Barker - Psychopathy and Consumerism

Psychopathy and Consumerism: Two Illnesses that Need and Feed Each Other (An Interview with Dr. E.T. Barker) . May 12th, 1995 - Welcome to the University of Toronto, Telemedicine Canada. I am Brian Jones. I am speaking to you from Kingston Psychiatric Hospital, Kingston, Ontario, where I am Director of the Forensic Service. Telemedicine system is a two-way sort of thing. We are going to have a principal speaker, but I would encourage everyone to listen and ask questions and raise issues later on... The topic today is Psychopathy and Consumerism: Two Illnesses that Need and Feed Each Other, and I am certain you are going to find Dr Barker an interesting one. With us from his office in Midland today is Dr.Elliott Barker. Dr. Barker is a forensic psychiatrist currently in private practice, and the principal organizer and an active advocate of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Dr Barker has also had a lengthy and distinguished career in the assessment and treatment of mentally disordered offenders,much of this as their attending psychiatrist at the maximum security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre, Penetanguishene, Ontario. Although considerable of Dr Barker's pioneering work has been with assessment and treatment of psychopathy, he now invests the bulk of his energy into prevention. This is reflected in his extensive work with the Society, and also as his role of Editor of the Journal, EMPATHIC PARENTING. In addition, he has been invited to speak at many international conferences as an expert on childhood experiences in relation to antisocial behaviour. I am pleased to have Dr Barker on the line today, and to introduce him to you. During the talk a number of slides were shown at each site, beginning with a photo of the speaker. Each participant had received a copy of the articles listed in the table of contents.For this website the transcript has been edited for clarity and additional graphics and material added to further illustrate the issues discussed. Hi Brian.Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to he able to speak about a topic that I feel strongly about. I am always apologizing to others in this field for not being a researcher. I think of myself as a convicted promoter of what is already known about the emotional needs of young children. I have had a lot of practical experience with psychopaths in my work at Ontario's Maximum Security Mental Hospital (Oak Ridge) and in my court work and private practice. I don't claim to know what psychopathy is or what causes it, but I am concerned about the topic which I chose to talk about today. This is an area that ought to be of enormous concern to all of us. It affects all of us and we tend not to think about it. We tend to think about the sexual psychopaths who do some dramatic killings and we follow it in the court and the population is aroused by that. The comment about psychopathy that means the most to me was in DSM III, and III-R. It said, in effect, that partial psychopaths make good politicians and businessmen. I was really tickled a number of years ago when I heard Dr. Hare, one of Canada 's foremost experts on psychopathy, talking at a conference. He made a kind of aside saying that where he'd really like to try and do evaluations and ratings of psychopathy was on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. I 'm not sure whether he was wary of whether there were reporters present or not, but that kind of thinking really preoccupies me. It's not the Bernardos or the Hillside Stranglers, -- the dramatic psychopathic killers -- I think it's the other end of the spectrum of psychopathy -- the partial psychopaths we ought to be really worried about: because there are so many more of them, because they "fit in" to so many parts of our sick society, and they create havoc directly and indirectly for so many, many, many people. Psychopathy and Consumerism Two Illnesses That Need And Feed Each Other A psychopath or partial psychopath has an impaired capacity to form intimate, trusting mutually satisfying relationships with other human beings as a result of impaired attachment in the earliest years. Unable to find pleasure and satisfaction from others, the psychopath or partial psychopath must turn to things -- goods and services, toys and travel -- to fill the emptiness within. The emptiness of the hollow man must be filled, and consumerism has learned how. It is said that a culture creates the kind of people it needs. Maybe we're into frequent separations and changing, shared, paid caregivers in the first three years of the lives of our children so they will grow up with an insatiable need to shop till they drop. If you're unable to obtain satisfaction from BEING, which is based on love and the pleasure of sharing, then the HAVING MODE, as Eric Fromm put it, is your only choice. "The HAVING MODE, concentrates on material possession, acquisitiveness, power, and aggression and is the basis of such universal evils as greed, envy, and violence..." 1. PSYCHOPATHY Psychopathy: What is it? Introduction: An Interview with Dr. The Mask of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Barker Sanity Partial Psychopathy Incomplete Manifestations of the Disorder The Partial Psychopath If We Could Measure this Two Part Empathy Psychopathy: What Causes It? The Organic Red Herring How to Succeed in the Business of Creating Psychopaths How and Why Changing Caregivers Damage a Young Child Measuring Attachment The Diseases of Non-Attachment Empathic Care: A Definition of "Care" The Infant's Need for Empathic Care Deprivation of Empathic Care During Infancy Psychopathy: What's Wrong With It? Is There a Critical Mass for Psychopathy? The Psychopath's Favourite Playground 2... Materialism and Cruelty to Children To Have or to Be? Big Brother Couldn't Foresee the Big C -Consumerism You Can Never Get Enough . CONSUMERISM Consumerism: What Is It? Nonrational Influences Consumerism: What's Wrong With It? The Way Out of Mimicking Happiness Nirvana and Vance Packard Consumerism. The Poverty of a Rich Society Is This a Culture We Can Afford to be Complacent About 3. CHILDCARE The Link Between Consumerism and Psychopathy The Brave New World of Childcare . WHAT CAN BE DONE? Substituting Conserver Values for Consumer Values The Tendency to Confuse Difference with Equality A Return to the Roots of Feminism The Challenge Before Us . Arbitrary Male Dominance and Daycare 4.Consumerism. IS DAYCARE REALLY A NECESSITY? Patriarchy The Real Women's Liberation and Cruelty Sexism: A Dangerous Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye Culprits to Children Delusion Radical Feminism The Feminine Utopia Accepting the Existing Reality The Real Do Mass Media Quislings Not in America Ask The Socializing Mode of Childrearing From Socializing to Helping Mode of Childrearing The Evolution of Child-Rearing Modes Guidance: A Plea for Abandonment Social Science as Propoganda Social Over-reliance on Social Science The Role of A Dangerous Possibility Science for Proof Research Our Defense Mechanisms Our Defense Mechanisms The Problem of Professional Anxiety John: A Distressing Film About Separation 5. the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood. deceitfulness or theft.7 Antisocial Personality Disorder Diagnostic Features The essential feature of Antisocial Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of disregard for. the individual must be at least age 18 years and must have had a history of some symptoms of Conduct Disorder before age 15 years. Because deceit and manipulation are central features of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Conduct Disorder involves a repetitive and persistent pattern of behaviour in which the basic rights of others or major ageappropriate societal norms or rules are violated. destruction of property.DSM-IV -. and violation of." Pritchard coined the term "moral imbecility" in 1835. sociopathy. at least in North America.is the so called bible of psychiatry.was published in 1994. The pattern of antisocial behaviour continues into adulthood. or dyssocial personality disorder." 301. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder fail to conform to social norms with . or serious violation of rules. Barker The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association -. The latest revision -. It gives the official diagnostic criteria of all mental illness. it may be especially helpful to integrate information acquired from systematic clinical assessment with information collected from collateral sources." "Psychopathy has been called a lot of things since the condition was first described by Pinel in 1806 and termed "mania sans delire. For a time there was an attempt to remove the moral stigma of the term psychopathy with the term sociopath.A Sense The Politics of Meaning of Communion End of Introductory Interview with Dr. The current term is APD -. This pattern has also been referred to as psychopathy.Antisocial Personality Disorder. For this diagnosis to be given. The specific behaviours characteristic of Conduct Disorder fall into one of four categories: aggression to people and animals. " or "he had it coming anyway"). They may engage in sexual behaviour or substance use that has a high risk for harmful consequences. or power). There may also be a pattern of repeated absences from work that are not explained by illness either in themselves or in their family. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder show little remorse for the consequences of their acts. harassing others. failing to provide child support. These individuals may blame the victims for being foolish. use an alias. or they may simply indicate complete indifference. this may lead to sudden changes of jobs. mistreated.g. without forethought.(e. or deserving their fate. multiple accidents). They generally fail to compensate or make amends for their behaviour. or malinger. They may repeatedly perform acts that are grounds for arrest (whether they are arrested or not). and without consideration for the consequences to self or others.. or pursuing illegal occupations. or failing to support other dependents on a regular basis. Associated Features and Disorders .. con others. They may repeatedly lie. such as destroying property. Persons with this disorder disregard the wishes. or relationships. having hurt. They may believe that everyone is out to "help number one" and that one should stop at nothing to avoid being pushed around.' 'losers deserve to lose. This may be evidenced in their driving behaviour (recurrent speeding. They may neglect or fail to care for a child in a way that puts the child in danger. They are frequently deceitful and manipulative in order to gain personal profit or pleasure.g. or stolen from someone (e. sex. rights. or feelings of others. Financial irresponsibility is indicated by acts such as defaulting on debts. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder tend to be irritable and aggressive and may repeatedly get into physical fights or commit acts of physical assault (including spouse beating or child beating).respect to lawful behaviour. or by abandonment of several jobs without a realistic plan for getting another job. or provide a superficial rationalization for. Irresponsible work behaviour may be indicated by significant periods of unemployment despite available job opportunities. They may be indifferent to. These individuals also display a reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others. helpless. residences. A pattern of impulsivity may be manifested by a failure to plan ahead. to obtain money. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder also tend to be consistently and extremely irresponsible. driving while intoxicated. they may minimize the harmful consequences of their actions. Aggressive acts that are required to defend oneself or someone else are not considered to be evidence for this item. Decisions are made on the spur of the moment. stealing. "life's unfair. and other disorders of impulse control.g. unstable or erratic parenting.g. and Narcissistic Personality Disorders. using technical terms or jargon that might impress someone who is unfamiliar with the topic). or inconsistent parental discipline may increase the likelihood that Conduct Disorder will evolve into Antisocial Personality Disorder. The likelihood of developing Antisocial Personality Disorder in adult life is increased if the individual experienced an early onset of Conduct Disorder (before age 10 years) and accompanying Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. or repeated squandering of money required for household necessities. or aggressive acts are likely to be nonspecific. including complaints of tension.Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder frequently lack empathy and tend to be callous. as evidenced by malnutrition of a child. and contemptuous of the feelings. They may be irresponsible as parents. They may display a glib. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder are more likely than people in the general population to die prematurely by violent means (e. delinquent. a failure to arrange for a caretaker for a young child when the individual is away from home.. They may have an inflated and arrogant selfappraisal (e. Histrionic. may fail to be self-supporting.g. feel that ordinary work is beneath them or lack a realistic concern about their current problems or their future) and may be excessively opinionated. superficial charm and can be quite voluble and verbally facile (e. They may have associated Anxiety Disorders. Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder also often have personality features that meet criteria for other Personality Disorders. Individuals with this disorder may also experience dysphoria. Substance-Related Disorders. Pathological Gambling. and superficial charm are features that have been commonly included in traditional conceptions of psychopathy and may be particularly distinguishing of Antisocial Personality Disorder in prison or forensic settings where criminal.. These individuals may also be irresponsible and exploitative in their sexual relationships. may become impoverished or even homeless. self-assured. suicide. or may spend many years in penal institutions. particularly Borderline. an illness in the child resulting from a lack of minimal hygiene. or cocky. and homicides). Somatization Disorder. Child abuse or neglect. accidents. rights.. Lack of empathy. inflated self-appraisal. These individuals may receive dishonourable discharges from the armed services. Depressive Disorders. cynical. a child's dependence on neighbours or nonresident relatives for food or shelter. and depressed mood. Prevalence . and sufferings of others. inability to tolerate boredom. They may have a history of many sexual partners and may never have sustained a monogamous relationship. Thus. Whether that time is spent in managing their incorrigible behaviour as children..even if they lead to neurosis . Comprehensivee Textbook of Psychiatry The E." . dealing in consultation with their criminal offenses as adults. Prevalence estimates within clinical settings have varied from 3% to 30%...In our experience.a special two part type of empathy -.The overall prevalence of Antisocial Personality Disorder in community samples is about 3% in males and about 1% in females. I've excerpted a piece here which is spelling out the lack of empathy in psychopaths -. [psychopaths] demand a disproportionate amount of time and money from society in general and from health professionals in particular. As long as man is capable of moral conflicts .. the dimension that correlates most closely with psychopathy and which has been identified or is implicit in all definitions of the illness is the concept of empathy -. B. But this seems to be only one part of what constitutes empathy in relation to the psychopath.. Even higher prevalence rates are associated with substance abuse treatment settings and prison or forensic settings.. Shipton. although he is able to very quickly glean during the briefest encounter with another .but I have to say quickly. What is different about the psychopath is that he is unaffected or detached emotionally from the knowledge that he gains by putting himself in your shoes. PhD Partial Barker. Empathy is loosely thought to be the capacity to put yourself in another persons shoes. empathy defined in a specific two-part way.not just putting yourself in another person's shoes.. antisocial personalities cannot be disregarded by their psychiatrists. "We have more reason to fear the hollow man than the poor neurotic who is tormented by his own conscience.there is hope for him. But what shall we do with a man who has no attachments? Who can breathe humanity into his emptiness?" Selma Fraiberg ". depending on the predominant characteristics of the populations being sampled.T. Psychopath MD "A psychologist and I presented a paper on the partial psychopath at the Ontario Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in 1988. or caring for their damaged or deserted families.Over their lifetimes .. rarely. in the way that this happens in the normal person. in all his subsequent years in mental hospital. Unlike the normal person. compelling. . or a puzzled look.person a lot of very useful information about what makes that person tick. the question "how am I supposed to feel?" To repeat. appeared subdued and appropriately sad about the offence during the early stages of a first interview. after good rapport had been established. this boy blurted out. Thus the second part of this two part empathy in a psychopath is the choosing and acting of a script. he stuck to all the right lines of remorse which he quickly learned were more appropriate and useful. This essential missing aspect of empathy. An observer is very unlikely to note any difference from the real thing.not the acting out of a chosen script. and was charged with attempted murder. The psychopath can follow the same script as a normal person. A young psychopath who had inflicted multiple stab wounds on an elderly woman. the second part of this two part empathy for the normal person is the automatic. doesn't stumble like that very often. But later in the same interview. A rather crude example might suffice. What is missing in psychopaths is the compelling nature of the appropriate affective response to the knowledge gained from putting himself in another persons shoes. he can choose what script to follow. even in the severe psychopath. What is missing in psychopaths is the compelling nature of the appropriate affective response to the knowledge gained from putting himself in another persons shoes. usually with all the subtle nuances of a skilled actor -. And unlike the normal person. intuitive. is not in my experience easily seen and one does not often get a second glimpse of it if one has been treated to a first one by mistake. His eyes were moist as he accurately described how the woman must have felt during and after the attack. appropriate response to what the other feels -. The old bag only had a dozen scratches." To my knowledge. this knowledge is simply knowledge to be used or not as the psychopath chooses. he has been told. "I don't know what all the fuss is about. what he is supposed to feel. the experienced psychopath. With luck and the right question about how the other person's feelings affected him there will be a barely perceptable pause. He is not compelled intuitively or automatically to react to the way he knows you feel. The bright psychopath.if he chooses to do so. or even. or learned by observing others. More importantly.The second part of this two part empathy for the normal person is the automatic. whether we are speaking about psychopaths in prison. we should be mindful that less severe disruptions of attachment can create partial psychopaths. compelling. Therein lies the danger of psychopathy.. Isn't a capacity to be affected by what is happening to others a necessary component in the makeup of a majority of persons in order for a group to function as a group? From a sociological perspective. Are experiences in the first three years critical in developing this two part type of empathy? Yes -.if you accept that psychopathy can be created in the first three years. But that should not lull us into forgetting the one never-failing recipe. As he rapes you or strangles you he is not compelled to feel your pain. Presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Ontario Psychiatric Association. intuitive. appropriate response to what the other feels.move a child through a dozen foster homes in the first three years. what are the consequences for society if large numbers of individuals are functioning without it. intuitive connection between what he knows you feel and what he feels.move a child through a dozen foster homes in the first three years.. like a dozen different catregivers in the first three years can create partial psychopaths. For about half a century we have known one unfailing recipe for creating psychopaths -. To take the issue further. your helplessness. or biochemical that can sometimes predispose a person to psychopathy. There are probably other things -. . More importantly. compelling. your terror. 1988. For about half a century we have known one unfailing recipe for creating psychopaths -. organic. There is no way he must feel. if a relative incapacity for this two-part type of empathy is a key ingredient in the makeup of psychopaths. There is no automatic. in business. in politics. we should be mindful that less severe disruptions of attachment. isn't this one of the functional prerequisites of any social system? Is there a critical mass for this type of empathy for a society to survive?.genetic. If we had an unfakable way to measure this two-part type of empathy we would be able to correlate such findings with clinical impressions of severity of psychopathy. or the day before they kill. Thus there is none of this kind of restraining force on his behaviour. well adjusted people have more than a passing interest in that stuff.T.emotional violence. I think we’ve created a society that’s doing quite the opposite..". whether we are speaking about psychopaths in prison. go about creating child care arrangements which gave us human beings. physical violence and sexual violence.Q. What comes as a surprise is that it doesn’t happen more often. People who think we're OK as a society except for sickos like Bernardo should be looking in the mirror. Why? I don't believe healthy. I guess working in a place like Oak Ridge makes you overly preoccupied about these things. if we had the capacity to measure this two-part type of empathy we would be able to correlate such findings with clinical impressions of severity of psychopathy. if we decided we wanted people who had a good capacity for empathy. conduct disordered teens. The Oklahoma thing doesn’t come as a surprise to people who work with those people. wouldn’t it be interesting. But what's so scary about the Bernardo and OJ trials is the number of people compelled to read and watch all the details. If we were as preoccupied to measure empathy as we were to measure I. When reporters would call about the latest murder." Measuring Empathy E.. That’s the thing that is surprising to me. where they would score on that. or the day before they kill. Barker If we could measure this type of empathy accurately it would make a big difference. Emotional violence toward children is * normative*. The people you work with. a test that would really nail it down. . I believe our attraction to violence mirrors or reflects the amount of violence we were subjected to as children -. and the amount of latent violence is incredible. Then maybe we could more convincingly. or where one’s self would score on that. in business. “How can this happen?” I always told them my surprise was that there weren't more Bernardos or whoever the big name killer of the day was. gave us adults that could live in peace and tranquillity and with loving relationships and live co-operatively with each other. and I see teenagers now in my private practise. if we had an accurate test to measure empathy. Violent behaviour toward children is endemic and sickeningly acceptable. like a blood test. and they would ask. in politics. let alone your parents. The news media know what sells. " The Organic Red Herring E. . And as a society we don't like it because it means we have to change a lot of established patterns or ways we do things -. It gives us hope that it is not us personally that has caused the damage. . and I couldn’t find what I thought was failure of attachment or difficulties in the first three years. There is no doubt about it. Jason Aronson Inc.. We know that.