Happy New Year! I’ve spent the day so far lazing around, eating leftover pizza and listening to music. And that’s about all I’m going to do, I think.
I’ll be back at work blogging tomorrow.
In the meantime, does anyone have any especially fond memories of Tom Martin and/or Steele from the past year?
Oh, and here’s a video from an Old School New Wave band called Polyphonic Size. It was 1983. They were from Belgium.
Starla: No. This isn’t a quiz. It’s an investigation of the question. What do you think?
You said punishment was needful. When asked why you said, “The point of punishment is to show someone what they did us wrong with an explanation of why it’s wrong.
So, you’ve said you aren’t certain that is still a valid answer.
What do you think of punishment now? Do you think it at all useful? If so why, and to what purpose?
The hard part is there are no, “Right Answers” though I would say there are wrong ones; which is why we had this little go ’round.
Fairness is the driving principle of childhood. It balances the narcissism of infancy.
Yes I remember it well.
@viola
Well my thoughts on punishment as a whole? I knew from the beginning that teaching someone from solely negative reinforcement doesn’t work, there has to be positive reinforcement for good behavior. But more importantly punishment doesn’t accomplish anything if there is no sense of empathy. This actually reminds me of something I read in mgtows homepage under a section labeled “to avoid charges”. This next sentence is a direct quote “do not have sex with a woman if she says “no””. I think that is a good example of punishment with no sense of empathy. According to them, you shouldn’t refrain from raping a woman because it’s wrong, you should refrain from raping her so you won’t get in trouble.
Probably, but you only need to see someone else not get punished once and then every time you’re punished it’s an injustice towards you specifically!
Pecunium:
I know that when I was militantly theocratic that was the party line; bad behavior can only be stopped with worse behavior. If the Muslims bomb us we must nuke them. If children misbehave we must beat them and terrorize them.
I love my parents. But that was a terrible way to raise a kid, and I can’t interact with people for crap. Because people scare me. They’re just one wrong word away from a screaming fit at all times, y’know?
I didn’t really learn that there was a different way to model the world, a way to actually think about how to treat others, until I was… um… almost thirty. And it’s an unutterably better way.
@Starla: Pecunium linked just now to studies on empathy. Take a little time to think about the implications there.
I mean, yes, science! Yay.
But more than that. These aren’t philosophical arguments in a void. There’s evidence on what works, what doesn’t. There’s all kinds of measures of effectiveness that can be used. And a lot of us have lived through some of these ‘theories.’
The personal, as they say, is political. It’s not just a theory–it’s stuff that has hurt me, personally. It’s hurt people I care about.
That applies to every discussion we have here, on every subject. It’s one of the reasons that I often think twice before posting.
There is a disclaimer on the blog title that this is sometimes a rough and tumble place. But that’s because so much of the subject matter is poison that hurts real people, right here and now.
What’s my point? That before you begin talking about “What is Punishment For” you should probably think about the implications.
Implications.
A 14-year-old giving birth has been pregnant nearly a year. She was having sex at 13.
“Two-thirds of a sample of 535 young women from the state of Washington who became pregnant as adolescents had been sexually abused: fifty-five percent had been molested and forty-four percent had been raped.”
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2135718?uid=18655360&uid=3739952&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=18653824&uid=62&uid=3739256&sid=21101492170103
A 14-year-old who hides the pregnancy from her parents is one who might just have good reason not to trust the father of her child to share the burder either. Implications.
When I was 20 I thought I knew everything. I’m still young, by most measures. But everything I thought I knew at 20–everything I knew about how the world worked–was not only wrong, but disastrously wrong. I was actively working to make the world a worse place at 20.
I thought I understood the judicial system. It was only here, after going through change after change of thinking, that Sharculese brought me up short with one simple question: why would you assume that a different way hasn’t already been tried somewhere else, with better results? (stated differently, I think)
And, lo and behold, I was still wearing blinders. Blinders built when I was young.
Nobody is hounding you because you’re a terrible person. Look at the questions you’ve been asked, and think about some of them. Are you wearing those blinders right now? That’s an important part of the question. Presuppositions.
@pecunium
Trailing off my comment towards viola….even though a punishment is clearly stated. Mgtowers don’t think it is wrong to rape someone, so if they are caught and punished it is, like Katz keeps saying, a direct injustice towards them.
What I’ve learned here is:
Punishment doesn’t actually teach people anything if they don’t understand why what they are doing is wrong and should be educated about it first. And if a rule is broken their punishment should be based on the severity of the crime and if they understand the gravity of it.
@katz Wow. You have just turned on a light bulb for me and it is so obvious once you’ve seen it. Thank you.
Starla.
We know that you are just repeating things other people have said. Kitteh, Cloudiah, and many others talked about empathy. Pecunium talked about positive reinforcement being better than negative reinforcement.
