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Thread: Awakening With Russell Brand

  1. #31
    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Come on man, that's just ridiculous. You need to look into your own anger too.

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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    yeah, he makes me mad, because he doesn't know what the hell he is talking about and obviously I don't mean from a technical or intellectual focus. He is emotionally twisted and likely will never see his way out of it.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Okay, we can change the subject. In the weekend I will post something far more "calming" here.

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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    you don't have to avoid him on my account, Wind ... I don't have much more to say, really... and it's ok if you like him. I just have personal prejudices against his kind. I admit it. I see them as heavy contributors to a false narrative. An unreal narrative.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Here's the calming stuff that I promised.


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NjPdqd7mQM


    Mooji is a renowned spiritual teacher, who, for over 20 years, has been guiding countless seekers worldwide in search of true happiness, peace and freedom.

    Mooji’s way of teaching is direct and compassionate, encouraging that Self-discovery need not be difficult. He teaches that the true nature of human beings is not a personal self or ego but pure, formless awareness.

    Mooji claims that when this is fully grasped, delusion and suffering come to an end and is replaced by a lasting peace and pure love. His talks, called Satsang, bring seekers into the experiential recognition of their true Self—and all with his characteristic humour, wisdom and love.

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    I appreciate so much of what Peterson has to say. Also, I come from the same country, am ethnically almost identical, near the same age and our mothers were even born in the same small town, Niacum, Saskatchewan, so I have a fairly good take on him.

    Peterson's homage to his mother, although heart felt and lovely is a bit offputting. "She's no victim, my mother," he exclaims. Why would she be? She is well loved, has led a cushy life, didn't have to work, is white, plus was born temperamentally strong in a pleasant country without political conflicts.

    If he is equating his mother's overcoming very minor middle class white woman challenges as a librarian, with real existential problems that scar and damage, he needs to do what he suggests everybody else does, and get some perspective. Change his mom's race, and have her try to grow up and raise a family in Ferguson, Missouri using all the character strength at her disposal and I wonder how she would do.
    Last edited by Octopus Garden, 29th August 2020 at 19:38.

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    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    That's true, perspective matters.

    This is a bit off-topic, but I have to say that I've always found Canada interesting. It feels like a cousin country of ours.

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  15. #38
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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    JAKE DESYLLAS

    About Jake



    Dr Jake Desyllas is an author, investor, and podcaster. He writes about entrepreneurship, financial independence, and freedom. He is the host of The Voluntary Life podcast.

    In 2000, he founded Intelligent Space, an award-winning consultancy that led innovation in the field of pedestrian movement simulation and analysis. In 2010, he sold his business, quit the rat race, and retired early at the age of 38.

    He has a bachelors degree, a masters degree, and a doctorate. He is a perpetual traveler, a minimalist, a productivity geek, a peaceful parent, an avid reader of philosophy and psychology, and a marathon inline skater.

    A Critique of Jordan Peterson's Parenting Principles
    January 30, 2020



    One of the chapters in Jordan Peterson’s popular book “12 Rules For Life” relates to parenting. The chapter is called, “Don't Let Your Children Do Anything That Would Make You Dislike Them”. His main argument is that you mustn't be afraid to discipline your kids, even though they won't like it. As he puts it:

    Parents who refuse to adopt the responsibility for disciplining their children think they can just opt out of the conflict necessary for proper child-rearing. They avoid being the bad guy (in the short term). But they do not at all rescue or protect their children from fear and pain. Quite the contrary: the judgmental and uncaring broader social world will mete out conflict and punishment far greater than that which would have been delivered by an awake parent. You can discipline your children, or you can turn that responsibility over to the harsh, uncaring judgmental world—and the motivation for the latter decision should never be confused with love.

    Thus according to Peterson, if you fail to discipline your children, they will have a bad life because other people will punish them. How does his idea of discipline translate into parenting practice?

    Peterson recommends a series of principles for parents which sound reasonable and measured. However, there is a big difference between the title of each principle and how Peterson interprets them in terms of actions as a parent. As I will demonstrate, the way that Peterson interprets his principles does not at all follow from the principles themselves.