*Normative Abuse is the term coined by Karen Walant in her groundbreaking 1995 book Creating the Capacity for Attachment.. And a researchers dream come true. I’ve examined the parents of psychopaths. I am sure there are some psychopaths whose pathology is caused by something organically wrong. It's dangerous because it is so attractive. But all of this flies in the face of the uncomfortable fact that we know that any child can be made into a psychopath through failure of attachment. but a very dangerous misconception. "Normative abuse occurs when the attachment needs of the child are sacrificed for the cultural norms of separation and individuation.. For the defence of rationalization. taking a detailed history starting six months before conception. Barker Let me say right off the top that I believe that psychopathy can be.our priorities -. no evidence at all is sufficient! The fact that there is indeed some good evidence that some psychopaths probably are organically caused is a guilty persons dream come true.T. We have known it for a long time. at least biochemically caused by some toxic process or organic damage that is not easily detectable. But we want to deny that because it means that we as parents may have caused irreparable damage to our child.. because the money for further research will be more readily available.in order to arrange things so that nothing gets in the way of attachment in the earliest years. as we all know. if not genetically predisposed to. So we leap at any shred of evidence that psychopathy is organically caused. and that knowledge doesn't feel very good. It's attractive because it eases any guilt we may have individually as parents or collectively as a society and it is attractive because if the cause is organic there is the possibility of finding a cure that doesn't necessitate changing the way we think about and do things. But to believe that psychopathy is always or mostly genetically or biologically determined is not just a misconception. or 6 hours a day. continually available person to whom the child can relate. a well known child psychiatrist. Basic Books.D.How to Succeed in the Business of Creating Psychopaths Without Even Trying Paul D.D. or 8. 2 week olds. Moving through 12 different foster homes in the first three years will make a psychopath for sure. If 100 separations and 50 changing caregivers will produce a psychopath. . putting our hope and faith in social science studies to ease our guilt. just move a kid through 12 foster homes in the first three years.when there is no single. Steinhauer M. will 80 and 30 do it. To me it’s analogous to a brain surgeon cutting progressively closer slices off the centre of your brain. 1983. Let's try daycare centres 10 hours a day. FRCP(C) "Here is an excerpt from Paul Steinhauer.. maybe we're safe with 50 and 20. and you want a really fool-proof formula. I like the way he puts it. We act like we don't see even the remotest connection to the known danger. What scares me is that paid group institutional daycare under age three is taking the same fool-proof psychopathy producing formula and making modifications. adequate. without knowing more than the fact that if you cut close enough you’ll produce an emotional vegetable. or [that in which] the child is passed through a series . 6 month 2 month. and Rae-Grant. Let's try with 2 year olds.75 of the book Psychological Problems of the Child in the Family by Steinhauer P.let's try 6. New York. We have been delivered up so completely into the values of consumption as the most important thing in our lives that we seem quite content to be deliberately creating childcare arrangements that risk producing psychopaths and we rationalize that risk as either necessary or nonexistent. from a talk he gave to Children’s Aid Society workers to alert them to the hazards of moving a kid through a dozen or so foster homes in the first three years. 1 year. Q." * A more comprehensive description of these long-term effects of incomplete or aborted mourning can be found on pages 73 .* If you want to make a psychopath. But will 10 moves or will 8 -. Why? Why are we messing around with variations of such a dangerous formula. and he puts it even more technically and accurately if you look up the book where he later wrote about the same thing.. suicidal thoughts or attempts . Asocial and Antisocial Behaviour Two sets of factors. such children combine exaggerated demands for closeness with an inability to tolerate intimacy and a need to keep others at a distance. the end result is a child who is afraid to put down roots.” Unless worked through. Many children show super-ego defects. Other associated long-term deficits include: 1. “There is no experience to which the young child can be subjected more prone to elicit intense. failure to develop or loss of interests. Chronic Depression This is related to the degree to which basic needs for love and security remain unmet.at other times it takes the form of a continuing apathy marked by pervasive lethargy. along with the defences called into play against it may be dammed up.of placements where he makes only brief attachments. lack of drive or available energy. or are shallow. usually in combination. 2. self-destructive behaviour (including the use of drugs). totally narcissistic and manipulative in their dealings with others. loneliness. a child left unable to relate in depth or to form stable. superficial. deteriorating school performance. Such children either do not relate at all. account for the frequency that asocial and antisocial behaviour are displayed by these children. Alternately. Others are valued only when they satisfy the child’s needs of the moment. long-term attachments. violent and persistent hatred of the mother figure than that of separation. 3. this rage. generalized. In either case.overwhelming sadness. to be discarded or turned upon violently as soon as they fail to do so. distorting the developing personality. global persistent pessimism which may alternate with bouts of acting-out and frequently antisocial behaviour which can be dynamically understood as depressive equivalents. These result from discontinuity of relationships which keeps them from forming the stable identifications which are the basis of effective . Diffuse Rage As Bowlby has stated. undermining and destroying potential relationships and dominating both mood and behaviour. While presenting at times as frank depression in the adult sense . hopelessness. inability to get started or to follow through. displaced and diffused. Persistent. . this energy remains unavailable to form relationships with others. A stage of permanent detachment occurs if and when the energy and love withdrawn from the original mother fail to find an adequate substitute within the critical period of time. they frequently show diffuse feelings of shame and worthlessness. As a result they remain impulse ridden and prone to acting-out. they may turn their exaggerated demands for nurture and support from one person or agency to another. thus proving again and again that there is nothing worthwhile or loveable about him. and is instead withdrawn and turned back onto the child himself. As a result. Low Self-Concept This is derived originally from the child’s never having felt loved or cared about sufficiently to incorporate an inner picture of himself as a valued and worthwhile person. leaving them prone to immediate and explosive discharges of behaviour in response to the sweeps of rage to which they are so vulnerable partly because of the greatly intensified anger resulting from repeated deprivations and partly because the lack of continuity and consistency in their upbringing has failed to help them develop the necessary control over their affects. As if needing to obtain in their adult life what they were deprived of in their childhood. They might well be termed “short-fused” children. socially and often economically dependent. thus remaining emotionally. They lack the ability to bind tension. This original lack is aggravated by his compulsive though unrecognized need to set himself up for repeated rejections (i. Chronic Dependency Many such children never reach the stage of achieving emotional self-sufficiency and independence. these children almost invariably show severe ego defects.superego. 5. 4. As a result. repetition compulsion). At the same time.e. When they eventually succeed in draining and alienating one source of supply they then turn to another. and lack the appropriate capacity for guilt characteristic of the mature conscience. rocking. affectionate people to survive emotionally in such a setting even with powerful protections built into the system. Initially. Entropy seems to lie in the direction of the emotionally hardened. the greater the hazard of severe and permanent damage leading ultimately to a child who is asocial and/or antisocial. relating in an “as if” manner by feeding others what he thinks they expect rather than expressing what he really thinks. The narcissistic child is concerned only with himself and his own needs. this may result in excessive autoeroticism (thumbsucking. suspicious. feels or wants." . b) The love and energy may become invested in the child’s selfimage causing him to become increasingly narcissistic. Together they represent the end result of the process set into motion when a child is forced to submit to the trauma of repeated separations.a)Love and energy withdrawn from others may be re-invested in the child’s own body. Shallow. for a time.trusting. Prisons. This will lead to a progressive withdrawal and an increasing turning for gratification to fantasy rather than to real experiences or other people.. masturbation). Such children remain vulnerable to hypochondriasis and psychosomatic complaints later in life. he will use others for what he can get. mutually exclusive. Barker "When. Let me repeat again: the longer the interval between loss of contact with the child’s own mother and the time of permanent attachment to a substitute mother. It's tough for people with a well developed conscience -.T.. These alternatives are not. of course. there was constant intense interaction. But it was all heat and no light. incapable of trust. we created a program at Oak Ridge which had only psychopathic patients in it. His love and energy may become overinvested in his own inner world of fantasy. Psychopaths and Prevention E. and uncaring. giving as little of himself as he can get by with. superficial and self-centred. warmth or true intimacy with others. which then assumes more importance for him than external reality. He may be totally plastic. empathic. He is really saying what we have been saying. We seem to have developed a society which glorifies psychopathy. then you're a sharp businessman. To me the more important questions are "What proportion of the general population is psychopathic? What are the consequences for society if there are too many psychopaths? Is there a critical point beyond which a social system cannot function -. As Owen Young put it. for individuals with some of the features of the disorder to achieve political and economic success. in his book.. The ubiquitous beer and pop ads tell us that's where it's at. Obviously the percentage depends on the diagnostic criteria used and the degree of severity you want to include or feel you can measure." "Psychopathy presents a sociologic and psychiatric problem second to none.." "Our society is fast becoming more materialistic.. but the honest man who . however." . but past concern was focused on ferreting out incompetents rather than psychopaths.I don't know what proportion of the population of a prison is psychopathic -. But what about the downside? Magid..partial or complete. Life in the fast lane. You have to wonder where the end of that is going to be. and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen. He worries about early child care arrangements producing partial psychopaths. and tries to alert us to the danger of the ever increasing numbers. there have always been shysters and crooks." The Psychopaths Business Favourite Playground: Relationships Ken Magid and Carole McKelvey "Here I have excerpted a chunk from HIGH RISK: Children Without a Conscience.Certainly. "It is not the crook in modern business that we fear. a book by a psychologist. tries to address that. Ken Magid.a critcal mass for psychopathy?" "It is possible. mild or severe. that in the business world it is ever more acceptable that if you can screw somebody for a buck.. and maneuvered them as he wished. Certainly.more than any other category of crime." Of course. the "penalties" administered in the business world are far less severe than those for "blue-collar" crimes.. and does it so well that no one else knows. white-collar crime was largely not something we focused upon." Concern here is that the costume for the new masked sanity of a psychopath is just as likely to be a three-piece suit as a ski mask and a gun. the seemingly upstanding citizens in our corporate board rooms and the humble clerks in our retail stores bilk us out of between $40 and $200 billion a year. District Courts . mugging and other property losses induced by the country's street punks come to about $4 billion a year. firing people instead of killing them. he coolly saw into their fears and desires. no longer assumed to be a loser. "They account for nearly 30% of case filings in U. and chopping up their functions rather than their bodies. The combined burglary. "We also have the psychopath in respectable circles. the consequences to the average citizen from business crimes are staggering. be doomed to a life of scrapes and escapades ending ignominiously in the jailhouse. all that has changed." As Houston Police Chief Lee Brown reports in the book Crimewarps. The crimes we devote our efforts to are the ones the public is more concerned about street crimes.. "They . after all.S. he might become a corporate raider and murder companies.doesn't know what he is doing. I don't foresee that changing. Yes. We now need to fear the super-sophisticated modern crook who does know what he is doing . However. Instead of murdering others. Such a man might not. As Harrington says. "Police do not devote their efforts to get the white-collar criminal. psychopaths love the business world." Up until the early 1987 Wall Street woes involving insider trading. "Uninvolved with others. As criminologist Georgette Bennett says." He quotes William Krasner as saying." Unfortunately. " The theory and measurement of consumer behaviour forms an important. because they take such delight in 'putting it over on them'. and success at any cost is the credo of many businessmen. and certainly never part of mine. However." "Concern here is that the costume for the new masked sanity of a psychopath is just as likely to be a three-piece suit as a ski mask and a gun." Consumerism: What is it? "I thought it would be appropriate to add a brief bit about economic theory.". "The combined burglary.psychopath and part psychopath .." Authors Norman Mailer and Michael Glenn recognized the increasing presence of this type of individual in society and have warned that this Trust Bandit may be better adapted to meet the goals we have now set for ourselves in defining "success.do well in the more unscrupulous types of sales work..and have so little conscience about defrauding their customers. the seemingly upstanding citizens in our corporate boardrooms and the humble clerks in our retail stores bilk us out of between $40 and $200 billion a year. It was first developed during the 19th century on the basis of the following conceptions: the purchase of any commodity gives the consumer a positive satisfaction or utility. mugging and other property losses induced by the country's street punks come to about $4 billion a year." Our society is fast becoming more materialistic. part of modem economic theory. The typical psychopath thrives in this kind of environment and is seen as a business "hero. getting away with it . a subject not generally thought an essential part of medical training.. . To some extent this is due to what an American economist. Brand-name drugs sell better and at higher prices than unbranded drugs that are manufactured from the same standard formula.the additional satisfaction derived from additional purchases of the same commodity declines as the consumer's supply of that commodity increases. made more acute by the increasing sophistication of commodities whose qualities must be measured in many dimensions. consumers need to have access to sufficient information on goods and their prices so that they can choose those with the lowest unit price for a given quality. It is also the result of consumers' ignorance. these organizations test and report on a wide range of products for their subscribers.. Critics have often objected that the model assumes a rational person bent on scrupulously maximizing his satisfaction and that the model is thus part of a mechanistic stream of thought that has been substantially undermined by 20th-century advances in psychology. the consumer distributes the expenditure among commodities to maximize the total satisfaction or utility attainable from all those purchases. The lack of information has given rise to consumers' organizations in most industrialized countries. The influence of modern advertising techniques must also be considered. Insofar as advertising informs the consumer of the range of alternatives. Natural pearls are sold at a much higher price than cultured pearls. Advertising. and their quality in use is identical. and insofar as advertising consciously or subconsciously changes consumer preferences. But consumers do not always behave this way. however. it remains one of the many factors determining consumer preferences that the economist takes as given. though the difference between them is demonstrable only by dissection or with X-rays... and with a given amount of money to spend. it is not wholly irrational for the consumer to take the market price as an indicator of quality. If it is costly in time for the individual to become fully informed about the comparative qualities of competing products. it can be argued that advertising merely increases the consumer's information. called the desire for conspicuous consumption: part of the attraction of the good is simply its high price. Thorstein Veblen. cannot persuade the public to buy whatever the .. This rather crude model of consumer behaviour has undergone considerable refinement by modern mathematical economists. Nonrational influences To be fully rational and consistent. Altschuler and Regush make the strong point that industrialized societies have dug themselves a big hole called consumerism and fallen into it. This view was not seriously challenged until the English economist J..Adam Smith and most of the economists who succeeded him believed that if the money spent on luxurious consumption by the rich was invested in useful production. in favour of consumption rather than saving." Consumerism: What's Wrong With It? R. The collective impact of this message has had its effects over the past fifty .producer offers. in favour of consumption rather than saving. or gasoline.. society would benefit as a whole. BUY.. Writing at a time when millions of workers were unemployed. In addition. such as toothpaste.M. and in favour of employment rather than leisure Role of Luxuries The historical and social role of luxury consumption is a subject of much interest. and in favour of employment rather than leisure. But it may also raise the demand for the group of competing products as a whole.. Advertising is likely to be most effective in influencing consumers to choose one of several almost identical products being offered. cigarettes. The classical economists thus argued that all luxury consumption involved a selfish diversion of labour and capital and acted as a brake on human progress. Altschuler and N.. Keynes published his General Theory of Employment." Publishers Weekly The dominant message found in all the corporate ads is BUY. BUY. Interest and Money in 1935-36. .. Regush "In this well-written and freshly conceived approach to modern alienation. it can be argued that the total effect of modern advertising is to shift the preferences of consumers in favour of luxury goods rather than necessities.. The Industrial Revolution brought an increasing demand for funds for productive investment and made possible a more rapid rise in general standards of living than the world had known before. "The total effect of modern advertising is to shift the preferences of consumers in favour of luxury goods rather than necessities. Keynes argued that the consumption of luxuries was socially desirable if it provided jobs that would otherwise not exist.. or fables of the great apostles of individualism. who introduced the Model T in 1909. Horatio Alger is responsible for the American rags to riches saga. verses. Benjamin Franklin. Barnum. If you worked hard and saved your money you succeeded. 