From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jul 05 2003 - 19:08:15 MDT
Randall writes
> Let me get this straight. You're aware that people who are sent [to
> Tranquility] have committed nothing except resisting being told what
> to do? One person was sent here for having the wrong boyfriend.
I must hasten to add, again, that there is a huge diversity of
cases, and that I am choosing to address only the fraction in
which were I to understand the situation much more fully, I would
sympathize with the parents.
We agree totally in those cases that the parents would be
unable to get sympathy from family councilors and experienced
judges of human character. I hope that you are, as I am,
entertaining the most extreme cases that you can think of.
> > How in the hell could she lay there hour after hour, day after day,
> > without saying, "Just how stupid could it be for me to have gotten
> > myself into this situation? Exactly what was so important that this
> > had to happen?"
>
> How in the hell could they punish her with solitary confinement for
> 'hour after hour, day after day, without saying, "Just how stupid could
> it be for[...]' us to kidnap and punish this woman for being someone
> other than who we, her tormentors, want her to be? Why would you blame
> the victim, here, Lee? Do victims of other crimes also bring it all on
> themselves?
Sorry to repeat---I do grant that you probably acceded to my
request in the previous paragraph. But the custodians are being
paid by the parents, so you really mean, 'How stupid could it be
for the parents...', and I contend that there are cases in which
what the parents are doing is not unreasonable.
> > Even this article, which was written from the perspective of someone
> > who finds everything about this to be somewhat abhorrent, admitted
> > that in some cases, the resulting people and their parents are quite
> > happy about the eventual outcome. Deep waters here, IMO.
>
> I would imagine (though I'm not a psychologist or doctor) that this
> is equivalent to "Stockholm syndrome". If you allow the process to
> continue to completion, you get a model serf. If you rescue the
> individual halfway through, you get an angry victim who'd love to
> press charges. In a free society, rescuing these people halfway
> through would be a fine business opportunity.
So far, you have restricted yourself to criticizing the actions of
the parents and their employees, and for that I commend you. By
now, most commenters on your side would be proposing that force be
used to prevent parents from taking these steps. As I hinted in
my reply to Eliezer, this induces a great irony: the state may be
permitted to apply force, but not the parents.
Yes, it may resemble the Stockholm Syndrome in many ways, and citizens,
indeed, should always be free of such coercion. Observe my peculiar
breakdown of the situation:
Entity External Agent Ought the EA be permitted to
use force against the E?
Species another species N/A
Nation another nation N/A
Adult State N
Child Parent Y
Beware generalizations. Don't embrace principles that would also
imply that the neighbors can come in and keep you from harming
yourself for your own good. Be careful where you draw the lines
of what an individual is.
Also, I do not think that you can produce, even considering all of
history, an example of a functioning society in which children's
legal rights equaled those of adults.
Lee
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