| U.N. rules Canada should ban spanking

(Kane) wrote

YOU are the one being rude, through the device of ad hominem.

IMPOSTER!!!!

Who am I pretending to be?

ME!!! This fishin hole ain't big enough for the both of us!

I can't say "inebriated" without switching
the syllables unless I slow down a tad and
speak more carefully.

I have trouble saying "inebriated" when I'm inebriated.

On 10/11/03 1:46, Kane wrote:

"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...

Crossposting for the purpose of stirring up contraversy is not generally
acceptable. It is considered to be troll-like behavior.

Have I stumbled inadvertantly across a moderated USENET newsgroup
then?

There is no set use of newsgroups if they are unmoderated. So even if
I were attempting to stir up "contraversy" (sic), it would be well
within USENET protocols.

Actually, there are set uses. Just because they exist due to custom and
longstanding usage and not law doesn't make the customary usage any less
set.

To learn about USENET protocols on crossposting, see:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html

Unless you are discussing spanking specifically as it applies to
homeschooling, a discussion of spanking isn't particularly on-topic to a
homeschooling newsgroup. If you really felt the need to get homeschoolers
involved with a discussion of spanking, but weren't interested in discussing
it specifically as relates to spanking, a more appropriate way of generating
such a discussion would be a post to the homeschool newsgroups saying "I'm
interested in having a discussion of spanking that includes homeschoolers.
Please join me to discuss it on alt.parenting.spanking."

Nothing sinister nor Trollish in my motives or methods. I am pretty
scrupulous about observing logical argument rules, though I have been
known to pull one than reveal it myself....a logical fallacy that is.

Actually, Trollish or spammish perfectly describes your methods. Whether
you were motivated by trollishness is open to debate.


Your responses, and those of other responders to my posts, have been a
litany of known logical fallacies.

To call me a "Troll" accomplishes two of them at once. Ad hominem upon
the messenger, and attempting to misdirect the discussion by raising
an unrelated point...the classic Red Herring ploy.

Even if I WERE a troll, how would that detract from my argument and
position as a viable subject for discussion and debate?
What war is taking place between groups here? I see none so far.

Note that I care not a whit about your topic. But even if I did, it would
still not make your method of posting any less trollish.

Regards,

BOB!!

"LaVonne Carlson" wrote in message
...


Ray Drouillard wrote:

"LaVonne Carlson" wrote in message
...

And Deuteronomy recommends killing rebellious children. Since you
literally apply Proverbs, I'm sure you advocate killing as a form
of
discipline.

Also, we see the old trick of picking some part of the Law out and
using
that to discredit the Old Testament.

What you have done is pick and choose portions of the Old Testament to
justify your behavior, and ignore those portions that you do not like
or
agree with.

Actually, it looks like that is what you have done. You are trying to
justify your practice of not disciplining your children,

Proverbs 19:18 Discipline your son, for there is hope; Don't be a
willing party to his death.



So, that bit about stoning defiant children doesn't hold water.
Even if
it was still in effect, it couldn't be practiced because there are
no
city gates and no group of city officials hanging out there.

City gates can apply either to city limits or citiy government
buildings.
City officials may and do hang out at both city limits or city
government
buildings.

Interesting theory.

Still, that law is for a specific people at a specific time.

[...]


So why did Jesus so openly defy the Old Testament?

He is God. He can do what he considers to be best.

I see nothing in His
words that recommend hitting children with rods as a parenting
strategy.

Correct. Unlike the laws for divorce, he did not change the counsel
regarding child rearing.

In fact, he recommends a millstone around the neck and being cast into
the
depths of the sea for anyone who offends a child.

Right. And raising a child without discipline is pretty offensive.

And when his disciplines
want to stone a woman for wanton behavior )as the OT recommends), he
stops
them, forgives the woman, and tells her to "go and sin no more."

Right again. What does stoning have to do with spanking?


I think Jesus had a bit more understanding of the Bible than you do,
and a
lot more respect for little children.

Of course he is understanding. I'm certain that he understands that
disciplining children is crucial to their development.



Ray Drouillard

BOB!! wrote in message ...
On 10/11/03 1:46, Kane wrote:

"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...

Crossposting for the purpose of stirring up contraversy is not generally
acceptable. It is considered to be troll-like behavior.

Have I stumbled inadvertantly across a moderated USENET newsgroup
then?

There is no set use of newsgroups if they are unmoderated. So even if
I were attempting to stir up "contraversy" (sic), it would be well
within USENET protocols.

Actually, there are set uses. Just because they exist due to custom and
longstanding usage and not law doesn't make the customary usage any less
set.

To learn about USENET protocols on crossposting, see:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html

Unless you are discussing spanking specifically as it applies to
homeschooling, a discussion of spanking isn't particularly on-topic to a
homeschooling newsgroup. If you really felt the need to get homeschoolers
involved with a discussion of spanking, but weren't interested in discussing
it specifically as relates to spanking, a more appropriate way of generating
such a discussion would be a post to the homeschool newsgroups saying "I'm
interested in having a discussion of spanking that includes homeschoolers.
Please join me to discuss it on alt.parenting.spanking."

Nothing sinister nor Trollish in my motives or methods. I am pretty
scrupulous about observing logical argument rules, though I have been
known to pull one than reveal it myself....a logical fallacy that is.

Actually, Trollish or spammish perfectly describes your methods. Whether
you were motivated by trollishness is open to debate.


Your responses, and those of other responders to my posts, have been a
litany of known logical fallacies.

To call me a "Troll" accomplishes two of them at once. Ad hominem upon
the messenger, and attempting to misdirect the discussion by raising
an unrelated point...the classic Red Herring ploy.

Even if I WERE a troll, how would that detract from my argument and
position as a viable subject for discussion and debate?
What war is taking place between groups here? I see none so far.

Note that I care not a whit about your topic.

But doesn't that make YOUR post trollish and spammish?

Goose, gander.

But even if I did, it would
still not make your method of posting any less trollish.

Typical net nazi. The most trollish of the Trolls.


Regards,

BOB!!

and weave.

Back under your bridge. Smack!

Kane

BOB!! wrote in message ...
On 10/11/03 1:46, Kane wrote:

"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...

Crossposting for the purpose of stirring up contraversy is not generally
acceptable. It is considered to be troll-like behavior.

Have I stumbled inadvertantly across a moderated USENET newsgroup
then?

There is no set use of newsgroups if they are unmoderated. So even if
I were attempting to stir up "contraversy" (sic), it would be well
within USENET protocols.

Actually, there are set uses. Just because they exist due to custom and
longstanding usage and not law doesn't make the customary usage any less
set.

To learn about USENET protocols on crossposting, see:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html

Notice this is NOT a USENET site. In fact it's what we like to refer
to as a NetNazi site.

Everybody with a severe issue of anal retentiveness creates such rules
out of their opinions.

One can almost hear, in his smugness, his ass cheeks squeeking.


Unless you are discussing spanking specifically as it applies to
homeschooling, a discussion of spanking isn't particularly on-topic to a
homeschooling newsgroup. If you really felt the need to get homeschoolers
involved with a discussion of spanking, but weren't interested in discussing
it specifically as relates to spanking, a more appropriate way of generating
such a discussion would be a post to the homeschool newsgroups saying "I'm
interested in having a discussion of spanking that includes homeschoolers.
Please join me to discuss it on alt.parenting.spanking."

Such artifice is commonly used by trolls to bait the unwary. Rather
like your post on the subject of trolling and spam.

Nice going, troll. I'm sure someone will fall for it.

Regards,

BOB!!

Not of the Church of Bob?

Kane

BOB!! wrote in message ...
On 10/11/03 1:46, Kane wrote:

"Ray Drouillard" wrote in message
...

Crossposting for the purpose of stirring up contraversy is not generally
acceptable. It is considered to be troll-like behavior.

Have I stumbled inadvertantly across a moderated USENET newsgroup
then?

There is no set use of newsgroups if they are unmoderated. So even if
I were attempting to stir up "contraversy" (sic), it would be well
within USENET protocols.

Actually, there are set uses. Just because they exist due to custom and
longstanding usage and not law doesn't make the customary usage any less
set.

To learn about USENET protocols on crossposting, see:

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html

Notice this is NOT a USENET site. In fact it's what we like to refer
to as a NetNazi site.

Everybody with a severe issue of anal retentiveness creates such rules
out of their opinions.

One can almost hear, in his smugness, his ass cheeks squeeking.


Unless you are discussing spanking specifically as it applies to
homeschooling, a discussion of spanking isn't particularly on-topic to a
homeschooling newsgroup. If you really felt the need to get homeschoolers
involved with a discussion of spanking, but weren't interested in discussing
it specifically as relates to spanking, a more appropriate way of generating
such a discussion would be a post to the homeschool newsgroups saying "I'm
interested in having a discussion of spanking that includes homeschoolers.
Please join me to discuss it on alt.parenting.spanking."

Such artifice is commonly used by trolls to bait the unwary. Rather
like your post on the subject of trolling and spam.

