At 12:01 AM -0700 7/21/96, Mike Duvos wrote:

David Sternlight (david@SternBot.com) writes:

The above suggests your mind is closed. I'm going to respond once for the benefit of other readers before plonking you. Feel free to e-mail me if you really want a discussion and not just to hear yourself talk.

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There are many others who have come to similar conclusions about the formation of independent judgement in children, and lots of non-Piaget experiments. Your comments are diversionary and in fact by the end of your post you come to agree with my basic point.

Every doctrine has its followers, and I will admit "Piaget-Speak" is still quite popular in certain circles, and its buzzwords are often heard in arguments promoting child inferiority and dismissing childrens' concerns.

Irrelevant.

That hardly means I agree with your basic point, which is that parents should be able to do whatever they want in controlling their childrens' information sources without their children having any recourse against them.

The job of a parent is exactly that. The "benevolent despotism" begins totally, when a child is unable to survive physically unaided, and gradually diminishes as a child achieves increasing independence--to eat, to walk, to read, to think, to make independent critical judgements.

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That is also false in its implications. Librarians are in loco parentis,

This, of course, varies with local statutes, as does the legal definition of "In Loco Parentis." Generally it applies to teachers, people hired to care for children, and some relatives, such as grandparents. I am not familar with any locale where librarians are specifically mentioned, and most librarians will be more than happy to explain to you that a library is not a free babysitting service, and that they are not caregivers.

This is a massive evasion. I referred to librarians' traditional role in managing children's reading. Most libraries (for instance) won't permit young children in the adult stacks, and many have a children's card that isn't valid for certain kinds of books. Further, librarians often observe what children are reading and try to gently guide them--mostly informed by the child's tastes but also with a certain "keep them out of hot water" flavor. Big, busy libraries may not be able to do that, but I am forever grateful for mine in Hartford, Connecticut. Under the gentle guidance of librarians my intellectual development was stimulated in such a way that I'm convinced it was one factor in my eventually being able to get into MIT. And yes, they wouldn't let me into some sections until I was at an age where they thought I could handle it.

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and most libraries are VERY careful about what materials young children are exposed to and what is more, are responsive to community pressure in the matter since most libraries are community-based.

Most libraries let "young adults" (read anyone who has hit their teenage years) read pretty much anything they want.

We're not talking about "young adults" here. It's been clear from my comments from the beginning that I was talking about young children. Piaget didn't do all that much with teen-agers.

"Parents on the warpath" have managed to apply pressure in recent years, and libraries are a bit less free than they used to be, but I think the American Library Association has done a pretty good job in standing its ground against agitators and pressure groups.

This has to do with attempted censorship of what adults may read, and is totally off-topic.

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So after trying to refute my point, you come to agree with it and want to shift the issue to the question of at what age....

No - I stated in my original message that young children do need some reasonable constraints to guard them from exposure to material which might cause them emotional pain.

More than that, you conceded that the constraints should be tailored to the age of the child (or at least what could be observed about the child's maturity). That was my only point and one with which you at first disagreed. Reread your post--you are really blind to your own prejudices about my posts.

This is far different from your assertion that minors (everyone under 18) should have no access to any information that their parents do not pre-approve.

I never said that. Please provide evidence that I did.

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I'm not competent to assess that nor, I assert, are you; I suggest it varies with the child and it's up to the individual parent to make those subtle distinctions, issue by issue, child by child.

Nothing subtle about it David. Once young people have passed through early childhood, the burden of proof is on anyone who suggests that they should be insulated from social and political reality to provide a convincing reason why. Parental capriciousness doesn't qualify.

On this we disagree. It is a legitimate disagreement. And "capriciousness" is a dishonest misrepresentation of what I said.

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As I parse the above sentence it says limiting is often justified but it might not be.

Parse the sentence again. What it says is that although "protecting children" is often the excuse used to limit older childrens' access to controversial material, the reality is that it is usually an effort to control their thinking on certain issues by making sure they have only one viewpoint, that of their parents.

Reread your own sentence (which I note you don't quote). It says what I claim, not your revisionist rewriting above.

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If so, it's up to the parents to figure ou where THEIR kid is on the scale--nobody else has as much time, motivation, or opportunity to observe.

As is usual with Statists, the argument is seen as a debate over who should be doing the controlling, the notion that everyone needs to be controlled being a foregone conclusion.

As usual with the intellectually bankrupt, calling names such as "Statist" is "the last resort of the scoundrel". Plonk! David