Talk:Early infanticidal childrearing

Does this "model" reflect actual facts?

Increased mortality after weaning is common in non-Neolithic cultures as well; it's a consequence of inadequate nutrition, not of parental desire. Vicki Rosenzweig

You're wrong there. "Inadequate nutrition" isn't some random fact of reality. It's a consequence of feeding pap to children, and not having the empathy necessary to understand that crying means the baby is hungry. These are both psychological problems of the parents (since feeding pap is a response to the fear of breastfeeding).

And if you'll pay more attention to the page, the crash in child population (which is enormous among the Papua New Guinea tribes) is not a result of parental desires for the child's death, or parental sexual desire for the infant. The latter is irrelevant and the former only develops in advanced societies where parents actually take care of their children to some degree. No, the crash is due to total neglect. That makes it axiom #3 of the model, not #1 or #2.

Does it reflect facts? Every single fact I'm aware of regarding neolithic tribes! -- ark

Well it would help if I knew who you were. I have no way of knowing if you've lived in PNG for 30 years and your information is commonly found in peer reviewed journals or if you are just repeating what you've heard third hand. My bs alert is going off, and it would really help if you inserted information about how you know what you know.

I believe every fact I've given is commonly accepted, though I haven't verified it. It's just the interpretation of those facts within a model which is controversial. If even half the stuff I've read is true, this is the model that fits best.

Cites, please? You seem to be aware of facts that I haven't come across--they'd strengthen the article. And no, inadequate nutrition isn't random, but it's a common cause of death worldwide, not only in "neolithic" cultures (which I'd be happier if you specified). Nobody breastfeeds children forever, and most cultures wean children later than the contemporary US: the problem isn't that weaned children are given soft, bland food--it's that there often isn't enough of that food. Vicki Rosenzweig

That's not true. If it were true, we'd expect the weaning crash to be smaller or absent in the upper classes, when in fact it's worse. With modern medical knowledge, things may be different, or maybe not. -- ark

I was wondering where this article came from as well. If nothing else it needs more citation (i.e. who says this) and more context (i.e. do most antropologists actually believe this).

A disturbing number of anthropologists follow a radically different model called "Pedophilia is good". Or in their own words, "Pedophilia is a random and legitimate cultural variation." Let's not talk about that.

Why not talk about it? A lot of the times once you talk about it you find that the claim that X believes that is total non-sense.

Nice try. If this is true, we *need* to talk about it. How many anthropologists? (If this is something three people claim, it may be disturbing in that you wouldn't hire them to babysit, but it's not indicative of the consensus in the field.) Which ones? Do they actually say "pedophilia is good", or do they say "parents can touch children's genitals without sexual intention" (e.g., to wash an infant)? Vicki Rosenzweig

Both. And actually, they say that parents can masturbate children, and derive sexual pleasure from it, without it being incest. Which of course, is completely absurd.

I want anthropologists summarily disqualified from any matter related to childrearing or psychology. I except only the very few anthropologists who have specific psychological training or who are working in partnership with a psychologist. Without such training, they're simply not qualified to make any judgement about psychological or psychologically-driven phenomena.

Now, given this, it's clear that there is only a very small number of qualified people in the field at all. And there's only one I consider authoritative enough to make broad statements about culture. Which is why I'd prefer to discuss a long list of individual facts (widely agreed in the field) than a single name about what those facts mean. -- ark

If you're judging people's qualifications, I think you should state your own. And, again, I would like sources for facts.

I've done a little googling. The US state department (http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1998_hrp_report/papuanew.html) says that "In the past, children have been well cared for within the family and under traditional clan and village controls. However, preliminary, small-scale studies indicate that this situation has changed over the last decade, especially in areas where households have become isolated from the extended family support system and depend on the cash economy for a livelihood. According to a report prepared by the Government and the U.N. Children's Fund, sexual abuse of children is believed to have become quite prevalent. Because of the geographic isolation and remoteness of many villages, malnutrition and infant mortality rates are very high. More than 60 of every thousand children born do not survive their first year."

