Sunday, April 27, 2008

"Religious freedom" is an oxymoron

In every conflict, as emotions get involved, the participants tend to descend to the lowest common denominator. Conflicts may begin about issues, but the rise of emotions triggers a descent into personal attack and mean-spiritedness. As a result, all participants fight on the level of the lowest attack. The values about which we fought are set aside for the sake of "winning" the battle. As we behave so do our values change to match our behavior. We become that which we hate.

When we go to war with religious bigots, the worst danger is that we become like those we fight. Their worst brings out our worst; their intolerance for us becomes matched by our intolerance for them. In the end, we fight them on the lowest common denominator, which is their emotionally-based intolerance for us and for freedom.

Mark Twain (I think) said something like "My right to swing my fist stops at your nose." He points out succinctly and validly that all freedom we grant one another is limited. It is limited by the need to avoid impinging on the liberty of others. In other words, our freedom is constrained by rules which maximize the total amount of liberty and freedom for our group. These rules are difficult to balance, and the balance we wish to attain changes from time to time. It is only in America, however, that we have placed the maximal balance of personal freedom with group rights at the very top of our list, our highest value. Whatever else we believe, we are a free people and we believe that freedom for everyone is the highest personal value. We have a right to be proud of that.

When we have found that we were not acting in accordance with the highest principles of freedom, we have changed our behaviors and our laws to bring us back into balance. No other country has done what we have done. We have even extended our values to provide that balance of freedom to defeated enemies. We have had failures, but we have righted many of them and are righting more. We move in the direction of increasing maximal personal freedom for everyone within our range of influence.

Freedom is a higher value than religion, in that freedom includes the right to disagree with religious beliefs of any kind. When any religion asserts that its beliefs have a higher priority than our freedom, we have a problem. Can we allow any religion to assert its right to limit the freedom of non-members? When a religion is allowed to limit my freedom, its fist no longer stops at my nose, and our freedom has diminished.

What is now happening in our own military in Iraq is concerning for a number of reasons. I refer, of course, to the demonstrations of intolerance by Christians for non-Christians within the military, including persecution, harassment and bullying. The temptation to descend to the lowest common denominator is increasing. In fighting religious fanatics, there is the urge to descend to that level, matching their intolerance with our own. As a result, we are no longer entirely fighting for freedom, for the assertion of the importance of individual rights, but for whether our form of intolerance is better than their form of intolerance.

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Monday, April 21, 2008

Withholding cooperation from children

Children don't realize and parents forget how dependent children are. Even 15-year-olds need to be fed and have their clothes washed and a ride to the mall. They tend to take these things as givens, that they are entitled to all kinds of benefits from us. "I didn't ask to be born", an adolescent might say, as if that proved some kind of parental obligation. Neither did we ask to be born, either, and since nobody in the history of the world did, this argument is not particularly compelling.

Most parents operate on a "punishment" basis, by which I mean they assume that their children are entitled to all the privileges they can legally manage, and that when a child misbehaves one or more of those privileges should be removed. When we punish by removing a privilege, there is rarely much connection between the misbehavior being punished and the removal of the privilege. To the child, they are simply being punished.

An alternative method is the "reward" method. In this approach, a child has no privileges other than basic ones, food, clothing, medical help and shelter. Every additional privilege has to be earned, and the privilege earned is always related to a specific behavior. An adolescent might earn late-night privileges on the weekend by demonstrating specific kinds of reliability during the week, such as being on time with chores. A child might earn time on video games by getting homework in on time on a daily or weekly basis, or might earn extra privileges for showing respectful behavior to the parents.

There are many advantages to the second approach, but one of the disadvantages is that the parents have to spend considerable time thinking about what they want to teach and how they want to relate privileges to specific behaviors. It takes time to figure out what a basic level of privilege they want their children to have, and to change that appropriately as the children age. In addition, they have to keep track of what's going on, and that takes more time and attention. Punishment, on the other hand, is quickly dealt out and quickly over, and rarely teaches much of anything useful other than to keep one's head down. Most children prefer punishment regimes, since the punishment is over quickly and the child can get back to doing whatever they want.

I suspect many parents have trouble just saying "no" to a child, especially when the request is a reasonable one. We all want our children to like us. We want them to be friendly, to not make waves, to allow our complicated lives to be easier. Why be a "tough" parent when it's so easy to "give in"? Parents who "give in" have over-privileged, over-indulged and overly entitled children, and that's bad enough when they are still children, but it's really awful when they're 17. They have sold out, given up on demanding respect in order to get accommodation and liking. They end with neither being liked nor being respected.

Changing values in relationships

Changing our behaviors changes our values and our feelings. It doesn't matter, comparatively, what we think consciously when we actually make different or new behavioral choices. The change in behaviors powerfully shifts our values, and with them our feelings.