Nice going, troll. I'm sure someone will fall for it.

Regards,

BOB!!

Not of the Church of Bob?

Kane

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:42:22 -0500, Jon Houts
wrote:


"Ray Drouillard" wrote

It looks like one of those crusaders who
google for certain key words and start
stirring up the mud.

On Sept 24, in msg no.

Jenny Harkins wrote:

:: That reminds me of the time I broke my
:: oldest daughter's jaw for talking back.

...and not a peep from Kane. Of course, it didn't contain the word
he
Googles.

It's always so funny how twits behave when they don't have an
arguement that can stand up to the truth.

but,but...
Jon

Try Beano (tm).

Kane

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:47:17 -0400, "Ray Drouillard"
wrote:


"LaVonne Carlson" wrote in message
...


Ray Drouillard wrote:

"LaVonne Carlson" wrote in message
...

And Deuteronomy recommends killing rebellious children. Since
you
literally apply Proverbs, I'm sure you advocate killing as a
form
of
discipline.

Also, we see the old trick of picking some part of the Law out
and
using
that to discredit the Old Testament.

What you have done is pick and choose portions of the Old Testament
to
justify your behavior, and ignore those portions that you do not
like
or
agree with.

Actually, it looks like that is what you have done. You are trying
to
justify your practice of not disciplining your children,

Proverbs 19:18 Discipline your son, for there is hope; Don't be a
willing party to his death.



So, that bit about stoning defiant children doesn't hold water.
Even if
it was still in effect, it couldn't be practiced because there
are
no
city gates and no group of city officials hanging out there.

City gates can apply either to city limits or citiy government
buildings.
City officials may and do hang out at both city limits or city
government
buildings.

Interesting theory.

So is yours.


Still, that law is for a specific people at a specific time.

So then only the parts you wish apply to the people that exist in this
time are valid. The rest you are comfortable discarding.

That's interesting.


[...]


So why did Jesus so openly defy the Old Testament?

He is God. He can do what he considers to be best.

No he isn't. He WAS a man with likely some quite severe delusions, but
a kind heart.

I see nothing in His
words that recommend hitting children with rods as a parenting
strategy.

Correct. Unlike the laws for divorce, he did not change the counsel
regarding child rearing.

Odd, he spoke directely to them and you have have disregarded the
meaning below.

In fact, he recommends a millstone around the neck and being cast
into
the
depths of the sea for anyone who offends a child.

Right. And raising a child without discipline is pretty offensive.

Sure is. Where did LaVonne say that children should not be
disciplined, or where did I for that matter.

Discipline does not require punishment, and it certainly doesn't
require hitting.

And when his disciplines
want to stone a woman for wanton behavior )as the OT recommends),
he
stops
them, forgives the woman, and tells her to "go and sin no more."

Right again. What does stoning have to do with spanking?

I see. The bible can use vast amounts of metaphor, you can use
metaphor, but your opponent is proscribed.

Typical arrogant religionist.


I think Jesus had a bit more understanding of the Bible than you
do,
and a
lot more respect for little children.

Of course he is understanding. I'm certain that he understands that
disciplining children is crucial to their development.

As does LaVonne, and as do I. We simply disagree with you what IS and
is not discipline.

Given what He had to say about little children, I'd venture He would
disagree with you as well.

By the way, when you write of Him, since you say He is God, then it's
more proper to capitalize, if you will.

I'm not so constrained, so I'll likely use "he" and "him." Don't
embarrass yourself in front of your fellows.

Hitting is not "discipline." And despite the disengenuous attempts to
disquise hitting as not hitting by calling it spanking, spanking is
not "discipline."

I "disciplined my children for the first 18 years or so of their
lives, and later, from time to time they came to me, as their equal
and asked me to "discipline" them.

As they quickly learned when they were young, "discipline" in our
household was the true and pure form. To "lead out." How those who
truly teach (rather than brutally force) conduct "discipline."

Look up the origins sometime.

So when my child indicated by observed word, action, or direct
request, I tried to put on my little thinking cap and first ask myself
what was being asked and why...then I would pursue the task finding
out the answers to my question before I answered theirs.

Often that was sufficient for them as they explored with me what they
were doing and why they might be doing it. I never really had to
answer their questions much. Humans have an amazing capacity to figure
things out, with support, themselves.

Oddly it seems to be one of the most powerful learning methods.

A typical scenario might have been as follows: Child assiduously bugs
other child for 15 minutes or until other child blows up and screams
at bugging child.

What's up, I ask myself? Then I ask the children the same question. A
wide range of responses are possible. Some may be resistant and would,
more likely with a spanking punishing parent, result in some
moralizing bull**** being shoveled and a punishment meted out.

With me it was just a wonderful opportunity to present an example I
wanted my children to follow later when they were adults....thoughtful
problem solving on the model of business and responsible adult social
behavior.

Much to my chagrin I failed miserably.

They didn't wait until they were adults but were, in a few days,
sponteaneously using such methods themselves and in short order were
expanding on what can only be described as ethical experimentation.

Poor me, failed parent. My children were, at 5 and 9, disciplining
themselves. I had broken the bibilical admonishion...shame on me.

I hardly EVER got to discipline them.

All smart ass remarks of mine aside. They learned the lessons (my
discipline) in only a few times out and because the older was of the
age of reason they expanded the lessons, cause and effect reasoning,
into more of what I had intended.

Now the spanking disciplinarian, I've noted, gets to do lots more
"discipline" than I did. sob

Obviously they are my moral superiors...right?


Ray Drouillard


Ray, I have to say you are about as devious a religionist as any I've
run into.

How soon will you be equating LaVonne and myself with the devil?

Kane

Sunday, the 12th of October, 2003

(response part 1 of 2)

************************************************** ****

Kane:
...to once again try and go around the issue by
misquoting and claiming something not in evidence
and then try to build an argument upon it.

We'll see whether you have been misquoted to any effect
and whether anything not in evidence has been claimed.
Forgive me if I doubt both at this juncture. The
distinction you draw later between what I said, "pain",
and what you said. "distraction", is simply not a logically
relevant distinction.

Kane:
Basically, Ray, you are a coward. You are afraid
to defend your brutal practice of spanking in a larger
arena so try to confine it to this small one where you
know there will be plenty of supporters.
Ray:
I don't need to defend it. The practice needs no
defence -- though Michael S Morris did a very good
job while simultaneously tearing your arguments
into tiny little pieces. I was quite impressed,
actually.
Kane:
First of all, if it didn't need defending you
wouldn't and you have. That nullifies your current
claim that it doesn't need defending.

You have a very limited understanding of human
psychology, Kane. Not to mention rhetorical technique.
Starting with your enthymemic assumption here that
any defence of spanking Ray may have engaged in
happened out of some need on his part to defend.

That is the timeworn reduction of rational argument to
"subconscious" psychology of Nietzsche and then
of Freud. It has zero basis in any scientific fact.
There is no scientific experiment which ever could be done
to show the kind of causal relationship between a "need
to defend" and a "defence" that you here imply. Moreover,
the instant we buy into that sort of pseudoscience is
the instant we begin to question your own "need to
psychologize"---to treat the human as though it were
a machine, subject to the impingement of buffet "forces"
from society, from uncontrollable forces out of the
subconscious, and from the genetic determinism of one's
own biological makeup. We would begin to wonder why
you would find the abdication of your human self---
something CS Lewis has called rightly "The Abolition of
Man"---so appealing, so comforting.

That's not science, either, but the point is simply that
you start playing the game of peeling back the layers of
that onion, and it keeps going. And there is no inner layer,
no core of inner psychological truth. No answer. Human creativity
in the matter of devising motivations and justifications
for human behaviour is infinitely deep and,
therefore, utterly and transparently shallow.

Kane:
Secondly, the sentence you use to try and deny your
need to defend "don't need to defend" is defensive.

As I just said, you've read too much pseudoscientific
psychobabble.

I said:
Anyway, I don't think I began to tear any arguments up yet---
Kane:
You may try, It won't fly.

Still waiting for a cite, Kane. You know, to those scientific
studies. I warn you, though, if you do that, you better damn
well know what you are up to. I know the difference between a
pop psych book and a refereed journal paper, and I assure you
I know what a data set with a correlation coefficient of .2
might look like.

I said:
I feel in fact that all I really did
was stake out a position.
Kane:
Weasel Word Play...not today.

Sorry, Kane, I *love* argument, and I am quite
willing and able to go the course on this topic.
I just do not dignify as "argument" my opening
remarks which have staked out a position. We have
a long course of "coming to terms" to do before we
could even honestly and clearly define what our
differences might be, let alone marshal evidence
to argue them.

Kane:
Staking "out a position" differs from an
"argument" how?

Staking out a position is, quite possibly, the
opening of an argument. Much like moving a pawn
might be the opening of a chess game. An opening
move, however, is not a chess game. It is a part
only of a chess game if a chess game gets played.
The next stage in argument would be coming to terms.
After which point, we might be able to present evidence
in support of either position and argue its relevance.
It remains to be seen whether you are capable of coming to
terms.

