If You Torture Him Properly, He Will Not Die (A Critique of Reginald Firehammer)

[studiodekadent]

If You Torture Him Properly, He Will Not Die

A Critique of Reginald Firehammer

Reginald Firehammer is known around Objectivish circles for his strong anti-homosexuality positions. I've always been open about my disagreement with Firehammer on this issue, and as such I'll leave it out of this article. It is irrelavant. The purpose of this article is to discuss another of Firehammer's positions.

This position is advanced in an article entitled "If You Spank Him, He Will Not Die" (see: http://usabig.com/ii.../descipline.php). Unsurprisingly, this article discusses child-rearing and advocates what might be fairly characterized as "harsh" methods.

Let's begin with a quote, so we can see what Firehammer's basic argument is.

"Raising children is the grueling process of turning totally uncivilized savages into self-responsible, self-reliant, mature, human beings. There seem to be two general views about the best means of raising children. The modern view is to allow children, as much as is possible, to "develop themselves," to discover their own interests and to pursue them. This method almost always produces "grown-ups" who are as uncivilized as they were as children, only bigger, and more cunning.

The other method, scorned today, is called discipline, which means, so long as children have not yet learned how to control their own passions and wills, the parents exercise that control. As much as this method is repudiated today, this method is the only one that actually produces self-responsible, self-reliant, independent, mature human beings."

I wish to credit Firehammer for being so absolutely forward with that paragraph. It provides an extraordinarily neat and comprehensive summary of Firehammer's position without any concealment or obfuscation. In an age where rhetoriticians equivocate and play poker to disguise their actual positions as much as possible, seeing a very divisive position being taken so openly is refreshing.

That said, I strongly disagree with this position. To explain why, let me draw out some of the quote's assumptions and implications.

"Raising children is the grueling process of turning totally uncivilized savages into self-responsible, self-reliant, mature, human beings." (Emphasis Added)

The emphasized portion of the text is crucial, because this is Firehammer's Meta-Anthropological assumption. Firehammer begins with a posit about the nature of the child; that they are totally uncivilized savages. Since there are plenty of (chronologically) adult human beings in the world that are in fact literal uncivilized savages, I will assume that Firehammer's characterization isn't a claim about the essential nature of children, but rather a claim that, at birth, all human beings are totally uncivilized savages and it is through a process of socialization/training/insociation/etc. that they can become civilized.

Calling Doctor Freud.

Firehammer's worldview is scarcely reminiscent of Ayn Rand, whom he quotes in his article (he quotes a section from John Galt's speech). If it resembles any thinker from history, it is Sigmund Freud.

Freud, in Civilization And Its Discontents, argues that civilization is fundamentally constructed upon the systematic repression of the human id, or (to paraphrase Firehammer), the control of people's own passions and wills. In short, we are savage, brutish, Hobbesian animals at base, and it is only through the process of the inculcation of superego that we rise above our natures into something greater.

Firehammer takes this same position; he believes our "passions and wills" are systematically set against "civilized" conduct; these "passions and wills" sabotage "self-responsible, self-reliant, independent, mature" behavior (at no time does he provide any attempt at defining "self-responsible," "self-reliant," "independent" or "mature," he takes the meanings of these terms to be self-evident).

Firehammer openly states he is not an Objectivist, but he does hold to many Objectivist positions. As such, he might be interested to know that his Freudian meta-anthropology is a significant departure from Objectivism. Freud's id-ego-superego model is a clear derivative of Plato's "tripartiate psyche" concept, which Plato advanced in The Republic. Both concepts are massive departures from the Objectivist attacks on the mind-body (and reason-emotion) dichotomy (and that dichotomy's resultant prioritization of "higher" desires over "lower" ones), as well as the typical Objectivist psychological position of Cognitivism.

But a more devastating argument against Firehammer's meta-anthropology is that it constitutes a violent attack against the entire Enlightenment/Classical Liberal/Libertarian project. Firehammer claims to be in favor of a Classical Liberal/Libertarian order, so this contradiction is one he should take a look at.

