But what you are saying as quoted is replacing one form of violence with another - and this is similarily true in "modern" child education; physical violence is banned, and more often than not replaced by psychological violence. In my personal feelings keeps creeping the suspicion, that the damage done to the "educated" is worse.
I do agree with this. I started to see kids playing truant all the time around Newcastle starting in the early nineties. No-one has the right anymore to drag their worthless hides back to school and give them 10 raps with a big stick. There is a particular fear to painful punishment that also keeps kids in line more. Sad but true.
Now these kids hang around street corners, shopping malls, parks and so on drinking cheap cider and trying to get grown-ups like me to buy them booze and cigarettes. Then they'll go and get themselves knocked up to avoid school further and get an automatic council house. Living the rest of their lives without jobs and spawning another race of b#stards (literally-the fathers don't stick around) into the world.
Their parents are to blame too, as they are drunk, undiciplined morons catatonic in front of their TV's. They hit their kids for no reason, making punishment senseless, driving them from their homes.
What I guess I'm trying to say is that I was raised in poverty exactly like this but my mother (single parent) was intelligent enough to teach me good morals.
Therefore, my point is that my parental guidance was very important to me. My guiding light that gave me a sense of purpose and lit a fire under my as# to get out and do something better with my life. Achieve something my parents had not. Get out of the slum.
Short note on how kids are treated over here. The problem ones are diagnosed with ADD now and sent to therapists. Doped out with ritalin (sp?) to make them behave. That's f*cked up IMO. Parents don't seem to talk to their kids over here. They rely on school, TV, computers, drugs and basically ANYTHING but their own guidance and wisdom to educate their young ones. Its sickening. A really, really sad reflection upon today's society.
Kiya: The feeling of 'revenge' for physical punishment exists, I've had it before. The thing is it goes away, the 'reason' why you were punished remains to educate you because the punishment was direct and simple. You remember it better than therapy or drugs. Actually because I believe it stimulates an old animal instict within us that will link pain with self-preservation. Making us very wary of doing the same thing again.
