Teaching that words can't do you permanent harm, yes. How you feel when being called a name, or having someone say something hurtful may not be a choice. But whether you dwell on it, whether you choose to continue to feel hurt, whether you choose to act in revenge... all of those things are within one's control. We absolutely should teach self-control and mastery of one's emotions to children. It helps them become sane, happy adults.
It is cruel to withhold this education from them, because a state of perpetual offendedness is misery.
I really don’t know what you mean by teaching mastery of ones self control to children.
They are kids not monks. You can teach them all the self control you like, I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm. How difficult do you think it would be exactly?
Kids or adults for that matter aren’t failures for feeling hurt. The idea that you can’t hurt someone without physical pain is really not a serious idea.
It’s entirely possible to get overcome that and genuinely not let it impact you, I’m not saying that, I’m saying for a lot of people it’s not a normal reaction. The goal of life isn’t to not feel emotions in response to words. I genuinely am not even sure you would even really want that if you had a choice.
Self-control: Governing one's behavior and reaction.
Mastering one's emotions: Feeling the emotion, understanding it, and developing skills for overcoming negative feelings. Also, the ability to choose not to act based on strong emotion.
In a crisis, or in critical or chronic situations, possession of these two related skills usually yields superior outcomes.
It isn't "wrong" to feel the feelings. It is wrong to let the feelings dominate you to the point of paralysis or drive you to harmful behavior. Children can't help going through phases as their brains develop where they're overcome with emotions. You help them by teaching them it is OK to feel sad or angry. Then you help them by teaching them how to cope through action, or focus on something else like goals.
Having negative emotions is normal. Coping with negative emotions, mastering them, is a valuable skill.
Words do not inflict physical injury. You teach that. Words can inflict emotional pain. You also teach that this is so. Words can inflict mental injury, and you teach that, too. But you start with the far simpler formulation of "sticks and stones" until metaphor and nuance are available tools.
It's like teaching children about strangers. There are exceptions to every rule, but if you value their safety when they're small, you teach them the rule "Do not talk to strangers." Young children don't have the social context to parse exceptions until they're older... when the teaching has to add resolution and detail.
I see what he's saying, though I have different philosophy of what the world needs.
If I'm attempting to repeat back his sensibility: It's an aspiration for people to be self-responsible. Look after self, then others. We're individuals first, and must look after ourselves, and then the collectivist-minded activities come after looking after the self.
This self=>others axis is the basis of Maslow's hierarchy. But it's the inverse of many cultures' (including the blackfoot tribes from which Maslow borrowed the model, which put community at the bottom of the pyramid of needs, oddly enough)
I respect his view (it's rather effective in some contexts, esp environments of scarcity), but I'd rather embrace the collectivist and interdependent aspects of humanity as the foundational principle.
My general impression is that both of these worldviews could save us in different contexts. Maybe the collectivist would save us from climate change, and individualist would save us in some armed conflict. I feel we need to keep both, and keep them balanced, and respecting one another. It's like keeping a seed vault -- different wisdoms for later, and part of a diversity of thought we should probably preserve for unknowable future challenges.
> I don’t think there is a serious argument that let’s say for some particularly sadistic reason I wanted to bully them and do real harm
I think you'd be surprised. I had some tough great uncles who taught rough lessons and were damn proud of it.
Why is it so much the problem of the person being targeted though? The approach you describe seems not to address the behavior of the aggressors at all.
There's a tricky balance that needs to be struck between personal agency and the mechanisms which society puts in place to prevent aggressors from victimizing people.
One such mechanism is the mentality of "believing victims". Not a bad thing on the face of it, but my feeling is that we've tipped over into a world where people are incentivized to become victims. In this way the mechanism ends up becoming weaponized and wielded like a cudgel by those good at playing the victim against a new set of victims who just aren't as good at that game.
These new victims may end up even more disadvantaged due to ideological fashions which shape who we see as victims (e.g. "girls are more likely to be victims than boys") and dictate to what degree we should mete out empathy (e.g. "we have to make sure we aren't overly empathetic towards the white kids since we are biased and they are privileged").
That just gives a pass to people who employ abusive behavior since the entire burden of adjustment is shifted to the receiver, incentivizing more abuse.
I'm not sure why you're making sarcastic responses to things I didn't say in the first place.
If there is no disincentive for abuse, then abusive people will continue to inflict abuse on others for as long as they derive some emotional/social/financial gain from it. You are arguing that it is wholly up to those others (ie non-abusive people) to change themselves by making themselves less attractive targets in some fashion. But this has a cost and meantime the abusive person is gaining in strength and confidence. Also, new people are coming along all the time who are vulnerable to abusive behavior, so if previous targets become unattractive, abusers can rely on a relatively steady supply of new ones. I think you need to explain what the overall benefit of your approach is at the collective level.
It's also perplexing to me that you equate inflicting penalties upon abusers with 'becoming the abuser instead'. An abuser, by definition, is someone who inflicts pain or suffering on someone else who doesn't deserve it. Retaliation against abuse cannot be considered abuse, unless you want to argue that there is no such thing as a right to self-defense, only to self-protection. That seems similar to suggesting everyone become like turtles or snails, building shells which they can withdraw into when attacked but never developing any retaliatory capability.
I look forward to considering your alternative perspective.
Contra: words spoken to children can and do have powerful effects, especially from parents and other family, and especially if it accompanied by physical abuse. “I am going to rape you,” followed up by that very action, will lead to damage that is difficult if not impossible to overcome.
It is cruel to withhold this education from them, because a state of perpetual offendedness is misery.