    Use of Force
    Peterson advocates using the least force necessary to enforce parental rules. This sounds reasonable. For example, if you've got a rule which is “don't hit or bites other kids”, then you should use the least force necessary to enforce that rule. That would clearly imply that as an adult, you should never hit your children because, if your child is hitting another child, the least force necessary to stop that from happening is certainly not hitting your child, or smacking, or anything like that. You can simply restrain your child. That is the least force necessary.

    But that's not what Peterson thinks the least force necessary means. Peterson is a fan of physical punishment; he thinks it is important and that parents shouldn't shy away from doing it. He says that you should use the least amount of physical punishment which he thinks is necessary. However, he explicitly sanctions using violence on children. Of course, he prefers the term spanking, but he sanctions physical violence against children. His arguments for this are frankly pathetic, especially coming from somebody who is a research psychologist who ought to know the literature on this subject, but who seems to have completely ignored it. Just to give you an example, Peterson says,

    we should note that some misbegotten actions must be brought to a halt both effectively and immediately, not least so that something worse doesn’t happen. What’s the proper punishment for someone who will not stop poking a fork into an electrical socket? Or who runs away laughing in a crowded supermarket parking lot? The answer is simple: whatever will stop it fastest, within reason

    Rather than be explicit in this statement, Peterson leaves the reader to draw his conclusion for him, which is that parents must use corporal punishment on children.

    Yet his conclusion does not follow from his premises. His idea is to use the least force necessary, which is never spanking. In this example of stopping a child from running away in a parking lot, the least force necessary would be to restrain the child by the arm and stop them from running away. The least force necessary would not be to hit the child. In the example of stopping a child from sticking a fork in an electrical socket, the least force necessary would be to remove the fork from the child. Of course, you could also put childproof coverings on your electrical sockets.

    One wonders what the parents are doing in his examples that allow such dangers to develop. What is going on beforehand that leads to a situation in which a child is repeatedly sticking a fork in an electrical socket? Where are the parents? Why does the child still have the fork? Why is it happening repeatedly? In order to bolster his case for parental violence, Peterson chooses dramatic situations of children acting out with no reference to parental responsibility in the lead-up to the problem. He does this because it is impossible to justify parental violence, so he must act as if parents have no role in creating the problem. Poor examples aside, the point is that Peterson is inconsistent with his own principle because at least force necessary is not corporal punishment.

    The False Dichotomy
    Peterson argues that the choice parents face is between either using physical punishment, or overlooking misbehaviour and leaving your child to their own devices. That's what he thinks the two options are for parents. On this view, either you neglectfully leave your child to run wild and stick forks in electrical sockets, or you discipline your child by physical punishment. This is a false dichotomy. (This question posed a dilemma to me when I was a new parent, I shortly realized that it is a total fake dichotomy that most lacking awareness will fall into. Seems Peterson is one of them, i.e. a classic product of bad parenting)

    Anyone can find non-violent alternative approaches to discipline within a few minutes of searching on the internet. I recommend Parent Effectiveness Training (PET) by Thomas Gordon and RIE, which is best expressed in the podcasts and books by Janet Lansbury. Peterson doesn’t provide a critique of these approaches, he simply ignores them.

    Peterson doesn’t address any of the arguments of academics or parenting specialists who advocate non-violent parenting, just as he doesn’t address any of the evidence on the harm of spanking. His book is written as if none of those arguments exist. Instead, he repeatedly resorts to rhetorical tricks to bolster his argument. He says “it is wilfully naive to think that you don't need to use physical violence on kids” and he calls it “wrong. Too simple.” These rhetorical techniques are ways of trying to dominate the reader into agreement through fear. When Peterson confidently asserts that his opponents are the naive ones, many will believe him. Who wants to think of themselves as wilfully naive?

    The reality is that Peterson himself is the wilfully naive to advocate physical violence in light of the massive amount of evidence on the harm of spanking. As Dr Noam Spencer explained, summarising 9 peer-reviewed meta-studies on the effects of spanking:

    The empirical case against spanking is strong, and made stronger by the absence of any empirical case in support of spanking. There is not one well designed study I have seen that links spanking to long term positive outcome.

