Once upon a time it was a normal feature of spousal relationships for husbands to hit their wives. There was nothing abusive about it, men were simply performing their duty to discipline. Women can be very stubborn after all, willfully defying the wishes of their husbands, or being disrespectful and moody, forgetting who is the boss in the relationship. The hitting was thought of as nothing more than a useful corrective tool if done properly out of the desire to teach. Everyone knew these husbands were very loving and only wanted what is best for their partners. Lets face facts, some wives need a good smack now and again to put them in their place. You have to be firm with them, and they will thank you later in life once they come to their senses.
Looking back, it shocks us that our entire civilization betrayed women by siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim, and coming up with ridiculous ex post facto rationalizations that reverse the rules of reality by ignoring
the obvious truth that respect is only taught by modeling respect, and that physical aggression against a politically, economically, and socially disadvantaged underclass is completely unacceptable by any sane definition of morality.
For the longest time, women simply were not thought of as fully human, as is still the case with children presently. This is easy to recognize once you see the ease with which people talk about parenting issues as though it were axiomatic that children are the property of their parents. An undertone pervades these discussions with no corroborating evidence that an explicit claim on the regulation of children’s' souls by parents is justified on the basis of morality, when in actual fact it is nothing more than the blind biological accident of birth that is responsible for that power. If there is a behavioral problem with the kid, it is assumed that his refusal to listen or bad attitude is responsible. But no time is spent on considering whether his feelings of a lack of credibility in authority are justified. Perphaps living with adults who now, having been deprived of the full status of a personhood when they were kids, have the freedom to assert moral, psychological, or physical superiority over another human being with full impunity means that a lot of the child's needs are being neglected, and identity enmeshment has taken over the family system. As they get older they become more capable of defending themselves and rebelling, but inevitably the parents blame them for that too. Calling them willfull, or stubborn, and accusing them of thinking they know everything. Which of course is classic projection. Notably, spanking usually stops by the time the kids are big enough to fight back.
Society of course has a total double standard and will bend over backwards to defend parents. For example, if you force your girlfreind to sit at the dinner table until she's finished her food (which makes her gag), you are liable to get a restraining order, but if you do it to a dependant child, you are lauded for being a firm parent.
Anyone whose read literature on the subject will know that psychological make-up of the family is infinitely dense, with many interrelated and largely unconscious causal factors at play leading to the generation of a child’s orientation in the world, and the degree of "good" or "bad" behavior he will manifest. In order to parent effectively one must be sure they aren't parenting split off and dissociated aspects of their own psychology, which requires dealing with core issues and first principles. Yet most people just opt to turn the child into a scapegoat. Countless parenting articles more or less explicitly state an intention to alleviate guilt in the caretaker. Meanwhile an epidemic of "chemical imbalances" in the young generates an entire industry devoted to drugging them into docility, their future has been sold off through debts that can never be repaid, and scores of young men are sent to foreign countries to die in pointless wars started by their sociopathic presidents. If the kids don't respect us, we should be applauding them. We should be listening to them. We should be learning from them.
That is why spanking doesn't seem weird to most people. They think they have an intuitive grasp that as a rule it is justified but this is born out of a considerable emotional blind spot. The reason it is so difficult to see is also the reason it is a blind spot.
Children act out when they aren't having their needs met or are testing to see whether they are accepted unconditionally, as they understandibly have significant doubts about given the prevelence of behaviorism in conventional parenting and schooling practice. It is only the projection of adults steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition of excessive moralizing that insists that this behavior is "bad" and thereby miss the point entirely. The facts just don't add up. Violence and cruelty are learned behaviors that arise when children are brought up in environments where hypocrisy is present and empathy is inconstant. What could be more hypocritical and less empathetic than labeling a kid who won't listen as "bad" and a parent who hits someone one-fifth his size as "good"?
The word "spanking" is a feeling terminating euphemism designed to cover up guilt.
Denial in the Family System:
http://www.youtube.com/user/dmackler58#p/u/29/yL7XFVYLbR8