Kane:
You are arguing.

No, I am beginning to argue. Whether an argument
will be had or no will depend upon what ensues,
and whether you can provide those "scientific
studies" you have claimed.

Kane:
Don't be shy.

I assure you, I am not shy in an endeavour like
this.

Kane:
I don't mind.

Good, because I do not mind either.

Kane:
I like good arguments.

Me, too.

Kane:
Let's see some.

You've been asked for those studies. Both by me and by
Bruce D. Ray. We are both eager to see those "scientific"
studies you are citing. Bring them on. Let's do the math.
Let's examine whether the claims of the authors of these
studies are in fact supported by the empirical findings
of these studies. Let's see what exactly has been assumed
in those claims. Let's examine whether the claims you have
made about these studies are in detail supported by the
claims the authors make. We'll also look at whether all
possible variables in these studies have been controlled for.

Kane:
The stuff you came up with below is lame.

No, it's not too bad really. It deals with what you've
claimed so far. And dismisses it out of hand. And for
fairly elementary reasons.

Kane:
Just as the prior "stuff."

The prior stuff was OK, too. Not really refuted by
anything you have been able to say so far. But, I
agree that at that point all I had done is stake
out a position. As I believe I said.

I said:
I am especially embarassed when,
Kane:
Heaven'stobetsyIshouldhopeso.

So, is "Kane" your name or is it an allusion
to Will Kane?

I said:
driving around this evening,
Kane:
How many wrecks will it take for you to
stop that day dreaming while you
drive?

Well, I suppose just one might do the trick,
but I drive a huge SUV, so there is a chance I
suppose I might survive to 2 or 3 wrecks out.

Kane:
Or should we spank you?

You could try of course. But, last time I
checked, thinking while driving ain't either
a crime or a moral fault, so I'd expect you'd
be in error to try. On several counts.

I said:
I got to thinking about some of the things
Kane has said, and I realized how much
utter hokum and nonsense they are.
Kane:
That was our shame based neurosis from your
own childhood cp reshaping your thinking to
rationalize your beliefs and actions.

Ditto that hokum and nonsense here. Id est, etiam
pseudoscientific psychobabble.

Which of course may well bring to the open
the fundamental difference between us. I
employ an ancient psychology based on the
moral universe assumed by ethical thinkers---thinkers
such as Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Seneca,
St. Augustine, John Locke. I do not believe their
notions and assumptions of psychology have been
superceded by anything done or thought in the
last 200 years. That is, I assume human free will
operating in a world of externally fixed Natural Law
(do not confuse Natural Law with the scientific
Laws of Nature). So that human beings may choose
good or evil, but human beings are not autonomous---
may not decide for themselves what good and evil are.

Kane:
The last thing you can do is accuse our parents of
not loving you, or of being bad parents....and they
weren't of course, and I've no idea if they loved you
or not, but that small frightened pain filled and betrayed
child still resides within you and cannot let go of the self
protection it was taught WITH PAIN and humiliation.

Two can play that game. Why this need to reduce the
human to a deterministic effect of some cause beyond
our control? Why do you find that model so comforting?
Is it because of the abdication of moral responsibility?
Do you find freedom so very frightening that you cannot
possibly face it? What is it in yourself that you are
so frightened of, you would make of the world and of
human nature itself a fascism of control? How many
books would you burn, Kane? Do you see a pattern of
psychological woundings that explain everything? Do
you wish for laws that would limit what people can say
and write? Do you like guns, Kane? Or do you argue
in favour of anti-gun laws, and deny the Gewaltmonopol---
the policeman's gun you stick to everybody's head the
second you resort to legislation? Do you know what
it would be to be a free man, Kane? Do you find that
so frightening you'd rather lock us all into your
own concentration camp?

Do not ever try and psychologize an argument with me.

Kane:
It was that "utter hokum and nonsense" remark that
tipped me off.

It tipped you off to precisely nothing whatsoever. If you
want to have a good cry mollycoddled in the belief that
you are or were a victim of your parents, and this confers
upon you some blessing, then do so and be my guest.
By all means memorize all twelve lines of Philip Larkin's
"This Be the Verse", and trot it out for a party trick. But
lay off the Freudian evangelism with me and do not begin to
insinuate onto me any of your own pantywaist moral weakness.

Kane:
I don't consider your position as such.

Well, maybe that was your first mistake.

Kane:
I think it derives from identifiable
events and known common human reactions
to pain, both physical and psychological.

"Applying the axioms of physical science to
human behaviour has something reprehensible
about it." Albert Einstein

Kane:
You are spouting nonsense, but it isn't utter
and it isn't hokum. It was taught to you and
you believe it faithfully as taught. You are a
good boy.

I am a pretty good man. I am also an observant father
of three children. With respect to spanking, I know
whereof I speak.

I said:
He did say---did he not?
Kane:
He did NOT say the statement you try
and attribute to him below.

Here is precisely what you said:
"On the contrary. Science does address this issue.
Brain scan studies show that distractions inhibit
and distract from learning tasks, and if you aren't
spanking to teach what ARE you doing it for?"

Kane:
It was not that limited. I expanded the subject adequately
for a reasonable person, not driven into sniveling whining,
to understand the broader implications of ALL distraction
while learning.

So, "it was not that limited". Now, simple logic
suggests then that my task of refutation were even
*easier*, since you were making a broader statement
than what I was attributing to you. I.e., not just one
example of pain leading to learning, but any example
of any distraction leading to learning would also refute
you, and to cause you to have to consider the cases of
those distractions which enhance learning and those
distractions which inhibit learning. Hmm, why not just
stick with example I gave---pain as an immediate response
to, say, touching a hot burner with one's hand? Does that
not distract from what one was doing? Can one not learn
very well thereby? Is there any evidence that learning not
to touch hot burners is inhibited by the pain of touching
them? Are people who touch hot burners, and who have been
burned by them, more likely to touch them again, because
their ability to learn not to touch was inhibited by the
distracting experience of pain? What do you think, Kane?

I said:
---that science has somehow
shown that pain can't teach children anything.
Kane:
I said no such thing. I said that distraction
interferes with learning the thing to be learned.

Which it clearly does not, in the case of getting burnt by a
hot burner. I.e., if the thing to be learned is how to avoid
getting injured, then the distraction of pain quite plainly
facilitates the thing to be learned. Would that we could
learn so quickly without the object lesson of pain.

Kane:
Are you going to try and claim that pain isn't a
distraction?

Not at all. That is, in terms of your supposed "brain scan"
studies, pain well may turn out to have zero to do with any
claims for "distraction" that have made. But, that would have
to await a careful argument over the text of the particular
brain scan study you think most indicative of your claim.
But, for my purposes---since I took you to be claiming contextually
that the distractive pain of spanking blocked learning the
thing to be learned---I am quite happy to grant that pain is
"distractive", since the obvious power of pain to teach us
important stuff becomes a refutation of any studies which
purport to show that distraction somehow intrinsically
inhibits learning.

I can't speel it out for you any plainer than that, so
I trust that finishes with any possible objectiosn you
could have with "misquoting".

Kane:
Tell you what. Assuming you've never had
any training in calculus,

Tell you what. Why don't you give up on that one before you
get yourself in way over your head.

Kane:
let's set up a little experiment. You crack
the books and at random times I'll swat your
ass with a small board.

Let's see how well you learn, compared to
another calculus[-]ignorant person that is
instead assisted when they are stuck with support,
information, and patience by the teacher.

Well, my guess is it might be a little too late for that
particular experiment. But your point here ends up being
only a display of your own illogic: No one anywhere that
I have seen in this newsgroup, and certainly not myself
has asserted that the administration of spanking has a
facilitative effect in math pedagogy. No one around here
is claiming the use of spanking or corporal punishment for
the sake of academic instruction.

Now, let us go back and review.

I had said, of legislation that would "explicitly
prohibit all forms of violence against children,
however light, within the family, in schools and
in other institutions where children might be placed":
It seems to me a prime example of legislation by
people who appoint themselves as scientific experts
on stuff that science cannot possibly address,
That is precisely where you, Kane, stepped in and said:
On the contrary. Science does address this issue.
Brain scan studies show that distractions inhibit
and distract from learning tasks, and if you aren't
spanking to teach what ARE you doing it for?

Now, let me repeat: No one is spanking his children in order to
teach them mathematics. No one is spanking his children in
order to teach them Latin, or history, or literature, or grammar,
or physics or chemistry. No one has claimed anything even remotely
like that. Academic pedagogy is not why the 90% of people who
have been spanked (according to your number) were spanked.
So, what are your supposed "brain scan studies" meant to show?
Was that meant to refute my claim or no? I mean, probably it
was an illogical irrelevant remark on your part. Probably you
haven't actually read any of these studies, probably you are
taking some pop psychology book's authority that such studies
exist. But, I don't know. It was reasonable of me to give you
the benefit of the doubt and to allow that maybe there are
"brain scan studies" out there which you believe actually
show that distraction inhibits learning, and that this has some
application to spanking. So, all you have to do now is produce
the studies. We can look at them and see whether they prove
what you claim they do, or whether they have anything to say
against spanking at all.