1973 issue of Playboy. Playboy shows us that in our modern world people driving thier "babies" don't always need human beings to love. Both praised the virtues of material success. The editors of Playboy seem to think that the automobile was primarily invented to get sex off the porch swing and on to wheels. spent much of his life talking about his rise from obscurity to affluence. when General Motors introduced the LaSalle. Ford lost his number-one position. apparently in ecstasy. The early American was continuously blasted by the aphorisms. the first "styled" car. had foreseen the future development of huge religious amusement parks he probably would not have been so eager to sprinkle holy water on economic success. Even if the first car on the road did more than just revolutionize transportation. which featured a pictorial on sex and the automobile. for example. perseverance. One must add Ralph Waldo Emerson to this group. Perhaps more than anyone else. After the basic mechanical features of the automobile became more reliable and production problems were overcome. Henry Ford was able to maintain a commanding lead over his competitors by simply offering his customers the fundamental assurance that his cars would get them to their destination and back. a true spirit of Orthodox Protestantism. probably would have died of a stroke if he had looked into a crystal ball and seen the May. The growing American corporations appeared to be slowly changing the criteria for personal success. We might also add that if Cotton Mather. honesty. We all know what has happened since. stroking a steering wheel. but Ford basically wanted to produce effort-saving and practical cars for ordinary people like himself.years of intimately linking our most basic needs to consumer items and channelling all our energies into the marketplace. the last decade of the nineteenth century. as well as Phineas T. he always portrayed his hero as someone who achieved success through his diligence. and certainly the early years of the twentieth were increasingly difficult times for American culture. Despite the ideology of the self-made man. the consumer needed an innovative jab. . who viewed business as a vital calling and a part of religion. lectures. and thrift. Henry wanted back in and came out with his restyled Model A. Henry Ford. In the photo-spread we see a woman. In his 135 books. Possibly so. In 1927. everyone was fair game. described the emerging consumer as "other-directed". David Riesman. Packard tells of a scene from Lorraine Hansberry's Broadway play. Fromm echoed this interpretation saying. as one who gauged everything he did in terms of the expectations of other people. with a circulation of over 9 1/2 million in 1951. cries out. When The Hidden Persuaders was published in 1957. "Human relations are essentially those . In 1900 there wasn't any American magazine with a circulation approaching a million. Vance Packard was not the first to attack the Great Success Story. however.. This essentially meant that since everyone was being sold on the illusion that opportunity for success was equal. using strategies inspired by what was called motivation analysis. Packard raised very disturbing questions about the kind of society these manipulators were creating through their ability to contact millions of people through the mass media. dread of nonconformity. And he questioned the morality of manipulating small children even before they reached the age when they were legally responsible for their actions. guilt complexes. and irrational emotional blockages. in which the son. and infantile hang-ups to sell products. The work-to-buy ethic was being generously instilled into the American consciousness. author of The Lonely Crowd. Readers Digest. the consumer increasingly became a passive observer of the technological process. Packard also severely criticized social scientists: He claimed that having found the study of irrationality very lucrative.As corporate development mushroomed. it drives me crazy .. "I want so many things. A Raisin in The Sun. Using research techniques that were designed to reach the subconscious mind. aggressive feelings. Consumers were seen as bundles of daydreams with hidden yearnings. He questioned the morality of playing upon hidden weaknesses and frailties such as anxieties. it was hoped that advertising would mass-produce customers for the Corporations just as he Corporations mass-produced products. Riesman claimed that the otherdirected type reflected the rapidly increasing consumption mania. The Gospel of Success was being democratized. they were flying out of ivory towers hoping to land big booty with the new marketeers. Packard heavily documented his argument that two-thirds of America's largest advertisers had geared their campaigns to a depth approach. along with its competitors bombarded readers with incentives to work harder and harder in order to buy more and more goods. By 1947 there were at least forty-eight. public attention was more aroused than ever. a reflection of modern ideas. Money is life!" The task of the motivation man was to carefully sort out what drove this young man crazy and package the solutions into pretty bottles and boxes. but at the same time he also became more of a challenge for the producers' selling imagination. The early Gospel had been transformed into a Great Machine whose primary function was to sell goods. People . instrument. pervaded by a deep sense of insecurity. Packard's thesis was a very difficult one for people to fully accept. each basing his security on staying close to the herd. radio. and says. and other related services. feeling or action. pointed out that the mass-circulation newspapers. and fashion became as "natural" as the need to breathe. shakes his head. and the special interests of advertisers all anaesthetized the masses with what he called laughing gas. "The one man in ten" was carefully planned on the drawing board. Wright Mills. The reaction for the most part was very similar to that of the Midwestern farmer who comes to New York City. always coming closer to the cherished good life. Happy consciousness enabled a person to see his own behaviour as steadily progressive. made up of communication networks. everybody remains utterly alone. The glorification and perpetuation of the corporate state had become a built-in condition. Galbraith referred to the control or management of consumer demand as a growing industry in itself. and not being different in thought. people in the 1950's. the rise of mass political parties. The reverse was happening. merchandising specialists. critic of the conspicuous consumption of the American noveau riche of the late nineteenth century. were increasingly told by carefully designed mass media formulas who they were. anxiety and guilt which always results when human separateness cannot be overcome. And Herbert Marcuse describes the media-dominated modern citizen as having a "happy consciousness".. was on the illusion of consumer sovereignty: the idea that the consumer himself told the producer what he needed and the producer complied. Consumer sovereignty was again seen to be illusion. Galbraith explained that since the turn of the century Corporations were increasingly concerned with managing demands of consumers. and how they could succeed. a string fastened around one's neck so tightly that a vested interest in the system was fostered and the need for gobbling up every new gadget. The doctrine of consumer sovereignty was given its greatest criticism by John Kenneth Galbraith. These formulas were not geared to the development of a sensitive human being. though he did not phrase it this way.. and only those afraid to face new realities could cling precariously to the idea of the free consumer. what they should be. Writing in The New Industrial State. advertising agencies. While everybody tries to be as close as possible to the rest. According to sociologist C.of alienated automatons. Packard's greatest attack. "I see it but I don't believe it". films. research." Thorstein Veblen. but because of the great stress on individualism in America. looks at the Empire State Building. or. one person says. When the debts begin piling up. the husband. or redoing the bathroom. Along with this. and economic strain becomes a constant feature of the relationship. then new rugs or curtains or having the den remodelled. For many couples who are estranged but will not face up to it. that it pervaded the relationship of Man to Man. That is.which they have put so much into that a harem chieftain would be envious . and adds to the problem by getting farther and farther away from its root. The revolution of roles is therefore progressive insofar as it attempts to allow creative women to express their creativity. pooling their wits and energies to reach a common goal. sleeping there like two celluloid movie stars. To become an independent breadwinner and to express creative talents requires in most instances that the woman seek employment outside the . and theorists like Erich Fromm commented that alienation was becoming total. the wife begins to work. everyday pressure about "what the house needs next". If it is not a new TV it is a new dishwasher.in the male-dominated household.were becoming increasingly lonely and simultaneously mimicking media happiness. it is not uncommon to see married couples in their luxuriously decorated bedrooms . Man to his work and Man to the things he consumed. rather than cut back on the good life. Many couples feel compelled to show they have made it together by what they have accumulated.particularly economic -. It is important to get this argument clear in the context of the issues raised by women's liberation. Because of this. and insofar as women free themselves from the forced economic dependence and the host of identity problems that are an adjunct of this.who is forced to work to help pay the bills -. the wife -. if not this. women have been assigned the relatively menial tasks of household chores which can be.uninterested in loving one another.. Many couples are in trouble because there has been an historical oppression of women -. "if you crammed a ship full of bodies till it burst the loneliness inside it would be so great.identifies with ideologies to justify her activity." The modern consumer-citizen was becoming increasingly alienated. The cycle is apt to grow more vicious if. they would turn to ice. cold and plastic. as is a growing necessity these days. begins to work more. all of this consumerism and household planning often serves the function that a child does . it fosters the illusion that they are on an adventure together. enough to make a brain rot.it keeps the couple "together". depending on the woman. as mentioned before. In Brecht's play In the Jungle of Cities. rather than admit that their way of life is the source of the problem. There is hardly a family that is not under the constant.. When expression of self is viewed in the abstract it sounds very appealing -. exploitive jobs in most instances. The confusion which is rampant among married couples misplaces the emphasis and fosters the illusion that the role problems between husband and wife can be solved in the abstract. So the new problems arise and must be dealt with: Who cleans the house? Who takes care of the kids? Who controls the bank book? And so on. then. the undeniable fact is that in many households there is no meaning to be found. while underlying all of this is a dulling of the senses and closing of awareness through alcohol. boring. The relationship between men and women must be examined within the total context of a society such as ours. Most married women today are working out of economic necessity. repetitive. But yet. which tyrannically and with startling ingenuity sells dreams in the marketplace and fosters an outmoded work-to-buy cycle to make these dreams a reality. We are living in a highly technological society which holds a vast potential for providing us with the necessities of life and at the same time freeing us from stupid. meaningless. This is not the nineteenth century. and barbiturates. Many blue-collar men earn more than the clean-nailed white collar male heads of households. The illusion of liberation is kept going by resorting to more mindless consumerism through fashion and vacations. . unfortunately. It is the highest ideal for all women and all men to seek and express the unique self that is repressed in modern societies. either. when they do work are consigned to the typewriter or some kind of front work which exploits their looks or congeniality. particularly wives of blue-collar workers. Our society offers witless. to press the argument and foster the grand illusion that meaning can be found in the work world that should not theoretically be able to be obtained through intimate contact with family members. and most women. tranquillizers. The emphasis should be to utilize this technology so that we have less jobs and more time to relate to each other as human beings and benefit from our true creative expression. but this is by no means restricted to that class.home. meaningless work. But how to do it? How many men can find expression of self in their work? Sociological study after sociological study shows that work is not a central life interest for the great majority of men.and it is also very misleading. The major argument given by the women's movement leaders centres around expression of self. It is patently absurd. This is the impasse that women's liberation should be focusing on. not economic necessity. married woman should do to affirm her identity and selfimage. is part of the problem of a society which pressures people to extend themselves beyond their means without carefully considering the possible negative repercussions. NOW recognized that women do not get credit as easily as men. She is a Corporation's dream. NOW. however. "There is a practical side to this". And little by little this is becoming to pass.. "This way. maiden. without detailing its pitfalls.A good example of this confusion can be seen in the activities of the National Organization of Women (NOW). in attempting to solve a problem of women. one finds page after page of glossy ads comprising about 70 percent of the magazine. a NOW spokeswoman explained. in some detail. if a couple becomes separated or divorced. And here it is important to look at. but the credit problem is real only insofar as it is the cause of the problem we are talking about. 1971) the reasoning of NOW went like this: We want a woman to be able to get credit in whatever name she chooses .married. another major source of . which. a smattering of anxiety-producing stories dealing with marriages in trouble and new morality. the last mentioned being merely another version of corporate advertising. By pushing for credit for women. and a smattering of articles such as "How to Redecorate Your Home". the rest of the appearance industry does its work of creating anxiety and offering "solutions". The total impact is a not-too-subtle definition of what the young. Credit is one of their more ingenious means. The "young mama" .the image of the modern. therefore may be unwittingly aiding the Corporations in their relentless desire to sell us as much as they possibly can.. actually perpetuates the reality which is at the root of the problem. she will have maintained her own credit rating. Flipping through Redbook. normal. The credit problem. women who identify with NOW will see this as a goal to be achieved and will fight for credit. What the liberated woman wants today is a credit card in her own name. and they sought to rectify the problem. whole.is the prototype of the independent woman who presents no challenge to the existing reality of the good life. professional or whatever. In the process she is made a nervous wreck with a constant barrage of questions such as "Are you sure your Tampon keeps you odourfree?" While pondering this important question." The problem of women being dependent on their husbands and discriminated against is a real one. As reported in the New York Post (September 27th. married woman pushed by Redbook . and will not be at the disadvantage of having to re-establish credit . rather than having adjunct credit extended because her husband is deemed a good credit risk. under the bombardment of ads. It was getting so that I was ashamed to be seen with him. A college student. If I wasn't going to stray from the nest he just had to become a young man again. commenting on the growing rift between his parents told us: "My mother has been grey since her early teens. there is so much emphasis on being thin for beauty's sake (as well as for health reasons) that in order to please my father. Whatever her motive. Also. this never bothered my father until recently when so much fuss was being made about the ease of colouring one's hair. but not accepted." The mother of this family secretly attempts to slim herself down. and only a strong love for each other and an understanding of the aging process will keep them from rolling over and dreaming of that young stud or piece of ass who they know they can get to -.that's how he began to look as he got balder and balder. my mother secretly attends an exercise class at the Elaine Power's Figure Salon. The middle-aged couple is often in a pitiful position in a society which makes one ashamed to age. and begin comparing themselves to images of youthfulness presented in the ads. or dress in outdated apparel. smell human. gray hair and sagging skin. the colours off. dressed away.are confronted with each other as they really are -. The husband. the middle-aged couple -. A married woman told us. the sheen off. They gradually begin to look upon their aging as an affliction which can be washed away.if they have had the courage to wash the gook off their faces and heads -. the fear of growing old and losing sex appeal. be anything less than thin. in turn. the husband-wife relationship is highly affected by the physical appearance industry." .or at least masturbate to. In the bedroom.the wigs off. It may be argued that if one looks younger one feels better. secrecy is the symptom of shame.strain on married couples in our society. an old man -. He begins to wonder what my mother would look like in black hair or in a black wig (wigs being so acceptable today). but this logic only holds in a society where one's self worth is identified with appearance. that's a wig. creamed away. As with singles. in turn. My mother. So I made him get a 'Joe'. is beginning to indicate his need that his wife mimic youthfulness which. "I'm losing interest in my husband with every hair he loses. which has convinced us that it is shameful to grow old. They suddenly find themselves with wrinkles. causes unhappiness. begins to feel bad that my father no longer seems to be happy with the way his wife looks. forces us to rehabilitate the railroads.. television sets. I can go back to painting and get to know my children better. the kids to a birthday party. and building a new way of living. one can only assume the Arab nations and the big oil companies have united to save the American Republic. it is utter nonsense. "My whole life revolves around driving my husband to the station. The Connecticut housewife has an edge on Galbraith. At least she intuitively feels that she is being naive. John Kenneth Galbraith is quoted as saying that "if the energy crisis forces us to diminish automobile use in the cities. the kids to school. the kids to the dentist. swimming pools. causes us to invest in mass transportation and limits the waste of electrical energy. 1973 edition was somewhat closer to the essential point: "as more Americans stay at home instead of taking to the open road. stops us from building highways and covering the country with concrete and asphalt. a basic restructuring of our values about the total viability of our consumer society and the manner in which happiness has been defined? Can we really believe that we all will come to our senses because of an energy . that if I spend less time chauffeuring.Newsweek pointed to the return of "the good old days" and cites this example of a thirty-four year old Connecticut housewife who says. very little will be gained. more birth control pills. they will buy more liquor. thinking. Time's perspective in its December 31. I think. say some pharmaceutical executives." Hopeful as this sounds." More important is that if the consumer stops compulsively buying because of a temporary recognition of the nation's economic and energy problems. I'm glad the energy crisis happened. and waits for a better day when he can go on a rampage again. to believe that any major restructuring of life in the consumer society will come about as the result of an energy shortage without a major transformation of consumer consciousness is to ignore the cold hard facts of American corporate capitalism and the degree to which we have become enslaved to its principal message. erase the developing patterns of postindustrial society. and. Sometimes I feel as though I'm on a treadmill. Galbraith has lost sight of the much wider crisis and the fact that these recent developments must be viewed from within the context of our entire way of life." Newsweek suggested that many people may use the crisis as a way of restoring community and family life. books.. the kids to hockey practise. Furthermore. Can we really be so naive to believe that we can turn the clock back. perhaps naively. and feeling without a profound behavioural change. the kids to ballet classes. R.. Putnam & Sons. and overwhelming concern with the world of material objects and gadgetry leads us to depend on technical solutions to all our problems.P.T. Copyright © 1974 by Richard Altschuler and Nicholas Regush. "We need two salaries just to keep up" means "We value the whetting of our consumer addictions for these few years more highly than our infant's future emotional health". MD. Materialism and Cruelty to Children E. Let us at least call a spade a spade.. Our well-conditioned interests in. Reprinted with permission in the Summer 1981 issue of the CSPCC Journal.C. I find it very upsetting however when I see a helpless infant being permanently maimed emotionally because the parents place so high a priority on these values that they fail to provide the empathic. Consumerism. The Corporations. shielding us from our possibilities as a species. Excerpted from Open Reality: The Way Out of Mimicking Happiness by Richard Altschuler and Nicholas Regush..P. their advertising appendages.Psyc. as our everyday cultural world has built a screen in the human mind. This kind of thing certainly doesn't win friends and probably doesn't influence people. but I thought somebody should say it regardless. has almost wholly accepted the illusion of material progress as a guarantor of happiness. Barker. F. and the mass media have skilfully created consumer illusions. D. and it's not fair to my infant for me to look after her when I'm unhappy" means "I believe I can find happiness and fulfilment through Consumerism and Materialism (and ." I have little quarrel with those childless adults or adults with older children who choose or are led to believe that Consumerism and Materialism (and status and careerism based on these values) are worth devoting their lives to. affectionate care their infant needs during the relatively few years such care is a necessity. New York. "I need to work in order to feel fulfilled and content. as we have heavily illustrated throughout this book. published by G.shortage and that the corporate world will not continue its tactical warfare on our consciousness in newer and more sophisticated ways? The Western World. (C) "A perhaps overly blunt editorial I wrote in 1981. The common denominator of materialism is an uncritical acceptance of the glittering competitive and success-oriented consumer life as the only reality. and he outlines a brilliant program for socioeconomic change that could really turn the world away from its catastrophic course. and what I want for these few years takes priority over my infant's future emotional health". envy. To acquire. and power as the pillars of its existence. and to make a profit are the sacred and inalienable . which concentrates on material possession. Editorial from Volume 4. what? Doing so should be seen for what it is: Selling a child's birthright for a mess of pottage. Dr.status and careerism based on these). which is based on love. acquisitiveness. it seems cruel in the extreme to risk a child's permanent emotional health for a few years of . What Is the "HAVING" Mode? Our judgements are extremely biased because we live in a society that rests on private property.. to own. and: THE BEING MODE. and violence. and will give way to values which are more compatible with emotional health -. Considering the extent to which it is possible to choose if and when parents will have children. profit.both infant and adult. in the pleasure of sharing. power. Let us hope that the Consumerism and Materialism that are currently so fashionable will soon be seen for what they are and are not. and in meaningful and productive rather than wasteful activity. Let us also not delude ourselves by thinking that the way of life for which infants are so frequently sacrificed these days is either the only way or a necessary way. Issue 3 (Summer 1981) of the Journal of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children To HAVE or to BE Erich Fromm Erich Fromm's thesis in this remarkable book is that two modes of existence are struggling for the spirit of humankind: THE HAVING MODE. and aggression and is the basis of such universal evils as greed. Fromm sees the HAVING mode bringing the world to the brink of psychological and ecological disaster.. which consists either of tools for work or of objects for enjoyment. nor does possession impose any obligations on the property owners. my right is unrestricted and absolute. functional.