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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (69338)	12/30/1999 1:51:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I may revive the spanking topic again. I just started "Why They Kill," by Richard Rhodes, whose "The Making of the Atom Bomb" won a Pulitzer, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and whose "Dark Sun" was one of three finalists for a Pulitzer. Which doesn't make him an expert on the topic (criminology, specifically of violent criminals), but he's a very good writer, good at explaining complex, abstruse science research and facts. This book is about the research of Dr. Lonnie Athens, a criminologist who has interviewed hundreds of violent criminals, and identified a pattern of social development he calls "violentization." He says violentization proceeds in four stages - 1) brutalization (the person is subjected to violence or the threat of violence by an agressive authority figure) and is coached to use violence to settle disputes; 2)belligerency (the person does resort to violence); 3)violent performances (the person's violent acts are successful and he earns respect and fear from others); and 4) virulency (the person determines to use violence as a means of dealing with people). And there's also some fascinating historical research from Lloyd deMause on the history of childhood, a lot of which I was familiar with from other sources, about violence against children, and sexual use of children, back to the Middle Ages and Roman times. I am going to see if I can find the history of Louis XIII's childhood by his physician on the Net, it's pretty rotten. Of course, they aren't talking about a "mere swat on the diaper." But this whole discussion of the use of physical punishment to discipline children has opened my eyes to the pervasive nature of authoritarianism in child rearing. I haven't drawn any hard and fast conclusions, I am just interested in the topic. I have really started noticing my own actions towards my children, and how often my own impulse in a situation that is destabilizing, is to use threats. And how much they use threats to each other. As the twig is bent, so the tree inclines.