- Edward Smith, 1907
Captain, RMS Titanic
"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful." - Edward Smith, 1907 Captain, RMS Titanic My son had worked from time to time with an individual whose job is to explore plans for all types of disasters. Here is a presentation he made in 2009 in California regarding reaction to a pandemic.
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Sometimes, judicial opinions contain extraordinary tidbits of history, for example there is an interesting bit of history concerning capital punishment (death penalty) at the time the English started colonizing the Americas.
In English common law, there were more than 200 capital crimes. This number was reduced to about twenty in the common law of the American Colonies by the mid-1600s. The most usual of the American common law death penalty offenses were:
Source: Simpson v. Owens, 207 Ariz. 261, 85 P.3d 478 (Ariz.App. Div. 1, 2004) We like to think that we can change people’s minds if only we can give them proper reasons, data and information which will then change their mind. That doesn’t necessarily follow. In fact, if we can get people to change their behavior they may change their minds to match the fact that they behave in a particular way. I recently listened to an NPR podcast about how the media can change attitudes by first changing behaviors, subtly and somewhat unconsciously. If our public behavior doesn’t match the way we believe, we experience discomfort (sometimes called “cognitive dissonance”). So, we adjust to bring those two (acts and beliefs) in harmony. Rwanda had just concluded a genocidal war between two tribes. The Hutus had killed more than a million Tutsi. Although there was a truce, there was still lingering mistrust, little reconciliation and the prospect of further warfare. An American professor, who had survived the Holocaust, hoped to prevent a new outbreak of conflict. So, he convinced the Rwandan government to try to persuade people to change their behaviors and attitudes toward one another. The vast majority of Rwandan’s listened to radio. The Rwandan government sponsored a soap-opera radio program with characters from two imaginary tribes. Scripts for the soap opera were deliberately created to emphasize three main premises:
Later, attitudes were again tested and there was much more congruence between beliefs and behaviors which was explained: First, people who listened to the program concluded that the majority opinion (the “norm”) was consistent with the way the characters thought and behaved, even if audience members personally believed otherwise. Second, audience member beliefs did not change immediately but they acted differently when they were convinced that the majority thought and believed differently -- they acted contrary to what they believed to avoid ostracism for having outlier attitudes. They didn’t reason they should behave differently for any reason other than to avoid being embarrassed for being different. Third, acting differently in public than they believed in private caused them discomfort (dissonance), which over time caused them to change your viewpoints to conform with their conduct, which relieved them from their internal conflict. The NPR program then showed how those principals could be applied in the United States. The speakers explained how the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same sex marriage would affect behaviors, and then attitudes about same sex marriage. The thought was that the Supreme Court ruling was a pronouncement that the prevalent view in the United States was to support same sex marriage – if one publicly said or did something inconsistent with that prevalent view, that person risked social ostracism. So, the prediction was that people who had opposed same sex marriage would reduce or eliminate their public opposition to avoid being treated as social outcasts. Once they change their public behavior, they would internally adjust their beliefs to conform to their conduct, i.e. in time people with “come around” to believe the way they behave. My takeaway from the Rwandan experiment was a realization that media programming (Rwandan or American) could be specifically written to accomplish subliminal social engineering on a large scale. It would be psychologically-based, deliberately scripted, behavioral modification plan around in which every media episode was designed to convey those messages. I also understood better why there is now so much emphasis on de-legitimizing the opposition in public discourse – it is a strong counter-measure. By attacking the legitimacy of a messenger, there is less belief that the message is the norm or prevalent view. So, if the Supreme Court makes a ruling but the Supreme Court is thought to be an illegitimate source of the majority view, people may act according the legal result but they don’t have to change their internal beliefs. Using that construct of persuasion, you can see why it so important to define what the majority viewpoint is. It might explain why Republicans focused on de-legitimizing President Obama as not representative of the majority and why Democrats focus so much on de-legitimizing President Trump for that same reason. Even if a President