harsh realities
Hm. Some things I wanted to touch upon in this entry are things that I've been thinking about for some time now. I've been attended domestic violence counselor training every Saturday and Monday for three weeks now because I am working to become a state certified counselor for non-profit organizations. The sessions are quite long and I believe that
( Read more... )
As for the whole corporal punishment thing, I don't think I would outlaw it entirely as there was a campaign to in this country. I may not agree with certain theories or approaches to parenting but if they don't cause the child to suffer detrimental health consequences (read: cuts and bruises), and are actions simply to discipline a child, make them know that they have done wrong, then I can't say I think that's something that should be made illegal. To limit any ambiguity, I'm only talking about 'clips round the ear' and such. It seems pretty obvious that there should be no use of things like belts though, it seems that giving that the OK just puts kids in the position to be hit 'a little harder than intended'.
It's a difficult one to comment on further because I've never had to bring up an unreasonable self-centred emotionally volitile capricious demanding infant myself, which is certainly something which would be helpful to inform views on this!
And in no way does the law protect the mental well-being of the residents. There is no way. If I were to take a current abusive boyfriend to court because he made me want to hurt and kill myself, there would almost be a 0% chance of prosecuting him because there has been no physical violence.
I caught a couple of bits of a programme on this recently, about women who have been targeted by aggressive and abusive stalkers (often former boyfriends). One women played back the messages on her mobile phone that this guy had left, and they were the typical ultra-abusive violence-threatening messages that unhinged aggressive men say. Yet even though these messages were calculated to instill as much fear and anxiety as possible, using crude but often effective psychological techniques (i.e. claiming to know what the women is going to do [call police, run away and change name &c.] before quickly making it clear that they do not care at all, at all, and that they are utterly helpless), these women couldn't really get a lot done to these men. Not until they actually start physically trying to break the door down, for example.
Often women end up getting killed by the men who threaten to kill them. So there seems to be a similar inadequate with the law situation here.
it is not always the husband that's abusive but also [mostly] the mother-in-law and/or sister-in-law.
I'm amazed.
I'm amazed for different reasons, but then again I guess that's not necessarily surprising. It's a relationship that can often be imbued with jealousies and spites.
Reply
HAHAHAHAAAAAAA!
Yeah, I totally look white.
Except for my skin color, my hair color, my eye color and, oh yeah, did I mention my skin color?
That's very strange... I can't think of any good reason for that. Whos ends does it serve?
Isn't there quite a variation in skin tone across the subcontinent though? I seem to remember hearing that fairer skinned people were seen as more beautiful in India, I seem to recall most of the religious art I've seen as being of a fairer skinned Asian tone? Or it could be some colonial myth.
I then realized that organizations, companies and agencies could manipulate statistics all the time so that it will work towards their favor. Some of the causes can be truly good causes. For example, my consultant for QUEST says that the stats for the prevalence of abuse is that 1 out of every 3 girls/women get abused sometime in their lifetime. Now, here is the catch: how do they define "abuse"? Is it physical abuse? Is it repeated beatings/thrashings? Is it that one-time-he-called-me-a-bitch-and-whore? I am in no way doubting the integrity of the organization--it's a great place to get training--but I think it's a good example. That statistic is overwhelming. Do we believe it? Or do we disregard it as another biased statistic?
That is the trouble with stats like that, the term 'abuse' is contested (does my advocation of the non-illegalization of very limited corporal punishment count as an advocation of legalized child abuse?) and if it isn't defined people start asking the questions you are now. Because of course statistics sometimes go against common views on a subject, so whatever guess you had a go at would be more or less what you thought was happening anyway, so it wouldn't do it's purpose and tell you something new. I'm pretty much repeating what you said back to you because I agree, but it is five in the morning :)
And this in turn, leads me to question: what can I truly believe? What kinds of evidence is accurate and legitimate? Can we ever really tell?
I only feel I have partial answers to those questions myself, so that's why I'm reading Truth - A Guide for the Perplexed, by Simon Blackburn at the moment. I might have more ideas when I've finished it.
Reply
I think if your beliefs cohere then there's a reasonable chance of it being an at least passable representation of reality. Reality itself doesn't contradict itself, so if your ideas do not contradict themselves, and if they're checked regularly against reality with evidence from your senses (i.e. the sciences, history etc.) you're likely to have something rooted in at least some truth. Or something along those lines. You might have some core beliefs near the centre of your worldview which if substantially incorrect would make your view of reality somewhat scewed, and those tend to be the kind of questions that philosophy deals in, and the ultimate explanations given by science, among others. These deserve a lot of attention and thought I think. So a Christian Dominionist is in serious trouble, believing a lot of false things right at the heart of their worldview - you can always be sure your view of reality is considerably closer to the truth than theirs, at least :P
I think in terms of everyday position forming, I just tend to shy away from having strong opinions on things I don't know much about. I think it's good to weight the strength of your positions on how much you know about them. A lot of day to day opinions can be held quite strongly by pretty much everyone because we're all citizens of the world - positions on whether or not X should have talked to Y in situation Z, what the best television programmes are, why queueing is annoying &c. I think with other things you need to learn something about it before holding any strong opinions. If you limit yourself to holding quite strong views on things you know lots about, and weaker ones on things you're less familiar with, even if you do hold wrong beliefs, you won't hold them strongly, and thus are open to more evidence - which means you're always open to being lead closer to the truth of the matter, following where the argument leads.
We're inevitably going to believe lots of false things. But we can avoid (as far as we are able believing them passionately.
Reply
Yeah, I agree with what you say about disciplining your child. Kids can be a big handful sometimes (I learned that while volunteering at a daycare) and it would come to the point where I had to grab their arm, drag them up into a standing position and drag them to a corner. I felt bad about this at first but when I saw the teachers doing it, I realized it had to be done. Kids aren't going to listen to you if you just yell at them.
Well...maybe if you have a really scary voice.
Yeah, it is sad. I learned in my training that the most dangerous time for a woman is right after she tries or actually does break up with a boyfriend/husband/whatever. Just yesterday, I read about a case in which a 15 year old was killed by a former boyfriend in another school around here. He killed himself after, too.
Isn't there quite a variation in skin tone across the subcontinent though?
Oh yeah. There's brown as in almost-looking-black and then there's brown like dark-tanned brown. Fairer skinned people ARE seen as more beautiful but those kinds of people are very rare. All the art, movies, etc. only display the idealized "Indian", and it's not necessarily reality.
I just tend to shy away from having strong opinions on things I don't know much about.
I think that's a very good way to be because judging things before you even know them is a really, really stupid things to do. Yeah, what you say is very true and that made me feel loads better because, to put it bluntly, you're right. :)
And that sounds like a very interesting and deep book. Yep. *nods*
Reply
Leave a comment