Final Thoughts on Violence: Corporal Punishment
INTD 1010 was a very interesting and engaging course. As a student, I felt somewhat excited for class to start which does not happen often. I think that because of the class engagement in this course, it helped me get a better understanding of the course material, specifically violence. Class debates really opened my mind on violence. Before the course, I was fairly closed minded on the topic and leaned more on the side of violence can solve issues. While I still agree with my past self, I also agree with the opposition.
As mentioned in some previous assignments, I play many contact sports, mostly lacrosse. With that said, I enjoy the violence of the game. I think it is exciting to see a fight break out, or someone get hit so hard that they don’t know where they are. If one of my teammates is a victim to a dirty or unethical hit, then the only way that I would be able to help is to inflict violence on the other team’s player. I can’t just ask him to play fair or to be nice because: 1) I will look like a wimp. 2) The other team (and my team) will not take me seriously. 3) There will be no revenge for my injured teammate. Instances like this can only be solved with violence because that is the only way to get a message across to the other team. Now there are some scenarios that do not involve sports that can go either way.
Corporal punishment… After a class debate on this topic it made me ponder about the pros and cons of being physically punished as a child. My theory is that the outcome of corporal punishment will depend on the child. For instance, I was a child who would get spanked if acted out. As a result of this, I would be scared if I acted badly because I knew that my mom would punish me. This resulted in myself to avoid doing bad things, out of fear of how my mom would react. If this were a different child, the child could act out even more and start to rebel against his/her parents. Again, it would depend on the type of child to determine whether corporal punishment is appropriate or not.
What type of punishment is okay? Well, it depends on what decade you look at. If we are talking about corporal punishment today, then we will get a much different answer than what happened several years ago. Today, the law regarding punishing children is very appropriate. Parents cannot use weapons, strike with a closed fist and cannot punish out of anger. This is very fair in my opinion. This ensures that the child is being punished but also ensures that the child is not being abused. I like the ‘out of anger’ statement. If a parent were to punish their child while they are angry then this can result in using more force or for a longer duration when punishing the child. If a parent were to punish their child calmly, then the child is likely to be punished appropriately. To conclude this point, I think that corporal punishment is beneficial as long as the laws are followed. Further, I think that this form of violence can straighten out a deviant child.
INTD 1010 opened my mind when it came to the topic of violence. While I still support that violence is a great problem solver, I now understand that there are many shades of grey. Corporal punishment can be a great tactic to punishing a child, but this is not the case for all children. I like to look at this as I would if I were a scientist finding the cure to a disease. If my method or cure worked on one patient, it does not mean that my method would work for all of my patients. Take this form of punishment with a grain of salt.
This course has the ability to open students’ minds about a particular topic and I would highly recommend it to the freshman students next year. It was very engaging and it helped aid in my understanding of all of the course concepts.
