Hey,

I want to start out by thanking you for participating in this conversation with me. We may not agree - but that is okay. Life would be pretty boring if we only ever interacted with people who shared precisely our own perspective. I hope that this conversation isn't distressing for people - I really don't mean to cause distress, and I really thank you for participating in this.

> I don't know where you are going with this.

I should take some time to say as clearly as possible that I'm not at all condoning hitting children, being sexually involved with children, yelling at children, ignoring children etc. I'm also not at all suggesting or implying that we should alter our society such that these things are either tolerated or positively revered.

My thought is simply (Hacking's one - as I understand him) that ONE source of harm (and that is not at all to say the ONLY source of harm) is to apply 'victim', 'persecutor', 'abused', 'abuser' labels to people (either to oneself or to others).

> I remain firm on the facst that incest is abuse.

Yep. Ethicists used to site that as a 'moral universal' (something that was condemned by all cultures and all societies). Then they found some tribe somewhere where incest was common, so that had to go out the window. Turns out that that particular society was very small, though, and basically... If they hadn't practiced incest then they would have died out long ago. Not enough... Women, I think it was. So maybe... There is a degree of cultural relativity going on here... Maybe... Incest was okay in that particular society given their unusual circumstances.

> Hitting children is abuse.

How about smacking? A little tap on the bum? That one is still very controversial... Many feel that the state has no right whatsoever to interfere with parental discipline in the home (though you can't do it in the schools, to be sure).

(I'm actually against smacking, for the record - but it is controversial whether a tap on the bum constitutes 'abuse'. I'd say that there are alternative means of discipline that are less likely to result in harm and there should be a campaign to teach parents those alternative methods so they don't need to resort to smacking. But I guess I wouldn't go so far as to call a tap on the bum 'abuse').

> Children who can attach to SOMEONE have a far greater chance of surviving intact.

Yes, that is true. But that person doesn't need to be a parent. So... In cases of neglect... Is the parent responsible, in particular, or is it more that society has failed the child? In some cultures... Parents don't have a special role with respect to children's attachment (in indigenous maori culture, for example). The thought there is that... The best way to achieve a good 'fit' between attached and attachment figure is for it to be a mutual thing rather than something that 'should' happen between parents and offspring.

> In grad school I wrote a paper about a book, Genie, that told the tale of a child whose early years were spent in a godawful abusive home. She didn't develop language because of the abuse, lack of attachment, and ensuing neurological deficits.

I remember learning about that case. Universities campaigning for custody because they thought they had found a person who hadn't been exposed to language before they found her... This was back in the day where there was much controversy over whether there was a Chomskian 'innate language acquisition device' (LAD) that enabled us to learn syntax and grammer upon exposure to a language... Or whether acquisition of language was more stimulus driven (and hence required the relevant stimulus early on in order for people to be able to learn a language at all). The universities wanted custody because they wanted to see how they would fare with respect to teaching her how to talk... Could she acquire syntax? I remember some film clip where a psychologist had this gleam in his eye about finding her. They named her genie as in 'I dream of genie'. Unethical to involountarily confine and not talk to a person for many years so that experiment couldn't be done - but nature had provided them with a wonderful natural experiment - or so it was thought.

During the courtcase it emerged that there had always been something not quite right with genie (she had shown very early signs of developmental disability). Her parents said that that was why they involountarily confined her and didn't talk to her. She wasn't developing language. She wasn't developing normal social behaviors. They didn't know what to do... So they put her in a room somewhere and tried to keep taking care of her basic needs... That used to happen a lot with people who were intellectually handicapped / severely catatonic etc. At that point... The university psychologists lost interest (genie wasn't going to be showing them anything about the effects of a psychologically normal person not being immersed in a language). She was institutionalized. Not re-chained to the bed, to be sure, but locked up in an institution somewhere... I don't know what has happened to her now... Whether she has subsequently died, or what.

> Yes, it is a western, U.S. government agency that does not allow a lot of room for cultural habits that may engage in these activities that we believe are harmful to children.

But there are many more activities that have been found to be harmful to children. Feeding them junk food, not encouraging adequate exercise etc etc etc. Would you suggest that we extend our concept of abuse to embrace all of these as well? There also needs to be a 'type' and a 'token' distinction. If we pick a kind of thing (e.g., eating junk food) then some token individuals may be harmed whereas other token individuals may not be harmed. How many token individuals must be harmed (and what must the extent of the harm be) before we condemn the whole type as 'abuse'? I'm not sure... But I am fairly sure, indeed, that the concept of 'abuse' never used to apply to many of the things that it has come to apply to... And... I'm thinking there is something of a mixed blessing in that (remember we do in fact disapprove of, condemn, and punish many acts that we don't regard 'abusive').

> Yes, I know there are other opinions, habits, patterns, cultures in our wide and wonderful world. However, I feel it would be too invalidating to deny the experience of many, whose lives have been turned upside down.

So the thought is that if we say 'incest isn't child abuse' then it logically follows from that (or simply will follow inevitably as a matter of our psychology) that we are CONDONING incest? I don't see how that follows. There are many things (e.g., natural disaster, light taps on the bum) that we don't consider acts of 'abuse' - and we can consider that they aren't acts of 'abuse' while still lamenting that they are terrible things indeed and doing everything in our power to prevent their occurrence.

Calling something 'abuse' is not the ONLY way of going about social change...

And with that in mind, it is also important that we not invalidate the experiences of many whose lives are upside down who were not victims of abuse. It is getting to the point where 'abuse' is built into the very concept of a number of mental disorders. If you have x disorder than you fairly much MUST have been abused (or you are in denial). I think that attitude is more likely to harm those people. And... I'm not sure how 'abused' 'abuser' terminology (and assignment of malevolent intent in a lot of cases) assists those who are hurting...

> You know, there are people out there who say the holocaust didn't happen. I don't listen to them either.

A very senior professor at my home university resigned from his job at the university because a person was cut from the doctoral program because his thesis involved denying the holocaust. The senior professor wasn't a holocaust denier. He resigned not because he believed this persons thesis to be true - but because he believed this persons thesis should be assessed on its merits. If it turns out that he had done 'bad history' (as he most probably had) then he should fail because he had written a substandard thesis and NOT because of the particular thesis he was defending. I guess that was the thought. I basically... Agree with that. I'll listen to holocaust deniers as I'll listen to creationists and so on and so forth... The trouble is (as in anything) when people are so fixated on their being right such that they won't listen to or engage reasonably with alternative points of view.