    Spencer summarised the current state of research in the title of his summary article: “The Spanking Debate Is Over”. The empirical studies demonstrate clearly that spanking leads to negative outcomes including lack of impulse control, aggression, depression poor performance in school and worse health outcomes.

    Jordan Peterson is a psychology professor, he must be aware of these studies. He doesn't bother to refute them in this chapter or say anything about them. He just completely ignores them. This is either wilful ignorance or plain deceit by a psychology professor. Both are inexcusable.

    Parenting As a Pair
    Although there is much to criticise about Peterson’s advocacy of aggression against children, I agree with him about his principle that “parents should come in pairs”. Peterson emphasizes the fact that parenting is very stressful and that if you do it alone then you're more likely to lose your temper on your kids. He advocates empathy towards single parents, especially those who are single parents owing to circumstances out their own control. However, his point is that parenting is better when you do it in pairs.

    Peterson doesn’t go into detail about the evidence that supports this principle, but there is a wealth of empirical studies that show that children simply do much better in families that stay together. Long term statistical studies comparing the wellbeing of children raised in families that stay together versus children whose parents split up, show a clear benefit for children of having two parents.

    Therefore, if you want to have kids you should stay together because it is important for your kids' wellbeing. I don't have any argument with that part of this chapter except to say that it's interesting that Peterson didn't focus on this more. It is a well-established finding that parents who break up have a detrimental effect on their child’s development, so if Peterson’s aim is to improve the wellbeing of children, why does he deal with this topic so superficially and yet focus so much on sanctioning the hitting of children? As we’ve already seen, all the empirical studies show that corporal punishment is detrimental to kids, so Peterson’s focus is doubly strange.

    He merely mentions that parents should come in pairs, but I think this should have been his main argument. It is the only argument that he makes about parenting that is clearly backed by the evidence.

    Understanding Your Psychology As A Parent
    Peterson argues that parents should “understand their capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry and deceitful”.

    When I first read this principle, I thought it was an injunction to self knowledge. I thought that Peterson was going to argue that if you want to have kids, you've got to be aware of your own dark side and you have to be conscious of it. As a parent, you will be in a position of enormous responsibility. You must be aware of your capacity for aggression and you must control it. You must be aware of your potential to act out, and you must not do so. You can control it. We all have the capability of acting with extreme violence. We all have the capability of assaulting others every day and yet we don’t. We can control it. That's what I thought he was going to say. But his argument is very different.

    Peterson’s argument is that as a parent, you have to be aware of the fact that your kids might annoy you. Therefore, don't let your kids do anything that might annoy you because you're such an angry, vengeful person deep down that they will trigger you. In other words, Peterson thinks it is not the responsibility of the parents to stop themselves from acting out. His argument is the children must behave themselves because otherwise they're going to trigger the parents to act out. In Peterson’s mind, it is the children’s responsibility to be extremely well behaved in order not to annoy the parents because otherwise the parents will take it out on them. (This is important because it spotlights Peterson's propensity of seeing things from only self, from his perspective even his own children are 'others' ... This is sad)

    This is a bizarre inversion of responsibility by Peterson. Why is the onus on the children to be the more responsible ones? Given that the adults are supposed to have more capability of managing their emotions, Peterson has responsibility backwards. He thinks kids should be more adult than the adults! Peterson talks a lot about personal responsibility in his book, but he believes children should take responsibility for managing their parents feelings, not the other way around.

    I agree with Peterson that we all have the capability of being vengeful and deceitful. Peterson’s conclusion from this that children should take responsibility for their parents feelings makes no sense. Rather, the obvious conclusion is that parents have a responsibility to control their aggression and be vigilantly aware of their capability to act out.

    Peterson often advocates taking personal responsibility, and I agree with that aspect of his work. But taking responsibility also means taking responsibility for your feelings. Peterson is right when he states that we are all capable of being vengeful and that we all have a dark side. But that is not an excuse for putting the responsibility on your children to be more adult than you. His idea that children must behave because parents can't control their own dark side gets responsibility the wrong way around.

    Behaviourism
    Throughout his comments on parenting, Peterson advocates a psychological approach called behaviourism. He praises B.F. Skinner (the most important psychologist in the behaviourist movement) for having worked out how to get the behaviour you want using techniques based around punishment and reward. Peterson’s essential argument is that parents should use punishment and rewards on children in order to train them into positive behaviours.

