"Anarchists" who don't recognize children as equals

[Noleaders]

Wrong. People who have children divert resources that would help the rest of society, and become more and more dependent and enslaved to the dominant hierarchies. Society is not helped by people having children.

I think you may be breaking windows here francois. If people have children that increases the number of people who will one day be contributing to society.

[Francois Tremblay]

... which does not nullify the facts I already mentioned, especially since there is no inherent value to us in having more people in the future.

[Noleaders]

I didnt say there was an inherent value in having more people in the future, just pointing out that having children doesnt divert resources away from society.

[Francois Tremblay]

That's a preposterous position to take.

[Yarrow]

african prince, i think you misunderstand my usage of 'authority'- An accepted source of expert information or advice. do you recognise that usage? this form of authority needs no violence to assert itself, it doesn't assert itself. everyone listens, because everyone knows where it is.

so no, i don't see inconsistency.

if I found my son injecting heroin into his veins, I would confiscate the drugs from him but I would NOT punish him or react aggressively. I would simply explain to him the dangers of heroin, confiscate the drug and use some kind of incentive to encourage him to remain drug free

so you would coerce him with the stick and the carrot? ok...

ft, i only said that about you and your wife because you said it to me. remember? if you don't like it being out, don't let it loose.

I know we're supposed to be against unjust authority riiiight? But authority is a fluid thing.

exactly. against the unjust authority, not all of it.

and that whole thing about being hostile? read your post here boy. you mock, insult, slander... and tell me to shut up. not gonna work, just put me on ignore and i'll cook up some hot milk for you.

noleaders is right, unless you posit that individuals take more from society than they give back. if you're referring to the sum of individuals within a nation's government, i'd have to agree with him. people give more to the status quo than they get back (on the whole), i think.

[Prasch]

Isn't the point of Anarchism to fight against all authority, because it's all immoral?

I mean the only justification for authority is "I'm right" and that's justifying authority with authority.

I liked reading about what someone had to say about the Taking Children Seriously model of parenting. Whatever though, I'm going back to lurking.

[Jawn Disease]

An "anarchist" justifying AUTHORITY is so fucking laughable. Fucking hypocrites. Most 'anarchists' are full of SHIT and they piss me off.

"I'm an anarchist, I support the existence of states and capitalism but I don't need your approval, I'm still an anarchist".

Let's exercise some ridiculously simple logic : if you're going to argue that authority is sometimes necessary or acceptable, a statist can turn around and argue that the existence of the state is both necessary and acceptable and point out that even anarchists see authoity as sometimes necessary, it's only a matter of when. DO YOU NOT SEE HOW FUCKED UP AND INCONSISTENT YOUR POSITION IS??!!?

Authority is both sometimes necessary and sometimes acceptable.

I am an anarchist.

If your entire worldview is focused to being 'against' all 'authority' then it's pretty limited. There's a lot more to life than opposing a basic human instinct.

I'm opposed to the specific ways in which the governing segment of the society I live in uses authority in unjust ways for its own benefit.

Stop being so sure that your ideas are the only ones that make any sense. There's a lot of people out there with ideas, man.

And yo, Francois Tremblay, cool it with the hostility, man, fuckssake

[Jawn Disease]

Furthermore there's more than enough resources for each couple to have two children.

[Guest]

the problem is, if you don't exercise some authority over a child, they'll run out in the road and get squashed (not a hypothetical situation, trust).

as an anarchist i'm not 'against all authority', i'm against all imposed, coercive, non-meritocratic authority. i'll place my authority in whosoever i feel has it in a given situation, and so will a child (that is, before they start making their own decisions). If a non-parent tells a child to do something they don't want to , the result will be different to if the parent said it. and that is because of trust and the familial bond.

One can exercise guidance without exercising authority. There are subtleties, but the significant matter is that of informed consent.

It's dangerous to accept "meritocratic authority" in principle, though, because it's subjective. There are parents who feel they are exercising "meritocratic authority" over their children when their children are in their thirties. Indeed, more; it would be possible for a fascist to justify their authority as meritocratic.

[Invictus_88]

NB. That was me.

