Anti-Spanking Arguments That Seem Weak

[Think Free]

Below are some arguments or claims made against spanking that seem potentially weak, and why they seem weak to me. I am posting them to argue, yes, but fundamentally so that the arguments can either be amended or clarified to make them better, or abandoned if they're invalid.

 

1. One argument that is made against spanking is that it is inconsistent with the way we treat other humans, but this argument seems to have some potential problems to me. First, suppose I walked up to someone on the street, hit them and grabbed their GameBoy. What would happen to me? I think I might be arrested, sued, or beaten up, etc. Would anti-spanking advocates say that a child that hits another child and takes their toy would be better off if they were arrested, sued, or beaten up than if they were spanked? If not, this argument seems weak when applied to spanking for activities that would invite punishment for adults too, because it seems adults are treating children better than they would treat another adult, even if it might still be a wrong way to handle it.

 

Second, it seems to me that the reasons for not spanking adults is primarily cultural and pragmatic, not moral. On the cultural side, I would be angry at being spanked even if it didn't hurt at all. Why? Because of the symbolism of the act. Adults don't like being treated like children, even in positive ways. Maybe this is because we dehumanize children... or maybe it's just because adults aren't children. (I wouldn't like being treated like a woman... because I'm not a woman. Treating someone like something they're not is a form of mocking them.) Suppose I was visiting a remote tribe where I planned to stay for a few days and discovered that I had inadvertently greatly dishonored the chief's wife by sitting next to her, or something. If I learned that the culturally normal way for dealing with was for me to be publicly spanked on my bottom, I would probably go through with it, if I didn't have to take my pants down, and despite my (cultural?) distaste for the punishment. On the other hand, I would be very unlikely to accept such a punishment in the US where I know it wouldn't be culturally appropriate.

 

My wife told me the story of how a 15-year-old in her high-school had told his friends that his parents had spanked him. The response all around was, "Why are your parents still spanking you, and why would you share such an embarrassing secret?" Showing that in that case the children perceived the spanking as culturally inappropriate and therefore embarrassing, more than bad or wrong, even though they themselves wouldn't be treated that way.

 

On the pragmatic side, it seems that spanking wouldn't be a deterrent for adults against most crimes unless they spanked so hard as to cause lasting, if not permanent harm. If ancient cultures could have deterred theft, murder, adultery, etc., with just spanks, they probably would have.

 

If you could forgo a fine by being spanked, how large would the fine have to be? I suspect it wouldn't be too large for myself. But I would probably just pay $15 instead if that were the option. On the other hand, if I could forgo a $15 fine by sticking a 9v battery to my tongue, I would be much more likely to do that, even though I would consider it more painful. Why? The cultural connotations of the two acts. I think this thought experiment shows the cultural and pragmatic reasons that we don't spank adults.

 

Showing the existence of such cultural or pragmatic rules doesn't disprove that spanking adults is immoral, but if there is a cultural and/or pragmatic law against spanking adults, we don't need to invoke a moral law to explain the behavior.

 

2. Another argument made against spanking, especially spanking in response to violence, is that it's self-contradictory. But suppose there's an IT manager--we'll call him Stefan. If Stefan observed one of his employees reprimanding another employee for an issue that isn't his concern, would it be self-contradictory for Stefan to reprimand the first employee for reprimanding the second? Likewise, is it inconsistent for the police to confiscate stolen goods? Is the issue that the child is too young to understand the distinction? If so, is it fine to start spanking your kid for hitting when they turn 8?

 

3. Anti-spanking advocates sometimes say that spanking is just a euphemism for hitting. This doesn't seem correct to me. Spanking is a relevant subset of hitting, just like being paid is a relevant subset of receiving money. Saying, "Mr. So-and-so pays me," isn't just a euphemistic way of saying, "I receive money from Mr. So-and-so." It clarifies the reason that you receive money. Spanking someone, depending on context, usually means, among other things, that they did something wrong. Hitting does not. "Spanking" someone in the eye is not spanking. So when someone says they spanked someone, they mean, among other things, that they didn't hit them in the eye. You get the point.

 

4. I have heard anti-spanking advocates, even on Stefan's show, claim that young kids don't understand cause and effect yet and then suggest that you provide rewards for good behavior instead. This seems self-contradictory.

[MysterionMuffles]

I'm interested in how someone will attempt to refute this without asking you about your own childhood lol. It seems like a place to start but Im up for the challenge. Maybe when I get on a computer later I'll see if I can try to understand some of your points.