    Within psychology as a whole, behaviourism has a controversial reputation. There are many criticisms of the approach, ranging from ethical issues to critiques of Skinner’s original overblown claims for how effective behaviourism can be. Particularly with regard to children, there are well known negative effects of behaviourism because the approach pushes children to be extrinsically motivated. Behaviourism trains kids to merely try to please reward givers, rather than internalizing values for themselves. Alfie Kohn’s book “Punished By Rewards” provides a summary of these criticisms. It is therefore questionable that Peterson uncritically advocates Skinner as an authority for parenting ideas, as if this were uncontroversial. He doesn’t bother to offer any defence of behaviourism or acknowledgement of the criticisms.

    Behaviourism’s main application has been in training pets. Nobody has to have kids. If you're going to have them, then it's immoral to treat them as if they are pets. That is what Jordan Peterson is advocating.

    Peterson has a problem: his core message to parents is to advocate the use of physical punishments and yet none of the main theories of child development lend any support to the use of violence on children. I think this explains why he has chosen to rely on behaviourism, despite the fact that Skinner didn’t really focus on child development and behaviourism has a distinctly controversial reputation, especially with regard to children. But behaviourism can be used to justify punishments and rewards.

    Peterson’s Psychology
    Peterson’s descriptions of his interactions with children are quite revealing about his attitude towards them. Peterson is a psychologist who often speculates on the motivations of others, so it's reasonable to point the camera back to him and explore his attitudes and beliefs about children. Here is a telling anecdote from his book:

    I remember taking my daughter to the playground once when she was about two. She was playing on the monkey bars, hanging in mid-air. A particularly provocative little monster of about the same age was standing above her on the same bar she was gripping. I watched him move towards her. Our eyes locked. He slowly and deliberately stepped on her hands, with increasing force, over and over, as he stared me down. He knew exactly what he was doing. Up yours, Daddy-O—that was his philosophy. He had already concluded that adults were contemptible, and that he could safely defy them. (Too bad, then, that he was destined to become one.) That was the hopeless future his parents had saddled him with. To his great and salutary shock, I picked him bodily off the playground structure, and threw him thirty feet down the field. No, I didn’t. I just took my daughter somewhere else. But it would have been better for him if I had.

    I presume Peterson was trying to be funny in making that comment about throwing a toddler thirty feet, but there is a definite seriousness underneath his dark joke about assaulting a child. He fantasises about doing an extraordinarily vengeful act to a small boy. I don’t find that amusing.

    I'm aware that Peterson didn't assault the toddler and that this was merely a fantasy. I'm also aware that it was probably supposed to be a joke, but Peterson argues that it would have been better for the boy if he had been thrown. What are we to make of that? Peterson supposedly advocates the principle of “mimimim use of force on kids”. Is his fantasy of throwing a toddler 30 feet down a field supposed to demonstrate his minimum-use-of-force thinking?

    Why did Peterson let this child repeatedly step on his daughter's hands in the first place? Surely the minimum use of force would have been to remove the child’s foot as soon as Peterson saw the boy moving towards his daughter's hands on the climbing frame. If necessary, Peterson could have lifted the boy off the climbing frame altogether (the boy was only 2 years old). Perhaps there would have been as a discussion to be had with the boy’s parents, which Peterson could have had.

    Peterson was the responsible adult in the situation and he failed to act in a timely way to diffuse the conflict. He cites the situation to show how aggressive the boy was (which he was), but this situation was also an example of failure on Peterson’s part to protect his daughter and stop the boy “repeatedly” stepping on her hands.

    Peterson often writes about the importance of establishing dominance. He writes openly about how he sees parenting as a battle of dominance and how important it is to immediately respond to any challenge. For example, he writes that “anger crying is often an act of dominance and should be dealt with as such”.

