Thursday, July 21, 2011

Libertarianism in parenting

(Warning: the poem read at the beginning has swear-words in it. Just the poem; no swear-words in the interview.)



Whether or not you agree with everything said (I agree with a lot, but not everything), one thing is true: a group that does not produce a lot of offspring does not survive. Hear that, Europe? Or, as I once said to Rabbi Posner (a father of twelve kids) when talking about the Hareidi-MO machloikes: "If they can't convince them, they'll out-breed them".

Not to mention that each child is a blessing.

By the way, my wife didn't get the context of the interview fully, so I will explain it for the audience. Libertarians believe in the concept of non-violence. That is the basis for their political beliefs (they don't hate taking money from the rich to give it to the poor just because it's a stupid economic and sociological policy, but also because it's an act of violence), for their social beliefs, for their educational beliefs and, apparently, for their ideas in parenting.

So, for instance, my wife told me of someone who found about the areas that her kids were not interested in and forced them to excel specifically in those areas, arguing that that would develop them as much as possible, teach them discipline, willpower and going against the current. Whether or not I would agree with this approach (probably not, even though I believe in encouraging one's kids to do such things in certain areas of life, more micro than macro), Libertarians certainly would not.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Very interesting video.

AS far as nature is concerned, (nature to practice, tendency to vote repubican, w/e), nature - through learning and contemplating on the right things can be changed. Parents' forceful help is a huge factor in this because it's a huge initial stimulus, but there has to be a moment when it comes from oneself. To say that it will happen just be having more kids like oneself (?), is a fallacy and lends itself to too many outside factors and influences that endanger the very ideals one wishes to pass on.

Having said that, the whole world is a mafia, and one should always to lehathila riber, from the top and get around this world rather than think that going step by step achieves enough. Practicing itself won't do much because this society doesn't directly represent its evaluation of talent/practice/perfect pitch, but rather reacts to the way it is presented, to the exteroir factors (luxury, prestige) that cloak the image, and hence it is in reality other aspects that society is valuing and buying, so one can't directly attribute the success of those who practice a certain specialty to it's monetary response, the results are not specific enough.

Anarchist Chossid said...

Dude. Is this how you think? Because you definitely don't speak this way...