3 ms·
I stand by what I wrote. His position may be backed by reams of data and rigorous scientific study, but this article is bullshit, for three reasons: 1. None o
by ryanwaggoner 17y ago
I stand by what I wrote. His position may be backed by reams of data and rigorous scientific study, but this article is bullshit, for three reasons:
1. None of that data is presented.
2. He leverages mockery to preemptively discredit people with real-world experience that disagrees with his position, despite offering no evidence, experience, or data of his own. Come on, linking to a standard response that someone who disagrees with him can use to come up with their own formulaic response? Clear anti-intellectual mockery, and hardly the mark of a rigorous scholar.
3. His logical process as presented in this article makes absolutely no sense, particularly with regard to why telling your kid to stand up for themselves is a bad idea.
To repeat an analogy I used in another comment: this is like saying that you shouldn't advise someone whose website just got hacked to secure their app, because they got hacked because they didn't follow proper security protocol, and are therefore unlikely to follow your advice.
To accept the article as a well-written and well-argued piece on the proper response to bullying, just because the author is a leading scholar in his field is just a bizarre kind of reverse ad hominem.
Edit: reworded a few things
- logjam 17y agoYou: "No evidence or data is presented to back up any of the points." Did you even read the article? The authors link to six websites that each describe research on the subject of bullying. In addition, he specifically cites comprehensive review books and papers. You, on the other hand, cite nothing but anecdote and "analogy". A simple PubMed search on the term "bullying" gives pages of results on the topic, and I daresay they mostly are consistent with the advice given by the authors of this paper, and not yours.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago1. Linking to six websites on the general subject of bullying is hardly a well-reasoned presentation of research and evidence to support an argument. In addition, several of these websites specifically contradict the advice of the author and encourage kids to stand up for themselves in the face of bullying. 2. The average reader is unlikely to conduct a PubMed search for research and scholarly works related to the subject of bullying. 3. I was specifically referring to the lack of evidence to back up the position that standing up to bullies is rarely effective, not everything in the article. You're right that this wasn't clear. My mistake. You seem to have missed completely that I'm not primarily disagreeing with his position (though I do), but rather with the shallow presentation of that position. EDIT: removed a mistaken reference to the Guardian
- tptacek 17y agoThe article didn't appear in The Guardian. You misread my comment. I don't understand where you think this argument is going to take you. Whatever critiques you may have of the way Kazdin has boiled down the huge volumes of research on this topic for a Slate article, he's not a reporter. He's the president of the American Psychological Association, a professor at Yale, and the director of the Yale Parenting Center; he's also written a well-regarded book on the subject. You may have a valid argument about what he's saying about bullying, but you are totally clouding it by attacking his credibility. He has much more credibility on this subject than you do.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]