    He argues that since we evolved over millennia in dominance hierarchies, it is necessary to recognise the reality of such hierarchies within families. This means that when children challenge parents for dominance, parents must win the challenge. He uses phrases like “I prepared for war” when describing his approach to winning dominance over children. When describing how he made his son eat some food, he writes:

    I poked him in the chest, with my free hand, in a manner calculated to annoy. He didn’t budge. I did it again. And again. And again. Not hard—but not in a manner to be ignored, either. Ten or so pokes letter, he opened his mouth, planning to emit a sound of outrage. Hah! His mistake. I deftly inserted the spoon.

    It sounds to me as if Peterson enjoys asserting dominance over little kids.

    Evolutionary Psychology
    Peterson’s justification for his emphasis on establishing dominance is that he thinks it is important to recognise the findings of evolutionary psychology. We are products of evolution and ignoring our nature is unrealistic. The fact that we evolved in dominance hierarchies means that we can’t avoid them and should therefore assert them as parents.

    Even if we accept the idea that humans necessarily live in dominance hierarchies, this only implies that parents have a leadership role to play. Children require leadership and look to their parents to provide it. But being a leader does not necessitate the use of violence or aggression to assert that role. The fact that we evolved in a dominance hierarchy isn't excuse for abusing your leadership role. It’s not an excuse for hitting your kids, and using euphemisms like spanking doesn’t excuse it either. Good leaders do not rely on violence. You do not need to hit children; to do so is an unjustifiable act of aggression.

    Peterson’s emphasis on evolutionary psychology is also highly selective. He cites it in support of his ideas about dominating children but ignores the findings of evolutionary psychology that would inform other parenting decisions. For example, there are very good arguments for co-sleeping from evolutionary psychology. In our pre-history, babies never slept alone. It would have been incredibly dangerous to leave babies to sleep alone when we were in the hunter gatherer stage of our evolution (which was for the majority of our evolutionary development as humans). All children would have slept in the same place as their parents. But Jordan Peterson is certainly not an advocate of co-sleeping. He thinks children should be left to cry it out, and trained not to disturb their parents at night.

    Peterson’s advocacy of aggressive parenting is not a result of following evolutionary psychology, rather he uses evolutionary psychology to support only those arguments he wants to make, and ignores implications that don’t support his arguments.

    Rationalising Violence Against Children
    Of all the parenting issues that Peterson could have chosen to highlight as his main concern, he chose to advocate more physical discipline. His main argument on how to be a better parent is don’t hold back on corporal punishment.

    There are many problems facing children that Peterson could have chosen to focus on to improve the quality of parenting. Parents who break up their family have a lasting detrimental effect on their kids. Peterson mentions this, but only as minor topic. He totally ignores many other pressing concerns for the quality of parenting today. What about neglect? What about the huge number of kids who grow up without dads? What about the fact that school is often little more than a prison for children where they must stay for over a decade? What about the still widespread problem of child sexual abuse? What about barbaric practices such as circumcision? What about the epidemic of giving children drugs like Ritalin because they are so bored out of their minds in school that the only way to get them to conform is by giving them drugs? What about the huge amount of time that kids are stuck in daycare and the lack of time that parents spend with their kids?

    Peterson didn’t tackle tackle any of these issues. He chooses to focus on making an argument for why you should immediately counter any testing of your or authority by your children with old fashioned discipline, including corporal punishment. He's chosen to focus on that because he argues a false dichotomy that as a parent you either spank your child and as a disciplinarian parent, or you leave your child to their own devices and they become dangerously antisocial.

    Peterson doesn't say so explicitly, but we can infer from his arguments that he spanked his own children. He defends spanking extensively and doesn’t state anywhere that he has changed his mind or learned anything new since he was a parent himself. He is a psychology professor who discusses the topic of spanking without a single mention of the many studies that have demonstrated the harm that it does. The most charitable interpretation of this omission is that he is wilfully ignoring all of the evidence on the detrimental effects of spanking.

    Peterson’s advocacy of disciplinarian parenting are probably a post-rationalisation of his own parenting practices, and perhaps an excuse for what his own parents did to him. He probably thinks that he turned out fine, and that he has great kids, therefore everything he did was great, and therefore spanking is probably good too. In writing a long excuse for his own behaviour as a parent instead of focussing on the real problems that children face, he has done children and parents a disservice.