had/has legitimate legal authority to do something, if compliance is viewed as being forced on the majority instead of reflective of the majority, then people can preserve their internal beliefs despite apparent different outward compliance – although they must outwardly comply, they can sabotage in “good conscience”. Chief Justice John Roberts gave a remarkable commencement speech last month: Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes. Biblical for its repetition, emotional in its cadence, striking for its message, Chief Justice Roberts’ surprising address has the weighty timelessness of an in instant classic that will be repeated, quoted, cherished for many years ahead. Incredibly wise, incredibly inspiring. I’m rooting for you! By: Marc Cendella Attribution: TheLadders.com Link here Former NAACP branch president Rachel Dolezal, who lied about being black but still identifies as black, is now jobless, living on food stamps and expects to lose her home next month. “There’s no protected class for me,” the former NAACP branch president told The Guardian. “I’m this generic, ambiguous scapegoat for white people to call me a race traitor and take out their hostility on. And I’m a target for anger and pain about white people from the black community. It’s like I am the worst of all these worlds.” Dolezal has applied for over 100 jobs, but has received no offers, even from a supermarket. She has, however, been offered work in porn and reality TV. While a friend helped pay her rent for February, Dolezal expects she’ll lose her home next month. “I do think a more complex label would be helpful, but we don’t really have that vocabulary,” said the former Africana studies instructor. “I feel like the idea of being trans-black would be much more accurate than ‘I’m white.’ Because you know, I’m not white.” Source: The Daily Caller, by Rob Shimshock, reported here. “The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” -- C.K. Chesterton In one of the candidate debates for President recently the issue of abortion was brought up. One question had to do with a woman’s decision-making power to terminate a pregnancy. Here is something for your consideration on that issue and some other current topics – it might explain why it is so hard for the sides to come to a compromise. Author Jonah Lehrer has a chapter on the “Moral Mind” in his book, How We Decide. In the chapter, he discusses the connection between emotional vs. rational thinking as it relates to morality. Lehrer’s premise is that we generally think that morality is based upon objective values which have a firm logical and legal foundation, arrived at by weighing competing claims – we think we act like dispassionate judges. Lehrer argues that neuroscience is leading us to a different conclusion – that we have feelings about whether something is right or wrong and when pressed to explain how we feel, we find (even invent) reasons to justify our feeling about what is moral. He credits Benjamin Franklin for the making the point succinctly: “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to.” Lehrer provides two examples in support of his proposition: John Wayne Gacy, and Julie and Mark. John Wayne Gacy John Wayne Gacy, Jr., also known as the Killer Clown, was an American serial killer and rapist. He sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978 in Cook County, Illinois. On May 9, 1994, Gacy was executed at the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest by lethal injection. After his crimes were discovered, authorities learned that those who knew Gacy said he seemed to be gregarious and helpful. He was described as never losing his temper and never seeming to have lost control. He was active in his local community. He was appointed to serve upon the Norwood Park Township street lighting committee. He was active in Democratic Party politics and eventually earned the title of precinct captain. From 1975 until 1978 he served as director of Chicago's annual Polish Constitution Day Parade. Through his work with the parade, Gacy met and was photographed with then First Lady Rosalynn Carter on May 6, 1978. Rosalynn Carter signed one photo: "To John Gacy. Best wishes. Rosalynn Carter". The event later became an embarrassment to the United States Secret Service, as in the pictures taken Gacy can be seen wearing an "S" pin, indicating a person who has been given special clearance by the Secret Service. Through his membership in a local Moose Club, Gacy became aware of and joined a "Jolly Joker" clown club whose members — dressed as clowns — would regularly perform at fundraising events and parades in addition to voluntarily entertaining hospitalized children. Gacy created his own performance characters: "Pogo the Clown" and "Patches the Clown" and performed as Pogo or Patches at numerous local parties, Democratic Party functions, charitable events, and at children's hospitals. Lehrer points out that Gacy was diagnosed as a psychopath – a condition said to be applicable to ¼ of the prison population. Psychopaths, according to Lehrer, are prone to violence, but more generally, they have a specific brain malfunction: “psychopaths make poor – sometimes disastrous – moral choices.” They are bad