The Rights of Individuals to Punish Each Other

Perusing the internet, I am overwhelmed with people doing “weird” things.  But how do we define what is weird, when it is weird, and why it is weird?

I remember seeing the movie Fiddler on the Roof when I was quite young.  I shuddered when I heard the song “Tradition,” because it was evident, even then, that descriptions of the way people should or should not be caused a whole lot of pain.  The particular tradition that drove poor Tevye to hell and back was getting three daughters married off and being Jewish, which required dowries and Jewish grooms.

My parents attempted to receive my husband — who at that time called himself “the goy next door” and was willing to wear a yamelke and articulate a few words of yiddish he had learned from Mad Magazine.  But you could tell that this was a problem for them.  An eventuality I found just excellent in my life and which I credit with an uncommon level of happiness. I can say now that my marriage is happier than theirs ever was, at least from all that I saw.  Part of this comes from my willingness to ignore a tradition they took as dogma.

When my Asperger’s syndrome brother had problems, such as young men so afflicted often do, my Father-of-Blessed-Memory wanted to send him to a military academy because the discipline would be good for him.  I remember crying and begging and convincing my Mother-of-Blessed-Memory that we could do no such thing; that whatever was wrong with Harry-of-Blessed-Memory was somehow deeper in his nature and would not be so corrected.  I did not have a name for what was wrong with him then, but the instinct that served me later in a career of clinical medicine, surgery, and psychiatry was dead right.

Two Minnesota parents were recently charged with forcing their Asperger’s syndrome son into military style punishment.  My father would never have thought of taking the “military” punishment he thought would help my brother under his own control.  Although, he would have done pretty much anything anyone at Harvard told him was appropriate.  “Tradition” for my father meant something about structure and authority, in which he seemed to trust thoroughly.

As for Harvard, a few folks picked up on a story about an approved group on campus that’s into kinky sex – called Harvard College Munch.  I am actually relieved that my father, whom we buried with the Harvard University cap which he dearly loved, never had to deal with this. Not that it bothers me much.  A lot of folks are into bondage, domination, and sadomasochism.  Frankly, I think people ought to talk about it, especially if it gives them pleasure or helps them figure out how to do this without actually harming each other.

Once, a person who was neither a patient nor colleague told me he was jealous of me because I had a profession where I got to talk about sex all the time.  He was surprised when I winced.  I told him I talked little about sex, although my patients seemed to want to tell me everything in their lives that had anything to do with it.

At Harvard, tradition has been broken in favor of discussing what people actually think and feel.  Some people get off on discipline.  This has been known to cause scandals involving those in political power.  I always thought it had something to do with people getting thwacked on the bottom in school and realizing in adult life they enjoyed it; at least in British political circles.  At Harvard; well, we may have a mismatch of perceived standards.  Hopefully these people, unlike the Asperger’s situation cited above, are above the age of consent.

If you have a pulse, you’ve probably heard about some of the scandal surrounding the release of classified information to the folks at WikiLeaks.  One Army private who is accused of releasing such information is being held at a facility in Quantico, VA.  He testified that the punishment he was subjected to by his jailers was so severe that it warrants dismissal of his trial. My Father-of-Blessed-Memory said that Harvard had ROTC in the day, but even a veteran like me does not necessarily choose the military for lifestyle.  Discipline and privation and such may be attractive to some, but if the conditions of corrective military discipline in excess described by this military human do not make you angry, they should. In my case and many others, a certain idealism and love for America can be a big piece, if not all, of the motivation for voluntary military service.  It can also be a practical way to resolve an absence of employment.

People rarely understand or want to believe the loss of civil rights that goes with being a member of the military.  The person who is testifying is delightfully composed, which surprised many.  The situation seems very believable to me.  I have seen veterans for a large portion of my career.  I have heard stories of criminal punishment, largely because I have evaluated many criminals. Whether in reality or in fantasy, military punishment may be outside the realm of what anyone outside of the military can imagine.

I am glad we saved my brother from the military academy.  It would have been something like disaster.  It would be like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  It would not have made my late brother into silk, but it would surely have made him miserable. If people get excited by punishing each other and have avoided ROTC, then they can talk about sadomasochism and such all they like. So back to the issue of how we define what is weird, when is it weird, and why is it weird.

There is very little in this world that is so black and white. But as far as I can tell, the United States military could be an alluring place for a sadomasochist – at least according to our WikiLeaks informant.  Although rank may have something to do with how the experience is lived.