Do We Want Obedient Parents Raising Obedient Children--Milgram Experiment?
STATISM BEGINS AT HOME--STOP USING THE WEAPON OF FEAR
PEACEFUL PARENTING FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD?
PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING ONLINE JOIN NOW
I hope parents here will join our PET online that will show you how to stop trying to use power over your younger ones and start giving power to them. You have just missed Session 1 of 8. Session 2 starts this Sunday, 7PM, NZ time, easy to join us and catch up. Feel free to email me: responsiblyfree@protonmail.com
PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING (PET) ONLINE STARTS 7PM SUNDAY--UPDATE: NOVEMBER 24, 2024 (New Zealand time)--PEACEFUL PARENTING FOR A PEACEFUL WORLD https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/parent-effectiveness-training-pet
MILGRAM EXPERIMENT - Big History NL, threshold 6. March 19, 2013. 5:04
OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY BY STANLEY MILGRAM—Free Download https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.273419
DR. THOMAS GORDON ON PUNISHMENT, POWER AND PARENTING ParentEffectivenessTraining, June 14, 2017. 1:09
DR. THOMAS GORDON ON PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING - A SHIFT AWAY FROM POWER AND CONTROL ParentEffectivenessTraining, June 14, 2017. 1:09
DR. THOMAS GORDON ON CREATING PEACEMAKERS THROUGH PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING ParentEffectivenessTraining, June 13, 2017. 1:15
DO WE WANT OBEDIENT YOUNGSTERS? by Thomas Gordon, creator of Parent Effectiveness Training.
“Everyone knows that some youngsters respond to adult authority by giving in, submitting, obeying. As I have repeatedly pointed out, obedience to adult authority is precisely what the dare-to-discipline and power-to-the-parent champions want more than anything else. Having a child learn to obey is their highly valued goal, and defiance their greatest fear.
Throughout history, in fact, obedience to authority has been a deeply ingrained and greatly valued behavior in many societies. Submission to authority is considered a necessary source of social control within institutions and nations, the cement that holds people together in organizations, and a critical requirement for all communal living. As such, it has been elevated to the status of a noble or moral virtue in military organizations and religious cults, as well as in families and schools.
Some philosophers have warned us that the fabric of any society will be rent by disobedience. And, as I pointed out earlier, some contemporary authors similarly warn parents that without respect for parental authority there can be only “anarchy, chaos, and confusion” (Dobson, 1978). [James Dobson, Christian Authoritarian author of “Dare to Discipline, et.al]
“Instead of viewing obedience to authority as a virtue, I believe we should see it as a malady that has become commonplace in our society. We are creating future citizens who believe they should unquestioningly do what they are told to do. This approach begins in the family and is continually reinforced in our schools, in the military, in many churches and religious cults, and in many business and industrial organizations. There is much evidence, however, that people conditioned to obey others come to view themselves as instruments for carrying out another person's wishes, and as no longer responsible for their own actions.
“The most common thought adjustment these obedient subjects made, Milgram concluded from interviews with them, was to see themselves as not responsible for their own actions. Each saw himself not as a person choosing to act in a morally unacceptable way but rather as the agent of external authority; they were “just doing their duty.” Milgram concluded: “The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
“The findings from this carefully designed and creative experiment clearly contradict the argument that teaching children to obey external authority will foster self-control and a sense of responsibility. Milgram's study supports the opposite argument: obedience to authority brings about the disappearance of self-control and responsibility.
“All people are fallible—and that includes parents and others who possess power. And whoever is using power may falsely claim that it is for the other’s welfare. The history of civilization has recorded the lives of many who claimed to use their power for the welfare of the person on whom the power is used. “’I’m only doing this for your own good’ is not a very convincing justification for power. ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ wrote Lord Acton. And from Shelley, ‘Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate’er it touches.’ Edmund Burke maintained that ‘The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.’
“One of the last strongholds for the sanction of power in human relationships is in the home—in the parent-child relationship. A similar pocket of resistance is in the schools—in the teacher-student relationship, where authority still remains the principal method for controlling and directing the behavior of students.
"Why are children the last ones to be protected against the potential evils of power and authority? Is it because they are smaller or because adults find it so much easier to rationalize the use of power with such notions as ‘Father knows best’ or ‘It’s for their own good’?
“Parents and teachers are told that they can safely use punitive discipline provided they do it justly, wisely, lovingly, fairly or benignly and always with the child’s best interests in mind. They claim that it’s perfectly all right to be firm but fair, to be tough as long as it’s tough love, to be autocratic as long as they are benevolent autocrats, to control as long as they are not dictators, to punish as long as the punishment is not too severe, like time out over a spanking maybe…
“These ideas are widely-believed, no doubt because they are exactly what punitive parents and teachers most want to believe. Needing to justify their use of power-based discipline to control children or needing to assuage their guilt. Adults desperately want to believe that what they are doing is out of love for the child, for the child’s own good. In other words, people try to make the ends appear benign in order to justify the use of their power-based means.
“My own conviction is that as more people begin to understand power and authority more completely and accept its use as unethical, more parents will apply those understandings to adult-child relationships; will begin to feel that it is just as immoral in those relationships; and then will be forced to search for creative new nonpower methods that all adults can use with children and youth.”
From Thomas Gordon’s “Parent Effectiveness Training” and “Teaching Children Self Discipline: At Home and At School”
VOLUNTARY SERVITUDE | ANARCHISM IN 2MIN 20SEC #13 | Saul Newman Anarchism Research Group Loughborough, Jan 24, 2022 2:16
TAXATION IN 1 MINUTE—ROBERT HIGGS Short July 27, 2023
STATES ARE AGENTS OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION - ROBERT HIGGS. Fred C. Dobbs, April 30, 2016 2:11
ROBERT HIGGS: WHY ARE POLITICIANS ALWAYS TRYING TO SCARE US? PART 4 OF 4. Independent Institute. May 27, 2010 27:12
HOW NONCONFORMITY CURES A SICK SELF AND A SICK SOCIETY Academy of Ideas. Short
Full 11:47
WHY ARE PEOPLE SHEEPLIKE IN THEIR OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY? Academy of Ideas. Short
WHY ARE PEOPLE SO OBEDIENT? - COMPLIANCE AND TYRANNY Academy of Ideas. 12:32
As an uncle to my 16 yo niece, I was never in a position to consider punishment. Aunts & uncles often say they love the dynamic because once kids start crying, they hand them back to the parent. So when my niece laments about her homework, I tell her, “I don’t care if you finish it. That’s up to you.” Rather than challenge her with threats—no ice cream or whatever—I hand the power to her. She is on the honor roll this semester!
The Milgram experiment was in fact replicated in 2003 with a new generation (mine) that was raised at least somewhat less violently and in a less authoritarian manner. But that's not really the dunk the authoritarians think it is, as authoritarian parenting (and society) never really went away, it just became more subtle and sneaky. Control freaks still remain in power to this very day.