In any event, short of reading and carefully critiquing those
studies, I noted that pain can and does teach. It does not
teach mathematics (although I could argue even with that),
but it does teach the avoidance of pain, and has benefits
in the promotion of human safety. In fact, the evolutionary
biologists tell us, that is what pain is for, as teleological
as that sounds.

So, you have a clear choice he Apologize for your misreading
of what I said and go on your merry way with your tail
between your legs and your ears pinned down, or address the
issue of whether the distraction of pain can teach us things like
"Don't reach they hand out and touch the pretty red burner
on the stove."

I said:
Now, the "science" of brain scans or no,
Kane:
Why do I get the feeling you don't really want to know
what the brain scan studies show?

Because you are clueless about what I want?

I have access to research libraries. I am quite capable
of going directly to the scientific papers in question,
far more capable than you might guess. Put up or shut up.

Kane:
One of the most interesting to me

Where is the damned cite to the damned study? Why are you so
afraid somebody is going to actually read the thing unfiltered
by your (or your pop psychology book's) interpretations thereof?

Kane:
was the one that showed that in children who
had experienced abuse that section of the brain
that is the locus for indications of moral choices
is black...dead...no neurons firing. Thought
provoking

Not really thought provoking at all. A child who has been
abused has been the victim of extremely immoral behaviour.
Why wouldn't the moral faculty in the child be all but dead?

I just love it how you give a guy just a few scientisms---
"neurons firing" is a telltale example---and he imagines
his own happenstance of modernity confers upon him automagically
an understanding beyond anything Aristotle could have written,
not that he's read any.

Kane:
and immediately jumped on by the word twisters with
"spanking isn't abuse."

Let us look directly at the data. The problem is precisely
"spanking isn't abuse". You yourself gave the figure at 90%
of people now having been spanked. If spanking were abuse,
and if 100% of abused people had their "locus for indications of
moral choices [] black...dead...no neurons firing" then 90% of
human beings in this society would have that locus dead.
One of course could then wonder how "indications of moral
choice"---by which is meant somebody's loose interpretation of
certain neurons firing---ever got defined by the psychologists in the
first place if that were the case. Also, of course, one would
wonder how it is, since spanking was much more widely accepted
fifty years ago, how anyone back then ever made a moral choice
about anything, since they all must have been brain dead in their
moral faculty, but, sure, we could look at the data and see
whether it is true or not, what you claim. All you need do is give
the citation to the study which you think scientifically shows
what you claim.

Kane:
Well, the human body and brain do not
know that. Certainly not a child's body
and brain.

Quaintly put, but simply untrue. Since spanking is plainly
not abuse---since 90% of American human beings have undergone
it and the vast majority of those are quite capable of moral
reasoning and moral choice---the human body and the brain do
in fact know the difference. And certainly a child's body and
brain know it.

I said:
I would suggest that nearly every one of us
has had some experience of doing something
really stupid---like putting your hand on a hot
burner or touching a "hot" wire or slamming a car
door on your hand---and being rewarded for it with
an immediate, and possibly longlasting, painful feedback
which feedback has taught us never to do that again.
Kane:
Those are called logical consequences.

Nothing logical at all. I touch the hot burner. It damages my
skin, and at the same time causes me pain. The consequences are
physical and physiological and psychological. I respond by pulling
my hand back, I hurt.

*Now* the question of logic comes into play. Do I or do I not
*learn* the physical and physiological connection between that
hot burner and my hurt? According to your uncited "brain scan"
studies, distractions inhibit learning. So, if that were true,
wouldn't the distraction of the pain inhibit me from learning
that I shouldn't touch hot burners? Wouldn't people who got
burnt by hot burners have a lot higher instance of getting
burnt a second and third time, because of all that inhibition
of learning caused by all that pain?

The logic part has to be reasoned, i.e. learned. If, as you claim
has been scientifically shown, distractions inhibit learning,
there's a problem: One never can learn the consequences
of touching hot burners, since learning is inhibited by pain,
which is a distraction.

Or maybe your studies are not so conclusive as that? Maybe
the inhibition of learning is not total? If not, how strong
is it? And if it is not total, why isn't it total? What
other variables might come into play, if one can in fact
still learn in the face of distractions? Oh, and is it
possible that pain is not "a distraction" but is a different
kind of distraction than your studies address? And
conclusions about the one kind of distraction have nothing
whatsoever to say about the other? Not to mention the question
of legislation---if these brain scan studies are good enough
to address the question of legislation against spanking, then
why are they not good enough to allow us to legislate against
distractions? Maybe anybody distracting anyone for any reason
should be hauled off to prison?

Kane:
Perfectly natural.

Only perfectly "natural" once one has deduced effect from
cause and *learned* the natural connection, a learning
process which you say is inhibited by the pain.

Kane:
No problem, except of course that given the
child being young enough you have the responsibility
(or not as you see fit) of protecting the child.

I haven't a clue what you could mean by "or not as you
see fit". I have the responsibility to protect my child
from danger he has not rationally consented to. It doesn't
have anything to do with whether I "see fit" to have that
responsibility or not. It is an external given.

Kane:
Keep the child away from the hot stove with
barriers and proper supervision until you can
teach the child about the dangers. Same goes
with electrical outlets.

And supervise your too young child around
things that slam.

Done. And in the best way that tradition has told me
how to do it. Demand obedience to his parents from my
small child. Enforce that with spanking and do so
consistently and swiftly whenever he is disobedient.
Then my small child can very easily and safely be kept
away from hot stoves and electrical outlets and slamming
doors. He will, in fact, learn to keep himself away
from these dangerous things because I have told him
to. Precisely because a spanking given in response to
disobedience teaches obedience. It hurts approximately
transfinitely less than getting burnt or getting one's
fingers caught in a car door. And obedience is the extra
edge necessary to protect young children from
dangerous things. Which is why I wholly agree with the
poster who said that not to spank is abuse.


And it is the habit of self-control (a psychological
and ethical concept of an ancient kind---certainly present
in Aristotle, and definitely un-Freudian) in the child
that is the most important ethical lesson he will ever
learn, regardless of what choices he may make for himself
once he reaches the age of reason.

Kane:
By the way, I love your examples.....they are a perfect
argument for me to "stake out my position."

Let me demonstrate how well pain taught you to avoid a behavior.

Ever touched anything hot and burned yourself yet again
since the very first experience you had with being burned?

Only slammed your fingers in something once, did you?

Only been zapped by an electrical current once in your life?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions you
are extremely rare or a very sheltered person that goes nowhere
and does nothing.

Not so fast. The question is not whether I have been burned
twice but whether I learned not to touch something by being
hurt by it.

One can learn perfectly well how to set up and integrate
the Biot-Savart Law using vector calculus, and still get
it wrong upon occasion. One can learn many things, and
still make mistakes at doing them.

The issue is: Does one still reach out to touch the pretty red
stove burner in the same way one was tempted to do so once
as a kid? The answer is: No, one trips and falls with one's hand
on the burner, or touches it when it's black and one thinks
it's cold and off, that sort of thing. One certainly has learned.

Kane:
The truth is that if you allow your child to be too
"consequenced" by her environment she will either
be killed or so inhibited from learning that she
will be as disabled from learning more (exploring
and experimenting) as her constitution and pain
tolerance will allow.

My point exactly. Which is why spanking is a much
better choice than letting my child put his hand
on a hot burner.

Kane:
Is that your goal?

My goal is to teach my children self-dicipline. For that,
they first have to learn external discipline. Then they
will have a self from which to make their own choices when
they reach an age of reason. Instead of simply making a
chameleon-like adoption of the choices of those in their
peer group. Or the idiot choices offered them by the ad men
who represent this or that political party and try to
manipulate them and manufacture democratic consent. Or
the idioter choices offered them by the makers of
television sitcoms and the purveyors of pop movie
morality.

Kane:
I[f] so, spanking is a wonderful tool to
inhibit the child.

It is a wonderful tool to teach obedience to parental
authority. That is all. If that authority is used to good
purpose, then the child will be able to outgrow parental
authority and that authority will be surrendered by the
parent to the child, who will then be able to govern
himself. If that authority is used tyrannically or abused in
some way that lords it over the child past that age, then the
parent has done the child wrong. But if that authority is never
taken up in the first place, then the only thing parent is doing
is abdicating his own responsibility to his children to
the other authorities in this society that are all too eager
to govern our children and which are guaranteed to be both
tyrannical and destructive to our children and to liberty.

Kane:
I applaud your desire to keep her alive. I abhor
your methods as damaging to the child and possibly
to society.

On the contrary, it is *your* counsel of abdication of parental
responsibility for discipline of children that is certainly
damaging both to the child and to society.

Kane:
But most parents have to, or know to,
(you are likely one of the "have
tos")

You are an absolute fool for that parenthetical
comment.

Kane:
let their child out little by little so the
environment won't overwhelm them. You mistake
spanking for supervision. Or you try to substitute
one for the other.