Whilst it was not the first enunciation of Classical Liberal principles, John Locke's work is clearly the most influential. Locke was, philosophically, a key proponent of the principles that powered the American Revolution; his influence is most prominent in the Declaration of Independence.

But Locke was a system-builder; his political theory was built on a meta-anthropology. After all, if one wishes to ponder about the best way to structure society actually is, one needs to consider the nature of the beings that make up the society in the first place.

Locke's fundamental argument was based in a rebuttal; a meta-anthropological one. Locke's primary target was Thomas Hobbes, who argued in Leviathan that human nature was prone to deceit and cruelty and thus without an absolute government to restrain human nature, existence would be "nasty, brutish and short."

Locke rejected this dark and malevolent view of human nature. Instead, Locke argued that man had reason, and that man was concerned with his furthered survival and happiness. As such, it was common sense that a war of all against all was simply not in everyone's interest, and as such people could generally be trusted. Whilst a small state was necessary to deal with exceptions to the rule, the general presumption is that man is not a monster; this benevolent meta-anthropology was also shared by Hume (who inspired Adam Smith).

Rand was well-known for condeming the Hobbesian view of human nature; her description of its religious variant (Original Sin) was that it was a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms.

Classical Liberalism has always been opposed by those that damned human nature; from the Christian Right and the Christian Left who embrace the idea of an intrinsically evil man in need of redemption, to the Nanny-Statists and Neoconservatives that embrace a paternal state "leading us to virtue," however they define it.

Freud's theory certainly hasn't been friendly to liberty. Besides Camille Paglia and Thomas Szasz, I cannot think of any Freudian libertarians. Indeed, Freud had considerable influence in later developments within the Marxist tradition (via Herbert Marcuse), which certainly wasn't friendly to Classical Liberalism. And the basis of Freud's id-ego-superego model was Plato, who was hardly in favor of freedom (if The Republic is anything to go by).

Firehammer's meta-anthropology leads to the conclusion that man is a beast that must be tamed in order to be worthy of freedom. In this, he is no different from the Conservatives.

But this is scarcely the only problem with Firehammer's argument. Firehammer begins with characterizing the "modern" approach to parenting as follows:

"The modern view is to allow children, as much as is possible, to "develop themselves," to discover their own interests and to pursue them."

This is another instance in which Firehammer seems to reject a key component of the Enlightenment project. The Enlightenment project was not a purely political one; it stretched across multiple fields of philosophy. The central tenet of the Enlightenment worldview is the use of human intelligence to advance human lives; to move the life situations of all human beings towards an enlightened, rational, fitting condition. This includes Individualism, Eudaimonia, Science, Industrial Production, and Individual Rights (see http://www.stephenhi...-flow-chart.pdf). Freedom is a necessary part of the whole, but as Rand continually emphasized, it could not be isolated from the whole; Freedom has philosophical pre-requisites, and without them, freedom dies. And critically, it is not freedom (i.e. Negative Liberty) itself but rather individual happiness and flourishing that is the ultimate end. Freedom is good because it is a necessary condition for people to be able to live their own lives on their own terms; it is not an end in itself.

The "modern view" which Firehammer damns is, in and of itself, perfectly consistent with the Enlightenment. Is not self-development and the discovery and pursuit of one's own interests a clear example of the pursuit of happiness?

Last time I checked, children were human too, and a surprising number of them have rational faculties in various stages of development (this also applies to adults; many are very rational in some areas, utterly irrational in others, and so on). Why should they categorically be denied the same humanity, and the same legitimacy-to-pursue-happiness, that adults get? "Children" and "adults" are scarcely clean categories; nature produces broad and overlapping spectra rather than discrete classifications. Unless Firehammer is ready to defend an essentialist concept of "child" (and hence to defend epistemic Essentialism more broadly), there is basically no way he can cleanly separate the "kids" from the "grown-ups" (and, in case Firehammer wishes to defend epistemic Essentialism, he'll have to dodge the fact that epistemic Essentialism leads to methodological collectivism in the social sciences which in turn leads to a rejection of libertarianism).

