Smack Smack Splat!

What the Fµ¢∇?  How £µ¢kïÑg Neanderthal can these humans be.  Now I haven't spelt the word "fuck" (oops) because people don't like stuff like that on web pages.  Well some do and some don't.  But the pretentious and manipulative attitude is to be shocked and horrified at such expletives.  Admittedly it doesn't do well in scientific theories and educational papers and there is a reason.  Expletives are emotional expressions.  Very rarely is the "F" word used to communicate the act of fornication in itself or of sexual intercourse in a loving marriage (there's an oxymoron for you).  So it is not informative or precise enough to use expletives when trying to explain detailed information in an educational context.

There is a reason for this.  Expletives assume a meaning, they don't describe it.  Expletives are typically part of "patterned" behaviour.  They are quick and robust ways of conveying assumed attitudes and beliefs.  They are culturally context sensitive.  For example "What is that paper doing on your desk?" is a simple question but "What the £µ¢k is that paper doing on your desk?" suggests it shouldn't be there.

A little aside; I once said to my 5 year old daughter "What (with a silent £µ¢k) is that doing on the floor?"  It was clear to me what I meant.  I was saying it shouldn't be there, I was accusing her of leaving it there and I was effectively saying "Pick it up."  She, not accustomed to all the assumed crap, simply looked at it, looked up at me and said, with a smile, "Sitting there."  I got it.  I was not asking the question but was rather forcing (or trying to force) her to "know" what I "know".  It is part of how prejudice works.  Saying something like "Anybody with a grain of sense knows hitting children is wrong." is manipulative and tricky.  In order to have an opposing view, that hitting children is not wrong, one has to deal with the projected logical corollary that you, therefore, don't have a grain of sense.  If that were the case then your opposing view would be invalid anyway.  That explains how these assumed perspectives are projected but expletives do it in an even less explicit way.

There is no question, as I have explained in another blog page, that hitting children is not a good idea.  But some people can't get their head outside of the blame culture, and because they have experience of when hitting a child seemed to them the best thing to do at the time they can't accept that in general it is not a good idea.  But sometimes we do things that are not ideal.  So if hitting children is wrong then the person doing the hitting must be punished according to our blame culture.  Hence you get laws which have ridiculous consequences.  If you are going to have rules of law without justice then a law stating that hitting people is wrong is simply divisive.  It is controllers trying to unfairly impose their will on other people.  Personally I think it is a fine law to say that bashing children around is not legal.  I think it is primitive and paradoxical to have laws stating that you can't even touch another person let alone hit them so long as they are an adult but that it is perfectly legal to bash children.  However, if, as a consequence of this you legitimise an authority kidnapping children, breaking up families, and psychologically abusing people then you have got it all wrong and out of proportion.

I suspect that, in line with the good old Judaic tradition we might consider the approach of an eye for an eye in this case.  So if there is a legal case to answer where a parent is accused of hitting a child then the same punishment should be applied to the parent.  That makes it proportionally more reasonable.  If you think that to save your child from being run over by a bus your best action was to hit them then you would presumably be quite willing to accept an equal hit (in your child's interest of course).  But if you were the sort to regularly punch your child would you be willing to receive a punch every time you did it?  Oh, and just to keep things in proportion the punch should be proportionally in scale.  In other words if you punch a child with a mass one sixth of your body weight with the force of a four pound bag of wet sugar at a speed of 15 miles per hour you should be hit with 24 pound bag of wet sugar at a speed of 90 miles per hour.  Oh, and you get to keep the kid as well :)

A recent poll suggested that 33% of Conservatives smack their children, 26% of Labour supporters smack their children and only 15% of Liberal Democrats smack their children.  I regard Conservatives as self satisfied sanctimonious control freaks.  I regard Labour supporters as treacherous to their own cause because they actually support the status quo of the hierarchy and I regard Liberal Democrats as having good ideas but not having the ability to either understand their own ideas or to do anything constructive about them.  So I guess these figures make complete sense to me.

I find it interesting that the perception of "hitting children" is usually within the context of less sophisticated or lower class people.  But it is the Conservatives (the upper/middle class political arena) which wants more of it.

And to finish off with an almost unrelated joke:  What goes "TAP TAP SPLAT!"?  Answer:  A blind man crossing the road.  And a variation on the theme: What goes "SLAP SLAP SPLAT!"?  Answer: (the clean one) A parent chastising their offspring before they are run over by the bus.