> >> Isn't Eric's point similar to one Zizek makes in the
> >> movie about him (Zizek, that is), about apparently
> >> liberal parents actually utilizing more finessed,
> >> slick methods of control?
> >
> > Well here's the quote you're referring to. I don't think he
> > necessarily means that there's something wrong with encouraging
> > children to explore themselves. Just that such encouragement isn't
> > _necessarily_ liberating.
>
> Oh, I'm with him on this one. Kid, you're going to grandma's. None of
> that squishy manipulative shit. Though I'd probably ask why he didn't
> want to go to grandma's. Though his paternal grandma is in a nursing
> home with advanced Alzheimer's, so it's not really relevant; his
> maternal grandma, though, is a fine person who deserves only the best
> treatment.
I don't have the Zizek quote in front of me, but going from memory, I must say I tend to disagree with it. I suppose it can be argued that young kids don't have the ability to engage in argument with an adult on anything like an equal basis and so pretending to do so is still basically coersive, but in less honest way.
On the other hand... I don't have kids, but I remember being one and I feel pretty priviliged to have grown up in a household in which my parents didn't typically just "lay down the law," but where things were up for discussion, debate, etc. And while early on that probably didn't do me much good, as soon as I got old enough to start asserting myself in those discussions I won freedoms that were pretty unusual by comparison to those of my peers.
So I can't agree that this approach to child-rearing is somehow just a more "finessed, slick method of control," than just bossing kids around and treating them like property, and I don't see anything "neoliberal" about it. It's like what Kant (maybe) said... freedom is a precondition for the maturity to handle freedom, not a gift to be bestowed when such maturity is reached.
I don't think it's necessarily going to make them happy - in fact I think the world can be a bad shock to be a kid who expects to be treated with respect. Perhaps they would be better socialized if they were just bossed around. But I don't see how treating them otherwise does capitalism any favours.
Ben