notmyrealnick comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong

39 Post author: taw 16 July 2009 03:41PM

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Comment author: PeterS 16 July 2009 05:54:31PM *  0 points [-]

some generous interpretation of "very likely", or something else?

What I mean, roughly, is that if you raised in Western or Eastern Europe, any of the Americas, the Middle East, Asia or Africa, then you probably grew up under some abusive mode of childrearing (childrearing is much more advanced in the Nordic countries). The socializing mode is the most popular these days, although intrusive parenting can also be fairly common too depending on the region.

Try The History of Child Abuse if you're interested.

Does your support for the first hinge on a strict definition of abuse,

Read up on the basic archetypal childrearing modes (infanticidal, abandoning, ambivalent, intrusive, socializing, and helping) for a better idea of what I mean by abuse. You can find information about them in the above link, and even the wikipedia article isn't too bad.

Comment author: notmyrealnick 17 July 2009 03:34:49PM *  4 points [-]

I am sceptical of some of the points in the linked text as well. The author mentions that there are cultures in which parents masturbate their children, but that isn't obviously harmful. Yes, an example was cited where the masturbation in question was done in a harmful and painful way, but that isn't to say that it must always be so. Young children have been documented to occasionaly masturbate even on their own, so why is it that adults helping is immeaditly abuse? And citing

"co-sleeping," with parents physically embracing the child, often continues until the child is ten or fifteen

as an example of "abuse" is getting us into the ludicrous territory. Embracing your child is abuse! The author also makes pretty big leaps of correlation and causation:

Boys in many New Guinea groups today, for instance, are so traumatized by the early erotic experiences, neglect and assaults on their bodies that they need to prove their masculinity when they grow up and become fierce warriors and cannibals, with a third of them dying in raids and wars.

Of course, there are also plenty of valid points about real sexual abuse that does take place, or has historically taken place.

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