* What the sources of property are does not matter. In an industrial society these are: the wish to acquire property. having many children is the only way to own persons without needing to work to attain ownership. The principle is: "Where and how my property was acquired or what I do with it is nobody's business but my own. his animals. it is in fact an exception rather than the rule if we consider the whole of human history (including prehistory). over whom he can feel he is absolute master. and those who own property are admired and envied as superior human beings.rights of the individual in the industrial society. it can hardly be denied .in his relationship to his wife. or personal. In a patriarchal society even the most miserable men in the poorest of classes can be an owner of property -. with full power to deprive others of its use or enjoyment..and they cherish their little possessions as much as the owners of capital cherish their property. which is exclusively the result of one's own work. to keep it. the obvious answer is that even people who are property poor own something -." This kind of property may be called private property (from Latin privare. Aside from private property. At least for the man in a patriarchal society. such as the Israeli kibbutzim. And like the big property owners. and the puzzling question arises: How can such people fulfill or even cope with their passion for acquiring and keeping property. which a group shares in the spirit of a common bond. But the vast majority of people own no property in a real sense of capital and capital goods. which is restricted by the obligation to help one's fellow being. and to increase it. Considering that the whole burden of childbearing is the woman's.e. even though by an infinitesimal amount (for instance by saving a penny here. restricted property. Perhaps the greatest enjoyment is not so much in owning material things but in owning living beings. because the person or persons who own it are its sole masters. The norms by which society functions also mold the character of its members (social character). as long as I do not violate the law. his children. property. and without capital investment. "to deprive of"). While private ownership is supposed to be a natural and universal category. common property. or how can they feel like owners of property when they haven't any property to speak of? Of course. two cents there). there are: self-created property. to make a profit. and particularly the cultures outside Europe in which economy was not life's main concern. i. the poor are obsessed by the wish to preserve what they do have and to increase it. emancipation of women. taken care of. our social status. The circle is endless and vicious: the husband exploits the wife. our name. In turn. Buying was "keep-it" buying and a motto for the nineteenth century might well have been : "Old is beautiful!" Today. the right -. and so on. means in the negative sense. With the slow collapse of the old fashioned patriarchal type of ownership of persons.to invest one's energy in the success of one's own person. The male hegemony in a patriarchal order has lasted roughly six or seven millennia and still prevails in the poorest countries or among the poorest classes of society. not preservation. "self ownership". slowly diminishing in the more affluent countries or societies -. the image we have of ourselves and the image we want others to have of us. our possessions (including our knowledge). however. one's own ego. In the older period.that the production of children in a patriarchal society is a matter of crude exploitation of women. everything one owned was cherished. their relations to each other assume the character of ownership. But the essential point is not so much what the ego's content is. and the adolescent males soon join the elder men in exploiting the women. however. Acquisition -transitory having and using -. Our ego is the most important object of our property feeling. art objects. which in its positive sense means liberation from social chains. that of the children when they are small. and used to the very limits of its utility. but that the ego is felt as a thing we each possess. after using it for some time. the mothers have their own form of ownership. profitable . Our ego is a mixture of real qualities that we build around a core of reality. a dress. travel. A brilliant picture of the bourgeois obsession with property is given by Max Stirner.and the duty -. and buying has become "throw away" buying. one gets tired of it and is eager to dispose of the "old" and buy the latest model. a gadget. "Individualism". she exploits the small children. and adolescents seems to take place when and to the degree that a society's standard of living rises. God. consumption is emphasized. This discussion of property must take into account that an important form of property attachment that flourished in the nineteenth century has been diminishing in the decades since the end of the First World War and is little evident today. and that this "thing" is the basis of our sense of identity. Whether the object one buys is a car. It is. health. wherein will the average and the poorer citizens of the fully developed industrial societies now find fulfillment of their passion for acquiring.throwing away (or if possible.** Persons are transformed into things. keeping. children. for it comprises many things: our body. and increasing property? The answer lies in extending the area of ownership to include friends and lovers. that a woman comedian would call a U. he wrote." In a way. Edited by James J. Schapiro. He was the Jules Verne of sociology. Pascal.S. Brentano. consumer capitalism is an equal opportunity whore. But he was wrong.exchange for a better model) -. Copyright © 1976 by Erich Fromm. ("Doublethink". 1973. Byington.S.. America!").that two reporters would watch a U. or that Big Brother would watch other Big Brothers -. The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority. Translated by Steven T. ** Sterner. nothing he predicted has come true. President so closely he would be forced to resign. constitutes the vicious circle of consumer-buying. In a way.comparing consumerism .to Orwell's 'Big Brother'. Max.that politicians would live in mortal fear of having their secrets discovered by .. He did not predict -. Reprinted with permission courtesy Harper and Row Publishers Inc. Sombart. The contributions of Max Weber. and Kraus contain fundamental insights for understanding industrial society's influence on human beings. means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously. everything George Orwell predicted in the novel Nineteen EightyFour has come true." The power to doublethink has come triumphantly true. Secretary of the Interior an "idiot" on nationwide television and refuse to apologize ("Oh grow up. He did not predict that citizens would be keeping tabs on Big Brother.H Tawney's 1920 work The Aquisitive Society is still unsurpassed in its understanding of modern capitalism and options for social and human change. and accepting both of them.) When Orwell predicted that Big Brother would have technology to watch us. he was right.new acquisition. Excerpted from the book To Have or to Be by Erich Fromm. Martin. published by Harper and Row.how could he? Who would have believed him? -.in the way it controls us ." "In street lingo. * R. New York: Dover. Big Brother Couldn't Foresee the Big C Consumerism Jay Scott "Here is a nice little piece by a guy who worked for the Globe and Mail in Toronto . not by punishing it.conformism. Capitalism understands behavioursim as totalitarianism does not. the people. In totalitarian countries. the system will sell them that feeling. Orwell predicted the equivalent of government dossiers. He did not predict That's Incredible.forever. People Magazine or the National Enquirer. a dystopian suspicious of Marxism's promise of Eden on earth. "Beware. Big Brother"). a society in which individualism was extinct. the decade Orwell did not quite live to see -. consumer capitalism is an equal-opportunity whore. a society in which every move was monitored and engineered to echo every other move. Orwell was a pessimist. But what about Pac-Man? Orwell reckoned without capitalism's confounding capacity to avoid confrontation by merchandising it. Consumer capitalism hopes to attract consumers to things that make them feel good.and to resist discarding them as long as somebody is making a buck from them. For Orwell. a vast panorama of -. In capitalist countries. there are sales. the future could be found in what Mao's China was at one time thought to be. the press. If it makes consumers feel good to avoid Big Brother. that.) Consumer capitalism stands ready to push ideas. there are coups and revolutions and liberation movements. CIA snooping. if it makes them feel good to think they are fighting against the system. rock singers sing against the corruption of the record companies that record them. ideologies and revolutionary strategies with the same acumen it brings to marketing perfume and defence contracts. to things. the Corvair. can munch up anything.other politicians. reckoned without behavioural psychology. are "reinforcing". "If you want a picture of the future. Capitalism. "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face -.to use the term that became popular in the fifties. Big Brother announces over the loudspeaker. in street lingo. The law Orwell never took into account when foreseeing the future was this: If . the two Orwellian bugaboos. like Pac-Man. (The dark side of the system is that the search for profits leads capitalists to market things that look good but aren't good -cigarettes. FBI files. which teaches that the most effective form of control is achieved by rewarding the organism. and he was able to imagine all too well a society in which everything was sacrificed to the state." Maybe. Control and conformism. (Try to imagine it: each morning as the characters in Nineteen Eighty-Four get up. militarism -. TV talk shows talk about TV as a menace." he wrote in Nineteen Eighty Four. Hollywood makes movies that call into question the morality of the corporations that own Hollywood. in the language of behaviourisms. lived by few rules except that they were exterminated.) The sequel he never lived to write could have been about a land where nobody was the same.. "The dark side of the system is that the search for profits leads capitalists to market things that look good but aren't good . Blueboy and Numbers for gays.. there would be one law. and there would be one measure of success. disposability is the golden goose . especially if his jacket is black and made of leather and especially if he dies young and in it. somebody will buy it." Reprinted with permission from the Globe and Mail. Orwell's novel is a cautionary fable about a land in which everybody in the same class had the same things..Jet and Ebony magazines for blacks." "From a marketing point of view. with his Frye boots on. if they showed signs of intelligence or of causing trouble. a land that exterminated any variation from the norm. in the belief that individuality is the thing the West has that the East wants. Orwell himself is marketed: Newspeak. doublethink and the adjective Orwellian are part of the culture. Individuality is accorded prime importance in the West. a slogan that would be found for a time on T-shirts sold only at the chicest of boutiques in the chicest of burgs: "Whoever has the most things when he dies. The system is devoted to the proliferation of variety -. and the proles. And the corollary: if somebody sells it. the outsider is honoured and occasionally revered. the thing that spells the secret of its unprecedented ability to market life with such demographic exactitude that it is called a style. (The Outer Party members lived by strict rules: the Inner Party members had rules slightly less strict. and to resist discarding them as long as somebody is making a buck from them. the uneducated lower class. somebody will sell it. but to variety nonetheless. Within limits. did the same things.somebody wants it. The desires of minorities generate marketing strategies -. and it would not be to revere Big Brother. The system has institutionalized the diversity Orwell feared would die out.. Lifestyle.to superficial variety (are those buns by Calvin Klein or Valente?) perhaps. Success and its measure would be found in one slogan. In this non-Orwellian strange new world. and it would not be the ability to conform." . wins. or motor car. the crisis in the family goes along with a modern redefinition of "economic. Copyright © 1974 by Richard Altschuler and Nicholas Regush. goods become a substitute for the primal goodness we were denied ... kindness.. intimacy. published by G. "You can never get enough of what you didn't want in the first place. More accurately.between home economics and corporate economics. it changed its meaning and became "the production. Economic man is driven by insatiability because.. Under the impact of the omnivorous market-mentality." The excerpts above are from Open Reality: The Way Out of Mimicking Happiness by Richard Altschuler and Nicholas Regush.At present. Putnam & Sons. and the new ethic of selfishness. out of date.." Beyond the level of comfortable survival. We no longer wait for things to wear out." The word "economic" originally meant the art and science of managing a household. kitchen utensil. This is the fundamental mistake we make in substituting the economic for the familiar as the root of identity. . New York. We displace them with others that are not more effective but more attractive." The subversion and destruction of the family can be measured in the distance between these two definitions -. goods become a substitute for the primal goodness we were denied -." .. The technical term for this idea is obsoletism. kindness. You Can Never Get Enough Of What You Didn't Want In The First Place Sam Keen "Beyond the level of comfortable survival. Reprinted with permission courtesy of the Putnam Publishing Group.familiarity."The purpose is to make the customer discontented with his old type of fountain pen. distribution and consumption of commodities. constant mobility and rootlessness.. .familiarity. The task of caring for and initiating children is increasingly turned over to professionals.. because it is old fashioned. easy divorce. intimacy. as both mother and father choose to centre their identity in the economic rather than the familiar. families are disintegrating at a rapid rate under the impact of economic pressures that force both father and mother into the workforce. bathroom.P. or abstract goods satisfies us. money. as my friend Anne Valley Fox says.No number of products. ill-housed. buying too much.. petulant. We could be so incautious as to suppose that these areas are the centre of poverty in our society. and how many clouded.. cheerful. Excerpted from The Poverty of a Rich Society. Gardener "Yet how many gleaming. 31 by John F..Without making distinctions between those who have money and those who do not. Yet how many gleaming.. craving faces among those who seem to have everything! Which of the two is poorer? And if Want cries out so painfully. The Poverty of a Rich Society John F. so balefully. Gardener. . we can say of most Americans at the present time that they suffer from a hunger of the soul. smoking and drinking too much.. looking at too much TV.. petulant.Proceedings No..We know that millions of Americans in rural as well as urban areas are illfed. down is up. well-centred faces one sees among men and women whose livelihood is meagre. material opulance certainly has power to delude us into thinking dark is light. faster car every year or two may scoff at the idea that the car leads away from the satisfaction of their more fundamental desires. . well-centred faces one sees among men and women whose livelihood is meagre. 1976. stimulants. Their unfulfilled hunger drives them to self-destroying life-habits and the growing gap between what they need from life and what they succeed in getting opens them to anguish and despair that they try to suppress by sedatives.. cheerful. from the squalor of the ghettos. at enormous cost.Excerpted from The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving. and bankrupcy of the soul is fulfillment... craving faces among those who seem to have everything!" . how much of this sense of want is the simple need for more adequate food. housing and clothes. and how many clouded. While it lasts. and mind-changing drugs in enormous amounts.. © The Myrin Institute Inc. which they try to satisfy by eating too much. and how much results from inner deprivations and distortions that can hardly be distinguished from those of the pampered rich?. Men who can buy a bigger. Fitzhenry and Whiteside. by Sam Keen. and ill-clothed. 1983. and rushing around more and faster than necessary. ugly is beautiful. and a pointless illegal. a psychoanalyst. the exploitation of the "gimmes" of childhood by transmuting them into the "gimmes" of adult life. the food and drink and tobacco cults with their exploitation of orality. What I am saying is that we have to do something different because this culture is getting dangerous and we should do some thinking about that before we are driven to hell by the people who can market stuff so well. Has anyone since Veblen asked what would happen to such an economy if the masked neurotic ingredients in human nature were by sudden magic to be eliminated? What would happen to the fashion cults. Kubie "A piece by Lawrence Kubie. what would happen to our economy if we were to get well? And what does the exploitation of neurosis by so many forces in our culture do to the neurotic process itself? Is this a culture that breads health? Is this a culture that we can afford to be complacent about? Or have we allowed the enormous creative potential of private enterprise to be enslaved to neurotic processes in industry. and its dangerous. unused seating capacity. Consider the ministering to neurotic needs through size and power: the knight of old replaced by Casper Milquetoast in General Motors armour. our economy for attack. To repeat. literature. the excretory cult. the cleanliness cults. has become the slave of neurosis? Lest we think that I am singling out our culture.Finally. the strip-tease cults? Consider the exploitation of hypochondriasis through the drug houses and even our more elite publishing houses. Or consider the search for happiness anywhere else than where one is.Is This a Culture We Can Afford to be Complacent About? Lawrence S. And he goes on to say. look I'm not saying that the communists can do it better. and chromium and all of that nonsense. cars that are bigger than you can use. and unusable capacity for speed. or the travel industry selling vacations on the instalment plan. But it's what gets marketed to us and what we get to worship. we must consider our economy. exactly as the creative process in art. even science. the height cults." Is this a culture that breads health?" . complete with chromium. unneeded size. Take also the endless whetting of consumer craving. the beauty cults. I repeat that I do not believe that human ingenuity has yet devised any .. or the socialists can do it better. music. He wrote it in 1961 as an indictment of a culture that wants to sell you cars that go faster.. increasingly gambling its success or failure on consumption by the instalment plan. the size cults. whether it is an adolescent with his hotrod. political or economic system that does not exploit, intensify, and reward much that is neurotic (potentially even psychotic) in human nature. If the profit-driven economies exploit subtle manifestations of neurotic selfindulgence and short-term needs, so do totalitarian systems, whether Fascist or Communist, exploit power needs and power fantasies in an even more primitive fashion, rewarding the sadistic lusts and the paranoid components of human nature... Excerpted with permission from an article entitled, The Eagle and The Ostrich, by Lawrence S. Kubie, MD, which appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry, Vol. 5, No. 2. August 1961. At the time of writing, Dr. Kubie was on the faculty of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus), Yale. "The economic freedom that makes an American electric kitchen does not lead to any greater happiness or wisdom; all it does is to allow more comfort , and this soon becomes accepted automatically and loses its emotional value. The economic solution alone will never free the world from its hate and misery, its crime and scandal, its neuroses and diseases." A.S. Neil The Link Between Consumerism Psychopathy and E.T. Barker, MD I see consumerism as the most powerful cultural force making us create childcare arrangements – institutionalized group daycare for children under three – which risk making partial psychopaths. Having been manipulated into near terminally ill consumer addicts, the necessity to end very legitimate inequities in our patriarchal society has been seen as only possible by other childcare arrangements. In my opinion that has been a dangerous tactical miscalculation in the legitimate war against arbitrary male dominance. And I see consumerism and psychopathy linked in that if a person develops as a psychopath or partial psychopath, their capacity to form intimate, trusting mutually satisfying relationships with other human beings is impaired. The emptiness of the hollow man must be filled, and consumerism has learned how. So those two illness dovetail. Someone once said that a culture creates the kind of people it needs. Maybe we're into haphazard nurturing relationships in the first three years of the lives of our children so they will grow up with an insatiable need to shop till they drop. If you're unable to obtain satisfaction from BEING, which is based on love and the pleasure of sharing then the HAVING MODE, as Eric Fromm put it, is your only choice: "The HAVING MODE, concentrates on material possession, acquisitiveness, power, and aggression and is the basis of such universal evils as greed, envy, and violence..." Psychopathy and Consumerism need and feed each other. "...It is consumerism that drives the 80-hour work week. When we learn that consumer goods don't make us happy, we can get serious about reconstructing the family. The critical question in America, at the end of the 20th century, is whether consumption or the family will prevail." Consumerism, and Arbitrary Male Dominance Daycare E.T. Barker, MD "This is an excerpt from a paper I gave at the Fifth International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect in 1984, linking consumerism, arbitrary male dominance and daycare." The capacities for trust, empathy and affection are in fact the central core of what it means to be human, and are indispensable for adults to be able to form lasting, mutually satisfying cooperative relationships with others. In a world of decreasing size and increasing numbers of weapons of mass destruction it is dangerous for these qualities to become deficient. There are two powerful and dangerous social forces