History of post ‘Unwanted Protection is Oppression’

Revision 2 · Mar 13, 2024 9:28pm · View this (the most recent) version (v4)

@@ -1,56 +1,56 @@
# 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.

After a few rounds, I was doing well and had won a number of his figures. His mother, who must have overheard us, did not like this outcome and stepped in, redistributing the figures to her son and instructing us not to play anymore. We *both* protested but she wouldn't listen. Her unsolicited sense of justice regarding the value of a few plastic figures was more important to her than our consent. Her intention was to protect her son from the negative turn the game had taken for him, but she merely replaced it with the much worse effect of bullying him.

The phenomenon of unwanted protection resulting in oppression goes beyond child rearing. It's a universal problem in human relationships. The setup I have described – two consenting individuals being thwarted by an unwanted authority – should ring a bell. Take minimum-wage laws, for example, put in place by the government to protect low-skill workers from (both imagined and real) exploitation. I'm not an economist, but I understand that such laws artificially increase wages in certain industries, resulting in fewer people being hired, either because businesses cannot afford to pay the higher wages or because the cost outweighs the benefit. As a result, even those who would happily take the job at a lower wage are legally prevented from doing so. Overall, fewer people end up employed than would otherwise, all else being equal. The effect is the same: the unwanted protection of low-skill workers by the government results in their oppression.

Redistribution, unwanted union representation, the war on drugs, protection rackets (including taxation), and COVID policies are all instances of this same problem. The quote from the movie *The Hateful Eight* with which this post begins refers to the issue of the ever-increasing curtailment of gun rights in America: where a stronger party takes away a weaker party's gun at the threat of violence in exchange for the promise of protection, even if (though regardless of whether) the weaker party would rather protect himself and in blatant disregard of his property rights. The real motive? Control. The punishment for disobeying by refusing this 'protection'? Death.

Historically, 'protection' has been used as an excuse to commit all kinds of atrocities. Dependent countries and regions are often called 'protectorates' even if they didn't request any protection from their occupiers (note how the word 'from' has two meanings in this context). In World War 2, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland [to 'protect' Ukranians and Belarusians](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Invasion_of_Poland) from the German advance it had secretly agreed to previously. During Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland, a small part of Czechoslovakia's northeastern borderland was given to Poland, ["ostensibly to 'protect' the local ethnic Polish community"](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Czechoslovakia_(1938%E2%80%931945)). Hitler then established the 'protectorate' of Bohemia.

Religion is another example. In colonial times, missionaries forced their religious beliefs onto innocent 'savages' to 'protect' them from hell. The list goes on.

To be clear, the unwanted protection does, in some cases, 'work' in the sense that it shields its victims from the specific negative outcomes it was designed to shield them from, albeit poorly. The Soviet Union did 'protect' Ukrainians in eastern Poland from Germans, at least initially. A parent 'successfully' forcing his child not to smoke does protect his child from lung cancer, in a way. But this 'protection' comes at the cost of oppression, immorality, harming the relationship between parent and child, and a whole slew of other negative consequences that are unpredictable beforehand. It doesn't have to be that way. A child can be *persuaded* that smoking is bad.

For example, when I was little, I was *persuaded*, not forced, that brushing my teeth and showering are good and necessary; that one should shower once a day and brush one's teeth at least twice a day. I then did those things happily and routinely. I was also persuaded that smoking is bad.

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.

Generally speaking, the oppressor's 'trick' is to impose an unsolicited service such as protection which, on the surface, only a ['crazy'](/posts/crazy) person would refuse. Once he does refuse it, even if reasonably so, he is then indeed labeled crazy and seen as unfit to make his own decisions. In this regard, some parents are worse than the mafia, because the mafia doesn't consider business owners who resist their coercion 'crazy'. The state is the ultimate bully, however, as it punishes parents whom it deems negligent – not just in the genuine sense of the word but also in the sense that such parents do not 'sufficiently' oppress their children. The underlying misconception here, as I've learned from discussions with adherents of TCS, is the false dichotomy between coercion and neglect: a parent who does not 'protect' (i.e. coerce) his child sufficiently is deemed neglectful. Most parents share this misconception, and thus coerce their children with the best of intentions and without any further instruction by the state – often even more so than is legally required, as Sarah Fitz-Claridge [points out](https://takingchildrenseriously.com/the-social-educational-economic-and-political-oppression-of-children/). For example, "[t]here is no legal requirement to deny children access to information in the home, yet many parents go to extreme lengths to do so" (and then accuse their children of lacking the requisite information to make their own decisions).

For example, I've seen a video where an adult presents a child with two mutually exclusive options: a couple of Oreo cookies or $100. The child enthusiastically chooses the Oreos. Comments on the video were in agreement that this is why children shouldn't get to make their own decisions. I disagree. First, the adult did not make an effort to explain why $100 might be better than two Oreos. Liking Oreos, and not knowing what $100 can buy – including more than two Oreos – choosing the cookies is, in fact, a reasonable choice, even if we might disagree. But even if it were an unreasonable choice, the child should still get to make it. Maybe the child could have been persuaded that $100 could buy him even more Oreos later. But maybe the child wouldn't have wanted more cookies, or wouldn't have deemed the wait worth the extra cookies. Crucially, why would adults consider this kid competent enough to make his own decisions only if his decisions matched theirs? Isn't that the opposite of making *his own* decisions?

People have different preferences and value different things, and adults routinely make the same 'mistake' (in their eyes) as that child choosing Oreos. I've mentioned smoking. To a non-smoker like me, choosing a drug over one's health sounds to me as bad a decision as choosing cookies over $100. (Actually worse, since good health is worth much more than $100.) But we don't all have to share the same preferences, and even though I believe I'm right about smoking being bad for your health, that doesn't mean I should get to coerce smokers. Yet that's essentially what the commenters were implying when it comes to cookies. From a Popperian perspective, named after the epistemologist Karl Popper, they were also discounting the *growth of knowledge*: some of our decisions today will seem outrageous to people living in the future. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't get to make those decisions, much less that some well-meaning authority should thwart our ambitions and manage our lives for us.

In summary, what all of the given examples have in common is that the protection in question cannot be refused. In other words, the 'protector' has no [*regard for consent*](/posts/is-sanctioned-force-still-force). Adults who 'protect' children, and politicians who 'protect' citizens, in the ways I have described, are not protectors at all. They're oppressors. The ability to reject unwanted protection is key.

A simple 'thanks, but no thanks', in spirit if not in form, should suffice. If it doesn't, you know you're dealing with an oppressor.

Revision 1 · Oct 03, 2023 9:25pm · 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 7:23pm · View this version (v1)

> % 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.