Dissense

One line contains the core of McArthur’s complaint: “Whatever might be said for such a policy, there’s simply no getting around the following fact: it makes the violent depletion of a child’s bodily fluids into a state-sanctioned method of discipline.”
The core of my claim: “Is it?”
What’s so bad about losing blood? Sure, if you bleed …

First, I find it somewhat difficult to get very invested in what seems like a relatively trivial matter. The high school policy is voluntary; it’s a little creepy, sure, but I doubt very many high school students will get all that caught up in questions of reward and punishment or the greater implications following from …

Garbanzo paints a disturbing picture that mixes fears of totalitarianism with macabre, almost vampyric, imagery. I do agree with Garbanzo’s broader position, but not for the reasons he cites. At least on a general level, malefactors, whether adults or children, should not be able to select their punishments from a set of options.

In my former life as a high school teacher, I one day came across an item in my school’s morning bulletin allowing students to donate blood in lieu of serving detention hours. Whatever might be said for such a policy, there’s simply no getting around the following fact: it makes the violent depletion of a child’s bodily fluids into a state-sanctioned method of discipline. It lets students atone for their misbehavior — for, say, throwing a paper airplane across the classroom — through a procedure in which a needle punctures their skin, penetrates their vein, and forcibly pumps out blood by the pint.

Lawrence Lessig thinks the transparency movement is unreasonable. Bill Goodwin thinks we should make it inreasonable.