--- Grant Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Regarding child abuse in pre-modern societies, I > think we often tend to see > in such societies the things that we want to see, > i.e. "noble savages". And > what is considered abuse in one society may be a > social norm or even an > obligation in another society. Infanticide, genital > multilation, incest, > child marriage and many other things we consider > distasteful are still > common in many parts of the world and have their > origins in venerable > tradition &/or _practice_. > > regards, > > Grant. *****************************************************
I think that there is room for a lot of improvement on the issue child rearing. All the societies which I know of, contain an element of hierarchical power, even the preliterate, classless ones. Non-democratic hierarchical power is always abusive as far as I'm concerned. As Marx remarked somewhere, the first division of this kind of power relation was between men and women--pre-existing class society. On reflection, I thought that I would include children in this dynamic, ergo that reflection which got this whole thread started. To be sure, I think that there has been some improvement on this issue over the centuries along with piles of abuse and to the degree that humans have been abused, they have become mean spirited--are you listening Ebenezer? There seems to be greater recognition today that abused children tend to grow into becoming abusive parents/adults themselves. It seems to me to be a conservative cycle which has the effect of putting a psychological stopper on the social revolution. Of course, if all imposed, hierarchical power tends to breed abusive social relations, then capitalism has a moral problem and becomes even more of a fetter on the freedom of humanity. Thanks Grant and to all on the list and with apologies to Fidel....let free-time ring, Mike B) ===== **************************************************************** "Freedom is what we make of it. If we stand against repression, authority and illegitimate structures, we are expanding the domain of freedom and that's what freedom will be. That's what we create; there is nothing to define in words." -- Noam Chomsky http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing. http://photos.yahoo.com/
