Elliot Temple

From: "Liza Sabater" <liza@...>

[Asked for explanation of what TCS is]

The website is www.tcs.ac

From there you can find articles, an email discussion list, a web-based
forum, an IRC chatroom, and an FAQ.

The main premise, IMHO, is that parents must act morally. I feel
everything else follows from this. For example one part of acting morally
is not initiating force (or coercion, I think they are synonymous) against
*anyone*. This would include one's own children most of all, parents
should be treating them BEST. Another part of acting morally is to obey
obligations (breaking contract is force). Creating rational, concious
entities entails certain obligations, so parents must respect these. etc
etc

Here's something I wrote:

TCS

Says you can raise your children without doing anything to them against
their will.

Is non-coercive. Rejects initiation of force, ever.

Rejects compromises in favor of common preferences.

Rejects all forms of authority which are really induction in disguise.

Rejects self-sacrifice as a failure.

Parents only self-sacrifice when there is a FAILURE. It's the parents not
the kids b/c the situation where the failure in common preference finding
occured was created by the free choices of the parents, not the kids.

Kids are not "allowed" to do things because parents have no right to allow
or not allow things in the first place.

Parents are trusted advisors.

Rejects "natural" consequences.

Recognizes that preferences are mutable.

Recognizes that all people, including, especially, parents are fallible.

Realizes that parents have a lot of bad, entrenched theories and seeks to
minimize the transfer of these bad theories to the next generation.

Is firmly based in Critical Rationalism, with a lot of credit to Karl
Popper. Knowledge growth comes through Conjecture and Refutation. Coercing
people is harmful and disrupts their knowledge growth.

Does not treat parents and children as fundamentally different, except that

parents do have some obligations to their children, and children tend to
lack knowledge so parents give lots of advice.

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/28/02 6:16:44 PM, curi@... writes:

<< Rejects "natural" consequences. >>

Good luck on that one.
It's like defying gravity.

<<Recognizes that all people, including, especially, parents are fallible.>>

Parents are fallible, but there comes with parenting (IF people don't reject
it as unnatural, or care more about the neighbors than their own instincts) a
very strong instinctive care-package. When parents have really nurtured
their awareness of their children's needs, they are NOT "especially
fallible," but are tuned into their children in a way they will never be
tuned into another person again. It is possible to ignore any instinct--our
culture is largely based on the repeated lie that human instinct has been
extinguished. But for those who go first with their hearts and LATER consult
a rules chart, there is a bond between parent and child. And to find
"morality" on a website instead of inside seems to me to be the last resort
of someone who went shopping for a philosophy.

Sandra

Did the founders have really shitty childhoods? Or is that also secret,
privileged, or allegedly irrelevant?

Sandra

Elliot Temple

From: <SandraDodd@...>


>
> In a message dated 4/28/02 6:16:44 PM, curi@... writes:
>
> << Rejects "natural" consequences. >>
>
> Good luck on that one.
> It's like defying gravity.

Notice the quotes.

If you go to http://www.tcs.ac/Articles/index.html

you can find (among others) the following articles all in a row slightly
down the page:

Unnatural Consequences

Questioning Natural Consequences

Natural Consequences and "Enabling"

Unhappy with Natural Consequences

-- Elliot

PS Flames are not appreciated.

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/28/2002 5:16:42 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
curi@... writes:


> The main premise, IMHO, is that parents must act morally.

Oh please. I consider many of the things I've heard from TCS people to be
immoral. One example. I have spoken to TCS followers who have said: "We
offered our best theories" on tooth decay to our little 2 yo Benjie and our
little Benjie listened and decided never to brush his teeth. So he hasn't
brushed for the last 5 years and now his teeth are in very bad shape and
really hurting and rotting and so we have offered our best theories about the
benefits of a visit to the dentist but little Benjie has decided not to go to
the dentist so we're letting him make that decision."

This is NOT hypothetical - I've seen similar situations posted umpteen times
on the TCS list.

Two, three, and four year olds are NOT capable of projecting such current
decisions into the future repercussions of those decisions. To let them make
such decisions is immoral, imo.