We may legally have to draw an age-based line to legally differentiate children and adults (for rule-of-law reasons... as Hayek and Rand both noted, laws have to be very general in nature), but this differentiation is a legal fiction; it isn't as if people's cognitive faculties suddenly improve (or their essential nature suddenly changes) on the day they first reach the age of consent. But I digress.

In trying to condemn "the modern view," Firehammer appeals to the consequences of it. His statement:

"This method almost always produces "grown-ups" who are as uncivilized as they were as children, only bigger, and more cunning."

His evidence for this?

　

　

　

He presents zero evidence for this. How does Firehammer know, objectively, that "kids these days" are getting worse?

Every single generation, including those that ruthlessly beat their kids, had the same worry. Plato, unsurprisingly, complained that the kids were disobedient and didn't listen to their elders (it never occurred to him that perhaps the kids realized that Plato's ideas were completely loopy). Back during the early days of comic books, we had academic studies that "proved" these comics caused "juvenile delinquency." Television, Rock Music, Roleplaying Games, Rap Music and Video Games sparked similar moral panics about the degeneracy of the youth.

And yet every successive generation has still demonstrated significant progress over the last. We don't condone slavery any more. We don't go to the Colloseum for fun. We strongly reject bigotry and prejudice more than previous generations. Even Firehammer himself strongly rejects the harassment of gay people, even if he believes their conduct is morally wrong. Technology is further advancing, our standard of living is climbing even in our mixed economy... indeed, if we really wanted to look at generational delinquency, we should remember that it was Baby Boomers that advocated the war in Iraq.

I simply fail to see how "kids these days" are somehow "uncivilized." Sure, there are some truly awful youth, but it isn't as if elder generations lack comparably bad apples.

Firehammer cites no academic research. His entire "proof" is a citation from the book Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother (and a book praising the parenting styles of familial-collectivist Chinese culture is hardly the kind of thing an individualist should praise). This book contains the author's daughter praising her mother's parenting.

How is this reliable advice? The testimony comes from the author's daughter. The author had editorial control. The author also states that she forbade her children from doing the following:

"attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, not play the piano or violin."

She also, at one point, forces one of her daughters to learn a specific piece of piano music. In order to coerce her daughter, she threatens to donate one of her daughter's toys to the Salvation Army for every day her daughter fails to learn the piano piece. I can't think of a better way to sabotage a child's understanding of property rights ("yes! My property rights are conditional upon pleasing authority figures!").

I find it hard to see how her daughter's testimony is any more reliable from testimony obtained under torture. I wonder if he'd give positive testimony from kids with laissez-faire, hands-off parents equal weight.

When arguing in favor of his preferred approach to child-raising, Firehammer describes it as follows:

"The other method, scorned today, is called discipline, which means, so long as children have not yet learned how to control their own passions and wills, the parents exercise that control."

In actual fact, the dictionary definition of discipline is "training intented to produce an outcome" and can also refer to a specific area of expertise. Either way, the definition itself has no actual stimulation as to what the intended outcome of the training is, nor what the methods of training actually are. Firehammer obviously prefers to use the euphemism "discipline" to more fitting terms like "child abuse," "psychological torture," "spirit-breaking" and "sadism." If the list from Battle Hymn is any indication of what Firehammer considers "discipline" then I think my list of more fitting terms is quite clearly appropriate.

What is even more frightening is that Firehammer, in his article, describes the summary from Battle Hymn as "delightful." So it is delightful to be denied use of the toilet until you manage to play a piano piece? It is delightful to be forced to play the piano or violin, and only the piano or violin (no guitar, no drums, no synthesizer, no harp, no viola, no cello)? Is it delightful to have your toys given away if you don't learn how play a piece of music that your mother apparently likes because it is "really cute"?

