To wit:
Got a kid who’s raising hell? Afraid the police will be called if you break out the belt? A suburban Atlanta barbershop may have a solution for you.
Three days a week, parents can take their misbehaving kids to A-1 Kutz in Snellville and ask for the “Benjamin Button Special,” which Russell Fredrick and his team of barbers are offering — free of charge — to parents who want to try a novel form of discipline.
The cut involves shaving hair off the child’s crown until he begins to resemble a balding senior citizen, inviting that unique brand of adolescent humiliation that can only come from teasing classmates and unwanted attention.
Supporters say it’s the perfect punishment for misbehaving kids who want to “act grown.”
So some black barbers and some black parents are bold enough to admit that their kids are stupid until proven otherwise and need to be put in their goddam place when they get a little big for their breeches. What a concept! This must be national, nay, global news!vi More than it being news, however, it demonstrates that it’s now the “progressives” who are the dumb nigs and the blacks who have the upper, more adaptive, hand. I’d bet a bitcent on the black kids coming out ahead in the long-run. I have to admit that the shameful haircut thing is a pretty creative solutionvii given the toxic sociological environment.
As we can well appreciate, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, beat a dog, and raise a child. Just as long as the parent does the teaching.
___ ___ ___
- No, the child isn’t “exercising his freedom” nor “expressing himself.” He’s being a little shit and needs to be reminded that he’s not some all-powerful dictator, he’s just a little twerp.↩
- Yes, children are lesser than adults, and for biologically imperative reasons too. If you let the slowest kid in class teach the smart ones math and then let the retard-in-chief shame the bright bulbs for not grokking 2+2=11, it’s going to be pretty hard to have a functioning society when the sum of two integers is “open to interpretation.”
Parents have an appreciation for culture, art, math, science, and language. Children don’t. This being a function of time, it’s not debatable unless you’re up for first approaching the philosophical existence and human-driven purpose of measured time. And if you choose to walk down that path, you’ll hopefully find a grey-haired version of your future self, ready with a walking cane in hand with which to whack you across the head for wasting the best years of your finite life being led around by the nose by a bunch of neotenic ninnies who desired nothing more than to bring you down to their base and powerless level. Old Man You knows a thing or two. You should listen to him.
-
This is what sociopathy is : what the scum of the earth currently calls its betters. It may unfortunately also include a vanishingly thin sliver of actually insane individuals, but for better and for worse you can rely on the notion that whoever calls you a sociopath is paying you the best compliment his limited intellectual abilities allow him to. You’re, as far as he can tell, a magical alien dragon of pure energy.
From MP’s The definitive tract on sociopathy.↩
- It’s like that dumb fat slut Meghan Trainor (of “All About That Bass” one-hit-wonderage) telling fat girls that “every inch of you is perfect” while trying vainly to shame “those skinny bitches” as if such a thing were even in theory possible. Seriously, WTFBBQSAUCE. On what planet is being an land whale cool or sexy ? It’s definitely not this one.
If you think that “being an unkempt and self-loathing slob is okay now because we’ve progressed beyond discrimination and junk food is just as good as real food” or some shit, then you need your head checked. Let’s just call a spade a spade and say that the western world is chock-a-block full of low-class people who talk lot, eat a lot, and say very little, fair ?↩
- By which I mean: last for more than a generation or two, the 20th century’s upper bound for pulling the wool over tradition’s eyes. Mind you, years pre-computer times were a bit slower and less compressed.↩
- At this point, what with the Internet and everything, you’ll notice that there really is no such thing as national news anymore. There’s local news, like missing dogs and knife fights at bars, and there’s global news, like… this. No wonder small is the future for states.↩
- Shame is powerful. Just ask anyone who ever cried their faces off just because their parents were “disappointed” in them.↩
Rewind the scenario a bit and look at why the little shit is throwing sand and bullying other kids? Might there be other reasons than a lack of beating? (loosely observing I think those kids that do get beatings are the worst little shits of them all).
Another scenario: Let’s say, we’re at a party, you start acting up, bullying some of the other guests. I (and many other guests) think you are over the line – especially because you had a few too many.
I’m clearly physically superior to you, so I drag you outside by one hand and your half-empty glass in the other. I proceed to give you a plenty good whack, pause for a moment only to spit in your drink, kindly asking you to drink it, which you refuse, but only for a moment because my slappings convince you to gargle it all down. I pat you on the head and say I expect you to be a good boy from now on, and drag you back in to the party.
then what?
Emphatically – whacking over the head (or killing as in the case of twitter/antonopoderps) can happen in many ways.
The kid being a bully when his parents aren’t around may well be the one getting the most beatings at home, but you’d better believe that he’s going to keep his fists sheathed when he knows that his dad’s watching from the edge of the park. I agree that those who are picked on are inclined to find inferiors on whom to “repay the favour.” This being a function of the initial beatings being without apparent cause or reason, which can only lead to the development of coping strategies, though not necessarily productive ones.
Beatings are far from a perfect solution to all known behavioural problems and they can certainly have unintended consequences when misused (just as, say, giving credit to poor people can), which is why the carpenter has a saw, hammer, screwdriver, etc. so that each problem can be addressed with the appropriate solution. New parents, particularly those from less than healthy homes, are more inclined to treat every problem like a nail needing a hammer, but a good many parents are craftier than that.
