Posted by Racer on January 26, 2004, at 20:22:02
In reply to Re: A different view of safety, posted by Dr. Bob on January 24, 2004, at 14:27:09
> OTOH, you can lead a horse to learning, but you can't make him drink...
>
>
No, no, no, Dr Bob!!! It's "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think!"And I agree: there needs to be a final authority on civility. Even if that authority is sometimes arbitrary, we still need it. Kinda like a Supreme Court, if that makes sense. Not because they're always right, but because they are the final arbiters. Just because someone has to have the last word, otherwise things will continue, usually escalate, and there has to be some way to say, "This far and no further," along with the means to make it so.
(When I taught riding to little kids, if I told a kid to move, and didn't get an immediate response, I'd often pick the kid up and move her physically. Parents sometimes commented that their kids always behaved for me -- yeah, because I didn't negotiate about safety, so they learned to do what I said, when I said it, without questioning. They learned to obey me, but they also learned to trust me, that what I told them to do was for their benefit. That's not the way everyone should be treated all the time, but often we do need someone to be In Charge. A lot of the kids I dealt with adored me, BECAUSE I was In Charge, and it allowed them to relax in a way that negotiated obediance didn't. I'd explain why I told them to do something AFTER I got them out of the way of danger, because I wanted them to learn one thing thoroughly: SAFETY required them to obey immediately.
Maybe it's just that I've been the Final Authority in that way, but I don't see how having a Final Authority is a bad thing. When working at a non-profit, one of the things I learned was that sometimes, even if I wasn't sure of my own stance on an issue, the people around me just needed me to be firm about SOMETHING in order to reassure them.
Does any of that make any sense at all?)
That's just FWIW -- and cheap at half the price.
poster:Racer
thread:300134
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040112/msgs/305826.html