It should be noted that Firehammer described the story about the being-forced-to-learn-the-piano-piece-or-toys-given-away as "very charming." Really?

I almost wonder if Firehammer would describe concentration camp footage as "endearing."

In conclusion, Firehammer proceeds from an Hobbesian-Freudian view of human nature to endorse a spiritually totalitarian style of child-rearing. Whilst it is not literally totalitarian in the political sense (the term applies to States and the relationship between the State and the citizen), it is shocking that someone who claims to be an Individualist hold to a brutally anti-enlightenment meta-anthropology and endorse such a collectivist, authoritarian method of child-rearing. In this issue, Firehammer has proven himself a Conservative rather than a Classical Liberal; he believes man is by nature a wicked monster that needs to be tamed by being crushed under the jackboot, and only when he is rendered obedient will he be given freedom. This vision of man and freedom turns away from the Classical Liberal concept of self-sovereignty and towards a Santorum-esque notion of the freedom to do as you are told.

I will end this critique with a few questions for future discussion. Perhaps Firehammer himself would take the time to ponder them;

1) How can one defend Enlightenment civilization when one premises one's argument on the belief that man is naturally uncivilized? Does this not mean one is in effect arguing that free market classical liberalism is against human nature?

2) How can one defend individualism, in the sense of the centrality of the individual's ethical worth, and deny the same worth applies to people below a specific numerical age?

3) How can an individualist endorse the kind of child-rearing formed in a society based on explicit familial collectivism and hierarchialism (China)?

4) Given how "what's the matter with kids today?!?" is a constant, unending refrain that every single generation spouts about their youngers, how can this refrain be correct when all objective indicators show continual, steady social improvement in the long run?

5) Where is the hard empirical evidence that strict parenting actually creates better outcomes? Is this evidence unbiased, repeatedly verified across different demographics, and all-factors-controlled-for?

[Martin Radwin]

If You Torture Him Properly, He Will Not Die

A Critique of Reginald Firehammer

Reginald Firehammer is known around Objectivish circles for his strong anti-homosexuality positions. I've always been open about my disagreement with Firehammer on this issue, and as such I'll leave it out of this article. It is irrelavant. The purpose of this article is to discuss another of Firehammer's positions.

This position is advanced in an article entitled "If You Spank Him, He Will Not Die" (see: http://usabig.com/ii.../descipline.php). Unsurprisingly, this article discusses child-rearing and advocates what might be fairly characterized as "harsh" methods.

Let's begin with a quote, so we can see what Firehammer's basic argument is.

"Raising children is the grueling process of turning totally uncivilized savages into self-responsible, self-reliant, mature, human beings. There seem to be two general views about the best means of raising children. The modern view is to allow children, as much as is possible, to "develop themselves," to discover their own interests and to pursue them. This method almost always produces "grown-ups" who are as uncivilized as they were as children, only bigger, and more cunning.

The other method, scorned today, is called discipline, which means, so long as children have not yet learned how to control their own passions and wills, the parents exercise that control. As much as this method is repudiated today, this method is the only one that actually produces self-responsible, self-reliant, independent, mature human beings."

I wish to credit Firehammer for being so absolutely forward with that paragraph. It provides an extraordinarily neat and comprehensive summary of Firehammer's position without any concealment or obfuscation. In an age where rhetoriticians equivocate and play poker to disguise their actual positions as much as possible, seeing a very divisive position being taken so openly is refreshing.

That said, I strongly disagree with this position. To explain why, let me draw out some of the quote's assumptions and implications.

