“[F]riends may influence my decisions, but that doesn’t imply that they intend to punish me if I don’t follow their advice, or even that they want me to do anything other than what I prefer.”
– Kevin Schoedel
From the archives: Posted on 26th November, 1994
[This old post is for historical interest.]
Tim Starr writes:
“I agree with Sarah about the evils of coercion, but I’m afraid I’m in the camp she considers to have an unduly narrow definition of the term. In defense of my use of the word, I’ve consulted 3 dictionaries thus far, including Black’s Law Dictionary, and all agree that an essential part of ‘coercion’ is physical force or the threat thereof. As an alternative, I suggest she substitute ‘influence’ in place of ‘coercion’ to refer to all the things she wants to include in the category.”
I’d rather argue substance than terminology, but I think “influence” would be misleading. For instance, I would say that advice I ask of friends may influence my decisions, but that doesn’t imply that they intend to punish me if I don’t follow their advice, or even that they want me to do anything other than what I prefer. So I think the term “influence” would lead to confusion, and in particular inspire many straw-man arguments. Conversely, my favourite dictionary defines “coerce” as “to compel by force, intimidation, etc., especially without regard for individual desire or volition”, in which I think “intimidation” captures all of the ways that parents can pressure their children beyond simple physical force or threat thereof.
“Why would attempting to influence children to do what they don’t want to—without force or threat thereof—be necessarily bad?
[1] Because they don’t want to. [2] Because “influence” in this sense (including all the things that Sarah’s editorial mentions), covers all sorts of ways to hurt or threaten. What difference does it make whether there is physical force? Even the nastiest child-beaters assert that the “value” of physical pain is secondary to the associated humiliation.
“Why wouldn’t it depend upon the goodness or badness of what the children are being influenced to do?”
The ends justify the means?
“The argument that ‘I, as the parent, have to pay for their mistakes’ is easily solved: don’t pay for their mistakes if you don’t want to. If you don’t want to pay their dental bills if they neglect their teeth, then make that clear to them ahead of time and stick to your position. Let them pay (or not) for their own dentistry.”
I think this again addresses slightly different questions—about minimum standards for a parent’s behaviour.
I’m more interested in how best to relate to children. I would rather assume that parents have the best of intentions toward their children, and take up the task of arguing that non-coercion is best.
See also:
Kevin Schoedel, 1994, ‘Intimidation called “influence”’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/intimidation-called-influence