Medicating children

[Peter van Heusden]

On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 11:00:33AM -0400, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> A case in point.  As the Amish have been moving away from agriculture to
> crafts and small manufacturing, PA businesses cry "child exploitation" and
> "unfair competition" on the Amish practice of youth 12 years old working in
> their family owned shops.  In other words, a 12-year idler wasting his time
> at a mall, arcade parlor, watching tv or playing video games, and then
> flipping burgers at MacGrease when he reaches 16 is good; but a 12-year old
> learning a useful trade and the virtues of work is bad.  Can it sink any
> lower than that?

Since when did work, as opposed to labour, possess virtue? The 12-year
old Amish boy is as little engaging in the 'free development of each'
as the kid in the mall - the problem, from what I've seen, has much
more got to do with enforced idleness and the commodification of public
space (you have a choice between a shitty neighbourhood which you have to
take as given, and a glitzy mall which you have to take as given - what
choice, what variety!) than a lack of imposition of work. Tell
me, Wojtek, is the imposition of work on adults also character building?

Peter
--
Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com>
NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics
"Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man 
shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain 
and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844                 k*256^2+2083
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