decision-makers. He says: “When you act in a moral manner – when you recoil from violence, treat others fairly, and help strangers in need—you are making decisions that take people besides yourself into account. You are thinking about the feelings of others, sympathizing with their states of mind. This is what psychopaths can’t do.” Gacy, as a psychopath, was incapable of experiencing regret, sadness, or joy. He felt nothing – he was emotionally empty. When normal people lie, they exhibit the classic symptoms of nervousness (sweating, higher blood pressure, higher pulse rates) but for psychopaths, the lack of emotions is what causes dangerous behavior. Dishonesty doesn’t make psychopaths anxious; in fact some studies report that when psychopaths lie or are shown images of violence, their blood pressure and pulse rates go down – those things seem to have a calming effect. Psychopaths are purely rational, they decide to satisfy their desires by weighing risks and benefits without regard to the affect on others. Psychopaths are purely selfish; when they seem to be acting to benefit others, it is out of their assessment that those acts will further their own wants, desires and wishes. That is why psychopaths are so dangerous; they lack the capacity to feel the emotional aspect that something is wrong. Julie and Mark As a further explanation of the emotional aspect of feelings about right and wrong, take the hypothetical scenario of Julie and Mark utilized by psychology professor Jonathan Haidt. Julie and Mark are adults, sister and brother. One night while on vacation, after dining and drinking too much, Julie and Mark decide to have sex. Julie is on the pill and Mark uses a condom just in case. They swear to each other that they will never tell anyone what they have done. After a while, they conclude that what they did brought them even closer. Did Julie and Mark do something wrong? If you are like most people you say “yes”. When asked to explain, respondents commonly cite risks of children with genetic abnormalities and the possibility that the relationship will be damaged; but the hypothetical is to the contrary. Haidt found that people continued to find “rational” reasons for finding it wrong. Each time those reasons were struck down “logically”. Respondents did not concede that Julie and Mark had acted morally; eventually respondents resorted to simply “it’s wrong, it’s disgusting,” etc. Haidt says that this experiment highlights that people know (feel) something is morally wrong – sibling sex is terrible idea – but it is hard to rationally defend moral positions logically because relegating your personal interests in favor of others is not logical. Practical issues At one time, the “norm” was the abortion was wrong and, therefore, laws were passed to limit it. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court applied legal analysis and rational application of the right to privacy to conclude that most restrictions on abortion were wrong. The Supreme Court has decided that the right to privacy entitles a woman to decide whether, and how, to take account of another’s (a fetus) life, any attempt to impede on that decision-making is subject to strict scrutiny. Of course, there are those who still “feel” that abortion is the termination of a human life which is entitled to equal status as the mother’s right to privacy; i.e. that it is immoral and ought to be unlawful. Similarly, at one time, the norm was that “marriage” was limited to one man and one woman. The Supreme Court has applied legal analysis to conclude that restrictions on same sex marriage were wrong. Nevertheless, there are those who “feel” that same sex marriage is wrong, i.e. that it is immoral and ought to be unlawful. Justice Potter Stewart once said of pornography that it was hard to define but “I know it when I see it.” It was a famous and rare admission about the difficulty of explaining some decisions. Mostly, we demand of judges that they be logical and make decisions which can be explained on rational bases, not because they personally think something is right or wrong. For those judges whose feelings about the morality of something match the logic, there is no problem. But, sometimes judges permit or prohibit something based on logic because they simply cannot explain “logically” why the opposite position is more moral (feelings are not enough). Unfortunately, the logic of a decision soon becomes the basis for a new “norm” which then leads to feelings in the direction of the new norm of right or wrong. I have heard “logical” arguments for the legalization of euthanasia, pedophilia, plural marriage, incestual marriage, abolition of the death penalty, the elimination of personal possession of any firearm, etc. and I know there are some countries where one or more of those is not considered wrong or disgusting. Do those things seem to be out of “norm” for you: Do you feel they are wrong or disgusting? Do you have or feel there is a growing feeling of normalcy/acceptance about those things? In an earlier post I described how the Justice Department had been trying for decades to get police to learn and use effective questioning techniques. It seemed like the “TOP COPS” were not training their officers.