Then I’ve been put in my place and I behave like a more reasonable adult ? Or, ashamed, I call a cab and leave the party altogether ? Though if I’m a little more skilled in hand-to-hand combat, I might show you who’s really in charge, despite my apparent “physical inferiority,” and go back to my obnoxious behaviour while you tend to your broken arm.
“Beatings are far from a perfect solution to all known behavioural problems and they can certainly have unintended consequences when misused (just as, say, giving credit to poor people can), which is why the carpenter has a saw, hammer, screwdriver, etc. so that each problem can be addressed with the appropriate solution. New parents, particularly those from less than healthy homes, are more inclined to treat every problem like a nail needing a hammer, but a good many parents are craftier than that.”
I think we agree. My point is that too many times it is hammer/nail approach. I argue that most times there is a superior way of “resolve” – and putting yourself in the position of needing to strike is because you as a parent has painted yourself into a corner earlier. It’s not necessarily that I’m against striking per se, it’s that I see it as a inferior tool in the tool-box.
“Then I’ve been put in my place and I behave like a more reasonable adult ? Or, ashamed, I call a cab and leave the party altogether ? Though if I’m a little more skilled in hand-to-hand combat, I might show you who’s really in charge, despite my apparent “physical inferiority,” and go back to my obnoxious behaviour while you tend to your broken arm.”
But you see. That was my point entirely.
Eventually the kid will figure out that dad is just a stupid idiot with loose fists, who can’t solve issues in a more long-term manner and sometime when far into adolescence the grudge will still be strong and the kid might just look for a weak moment to put dad in his place.
If the kid still holds his old man in high regard and have respect it’s likely not because of beating(s), but in spite of it.
I surmise You wouldn’t leave the party feeling “put in your place and respecting me”. You would leave the party with a grudge and maybe even plotting for revenge of how to hand it to your master of the night.
And I do acknowledge that one day one will run into one’s superior and he will hand it to one – left, center and right.
And just so we’re clear, I’d very likely enjoy your company (and would very surely be amused rather than annoyed :) ).
Your own hang-ups are colouring this a bit, and you’re denigrating the wrong thing as a result. Anything that’s a measure of last resort is in fact superior to those measures used afore. Nuclear weapons are superior to handguns is scope, range, and lasting effect, for example. Striking is also superior in its effectiveness, but like a nuke, renders the target and anything within 100 miles desolate if used in excess. Just because we don’t like things, doesn’t make them materially inferior. In fact, as power is often a frightening force in the eyes of the relatively meek, it’s quite the opposite.
And I’m sure I’d enjoy your company as well :D
“Your own hang-ups are colouring this a bit, and you’re denigrating the wrong thing as a result. Anything that’s a measure of last resort is in fact superior to those measures used afore. Nuclear weapons are superior to handguns is scope, range, and lasting effect, for example. Striking is also superior in its effectiveness, but like a nuke, renders the target and anything within 100 miles desolate if used in excess. Just because we don’t like things, doesn’t make them materially inferior. In fact, as power is often a frightening force in the eyes of the relatively meek, it’s quite the opposite.
And I’m sure I’d enjoy your company as well :D”
I understand your argument from a Markov Chain perspective?
I argue that if you are a little shit beatings will only make matters worse, and you won’t understand the connection between those beatings and greatness. You might just end up as a neo-nazi calling people whom entertain and steal spotlight at parties for “one of those with numbers”, because putting someone down is all you know.
On the other hand, if you’re great, physical beatings as a kid won’t have attributed nor been the source of your greatness. I surmise probably even detracted. Beatings (challenges?) in life, otoh, is another matter entirely. A thing that pops into my head is how many times a kid hears “no … ” in his life compared to “yes…”.
When has a nuke beat someone into submission? Recalling WW2 history Japan didn’t surrender because of nukes. That’s a USG fable entirely.
You might. Or you might not. It seems altogether improbable but the odds certainly aren’t zero.
In any event, I think we’re diverting from a discussion about discipline to a discussion about repeated and random beatings, the sort that small-dicked men resort to when they feel powerless outside of their own home. Disciplining is a tool, beatings are, as you said, adversity.
Now I’m interested in your reading of how the war on the Pacific front ended!
“Now I’m interested in your reading of how the war on the Pacific front ended!”
Yes, we’re straying now, but just as US was far from being the saviour of Europe in WW2 (equally as they weren’t as instrumental in rebuilding it either with the Marshal plan as is told), and it was mostly Stalin doing the Nazi-ass-kicking, it seems that Soviet also played a more pivotal role in the Pacific.
Japan was already on her knees (put there by Stalin) before Truman dropped the bombs. Hence, I suppose, why many question the reasons for the drops. It’s likely it was more of a message to Soviet (and domestic US?) – especially remembering how the Nagasaki bomb was utterly unnecessary from a military point of view. It was also the start of the Truman Doctrine, Cold War and all that deliciously expensive arms-race.
I’m, very evidently, not a historian. I am however trying to remember who the storyteller is and the narrative that comes from that.
Go figure that Fox News would have a five-year-old article describing exactly this. For posterity:
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