"Raising children is the grueling process of turning totally uncivilized savages into self-responsible, self-reliant, mature, human beings." (Emphasis Added)

The emphasized portion of the text is crucial, because this is Firehammer's Meta-Anthropological assumption. Firehammer begins with a posit about the nature of the child; that they are totally uncivilized savages. Since there are plenty of (chronologically) adult human beings in the world that are in fact literal uncivilized savages, I will assume that Firehammer's characterization isn't a claim about the essential nature of children, but rather a claim that, at birth, all human beings are totally uncivilized savages and it is through a process of socialization/training/insociation/etc. that they can become civilized.

Calling Doctor Freud.

Firehammer's worldview is scarcely reminiscent of Ayn Rand, whom he quotes in his article (he quotes a section from John Galt's speech). If it resembles any thinker from history, it is Sigmund Freud.

Freud, in Civilization And Its Discontents, argues that civilization is fundamentally constructed upon the systematic repression of the human id, or (to paraphrase Firehammer), the control of people's own passions and wills. In short, we are savage, brutish, Hobbesian animals at base, and it is only through the process of the inculcation of superego that we rise above our natures into something greater.

Firehammer takes this same position; he believes our "passions and wills" are systematically set against "civilized" conduct; these "passions and wills" sabotage "self-responsible, self-reliant, independent, mature" behavior (at no time does he provide any attempt at defining "self-responsible," "self-reliant," "independent" or "mature," he takes the meanings of these terms to be self-evident).

Firehammer openly states he is not an Objectivist, but he does hold to many Objectivist positions. As such, he might be interested to know that his Freudian meta-anthropology is a significant departure from Objectivism. Freud's id-ego-superego model is a clear derivative of Plato's "tripartiate psyche" concept, which Plato advanced in The Republic. Both concepts are massive departures from the Objectivist attacks on the mind-body (and reason-emotion) dichotomy (and that dichotomy's resultant prioritization of "higher" desires over "lower" ones), as well as the typical Objectivist psychological position of Cognitivism.

But a more devastating argument against Firehammer's meta-anthropology is that it constitutes a violent attack against the entire Enlightenment/Classical Liberal/Libertarian project. Firehammer claims to be in favor of a Classical Liberal/Libertarian order, so this contradiction is one he should take a look at.

Whilst it was not the first enunciation of Classical Liberal principles, John Locke's work is clearly the most influential. Locke was, philosophically, a key proponent of the principles that powered the American Revolution; his influence is most prominent in the Declaration of Independence.

But Locke was a system-builder; his political theory was built on a meta-anthropology. After all, if one wishes to ponder about the best way to structure society actually is, one needs to consider the nature of the beings that make up the society in the first place.

Locke's fundamental argument was based in a rebuttal; a meta-anthropological one. Locke's primary target was Thomas Hobbes, who argued in Leviathan that human nature was prone to deceit and cruelty and thus without an absolute government to restrain human nature, existence would be "nasty, brutish and short."

Locke rejected this dark and malevolent view of human nature. Instead, Locke argued that man had reason, and that man was concerned with his furthered survival and happiness. As such, it was common sense that a war of all against all was simply not in everyone's interest, and as such people could generally be trusted. Whilst a small state was necessary to deal with exceptions to the rule, the general presumption is that man is not a monster; this benevolent meta-anthropology was also shared by Hume (who inspired Adam Smith).

Rand was well-known for condeming the Hobbesian view of human nature; her description of its religious variant (Original Sin) was that it was a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms.

Classical Liberalism has always been opposed by those that damned human nature; from the Christian Right and the Christian Left who embrace the idea of an intrinsically evil man in need of redemption, to the Nanny-Statists and Neoconservatives that embrace a paternal state "leading us to virtue," however they define it.

Freud's theory certainly hasn't been friendly to liberty. Besides Camille Paglia and Thomas Szasz, I cannot think of any Freudian libertarians. Indeed, Freud had considerable influence in later developments within the Marxist tradition (via Herbert Marcuse), which certainly wasn't friendly to Classical Liberalism. And the basis of Freud's id-ego-superego model was Plato, who was hardly in favor of freedom (if The Republic is anything to go by).