Nope. I told you I am a liberal. In the classical sense.
That is, I school my children to become free men and
free women. I give them discipline at a young age to
protect them from harm, but also to school them to
discipline, so that they may grow thence into self-dicipline.
Of course the process of parenting is the slow transfer
of liberty of choice from the parent to the child. I tend
to want to make that transfer faster than my wife does, in
point of fact (my experience of that dynamic has made a
powerful argument to me for why it is best for children to
have two parents). But there has to be a human being there
to transfer sovereignty to, else what you have is a moral
chameleon who adapts his moral coloration to whatever his
peer group or the TV sitcom writers want for him. And,
the problem is that the danger to my child and to my
country in that are a whole helluva lot more serious than
burns to a hand on a stovetop.

I said:
My most recent case was rolling a riding lawn a
couple summers ago, throwing myself off it to get
clear, and snapping my left humerus in two as a
result. I now have a much healthier respect for the
design envelope of a riding mower.
Kane:
If you were three years old would the same example
apply? Of course not.

My four year old wouldn't get on the lawn mower in the
first place. So, no.

Kane:
You would pull the child off the lawn mower seat and
whack her bottom and think you had taught her not to get
on the lawn mower.

I'm sorry, but you have this entirely backwards. What
I would do is order my child not to drive the lawn
mower, and would expect him to obey that commandment
(I prefer the neuter use of the masculine pronoun---
"he/anthropos", as distinct from "he/aner"---and will
stick to it in what I write, thank you). I would spank
him only if he disobeyed that clear commandment. If I
had failed to tell him he shouldn't get on the tractor,
then I wouldn't spank him for doing it. So, the thing
I am teaching him, and which spanking works to teach
him, is obedience to parental authority. Not ex post
facto punishment for getting on a riding mower.

Kane:
I would lift her gently down and explore with her
why mowers are dangerous, discuss how she can ride
the toy mower I'm going to buy her, and look for
other ways to encourage her climbing and exploring
behaviors that are safer.

And you will have perhaps led her to slaughter, precisely
because what she may well have learned here is "Daddy will
buy me a toy mower if I go climb on that real mower again."

Kane:
She's obviously, if she can climb, had enough
experience with falling and pain to listen to
my lesson with some understanding. I don't need
to give her MORE pain.

If she is at an age of reason, so that she knows that it is
dangerous for her to go on the tractor, then maybe she
won't disobey your gentle entreaty. If you get it wrong,
however, and she isn't yet of an age to listen *with
understanding*, then the consequences can be severe, to her
and to yourself. And the point is those consequences will
happen to her and to yourself without her having made any
kind of rational choice to accept the possibility. She will
have never had a chance to explore, in fact.

Kane:
Your child will need more lessons, in fact,
since nature drives her, compels her, to explore,
[rant snipped]

As I said, you've internalized too much pseudoscientific
psychobabble. Let's have the studies. One study will do.
Let's see if it shows anything of what you claim.

I said:
If Kane's claim *really* is that pain
blocks learning,
Kane:
It isn't. Had you read more carefully,
[attempted psychologization of my argument
deleted] you'd have seen I didn't say that
pain blocks learning, as in all learning about
something. I said it blocks the learning of
the desired skill or ability. It teaches
alright, but not the skill.

I thought you said brain scan studies showed inhibition
of learning from distraction. I thought you said that.
Must've been something in my eye.

Oh well, it's certainly OK by me if you want to revise
what you said. I mean, there's no reason why any position
we first staked out needs to be defended in spite of all
evidence to the contrary. So, *now* you say pain does teach,
"but not the skill". What skill? I wasn't claiming to teach
any skill by means of pain. By using corporal punishment,
the only thing I have intended to teach, and in fact
have taught to my children, is obediece to parental
authority. Now, I also claim this inculcates a habit of
self-discipline, as opposed to a default discipline
adopted socially. Which I guess you could count as a
skill, if you want. But it does teach that.

Kane:
What it blocks is full access to the desired lesson.

You haven't a clue what the desired lesson is, is the
problem here.

Kane:
Enthusiastic focus and
determination to learn the desired ability. Did you
spank your child to teach them to ride a bicycle? Jeez,
I hope not.

Who said anything about the use of corporal punishment
to try and teach bicycling? Or calculus? Or Latin?
No one claimed anything like that. That is an utter
red herring to this discussion. Please focus on the
question at hand.

Kane:
That same patience and understanding about needing
to learn balance and coordination applies absolutely
to the lesson of why we don't hit our little sister
with the sauce pan.

The problem is patience and understanding about needing to
learn balance and coordination apply to bicycle riding at
age 5. Hitting our little sister with the sauce pan, however,
has very little to do with balance or coordination and can be
just what we feel like doing at age 3 or 4, *before* we are capable
of governing ourselves or reasoning about hitting other
people.

Kane:
[another pop psychologization of my argument deleted], and
your being hooked, as I presume your are (correct me
if I'm wrong),

Christian orthodoxy is exactly correct about that. Rousseau was
exactly wrong about it. Evil begins in the human at birth and
civilization is the only means we have against it. Were every
human alive an angel, the next baby born into the world would be
born wholly capable of reinventing Auschwitz.

Kane:
on the inherent "evil" in humans, requires you to
think in terms of punishment.

"Requires" is again a psychologization. Which means
again you are making something up about that which
you have no clue about. Punishment is for disobedience
to parental commands. It is my responsibility as a parent
to make those parental commands good ones. Few, and to
the point. The point is one can get that mostly right.
And the point is also that one does not have to be perfect,
and one's imperfections and errors are simply not the
causal initial conditions which create "psychological
wounds" in the child that he carries about and needs
therapy for the rest of his life. We are simply not talking
abuse or trauma here.

Kane:
"Disere" the latin root for the world "discipline" and
"disciple" has a beautiful meaning when it comes to human
learning....it means to "bring out,"

Did you get that from a pop psychology book? The
Latin root for "discipline" and "disciple" is "disco"
"I learn". Or "discere" "to learn" in the infinitive.
I would guess what you are misremembering (or following
some clueless pop author in erring about) is the Latin
verb "duco" "to lead". So "education" would be
"to lead out of". A pedantic digression, I know, but
to me at least it is important to get these things right.

************************************************** ********

(end response part 1 of 2)

Mike Morris
)

Sunday, the 12th of October, 2003

(beginning of part 2 of 2)



************************************************** ********

Kane:
and that is not what happens when a child who is
busy experimenting and exploring (no matter how
YOU interpret that behavior) is met with pain
from the one person that she should be able to
trust as a teacher...a true teacher.

He is not met with pain for exploring and experimenting.
He is met with pain for disobeying a commandment I have
given him. That is all. Certainly not everything I tell him or
do with him counts as a commandment I have given him.
In fact very few things count as commandments, and
he knows which ones those are. The commandments are few
and are designed for his safe and for his good behaviour
*until he is an age to know and understand and,
possibly, choose for himself, safety and goodness*.

There is no such thing with me, or I doubt with any
other parent around these parts, with using pain in
order to teach academic lessons or bicycle riding
or anything else like that. A spanking is simply not
about that. At all. It is about punishment for disobedience
to a commandment, and that commandment given for the child's
safety and to inculcate a habit of good behaviour.

Kane:
Pain does not bring out the ability to ride a bicycle,
nor to ponder the moral issues in hitting one's sister,

Whoa! Not at all the desired thing. Pondering the
moral issues in hitting one's sister is something I
want my child to be able to do at age 15 and at age
18 and at age 40. *When he is of an age to ponder,
then let him ponder*. What is desired now is simply
that he does not hit his sister!

Kane:
or the empathy that is the basis for the
development of conscience. Empathy is retarded
by distraction, built by focus on the other person.

Sympathy is possible, empathy, no.

And, no, I do not think it is the basis for the development of
conscience, so I quarrel right there with another of your pop
psych tenets.

Kane:
You can't even get a child to pay attention
to YOUR feelings, let alone another's feelings,
by the use of pain.

This is the part that is nonsense. I'm not trying to
get him to pay attention to anyone else's goddam
feelings, fer chrissake. Their feelings are their
responsibility. And I am not the keeper of my brother's
feelings. All of society would plummet into the
emotional basket-case level of daytime talkshow
therapy were we to agree to that kind of principle.

**** other people's *feelings*. Am I being clear enough
about this point for you? I said I am liberal. I mean that,
and absolutely so. Free speech as an absolute and inalienable
Right, and precisely because an auditor's *feelings* about
what I say to him are *his choice* and his responsibility
under his own self-discipline to choose his feelings wisely.
Spanking my child is about punishing him for hitting his sister,
when I have told him not to hit his sister, so that he does
not hit his sister again. It has zero to do with having him
think about how his sister might *feel* about being hit, or
whether, regardless of what she feels, it mightn't be cool to
go ahead and hit her anyway. There will come a time when he
will be of an age of reason and can think about those
things, and if he decides, like Raskolnikov, he wants to go ahead
and hit his sister anyway, he will be ethically, and then of
a certain age, legally responsible for *his* decision. What we
are talking about when he is 3 is not "reasoning it out" but
simply not doing it in the first place.

