Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > CEDU / Brown Schools and derivatives / clones
For the Guys on Moose Talk
Antigen:
I don't see any evidence. If you ask my mom today, she'll tell you just about the same line of shit you're telling me about The Seed and Straignt (both long since closed down under a cloud of criminal and civil complaints)
What I see is a parent who doesn't really want to look a gift horse in the mouth. The kid has outgrown his youthful excesses and you paid big bucks to believe that you were the cause of it. You're a good, good toughloving mother, Ottowa. Now go home and enjoy your rewards. Don't expect to see much of your grandkids, though. Experience tells me that you probably won't.
Never let your sense of
morals get in the way of
doing what's right
--Isaac Asimov
--- End quote ---
ottawa5:
What in the world do you know about my grandchildren? Or me, or my children, for that matter?
What exactly are you trying to self-justify by imagining things about me that are way out of proportion to anything that you can possibly know about me?
That notwithstanding, since you've been kind (or opinionated) enough to tell me what you see in my story, let me tell you what I see in yours.
I see someone who, fairly late in life, is still fighting the same battles that she was fighting many years ago. This on-going drama with your mother, for instance, that you allude to from time to time.
For some reason, the fact that CEDU has worked out well for people like me and my child is very threatening to you. I don't completely get why that is, but I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the choices that you have made have led to less-than-expected results, and it makes you really mad that another approach worked out well for somebody else. It makes you really mad that hard choices, and courage, and discipline have worked for somebody else.
Look, if you made other choices, well, live with them, or change course, don't blame or attack or diminish others who are pretty content with what their choices have achieved.
I've got to say it Ginger, I get the sense of some kind of burr under your saddle, admirably concealed but certainly there. For some one who presents as a person with all the answers, a quotation for every circumstance even , you just don't seem to me like someone who has the kind of generosity and /or insight about others and their experiences that would be expected if you were so all-fired sure that your way is the best. I also notice some lack of a sense of responsibility to know that sometimes, grown-ups have to be grown-ups and make choices for children, and I wonder what is that about.
Well, you will be what you are, I'm sure, as I will. But your most recent remarks make me even less concerned about your opinion of my positive view of CEDU or about my choice in sending my son to RMA.
Hamiltonf:
Ginger, Why do you even bother with this pseudo-psychologist who will never pass her dissertation because she hasn't got the slightest comprehension of what you are talking about?
Every criticism she has of you can be turned around by you as a a criticism of herself.
For example: she says:
" the fact that CEDU has worked out well for people like me and my child is very threatening to you. I don't completely get why that is, but I wonder if it has to do with the fact that the choices that you have made have led to less-than-expected results, and it makes you really mad that another approach worked out well for somebody else. It makes you really mad that hard choices, and courage, and discipline have worked for somebody else.
Look, if you made other choices, well, live with them, or change course, don't blame or attack or diminish others who are pretty content with what their choices have achieved"
This is pseudo-psychology at its worst. It's a rationalization for her own inadequacy. "hard choices? Courage? Discipline? Come on Ottawa, stop being self-righteous. You're mixing up morality (your morality) with psychology. You were inadequate as a parent. You choose to excuse your inability to empathise with whatever motivated your son (and quite possibly misinterpreted his motivations) and you continue to be racked with guilt.
So stop trying to lay a guilt trip on Ginger because it won't work. And oh, by the way, you were talking about mantra's? Frankly, when my kids were 15, I was more worried about them starting smoking thatn I would have been about them smoking pot (which they did) and I was confident enough in the values that they had developed to know that I couldn't force them to accept anything I might want to impose on them.
So give us a break. You'll not convince anyone of any benefits of these coercive programs because there are none. They are totalitarean and merely encourage double-think in aspiring psychologists like yourself.
Save us from people like you who would save us from ourselves!
ottawa5:
Something I should be used to by now, you being way,way out in left field, that is.
If Ginger wants to ignore me, I am sure that she knows how to do so, without any chanting from the peanut gallery (that would be you in the current context).
