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Sunday, 26. March 2006
Crossing a Line
jlink, 12:57h
Today it's not about software. Today it's about violence. My violence.
Do you have kids? Imagine yourself sitting on a bench in a public children's playground watching your 5-year-old offspring climb whatever seems climable to him. There's also a bunch of older and unattended children who are constantly stretching the limits of what you consider to be the appropriate kind of game on such a place, like throwing around pointed sticks and shooting each other off with a leather ball from a one-meter-distance. You remain perfectly quiet and peaceful; after all, you're not in charge of the lot nor the playground.
Dog poo enters the scene. Dog poo that's being transferred from the bushes outside the ground onto the ground by the supposed-to-be leader of the group. It's being thrown around on sticks and distributed over the place.
Now you start feeling responsible. Neither do you want to step into flavoursome excrements nor do you want to watch toddlers feeding each other sh..! So you get up, walk over to the boy-in-charge and request (well, tell) him to clear away what he so boldly dared to procure. He's very clear about not being in favour of your wish and continues with whatever he did before you disturbed him.
Here is my question: What is a proportionate means to show a youth the limits of publicly accepted behaviour and when do you cross the line towards violence against someone so much weaker. Would you grab the boy's ball announcing that you're gonna give it back as soon as cleaning up will be finished? Is it okay to rub the ball into the stinking mud to inflict upon the boy what he was willing to inflict on others? Perhaps you would leave the playground including your son and the ball - committing minor theft - just handing the boy a note where his parents can contact you?
To be frank, I don't have anything close to the right answer. From hindsight, though, it is obvious to me that I definitely had stepped beyond proportionate sanction when I found myself struggling with a 10-year-old who was clinging to my bag because it contained his ball. Eventually, I gave in when a man watching the scene threatened to call the police since it was his "duty to act when a kid is obviously suffering."
Well, I've felt baffled ever since about the discrepancy between acting responsibly and acting in a disproportionate and violent manner. Even though distorting Paul Watzlawick's famous sentence, I believe that one cannot not be violent - not when living in a human society, that is.
So maybe all that is a little bit about software development, too. I can remember times when my intention to pursue a allegedly good goal, i.e. being a responsible developer or team lead or project manager, made me act in ways not compatible with the most important rule of agile software development "People over Process". Disregarding and disrespecting the humans involved in our projects is violence.
Johannes
Do you have kids? Imagine yourself sitting on a bench in a public children's playground watching your 5-year-old offspring climb whatever seems climable to him. There's also a bunch of older and unattended children who are constantly stretching the limits of what you consider to be the appropriate kind of game on such a place, like throwing around pointed sticks and shooting each other off with a leather ball from a one-meter-distance. You remain perfectly quiet and peaceful; after all, you're not in charge of the lot nor the playground.
Dog poo enters the scene. Dog poo that's being transferred from the bushes outside the ground onto the ground by the supposed-to-be leader of the group. It's being thrown around on sticks and distributed over the place.
Now you start feeling responsible. Neither do you want to step into flavoursome excrements nor do you want to watch toddlers feeding each other sh..! So you get up, walk over to the boy-in-charge and request (well, tell) him to clear away what he so boldly dared to procure. He's very clear about not being in favour of your wish and continues with whatever he did before you disturbed him.
Here is my question: What is a proportionate means to show a youth the limits of publicly accepted behaviour and when do you cross the line towards violence against someone so much weaker. Would you grab the boy's ball announcing that you're gonna give it back as soon as cleaning up will be finished? Is it okay to rub the ball into the stinking mud to inflict upon the boy what he was willing to inflict on others? Perhaps you would leave the playground including your son and the ball - committing minor theft - just handing the boy a note where his parents can contact you?
To be frank, I don't have anything close to the right answer. From hindsight, though, it is obvious to me that I definitely had stepped beyond proportionate sanction when I found myself struggling with a 10-year-old who was clinging to my bag because it contained his ball. Eventually, I gave in when a man watching the scene threatened to call the police since it was his "duty to act when a kid is obviously suffering."
Well, I've felt baffled ever since about the discrepancy between acting responsibly and acting in a disproportionate and violent manner. Even though distorting Paul Watzlawick's famous sentence, I believe that one cannot not be violent - not when living in a human society, that is.
So maybe all that is a little bit about software development, too. I can remember times when my intention to pursue a allegedly good goal, i.e. being a responsible developer or team lead or project manager, made me act in ways not compatible with the most important rule of agile software development "People over Process". Disregarding and disrespecting the humans involved in our projects is violence.
Johannes
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