Kane:
Now this conversation may well end if you are
one of those that believes that morality is
not human based but rule based.

I haven't a clue what you could mean by that. I believe
in Natural Law (as a distinct belief from my belief in
scientific Laws of Nature). I.e. I believe ethical rules
are written into the fabric of the universe and into the
human condition. I do not believe that humans have
any choice, any autonomy, about being able to rewrite those
ethical rules. I reject utterly the idea that "To the Nazis,
Auschwitz may have been the right thing to do". I reject
moral relativism. But that certainly does not mean I think
ethics is reduceible to 10 commandments or to 37 approved
sexual positions.

Kane:
I don't follow rules because they are rules and they
come from some authority. I follow rules because
they have proven to be the wisest choice of all in how
I feel if I break them, and how I feel if I keep them.

Why is it this pop psych stuff always comes down to
waving around feelings like some banner? God save us
from government by feelings! In any event, I don't care
if "thou shalt not commit murder" comes from God or
is written into your Freudian subconscious so you feel
uneasy about it when you break it. All I care about is
you don't commit murder.

Kane:
If we all did that there would be [no] need
for enforcement, and whackin' away on kids butts.

I stuck in my emendation, which I trust is
what you meant. And sure, if men were angels
there would be no need for enforcement of any kind.
But, guess what? Men come hard-wired for evil. And
that is the problem. And they are hard-wired for it as
children long before they get to an age to reason
about it. Behaving badly is easy. It takes reason
and it takes long habit to be able to behave well.

I said:
then he has just ruled out all of our
common sense and common experience.
Kane:
R R R R, I've ruled out nothing but your neurosis
and your lack of common sense. Common sense based
on ignorance is not sense, it is just ignorance.

Kids who are disciplined are well-behaved. Kids who are
not disciplined are ill-behaved.

Kane:
How common sense is built is by observing.

My point exactly. The child, on a visit as a guest to
another house, whose hand has not ever been whacked
for disobedience, will destroy anything he finds that
he is curious about and which, lacking self-discipline,
he reaches for and finds, too late, fragile. I have observed this
too many times to count: How a lack of discipline---probably
parental fear of imparting discipline, and probably resultant
from the infection of society with pop psychological beliefs---leads
to a child's disregard of and destruction of other people's
property and, ultimately, to a disregard of other people's
person as that child's default mode of behaviour.

Kane:
How it turns into valuable knowledge that can
be applied is by never closing the loop....always
being open to new interpretations and new views
being considered.

Consider this.....everything the child does, no matter
how YOU might interpret it, is no more or less than an
experiment to learn how to live.

You know, I'm a physicist. We fry things and blow them up in
experiments. My children are not "experiments in how to live".
They are precious trusts to me, every one of whom I have to do
right by, and none of whom I will actually be able to do 100% right
by. Anyway, you sound like you are quoting glib language from
a pop psych book again. And, well, it's just wrong.

Kane:
When you, their assigned guardian and protector,
their trusted teacher of how to tie shoelaced,
feed themselves, bake a cupcake, think their
throwing of objects out of their play pen is
defiance and just to make you pick up after them,
and you resort to the shocking act of hitting them,
they just were betrayed.

Well, you are, quite stereotypically I might add, confusing
several things together here. Since my children wouldn't be
put in a playpen at an age when they could bake a cupcake.
In fact, at an age when they were in a playpen, I doubt spanking
would have been the appropriate response. Since, for spanking
to work, they have to be able to take a clear command before
they can be punished for disobeying it, and I associate a
playpen with probably too young a child for that.

But, no, the betrayal is in not punishing them for misbehaviour
that you have told they shall not do. *That* is betrayal. Of your
responsibility as a parent. To show them the rules that invisibly
surround them, Spanking is one method of that punisment. Often
it is the best method available. But I certainly would not insist
that it is the only method.

Kane:
Do you KNOW why little children throw things
out of their playpen or off their highchair tray,
again and again and again...ad neauseum?

Give me a break, Kane. I have not spanked my children
for being toddlers and throwing food off their high chairs.
Once again, you miss the point with a straw-man-style
argument.

[...]

Kane:
Children are compelled to be practical physicists.
They MUST experiment, and it has to be replicated
to be believed. And they must do it for themselves.
Hitting inhibits that learning.

And so on. Look, perhaps we could skip over the
pop psych book and get to the scientific study which
backs up, well, really, anything you say? I mean, it's
cute that you want to write "children are compelled to
be practical physicists" and you are caught up in their
"natural creativity" and this sort of Rousseauian
picture of childhood as innocence and the evil
hand of civilization and conservative tradition of
corporal punishment as the thing that crushes the
natural good out of them and turns them all into ax
murderers (which begs the question why more of 'em
weren't ax murderers 50 years ago when spanking was
more universally accepted). But, sooner or later we
need a fact or two (maybe like a cite to a study?) to
bolster the rhetorical expansiveness, don't you think?

I said:
He is probably also at odds with any and
every evolutionary biological explanation
for pain that I've ever run across.
Kane:
No, only with the ones based on ignorance of
learning theory. I'm not against learning from pain.

Oh, I thought you said distraction inhibits learning and
that pain is a distraction. Must've been my mistake about that.
So, you now think pain doesn't necessarily inhibit learning?
So, what was the point about those scientific brain scan studies
anyway? Or do you now agree with my original point that science does
not and cannot address the question of the goodness of the practice
of spanking?

Kane:
I'm against the deliberate application of pain by
(from his point of view) a child's protector.

I'm sure you are. It probably seems icky to you.
I can't help you there. Don't spank your kids, I
guess.

Kane:
Children get more than enough naturally
consequential pain to learn about what
does and doesn't cause pain.

Sometimes they learn, sometimes they are killed in
those kind of lessons. I am willing to spank in order
to better the odds that my kids will learn more quickly
how to keep themselves safe.

Kane:
Why would you want to create an artificial application
of pain that to the child is so often impossible to connect
to the exploritory behavior they were performing?

Connection to what they were doing is absolutely irrelevant.
The connection of spanking is to a commandment I gave them and
they then transgressed. That is all that is needed. And the artificial
is simply on a whole different scale to the natural pain,
which might injure them or kill them, that they could
encounter.

Kane:
Are you so insistent on them developing a sense of
guilt, shame, fear, about their environment and insistent
on them being challenged with the thought that
they may in fact be evil creatures deserving torture?

You are simply clueless about this. My children
have snorkeled with sharks in the wild (while Martha
and I were scuba diving on the reef 25 feet below them).
Helen got to touch a shark (which the divemaster brought
up to her to do). I am certainly not insistent on developing
guilt, shame, or fear about their environment. Helen also
now does equestrian eventing, which includes the quite
dangerous activities of stadium- and cross-country-jumping.
She is 11 years old. The issue is certainly not eliminating
danger from their environment, but in teaching them to have
self-discipline, so that they may be as free as is possible
for them to be when they reach the age of adulthood. And
in keeping them as safe as is possible up until the age
of reason when they can start beginning to make
judgments for themselves.

Kane:
A child believes the parenting they get is the
parenting they deserve.

More pop psychology? Did you get that from a book? From
five or six books? Do you think it a truism? Do you figure
there is scientific evidence to prove that "a child"
believes this? Do all children believe this? 90% of
them? 20% of them? One child?

Kane:
The parent is all powerful to the child, even in
defining who the child is.

Says you. Ho hum.

Kane:
Consider: A child treated with respect, even when
they make mistakes, then would believe they
deserve what?

A child treated with respect is a child punished for
disobedience to a parental command. Punishment
presumes that the child had the power to choose otherwise.
*That* respects the child as a person. Failure to punish
disobedience to a command exactly treats the child without
respect as a person. It teaches the child he cannot be expected
to choose for himself. It too readily interprets his
willful choice as a "mistake"---as something beyond his
control.

Kane:
Now substitute "pain" for "respect."

Been there, done that, and I'm already looking back
up at you from the inside.

Kane:
And either is, for the child, what they will
grow to seek for themselves, as it honors the
beloved parent. They will do it until they die
of old age. A life of self induced pain, or one
of self respect. Your choice.

Then punish disobedience swiftly and consistently.
And you will respect your children as human beings,
and not as though they were particles, planets, or
billiard balls, subject to the external forces of
physics.

Kane:
The power that parents have awes me, still.

Again, the rhetorical pose right from out of
a pop pysch book. Oh well, why not?

This Be the Verse

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had.
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can.
And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

Just for you, and for that party trick, Kane.


I wrote:
Also, think about it for a moment: Whence brain
scans "proving" that pain blocks learning?
Kane:
That is not what I said. I said it blocks the learning
of the desired task.

Then we'd have to see those "brain scan" studies in some
detail, wouldn't we? I mean pain is teaches something, just not
the desired task. I don't recall ever talking about a desired task.
Certainly not using spanking to teach mathematics, as in
your example.

