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At the risk of beating a dead horse I feel like this is another case of the "leviathan-shaped hole" rearing it's ugly head because to me the obvious answer to "How does a prosperous society combat insidious 'compassion'?" is via "charity" but I also recognize that "charity" has a very different meaning to liberal-brained people than it does to non-liberal-brained people.
A week ago there was a post about parenting that feel like kicked the same ant-hill and that I wanted to reply to but couldn't because I was sitting out a ban.
The short version is that specific choices don't matter much. But attitude matters a lot. To that end a point where I've found myself at odds with members of my family and other parents my age is that I don't want to be my kids' friend. I am their father and my job is to tell them "no, you don't get ice cream unless you finish your veggies". My job is to tell them to "stand up straight shoulders back, chins up". Am I doing this because I'm an asshole? Maybe. Am I doing this because I hate them and want them to suffer? Fuck no. I'm doing it because I give a shit. I'm doing it because I want them to be better, and while it may be 10 - 15 years early to tell I think it's working. I can already see a difference between my kids and my nieces/nephews and their peers/classmates. I am prepared to embrace the possibility that I am the "bad guy" and may be better for it.
One of the common failure modes of liberalism is to assume that being good means being nice when the truth is that sometimes the best and most compassionate thing you can do for someone is to tell them "Get your fucking shit together dude"
There's a whole 'nother story I want to get into here, but it's getting late and I should probably call it. Have a good night.
This calls to mind "The only Theodore Dalrymple article anyone reads", as Scott Alexander described it. It starts:
Thanks for sharing. It's depressing to read about his patients. Surely, after twenty years of beatings and still not escaping, you and your broken brain chemistry actually enjoy it?
I also didn't see the author suggest that his patients are nonjudgmental because they know they themselves are deeply flawed, which means it's far safer to proclaim oneself above judgment in either direction. The accomplished and strong woman doesn't find herself in the same situation in part because she doesn't live in a glass house and so can readily cast stones.
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I'd argue you can be a figure of authority and discipline for your children, but still be their friend as well. You can go too far in either direction.
For instance, if the only way you ever interact with your children is to discipline or scold them, that's too harsh and likely not good for them. Likewise, if you only ever act as their friend and never discipline them, well, look at America nowadays and you'll see the issue there.
Now I'm not a parent so I don't have the personal insight, but I'd always imagined the goal is to strike a balance.
I'm not saying I don't love them, and I'm not saying I'm not "friendly", telling bad jokes and playing Super Smash Bros with them. But a man can only serve one master and when push comes to shove one must choose between being the friend and being the authority figure.
Very true. Especially when they’re young. Glad to see we’re on the same page old man.
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No dude, that's America nowadays, everyone trying to find a balance between being a parent and being a friend. People think back to their own childhood where dad was just this hard ass who appeared after 5 every day to whup you for whatever your mom said you did wrong and associate their parents checking out with parenting (apathy = aloofness = authority, hence the apathetic anti-authority that is everywhere these days, we hate authority because it wasn't fair to us as kids but still perform it the way we were taught to) and resolve not to do that to their own kids, so they befriend them.
But kids get an indefinite number of friends throughout their lives, they only get one dad and one mom. And those two figures shape how you see every other person you meet. Your dad becomes your model of authority and your mom becomes your model of empathy, an emotional anchor. This whole weaponised compassion thing is from a similar source imo - when dads were working 60 hours a week everyone became atheists, and when dads were taken out of the equation altogether empathy became the highest authority.
A kid needs their dad to show them who God is, what ultimate authority looks like. Ultimate authority is not your friend, can not be your friend, because friends get compromises and compromises destroy authority. If you want to be a good father you have to be willing to sacrifice everything for your kids, and the most important sacrifice you can make is to sacrifice your wants and desires - including the desire to have a good, friendly relationship with your child. It will feel like cutting a body part off, but that's how you know it's necessary - it only hurts you. Your kid won't be hurt by you deciding to be a father over a friend, only you will - it's a you thing, not a you and your kid thing. That is a much tougher sacrifice to make than any amount of time or luxury goods, and therefore a much more powerful sacrifice.
I'm skeptical. The typical F500 CEO has at least half a dozen direct reports and probably averages fewer than 2-3 hours of face time with each direct report. Yet the direct reports presumably are modeled much more by theses 2-3 hours with the CEO than however many hours they spend with their own direct reports or assistants. I agree absent fathers won't have much influence, but fathers working 60 hour weeks can and should impart sufficient modeling and influence compared to SAHMs.
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, but I'm not sure where we disagree. I think everyone becoming atheists wasn't great for society, but it's not catastrophic like the love is God cult.
I should say, I think every generation fucks up their kids in a different way. Even a generation that somehow did everything right during their development would have unintended negative consequences, because those kids still need to rebel against their parents at some point, to sever the drawstrings and enter adulthood. Beyond that, how do you decide where the cut off of responsibility is? I think it's fair to say that parents are only responsible for their children, but that they also bear some responsibility for how their children's children come out - their parenting being the guide for their children's parenting, and if their children parented in a way that is opposed to their parenting, then it was in reaction to their parenting.
Please pretend that last bit made sense.
Happy thought: if you believe nature > nurture, then the generational fucking up is merely par for the course at conception!
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