Get your own Free Home Page"A child may be a mass of egoism and rebelliousness, but it has not accumulated experience [enough] to give it confidence in its own decisions."
As I agree with George Orwell in the above quotation, I must stand in opposition to the resolution that "An adolescent's right to privacy ought to be valued above a parent's conflicting right to know."
In order to clarify the grounds of this debate, I offer the following definitions: those of adolescent, parent, and privacy. According to Webster's New World Dictionary, an "adolescent" is "a boy or a girl from puberty to adulthood." The American Heritage Dictionary defines "parent" as "A guardian or a protector," and "privacy" as "The state of being free from unsanctioned intrusion."
Before I continue with this case, I must submit the following observations: OBSERVATION ONE : A parent, as defined earlier, is a guardian or a protector of children. If a parent is found to be abusing their children in any manner, then they are no longer considered a legal guardian, and fall outside the boundaries of this resolution. and OBSERVATION TWO : The resolution being debated deals only with situations in which an adolescent's right to privacy and a parent's right to know are in conflict. Because of this, we can conclude that these rights indeed exist, and that we are limited to the discussion of issues in which both are in direct conflict.
In order to uphold my stance on this resolution, I shall utilize the value of Child Development and the criterion of the Welfare of the Child, both of which will be upheld in the following two contentions:
CONTENTION ONE : In general, a parent can be expected to maintain an adequate balance of privacy with their adolescent. and CONTENTION TWO : Proper adolescent development is assured when an appropriate balance of privacy is present.
Now, allow me to discuss these contentions individually
First, let's consider CONTENTION ONE : In general, a parent can be expected to maintain an adequate balance of privacy with their adolescent, more accurately than would the adolescent, were they to manage said balance.
Many societies, including our own, view adolescents as unpredictable, troublemaking youths who enjoy little else but the wreaking of havoc on the world around them.
This is not entirely true, as nearly every generalization contains a degree of misstatement. However, drawing on more experience in matters of life than an adolescent, a parent can be expected to have better judgment in deciding whether surveillance of their offspring's affairs is appropriate. The possession of this better judgment, so to speak, is not necessarily correct when speaking of every parent, but, in general, it holds true. As Rita Kramer, author of In Defense of the Family wrote, "The family remains the chief agency--and the best one--for developing character in the individual and for transmitting the values of the culture."
The biological goal of every adolescent is to progress into adulthood. However, violations of the law and other dangerous activities on the adolescent's part can place their future in jeopardy. It is the parents who interact with adolescents on a day-to-day basis, and it is often the parents who are the first to sense that something that is amiss. The best, and most effective way to ensure that an adolescent has a safe, legal adolescence is to let their parents examine their belongings or communications when necessary so as to detect any problems before they manifest themselves.
Notice that this is not an advocation of a "police state" household, but rather a household in which parents may dispel any valid suspicions about their offspring. A household in which parents lack the right to know in conflict, often transforms a legitimate right to privacy into the views of Ferdinand Schoeman in Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy ; " Privacy is seen as creating the context in which both deceit and hypocrisy may flourish: it provides the cover under which most human wrongdoing takes place ."
Keeping those arguments in mind, let's move on to CONTENTION TWO : Proper adolescent development is assured when an appropriate balance of privacy is present.
The balance of privacy mentioned both presently and in the previous contention refers to the evaluation of situations in which adolescents and parents disagree over the allocation of privacy. In such situations, as demonstrated in contention one, parents ensure the safety and proper development of their children by overriding their right to privacy in order to detect any dangerous or illegal situations.
Through this, parents insure the safety, well-being, and proper development of their adolescents--in essence, the Welfare thereof.
Now, in conclusion, allow me to summarize the arguments I have presented.
In my first contention, I demonstrated that a parent could better judge the necessity of "keeping an eye on the children," when compared to an adolescent. Later, in the second contention, I showed that a parent could most effectively ensure a fulfilling adolescence for their offspring if they could be granted control of their adolescent's right to privacy when they found it necessary.
Keeping these arguments in mind, I shall now turn to the affirmative case.
[Rebuttal]
I now stand open for cross-examination.
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