Kane:
One can still learn....it just becomes exceedingly
difficult

You sound like you can put a number on how difficult
learning becomes. And that that number supports
your adverb "exceedingly". I mean the distraction
studies show 99% of what is taught isn't learned in
the presence of distraction? What do you mean by
"exceedingly"? Cites to those studies, please...

Kane:
and other things,
not intended, are learned as well.

Yeah, the Freudian subconscious, right?
What if those things are in fact intended.
And just what things did you mean, anyway.

See, the issue here is those pop psych books
you've been reading say my way is the
fascist, but I think *their* way is the real
fascism.

Kane:
How good are your math skills?

Oh, fair to middlin', I suppose.

Kane:
Or writing.

Some would say pretty poor.

Kane:
What subjects were hard for you in
school? Were they taught by your favorite
teacher? Did you parent "assist" in
your learning with punishments involved
with your attempts to learn?
Did you feel stupid when they "helped" you?

What utter nonsense you speak. My mother taught me to
read on her lap ay age three or four using some stupid
phonics books bought from the grocery store. By the time
I reached kindergarten, the teacher could hand me a storybook
and have me read aloud to keep the entire class entertained.
I was a straight A student in everything but gym. No punishment
was involved in my mother teaching me to read. Why do you keep
imagining punishment used as pedagogy, like some nightmare
vision out of a Dickens novel? The whole punishment-to-teach-subjects
thing seems to be your own personal bugbear, brought into
this argument for no relevance or reason I can think. I was
spanked for doing what I had been not to do. Hand in the cookie
jar, running in the house, hitting my kid brother, breaking
his toys, that sort of thing.

Kane:
One of the toughest teachers I had was extremely
respectful, but still, insisted quietly and respectfully,
that one applied themselves. I had flunked algebra twice
until him. Both prior teachers were insulting martinets.

I aced his class. And he graded hard, very. I learned
about learning from him. I picked my teachers with care
in college. Aced it too, all of it. And I was barely a
C student in highschool. Lousy teachers until the algebra
teacher.

I'm glad you learned to get proactive in your search for good
teachers. Wonderful. What does this have to do with anything
before us?

I said:
I mean, I've read Milgram's summary of his
psychological experiments in _Obedience to Authority_.
Those experiments *simulated* pain in a "victim" in
order to observe a subject's reaction to it.
Kane:
That is something of a departure from my position...

No, the issue is you can't set up an experiment nowadays
which would test your learn-calculus-with-a-paddle,
since it wouldn't pass ethical guidelines. The Milgram
experiment had the "learner" undergoing electroshock
for missed answers to a "rote learning" memorization
test. The learner was a paid actor, who screamed and
pleaded with the "teacher" to stop the lesson. The real
subject of the experiment was the "teacher" and to see
how far the teacher would go in administering what he
believed were electric shocks to the "learner". The
famous/infamous findings of this experiment were that most
people would go all the way to killing the learner in
obedience to the authority of a fellow in a white lab
coat who was only allowed to say "The experiment must go on."

I.e., that people are very happy to yield up their
sense of ethical responsibility to anyone in a
position of authority---to anyone who can defraud them
into believing he can relieve them of their ethical
responsibility for what they do. The amazingly small
number of people who resisted either were very well
educated to the point where they felt *themselves* to have
more authority than the guy in the white lab coat, or
the very religious (i.e. who felt themselves to be under
a much higher authority than the guy in the white lab
coat).

The point is, in aftermath, Milgram himself was
roundly criticized for subjecting his subjects to
emotional stress in their administering of what they
thought were electric shocks. So, we aren't talking about
administering direct pain here, we are talking about even
emotional stress for the sake of the experiment. Every
subject had volunteered to do it.

Kane:
but let's see if it is worthy of the frightened
child that forced that to the surface of your
consciousness to avoid my point.

Would you please cut this kind of amateur
pop-psych diagnostic stuff out?

I've already long since dealt with your point,
and we are well beyond it. The issue is what science
there might be out there which can tell us outlawing
spanking is a good thing. So far, all that has been
offered by you is uncited "brain scan studies" which
you say show that distraction inhibits learning. But,
so what? That's utterly irrelevant to the question of
the efficacy or wrongness of spanking, though you tried
to claim otherwise. So, the question becomes: What
scientific studies could there be which might address
the real question we want to know? Real studies which
show spanking is bad.

(By the way, there was a big
study that hit all the newspapers some while ago---
maybe Straus, M. A., Sugarman, D. B., & Giles-Sims, J.
(1997). Spanking by parents and subsequent antisocial behavior
of children. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine,
151, 761-767
http://www.unh.edu/frl/cp24.htm
---which did try to claim something along these
lines. But also see critiques of this paper and of
its methodology at:
http://people.biola.edu/faculty/paulp/

Note these three points of criticism therein:
A Comparison of Two Recent Reviews of Scientific Studies
of Physical Punishment by Parents by Larzelere, June 2002.
In a more comprehensive review of Gershoff's article, Larzelere
shows that "child outcomes associated with ordinary physical
punishment are also associated with alternative disciplinary
tactics when similar research methods are used. Detrimental
child outcomes are associated with the frequency of any
disciplinary tactic, not just physical punishment. Therefore,
it is the excessive misbehavior that is the actual cause of
detrimental outcomes in children."

"Not one of the 17 causally relevant studies found
predominantly detrimental outcomes if they did anything
to rule out parents who used physical punishment too
severely." p. 209 This is Larzelere's conclusion in a
recent review of outcomes associated with nonabusive
physical punishment in Child Outcomes of Nonabusive and
Customary Physical Punishment by Parents: An Updated
Literature Review in Clinical Child and Family
Psychology Review 2000, 3(4):199-221 (the December
2000 issue).

Larzelere/Straus Debate (June, 1999) A summary of
Dr. Larzelere's presentation in a debate with Straus
about spanking. In this summary, Larzelere reports
that the small detrimental child outcomes reported by
Straus, Sugarman & Giles-Sims (1997) for 6- to 9-year-olds
is not unique to spanking. A further analysis of the
Straus, et al. data revealed that identical small
detrimental child outcomes were also found for all four
alternative disciplinary responses for 6- to 9-year-olds
(grounding, sending the child to a room, removing
privileges, and taking away an allowance). The debate
was held at a conference of the National Foundation
for Family Research and Education at Banff in Alberta,
Canada.

Notice the second point of criticism would suggest a completely
objective measurement by which one would distinguish between
corporal punishment and the violent abuse of children.)

I said:
And that kind of experimental procedure has long since
been declared unethical.
Kane:
Okay. Let's see where this goes.

OK.

I said:
So, I'd say it's pretty obvious that no
one in recent history has run experiments
subjecting people to pain
Kane:
Wrong. It's common still. All it takes is consent of
the subject. Go to your nearest college or university
psych department and ask. Or try neurological
departments of medical schools.

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so, given the Milgram
study, and given the banning of studies like that.
But, my psych colleagues are a little ways down the
hall from my office at Butler University, so I guess
I can go ask one of them and report back about the ethical
restrictions on psych experimental design.

Kane:
Besides, the question isn't "pain" alone. It's any
distraction up to and including pain.

True, but insofar as distractions which were not painful
were tested and ones which were painful were not tested,
the experiment you spoke of doesn't say anything about learning
inhibition from spanking. As I said, you'd have to extrapolate
(you'd have to assume that what was true of learning inhibition
about a non-painful distraction would then also be true of a
painful one, and, surely, that would be a matter of evolutionary
biological contention, which should be tested directly before
any claim were made about it).

I said:
in order to test whether or not people (and certainly not kids)
can learn under the influence of pain.
Kane:
And I was working, as I pointed out clearly,
backward from pain to any distraction.

Which, as I trust you understand scientifically, you can't do.
It is an assumption, an extrapolation, which is precisely in
contention.

Kane:
Any distraction changes learning from more
easily done to more difficultly done and
has unwanted side effects, such as the learning
of things that might even interfer with performance
of the desired skill.

Well, I doubt that any scientific study is available
which could bolster such a sweeping claim, but,
I think in the case of a child reaching out to touch a
pretty red burner on a stove, a spank to the hand
(assuming the child has been previously instructed
not to touch the stovetop) definitely interferes with
the child's thought processes and curiosity,
let's say with what the pretty red object might feel
like, and focuses the child's attention on something
entirely different---namely that the child should have
been nixing that particular line of investigation
because of the parental command not to put thy hand
on the stovetop.

Kane:
Dr. Thomas Gordon, when a young man, was a military
flight instructor. He observed that a lot of young
student pilots were flying their aircraft into the
ground and dying. He noted also that the instructor's,
an a misguided by sincere attempt to save lives, were
screaming at the students more and more and calling them
more names and insults.

Gordon turned that around and developed a supportive approach.
His students lived. The others continued to die.

Later he counseled parents and eventually wrote a book that is a
standard for supportive parenting...that is supportive of the
child learning, not being tortured.

