Introduction

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.¹

Only lies are simple. Truth is complex, messy, alive. And words are dead things, mere tools. Language is machinery put in motion by people engaging with it and responding to it. So don’t expect to find an ordered presentation of a simple system. I do not claim to offer answers. Expect rather to find words intended to provoke responses, ideas worth arguing against. If you find yourself agreeing with everything written here, then you are not reading it. I misquote, and misapply quotes. I contradict myself. I argue in favor of positions I disagree with, sometimes without any indication of sarcasm. I skip predictable connecting phrases and repetitive concluding statements. If the words that follow have any value, that value is derived from the work they provoke you to do.

The Proof is in the pudding

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Like father, like son. If you like how your children turned out, then you did a good job as their parents. Or if your children still like you when they grow up, then you were a good parent. If you are a felon, then your parents did a bad job. If you are not conversant with the classics of the English canon, then your parents could have done a better job. No, the true measure of successful parenting is survival – did your children reach adulthood physically healthy without having suffered abuse. Good parents raise geniuses. Good parents raise self-confident children. Good parents raise children who are self-controlled, diligent and honest.

Kids are people too. They are not stones to be shaped, or pets to be trained. Parents and kids are made of the same stuff – parents are not farmers while their kids are seeds to be grown. Two primary implications of children being their own persons: 1) when you are called to give an account for your work as a parent, you will not be judged based upon how your children turned out; and 2) your authority as a parent is limited, the goals you may set for yourself are limited, and the methods you may use to achieve those goals are limited.

• You are your own fault
  • Being a person means being accountable for your choices
  • You know what is right, and still choose wrong. You know the truth and choose lies. Maybe some meditations on lies
  • You are not an expert at running your life
  • You have little control over yourself – you do what you do not want to do
  • You cannot give up accountability for yourself
  • No one else can tell you who you are
• Sinners
  • Sin is a big deal bc God is holy
  • Justice as reconciliation / relationship
  • Only the gods can cross the chasm between is and ought
  • Being born a sinner is not
• Beliefs vs action
  • Belief doesn’t determine action, and cannot infer beliefs from action
  • Bonhoeffer – belief doesn’t precede action.
  • Cannot forcibly change another’s beliefs, though can force action.
  • Even if you could program your kid’s souls, you shouldn’t
    • Because you are incompetent, and would just make them worse
    • Because they are responsible for their souls and you don’t have the authority.
• Authority
  • Job of any authority
  • Parental
    • parents are an authority, not only authority – part of hierarchy
• Kids are people too
  • So they are their own fault, not their parent’s fault. Remember your creator in the days of your youth
  • Kids are Other, they have internal worlds, souls, that can be invited but not manipulated
  • They make their own decisions – people are not robots – it is immoral to see them as manipulable.
  • Kids are born sinners. Does not reduce their culpability.
  • Transparency – developing a soul worth hiding
  • Rights as people: privacy, agency
  • If you have so little control over yourself, how much less control do you have over those around you
  • You cannot tell another person who he is
  • Adulthood defined
• Discipline
  • teaching vs learning
  • disciplines that free
• Leading / Serving Others in a way that leads them to freedom and flourishing

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1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus↩︎