Here is some supplemental research which emphasizes that criminal justice system lie-catchers (embarrassingly even judges) are seriously flawed at detecting liars and explains why we read about innocent people being sent to prison and guilty people going free. It also explains why the jury system of laypersons is an essential source of justice. The source documents are referred to below; they have more detailed information, describe any limitations on their findings, including why some of the results may be understandable and where additional research might be needed. In an article published in the journal Psychology Crime and Law 9(1):19-36, December 2001, the authors examined beliefs about deception held by three groups of legal professionals who we often expect to be expert lie-catchers: police officers, prosecutors, and judges. Judging from self-ratings, THE PRESUMED EXPERTS ADMITTED KNOWING CLOSE TO NOTHING ABOUT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ON DECEPTION. The majority of the police officers believed that liars are more gaze aversive than truth-tellers. WRONG The research shows that no relationship exists between gaze aversion and deception; some studies even show that liars are less gaze aversive than truth-tellers Judges, prosecutors and police officers expressed a very strong belief that deceptive consecutive statements are less consistent than truthful consecutive statements. WRONG Research shows that deceptive statements are at least equally consistent over time as are truthful statements. The majority of the police officers believed that there is an increase in body movements during deception. WRONG. Importantly, both experimentally based research, and studies of real-life interrogations shows that liars often move less than truth-tellers. Judges and prosecutors believed verbal cues to deception to be more reliable than nonverbal cues. Police officers believed nonverbal cues to be more reliable than verbal cues when attempting to detect deceit. HERE, JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS WERE MORE ACCURATE THAN POLICE Research shows that lie-catchers trusting verbal cues judges and prosecutors tend to achieve higher accuracy scores than do lie-catchers trusting nonverbal cues police officers. PRISONERS, COMPARED TO PRESUMED EXPERT LIE-CATCHERS, SHOULD HAVE THE BEST NOTION OF NONVERBAL INDICATORS OF DECEPTION, DUE TO THEIR MORE ADEQUATE FEEDBACK HISTORY. A doctoral dissertation examined similar issues and found similar results. [I]ndividuals overwhelmingly believe that liars exhibit behaviors that indicate nervousness. These “nervous” behaviors, however, include fidgeting, stuttering, avoiding eye contact, etc., all of which are likely to be controlled by a competent liar. In high-stakes situations, such as police interviews, TRUTH-TELLERS SOMETIMES DEMONSTRATE MORE NERVOUS BEHAVIORS THAN LIARS. A review of laboratory studies in 1991 found the ACCURACY RATE FOR LAYPERSONS who were attempting to detect deceit WAS 57%, NOT MUCH BETTER THAN RANDOM CHANCE. They then examined studies that included professionals such as local, state and federal LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS and found that the ACCURACY RATE WAS 55%, not only not much better than chance but less accurate than laypersons. In a 2016 presentation to TED Talks, a researcher reported that, again, professionals (lawyers, police officers, child protective services workers, even parents) were not much better at detecting lies than if they had simply flipped a coin. The researchers showed many videos to adults to gauge how good they were at detecting children’s lies. In half of the videos, the children lied. In the other half of the videos, the children told the truth. BECAUSE THERE ARE AS MANY LIARS AS TRUTH TELLERS, IF YOU GUESS RANDOMLY, THERE'S A 50 PERCENT CHANCE YOU'RE GOING TO GET IT RIGHT. So IF YOUR ACCURACY IS AROUND 50 PERCENT, IT MEANS YOU ARE A TERRIBLE DETECTOR OF CHILDREN'S LIES. So let's start with undergrads and law school students, who typically have limited experience with children. No, they cannot detect children's lies. Their performance is around chance. Now how about social workers and child-protection lawyers, who work with children on a daily basis? Can they detect children's lies? No, they cannot. What about JUDGES, CUSTOMS OFFICERS AND POLICE OFFICERS, who deal with liars on a daily basis? CAN THEY DETECT CHILDREN'S LIES? NO, THEY CANNOT. What about parents? Can parents detect other children's lies? No, they cannot. Can parents detect their own children's lies? No, they cannot. Sources: How to Detect Deception? Arresting the Beliefs of Police Officers, Prosecutors and Judges Article (PDF Available) in Psychology Crime and Law 9(1):19-36 · December 2001 LINK TO RESEARCHGATE Abstract of the Dissertation: The Effect of Cognitive Load on Deception, by Terri Patterson, Florida International University, 2009 - LINK TED talk: Kang Lee: Can you really tell if a kid is lying? February 2016 LINK to TED TALK Wisdom in Hot Chocolate (Author Unknown) A group of graduates, well-established in their career, were talking at a reunion and decided to visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups — porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain-looking, some expensive, some exquisite — telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate. When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: “Notice that