Would _Parent Effectiveness Training_ be the source of
your "brain scan" studies? Would that be your cite? And
do you figure spanking occurs in a parental panic of
screaming at the kid? I figure if a parent is screaming
at the kid, he is out of control himself and probably
should have spanked much, much earlier rather than letting
the disobedience get to the point of emotional stress
and panic at near-disaster.

I said:
So, any "brain scan" claims
there could be would have to be just wild
extrapolation,
Kane:
Nice try.

No, in fact wild extrapolation is quite likely the
case here. Maybe there were some distraction
studies. That seems likely. And it seems plausible
something or the other was in measured in them that
could be interpreted as distraction-inhibits-learning.
Probably there was not anything remotely like the
learn-calculus-under-the-paddle experment, however.
So, any claim about the latter is quite likely
a wild extrapolation from the former.

Kane:
No cigar. As I said. Consent allows for the use of
distraction up to and including pain.

Then I don't understand why Milgram's experiments
would be now forbidden. They certainly didn't cause any
physical pain to anybody, and all the subjects consented.

Kane:
But distraction alone is sufficient to support my
position.

Or the counterexample I gave of learning by means of
pain is enough to show that not all distractions inhibit
all learnings. There's huge range of what might
constitute learning and one is tempted to recall
"That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger."
I've learned to bench press 200 lbs over the last
two years of effort working out. I've had to go through
some pain to get there. Etc..

Kane:
Unless you would care to label pain as not being a
distraction.

I would certainly think that a "brain scan" sudy of
the effect of non-painful distraction on academic-style
learning would have zero to say about whether spanking
can be used to teach children anything to the good. I
would be embarassed in fact intellectually for even
bringing up such brain-scan studies in this context if
that were all they had to say. "Let's outlaw behaviour X
because we have some studies which indicate behaviour Y
has weak correlation with outcome Z, which outcome Z
happens all the time and sometimes might not
be desired, and because in some twists of language
behaviour X is a subset of behaviours Y and besides,
I think X is real icky." I mean, if those studies
really show enough to outlaw spanking, why don't
they also show enough to outlaw distraction?

I said:
making all kinds of assumptions about what
causes what and what activity here or there
in the brain might mean in terms of learning
or not learning something.
Kane:
Well, that usually IS the point of experimenting.

cf. Richard Feynman, "Cargo-Cult Science".

Kane:
Just as children do it. They are trying, no matter
what you think they are doing, to find out about the
world and how it works. They are, by our adult view,
terribly ignorant and clumsy, even doing things we've
come to label as "bad," or "evil," "perverse," and
even "sinful" but to them, in their ignorance and
nature driven compulsion to learn, those actions are not
labeled as yet.

Then it is for us to keep them from doing evil things
until they have been able to learn that those things
are, in point of fact and not label, evil.

I said:
Again, all one has to do is talk to an older
teacher who remembers the days in public school
when he had a wooden paddle and the authority
to use it if students misbehaved. Guess what?
Those were days when the shooting at Columbine,
not to mention metal detectors at the
entrances to schools, and armed policemen to
patrol the halls, were unthinkable.
Kane:
My very favorite. I've seen this come up
so many times on the talk.politics.guns website
I grow weary of it.

Right.

Kane:
You do know that children that were spanked
were the ones doing the shooting, did you not?
Check out all the school shootings in recent years.
These weren't "unspanked" children.

You said 90% are spanked. I've seen claims going from
99% in the 1950's down to 50% in the 1990's. But, given
your number, the lack of correlation between spanking and
going postal that that observation immediately
demonstrates (i.e. millions of spanked children do not
go shoot up their classmates, so the effect
of a kid going postal is on the order of few out of millions---
it is easy to do the calculation and to be more precise,
but there is no need here, since the idea is simple:
same cause leading to different effect means there are
other causes), I would assume they probably were spanked. So,
all that means that spanking alone isn't enough. Then again,
I never said it was enough. The rules you lay down for your kids
also have to be good rules---not ones that "we label as good"
but actual rules that coincide with goodness as the
universe dictates goodness to us.

Kane:
Do you know how far back kids were walking
into classrooms and shooting people? Try the 30's.

Show me the cites to this.

I was aware of newspapers and schools since
the 60's and unless the media were just covering up
school shootings back then, they didn't happen anything
like the way they have happened in the last 10 years.

Kane:
The shooting at Columbine was not caused by the
failure to spank.

Yeah, it probably was. The discipline once upon a
time in schools (and reinforced in the homes) meant
that kids did not act up in the ways they do now.
Heck, I remember a time back in the 1970's in junior
high school when the Principal interrupted class and
lectured the whole school for an hour over the intercom
about "behaviour your parents wouldn't approve of", and
how the offending students needed to turn themselves
voluntarily in. He was so vague about just what had
happened, I hadn't a clue what it was all about until
the grapevine got to me afterwards. Turns out, someone
had written "****" in the snow outside the school.
Compare that disciplinary line with the one today found
at Northwest High School in Indianapolis---mother gets
call at work to come to the hospital because her son
happened to be wearing glasses in the hallway when
some drug-pusher type came wandering through wanting
to smash some resistance-less victim's head
repeatedly against the floor. Same town, same school
system, historically different standards of discipline.

Kane:
It was caused by the failure to
inculcate a conscience.

And you figure gentle cajoling when Junior hits his
sister is the way to do that?

Kane:
That is the product of pain based parenting,

Nope. What it is the product of is psychological
beliefs like you have been touting. The widespread
infection of Freud in this society, the widespread
idea that we are trapped by society, by our own
subconscious, by our genes and by victimizations of
ourselves as children beyond our control or our choice.
The basic problem is CS Lewis's The Abolition of Man,
the conception of man as incapable of ethical
choice and not responsible for what he does.

Kane:
whether it is physically based, or psychologically
based. My take on the boys that did the shooting
was more of the psychologically based, but I doubt
anyone is going to get out of the families of the
boys how they were parented. I've certainly seen
more than enough mental illness in teens whose
histories I did have access to to tell you that
pain based parenting...even when done with cold
precision....results in less conscience and morals,
not more.

Then consider this pivotal moment from Peter Shaffer's _Equus_:
Dysart: Sit down, Mrs Strang.
Dora [ignoring him: more and more urgently]: Look, Doctor: you
don't have to live with this. Alan is one patient to
you: one out of many. He's my son. I lie awake every
night thinking about it. Frank lies there beside me.
I can here him. Neither of us sleeps all night. You come
to us and say, who forbids television? who does what
behind whose back?---as if we're criminals. Let me tell
you something. We're not criminals. We've done nothing
wrong. We loved Alan. We gave him the best love we
could. All right, we quarrel sometimes---all
parents quarrel---we always make it up. My husband
is a good man. He's an upright man, religion or
no religion. He cares for his home, for the world,
and for his boy. Alan had love and care and treats,
and as much fun as any boy in the world. I know
about loveless homes: I was a teacher.
Our home wasn't loveless. I know about privacy too---
not invading a child's privacy. All right, Frank may be
at fault there---he digs into him too much---but nothing
in excess. He's not a bully...[Gravely.] No, doctor.
Whatever's happened has happened *because of Alan*.
Alan is himself. Every soul is itself. If you added
up everything we ever did to him, from his first day on
earth to this, you wouldn't find why he did this
terrible thing---because that's *him*; not just all
of our things added up. Do you understand what
I'm saying? I want you to understand, because I
lie awake thinking it out, and I want you to know
that I deny it absolutely what he's
doing now, staring at me, attacking me for what *he's*
done, for what *he* is! [Pause: calmer.] You've got your
words, and I've got mine. You call it a complex, I
suppose. But if you knew God, Doctor, you would
know about the Devil. You'd know the Devil isn't
made by what mummy says and daddy
says. The Devil's *there*. It's an old-fashioned word,
but a true thing...I'll go. What I did in there was
inexcusable. I only know he was my little Alan and
then the Devil came.
[She leaves...]

Kane:
You are spouting like a Scientologist.

Uh-huh.

[snipped]

Kane:
The lack of the paddle hasn't increased the school shootings.
In fact school shootings are down, and have been for years.

Umm, please back that one up with a cite. I don't believe you.

Kane:
Even the year of the Columbine
shootings school was still the safest
place for children.

An entirely unexceptionable statement, given that
most kids were in school. Obviously
Columbine was a small event, effecting only a very
fraction of the total population of kids in school.

Kane:
And I say that with my teeth gritted as I am a
dedicated homeschooling champion.

Except for the wonder of incongruence, California,
it is consistently the states WITH school house
paddling that has the most child perps of shootings.
I'm damned if can explain California, but then who
can? smile

You don't have your facts Mike. You come up with
speculations you haven't researched adequately to
use them as support for the position you have
staked out. Keep trying.

Well, so far my speculations are looking pretty good to me
in the absence of any supporting data for your position.

Kane:
It's been fun Mike.

And no, I'm not a troll. If you haven't figured
that out by now, well, tough ****.

I don't believe I ever called you a troll, Kane.

(end part 2 of 2)

Mike Morris
)