Couples make many compromises in their preferences in order to "fit" better together. Each compromise shifts the person's internal value set, even when the change is clearly not for the better. One member of a partnership may be abusive; to the extent that the other partner changes their own behavior to be more compliant with the abuser, the compliant partner's values and emotions change in the direction of Victimhood. They find their own submissive behavior less and less ego-dystonic. If enough time passes, the Victim may hardly remember being assertive or self-protective.

Couples then begin to resemble each other to the extent that they have compromised and adjusted to the preferences and values of the other. In clinical psychology we recognize a mental disorder (folie a deux) in which a healthy partner married to a person with a paranoid disorder becomes more and more paranoid themselves, even to the point of delusional beliefs.

Older couples become more similar over time, for better or for worse. It's important to remember that our compromises, even healthy and adaptive compromises, change us in the direction of our new choices. "Temporary" changes become permanent. We can't change our behavior without our values and ideology changing with them. So people that enter a dysfunctional relationship, hoping to "change" it, will certainly find themselves changing as well, in the direction of the dysfunction.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Disciplining Children

We all seem to get caught up at times in confrontations with our children, especially teen-agers. They do something we don't like, and when we try to deal with it we often find ourselves locked in a power-struggle. The battle becomes about who is in charge and must be obeyed, like a pair of 8-year-olds in a fight. As the older and the parent, we believe we can enforce our will, like that of the neighborhood bully.

As a result, the fight becomes about the power issue, not about whatever was done wrongly by the child. Lines are drawn; the chip is on our shoulders and we dare one another to knock it off. Meanwhile, the real issue, whatever it was, has been lost in the smoke and turmoil of battle. Win or lose, we end up being defined by our children as the "bad guys", the evil bullying villains who want to deprive them of their liberty. This is always the problem with “punishment” as a problem solution; it creates many more problems than it solves, especially with people older than 6.

I want to propose an alternative way of looking at this kind of conflict, and to do so I want to back up a little and ask us to rethink what it is we are trying to accomplish. Are we using this issue to establish (again and temporarily) our absolute authority? Are we trying to enforce limits that the child does not accept as valid? Consider as an alternative that we should be trying to teach the child to think clearly for himself, to teach good problem-solving techniques and that to solve a problem cooperation may be required between us and the child rather than a solitary exercise of power..

Suppose, for instance, we have a teenager without a driver's license, who, during the night, took the car keys and went for a "joy ride" in our car. The teenager is not covered by our accident insurance since he isn't licensed. When we are ready to deal with the problem, what can we expect?

Firstly, the teenager will attempt to defend and justify himself, perhaps even counter-attacking, since he may choose to see our confrontation as an attack on his independence, competence and self-hood. Much of the time, I regret to say, when I had to deal with these issues with my own (now grown) children, I handled it poorly, which is to say, with the usual head-on battle for power. The usual shouting and threats were as useful as they always are, that is, not at all. We all know that punishment simply increases fear and anger on both sides, and while such battles can be exciting they are absolutely ineffective at resolving issues. Punishment simply avoids dealing with the problem because it is easier to punish and be punished than to think, and it's also more gratifying in an unhealthy way. Many children (of all ages) prefer to provoke an “authority” into anger and/or punishment, not only because it defines the parent as the villain in the fight, but because the parent very often feels guilty when they over-react, and then are much easier to manipulate.

Later in my life, raising children for the second time, I began to rethink this entire issue, and have begun developing some alternative ways of dealing with conflicts with children. Now, as a great-grandfather, I have continued to observe and refine my thoughts, which I hope you may find useful in avoiding the ineffectiveness and frustration which we so often find in dealing with children.

In my hypothetical example, suppose that instead of confrontation, I had done something like this: I tell him to sit down with me quietly. I say something like "We have a problem. Your taking the car without permission creates several problems for me, and I want you to help me solve them."

"Yeah?" he says doubtfully.

I get out a piece of paper and a pencil. "Tell me what you think the problems are." I prepare to write things down.

"I don't know", he says, sullenly.

"I think it might be easier for you to think this through if you didn't have to do it face to face with me. I know you expect me to get mad and let you have it, or find something wrong with everything you say. How about you sit down somewhere and write down your thoughts about this problem, from your point of view as well as mine. My intent is to work something out with you that we can both live with, and it's going to take some thinking. Just let me know when you're ready for us to discuss this or if you need any information from me."

And then I leave the room (with the keys, of course). The first issue to be dealt with is the definition of the problem or problems. From my standpoint, I need to know where my car is, and I need to know that we are covered by insurance. I further need some assurance that the car will be available and undamaged when I need it. Finally, I need to know that my property rights will be respected.