Firehammer's meta-anthropology leads to the conclusion that man is a beast that must be tamed in order to be worthy of freedom. In this, he is no different from the Conservatives.

But this is scarcely the only problem with Firehammer's argument. Firehammer begins with characterizing the "modern" approach to parenting as follows:

"The modern view is to allow children, as much as is possible, to "develop themselves," to discover their own interests and to pursue them."

This is another instance in which Firehammer seems to reject a key component of the Enlightenment project. The Enlightenment project was not a purely political one; it stretched across multiple fields of philosophy. The central tenet of the Enlightenment worldview is the use of human intelligence to advance human lives; to move the life situations of all human beings towards an enlightened, rational, fitting condition. This includes Individualism, Eudaimonia, Science, Industrial Production, and Individual Rights (see http://www.stephenhi...-flow-chart.pdf). Freedom is a necessary part of the whole, but as Rand continually emphasized, it could not be isolated from the whole; Freedom has philosophical pre-requisites, and without them, freedom dies. And critically, it is not freedom (i.e. Negative Liberty) itself but rather individual happiness and flourishing that is the ultimate end. Freedom is good because it is a necessary condition for people to be able to live their own lives on their own terms; it is not an end in itself.

The "modern view" which Firehammer damns is, in and of itself, perfectly consistent with the Enlightenment. Is not self-development and the discovery and pursuit of one's own interests a clear example of the pursuit of happiness?

Last time I checked, children were human too, and a surprising number of them have rational faculties in various stages of development (this also applies to adults; many are very rational in some areas, utterly irrational in others, and so on). Why should they categorically be denied the same humanity, and the same legitimacy-to-pursue-happiness, that adults get? "Children" and "adults" are scarcely clean categories; nature produces broad and overlapping spectra rather than discrete classifications. Unless Firehammer is ready to defend an essentialist concept of "child" (and hence to defend epistemic Essentialism more broadly), there is basically no way he can cleanly separate the "kids" from the "grown-ups" (and, in case Firehammer wishes to defend epistemic Essentialism, he'll have to dodge the fact that epistemic Essentialism leads to methodological collectivism in the social sciences which in turn leads to a rejection of libertarianism).

We may legally have to draw an age-based line to legally differentiate children and adults (for rule-of-law reasons... as Hayek and Rand both noted, laws have to be very general in nature), but this differentiation is a legal fiction; it isn't as if people's cognitive faculties suddenly improve (or their essential nature suddenly changes) on the day they first reach the age of consent. But I digress.

In trying to condemn "the modern view," Firehammer appeals to the consequences of it. His statement:

"This method almost always produces "grown-ups" who are as uncivilized as they were as children, only bigger, and more cunning."

His evidence for this?

　

　

　

He presents zero evidence for this. How does Firehammer know, objectively, that "kids these days" are getting worse?

Every single generation, including those that ruthlessly beat their kids, had the same worry. Plato, unsurprisingly, complained that the kids were disobedient and didn't listen to their elders (it never occurred to him that perhaps the kids realized that Plato's ideas were completely loopy). Back during the early days of comic books, we had academic studies that "proved" these comics caused "juvenile delinquency." Television, Rock Music, Roleplaying Games, Rap Music and Video Games sparked similar moral panics about the degeneracy of the youth.

And yet every successive generation has still demonstrated significant progress over the last. We don't condone slavery any more. We don't go to the Colloseum for fun. We strongly reject bigotry and prejudice more than previous generations. Even Firehammer himself strongly rejects the harassment of gay people, even if he believes their conduct is morally wrong. Technology is further advancing, our standard of living is climbing even in our mixed economy... indeed, if we really wanted to look at generational delinquency, we should remember that it was Baby Boomers that advocated the war in Iraq.

I simply fail to see how "kids these days" are somehow "uncivilized." Sure, there are some truly awful youth, but it isn't as if elder generations lack comparably bad apples.