the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup you’re drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases, it is just more expensive, and in some cases, even hides what we drink. “What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup. But you consciously went for the best cups. And then, you began eyeing each other’s cups.” “Now, consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your money, job, position in society are the cups. They are just the tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God made the hot chocolate; man chooses the cup. The happiest of people do not have everything. They make the best of everything they have.” I remember reading in the 1990’s about a new way to interview witnesses. The study trained college students with no law enforcement training and seasoned detectives how to use a specific interview technique that elicited more information and more accurate information from eyewitnesses. After receiving the short training, the students and the detectives were asked to conduct interviews using the new technique. The college students faithfully used the techniques they were taught; the detectives, though trained, ignored the techniques they had been taught and interviewed like they always had – the result: untrained college students got more information and more accurate information from eyewitnesses than seasoned detectives. In an effort to improve witness evidence, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) adopted guidelines for conducting witness interviews that was based on empirical research (Technical Working Group: Eyewitness Evidence, 1999). These guidelines were then distributed to all police departments in the USA in 1999, along with a trainer’s manual. After 20 years, researchers did a study to see how the guidelines had done in helping interviewers get greater quality of and quantity of information from witnesses. What they found was, essentially, nothing had changed from the old ways – police interviewing had not improved in 20 years because the police did not follow the guidelines and training material available to them: “Most importantly, the similarity between the current data and those collected 20 years ago is striking. That is, the lack of positive interviewing techniques in our sample of investigators clearly demonstrates a lack of awareness of the NIJ guidelines/reforms and thus a lack of corresponding specific and systematic witness interview training. Namely, in combination with Fisher et al. (1987), our data suggest that police investigators (at least our sample) are not at all informed of currently available information or they are unable or unwilling to use the available information. This is surprising because NIJ guidelines, together with a trainer’s manual, had been disseminated with the objective to improve investigative interviewing in the USA before interviews in our sample were conducted. Our findings are consistent with other data demonstrating that US law enforcement officers have very little knowledge of best practice investigative interviewing guidelines (Wise, Safer & Maro, under review). The police officers surveyed also report that they receive very little training on NIJ guidelines, believe their current practices to be effective and efficient, and have not received adequate explanation why reforms are needed.” Interviewing Behaviors in Police Investigators: A Field Study of a Current US Sample, Nadja Schreiber Compo, Amy Hyman Gregory, and Ronald Fisher, published in May 2010, page 13 http://www2.fiu.edu/~schreibe/SchreiberCompo_Hyman_Fisher.pdf In a chapter of a book on Investigative Interviewing, researchers from California and Florida are cited for similar findings in the United States, Germany and Canada. • We note, with a sigh of renewed discouragement, that similar patterns of lesser quality interviewing procedures have been found in more recent interviews conducted by German (Berresheim & Weber, 2003), Canadian (Snook & Keating, 2010), and American police (Schreiber & Fisher, 2005). • We were discouraged by the quality of interviews, in part, because forensic research scientists have known for a while how to conduct interviews effectively. [T]he enhanced CI, which is described in our “how-to” manual (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992). • The RAND Corporation (1975) had just completed a survey of law-enforcement professionals and found that 85% of what police do on a daily basis is talk to citizens, whereas only 2% of the respondents had received any formal training on how to interview people. Interviewing Witnesses and Victims by R. Edward Geiselman & Ronald P. Fisher, University of California, Los Angeles & Florida International University, to appear in: Michel St. Yves (Ed.), Investigative Interviewing: Handbook of Best Practices. Thomson Reuters Publishers, Toronto, 2014 In Arizona, we have pretty much given up on training police officers to interview victims of sexual assault and child molestation appropriately. The protocol in Arizona is that police officers are expected NOT to interview such victims, they are to arrange for special civilian interviewers to conduct "forensic interviews" using the techniques that police should have been using for the last twenty five years. uring my 28 years as a judge, I often told people that the greatest tragedy in American society was the break-up of the family – from that came the seeds of most other societal issues, crime, drugs, poverty, etc.