You, on the other hand, said this less than an hour ago:
Just awake, bloody time zones. Sad I missed the parole discussion. Big wave to all those who are giving book suggestions in the other thread.
I have 2 kids, a 9yr old and a 3yr old. I can utterly vouch for the need to be fair and to make sure the kids feel heard. i have always used the time out method for discipline and increasingly complex discussions about why the behaviour was unacceptable.
Gotta go to work now with my clients, many of whom are on parole, many have substance use issues. I always miss those discussions on here.
Starla:
You keep making sweeping declarations (that’s how this started). Then you change them, but they get no less sweeping.
The problem isn’t the sweeping nature, per se. I’d be a fool, and a hypocrite if I said that, as I made a sweeping statement about justice and mercy. It’s the difference in scope. I made a sweeping statement against mechanistic justice; arguing that it precludes mercy; which negates the system being just.
You’ve responded to a lot of argument,and some evidence, by reformulating it as platitude.
That doesn’t feel as if you’ve come to understanding. Maybe you see that the thing for which you were arguing is flawed, but that’s not a replcacement; just an admission of flaw.
I have some pretty strong ideas on how to fix our model of justice. I’m not sharing them because I am afraid (to a point of near certainty) that if I did your actual beliefs would never come out. You would see some merit to what I said, and parrot it back to me.
You said punishment could create empathy. Now you say it’s a last ditch way to do it. Ok. How do you think we ought to deal with those who failed to learn the empathy needed to be acceptable members of society?
Sometimes I think Starla is Ruby, or a sock puppet, or just supernaturally needy.
@katz
Yes I am repeating what other people have said. It’s called “learning something from someone else”. Wasn’t it you who said you wanted more from conversation than frustration?
I however find it funny that we can’t even get along when I’m agreeing with you.
I’m not sure if you’re being serious or not! If so, thanks!
@penucium
We could attempt rehabilitation. Depending on the severity of the empathy lack or how dangerous they are. If rehabilitation fails and they continue to be a danger to others then maybe try something a bit more drastic
Aaaand here’s the problem. Our young posters are generally great, unless trolling. What’s your excuse, Starla?
I’ll be in the scented candle aisle. I have no desire to raise children.
@hellkell
Raising children? Forgive me, but I don’t remember you being there to change my diapers and make sure I eat my vegetables.
As for what my excuse is, I have my times of being ignorant just like everyone else. I’m not perfect and I don’t know everything. But unlike your trolls, I havn’t shown a complete unwillingness to learn from my mistakes, and form new ideas. I can’t remember who said it but I once read “to be old and wise, you first have to be young and stupid”. I find it funny how people tend to conveniently forget that they were young once too.
Well, shit. If that was all there was to it, maybe I’d have checked this having kids thing out.
Viola Starla?
I prefer violin, but violas are good too (and viola de gamba and violoncello and contrabass…I like classic string instruments what more can I say?)
Pecunium, would you mind emailing me those views on how to fix the “justice” system? I’m curious.
Starla, a place for mocking misogynists & misogynistic trolls is probably not a great place for someone to “be young and stupid.” You might need to find a place that is more gentle on the commentariat, and maybe just lurk here if you enjoy the mockery.
@katz I was (being serious). – until you said that, I never understood people complaining about being punished for something wrong they admitted doing. I felt like Mr Spock going “but that’s illogical – you knew it was illegal, you knew the punishment, you did it anyway”. When, of course, they knew the punishment but thought they would not be punished because they saw all the others not getting punished. And now it feels unfair to be singled out for punishment. Simples.
Damn, it explains a lot about the MRA whining.
Also, I do find it difficult to be earnest on Manboobz without sounding snarky. Sorry.
Hellkell – that ‘raising children’ exchange reminds me of a line in one of Kerry Greenwood’s books, that it’s a waste of time using sarcasm on those under 25. Either they don’t get it and you have to explain, or they do it better than you and go the Duh route.
No prizes for guessing which this was. 😉
@pecunium
So if I understand you correctly, youre worried that because my opinions change so quickly, that I am only repeating things to get you off my back, and not actually learning anything as I claim to be. You couldn’t be farther from the truth, my opinions change because I am willing to acknowledge and admit that you are in fact smarter than me.
Titianblue: Sometimes I use the /sinceritymode tag for that reason.
I’m willing to take Starla on good faith for now. *shrugs* I’m closer than her in age than most other posters so I don’t think she’s being disingenuous when she says she’s learning from you. I’ve had plenty of times of forming an ‘opinion’ without knowing all sides of the argument, then changed my mind once someone’s explained them to me.
Being singled out for punishment is like when you get pulled over for speeding. Yes, it’s totally fair for the cop to give you a ticket, but it doesn’t feel fair when everyone else on the freeway was speeding too!