Firehammer cites no academic research. His entire "proof" is a citation from the book Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother (and a book praising the parenting styles of familial-collectivist Chinese culture is hardly the kind of thing an individualist should praise). This book contains the author's daughter praising her mother's parenting.

How is this reliable advice? The testimony comes from the author's daughter. The author had editorial control. The author also states that she forbade her children from doing the following:

"attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, not play the piano or violin."

She also, at one point, forces one of her daughters to learn a specific piece of piano music. In order to coerce her daughter, she threatens to donate one of her daughter's toys to the Salvation Army for every day her daughter fails to learn the piano piece. I can't think of a better way to sabotage a child's understanding of property rights ("yes! My property rights are conditional upon pleasing authority figures!").

I find it hard to see how her daughter's testimony is any more reliable from testimony obtained under torture. I wonder if he'd give positive testimony from kids with laissez-faire, hands-off parents equal weight.

When arguing in favor of his preferred approach to child-raising, Firehammer describes it as follows:

"The other method, scorned today, is called discipline, which means, so long as children have not yet learned how to control their own passions and wills, the parents exercise that control."

In actual fact, the dictionary definition of discipline is "training intented to produce an outcome" and can also refer to a specific area of expertise. Either way, the definition itself has no actual stimulation as to what the intended outcome of the training is, nor what the methods of training actually are. Firehammer obviously prefers to use the euphemism "discipline" to more fitting terms like "child abuse," "psychological torture," "spirit-breaking" and "sadism." If the list from Battle Hymn is any indication of what Firehammer considers "discipline" then I think my list of more fitting terms is quite clearly appropriate.

What is even more frightening is that Firehammer, in his article, describes the summary from Battle Hymn as "delightful." So it is delightful to be denied use of the toilet until you manage to play a piano piece? It is delightful to be forced to play the piano or violin, and only the piano or violin (no guitar, no drums, no synthesizer, no harp, no viola, no cello)? Is it delightful to have your toys given away if you don't learn how play a piece of music that your mother apparently likes because it is "really cute"?

It should be noted that Firehammer described the story about the being-forced-to-learn-the-piano-piece-or-toys-given-away as "very charming." Really?

I almost wonder if Firehammer would describe concentration camp footage as "endearing."

In conclusion, Firehammer proceeds from an Hobbesian-Freudian view of human nature to endorse a spiritually totalitarian style of child-rearing. Whilst it is not literally totalitarian in the political sense (the term applies to States and the relationship between the State and the citizen), it is shocking that someone who claims to be an Individualist hold to a brutally anti-enlightenment meta-anthropology and endorse such a collectivist, authoritarian method of child-rearing. In this issue, Firehammer has proven himself a Conservative rather than a Classical Liberal; he believes man is by nature a wicked monster that needs to be tamed by being crushed under the jackboot, and only when he is rendered obedient will he be given freedom. This vision of man and freedom turns away from the Classical Liberal concept of self-sovereignty and towards a Santorum-esque notion of the freedom to do as you are told.

I will end this critique with a few questions for future discussion. Perhaps Firehammer himself would take the time to ponder them;

1) How can one defend Enlightenment civilization when one premises one's argument on the belief that man is naturally uncivilized? Does this not mean one is in effect arguing that free market classical liberalism is against human nature?

2) How can one defend individualism, in the sense of the centrality of the individual's ethical worth, and deny the same worth applies to people below a specific numerical age?

3) How can an individualist endorse the kind of child-rearing formed in a society based on explicit familial collectivism and hierarchialism (China)?

4) Given how "what's the matter with kids today?!?" is a constant, unending refrain that every single generation spouts about their youngers, how can this refrain be correct when all objective indicators show continual, steady social improvement in the long run?

5) Where is the hard empirical evidence that strict parenting actually creates better outcomes? Is this evidence unbiased, repeatedly verified across different demographics, and all-factors-controlled-for?

