Some children are encouraged to bloom. Others are pruned into shape. It's the difference between a pat on the head and a paddle to the rear, and it stems from an essential disagreement about whether little humans are principally composed of sweetness and light that should be nourished—or of naughtiness and sin that should be rooted out.

That debate has long been settled among nearly everyone I know, in favor of pats to the head. Not that anyone doubts children's ability to be greedy, egotistical tricksters, of course. Human nature, to state the obvious, is neither all good nor all evil. The point is that, more often than not, encouraging the little ones results in a heightened desire to please and thus more good behavior, while punishment results in a stunted sense of self-worth that eventually results in more bad behavior. Pragmatically, praise works better than beatings. As Susan Campbell writes in Psychology Today:

Parents would do well to refrain from using hand or rod to discipline children, according to an analysis of 62 years of research on spanking and other forms of corporal punishment. The study found correlations, but no direct link, between physical discipline and 11 negative behaviors, including increased aggression and delinquent behavior.

The strongest associations with corporal punishment were increased risk of becoming an abuse victim and immediate compliance with parental demands—the only behavior that could be considered a "positive" result of corporal punishment. "The fact that these disparate constructs (abuse and compliance) show the strongest links to corporal punishment underlines the controversy over this practice," states Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, Ph.D., author of the meta-analysis.

Since most parents and teachers are pragmatists, I've often wondered why some people still think it's a good idea to beat the badness out—that if you "spare the rod" you "spoil the child." Dr Gershoff has a clue. She finds, according to Campbell, that "the practice can be traced to the American colonial belief that obedience to parents teaches children obedience to God—which may explain why spanking today is most prevalent in the Bible Belt."

It makes sense to me. At age 6, I thought the term "Bible Belt" referred to the leather razor strop my devout military father kept hanging on the closet door, ready for action when the children got out of line. He used it rarely, since underneath his crisp uniform beat a soft heart—but it was there anyway, emblematic that might makes right, reminding us not to question the God-given edicts of a rigid patriarchy.

Beating the children is all about maintaining the male hierarchy: God + politicians and generals + fathers. Sweet reason and sunny encouragement are not likely to create a stable patriarchy, so the men in charge preach fear and danger and the authority of a severe deity, as transmitted through their authority. The women and children comply, or else.

Searcy, Arkansas, is the home of Harding University, a reactionary fundamentalist bastion of patriarchy. I misspent some of my youth there, so I was not surprised to learn that last year nearly half of all schoolchildren in Searcy were beaten by their teachers. Joe Goldstein reports in the Searcy Daily Citizen:

Across the nation only 22 states still allow the use of corporal punishment in public schools, of which Arkansas is one. It is against the law in the other 28 states.

Arkansas ranks only second to Mississippi in the amount of paddlings recorded, and in Arkansas, Searcy ranks among the highest in the state for most paddlings recorded.

Searcy Public Schools paddled students at a rate of almost one out of two during the 2003-2004 school year, according to data provided by the Arkansas Department of Education.

When it's more important to maintain rigid discipline than to allow the flowering of innate capabilities, that's the way to do it. It keeps those red states red. And it sure beats thinking.

Visit Robert Silvey's "RUBICON" at http://www.robertsilvey.com/notes/.