Many, many thoughts on punishment, as you can imagine. I don't know how much background the others gave you, but it's important to me on a level that goes well beyond the academic. I always found this horrifying until recently I realized it made me aware of more important things.

It also gave me perspective most people lack. This isn't exceptionalism, it's biology: There was no question in my intuitive mind that punishments were bad. The remaining question was whether they could also be good.

I thought about this a lot, hoping to align myself somehow with the dominant culture (no pun intended) and thereby neutralize whatever absurdity was going on in me. I went through every rationalization you can imagine for hurting people for their own good.

All it did was convince me that everyone else was rationalizing, too, and infuriate me beyond reason when I saw them acting pious or cavalier about it. Especially if it seemed like they enjoyed it. Which I think is a fairly common human trait, although not usually on my level.

What's different now (thanks almost exclusively to all this) is that it no longer infuriates me. I can see (1) this is not to most people what it is to me. (2) It's not always bad. This last was astonishing, and I can't generalize yet as to why, but I see it very clearly.

So I imagine that one of the reasons people think punishment is good, or at least ok, is that *sometimes it is* and they overgeneralize.

(I should distinguish here between recreational, consensual play--which can be highly punitive--and actual, real-world punishment and the rules and norms that govern it. The former is its own thing. The latter is what I found can sometimes be good.

They can also be mixed, either consensually or not. This is what I used to think punishments always were, especially when I was a kid, so you can see why the idea horrified/perplexed/preoccupied me so much. It took until my thirties before I really understood that I was mistaken.

Also pausing to comment on "respect" and its two unspoken referents, "authority" and "humanity." One of my favorite damning aphorisms about authoritarianism goes: "If you don't treat me like an authority, I won't treat you like a human being." Cf. the fallacy of equivocation.)

What seems to make the difference between a good punishment and a bad one--putting aside for now a more thorough discussion of consent and intent--is how the individuals involved feel about it.

If you're using it as a blunt tool to force good behavior, it might command respect from someone who otherwise wouldn't trust you (this is one terrible consequence of punishment--it makes milder things harder to take seriously).

But it's equally or more likely to inspire resistance, retaliation, and/or submission. All of which can be interesting and productive dynamics, but they're risky, especially if kids are involved and the adults aren't aware of what's going on with them. (Which is very common.)

Submission is what people probably think they want to achieve with punishment. It's not usually good. You can get someone to do what you want, but it sets up a relationship where they count on you for decision-making and guidance at the expense of their own independent compass.

What *can* be good is harder to explain, but it's what happened with me. The person realizes they can go ahead and submit to broader cultural norms (and the associated rituals of reward and punishment) *without sacrificing their own autonomy or dignity,* except in trivial ways.

This depends on the person's own attitude and what they consider "trivial." If I find a good way of explaining it, I'll add to this thread later.

Bullying is a separate but related issue. I was relieved to see how much attention it got in recent years (it's a much worse problem than its name and cultural connotations suggest), but disheartened at how little progress was made on how to deal with it well.