On Corporal Punishment

Having been approved by parliament, the Children’s Amendment Bill which outlaws corporal punishment, is one step away from being passed into law.

Is corporal punishment a barbaric practice that together with the likes of slavery should have no place in civilized society? Is it perhaps an age-old institution through which parents instill their understanding of right and wrong on their progeny?

Any discussion on corporal punishment will tend to address its six main facets: the validity of punishment, the transgression; the authority that implements the punishment; the person on whom the punishment is being inflicted; the means; and the consequences of the mutual ‘exchange’.

Without going into normative theories of state, the validity of punishment as a whole is presupposed by the bill – as it seeks to enforce the absence of certain actions with penalties attached when disobeyed. Indeed, the penal system is the formal means by which society through the authority of the judiciary seeks to rout out or punish unsuitable behaviour. By the same measure, in the informal setting of the family, parental authority extends to the behavioral nurturing of their children – punishment being a feature.

Once punishment is accepted, one has to ask which forms are permitted. Is corporal punishment inherently wrong? If so -- why? Many of its detractors claim it intrinsically violent and therefore abusive. One problem with this is that violence is often difficult to gauge in human interaction, and thus a deceptive criterion. A parent slapping a toddler’s hand as it reaches for the red-hot stove is violent, but saves the child from a lot of agony. Is this compassionate act therefore intrinsically wrong or abusive? Is it then perhaps that punishment is imposed against the recipient’s will? As any child will attest, punishment generally tends to be against their will. So is going to school; or eating all their veggies. Hence if it can’t be shown as inherently wrong, shouldn’t it be left up to the parent?

Another argument often thrown into the hat is the numerous cases of the physical abuse that accompany parents in the habit of applying corporal punishment. When discussed in terms of causation, corporal punishment is neither a necessary not sufficient ground for physical abuse. There are many parents who might give the odd hiding when the child has grossly erred, but never abuse their children -- hence, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Further, it’s naïve to judge anything by its abuse. By the same reasoning, alcohol, which causes many more deaths, illness and perhaps broken families, should also be outlawed.

What perhaps weighs heaviest against this bill is the state infringement on the privacy and autonomy of the family unit. In principle I’m immediately riled when the ‘nanny’ state starts prescribing the manner in which parents should raise their children. Should an abstracted and faceless bureaucracy infringe on the highly personal, interactive and diverse responsibility of the family? Obviously the children’s rights should be protected, but a ‘right from discipline’ is certainly not one of them.

This bill will only further strain an already overloaded policing and judicial system. The state should first deal with the current epidemic of crime, before adding another to its list.

Death Cheats Itself

Jack Kevorkian, 79, affectionately known as “Dr. Death” by his many admirers, is to be released from prison next month. Indications are that this convicted felon will go on a speaking circuit, charging as much as $100,000 per engagement. This is only months after his lawyer pleaded for his release citing hepatitis and other ailments as reason for the Doc being at death’s door.

After spending 8 years at American tax-payer expense, Doc has finally decided to “pay some bills”, and what better than to talk about “the right to die”. Kevorkian’s long obsession with death bleeds through the canvas, literally. For a sampling, see here. It’s no small surprise that this prime candidate for the “sorry, try again” photo of beauty treatments hasn’t decided to take a dose of his own medicine, but like other normal people, it seems that Doc is still deeply charmed with his own existence.

It feels like yesterday when this psycho who effortlessly helped over 130 undoubtedly satisfied ‘customers’ to their deaths was being put away for good, but it seems the Doc is back to haunt.

More On Religious Intolerance

Simon Borchardt’s derisive piece on Jaco van der Westhuyzen’s (pictured) antics after the Super14 final offers a suitable case study on a trend of religious intolerance in the media.

It seems that Borchardt had two main problems with the said scenario. Firstly, the white T-shirt with “Jesus is King” scrawled on it, was politically incorrect by virtue of it being a religious text shown at a public sporting-spectacle. Secondly, there seem to be ‘theological’ problems with the context. I’ll focus on the former.

Borchardt cuts to the quick in his lambasting, but gives little substance as to the reason for his outrage. Near the end, he breathlessly rasps, “…South Africa is a secular state and Van der Westhuyzen’s actions were grossly inappropriate”. Sadly, this shows an unmitigated distortion of the concept of a secular state. It seems the only part Borchardt correctly grasped is that South Africa happens to be one.

A secular state is officially neutral on matters of religion, neither supporting nor opposing any particular religious belief, practice or expression. Hence there is no state religion or equivalent. All citizens are treated equally, irrespective of their religious persuasion, with none gaining preferential status due to their faith (or absence of it). Was Jaco – playing for the “Blue Bulls” franchise – representing government? Did Jaco’s action result in a religion gaining government preference? Was there a law altered giving the “Jesus-group” special privileges? No. Then for the life of me, I can’t see how this has diddly-squat to do with South Africa being a secular state.

The outrageous aspect is that ‘secular state’ is brazenly extrapolated to infer a relegation of religion from all public arenas to the private. Not only does this beg the question of the validity of such a bold public/private distinction, it assumes government interference and opposition to all public expressions of religion – a tenet incompatible with secularism. This is a two-edged sword: it protects the state from religion, but equally protects religion from state meddling. It seems that Borchardt had interpreted freedom of religion to mean freedom from religion.

