Mike ballard said: "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."
To Mike & Others: There is a fascinating (and relevant to this discussion) set of data
arising, partly from the Roumanian orphanage tragedies, that
early abuse "hard-wires" the brain into fixed anatomical visible differences by MRI
scanning.
Of course the implications for the whole Nature vs Nuture thing - are tremendous.
As an extension of this - the reverse also true. Hence likely many here know of the
Bowlby monkey experiments. Recently much work on this in 'newer'
model systems able to tease out the molecular under-pinnings of this, re-emphasize the
importance of an early (meaning childhood/infancy) experience of "love".
I have mentioned before here, the "Whitehall" studies, where those higher on the totem
pole of the 'civil' service have better health outcomes than
those lower,& has been related to "control" issues.
PS: To Michael Perelman: Lurkers may be here to learn! As me. I appreciated very much "the
naive" economic questions from - I think Mike B - who received
expert tuition in economics. As a non-economic lurker, I often feel that I may waste
others' time if I did that - although
several times the need to ask has hit me. So I very much appreciated the 'nerve' of
Mike B in doing that.
Cheers, Hari
