By Selwyn Duke

When I consider the topsy-turvy world we live in, I can’t help but
think of the Bible’s warning, “There will come a time when bad will be
called good and good will be called bad.” A prime example of this is
adult-child relations. In a reversal from a couple of generations ago,
a child can strike an adult and it’s sometimes shrugged off, but if an
adult disciplines a youngster corporally, the police may come
a-knockin’. (By the way, if society would arrest someone for using
physical force against a minor based on the supposition that it isn’t a
proper remedy for intransigence or misbehavior, why do the authorities
use same against the suspect if he resists arrest? Can’t they just reason
with him or give him a time-out?) The thinking, I suppose, is that
adults should know better. They certainly should: they should know that
such permissive ideas do violence to our capacity to civilize the young.

Ah, “But, Duke,” some will say, “how can you civilize children by
teaching them violence?” It’s not a good point but an excellent
question, as it brings up one of the great myths of our time, that
“violence has to be taught.”

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