History of post ‘Unwanted Protection is Oppression’

Revision 2 · Mar 13, 2024 9:28 pm UTC · View this (the most recent) version (v3)

Correct idea attributed to Lulie Tanett

@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ For example, when I was little, I was *persuaded*, not forced, that brushing my

Or maybe smoking isn't bad; maybe our parents were wrong. Maybe showering once every few days is better than every day. Maybe not brushing one's teeth one night isn't the emergency many parents worry it is. Or maybe, just maybe, the child should get to pick his own criteria and place other considerations above his health, as adults do routinely. The way to figure these things out is through *open, critical discussions* rather than force. The openness of such discussions is characterized by, among other things, the willingness to change one's mind. Parents often lack this willingness, whereas fallibilists would rather fail to persuade than use force. Therefore, with some rare exceptions, a parent's use of force is always at least an implicit claim to infallibility.

These exceptions are defensive and emergency situations in which unsolicited protection *is* appropriate – for example, if your child is about to be run over by a car, or if he's about to stick a fork in an outlet. In such situations, it is not only appropriate but morally necessary that you yank him back to safety. But emergency ethics are [different from everyday ethics](/posts/when-can-parents-use-force). The proper role of a parent is not that of protector but, as Lulie Tanett from TCS has said, that of someone who helps his children -reach+by their -goals.+own lights. Sometimes, that involves protecting them – but whenever this protection is unwanted, it comes at the cost of thwarting -their goals+them and so cannot be consistent with the parent's proper role. When children do dangerous things carefully, as Jordan Peterson puts it, you should let them.

Parents typically have better intentions than governments or private protection rackets such as the mafia, and the punishment isn't death, but the effect of their oppression is similar, in principle if not in extent. Many children face the problem of how to survive their oppressive homes, and parents and other adults often justify their oppression of children by claiming that children cannot meaningfully consent anyway. That isn't true. Children are very good – often better than adults – at refusing the unwanted and making their refusal known unmistakably clearly, e.g. through what ignorant adults call 'fits' and 'temper tantrums', until this ability is [tortured out of them in school](/posts/the-true-purpose-of-schools) and they place others' preferences above their own. Also, adults get to do things they don't fully understand. For example, they can buy cigarettes even if they don't understand the negative health effects of smoking.

Revision 1 · Oct 03, 2023 9:25 pm UTC · View this version (v2)

Link to article on parenting and emergencies

@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ For example, when I was little, I was *persuaded*, not forced, that brushing my

Or maybe smoking isn't bad; maybe our parents were wrong. Maybe showering once every few days is better than every day. Maybe not brushing one's teeth one night isn't the emergency many parents worry it is. Or maybe, just maybe, the child should get to pick his own criteria and place other considerations above his health, as adults do routinely. The way to figure these things out is through *open, critical discussions* rather than force. The openness of such discussions is characterized by, among other things, the willingness to change one's mind. Parents often lack this willingness, whereas fallibilists would rather fail to persuade than use force. Therefore, with some rare exceptions, a parent's use of force is always at least an implicit claim to infallibility.

These exceptions are defensive and emergency situations in which unsolicited protection *is* appropriate – for example, if your child is about to be run over by a car, or if he's about to stick a fork in an outlet. In such situations, it is not only appropriate but morally necessary that you yank him back to safety. But emergency ethics are -different+[different from everyday -ethics. (This is a Randian insight applied to child rearing, which I hope to write more about in the future.)+ethics](/posts/when-can-parents-use-force). The proper role of a parent is not that of protector but, as Lulie Tanett from TCS has said, that of someone who helps his children reach their goals. Sometimes, that involves protecting them – but whenever this protection is unwanted, it comes at the cost of thwarting their goals and so cannot be consistent with the parent's proper role. When children do dangerous things carefully, as Jordan Peterson puts it, you should let them.

Parents typically have better intentions than governments or private protection rackets such as the mafia, and the punishment isn't death, but the effect of their oppression is similar, in principle if not in extent. Many children face the problem of how to survive their oppressive homes, and parents and other adults often justify their oppression of children by claiming that children cannot meaningfully consent anyway. That isn't true. Children are very good – often better than adults – at refusing the unwanted and making their refusal known unmistakably clearly, e.g. through what ignorant adults call 'fits' and 'temper tantrums', until this ability is [tortured out of them in school](/posts/the-true-purpose-of-schools) and they place others' preferences above their own. Also, adults get to do things they don't fully understand. For example, they can buy cigarettes even if they don't understand the negative health effects of smoking.

Original · Sep 26, 2023 7:23 pm UTC · View this version (v1)

# Unwanted Protection is Oppression

> % source: *The Hateful Eight*
> % date: 2015
> % link: https://youtube.com/shorts/JcfHoMAkO4w
> John Ruth: I'm gonna take your gun, son.
> Joe Gage: You are?
> Ruth: Yes, I am.
> Gage: I feel kinda naked without it.
> Ruth: Oh I still got mine. [*Reveals the gun on his belt.*] I'll protect you.
> Gage: [*Laughs.*]

Many children and teenagers don't get to make their own movie-viewing decisions. They are prevented from watching certain movies if they aren't 'old enough' – not in their own eyes, but in the eyes of lawmakers and adults around them.

This understandably frustrates them. While movie ratings are (presumably) designed to protect, they are oppressive instead: it's a kind of protection children are seldom allowed to refuse. It thus violates their autonomy and agency. If a movie really is bad for a child, it should be easy to persuade him of that – and, failing that, he should get to watch it; he should get to make the mistake, if it even is one, and then learn from it. The adults in the child's life should be his friends, not obstacles. Luckily, children often find other ways to watch what they want, but then have to do so secretly and lie.

The same age restrictions extend to video games as well. The idea is that games depicting violence might harm children. The games children do get to play are often restricted by arbitrary screen times, both in blatant disregard of their property rights and, in some cultures, in reference to the false claim that their eyes will turn into rectangles – not cubes, but *rectangles!* – if they stare at a screen for too long. (Even if adults don't understand the difference between two and three dimensions, they must know this claim to be false, but that doesn't stop them from enforcing screen times.) Bedtimes are also enforced rigorously for some children, which has similarly oppressive effects, although the intention is to protect them from the harms of not getting enough sleep.

The titular idea of this post, that unwanted protection is oppression, builds on this quote from *Taking Children Seriously* (TCS):

> % source: Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 'The social, educational, economic and political oppression of children'
> % date: 1991
> % link: https://takingchildrenseriously.com/the-social-educational-economic-and-political-oppression-of-children/
> It is usually taken for granted that the best way to protect children, both in law and in education, is to override their wishes for their own good, for instance by preventing them from doing things that they may regret later. I shall criticise this assumption. I shall argue that while such policies are intended to protect children, the effect is to oppress them, and that any policy whose effect is to disregard children’s wishes in regard to their own lives, is likely to harm children.

One particular example from my childhood should clarify further what I mean. I was over at a grade-school friend's house; we were playing a game with small plastic figures. The details of the game aren't important here – suffice it to say that, at the end of each round, the winner got to keep all of the figures used in that round. Normally, you'd bring your own figures to wager, but I hadn't. My friend and I both agreed that we still wanted to play; we both understood that he might lose all of his figures to me while I could not lose any to him at all; and yet we decided that it was worth the fun of playing the game.