Borchardt further implies that the tender egos of non-funky-Christians were shattered at the exhibition. I’ve just about had it with the Politically Correct crowd. To demonstrate, let’s say Jaco wore a bright pink T-shirt saying “Pronutro is King” – or perhaps one saying, “Aliens Exist”, or “They arrested me for being the ugliest man alive – could your dad come to the local jail to prove them wrong”. The first is a statement of preference. We all know Pronutro… but I might personally prefer iphalishi. Big deal. The second is an unproven statement which could be either right or wrong. The last, is an insult to every humourless cretin that reads it. Jaco’s T shirt lies somewhere between the first and second and is agonizingly innocuous as far as T shirts go nowadays. If he had scrawled a four-letter verb followed by “…you, sharks!” it would probably have been converted into a lucrative clothing brand.

Borchardt’s offense at some bloke expressing his religious belief is just an indication of his bald-faced intolerance and prejudice against religion. However, as much as I will defend Jaco’s right to show off his shoddy handwriting, I’ll defend Borchards gold-plated drivel. He’s as much entitled to his opinion as the next person – only he shouldn’t pass it off as unbiased ‘sport’ reporting.

Public Servant Strike Justified

To echo the words of Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, “If 57 percent is good for the president, if 50 percent is good for the ministers, if 20 percent is good for the judges, then six percent is an insult to all of us.”

As an uncultured pleb looking up at the imposing hierarchy of government, I’ve considered throwing in my lot with the ‘downtrodden’ public servants. Surely if government is in the business of doling out lucrative pay-hikes, why should the grunts on the ground be left holding the empty money-bag while the powers that be get VIP seating on the gravy train?

The Intolerant Tolerant

Pierre’s response to my comments seems to ignore, at best the indifference, and at worst, the contempt, religion has enjoyed from western academic and philosophical circles since the enlightenment period: to a lesser degree germinating from Kant’s scathing critique of metaphysics, through to Hume’s Guillotine, the rantings of Nietzsche’s madman and culminating in the likes of Russell’s logical censure of Christianity. Hence, as aptly exhibited by Pierre, theology and other philosophies of religion find little or no credibility in the contemporary academic arena – perhaps with good reason. Hence, it is to the credit of religion’s resilience that this ‘opiate of the masses; the sigh of the oppressed’ is still held as a formidable force by the contemporary intelligentsia.

As for the media’s supposed silk-glove approach, one need look no further than the recent Ted Haggard debacle to see how scathing it can be. Whether it be a priest caught red–handed with a hand in the altar boy’s… uhm… cookie jar, an off-duty traffic cop caught speeding, or a lawyer showing blatant disregard for the law -- it always draws a flitter of laughter from the crowd when hypocrisy is unmasked.

To say that an objectionable religious teaching (such as a church’s position on homosexuality) should be “spurned by the media, vilified in editorials, reported to the Human Rights Commission and taken to the equality court” is an exercise in question-begging. That is tantamount to having the Holy Office peer-review the latest articles of Scientific American. Criticising a belief purely by its result is a thinly veiled ‘appeal to consequence’ and therefore logically fallacious. By this I don’t say that the consequences should be irrelevant. Rather, religious tenets are a matter of propositional truth and should be critically evaluated through comparative religious dialogue and exegetical scrutiny of valid texts.

Now on to the main thrust of my rebuttal: toleration. Taken as a solitary pillar of interaction, this ‘virtue’ of modern liberalism runs into some serious pitfalls. By definition, it can only be exercised when there are beliefs, actions or practices the tolerator would prefer not to exist – not merely when indifferent. Herein lies the rub: from the actions of its proponents, it seems that philosophically, one can tolerate any position, so long as it is not claimed to be ‘true’; morally, one can practice anything, so long as one does not claim it the ‘better way’; religiously, one can hold to anything, so long as it does not mention a ‘supreme being’.

When applied to any religious concept of moral ‘wrong’, tolerance erroneously comes up trumps – the said moral is wrong simply by virtue of its ‘intolerance’. The reasoning is that if there is no way to guarantee religious or moral truth (as many of these tolerevanglists proclaim), then we aren’t justified to impose out moral precepts on others. However, the self-defeating nature of this contention becomes visible when tolerance is itself proclaimed as the Moral Truth. Why should tolerance receive special treatment?

I’m certainly for tolerance, but not in its current ungrounded, watered-down and self-serving form.

Kicking the Super14 Away

All credit to the Bulls for pulling off a remarkable last-minute victory in the Shark Tank – well, almost. I think the Sharks played a none-too-small hand in their own demise. Holding a 6 point lead with a minute on the clock, James got clean ball on his 10-metre line – and, good heavens, opted to kick the ball downfield! The Bulls counterattacked with a powerful surge only to have Botha hoof a lackluster grubber into the hands of the waiting Steyn. What the…?! Steyn also puts in an aimless kick in the general direction of the Bulls try line. The resulting counter produced the match-winning try by flyer Habana; the kick in front a mere formality.

Being a bit of an armchair sports critic, I realise the triteness of 20/20 hindsight; but consider what could have happened: with a minute to play, the Sharks had the ball. Instead of holding on to it, and thus negating virtually any possibility of the Bulls scoring, they kicked it away pointlessly. Instead of keeping it tight and taking it through three or four phases before booting it into the delirious crowd, they played right into their opponents hands by opening up the game.

For all purposes, having had it in their hands, the Sharks might as well have kicked the Super14 trophy away. The only consolation is that South African rugby looks ominous in a World Cup year. Who knows?

It's just too close to call

With the Super 14 Final exploding in the Shark Tank on Saturday, I have to join a host of others saying this game is too close to call. The Sharks have won more games, finished top of the log, and enjoy home-ground advantage, but the Bulls have been murderous in their last few outings. I've seen few teams playing with such clinical self-confidence. These teams are evenly matched -- the Bulls might have the extra beef in their forwards, while the Sharks have the bite in their backs.

Being a banana-boy, I'll have to root for the local team, thankful though, that whichever way it goes, the trophy has finally returned to RSA. I've already bid my fingernails farewell.