underlying the need for daycare: consumerism, and arbitrary male dominance. The former lures parents into believing that they need to be making more money rather than caring for their children. The latter drives women away from nurturing their children to gain emancipation via the marketplace. The problem is that the necessity of shared and the inevitability of changing caregivers in any type of group daycare for infants and toddlers puts the development of their capacity for trust, empathy, and affection at risk. No one sees this as a problem because these deficits don't show up clearly until adulthood, and even then they are not easily measurable like an intelligence quotient is. What is worse, their absence can actually be an asset in a consumer society which often rewards the opposite values. But the capacities for trust, empathy, and affection are in fact the central core of what it means to be human, and are indispensable for adults to be able to form lasting, mutually satisfying co-operative relationships with others. In a world of decreasing size and increasing numbers of weapons of mass destruction it is dangerous for these qualities to become deficient. What is needed is greater understanding of the pragmatic nature of the values of trust, empathy, and affection; a means of measuring the degree of their presence or absence in adults; more rapid progress in the elimination of arbitrary male dominance; and closer examination of the destructive aspects of consumerism. ["The committee on women's rights will now come to order."] The Real Culprits The real culprit in all this, of course, is the inflexibility of men. It comes back to that over and over again. Men are inflexible as fathers when they either do not assume more responsibility for care or do not provide support that they are committed to and put women in the position of starving or working outside the home. Then there are men in policy-making positions who are very inflexible and define child care as a woman's problem. Part and parcel of any childcare initiative needs to be a major initiative in male re-socialization. Otherwise, it's women and children who pay the price. Dr. James Garbarino, President Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development [INDEX] Women's Liberation and Cruelty to Children E.T. Barker, MD From the perspective of the CSPCC, one of the most important aspects of the. struggle for equality in all dealings bet- ween men and women is the prevention of permanent emotional damage to children. the result is the same: Kings rule by divine right. The infant is affected directly by the mother's conscious or unconscious anger or resentment. being extraordinarily sensitive to the feelings of the mother are affected by these feelings. The hand that writes the truth has long been attached to the “masculist” patriarchal body. When the norm for all relations between men and women becomes one of equality. Madonna Kolbenschiag Sexism: A Dangerous Delusion George W. This places sexism in the pantheon of prejudices alongside racism. will have negative feelings (conscious or unconscious) resulting from her unequal or powerless position. or law . a woman whose relationship with her husband is characterized by arbitrary male dominance. in traits. social value. the child is affected by rationalized excesses of arbitrary authority (unnecessary eat this's. personal worth. Indirectly.An emotionally "put-down" mother. literature. Journal of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. and especially when parents re. Most commonly sexism involves perceiving and acting toward females as if they are categorically inferior. and other characteristics to males or females as a group. Vol 4. unsupported by any evidence.late on a basis of mutual respect and cooperation. and other psychological defence manoeuvers necessary to cope with the feelings generated from an unequal position vis-a-vis a father whose arbitrary male dominance is unquestioned. bathing them in the empathic. ageism. then our children will have a major source of emotional abuse removed. abilities. will it be reasonable to expect them to treat their infant children as persons. In a sense everyone's liberation depends on the liberation of white males. antigays. slavery is a natural consequence of . don't do that's). precisely because they have the power to prevent women and minorities from seeking a broader range of alternatives if they do not play the game by the rules of the masculine value system. and other political pathologies defended as part of natural eternal cosmic truths revealed and supported by religion and science. Infants. Issue 2. Not until women are themselves treated as persons. Editorial. racists. and bigots of all kinds) should be defined as emotionally disturbed. scientific treatises. The "standard of excellence" usually is the white male. And whether the writer has been engaged in producing scripture. Albee "Sexists (along with Anti-Semites.or painting pictures or writing songs . affectionate care so necessary during the earliest formative years. do this's." Sexism means ascribing superiority or inferiority. the exploiters justify the discrimination and exploitation by claiming that all members of the target group are somehow defective or subhuman. The Nazis’ justification for persecuting the Jews sounded like the English arguments for excluding Eastern European Jews half a century before. Whether it was blacks imported from Africa to work on the southern plantations or the Eastern Europeans long enslaved by the Nordics (which is where the word Slave comes from). 1973). Unlike men. sexists (along with Anti-Semites. In different ways. members of the group often accept the prejudiced view of themselves.the superiority of the masters and the inferiority of the slaves. on observable physical differences (the weaker sex). on TV. in some way. Sexism is woven into the texture of our lives and damages both the sexist and the target group. Such madness is essentially an intense experience of female biological. but sexism itself is a form of psychopathology. humanity and renewal based on their sexual identity -. and they become caught up in self-perpetuating behaviour. Examples of this process abound.) Whenever a group representing an identifiable segment of humankind is singled out as the object of discrimination or of exploitation. and widespread learned helplessness and despair. pathological existence. Psychologist Phyllis Chester (1973) eloquently describes the result: Women are impaled on a cross of self-sacrifice. The descriptions become self-fulfilling prophecies. Social learning theorists point out that symbolic models portrayed at home. a major criterion of mental disorders is the judgement that the person is so irrational and emotionally out of control as to be dangerous to others.her fatal flaw . racists. some women are driven mad by this fact. or on historical guilt (Eve caused the fall). Understandably. acceptance by some of them of the values and beliefs of their oppressors (see Morgan's Total Woman.and on the blood sacrifice. Individual members of groups that are the objects of prejudice and are mistreated tend to live a powerless. Not only are many forms of psychopathology produced in the victims of sexism. Whether this woman's defect . the excuse was always the same: Every member of the group was seen as inferior. thereby reinforcing the prejudices. We also hope to see a spirit of resistance and revolution emerge that gathers strength through mutual . Members of the group begin to live and behave in ways that are expected of them. sexual and cultural castration. antigays.is explained on the basis of Freudian chauvinism (penis envy). of a member of the opposite sex. According to this definition. We need not review the whole sad sorry historical litany of the endless exploitation of humans by humans except to underline the one common feature -. We see profound and debilitating suffering in the victims. Traditionally.that subjugated people are said to be different in kind and that the difference is a defect. and in books and magazines are important sources of sex stereotyped attitudes. and a doomed search for potency. the result is the same. they are categorically denied the experience of actual supremacy. and bigots of all kinds) should be defined as emotionally disturbed. and women are born to be objects deprived by nature of autonomy and freedom and subservient to the master sex. Copyright c 1981 by the American Psychological Association. He is General Editor (with Justin M. 1. published first in the journal Professional Psychology. many so-called "liberated" women will be seduced into a patriarchal. Excerpted from the article The Prevention of Sexism by George W.. Albee. precisely because they have the power to prevent women and minorities from seeking a broader range of alternatives if they do not play the game by the rules of the masculine value system. Reprinted/Adapted by permission of the publisher and Author. your "breadwinner" fixation. 1981. Joffe) of a series of volumes (published by the University Press of New England in Hanover. Twenty years ago he was Director of the Task Force on Manpower for the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health established by the Congress and President Eisenhower. His research and scholarly activities have been in the area of primary prevention.In a sense everyone's liberation depends on the liberation of white males. It is the epilogue of a book.. George W. and human resources affecting the delivery of psychological services. NH) on the primary prevention of psychopathology.. No. Unless you can admit that you are the problem and begin the task of liberating yourself and dismantling the male-ordered system. But I can't share that load unless you relieve me of some of the burden of homemaking and child rearing. spend more time with the kids -. elitist. This places sexism in the pantheon of prejudices alongside racism. earn less. and the enlistment of significant numbers of defectors from the oppressor group. Can you learn to work less.. . encouragement. one-dimensional. and is written in the form of a good-bye letter from a wife to her husband.support. and other political pathologies defended as part of natural eternal cosmic truths revealed and supported by religion and science. Albee is Professor of Psychology at the University of Vermont 05405. "Most commonly sexism involves perceiving and acting toward females as if they are categorically inferior.. These books result from the annual conference on primary prevention held at the University of Vermont each June.I would like to free you of your compulsive workaholism.. Feb.and be happy? If you can't then I can't be happy either. Volume 12. ageism. masculine role.. We will simply have a new set of "halfpersons" who happen to be female." Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye Madonna Kolbenschiag "This is one of the most powerful statements I have seen dealing with the pervasiveness of patriarchy and the futility of women trying to beat men at men's' games. He was Chair of the Task Panel on Primary Prevention for President Carter's Commission on Mental Health." . Can you stop measuring yourself by the size of your paycheck? .. the psychopathology of prejudice. not only of the women to whom you can no longer relate in the old way.what it means to be a no-thing. I know I have to learn how to cope with competition. you will discover what many women already know -. Men undergoing the same process will experience more of a feeling of loss. then I would be a fool to remake myself in your image. unless they've been brainwashed beyond repair. as you are.. in women as well as men. as God's plan for the human species". where workers are excluded from ownership and decision making. and profit becomes synonymous with survival.is not necessarily going to make a difference. that might makes right and wealth dictates policy.because you have betrayed the masculine code. governments and churches are all corporations. The possibilities of human destiny. It might be easier to take if you simply acknowledged the lust for power and the insecurity that underlies your need to be in charge. Until you promote women's liberation. So pervaded by the masculine consciousness that they have become lethal instruments. are likely to suffer the loss. Women have always wanted these things. But I don't want to be infected with it. . If my professional advancement is going to depend on conforming to the male model of achievement (compulsive-accretive production. schools. The mere presence of women in new jobs.. universities. harmful to all forms of human life. the ability to walk over others on the way up. "chutzpah" and hustling. All in bondage to the idea of male supremacy. Your hospitals. Much more fundamental changes in social structures are needed if human personas are to develop to their full spiritual maturity. but also the loss of your male buddies -. underprivileged.extensions of your ego. It isn't going to happen by natural evolution -. Women in the process of a consciousness breakthrough usually experience rage and frustration.your present position is too comfortable... You will be alone. Your institutions are like your automobiles -. you will be tempted to revert to the old patriarchal and . human structures and human relationships are infinitely more varied than this. until men realize that they have to give up something -power. Misogyny and patriarchy run deep. Stand back and let the future unfold. promotions and job opportunities. Our behaviour is often overtly anti-male.in order for us to be equal. We won't get these things. advantage -. a cool and stoic demeanour). But let us not be naive. there won't be any. factories. as if authority always had to be given to the oldest son. . on the other hand. But you keep referring your status to some fundamental principle of cosmic order.. As she withdraws from male hegemony she will often discover the support and encouragement of other women who will reach out to her in her struggle. or worse yet. narrow specialization. You. In shedding the husk of your reflected masculine glory. I think I should work.I want to be an equal partner with you in supporting our home and in building a world..a few privileged white male professionals supported by a huge substructure of underpaid. in management positions -in greater numbers -. manipulation of data. however. but I don't want to betray myself in "liberating" myself into the marketplace..I'm tired of lobbying for shared responsibility. Most of your institutions are still modelled on the plantation -. It will be a more lonely. more alienated path.. Anger and resolve motivate a woman to sustain her changed consciousness and evolve new relationship patterns. equal pay.Change will no doubt be more precarious for you than for me. You play the "anointed" role. largely female labour force. " .it is the price of reclaiming your humanity and your own soul. we will have to allow others to be a part of our lives.. one-dimensional. It isn't going to happen by natural evolution . You have everything to lose by continuing the struggle. I can be your companion. If you begin to take on more responsibility for home and children. Published by Doubleday and Co. This commitment to each other's liberation and growth should be our best reason for being together. My conversion to feminism is an unfinished.. " Unless you can admit that you are the problem and begin the task of liberating yourself and dismantling the male-ordered system. lower pay. I will have to sacrifice some of my matriarchal prerogatives there.your present position is too comfortable. We will have to bear with different rhythms of growth in each other. If that is not a part of our continuing compact. I want you to know that I can support you in that death and rebirth process -. . We will have to persevere in them in spite of the pressures of society. I will have to bear with the consequences in loss of promotions.Perhaps the most difficult change of all will be admitting that neither of us can be all things to the other. We will have to explode and upset our life together. You'll have to stop putting guilt on me for abandoning the "imperial motherhood" role in the home and the Girl Friday role in the office. Copyright © 1979 by Madonna Kolbenschiag. I have everything to lose by giving it up.. We can walk beside each other and support each other. I must leave you. I'll have to bear with insecurity and loss of status without putting guilt on you.. many so-called "liberated" women will be seduced into a patriarchal. If I give up my princess ways.macho scenarios. If we are married. then even if I love you. I will need women and men as friends. These changes will come slowly and painfully." "Until you promote women's liberation.. mirror images of our own dyad. in order to find new ways to keep ourselves growing. individually and together. We need not be spouses -. take a stand on sensitive issues. We will simply have a new set of "half-persons" who happen to be female. If you begin to shed the "team" mystique at work.. We will need more than other supportive couples.. job changes. will you give up your princedom? I know I will have to steel myself to accept the consequences. occasionally. We have to be committed to this transformation. whatever may come. elitist. there won't be any. Excerpted from the book Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye by Madonna Kolbenschiag. it might be better if we weren't. Reprinted with permission. I want you to know that I understand what is a stake for you. you will need men and women as friends. incomplete experience unless it leads to your liberation.. Inc. work fewer hours.. masculine role. Believe me when I say that I want you to be different (in spite of the fact that I sometimes behave instinctively to the contrary).in fact. for within the family the female is supported while she herself labors without pay -. females would no longer have to be trained from birth to exhibit and admire domestic and maternal virtues." and thus are prevented from taking their place in the work force.a point the women's movement finds particularly telling. and unaggressive. and moral distinctions.. all females. the primal institution of the family.. Miss Millett views the entire "sexist" system as the means by which males prevent females from gaining "independence in economic life. But I don't want to be what you are." and their decision to bear children would become a purely voluntary one. one with the other. and so rendered unfit for winning independence through work." . . The conclusion of the movement's argument is not easily avoided. in Miss Millett's words. passive.. in the words of Miss Millett.Females. professionalized care of the young. Can we become something new together?" The Feminine Utopia Walter Karp "A movement that began by asking for a fair share of dignity and human achievement can today think of no other source of dignity." In this familyless world females would enjoy "complete sexual autonomy. which is to say. to be supplanted. compliant. sharing alike in the world's labor. in the view of the women's movement. like that between legitimate and illegitimate children. Legal distinctions. like that between fidelity and adultery. The liberation of females. would cease to have any meaning. It is by virtue of her training for the family that a female is brought up to be feminine. to work under the same conditions and for the same wages. no other source of achievement. the extent to which women are dominated is the extent to which they are kept "from assuming a place in productive labor." Only when all women are "raised and trained exactly like men . though more moderate elements flinch from the logic of the case. than toiling at a job. remain subordinate. can only come when the family is abolished as the primary unit of human life. Trained alike. What looms up as the giant barrier to such liberation is. as fellow human beings. The bond of marriage would be quite unnecessary and would be replaced by "voluntary associations. husbands.." With the end of the durable family-centered world. by "collective. and you wouldn't want to be what I have been. It is the family that directly secures the economic dependence of women." As Mme de Beauvoir wrote twenty years earlier in Paris. of course. because they are still "economically dependent" on males."In countless ways we need each other as models for change. Except for their differing roles in procreation. men and women would be equals. they would for the first time in human history be interchangeable. to "menial tasks and compulsory child-care. It is by means of the family division of roles that females are assigned." will females ever be liberated. he asked. do not expect that it lies in the immediate offing. has given them. not even the birth of children is assured: as the women's movement has emphasized. This is so not because we are animals. Under such conditions reproduction would become a public duty. to persons united to females by abiding ties of loyalty and affection. What they do say is that this new dispensation would be just and that only such a dispensation can liberate females from the age-old injustice of male domination. duty to the species becomes duty to known persons. and will not mourn. They do not promise. where women." They overlooked the problem of children. according to the form of the family system. Yet every known human society has made the problem of children its primary concern. But precisely because we inhabit a human world. that they continue to sacrifice a large portion of their individuality. We die. By means of the family. of necessity. professionals. yet it abides. What they do maintain is that this must be the ultimate goal of women in their struggle for liberation. to date. because they saw children not as a problem but merely as an obstacle. The most important thing about children is that we must have them. who cannot recognize. Because of the personal bonds it establishes. this has been assured by the family. as well as men. However.K." as it has been called. She bears children for the sake of her spouse. and has done so because the problem is primary. were largely liberated from family ties. there is no maternal instinct and no natural fulfillment in bringing children into the world. in general. called "Marriage and the Modern Mind. Chesterton implied. that humankind would be happier under this new dispensation. the female is not asked to carry out an abstract duty to the species and to the world. who left his baby on the doorstep of the Foundling Hospital. Chesterton put his finger on the first assumption in a short essay he wrote some fifty years ago. something seems wrong. the possible extinction of their species." What. or for the sake of her mother's clan. They would "imitate Rousseau. G. for the sake of the human world's survival. at least. and very seriously wrong. It is so because we are human and have made for ourselves a human world whose essential attribute is its permanence. which deserve more scrutiny than the movement. To date. as it was in the garrison state of Sparta. We must reproduce our kind in sufficient numbers to replace those who die. At the base of the long and complicated argument propounded by spokespersons for the women's liberation movement lie two seminal assumptions. human life would be unthinkable. The second is the assumption that human dignity is to be found in the organized wage-earning work force. Just so. But what of the familyless world outlined by the women's movement? In such a world the sexual training of females would be abolished and bearing children would cease. humankind must find some secure and permanent