    Conclusion
    Peterson is the most intelligent and well-argued advocate of aggressive parenting that I’m aware of. Yet he makes no valid arguments for the use of aggression in parenting. He can’t, because there are no good arguments for using aggression on children.

    To make his defence of corporal punishment he had to ignore all the research literature on the bad effects of spanking. He had to rely on a controversial and outdated school of thought in psychology (behaviourism) as the only authority he could appeal to in trying to justify his aggressive style of dominance assertion against children. He had to ignore the entire field of child psychology, none of which supports spanking or aggressive parenting. He had to cherry-pick ideas from evolutionary psychology that seem to support aggression, whilst ignoring evolutionary psychology when it leads to promotion of practices such as co-sleeping. His arguments are so weak that he resorts to rhetorical techniques like asserting that anyone who disagrees with him is wrong and holds views that are “too simple”.

    Peterson’s chapter on parenting is called “Don't Let Your Kids Do Anything That Makes You Dislike Them”. But that that is a mealy-mouthed way of stating his views. He should heed his own advice and take responsibility for his views, which means not using the passive tense. His chapter should be titled “Don't Let Your Kids Do Anything That You Dislike Them Doing”, because that's what he is really saying. When you put it like that, it amounts to merely saying “Don't Let Your Kids Do Anything That You Don't Want Them To”, which is neither deep nor enlightened. It is merely a sophisticated excuse for indefensible aggression against children.
    If you had seen what I have seen, working in the child care industry, you would understand that there is no "one size fits all" approach to parenting. Also, children are extremely sensitive to power, for the most part, particularly little boys....that's a generalization, but it plays out often enough to make it reliable.

    There aren't that many people fit to be the best parents because they are not natural teachers, leaders and are somewhat boring. In our current social environment they are also super tired and stressed. If a child has a great parent, the child is exquisitely attuned to them and vice versa.

    If the child does something wrong and the parent registers the slightest disapproval, the child feels an immediate dimming of the life force and will work double hard to reestablish the strong connection that has been temporarily altered. Prepubescant children are like dogs. They worship their parents like Gods. It's a default position. But....it's very important to establish a dominance hierarchy, through different means and many parents who equate a mild spanking, (not bare ass) with real violence, are the least likely to get that and have probably never had a highly (and naturally) aggressive child who is sure to become a raging bully if the parents are unable to establish boundaries through other means.

    I think Peterson goes a bit far, but Jake Desylass is so soft and squishy, an aggressive little hard headed child would end up in the dominant position, right off the bat. People who say they would NEVER under any circumstance, spank a child, do the child as much of a disservice as those who regularly beat the difficult ones. Or, they have never experienced a truly impossible kid--one that will end up in jail without the right approach.

    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    That's true, perspective matters.

    This is a bit off-topic, but I have to say that I've always found Canada interesting. It feels like a cousin country of ours.
    Well Wind, It's cold, politically similar, the people are solemn in the winter. That's for starters!
    Last edited by Octopus Garden, 29th August 2020 at 20:38.

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  17. #39
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    well, that's interesting ... I think it is a bit more complex than even that. I agree with you for the most part and I was blessed with a sensitive girl child, so I never had to deal with that 'dominance' thing. Her mother is still fighting that battle as she is totally immersed in the 'dominance' thing. My approach was always that my daughter might have not been a fully formed human but she certainly was a human and I always respected her 'dignity' in that regard. I only had to discipline her once (i thought her behavior was egregious enough) ... I carried her out of Walmart when she insisted that she wanted something. It was the only time she ever misbehaved beyond what is the norm for most children.

    A troubled child will present troubling challenges, I am not well-suited for those kinds of interactions. I realized that dealing with my daughter's mother. Those are exceptions when 'dominance' is a pre-requisite to a successful parenting experience. As someone familiar with childcare I would suggest that many of the problems you might have encountered were already in full bloom by the time you entered the picture. Created by mis-parenting, not of necessity, bad parenting just parenting sourced in a philosophy that a child has to be molded to conformity, in lockstep with social norms. I don't believe that is a good foundation, I think a better foundation is to allow a child to explore their own nature while guided to treat others in a respectful and thoughtful manner.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    well, that's interesting ... I think it is a bit more complex than even that. I agree with you for the most part and I was blessed with a sensitive girl child, so I never had to deal with that 'dominance' thing. Her mother is still fighting that battle as she is totally immersed in the 'dominance' thing. My approach was always that my daughter might have not been a fully formed human but she certainly was a human and I always respected her 'dignity' in that regard. I only had to discipline her once (i thought her behavior was egregious enough) ... I carried her out of Walmart when she insisted that she wanted something. It was the only time she ever misbehaved beyond what is the norm for most children.

