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by thetrumanshow 2656 days ago
If you lead a child by the arm against their will, is this tantamount to physical violence or no?

If we're busy redefining what is the acceptable behavior in parenting, we better discuss this all the way to the limits.

1 comments

You sound like you're being sarcastic, but I can't be sure. It sounds like you think the premise is ridiculous, but your second sentence is totally reasonable - of course we should discuss all aspects of a topic. Again, I'm not sure if your first question was honest or not, but answering it is straightforward and I think you'll find only extreme minorities of opposing opinions: Leading forcibly by the arm may be objectionable in some contexts, but it is not physical violence in most cases where the person being lead doesn't have the strength to turn the struggle into violence, so for children it almost never is (if the parent isn't using unnecessary force).
I think your parent comment is alluding to the attempts by certain groups to massively expand the use/scope of the word "violence", e.g. the "speech as violence" idea.
I think that would be a reasonable point if that was the topic, but I don't think you're right about their intention because the topic is very explicitly about physical violence. Steering over to the philosophical realm of non-physical "violence" as an abstract concept would be a pretty dramatic departure from the topic, especially since it's not even stated in the comment. They even use an act of physically overpowering a person as their example.
Correct: I do understand that the definition of violence has been expanded in some areas of public discourse, but it wasn't my point.

My point was to find out where the poster believed to be the new demarcation line for physical violence that is acceptable (in parenting). I intended to suggest that leading by the arm might be considered violence by some, perhaps including myself.

You can't escape this context, sure. But I was hoping for expansion on the idea where the poster stated "They should be investigated if their parenting is so poor that they resort to physical violence against the child." ... to which my reply is to ask what the limits are.

I can certainly imagine scenarios where leading by the arm would be considered violence, as it can cause pain and has the potential to injure.

You grab a child by the arm and drag it -- that's potentially violence, but we'd need to look at the action as a whole.

You hold a child's hand to guide it -- that's probably not violence.

HN needs a name for the falacy that people always seek to define precise exact rules for everything, ignoring the way that courts work by investigating the context of an action.

Seeking precise rules for something is, in spirit, the exact opposite of what a logical fallacy is.