means to ensure that females submit to motherhood. or for the sake of her father. And yet. The personal voice of the . did the women's movement of his day think about children? The answer was that they did not think about them at all. Without that assurance.Those women's movement spokespersons who propose this "sexual revolution. to be a deeply felt personal virtue. The first is the assumption that the family can be replaced successfully by a modern organization of experts. and salaried employees. however. it would make the child's primary experience of life the experience of being someone's job. It is not theirs alone. it is worth remarking. ... what of the familyless world of women's liberation? In describing possible family substitutes. Seeing that the paid functionaries who tended them could be replaced by any other paid functionaries.. which means.urging females to bear children for the good of the State or the Nation or the People.. The "purely voluntary" choice of bearing children might one day have a very hollow ring. the child would be perfectly raised.. From that primary experience of life the young would learn -. Such a prospect can be looked on as merely repugnant. The ideal world in which females would be liberated for productive labor is a world that would tyrannize the young. they would also learn that adults must be looked upon as interchangeable units. in the end. the primary relation of adults to children would be the cash nexus... which is why they exhorted females to bear children out of wedlock in sunny. it would standardize and depersonalize the world in which children are raised. That is the heart of the matter. individually unique in no important way. where there is nothing else for a grownup to be except gainfully employed. Certain consequences seem inevitable..could not help but learn -. that the dignity of the factory worker consists in working in a factory. by the most basic lessons of his young life. The care of children would be paid employment. All our experience of bureaucracy tells us what it would be: the virtue of being quick to submit to standardized rules and procedures. not in being a free citizen. We are told that the dignity of the citizen consists. for the sake of liberty. but in working on a job. A society compelled to make childbearing a public duty is one that puts into the hands of its leaders a vast potential for tyranny and oppression. was seen by the Nazis as a perfect means to extend totalitarian control. to become another jobholder. What is more.But . The Nazi effort to "liberate" females from the thralldom of husbands was not done. In a society where people are being reduced more and more to mere jobholders and paid employees. but more is at stake than that. luxurious nursing homes. however. it would tyrannize us all.family would be replaced by mass exhortation -. Nor is it difficult to imagine the chief virtue the young would acquire should their care be turned into an administrative function. How would the human world appear to a child brought up in such a way? It would appear as a world whose inhabitants are jobholders and nothing more..that the basic relation of one being to another is the relation of a jobholder to his job. do not matter as much as the essence of the thing. Paid labor is freedom and dignity: that is the axiom of the women's movement today. In a society showing a remorseless capacity to standardize and depersonalize.. . and that the dignity of the "hard-hat" comes . it would make cash the sole link between adults and children. and mothers into state charges.the voice of the megaphone -.In a society where cash is too often the link between people. Child rearing would be an administrative function. The details. To make child rearing a public duty. We hear it every day in a hundred different guises. spokespersons for the movement have not gone much beyond their cursory remarks about collective and professional child care. loyalty. could not share in power. A movement that began by asking for a fair share of dignity and human achievement can today think of no other source of dignity. The one honorable satisfaction that most men obtain from their labor is the satisfaction of providing for their families. it is told that what it "really" needs are more and better jobs. more and more. but rarely our courage. The relation is negative. "a great many American men are not accustomed to doing monotonous.most of the doctors in Russia.and thus. They demand our proficiency. to the work world to see what it does offer in the way of human dignity. men could not take part in public affairs. in the end. and thus could not be called free. and the ideal "sexual revolution" is that conclusion. the women's movement sees that males. than toiling at a job. let alone important. a society in which more people are becoming. are freer than women are here. are ascendant. a society in which more and more activities are in the hands of administrations and bureaucracies." So. The majority of jobs are narrow functions. achievement. achievement." It sounds like a typographical error. The first and primary question is that of freedom and its relation to work. by Mme de Beauvoir when she pointed out in The Second Sex that in comprehending men. dovetailing with other narrow functions. people work and are paid for their labor even under conditions of abject tyranny and totalitarian domination. We must turn.from wearing a hard hat. could not speak and act in the polis. To the Greeks it was axiomatic that those who must labor could not be free. and magnanimity. in large-scale organizations. Without leisure.. patience. for quite obviously. That is the common ideology. and punctuality. merely paid employees. generosity. for those subject to commands are not free. repetitive work which never ushers in any lasting. the virtues we mean when we speak of human dignity. That. the philosopher of productive labor. . In the Soviet Union women play a far more prominent part in the work force than they do in America -. as such. When an oppressed minority in America demands a citizen's share in power. and it has made this mass society its ideal for human life. inadvertently. The women's movement has simply driven that ideology to its logical conclusion. and freedom. by the women's movement definition. Because this is so. To be free required leisure -. According to a statement in The Sisterhood is Powerful. admitted in the end that freedom began when the workday ended. women -. women see little more than "the male. for example.. is the failure of the women's movement. Most jobs are monotonous and do not usher in lasting or important achievements. most jobs demand few of the moral qualities that mankind has found worthy of admiration. many men may well wonder which males they are talking about. in looking at the realm of work. When movement spokesmen contrast the "male" role and "male" achievements with the monotonous tasks of the household. and the women's liberation movement would sacrifice the family for the sake of performing such labors. and if the dream of the women's movement is monstrous. There is nothing abstruse about this. no other source of achievement. It has looked on the modern mass society. But they have hardly begun to grasp the obvious: that some men are more ascendant than others. are.even Karl Marx. The liberationists' blindness to the nature of the work world may have been explained. then. Yet Russian women enjoy no freedom at all. that ideology is its seedbed. in the words of Miss Millett. Editor Zero to Three National Center for Clinical Infant Programs 733 15th Street N. this is what we have to deal with. and so on. The liberation of females. To The Editor What a giant step forward to have some DAYCARE DIALOGUE in Zero to Three*. though more moderate elements flinch from the logic of the case. can only come when the family is abolished as the primary unit of human life. by 'collective. Why do you accept without question this "reality" for parents in one of the richest countries in the world? What is so striking is the degree of acceptance accorded "the way it is" -. to be supplanted."Consensus on Infant-Toddler Daycare bemoans the "loss of productivity" when parents have to look after their toddlers themselves. No hint of indictment of societal values that make it so bad for kids -." Reprinted with permission from Horizon. but get with it Barker. W. Barker "Here is a diatribe I wrote about accepting the existing reality because so many people will say.. Letter to Editor E. How is it that clinicians who can be bold in the treatment of disturbed infants and their families. For too long it has been construed as treason to discuss the potential hazards of substitute care for infants and toddlers. Spring. Volume XIII. Copyright © 1971. too many infant mental health clinicians have been unwilling to pay the price for saying what they see or fear. Number 2.T. Suite 912 Washington. yeah. those who can see daily how the sickness of society finds its inevitable counterpart ."The conclusion of the movement's argument is not easily avoided.A. all females. the here and now. Producing what? Why do you accept without question a definition of productivity that excludes or jeopardizes so important an endeavour as giving an infant the healthiest possible start in life? You say that "staying at home to care for an infant and toddler" may not be economically feasible. Your press release -. or could be for infants and toddlers."reality".S. No mention of how it should be. professionalized care of the young'. American Heritage Publishing Company Inc.the fundamental inequalities forced on women. For too long. and unbridled consumerism to mention only two. DC 20005 U. 1971. tell me. inadequate care poses risks to the current well-being and future development of infants." Henry David Thoreau. Most reverend seniors. Do not ask how your bread is buttered. DC. Washington. 20005). Suite 912.F.." . in the September 1986 issue. make a lump of gold of it.. The prophets are employed in excusing the ways of men.M. Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children *Zero to Three is a bulletin published by the National Center for Clinical Infant Programs (733 15th Street." "It is remarkable that among all the preachers there are so few moral teachers. toddlers and their families.Psych.to lump all that . reminiscent smile..T. Yours very truly E..W. it will make you sick if you do . and when staying at home to care for an infant is not economically feasable.Barker. cannot be brought to deal with society boldly -. It began after the publication of Jay Belsky's article "The Dangers of Daycare". N. what the human being is potentially capable of achieving.that is.in the sickness of the child.C. remains an interesting open question.P.or even to indict it clearly? Whether history will judge infant mental health clinicians as the real Quislings in America for their audible silence about societal values that adversely affect infants and toddlers. on whose productivity the country depends.. the Illuminati of the age. as its name implies.Both mothers and fathers of young children are experiencing significant stress and loss of productivity when high quality care for infants is not available and affordable.and the like.D. Daycare Dialogue was a special section of the bulletin set aside for debate over the dangers of daycare. not to be too tender about these things . But in the process they have left us believing that happiness can be achieved only by continually buying new products and services.D. say... an organization for clinicians treating damaged infants and toddlers.(C) President.It is not worth your while to undertake to reform the world in this particular. all that we hear. The National Center for Clinical Infant Programs is. ".R. with a gracious. The burden of it was . 1854 "The corporate consumer system has imposed its own domination of reality and its own definition of the 'good life' on all of us. in fact." "The mass media have imposed on us a conception of reality which defines for us what happiness is. The highest advice I have heard on these subjects was grovelling. and think. betwixt an aspiration and a shudder." "Simple observation shows they have been extremely successful. what the 'good life' is. "Social science is respectable and so on.. You see that in your attempts to reduce tobacco use. MD "With regard to social science. Very well-respected scientists on each side of the question will give you opposing results. (Actually a co-founder of York University) I've included a brief excerpt from one of his papers where he cautioned I think in plain language that I've never seen a rebuttal of. with great sincerity and rigorous techniques. the professor said that there is confusion between physical and social sciences. given their own personal biases or who they're working for.. Social science is really the only thing we've got -.. and insofar. as being perhaps only one notch better than propaganda.." You will. as Seeley has said. he redefines and thereby.. he does nothing else: even when he seems to function otherwise. as there is in violence in entertainment. If we lost all knowledge we had from social sciences.Altschuler and Regush Social Science E.how do you make sense of observations unless you follow the canons of social science? And I'm not trying to suggest anything else. with great sincerity and rigorous techniques. I don't know if that's true or not. then we would be back to the cave days tomorrow. but it does put a kind of perspective on social science. Social science is respectable and so on. when he “merely” records the going definitions of his . how misleading social science can be and he ends up with an inflammatory comment that it's a bit better than propaganda but not by much. 1992. December.R. Barker at the Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General relating to crime prevention." Overreliance on Social Science for Proof J. produce opposing results. alters the society. Barker. If we lost all our knowledge of the physical sciences. given their own personal biases or who they're working for.. Seeley "The best I've ever seen by way of a statement of caution about social science is by a Jack Seeley." . When I studied social psychology in graduate school. who is a sociologist. But I am trying to suggest how misleading social science can be. run into the problem of social science research from vested interests. but one must understand that social scientists can. 30 years ago. I think it's important for all of us to tuck that in the back of our minds. produce opposing results. Indeed. insofar as he does function as a social scientist. You will simply get study after study after study that will befuddle you so that you won't do what seems to be common sense. just one year. but one must understand that social scientists can. and that's particularly true where a lot of money is at stake. though.T. it might seem overly provocative here to take a shot at that.whatever else the social scientist does. then you wouldn't notice one thing different. Excerpted from testimony by Dr. I am not saying that "reality" constrains the social scientist in no way at all. to adjudicate on the basis of personal sensibilities and preferences).. The putting of all these true propositions together in one book -. as an artifact of unreasonable laws. There is in each case a literal infinity of non-false representations that can be made. Suppose a judge declared a free power to direct attention upon whatever in the evidence interested him.. the scientific process does not somehow take over once the object is focused under the eyepiece. It is usually allowed that “interest” may well direct inquiry up to the point where an object of attention is selected. but I am saying that the constraint is not much (if at all) tighter than the corresponding reality lays upon the artist. for the ratio of one to infinity is the same as the . say a portraitist or painter. as a function of the slum or the economic system or advertising or the police system or the rating and dating scheme.. for the right to attend to this and not that is the right to direct attention hither and not thither (that is. he has brought it into or to the threshold of critical awareness. Who was it said. Which will be made in actuality is as poetic in motive and political in effect as any other essentially expressive action. he should have said.. For there is still the selection of the light in which the object is to be viewed. parallel in function to any formally designated politician. but that beyond that point the scientific process somehow takes over and controls outcome.society. in the very performance of his scientific role. It is held. he has altered the general level of self-consciousness in reference to the definition. ad infinitum. create or destroy. as a result of differential association or communication. or character or need. that he is under the discipline of his data (and his method) and that these drive him to a position very little dependent on his personal predilections and preferences. and thereby altered it functionally about as radically as it can be altered. and probably eventually more powerful. (I shall not document these statements here. briefly. Even if the claim were conceded.as in most texts on the subject -. “Let me write the songs of a nation.?” In our day.does not alter the status of the whole over that of the parts. Even when this inescapable entanglement in action is recognized. So the social scientist is. it would be almost infinitely damaging to the asserted role of the social scientist. in which the ritual in some sense orders and hence renders comprehensible.” for the right to define is the right to make and unmake. literally. a second effort is made to save some special.. while in another sense it frees and hence allows the largest latitude for the personal. but it should be obvious that one may. as a consequence of his parents’ acts or unconscious motivations or those of their parents.or the presence of alleys or want of light at the site. it is a near equivalent to a proclamation that he will decide the outcome in terms of his private program. “Let me write its definitions. a social actor. But the claim cannot be allowed. For that is what it is: a ritualized acting out of an internal choice or necessity. a mover and shaker. or more or less plausible propositions. extraordinary and in some sense superior status or standpoint for the social scientist. as a result of want of care on the part of folks stolen from or beaten up -. and so. “account for” delinquency. for instance. say. the context in which it is to be seen (actually put) and the setting of canons for discrimination between true and false. in countless ways: as an expression of the delinquent’s wish. a crucial actor..the victim makes the crime! -. . Published in The Urban Condition: People and Policy in the Metropolis..my feeling is that there are very few communities in Canada where research would be a good tactic now. GOOD DAY CARE: Fighting For It. York University. "Not in any important point of comparison is there any resemblance between the natural and the social sciences. ". which is indeed one of the virtues of social science over less scrupulous propaganda).As research is increasingly done by those who were raised in a substitute-care society. in which intense and painful separations become normative.being such a baby") is added to the anger and sorrow felt by children. edited by Kathleen Galagher Ross. Toronto. ". published by The Women's Press. Keeping It. Getting It.. then very few will even grow up with memory of their own feelings.Research should be undertaken with the goal of furthering the cause of daycare in your community. and The Americanization of the Unconscious. it arises almost altogether out of the first and eventuates almost altogether in the second.ratio of ten to infinity. it is clear that subjectivity is an integral part of social research. I can but summarize briefly. But because the feelings will be so very much alive.." Excerpted from the book. 1962. 1963. Basic Books. (The word “almost” is meant to cover the barring of patently false propositions. March 21-24." A Dangerous Possibility Michael Trout Dear Elliott . Canada. Researchers who claim objectivity are really concealing their attitudes and their probable influence on the research... These attitudes should be stated explicitly. Seeley. Los Angeles. 1978. I . Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting. It is impossible to be objective." The Role of Research Once it has been funded the next influence on research is the bias of the researcher(s). International Science Press. especially when studying social phenomena which impinge on one's own life. It should be obvious too that what is selected for exposition out of this interminable tangle is free neither of personal motive nor political consequence: indeed.. Professor of Sociology.my feeling is that there are very few communities in Canada where research would be a good tactic now. As much as some people in the social sciences have aspired to be "objective".. Toronto. The point of view of the researchers throughout the project determines the questions which are asked -. Presented at the American Orthopsychiatric Association. 1967.as well as the interpretation of the responses..." ". Excerpted from Personal Science by John R. and shame (at ". as I see it.. Their film "A Two-Year Old goes to Hospital" literally changed the practise of not letting parents visit young children in hospital -. . All James Robertson did was go to the nursery every day with his movie camera and record what happened to John emotionally while his mother was in hospital having a second baby and father visited periodically. So those of us who are psychiatrists and experts really can be resistant to looking at the damage inflicted on children. He is put in this place. and more and more academics will teach the new line (that separation doesn't hurt) as if it is scientific fact. Well run. more and more researchers will find unempathic group care to be utterly innocuous. is the final line which you’ll see in bold at the end of that article. It isn’t daycare. and it is lifted out of their most recent book. If . It will scare the hell out of you. it's around the clock day care in Britain twenty years ago. Michael Trout Director Infant-Parent Institute Champaigne Illinois One factor that is big in this whole issue of childcare is put forward very well by James and Joyce Robertson. or make you mad.world wide. It's a black and white film with voice over sound. James told me the original soundtrack would have made the film totally unbearable. the most famous of which is JOHN. said a distinguished psychoanalyst after seeing the film. What the point is in this piece.. They both worked at the Tavistock Clinic in England and did some filming of very young kids when they were separated from parents when put in hospital... a brief description of which follows in the next article .. Just 9 days.. "I could kill you". caring staff. They then did a series of equally powerful and significant films. reviewing the work of their entire life in their 1989 book "Separation and the Very Young". A normal kid. and this is only going to get worse. At age 17 months John is a healthy baby and is put in residential nursery care for 9 days.I suspect a tremendous amount of quite personal repression will be at work.suspect more and more clinicians will attempt to "guide" their patients away from such explorations..The Problem of Professional Anxiety. In particular. and is taught in many trainings. It will scare the hell out of you. or make you mad. Just 9 days. the most famous of which is JOHN. If you've ever said anything about the dangers of daycare publicly you'll know. It's a black and white film with voice over sound. and if he goes into residential care he will rarely find there a stable mother substitute.you’ve ever said anything about the dangers of daycare publicly you'll know. said a distinguished psychoanalyst after seeing the film. But at the present time. . So those of us who are psychiatrists and experts really can be resistant to looking at the damage inflicted on children. At age 17 months John is a healthy baby and is put in residential nursery care for 9 days. if a young child goes into hospital without his mother. it is essential that his experience of responsive mothering be maintained. Their film "A Two-Year Old goes to Hospital" literally changed the practise of not letting parents visit young children in hospital -. The Problem of Professional Anxiety James and Joyce Robertson "One factor that is big in this whole issue of childcare is put forward very well by James and Joyce Robertson. 