From his standpoint, he needs to have some freedom to go places, see people, feel like an empowered adult, all of which I want him to have as well. He didn't ask to use the car, not because he is a "thief", but because he didn't think I would give him permission to use it. He probably has a pretty good idea why I wouldn't give permission to use it, even though he doesn't want to admit that.

The second issue(s) to be dealt with are the solutions to the above problems, solutions for both his AND my problems, and moreover solutions that represent fair compromises that deal with the reality issues without getting into punishment. First the problems have to be defined. His problems as well as mine have to be examined and treated with respect. Until he is willing to be clear with me, we can't go forward.

How would I enforce my demand, if he is not cooperative? I have lots of options, since I don't require that he like me every minute. I can refuse cooperation with him, refuse to drive him places, refuse to provide other privileges until he is willing to talk with me. I'm in no hurry, and refusing to provide him with privileges is not so much a punishment as it is that I'm responding to a relationship he is defining as uncooperative. If he comes up with a realistic appraisal of the problems in 5 minutes, that's fine with me. If it takes two months, that's OK too, since it's up to him, not to me.

I found that putting this idea into practice involved some additional issues. For instance, in the example, the young man might offer to solve the problem by “giving his word” that he won’t take my car again. I would respond to this (and other equivalent “quickie” solutions) by saying that I would be willing to accept his solution. I would then point out that if he didn’t keep his word, I would not accept that solution again, for that problem or any other. I would use the occasion to emphasize how an overly general “solution” can become useless if not honored.

The point is that I take the problem seriously enough to recognize that I can't solve it alone, and that I need to develop an approach which recognizes his needs as well as mine. I'm sure he would prefer to have me get angry and punish him. That way he can comfortably see me as the bad guy and ignore his disregard for my problems and needs, or the problem he has caused me. It would all be over with, he thinks, and his life will return to normal, and in addition I'll probably feel guilty for the punishment and overdo the forgiveness.

But actually thinking and solving problems is hard work, and I need to teach him all I can about solving problems through thinking instead of feeling. I can teach him control and respect by showing control and respect. I can teach him about boundaries by respecting his and my own.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Who speaks for Job's dead wives?

I listened to a minister of a major church yesterday talking about a story from the Old Testament, the story of Ruth. In the story the Israelites had had a number of years of poor crops and bad harvests. But they had prayed to God, who had "heard their prayers" and granted them a good harvest, for which they were ever so thankful.

I wonder, does anyone hear how absolutely bizarre this sounds? If all you want to hear is about the "goodness" of God, and how he responds to prayers, then you probably wouldn't see the huge contradictions built in to the story. Who gave the Israelites all the years of bad harvests in the first place? Why did He wait for years to give them a good harvest? Are we expected to believe that something was special in their prayers in the seventh (or whatever) year? Were they not humble enough before?

This story is like hearing about a bully who has for seven (or however many) years been mistreating and beating people up, but after a number of years the people he has been beating up beg him in a heartfelt way to stop, and he stops beating them up. Then the people are grateful and worship the bully.

Unless you believe that God was not in charge of the bad years. Then we have a different set of questions. Who was in charge of the bad years? Did God let that person be in charge or was God off having lunch with friends? Why did God let someone else manage the store? Why would he let the Israelites, his "chosen people", be managed by an incompetent or evil manager? And why would he wait for humility and prayers to resume his post?

Another example comes to mind. You will probably recall the story of Job. Job was a God-fearing man with a good farm, many wives and healthy children. He was doing just fine. However, God and Satan are chatting over a pint and a bet is made. The bet, by Satan, is that anyone could worship a God who does good stuff, but what happens when the going gets tougher? So God gives Satan freedom to do whatever he wants to poor Job, who is taking care of business and minding his farm and who doesn't see any of this coming. Satan destroys everything, killing everyone and everything in sight, and poor Job is next seen sitting in the ruins of his house with absolutely nothing, just sitting there scraping at his boils with a fragment of broken pottery. Long story short, Satan tries to get Job to renounce God, but Job refuses to do so, so Satan loses the bet and has to buy the next round. As a reward for his fidelity, God restores Job's farm, gives him new stock, wives and children to replace the dead ones.

What is usually overlooked here is how this story would play out if it were being told by the dead wives or the dead children. What kind of a deal is that for them? They get killed and replaced like poker chips in a GAME by God and Satan. I see a certain inequity in God's handling of his faithful, since one clearly has to assume that the dead wives and children were Israelites and believers.

My point is that few of the Bible stories make any sort of rational sense. People taking them as literally true are left with an arbitrary Universe in which neither faith nor fidelity make any sense or any difference. Is some modern Bible-story writer going to tell a story of how the Israelites in Nazi Germany were punished by God for something or another? Is it going to be their fault, and the survivors supposed to be grateful for being saved?

Who will speak for Job's dead wives and children?