One thing I resent about TCS is that parents who are REALLY doing a great job
- parents who have bucked the trend of trying to manipulate their kids by
reward and punishment, parents who do NOT spank or shame or even punish their
kids, parents who are incredibly respectful and thoughtful and considerate
and who work WITH their kids and do NOT have an adversarial relationship with
them - it accuses these parents of all kinds of nasty-sounding things like
engaging in force, induction in disguise, failure, etc.

--pamS
Some of what is said here may challenge you, shock you, disturb you, or seem
harsh. But remember that people are offering it to be helpful and what feels
uncomfortable to you might be just what someone else needed to hear.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 4/28/02 10:48:02 PM, PSoroosh@... writes:

<< One thing I resent about TCS is that parents who are REALLY doing a great
job
- parents who have bucked the trend of trying to manipulate their kids by
reward and punishment, parents who do NOT spank or shame or even punish their
kids, parents who are incredibly respectful and thoughtful and considerate
and who work WITH their kids and do NOT have an adversarial relationship with
them - it accuses these parents of all kinds of nasty-sounding things like
engaging in force, induction in disguise, failure, etc. >>

Except for the "incredibly" part, our family is kind of a model of a good
unschooling family. I've had impatient days, but I apologize well. All the
kids have had really grumpy days, and guess what? They apologize sincerely
and on their own.

But it's true, I have seen other families scorned and insulted on AOL and
other homeschooling discussion places, and when families tell what they have
actually done with their own children that turned out well, or things they
did that they would like to have done differently, there's never been a
"you're getting warm," only full-on "That is coercion."

And when the put-down comes from someone who only wants to vaguely say "WE do
it better, and we do it the only right way," but won't tell who they or their
kids are, where they are, how long they've been doing it, what they did
before, why they've come to this, whether there are any long-term
practitioners or kids who can speak to their responses to it, the answer is
another round of scorn.

If someone were saying "Pecans cure cancer, ignore all you've seen or
experienced about cancer treatment, all those treatments are criminal
violence, just use pecans the way we tell you to," but all who wrote the same
thing in almost the same words refused to tell whether THEY had had cancer,
whether they knew anyone who was in remission and maintenance because of
pecans, etc., *why* would anyone want to read more?

The rhetoric of TCS is cold and sometimes seems nonsensical. Their
rhetorical stance and tone remind me of Atlas Shrugged, in which capitalists
are sexy and glorious, while socialists (or democrats who raise money for
social causes) are portrayed as weak-minded dupes. If the author refused to
be known and refused to share WHY she felt that way, and whether there was
anything beyond fantasy to her theories, it would be worth less than it is.

So here is another strongly-presented set of characterizations where the
"audience" is given no peek at examples, no background on the leaders and
authors, and insulted if they question. Not only is coercion defined in a
particular and narrow way, other words and terms shift too. And that
"morality" business is spotlighted a bit. Here are a few quotes:
[all notes, punctuation, italics, ellipses, etc. are intact from the original]

-=-
Why do my critics never say of TCS people, “don't pass judgement on them”?
Why do they not say of the children being beaten, “don't pass judgement on
them”?! (N. B. in this context, “pass judgement upon” is a euphemism for
“use violence against”)-=-

-=-Let me elaborate on that. I'm not saying we are obliged to set right all
evil in the world. We are merely obliged not to collaborate in it. If you see
the neighbours beating their children, there is, on the whole, no moral
obligation upon you to do anything about that-=-

<< Do you (and others) think you should speak out each and every time you
witness the “beating” (coercive behavior)?>>

<<Who would our kids play with – or who could we ourselves associate with –
if we alienate conventional parents with our strong beliefs in morality? Not
that I think that we could not hold these beliefs even if we didn't want
to.... not like one can just get tired of believing that coercion is harmful
and immoral behavior wrong, and simply decide to believe differently.... >>


(four quotes above from http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tcs/Articles/SLTolerance.html
)
--------------------

"Beating" and "coercion" are used interchangeably, it seems. So (it seems,
perhaps) that if a family can become calm about another family cajoling
(beating) they can remain *morally* aloof from a neighbor child screaming for
help from being struck by an adult with a belt or stick. No difference, I
think the response would be (judging from some past conversations).

Sandra