Arizona, like most other states permits divorce on demand. Fault is not only not required, evidence of fault is severely restricted. Under the Arizona model, parents are deemed equally at fault for any emotional impact on the children – judges start with the proposition that children should live bifurcated lives, spending substantial time with each parent, regardless of marital misconduct unless there is demonstrated direct impact on the children. Providing proof of direct impact can take thousands of dollars in custody evaluations and, because emotional impact is so subtle and because its impact reveals itself over time, it is hard to get those opinions during the time of the divorce. It is common in my experience that some (indeed many) judges avoid the issue of deciding how fault might impact the children and orders for equal parenting time are issued more and more regularly. Here are some excerpts from an article about the effects of infidelity which put into perspective the subtle aspects of how it affects our children in their work ethic, their own intimate relationships, friendships, domestic skills, communication, and problem-solving skills in all aspects of their lives now and to come. LINK TO: Marriagebuilders.com Article Source: Infidelity: The Lessons Children Learn by Jennifer Harley Chalmers, Ph.D. , a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and the co-author of "Surviving an Affair" (Harley/Chalmers, Revell, 1998). Children learn from their parents. In fact parents are the most influential guides in a child's life. Many will see their mannerisms and phrases being used by their child. But parents are more than models for mannerisms and phrases. They are models for crucial aspects of life: a work ethic, intimate relationships, friendships, domestic skills, communication, and problem-solving skills. Lessons about life are being taught when a parent has an affair -- lessons that they usually don't want their child to learn. The first life lesson a child learns when a parent has an affair -- how to deal with emotional pain. Children whose parents are experiencing marital conflict feel many emotions -- guilt, confusion, loneliness, sadness, fear, worry, abandonment, and many other excruciating feelings. When a child is losing the security base of a strong marriage they are bombarded with pain. So how is a child supposed to soothe their pain and the feeling of helplessness? And how does a child gain control in an uncontrollable situation? Out of the need to defend against these uncomfortable feelings comes a new rule about life -- If a problem arises, children learn that it is better to deny that there is a problem than to face it and feel the pain. A child can defend herself from the bombardment of emotional pain through the defenses of denial and justification. But this new rule did not help teach the child how to solve crucial problems that would face her later in life. Instead of facing and solving those problems, she would deny their very existence and look the other way as it would grow and eventually overwhelm her. The second life lesson a child learns when a parent has an affair -- how to lie. In order to maintain a secret second life, wayward spouses need to keep up the deceit. A child remembers how upset her parent was when she found out about the other woman. She didn't want mom to get angry at dad. So with this newly learned habit of lying for dad, came a second rule about life -- Lying is allowed if it spares another from pain or spares yourself from punishment. Another rule from this lesson on deceit is that lying is allowed when it protects your privacy. Everyone has a right to privacy in their life, even if it involves hurting people behind their back. A child may be told over and over that it is not mom's business to know what dad does in order to justify the fact that dad was lying to mom. The third life lesson a child learns when a parent has an affair -- how to be thoughtless, doing what you please regardless of how it affects other people. A child will learn how to take advantage of her friends and family when there was something in it for her. She would learn how to disregard others' suffering because she had a right to enjoy life to the fullest. All wayward spouses hurt the people they care about the most. Wayward spouses rationalize that they had to look out for themselves which is why they developed the relationship outside of their marriage in the first place. Their actions seem to benefit themselves in the short term, but it has disastrous effects on members of their family. Marital discord is hard enough on children. It undermines the basic security needed for them to learn and grow. But to add infidelity to a troubled marriage turns a problem into a disaster. Parents who have an affair are teaching their children very important rules that are likely to be followed for the rest of their lives. It ultimately not only undermines their marital relationships but it also seriously hurts their own chances for success in most other areas of life. Parents have a responsibility to teach their children the importance of honesty and the importance of thoughtfulness -- considering other people's feeling when decisions are being made. To do otherwise is not only terribly irresponsible, but may tend to perpetuate the learning of these rules of deceit and thoughtlessness for generations to come. |
AUTHORJudge Duber - A Blog from Beyond the Bench Archives
April 2020
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