People are born tyrants

When you live in a sociopathic society, such as the current version of capitalism that we live in, there are naturally produced more sociopaths [and psychopaths]. This goes to the highest level, e.g., former PM of the United Kingdom, the late Margaret Thatcher, said publicly that "there is no such thing as society". 

Such public figures are, literally, monsters. They contribute, deliberately, to this sociopathic regime. However, even monsters need to believe in themselves. This takes the form of ideologies like evangelical Christianity and the like.

These fundamentalist ideologies justify the sociopathology and even treat it as normal. So you have fundamentalist Christianity, fundamentalist Islam (e.,g., Wahhabism and Salafism) and fundamentalist Judaism (Zionism). Heck, there is even fundamentalist atheism. Just look what happened in the USA with the murder of 3 college students yesterday.

Children naturally grow out of such things. The process is called socialization.

Performance artist and BDSM activist  Madison Young wrote that parenthood is "the largest power relationship in my life". And of her daughter "she is a demanding dominant, one who I am happy to serve".

All I can say is "yup".Particularly when it comes to our second one, the gal who wants to be a boxer. No idea where she got that from.

Thing is, once they can stand up on two legs, the dynamic switches pretty fast. Someone much smarter than me gave me some advice about dealing with all the squalling, and the urge to throw them out the window: "It is our job to set the boundaries, and their job to test them."

Very true. I survived parents who allowed me to play with an open can of gasoline. That doesn't mean I want to follow that example. I think growing kids appreciate limits in areas where limits are important, and freedom in areas where freedom is important.

 

Henry Giroux, who writes about social tyranny and the related pschology, etc., has a very interesting related piece.

Death-Dealing Politics in the Age of Extreme Violence

Henry Giroux wrote:

With the social contract all but dead, children no longer count for much in a society that makes virtues out of self-interest and greed, and measures success almost entirely in terms of the accumulation of capital. Under the regime of a ruthless neoliberalism, children and their working-class families have become the new casualties of a system that brazenly disdains the rule of law, compassion and a concern for others. Systemic inequality has become one of the weapons now used not only against working families and the middle class, but also in the war on youth....

One disturbing example of the sordid, ideological logic ... they were against funding President Obama's free community college program because it would increase the deficit. The appeal to austerity as a rationale to punish children, eviscerate the social state and redistribute wealth upward to rich elites has become an oft-repeated defense that serves to legitimate economic injustice and the transformation of "a world in which political economy has become a criminal economy." (4) It gets worse....

 ... they are not simply dumb or morally vacant, though many of them appear rather thoughtless. Instead, they are pawns of corporate power and have sold themselves out to the highest bidders. Their power is dependent on doing the bidding of the billionaires such as the Koch brothers, oil companies, banks, corporations and other financial behemoths. They are not stupid; they are corrupt and this suggests less a lack of intelligence than the workings of a systemic form of predatory capitalism, which fosters iniquitous class-based relations of power that do great harm to both the US public and democracy itself. The new extremists that now control the US government are the new warriors of authoritarianism, proudly implementing the ideologies, values and policies of a failed state now in the hands of the financial ruling classes.

...Under the existing regime of market fundamentalism there has been a weakening of social values and a hardening of the culture that makes it easier to live in a world in which demonization replaces compassion, a self-righteous coldness eviscerates the radical imagination and the bonds of trust are replaced by bonds of fear.

...As the bonds of sociality and social obligations dissolve, every human relation is measured against the yardstick of profit. Retribution and punishment now replace any vestige of restorative justice just as low-income and poor, urban youth of color are offered jail rather than a quality education and decent jobs. There is no discourse of empathy, morality and justice under the regime of neoliberal authoritarianism.

Social pathology on a mass scale cannot help but create more individual pathology. A sociopathic heaven.

 

Seeing as even the cute baby threads aren't safe, I guess we are all going to hell, or some nasty Sartre play (for the anti-theists who will get apoplectic at the thought).

 

I'm cat and plant sitting right now (though I'm not staying at my friend's house; I live close by and have my own cat and my own work, precarious though it is - which means a lot of job applications and contract searches). Funny, people always ask me to sit their cats and plants, but I never get asked to human-child sit. Wonder why that is?...

Fuckety fuck, it is snowing again. Disgusting white shite.

I know this is in banter, but I can't let my thoughts on this thread title slide.

I don't for one moment believe that people are born "tyrants", or as is the more common term according to this mode of thinking, "savages". It's a fundamentally conservative belief system that holds that people are born fundamentally evil, and that it's only the rules of society, and the threat of punishment, that prevent us from commiting things such as murder, theft, and other undesirable acts.

This ideology is used to justify all manner of punishment, from spanking, to incarceration, and capital punishment. The religious belief that those who don't repent their sins pay for them through eternal damnation in hell, stems from this mode of thinking.

As someone who belives that human beings are born fundamentally good, that each of us has a unique gift to offer this world, and that evil stems from the corruption of society, I want no part of this mode of thinking.

I don't otherwise object to the content of this thread.

I took the "tyrant" thing to be a joke, actually. But the fact is kids do take control of your life in a way most kidless people simply cannot fathom.

Left Turn wrote:

 As someone who belives that human beings are born fundamentally good, that each of us has a unique gift to offer this world, and that evil stems from the corruption of society, I want no part of this mode of thinking.

But you've just substantiated that binary mode of thinking.  After establishing the ideal disposition, i.e.: good, this becomes the benchmark by which people are judged, and by that, obviously not everyone can measure up and so they become less than good, and assigned various names that society attributes to the 'less than good.'  To say everyone is born 'good' is derived from a thought process imposed upon by the surrounding culture, because we've already defined what is good.

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_instinct

Slumberjack wrote:

...and even then there are ways out aren't there? 

More easily said than done.

Many people, most often single mothers, wind up having their lives changed by pregnancy. And there isn't always a clear way out for those affected by it.

But on the attributing intent? I agree. Not to draw too much of a parallel, but people tend to blame biting dogs too, rather than the people involved in the situation.

 

 

 

 

Actually, I heard somewhere years ago that house plants like Mozart. Maybe that would have a calming and relaxing effect on the child. Or you could try elevator music.

Left Turn wrote:

As someone who belives that human beings are born fundamentally good, that each of us has a unique gift to offer this world, and that evil stems from the corruption of society, I want no part of this mode of thinking.

A few thoughts on human nature and goodness from the demise of Sun TV:

Human nature I believe is the sum of our naturally selected instincts, in that, what can be seen as good characteristics of and by an individual equates to what is good collectively, because human survival was advanced collectively.  We could not have otherwise survived.  So there's good in that sense, and in an individual sense certain contributions or ideas can be thought of and advanced toward the communal good, but obviously an emphasis on individual gain at the expense of others is quite useless to us as a species.

bagkitty wrote:

Pondering wrote:

[...] Yesterday I played music on my laptop and she was terribly confused. She was looking all over the place until I turned it off. Then I realized she was looking for the video! I will do it again today. I fear this child has been deprived of the classics. I think we should start with the Beatles.

Not sure that is the best of ideas, you run the risk of turning the wee sprog into a consumer. Much better to provide her with the means of producing her own music... might I suggest a wooden spoon and a metal mixing bowl? Also helps develop hand eye coordination and an understanding of cause and effect. Come to think of it, percussion instruments are my traditional choice of gifts for a child's first birthday - this does not necessarily make me popular with their parents. (Second birthday, out of tune horns for them to blow in.)

Being exposed to a variety of music can only be good for children - it certainly was with mine!