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Do you believe that no people are evil? If it's just that no child is evil, does the evil pop into existence at age 18 exactly? Unless you have a better soluti

by burfog 7y ago

Do you believe that no people are evil? If it's just that no child is evil, does the evil pop into existence at age 18 exactly? Unless you have a better solution, how can you justify saying that we screwed up or that our society has failed? Maybe you are asking for the impossible. Other societies simply do not attempt to keep crazy evil kids in classrooms with normal kids. That works. Many societies manage to save a portion of the bad ones via various forms of discipline that the USA has mostly abandoned. Schools in the USA are set up to fail. They have an impossible job. They have no authority to provide effective punishment, and they have no right to reject the crazy evil kids. Of course that doesn't work.

afandian 7y ago
The question of 'evil' is getting a bit theological. I was taking it on face value for the sake of the debate. But no, IMHO evil, good, gods and so on are a social construct through which society finds meaning. Useful fictions like currency, nation states and laws. But fiction. Certainly we have adults and children who hurt others. There are psychopaths. But they are still human, and they are caused by e.g. damaged attachment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory The brutality of these rooms is, of course, that they put the boot in the most vulnerable spot by forcibly detaching the child. But I'm not here to argue about religion. My pricipal point is that by labelling someone evil you are magicking away the cause. And that means you obviate yourself from having to face up to it. Antisocial behaviour can come from all kids of causes but this misplaced vengeful retribution can surely only make it worse. I won't convince you away from labelling children as "crazy evil kids" especially not on a HN thread. If you can't see this as a real psychological crime, regardless of the externalities, then that's that. I'm sure your viewpoint is shaped by experiences I don't share.
- burfog 7y ago
  I'm a non-believer and I'm fine with the term "evil". There is no magicking here. Some people are unfit for society. We can cast them out, lock them up, exterminate them, or (in rare cases) force them to behave. Funding is not unlimited, no matter how high we raise taxes. There is brutality in allowing a crazy evil kid to deny better people their education. We can't run society that way because an uneducated society is simply unable to sustain modern life. The cause of anti-social behavior is mostly irrelevant to the issue of what schools can or should do about it. It's not the school's job to fix youthful versions of Ted Bundy, Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Yang Xinhai, or Luis Garavito. The school can't do that. The school is supposed to teach children so that we can have an educated society. The good kids deserve to learn, and this is only possible if we focus our funding (staff, materials, rooms, etc.) on them while excluding those who would disrupt. I do not assume that vengeful retribution is misplaced, and I do not agree that retribution can only make things worse. Humans evolved the desire for retribution because it often works. Sometimes an actively bad person will shape up as a result, and many other people will be encouraged to continue resisting the urge to misbehave. Never mind vengeful retribution though. The value of isolating crazy evil kids should be obvious even if we have zero desire for vengeful retribution. By removing lost causes, we make education of other kids possible. The good kids deserve an education.

by burfog 7y ago

afandian 7y ago

The question of 'evil' is getting a bit theological. I was taking it on face value for the sake of the debate. But no, IMHO evil, good, gods and so on are a social construct through which society finds meaning. Useful fictions like currency, nation states and laws. But fiction. Certainly we have adults and children who hurt others. There are psychopaths. But they are still human, and they are caused by e.g. damaged attachment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory The brutality of these rooms is, of course, that they put the boot in the most vulnerable spot by forcibly detaching the child. But I'm not here to argue about religion. My pricipal point is that by labelling someone evil you are magicking away the cause. And that means you obviate yourself from having to face up to it. Antisocial behaviour can come from all kids of causes but this misplaced vengeful retribution can surely only make it worse. I won't convince you away from labelling children as "crazy evil kids" especially not on a HN thread. If you can't see this as a real psychological crime, regardless of the externalities, then that's that. I'm sure your viewpoint is shaped by experiences I don't share.

burfog 7y ago
I'm a non-believer and I'm fine with the term "evil". There is no magicking here. Some people are unfit for society. We can cast them out, lock them up, exterminate them, or (in rare cases) force them to behave. Funding is not unlimited, no matter how high we raise taxes. There is brutality in allowing a crazy evil kid to deny better people their education. We can't run society that way because an uneducated society is simply unable to sustain modern life. The cause of anti-social behavior is mostly irrelevant to the issue of what schools can or should do about it. It's not the school's job to fix youthful versions of Ted Bundy, Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Yang Xinhai, or Luis Garavito. The school can't do that. The school is supposed to teach children so that we can have an educated society. The good kids deserve to learn, and this is only possible if we focus our funding (staff, materials, rooms, etc.) on them while excluding those who would disrupt. I do not assume that vengeful retribution is misplaced, and I do not agree that retribution can only make things worse. Humans evolved the desire for retribution because it often works. Sometimes an actively bad person will shape up as a result, and many other people will be encouraged to continue resisting the urge to misbehave. Never mind vengeful retribution though. The value of isolating crazy evil kids should be obvious even if we have zero desire for vengeful retribution. By removing lost causes, we make education of other kids possible. The good kids deserve an education.