🚀 go-pugleaf

[from Mary Powers 990507]

From some comments lately on the net (which I'm not going to try to find
right now), I get the feeling that some people believe that Bill (or PCT)
asserts that coercion is really the only way that independent control
systems interact with one another.

I think Bill felt that it went without saying (his mistake: obviously some
people need it said loudly and clearly and early and often) that there are
indeed many kinds of human interactions involving love and altruism and
cooperation and negotiation and this and that which do not involve
coercion: the control of another's behavior by the actual, threatened, or
implied use of force.

What he said, or meant to say, or thought he said, and maybe this is just
as bothersome to some people as what he didn't say (as described above),
was that many interactions, benevolent as they may appear, done with the
kindest of intentions and with the best possible consequences in mind, are
actually, to some degree, coercive.

All he wanted to do was to encourage awareness of the possible coerciveness
of these sorts of actions.  For one thing, it may seem to one person to be
a small part of an interaction, completely overshadowed by the benevolence
and good intentions, but that person cannot know how importantly it might
loom in the other person's mind.

For example, consider taking a chid to the dentist.  Certainly there are
many positive things about doing that, but there is also a coercive
element.  How many parents cancel the appointment because the child says "I
don't wanna"?  Bill simply proposed that it would be better to acknowledge
that force will be used if necessary than pretend that it will not.

Ditto with schools.  Coercion may be minimal, but the students still are
required to be there.  The local truant officer may have less to do that
the Maytag washer repair man, but he is still there to enforce the laws of
the state, physically if necessary.  And "misbehaving" children may end up
being paddled, in some schools, or taken home (even in an RTP school), both
of which are examples of the control of behavior by physical means.  That
potential exists in all interactions in the school - and that includes the
relatively benevolent situations of limited choice, if the child chooses
neither of the options the teacher indicates are the only acceptable ones.
One hopes, of course, that one or another of the two choices will always be
acceptable, but one reason for hoping that is because one knows that
coercion lies beneath the surface, ready to be used.

Mary P.