And I won't pass my dissertation because I don't know what Ginger is talking about? What are you on, my dear, this is perilously close to raving, I know you're big on legalized drugs but really, let's stay somewhat concrete in these discussions.
Incidentally the current discussion has nothing to do with the practice of psychology so I don't get why you've got yourself all worked up about my remarks sounding like pseudopsychology. What is your sensitivity there, I wonder, that you would ascribe a psychological or pseudo psychological purpose to a person-to- person discussion that, if anything, has to do with a philosophical difference of opinion about what it means to be a parent.
And speaking of philosophical differences, you seem pretty proud of the fact that your children are habitual drug users and that you encouraged them to become so, you've mentioned it before. Pretty ghastly to my way of thinking.
Perhaps other parents who read about the pride you get from this state of affairs will get a feel for where your type of thinking comes from and where it predictably leads. That may help them to decide whether that's what they want for their kids, you can certainly given them guidance about how to be your kind of parent, if that's what they aspire to.
Hamiltonf:
Exactly the sort of response I would have predicted. Rave on Ottawa. You're beginning to sound like Monty Python's argument theme.
You came into this forum declaring yourself to be doing post graduate psychology work and seeking answers and you've done nothing but try to impose your own views on those who would give you them. Ginger, much to her credit has tried, as have the others, and when they do, all you do is try to attribute base motives to them, and malign them as somehow being failures.
You said:
"And speaking of philosophical differences, you seem pretty proud of the fact that your children are habitual drug users"
I did not say they were habitual drug users. Speaking of Philosophical differences, they have adopted the Aristotelean Mean in their lives. Go look that up, because when my son was 15 he was reading Descartes.
You said re their drug use, " and that you encouraged them to become so, you've mentioned it before. Pretty ghastly to my way of thinking."
No, I said I would be more worried about them smoking cigarettes than smoking pot. And at all times their use of drugs has been an informed use. It's your basic assumption, along with that of the Fundamentalist American Hard Christian Right (the FAHCR's), that all drug use is abuse which lies at the root of these schools (and your basic assumption, it seems) and is one of the most frightening things about the people running this coalition of idiots. It's the prohibition that is ghastly and has produced such ghastly results. No, I did not encourage them. Other than to be honest. But what those schools do is cultivate a fundamental intellectual dishonesty, much like yours.
You said:
"Perhaps other parents who read about the pride you get from this state of affairs will get a feel for where your type of thinking comes from and where it predictably leads."
Oh, wise one, where will this predictably lead? The vast majority of people who try drugs do not become addicted. Or is that your prediction that people who are not believed, understood or have self-esteem issues have to be forced into teen help therapy otherwise they will destroy themselves -- that becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prohecy, doesn't it? The DARE program is an excellent example of why the American War on drugs has failed is failing and will continue to fail. I'm an atheist, but I believe that the story of the forbidden fruit is indeed an analogy for what is happening in the drug war. It's almost a self - fulfilling prophecy. Was it your fear of what your son was to become that was driving him into drug abuse? What you have done is what is too ghastly to comprehend.
You said:
"That may help them to decide whether that's what they want for their kids, you can certainly given (sic) them guidance about how to be your kind of parent, if that's what they aspire to."
Do you mean permissive, understanding, kind, empathetic? It's what I would aspire to, but unfortunately, I've failed at that. But it's my children who have (re)taught me these values. Through their experiences they have indeed rekindled those sentiments and motivated me to oppose the types of "help" stemming from Straight-like puritanistic cults. Sometimes they worry me, because they refuse to cross over to the other side of the street when they see someone less fortunate than themselves. But they have given real help to people with real drug problems because they can empathise. On the other hand you, dear Ottawa, don't even know the meaning of the word -- just force them into your mould the good old American Way.
And your attempts to be pejorative in references to my being in left field seems to reveal more about yourself than what it says about me -- as does much of your ranting.
:wave: :eek: [ This Message was edited by: Hamiltonf on 2004-09-08 01:23 ]
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