Andrew,

Great post! You bring up many very interesting points, even though Firehammer is someone whose views are so absurd and mindlessly cruel that they are hardly worthy of detailed refutation. For a totally contrasting view of children and the way they learn and develop, see any of the works of the brilliant Maria Montessori, a renaissance woman about a hundred years ahead of her time whose theories of how children learn, based on her years of working with and observing children, have inspired a worldwide movement of schools based on her eductional philosophy. For a description of the practical results of Firehammer's advocated methods of child rearing, see any of the works of Alice Miller.

My only quibble with your post is in your reference to Camille Paglia and Thomas Szasz as Freudian libertarians. Paglia is not a libertarian, even though she has described herself as one. At best, she advocates libertarian views in the personal sphere (mainly advocating totally sexual freedom; I'm not even sure though I strongly suspect that she also advocates ending the drug war and all other personal victimless crimes), but most definitely not in the economic sphere. As for her foreign policy views, she is strongly oriented toward looking upon war as a noble aspect of humanity's pagan nature, rather than seeing it as the horror that it is. At least that's my recollection of her view on war; it's been quite a while since I read her. Regarding Szasz, I have not thought of him as at all Freudian in orientation, but instead as being much more influenced by Karl Kraus.

Martin

[studiodekadent]

Andrew,

Great post! You bring up many very interesting points, even though Firehammer is someone whose views are so absurd and mindlessly cruel that they are hardly worthy of detailed refutation. For a totally contrasting view of children and the way they learn and develop, see any of the works of the brilliant Maria Montessori, a renaissance woman about a hundred years ahead of her time whose theories of how children learn, based on her years of working with and observing children, have inspired a worldwide movement of schools based on her eductional philosophy. For a description of the practical results of Firehammer's advocated methods of child rearing, see any of the works of Alice Miller.

Martin,

Thank you very much. I'm familiar with Montessori and I have great respect for her. Her respect for children is a beautiful thing.

My only quibble with your post is in your reference to Camille Paglia and Thomas Szasz as Freudian libertarians. Paglia is not a libertarian, even though she has described herself as one. At best, she advocates libertarian views in the personal sphere (mainly advocating totally sexual freedom; I'm not even sure though I strongly suspect that she also advocates ending the drug war and all other personal victimless crimes), but most definitely not in the economic sphere. As for her foreign policy views, she is strongly oriented toward looking upon war as a noble aspect of humanity's pagan nature, rather than seeing it as the horror that it is.

I have a lot of disagreements with Paglia, but she self-describes as a "libertarian Democrat." I haven't heard much of her statements on pure economic issues, but what I have heard from her is consistently pro-freedom at least in general. I agree that her view of human nature as dark/violent/"cthonic"/etc. is one I strongly disagree with.

That said, I haven't exactly heard her being "pro-war" per se. Paglia is a contrarian and loves to play Devil's Advocate. She studies the art of all those classic 'warrior civilizations' so you'd expect her to give their side a bit more of a case. Again, I strongly disagree with Paglia, but she seems to think the ancient world was closer to human nature than the modern one is (very similar to Freud's view of civilization-as-repression) and she lists her top intellectual influences as Freud, Nietzsche and de Sade. A very, very unpleasant cocktail I concede. However, I freely admit that sometimes, Paglia can make a very compelling point, and she's also very witty to read.

Irrespective, whilst I named her as a libertarian (I trusted her self-labelling in this instance), that should not be construed as approval.

Regarding Szasz, I have not thought of him as at all Freudian in orientation, but instead as being much more influenced by Karl Kraus.

I understand. Szasz is very Foucault-influenced as well, and most of his political writings (which are what I've read) are geared towards the Foucault stuff rather than actually making statements about the human psyche etc. I apologize for the category mistake.

Still, the point is that Freudianism and liberty have very, very rarely been on good terms. I think on that we're in agreement.