The International Planned Parenthood Federation states that "The maternal mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, the infant mortality rate is increasing , with considerable variation from province to province," and adds that most of the population lacks access to safe water. (http://ippfnet.ippf.org/pub/IPPF_Regions/IPPF_CountryProfile.asp?ISOCode=PG)

So PNG children were better off in the more "primitive" culture, and exposure to an "advanced" society has increased sexual abuse of children. Vicki Rosenzweig

Yeah right. The myth of the "noble savage" rears its ugly head again. Did you notice how in the State Dept's report, the past is something nebulous and unknown, and only the present is at all concrete? I trust their vision of the present, I don't trust their speculations about the past any more than I can throw them.

They're comparing ten years ago to now--that's not a nebulous and unknown past.

Let's dissect the claim that child mortality has been increasing, just from stuff that I personally know to be true.

the reproductive rate is inversely proportional to the ignorance and poverty of the population. So the more ignorant and poor the population, the more they will fuck.

What's generally the case is that birthrate is inversely proportional to *female education* and connects to chance that those infants will react adulthood--most people don't want to go through lots of (difficult, expensive) pregnancies, they want to be sure of having two or three children grow up and have children in turn. And "ignorance" is a complex term: ignorant of what? Poor in what terms?

How does this apply?

the PNG are very poor and ignorant

See above

apply Modus Ponens and we have,

the PNG have a VERY HIGH reproductive rate.

So far so good.

Now let's add:

the PNG have been stable for 10 millenia, never using up the resources of their island, yet maintaining a low density population.

That is also an obvious and non-controversial fact.

Is it? What happened 10,000 years ago, then? (PNG has been settled for 50 millennia.) Do we know that the population has been stable for the last 10,000 years?

Apply #4 to #3 above and you get:

the PNG have a VERY HIGH rate of infanticide, child suicide, parental neglect leading to "accidents" or some combination of the three.

Or some other cause of short lifespan, such as warfare killing off young males and childbirth killing off young women.

So now you know why I think those "noble savage" and "increasing child mortality, oh the horror!" is just complete bullshit.

Which isn't what anyone else is saying: they're observing that the older family structure provided more adult carers, and possibly more food, than the cash economy and the nuclear family. If that's "noble savage," medieval Europe and pre-WWI America were inhabited by noble savages.

I believe that traditional PNG social structure included a very high rate of a combination of 'infanticide, child suicide and parental neglect leading to fatal "accidents"' fundamentally contradicts what you are asserting.

The contradiction derives from the fact that 'high rates of either infanticide, child suicide or parental neglect leading to fatal "accidents"' implies a level of barbarity unimaginable to most people. Now, I have a pretty vivid imagination and I still can't imagine how the nuclear family or a cash economy (and as an anarcho-syndicalist, I know all of the evils of capitalism) could possibly make the situation worse. When you've already hit rock bottom, there's nothing lower than that.

And I got this conclusion from stuff I know to be true because it is self-evidently obvious. So what does that mean? It means both the State Dept and IPPF have their heads shoved up so far up their ass that they can't see daylight at high noon. -- ark

It means that you haven't offered facts. It is "self-evidently obvious" that the Sun goes around the Earth; that doesn't make it true. Vicki Rosenzweig

It does mean that unless you have superior facts or the scientific community undergoes a radical change in its understanding of culture and reproduction, that my argument will (or at least should) be accepted by an overwhelming majority of people. -- ark

At the very least, this article needs some citations -- "one model" of NCR is too vague. Why not describe who developed the model, and when, and perhaps cite some publications -- Wikipedia is after all a resource. Readers will want to know where to turn next to find out more about this model. Also, the article suggests competing models for understandint NCR (vaguely mentioning anthropologists); there should be names and citations for this as well. SR

That's going to be an interesting problem: googling on "Neolithic childrearing" got nothing useful; "Neolithic child rearing" (note space) got me an interview with Sarah Hrdy, who suggests that the Neolithic is when child rearing became problematic because births started being closer together. The phrase "Neolithic childrearing" does not occur anywhere that Google can find, which suggests that even if this theory can be found elsewhere, it's under some other name. Which should be mentioned, if so. Vicki Rosenzweig

Neolithic childrearing refers to childrearing practices in Neolithic societies. The neolithic, or "new stone age," was a period in human history dating from about 10,000 years ago to, in some places, 5,000 years ago and in other places until one to five hundred years ago. There are no longer any neolithic societies. Most data concerning neolithic societies is archeological, and it is extrememly difficult to determine child-rearing practices abased on such data. Moreover, it is likely that different neolithic societies practiced different forms of childrearing. There is some ethnographic data concerning contemporary societies with some similarities to neolithic societies, although there are many differences as well; anthropologists once believed that these tribes are representative of cultures one might have found in the Neolithic era, and many non-anthropologists continue to believe this. Nevertheless, most anthropologists today argue against this view.