1951). All James Robertson did was go to the nursery every day with his movie camera and record what happened to John emotionally while his mother was in hospital having a second baby and father visited periodically. Well run. it's around the clock day care in Britain twenty years ago. "Why is it that although the importance of meeting the emotional needs of young children is well established by research. This is an experience that most young children find within the security of their families. caring staff. it is known that to ensure good social and emotional development the young child needs a stable relationship with a responsive mother figure (Bowlby. reviewing the work of their entire life in their 1989 book "Separation and the Very Young". and it is lifted out of their most recent book. a brief description of which follows the article presented here. He is put in this place. Ask Burton White.world wide. It isn't daycare. "I could kill you". An implication of this knowledge is that if a young child has for any reason to lose the care of his mother. is the final line. What the point is in this piece. A normal kid. They then did a series of equally powerful and significant films. They both worked at the Tavistock Clinic in England and did some filming of very young kids when they were separated from parents when put in hospital. he will be handled by a succession of nurses. Ask Burton White. this requirement of mental health is not well attended to in our child-care practice?" It is common knowledge that experiences in the first years of life have a profound influence upon later mental health. James told me the original soundtrack would have made the film totally unbearable. there is little or no reference to the much greater need for mothering-type care. for instance. although there is an endeavour to provide play and education. and to condense the related factors within a relatively short presentation.Why does this happen? Why is it that although the importance of meeting the emotional needs of young children is well established by research.. noting shifts and changes in significant areas of behaviour. Systems of care that disastrously fragment relationships can operate in institutions busy with 'child-oriented' activities. Our way of focusing attention on the problem was to turn to narrative film. the common defence against pain allows the acuteness of the problem to be dulled as by a tranquillizer.. presentation on film gives the nearest approximation to actuality and the visual medium is much more effective than the spoken or printed word in piercing resistance in the field of child care.. Without a sufficient degree of anxiety in the professions there can be little improvement. or is dampened down. This allows the child's experience and behaviour to be perceived . whatever of intellectual understanding may obtain throughout the professions. the appropriate sense of urgency and alarm is missing. that even in large teaching hospitals where there is no staff shortage. practical difficulties arising from staff shortages and the short working week might be found to be hard to overcome. even though in the same hospitals the nurses are likely to be taught the importance of stable relationships.. with great resources and knowledge and understanding of their needs . There is a tendency for even the best-educated and the best-motivated of people working with young children to become to some extent habituated to the states of distress and deviant behaviour that are commonly found in young people in hospitals and other residential settings. It is well known. no matter how much knowledge is available. Secondly. but in such a way that these are put to constructive use instead of being defensively sealed off by the constant pressure in all of us to escape hurt. The advantages of a narrative film record are twofold: first.Although there is everywhere goodwill and good intention towards young children in care.. we still fragment their care among many people when they come into hospital or other residential settings? If the relevant professions had a serious concern to meet the mothering needs of young children in their care.. It is that. The problem is how to bring pain and anxiety back into the experience of professional workers. nursing and other caretaking professions reveals that. But scanning the journals of the paediatric. this requirement of mental health is not well attended to in our child-care practice? Why is it that although we know it to be imperative that young children have stable relationships. nursing is commonly organized on a 'job assignment' basis in disregard of the emotional needs of the young patients. and is taught in many trainings. . by focusing on one child it is possible to show the sequence of events from first day to last. The major obstacle to suitable care is neither practical difficulty nor lack of knowledge. and are more likely to result from planning for work efficiency than from staff shortage. Father would ordinarily have stayed home to look after John.T. There in the toddlers' room John joins five other children between 15 months and 2 years of age. the lack of mothering care from the nurses.L. This is an incredible book. It chronicles 50 years of the lives and work of the Robertsons whose work revolutionized the world's understanding of how small children feel when they are separated from their parents and familiar surroundings. ETB. cries a great deal. published by Free Association Books.the only child apart from John to do so. Martin. confident that people in the environment will respond to his needs as his parents had done. had spent his first year in foster care and continues to see affection . 1989. JOHN Age 17 months In a Residential Nursery for Nine Days Silver Medal. and because of the frequent changes of nurses have never known stable loving relationships.A. British Medical Association 1971 B. they are aggressive and unattached. When John fails to find a nurse who will take the place of his mother he turns to teddy bears almost as big as himself. and there were neither kin nor close friends to care for John while the mother was in hospital to have a second baby. stops playing. and gives up trying to get the nurses' attention. . and attacks from the aggressive toddlers. He makes more determined efforts to get attention from the nurses. When this does not happen he is increasingly bewildered and confused. The family doctor recommended placement in a local residential nursery. (See John: A Distressing Film About Separation) Excerpted from Separation and the Very Young by James and Joyce Robertson. But clinging to these gives only fleeting comfort. During the first two days in the nursery John behaves for much of the time as he did at home. He and his parents had moved into the district a year earlier. The fifth child.in a longitudinal way that is not possible for staff caught up in multiple duties and diversions or for the occasional visitor open to impressions from the entire child group. Trophy for a Film of Outstanding Educational Merit 43 minutes VHS B Available in Canada from the CSPCC At 17 months John was a placid child and easy to manage. Venice Film Festival Silver Medal. strange foods and institutional routines. but in that very week an insuperable circumstance prevented him. He refuses food and drink. but he cannot compete with the more assertive institutionalized children and his quiet advances are usually overlooked. London. but he does not immediately break down. Four of these children have been in the nursery from the first few weeks of life. and John gradually breaks down under the cumulative stresses of loss of his mother. He is overwhelmed by a situation with which he has tried to cope using all the resources of a normal healthy 17-month old child.. This marked a turning-point in the provisions for young healthy children in care in Britain. . and has withdrawn into apathy. John screams and struggles against her attempts to hold him.What is so frightening is that the behaviour of the young nurses is kindly. Throughout his stay in the nursery the young nurses have been kind and friendly. but none has looked after him for any length of time. short case notes which make little impact before the page is turned over. Father is painfully aware of the deterioration in his son. When his father visits John revives briefly and gives a glimpse of the normality behind his distraught behaviour. accepting its message and considering the implications for policy (Home Office Children's Department Inspectorate. Because of the work-assignment system.. He had severe temper tantrums. the nurses pick him up and hold him more. But as the days go by he turns away from the father who does not answer to his wish to be taken from the nursery. Moreover.In July 1969 a special edition of the Bulletin of the Home Office Inspectorate devoted all of its thirteen pages to John. For some time any reminder of his stay in the nursery threw him back into the earlier distraught behaviour. enveloped by a large teddy bear. . 1970). as with A Two-Year Old Goes to Hospital twenty-five years earlier. when told by the visual medium the story was powerful. clearly shown by John's gestures.. often refusing his mother's comfort and the food she offered. John will probably do for residential care" (Lancet. What ATwo-Year-Old Goes to Hospital did for paediatrics. But. A Note on Later Events For several weeks after returning home John showed extreme upset. Many months later he continued to be acutely anxious if he did not know where his mother was. A leading medical journal predicted... For long periods of the day he lies with thumb in mouth. When on the 9th day his mother comes to take him home.. but they are on shift duty and have also to attend to other children. they cannot give sufficient individual attention to help John sustain the temporary loss of his mother. it pierced defences and caused much disturbance in viewers. the great number of reviews in professional journals in Britain and around the world were without exception keenly appreciative. and to have outbursts of unprovoked hostility against her. John withdraws more and more from the busy life around him. and is distressed that he cannot take him home. "This film is a landmark. 1969).John is a simple story of a type found in journals. The reactions of a few colleagues convinced us we had a bomb on our hands. Below is a selection of quotes from the great number of reviews: A horrifying film which forces us to look at what despair is for a young child.His distress becomes so obvious that it can no longer go unanswered. but the system results in total failure to meet John's needs of a stable substitute mother (British Journal of Psychiatric Social Work). But it had not been known with appropriate affect.Should be compulsory viewing for everyone engaged in child care. some thought the nurses could have played more with John and were critical of the parents for having left him in a nursery. (Journal of Child Psychotherapy). A story that could be told in twenty lines of textbook without causing comment. the nurses. John is an individual who is defeated by a system which fails to recognize or meet his needs.The dangers of early separation had long been known intellectually.' Some reacted as bereaved persons can do. how would they fare when they entered the field and were exposed to situations which could set up defences? A committee which recommended films for use with church groups blacklisted John as "unethical" -. the Robertsons. The hostile reactions were classic examples of "shooting the messenger. I replied that if she could not help her students to learn from this piece of reality in the classroom.. The film touched upon childhood fears of loss and. Some said the film was 'obscene. These ignored the fact that the four minutes shown of John's behaviour each day were focused on the stages of John's deterioration under fragmented care and gave no basis for making judgments on what. All this was avoiding the essential communication about the vulnerability of the very young." A university tutor wrote that she would not use the film again for teaching. searching in their pain for someone to blame -. in some. for instance. No words could convey John's stress reactions as powerfully as the camera does. Superb photography. The nursery can be seen as a microcosm of many other caring institutions. It forces the observer to identify with the plight of this little boy. of having sat by without doing anything about his plight.the parents. about being heartless. instead of merely showing it. activated forgotten memories of events that had scarred their lives.as if we had caused John's distress.. Shows with disturbing clarity that institutional care is not geared to meet the emotional needs of small children. but some others seem to lock into their irrational responses. because it had been too upsetting for her social work students. (Child Care). in its visual form struck deep and provoked emotional turmoil in most viewers. and through him with that of all young children in care (British Journal of Medical Psychology). The camera dos not allow us to ward off John's mounting misery or to disregard his desperate need for comfort. Although we had many grateful communications we also had others which verged on the abusive. and perhaps of society itself and the many thousands who are damaged. . It becomes quite harrowing to watch (Mental Health). a disquieting film which upsets our complacency (Nursery Journal). We were accused many times of having sacrificed John to research. etc. Those who could use the experience of seeing John were helped by it. The impact of John's hour by hour increasing misery and deterioration becomes almost unbearable. the ... Every social worker and child-care officer had answered examination questions about separation. the authorities. one of the most far-reaching accomplishments of the American labor movement was the creation of the eight-hour work day. For the majority of Americans that managed to stay afloat with dual incomes." said a distinguished psychoanalyst. and our ranks of the permanently unemployed growing.Historically. with our parents and their children becoming strangers. we must work til we drop and contract out the care of our children to others. For some people reality was more than they could bear. even a modest standard of living comes to us at the price of an 80-hour work week. the limits of the "indispensable" expanded from the mortgage and the car to such late-modern necessities of life as VCR's. For most. "shop-til-you-drop" syndrome has had its price: In order to purchase the pleasures that insulate us from the world. a recent New York Times poll showed that two-thirds of those parents surveyed would take care of their own children if it were economically feasible.not just a select. however. we have only succeeded in reorganizing the family to accommodate the consumer economy. and when children are entrusted to day care operators. CD's and Nikes. Such a commitment to the future inevitably requires compromise from everyone -. despite falling real wages.. it lies in the substitution of consumer values with conserving values. the idea of "family" is dramatically transformed. Almost imperceptibly. the six-hour work day could bring parents home and the unemployed into the work force. Even some consultants in psychiatry and psychoanalysis could not see through their defensive antipathy. the economic boom of the eighties brought with it an escalation of consumer expectation. and we must preserve our environment so that it can sustain future generations. the answer does not lie in a return to conservative values. "I could kill you.. I wanted to share a few ideas about what might be done to extricate ourselves from the impasse of our consumer addicted way of life forcing us into child-care arrangements that risk producing new people whose only source of satisfaction in life is consumption. As the century winds down... Substituting Conserver Values for Consumer Values Marilyn Berlin Snell "Finally.. whether for John or for forgotten parts of themselves.In fact.. microwaves.Robertsons did or did not do. . But this frenzied. A society in which parents can't afford to raise their children is not sustainable. another car. we have altered the family structure to accommodate the imperatives of our work schedule and our consumerist definition of the "good life". Yet. ... When both parentswork full time away from the home.. disenfranchised group. responsible adults. Thus far." These days. Conserving values assume a commitment to the future: we must take care of our children so they can grown into healthy. . Marilyn Berlin Snell is Managing Editor of New Perspectives Quarterly." The Tendency to Confuse Difference with Inequality Alice S.Ds accordingly. I know for certain that my essay lowered the birth rate by at least 12 children. and a notion of productive endeavor that rejects the kind of social and economic hierarchy that reveres the work of stockbrokers and celebrities while it devalues the work of pregnancy. child birth and the nurturance of our children." . For the psychological and physical health of mother and child. motherhood had become a full-time occupation for adult women and motherhood was not enough. one that represented an evolution of my views. Last year I wrote another article for Daedalus. Older women. resented my article. But I am no stranger to criticism. "Almost imperceptibly. I was considered by some a monster. also a sociologist. By later feminist standards my argument for equality was mild indeed. Number 1. In the effort to debunk the wrong headed .The arguments set forth in this essay may rankle those whose version of sexual equality requires females to model their lives on male patterns. younger women felt reprieved." "I believe that contemporary efforts to break up traditional family systems are doomed..Somewhere between materialism and utopia lies a new set of possibilities rooted in conserving values: A mode of living based on intergenerational responsibility between parent and child with respect to the environment. For the first time in known history. equality between men and women was essential and inevitable. placing great emphasis on work and little emphasis on family and home. I said that cultural determinism had gone too far. My husband. Rossi "I have always felt that the thesis of this piece by a feminist sociologist was central to unlinking the legitimate necessity of the elimination of arbitrary male dominance from the illegitimate and dangerous 'need for daycare'. My theme was simple enough. but the reaction of traditionalists in 1964 was not. we have altered the family structure to accommodate the imperatives of our work schedule and our consumerist definition of the 'good life'.. shared responsibility between parents for work and child rearing. for the sake of the trembling family unit. pages 2-3. who were past career choices. In 1964 I wrote an article in the journal Daedalus called "Equality between the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal".. Los Angeles. and increased the number of Ph. and for the progress of society. received an anonymous condolence card lamenting the death of his wife.. Winter 1990. an unnatural woman. California. Excerpted and reprinted with permission from Volume 7. and unfit mother. I wrote. Instead of replacing outdated biological theories with new. but we cannot just toss out the physiological equipment that centuries of adaptation have created. In 1964. women may still have the stronger bond with their offspring. Reprinted with kind permission of the author. as in any research that has serious implications for how we run our lives. I was accused of selling out. and sex roles ever since. and even more thoroughly in a book written by Alice Rossi and Jerome Kagan entitled "The Family" published by W. In this area. of betraying my commitment to political and economic equality for women. they were forced to deny that there are any physiological differences between men and women. 