    A troubled child will present troubling challenges, I am not well-suited for those kinds of interactions. I realized that dealing with my daughter's mother. Those are exceptions when 'dominance' is a pre-requisite to a successful parenting experience. As someone familiar with childcare I would suggest that many of the problems you might have encountered were already in full bloom by the time you entered the picture. Created by mis-parenting, not of necessity, bad parenting just parenting sourced in a philosophy that a child has to be molded to conformity, in lockstep with social norms. I don't believe that is a good foundation, I think a better foundation is to allow a child to explore their own nature while guided to treat others in a respectful and thoughtful manner.
    Most children don't require spanking, like...ever. If they are obstinate and horrible, they are troubled. Something is wrong. You're right. There are a lot of sad little souls out there who are looking for a mother or father they can form a strong and healthy bond with. They don't get it from either parent. Children of extreme wealth and poverty have this in common and both are primed for narcissism as a consequence. It's a coping mechanism.

    I'm not sure what you mean by social norms. Do you mean parents whose focus is making sure their children are 'successful' ? Some of that is understandable -- but when is a parental exercise in Narcissistic status seeking, it's destructive. Narcissism tends to run in families. The golden child becomes the narcissist, the black sheep is usually the most emotionally healthy within an unhealthy family dynamic.

    But, some kids are born with a few psychopathic traits. Doesn't mean they are psychopaths, it just means they need a very strong, well informed parent who realizes what they are dealing with. If the parent is soft and compliant and the child is emotionally insensitive and callous, the child WILL rule and may terrorize their school mates and siblings. Different paradigms for different children.

    I have only been in charge of one budding pure psychopath, with all the signature traits. out of hundreds of children. He was a 9 year old sadist who tried to terrorize younger children. His parents were warm and kind people who I felt very sorry for. I knew that neither I nor his parents would ever be able to make headway with him, so I turfed him out of the latch key.
    Last edited by Octopus Garden, 29th August 2020 at 22:32.

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  21. #41
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    interesting dynamic ... seems like an intractable problem ... but I believe that psychopathy is learned AND parents are a likely source ... the psychopathic predisposition (I would say) is one of physiology more than personality ... fewer behavioral 'stops' in their makeup.

    I overemphasized the notion of 'social norms', it would be an extreme example, but still I believe that 'guidance' is the only requirement, not a hierarchy. It seems that a natural hierarchy exists between parent and child as long as it is not perturbed by parental actions.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Callous unemotional traits

    When Your Child is a Psychopath==The Atlantic

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...hopath/524502/

    Although the article claims the state found no evidence of emotional trauma, that's absurd. She was put up for adoption at 20 months and adopted out at 2 years of age. The severity of her condition hints at an underlying brain problem together with early disruption of a primary bond with attendant after effects. This is a really intriguing article. I couldn't put it down.

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    Seems is wasn't Russell who got under the skin here...

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    ... but I believe that psychopathy is learned AND parents are a likely source ...
    No, that's sociopathy. Psychopathy is a genetic/neurological predisposition. Sociopathy is an acquired one.

    Psychopaths are born that way. Sociopaths are made that way.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    really those are interchangeable terms. once upon time 'sociopathy' more recently 'pyschopathy'. of course, there are different schools of thought. And it is possible that there are 'natural born' psychos, I tend to not agree with that. We are all born 'little angels'. Dennis Rader (BTK serial dude) is an example of one who didn't seem to have any parental 'markers'. But he had a long history of sibling abuse and in my opinion subtle parental influences will foment such behavior. Perhaps, it is a tipping point to the susceptible personality. It is by far a not straightforward process.
    Last edited by Emil El Zapato, 30th August 2020 at 13:35.
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