“If a view of mine can be discounted as ‘over-reaction’ on the grounds that I adopted it as a result of ‘childhood problems’, then it follows logically that it could also have been discounted, for the same reason, if I had proposed it while I was still a child. And the same logic would apply to any child who ‘had problems’ and advanced any opinion at all about them.”
– David Deutsch
From the archives: Posted on 21st January, 1997
I had remarked:
“There is a passage at the end where Christopher Robin has to explain to Pooh Bear that he won’t be able to play with him any more because he has to go away to school for very important reasons. I can’t read it without wanting to cry.”
Doris asked:
“Do you have first hand experience? Was this type of incident, being sent off to boarding school at a young age, your motivation for adopting a ‘non-coercive’ approach to child rearing?”
When I first read this, I assumed that Doris was merely making the mistake of asking me to claim the authority of “first hand experience” to justify my comprehensive opposition to coercion in the education of children. Her later comments (see below) show that I was mistaken and that she had a different reason. However, let me briefly address that issue anyway.
By “motivation”, Doris means my feelings in response to the childhood experience of being “sent off to boarding school at a young age” (or whatever). But what role could such feelings have in the discussion of whether a particular view of mine is true or false? What could it possibly contribute to my argument if I cited such feelings in defence of my view?
Never mind what I felt, or feel, about it! My motivation for adopting this view is that I have become convinced, through argument, that its rivals are fatally flawed, and that Taking Children Seriously is a viable replacement. It is these arguments that I expect to sway other people, not any feelings I may have in regard to the conclusions. Plenty of people have powerful feelings, stemming from first-hand experience, in favour of all sorts of theories including very evil ones. But ultimately only the true ones can survive the test of rational criticism.
“Do you not see any conflict inherent in a philosophy which ascribes positive rights to children?”
This is an interesting question, but your discussion of it reveals again the mistake that Sarah has pointed out: that you systematically refuse to distinguish between coercive and non-coercive interactions between people. (And so it is hardly surprising that you misunderstand aspects of non-coercive educational theory.)
“A positive right requires someone to provide resources to implement the right. A negative right doesn’t.”
Yes. And you are asking how someone like me, who sees themselves as part of the Liberal or Libertarian tradition (which recognises only negative rights), can nevertheless assert that children have positive rights vis a vis their parents.
Note first that the issue arises only when consent between the parent and child has broken down. Now, why do children have the right to be fed by their parents if they fail to reach agreement on the issue? Because any failure to reach agreement about being fed has been caused by the parent’s voluntary actions (in having children and then raising them in a way that either gave them a justified grievance, or made them so irrational that they could not see that their grievance was unjustified—a disability that itself gives them a justified grievance). So in short, there are no positive rights a priori, but a person can, through their actions, acquire obligations towards another person. A bank manager taking your money is performing such an action, with the result that you acquire the positive right to demand that he produce a larger sum for you at some later date. A motorist who recklessly runs you over is performing such an action, with the result that you acquire the positive right to have him pay your hospital bills. Your parents who choose to bring you into the world and then make it impossible for you to agree to the way they treat you are performing such an action, with the result that you acquire the positive (moral) right to demand that they set things right with you.
“Attempts to enforce positive rights always end in conflict.”
Yes, but decent people do not wait for rights to be enforced. Decent people want to respect the rights of others. So it does not follow that non-coercive education must end in conflict.
“Violence or the threat of violence is inevitably required to ensure such resources are provided.”
Not at all, as I have just said. There is nothing inevitable about this. People’s wishes can ensure that they do what is right—indeed ensure it much better than the “threat of violence” that you imagine is inevitable (because you gloss over the distinction between wanting to do something and being forced to).
“Non-coercive parenting requires parents to refrain from making any demands upon a child in return for their efforts to raise him.”
Correct.
“The implication being that the child has more rights than his parents. Do you really mean to sanction superior and subordinate individual rights?”
That does not follow, any more than a bank customer has “superior individual rights” to the bank manager. It is their relationship, and the obligations that it gives rise to, that make it right for one of them to have certain duties towards the other.
“Is this not an overcorrection of the problem of children not being taken seriously?”
As I have explained, no. It is simply calling a spade a spade.
“Do you not see that conflict that will result, even between children, when such a philosophy is implemented?”
On the contrary, endemic conflict in close relationships is the inevitable result of not implementing it.
“Do you expect parents to overcome their natural instinct to protect their children from harm in life-threatening situations? Whether by direct coercion, or by barraging the child with ‘non-coercive’ conflicting theories, parents will instinctively use their full intellectual power to get the results they want.”
I deny that there is any instinct to get the results one (antecedently) wants. It would be a wholly irrational instinct. And if it did exist, I deny that it would be right to act upon it.
“Why pretend otherwise?”
You assume that non-coercive education cannot happen (and so must be a “pretence”). But all your arguments to this effect (except for this last sociobiological argument based on the premise that parents have an overwhelming, irreversibly entrenched coercive instinct) hinge on the confusion between voluntary and non-voluntary interactions.
“Children can sense disingenuous behavior. What they’ll learn is that adults expect and engage in hypocrisy. Parents may not be physically coercive, but they can still dominate through their superior use of intellect.”
They can, but they need not.
“Seems that some on this list [the email-based discussion forum we used to have] feel they lacked control over their life when they were children. Perhaps ‘non-coercive’ parenting is an over-reaction to these childhood problems.”
Finally we see the point of Doris’ asking for my ‘motivation for adopting a “non-coercive” approach to child rearing’. Doris believes she has cast doubt on the theory of non-coercive parenting by engaging in a bit of psychologising about me. She wants to consider why I adopted that theory, a matter which, as I explained above, can have no bearing on whether the theory is true or false. She says that my adopting it seems to her an “over-reaction” caused by emotions dating from my “childhood problems”. This is a plain old ad hominem argument, and is therefore invalid, but in the current context it has an additional, sinister aspect, which I feel obliged to point out:
The particular form of ad hominem argument that is involved here is the following fallacy:
X is a victim of Y, therefore X’s argument against Y can be discounted.
“He would say that, wouldn’t he?” And so on. So the victim gets dehumanised.
Now, I hope you can all see the sinister corollary of Doris’ argument, and all arguments of this form. If a view of mine can be discounted as “over-reaction” on the grounds that I adopted it as a result of “childhood problems”, then it follows logically that it could also have been discounted, for the same reason, if I had proposed it while I was still a child. And the same logic would apply to any child who “had problems” and advanced any opinion at all about them.
This is not merely a logical possibility; this sort of psychologising denigration of victims’ opinions is especially rife in regard to children. (Don’t give me that! You’re not ‘exercising your right to freedom of thought’, you’re just too lazy to come to Church with us!)
It is an instance of the “you don’t exist” tactic that I have written about before.
See also:
- We go forward with hope
- Not riding roughshod but satin-slipper-shod
- Misery-free treatment of a child’s lice infestation
David Deutsch, 1997, ‘“He would say that, wouldn’t he?”’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/he-would-say-that-wouldnt-he