106. compensated for. 1977 pp 1-31. Rossi.D. birth. She took her Ph. and nursing. But I believe that contemporary efforts to break up traditional family systems are doomed unless aspects of our biological heritage are acknowledged and then. more concerned for its children. This version is more radical. and committed both to achievement in work and in personal intimacy.this time by the very people whose cause I had supported for nearly two decades. more respectful of natural body processes and of the differences between individuals. and more human. This view is as foolhardy as the view that sex differences are caused only by physiology. The mother-infant relationship will continue to have greater emotional depth than the father-infant relationship because of the mother's physiological experience of pregnancy. she began writing essays on behalf of sex-role equality. Rossi is professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Excerpted form the article "The Biosocial Side of Parenthood" by Alice S. any goal that sets women equal to men in the military or in strength-related fields will also require compensatory training for women. of pandering to conservatives who believe in Man the Aggressor and Woman the Doormat. Norton in 1978. A society that chooses to overcome the female's greater investment in children must institutionalize a program of compensatory education for boys and men that trains them in infant and child care. but we cannot wish it away..beliefs that had debased women for so long. Her articles include analyses of job discrimination against women (and what women can do about it).W. than one of an equality between the sexes that denies differences. Alice S.for generations to come -. and the issues involved in abortion laws.will quickly lead to a regression to the sex-role tradition of our long past. when her three children were still young. in sociology at Columbia University in 1957 and has done extensive research on marriage. Once again I found myself being screamed at -. the family.. which appeared in the June 1978 issue of Human Nature. The ideas contained in this piece are developed more fully by the author in her article "A Biosocial Perspective on Parenting". Daedalus. commitments are strong and tempers short. if we wish. (Even then. We can live with that biological heritage or try to supersede it. the environmentalists had got themselves into an untenable position. as so many social experiments of this century have shown. Any slackening of such compensatory training -. accurate knowledge. including .) Conversely. barriers to women in the scientific professions. Vol. This point of view upsets environmentalists. I think we should aim for a society better attuned to its environment. The early leaders of the women's movement grasped this principle firmly. A sense of inferiority still clings to the position of women today. or even to any articulate awareness that women were unfree.the citizen's dignity -. women's talents and moral qualities are too often wasted. In this they grasped a profound political truth: that men and women would share equally in the dignity and freedom of the citizen only if the republic were truly a republic of self-governing citizens. Anthony. that the opportunity was wasted. and she was a member of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She is also the author of The Feminist Papers: from Adams to de Beauvoir and Academic Women on the Move. to the dignity of the citizen and their right to share in public power was it first borne in upon women that they. The question is. The leaders of the movement. women like Susan B.by actively entering public life. too. That awareness did not come until the late eighteenth century..a phantom. They hoped that women by their political activity would help overthrow the political machines that corrupted -. were citizens. because enfranchised women did not seize their opportunity. the basis for an answer. as females. what can be done about it? The history of the women's movement itself provides. In such a corrupted republic women might very well believe that "liberation" is paid labor. This only proves. the very status of "citizen" is empty. no other source of achievement. Not until men asserted their right. than toiling at a job. that .This failure [of the women's movement] must be accounted a tragic one-for women are kept from their fair share of dignity and achievement." . A Return to the Roots of Feminism Walter Karp In one man's opinion: "A movement that began by asking by asking for a fair share of dignity and human achievement can today think of no other source of dignity. The movement is less than two hundred years old. where she helped organize the Women's Caucus and a division on the sociology of sex roles." and the infamous Daedalus plea for fair treatment of women. In a republic where power is monopolized by a few. men and women would be equal when women. It is often said that the old suffragists were wrong. They saw that women would win their dignity -. as men.representative government and render the citizenry powerless in all but name. saw more in the vote than the simple act of voting. That some men had power -. were unequal and unfree. that necessary condition for political equality between the sexes.and still corrupt -. and the equality of citizens -. They saw that if men were equal insofar as they were citizens. however.male and female -. I believe. Today. This is why the major struggle of the original women's movement was the fight for the franchise. Rossi has served as vice president of the American Sociological Association.and women did not -. and it came with the rediscovery of political liberty as the Greeks understood it.that some men monopolized the privileges and achievements -.and women did not -had never before given rise to a movement for female emancipation.."The Case against Full-time Motherhood. Who will be able to say that women are unfit to run a business when they share in that far more demanding activity of governing a community and a nation? In playing their role as citizens. and the will to do so is there as well.and what nobler venture can we undertake? -.at least in the American republic. reminded her audiences a century ago. "our power and our glory. There are literally millions of women who thirst for public activity.women would restore to motherhood itself its rightful and proper dignity. in helping to restore representative government by their free political activity. it is women who live in local communities.opportunity lies open as never before. Copyright © 1971. This." as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Spring. Volume XIII. Reprinted with permission from Horizon. were talking not of party politics but of nonparty politics. The second advantage they enjoy might be called a sense of locality.. they enjoy the precondition for public life. what can be done about it?" . which is leisure. male ascendancy will near its end. That dignity will not come from mass exhortations and mass propaganda. I believe. American Heritage Publishing Company Inc. Number 2. The old suffragists. Far more than men. though they are shunted by the established party machines into mere civic work or stultifying chores in the ranks of party bureaucracies. for they would break the hold men still retain over human achievement. As Susan B.and because it is a true liberation. This was -. is the path that women must take in their struggle for liberation -. The opportunity to enter public life is there. but from the knowledge that freedom bestows upon a free people: the knowledge that it is indeed a grave and noble task to bring up children when we are bringing them up to live in freedom and independence. and it is in local communities that politics begins -. free republican politics that challenged party machines and their monopoly over power. and there are tens of thousands of communities in which women can make a beginning. While men must shuttle back and forth between their homes and their places of work. From the point of view of public life women today might even be called privileged. When they make that beginning. however. The question is. the public. "A sense of inferiority still clings to the position of women today. who know what a community is.the crucial point. In helping to do that -. women would help restore to men and women alike the freedom and equality of the citizen.. "they who have the power to make and unmake laws and rulers.and still is -. Anthony said a hundred years ago. 1971." For those women whose gifts and ambitions turn them toward careers in the sphere of work. are feared and respected. another pioneer of woman's rights. or at any rate the prerogative of managing their own time. political activity of women will open doors now shut. it means the enhancement of liberty for all. communication. The Nature of the Solution Our problems are linked by a common value system. and spiritual and intellectual development) Activities are not sustainable when they: * require continual inputs of non-renewable resources . We must come to grips with the problems of economic inequality. Rather than continuing this race to bury ourselves in a sea of our own waste. sharing has become foreign to us. The question is whether we will be forced to change more quickly than our social and economic structures can withstand because of environmental degradation and resource depletion. appreciation. We as a culture define tradition. The transition from an economy founded on growth and the abuse of our natural resources to community economic development founded on the sustainable management of our resource base will eventually have to take place. social arrangements. moral codes and technologies. There are large classes of people for whom the only expression of their individuality is consumerism. By emphasizing competition rather than cooperation. The growth of our technological society has alienated large numbers of people who are no longer connected to any natural rhythms.The Challenge Before Us Excerpts from a Green Party Policy Statement We have the ability to produce more than we can consume. we must turn our attention to finding a secure place within the natural order. The goal must be to create the conditions necessary for true world peace. creativity.e. movement. and the arms trade. The results are all around us. religion. resource depletion and overpopulation. A system founded on principles of hierarchical relationships and unlimited growth. we stimulate demand through advertising. To match consumption with capacity. We decide if they will manifest themselves as institutions of sustainability and subsistence or exploitation and destruction. planned obsolescence. Sustainability Activities are sustainable when they: * use materials in continuous cycles * use continuously reliable sources of energy * come mainly from the qualities of being human (i. or whether we will start now with managed change to minimize economic and social dislocation. or "authority". but Bill Line says it here in a few lines. and therefore untranslatable. The quiet place where we all wish we could rest at the end of the day.. racial or other differential. Without a sensitivity to communion. somehow or other we have. the human being is not.* use renewable resources faster than their rate of renewal * cause cumulative degradation of the environment * require resources in quantities that could never be available for people everywhere * lead to the extinction of other life forms A Sense of Communion William Line "I think a piece that really highlights the deficit in psychopathy is the definition of the word communion. professional or other status. Not just accepted by them -. . In terms of the development of human beings. Think about the degree. It means more than "being acceptable" -. for example.because that implies that we could be rejected. and that's really at the opposite pole of psychopathy. The principle of communion is basic. "home". without any taint of stress." By "Sense of Communion" is meant essentially the feeling of ease. such as age. "hearth".. and reflects the joy and satisfaction of "sharedexperience. It means more than a mere sense of belonging.for reasons of social obligation only. takes this important aspect of society into consideration. at one with those around us. and of the degree to which any social situation (such as your work arrangements). according to their own needs as persons.for reasons that imply acceptability to an established group. without reference to any age. but just at one with others. anxiety or tension communicated from one person to another. since "belonging" may be experienced as "being accepted" -." Many of the words and phrases which reflect the core-values of society and of culture are in reality based upon true communion. We don't hear about that much. The French word "foyer" is artistic in this regard. Communion is a felt partnership.. And I think that's really where we ought to aim. It implies all that is comprised by the time-honoured term "empathy" in its positive aspects. despite all social symbols of prestige. about a sense of communion.. words like "family". now. I would put this first-stated need as first. of an individual's sensitivity to communion. with the further implication that while we might not have met the standards for that group. paternalism or custom. It is interpersonal in its reference. comfort and at-homeness with other people. France and Germany. Consultant to the International Institute of Child Study established by UNESCO. Consultant to the Canadian Mental Health Association. factory or office. that ethical and spiritual life can only be ideals for some future eras. school. An honest interest in fostering Communion. England. We see human beings as fundamentally in relationship to each other and needing each other's recognition and love. the United States. economic justice. member of the Senate of the University of Toronto. community. and psychological needs that are equally central. His main psychological studies are to be found in the learned journals of Canada. as first requisite of decent progressive human relationships. choice. A progressive politics of meaning supports the liberal agenda on these issues (including civil liberties. Human beings have a need to transcend the materialism and selfishness and the manipulative consciousness that teaches them to see others primarily in terms of what they can get out of others." The politics of meaning is both a new theoretical orientation and a strategy to change American society. often seeing us as creatures whose primary interest is in economic survival or individual freedom. Consultant to the World Health Organization and to the United Nations secretariat on personnel policies.and have fought against corporate or governmental forces that deny each. President of the World Federation for Mental Health and President of the Canadian Psychological Association. Yet most people believe that this is unrealistic. Theoretical Orientation Liberals and progressives have focused on economic needs and individual rights -. You must expect this. William Line: Professor of Psychology. The Politics of Meaning Michael Lerner "Human beings have a need to transcend the materialism and selfishness and the manipulative consciousness that teaches them to see others primarily in terms of what they can get out of others. The healthy human being is not the one who can stand alone. is basic to any organization of people.). women's liberation. but the one who can acknowledge his/her need for others and can recognize in every other the sanctity that makes them worthy of respect and caring..Various members of your entourage will show differing degrees of interest in communion. But they've been unable to recognize the ethical. ecological sanity etc. Most people have a hunger to move beyond the "looking out for number one" common sense of this society and to see their lives as connected to some higher ethical and spiritual meaning. Yet liberals have too narrow an understanding of human needs. spiritual.. in any society. whether it be family. and that in the meantime they must be "realistic' and live according to the dominant ethos of selfishness and cynicism. . but rather also by the degree to which they tend to maximize our capacities to sustain loving and caring relationships and to be ethically. That's why we need a progressive politics of meaning. We think the best way to serve the interests of the most oppressed is to take seriously the meaning crisis. Nor can you trust corporations not to pollute the environment or others not to rob you on the streets or at home.but it is unlikely to work for most people unless we build economic and political institutions that foster caring rather than selfishness and cynicism.But a world based on selfishness and cynicism produces a huge amount of psychic pain. As trust dissolves. when you don't have so much to give back and can't make the relationship an 'equal exchange" (in market terms). etc. The alliance needed between poor people and middle-income people can only be built if the pain of middleincome people is given equal attention to the pain faced by poor people. and that liberals and progressives should first solve the economic problems of the society and stop the cutbacks of the conservatives. Because liberals and the Left never really address this crisis of meaning. so that productivity or efficiency of corporations. bemoaning the ethical and spiritual decline and the crisis in families.. legislation. and build a cross-class alliance on that basis. Some New-Age people talk about meaning issues too but they tend to focus on changing their own heads.. Up till now. or social practices is no longer measured solely by the degree to which they maximize wealth and power -. the Left has tended to give the message to the American majority that they are being selfish and bad to worry about the collapse of their families. the Right has been able to position itself as the primary meaning-oriented political force in the society. loving relationships. spiritually. the harder it becomes to trust anyone or to believe that they will really be there for you when you most need them. crime. fear increases. Sound-Bite Version The goal of a politics of meaning is to change the bottom line in American society. and ecologically sensitive.because the more people internalize the cynical view that everyone is only out for themselves. Yet they are simultaneously the force that champions the very ethos of selfishness and materialism in the world of work. whose consequences lead to all this pain in personal life. .. We wish them luck. and friendships -. But we believe that they will be unable to do that until they've addressed the meaning crisis. The ethos of selfishness and cynicism plays itself out in a weakening of families. This has not been an effective strategy. That's an important element -. when the poor are suffering so much more. Strategy Some people think that all of these meaning issues only have an impact on middle-income people. One I guess is the obvious one. Barker . 251 West 100th Street. Dr.T. I suspect first of all if we could measure the capacity for empathy.Michael Lerner is publisher and editor of the bimonthly magazine.." Psychopathy and Consumerism: Two Illnesses that Need and Feed Each Other (End of Interview with Dr. So if that "invulnerable child" becomes a successful businessman. selfishness and greed. Surplus Powerlessness.Okay. Part of that is that adults with very little capacity for empathy can fit quite comfortably into our consumer society where the basic values are envy.. New York.well. but the one who can acknowledge his/her need for others and can recognize in every other the sanctity that makes them worthy of respect and caring... these kids that have experienced a lot of pain in their formative years may not look so good. "The healthy human being is not the one who can stand alone. But what is it that the .I have a couple of issues. there is plenty here to invite discussion and we have quite a large group here and I will invite people to discuss issues that may have occurred to them. NY. Tikkun and founder of the Foundation for Ethics and Meaning. that if inconsistent parenting is so common and psychopathy is so rare. ( 212-864-4110 ). do you suppose it is that the children have somehow been immune to this failure in consistent parenting. He is also author of the book. there are several things that bother me about that train of thought. we say that he has overcome a difficult childhood. Barker) Brian . E. . trust and affection inside and it's not there. Even though we can't measure that precisely. inherit or steal enough money. I see it as a continuum. they're not immediately visible.well. that when you look for empathy. So. If you could measure empathy then I think all of us would lie on a continuum from zero to one hundred percent. It moves on up the scale of partial psychopathy. I am wondering how you would differentiate between -. It didn't get put in at the right time. it's tricky -. Barker .. They can have 7 marriages and they're not deviant in our culture.they don't all stand out as bad guys.. I have also always thought of it as a continuum. Psychopaths don't stick out like amputees in our culture. it has to be a big enough percentage to be worrisome. Dr. So I don't think there is necessarily any discrepancy between the number of kids that are poorly parented and the amount of psychopathy in the population. I've always thought of it as a deficit disease. I would ask you whether you see psychopathy as a continuum. not because those qualities are buried deep beneath a wall of defences. it's because it really isn't there.let me back up. Brian . Part of your response and how we see the outcome may be in your use of the term partial psychopath.I agree. on up to the four percent of the population that meet . the used car salesman. and the politician -.invulnerable child is successfully fitting into? Another factor is this. right and centre and be thought wonderful in our culture if they make.but more than we think. They can be there and fitting in just fine.not everyone there of course -. If the DSM or whoever says there are probably 4% of psychopaths in the general population. then what percent of the population are partial psychopaths. like the one's that we catch and convict. They can screw people left. and you can't put it in later. affectionate person in our society. Who knows whether we are right or not. but there ought to be a debate amongst us. co-operative." For example the level of violence in society I think is atrocious. I think we're just chicken about that. than to speak out in public or politically about the cultural issues that you think are creating your patients.. You can make big bucks more easily if you don't have those capacities. rather than each of us just quietly in our office trying to cure individual people. Barker . That link is gone. but I believe are damaging to kids -.." It's dysfunctional to be an open. trusting. the easy ones twice. . It's much safer to treat the individuals or groups of patients in your office where you think you know what your doing and you're getting paid for it.so-called "normative abuse. I think that's the message we need to be saying. You know the motto of the psychopath: "Do them all once.. Brian . or 30% there. I've been nervous to speak out against things that are culturally acceptable. honest. It may be 50% there.the DSM criteria for full blown psychopathy..If you're overly trusting in our society you can get played for a sucker. It doesn't surprise me at all that we have violent crimes.I think that as clinicians we're chicken.. and that's the whole area of prevention. But they do not automatically get affected by what they feel and how they know you feel.. To me the core deficit of psychopathy is an incapacity for that two-part type of empathy -they know how to put themselves in your shoes very very well. or 100% there as it is in a very loving person who has the capacity to feel the way you feel.I can't any more. or 0% there. More of us should do that. But in the long run.. or to be moved by it..Did you say you can't? . . and to be hurt by it. I think we should be indicting things that we think are creating our patients. Dr. all of us get screwed by that. Just look at a hockey game. That's why we have to question social science.. Dr. A lack of empathy. But those who make money from it don't have to pay there share of the cost of violence in our society.. It's marketed as entertainment and paid for by advertisers. No history of chronically unstable and antisocial life-style or social deviance -. honest social scientists who are working for the atomic energy commission for example.. But social scientists put up valid studies to show you can't prove it makes a difference. o'clock! This has been just terrific and I certainly have enjoyed having you with us. and others who are working for some nuclear free advocacy outfit and they'll produce equally valid but conflicting studies. I am delighted to hear someone like you say I can't watch hockey any more. Dr. Barker . Who is indicting that? It seems horrific to me to be trying to entice people to watch that. it's almost 2:00. I like Hare's two factor concept of psychopathy. And that's in the area of the physical sciences! So at some point we have to call on our common sense. You can hardly watch anything on TV that doesn't upset you. Barker .Well.. legitimate.I don't worry so much about the psychopaths who are openly antisocial.. Brian . Even the ads for hockey on CBC have turned into something you'd hear at WrestleMania.Brian .I can't watch any more.. The whole thing is crap. They are just as dangerous or more so without the antisocial stuff. I testified at two different murder trials where the accused showed only the Factor One stuff: selfish. It was my opinion that it was purely their lack of empathy that enabled them to shoot their victims repeatedly at very close range.I'm glad to hear that. responsible.It's all been worth it to hear you say you can't watch hockey any more! . because you can get valid.Factor Two. callous and remorseless use of others. . and I appreciate your responding to my initial request. .html . It's been terrific and thank you to the various other sites around. http://www..org/psychopathy/index.Brian .empathicparenting.thank you very much Elliott.(laugh) .