Turn the Other Cheek?
Amy Sutherland, author of "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" in The New York Times 6/25/06 and author, Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers (Viking, 2006), explains how learning to train camels and killer whales can help you get your spouse to behave.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html?ex=1154318400&en=7621696a6d4b9d6c&ei=5070
..............................
I happened to hear a bit of the wee hour rerun of the Brian Lehrer WNYC show last night: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/ in which he was interviewing the noted animal trainer, Amy Sutherland, who admitted that she had tried applying animal training techniques to her husband -- with great success. The way the game is played with animals (including us higher primates) is to reward bits of good behavior and ignore minor bad stuff. The end result is that the 'perp' begins to do good stuff increasingly as the bad stuff declines. This is child rearing 101 for any who have had to deal with 2-year-olds. Barring it slamming a baby over the head with a mallet, one lets the two-year-old do minor no no's and praises any good things. B.F. Skinner is undoubtedly smiling down from on high now as the major modern advocate of post-operant conditioning: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html
The program started off with a light-hearted survey -- the OpEd in the NY Times had apparently prompted massive numbers of email responses and it sounds as if spouses are trying out the tactic widely here, there, and elsewhere. Is one abusing one's spouse by not fessing up? Perhaps the ends justify the means and both can openly play the game with much better results in their marriage than the more usual irritations and nagging ;-)?
The program got a bit more serious as Brian and Amy and callers in began to expand the principles to wider contexts. Might bosses elicit far better responses from employees by praising their good works rather than carping at the misses?
Just about the time the interview was scheduled to end, the subject of the Middle East was raised. Could it be that the Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese -- even Hezbollah -- might make far more progress by praising good things on the other side rather than firing missiles of various descriptions at each other?
I don't mean to sound a religious note here. I am an ex-theologian thoroughly disenchanted with our major world religions now bent on killing people, but what were those four little words uttered by Jesus of Nazareth who admittedly paid with his life for antagonizing the powers that were in his day with such radical sentiments? Turn the other cheek? Wonder if it would work? Any out there willing to try it out -- Christians or those who simply care about people and don't want to have them butchered like animals at a slaughter yard? Lest we forget the Dresden syndrome . . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/25/fashion/25love.html?ex=1154318400&en=7621696a6d4b9d6c&ei=5070
..............................
I happened to hear a bit of the wee hour rerun of the Brian Lehrer WNYC show last night: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/ in which he was interviewing the noted animal trainer, Amy Sutherland, who admitted that she had tried applying animal training techniques to her husband -- with great success. The way the game is played with animals (including us higher primates) is to reward bits of good behavior and ignore minor bad stuff. The end result is that the 'perp' begins to do good stuff increasingly as the bad stuff declines. This is child rearing 101 for any who have had to deal with 2-year-olds. Barring it slamming a baby over the head with a mallet, one lets the two-year-old do minor no no's and praises any good things. B.F. Skinner is undoubtedly smiling down from on high now as the major modern advocate of post-operant conditioning: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/skinner.html
The program started off with a light-hearted survey -- the OpEd in the NY Times had apparently prompted massive numbers of email responses and it sounds as if spouses are trying out the tactic widely here, there, and elsewhere. Is one abusing one's spouse by not fessing up? Perhaps the ends justify the means and both can openly play the game with much better results in their marriage than the more usual irritations and nagging ;-)?
The program got a bit more serious as Brian and Amy and callers in began to expand the principles to wider contexts. Might bosses elicit far better responses from employees by praising their good works rather than carping at the misses?
Just about the time the interview was scheduled to end, the subject of the Middle East was raised. Could it be that the Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese -- even Hezbollah -- might make far more progress by praising good things on the other side rather than firing missiles of various descriptions at each other?
I don't mean to sound a religious note here. I am an ex-theologian thoroughly disenchanted with our major world religions now bent on killing people, but what were those four little words uttered by Jesus of Nazareth who admittedly paid with his life for antagonizing the powers that were in his day with such radical sentiments? Turn the other cheek? Wonder if it would work? Any out there willing to try it out -- Christians or those who simply care about people and don't want to have them butchered like animals at a slaughter yard? Lest we forget the Dresden syndrome . . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 8:02 AM
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