Incidentally, your instincts regarding parenting are completely correct, and you are likely such a morally astute and virtuous person precisely because of the challenges you overcame in your youth. This bind is what makes parenting hard. Most of the 24/7 yammering is due to people managing their own neuroses at the expense of their children and extending the generational trauma one more notch down the line. “False empowerment” was a game-changing concept (as a form of trauma) for me in this regard. (Thank you Terry Real.)
The obverse is the crisis-based morality of 'do the good because it is also unavoidable.' This has been the problem with ecological politics forever: you should act on behalf of intrinsically valuable other-than-human species (by being energy efficient for example); but if you don't, there will be ecological collapse and you will die. By not committing to the value of 'nature' 'freely,' ecological politics leaves itself open to the amoral response of 'well, I'll do it when I have to; let me know when the collapse will be, doomer.'
I think there is actually another nested level of this "the right thing is also the best thing" logic, which is the actual content of the parental yammering. I completely agree that the yammering is an effort to circle the square that is their own struggling with and reinforcement of the logical conflict. I ALO think the yammering is an effort to inculcate this logic in the child. They want the child to know that not only is it the right thing to do to not hit someone, but it is also the most effective thing to do.
Incidentally, your instincts regarding parenting are completely correct, and you are likely such a morally astute and virtuous person precisely because of the challenges you overcame in your youth. This bind is what makes parenting hard. Most of the 24/7 yammering is due to people managing their own neuroses at the expense of their children and extending the generational trauma one more notch down the line. “False empowerment” was a game-changing concept (as a form of trauma) for me in this regard. (Thank you Terry Real.)
The obverse is the crisis-based morality of 'do the good because it is also unavoidable.' This has been the problem with ecological politics forever: you should act on behalf of intrinsically valuable other-than-human species (by being energy efficient for example); but if you don't, there will be ecological collapse and you will die. By not committing to the value of 'nature' 'freely,' ecological politics leaves itself open to the amoral response of 'well, I'll do it when I have to; let me know when the collapse will be, doomer.'
Yes, that is a great example of the same logic!
I think there is actually another nested level of this "the right thing is also the best thing" logic, which is the actual content of the parental yammering. I completely agree that the yammering is an effort to circle the square that is their own struggling with and reinforcement of the logical conflict. I ALO think the yammering is an effort to inculcate this logic in the child. They want the child to know that not only is it the right thing to do to not hit someone, but it is also the most effective thing to do.