[testpattern]

So wait, M. Trembley, I'm confused. In your utopia, no one would have children? I'm not trying to be snarky, I just can't figure out why you'd go to the trouble of being politically active at all if the human race should just die out. If our species just needs to be shut off, then why do you care how we organize ourselves. If you have no concern for legacy, what are you working towards? I'm certainly not saying thatyou need to have children in order to justify your politics, but if it is just absolutely and thoroughly immoral to procreate, than what the fuck does anything matter?

[Zenit]

I won't refuse using my authority if I felt it's good for my kid in the long run and avoids risks in the short; after all every father wants for their children the best and to grow up healthy, and to do so it's not all coercive authority or punishing them without dessert, sending them to their room, making them write the same sentence 100 times, beat them,... You can encourage them to act the proper way through gifts and rewards and if they are mature enough, explain why you do what you do.

But still, if they don't attend to reasons and there is an actual risk for the child (no I don't mean overprotective parenting in which their fears are even the subtlest injury); you have to use coercion. The older they grow, the more/less you'll need it, it depends on whether you're authoritative or libertarian.

If your 6-year-old daughter runs to the road, unless you want her to be knocked down by a car you have to take her by her arm back to the sidewalk.

If your 15-year-old son is in drugs you should take them and show him they will only make harm to him; but if he's not going to drop them you either lock him in his room at night or let him do what he wants with his life.

So let's not defend Anarchism everywhere just for the sake of it. Positive authority is good and needed when the occasion appears; as good as knowing well when it's needed and when it's not.

On a side note, "authority" and "equals" are greatly misused words, with so many meanings and interpretations that everyone has their own definition.

[raylene86]

This whole argument makes me think of efforts in education to develop teaching methods that maximize student autonomy, even though I think this may be a slightly simpler issue seeing as most people aren't having 20 kids to work with lol. Two points come to mind for me:

1. "Childhood" is a socially-constructed term, which is inevitably problematic. "Childhood" used to end as soon as one was physically mature enough to reproduce; today it's a matter of when you're "done with school" or "don't need parents to pay for you". Then, you've got the issue of childhood being drawn out based on a person's demographic membership: at some points (arguably even today), Black people were considered "children" even if they were physically mature enough to reproduce just because they "needed to be taken care of" by white people; similarly, mentally handicapped people throughout time and even today, although not explicit called children, are treated as children. Also loosely connected: people with severe psychological issues are to a degree viewed as "children" in need of authority.

2. I think a distinction has to be drawn between guidance and authority. I've been forced to learn the subtle difference in my work with mentally handicapped people and in my work in education research. One key difference is that authority ignores autonomy while guidance scaffolds autonomy. That sounds vague, but what I mean is that guidance only ever does things that even slightly seem authoritative when it's going to produce further autonomy for those being guided. Another aspect is that guidance means helping a person (young or old, mentally handicapped or not) make informed decisions, regardless of whether you personally like the outcomes. Prime example: Where I used to work, I had people who would refuse to eat a meal. Even though I'm thinking "NOOOO, SHE NEEDS TO EAT !!!" and "BUT EVERYONE EATS DINNER AT 5PM HERE! THAT MAKES MORE WORK FOR ME!", I had to respect her right to decide to not eat until she felt like eating. Keep in mind this was a person who couldn't even carry out conversation with me and didn't understand explanations of things that would occur in the distant future. In the worst cases, a person may have refused to eat and began losing weight to the point where his/her health was jeopardized; seeing as sickness would impede his/her future autonomy, we gave the person nutrition shakes to bring the person up to speed health-wise.

I think a lot of the child autonomy issues we face are a direct result of our expectations in capitalist societies...kids NEED to do A, B, and C because they won't go to college if they don't, and if they don't go to college they won't be able to buy a house, and if they don't buy a house...and you see where I'm going with it. In relation to what I've seen in my research work, it's important to recognize that a person's refusal to do something shouldn't be viewed purely as a refusal to "take good advice". People's negative attitudes and feelings need to be respected because it often can tell us something about what the person is experiencing and whether it's REALLY such "good advice" that's being given in the first place. For example, if a kid refuses to eat, maybe it's because his/her tooth hurts and you just didn't realize the kid needed dental treatment. I think it's possible to provide guidance that supports autonomy...it's just that it likely will get you called "crazy" by everyone else, people will be pissed that your kid is the one yelling in public, and you may even face legal and social sanctions for not forcing your child to submit to authority.