The model of early neolithic childrearing developed by Lloyd deMause can be summarized into three basic ideas:

children are not considered human
infants are useful to parents as erotic objects
children aren't considered useful to any adult in any other way

This model explains the inordinate sexual attention paid by parents of neolithic tribes to their children, such as sucking, fondling and masturbating.

It also explains the total lack of non-sexual attention paid by neolithic parents, such as mutual gazes between parent and child. Such mutual gazing is widely recognized as crucial for proper mental and emotional development. Other examples of absent non-sexual attention include keeping infants away from open fires, preventing children from playing with knives, and stopping newborns from crawling into the sea.

The model explains many other recorded facts, such as the large jump in the mortality rate of Papua New Guinean children after they reach the weaning stage.

The consequences of neolithic childrearing are many and devastating. Even among young children, there is a high rate of insanity and suicide.

Despite its successes, this model of neolithic childrearing is not accepted by many anthropologists. On the contrary, anthropologists frequently explain sexual activity as "loving" and parental neglect as "a desire to teach by experimentation".

Ark wrote: "The model of early neolithic childrearing developed by Lloyd deMause can be summarized into three basic ideas:

children are not considered human
infants are useful to parents as erotic objects
children aren't considered useful to any adult in any other way"

What deMause really wrote was:

The invention of agriculture and then of civilized urban life which marks the Neolithic is an achievement based on the evolution of childrearing. This evolution consisted of an increase in attention, consistency and identification by the parent with the child. Hunting groups can be distinguished from farming and urban groups by the shift from the impassive mother-who can handle her infanticidal wishes only by either merging with the child or by complete emotional withdrawal - to the mother-father unit, which is able to massively project their unconscious into the child, identify with it, and then severely discipline and shape it. The mark of early civilizations is, paradoxically, connected with the invention of severe physical punishment in obedience training. Even with contemporary groups, the higher the level of culture, the more consistant the child training for "obedience, self-reliance and independence."

I would really like to know where he got his information from. Danny

I meant earlier than that, the tribes which aren't civilized, the ones who don't provide any attention to children. The Neolithic is a long period after all. Perhaps it's better called 'early infanticidal childrearing'. Probably should be now that I think about it. -- ark

We have practically no certain knowledge of paleolithic childrearing practices. There is absolutely no evidence that Paleolithic peoples did not gaze into the eyes of their children or used them as dildos. None at all. I will of course take this back if someone can cite any peer-reviewed archeological study that demonstrates either of these possibilities conclusively. By the way, ark, I am truly glad that you have finally decided to "think" about it. ;) SR

It's not "the model" that characterizes anything. In physics, do we say that "General Relativity" characterizes planets as orbiting stars? No, that's simply an observation. If people refuse to look out a damned telescope, or if they want to interpret the data as the planets orbiting the Earth instead, you still cannot say that GR is responsible for that.

The only possible reason why SR and Roadrunner change the page so it says such blatantly stupid nonsense is because they want to slander it. Because alternative explanations like "they don't understand how to use English" don't apply. So stop fucking up the page.

deMause, and anyone who isn't a cultural relativist, will invariably characterize masturbation of infants as "inordinate sexual attention". That means 99% of our society will agree with deMause and COMPLETELY DISAGREE with anthropologists. If you want to say that anthropologists don't think there's anything wrong with masturbating infants then say so explicitly. Do NOT say "deMause interprets the observed data in a way that's contrary to anthropologists" because anthropologists do NOT have primacy in this, not when they are themselves interpreting things in a completely insane manner.

The same rules as on the incest page apply; what *most* people call incest is what counts. So what *most* people call "inordinate sexual attention" and "total non-sexual innatention" is what counts. Not what some fucker in academia thinks it is. Unless you want to expose anthropologists to ridicule then you're more than welcome to explain that anthropologists see nothing sexual in the masturbation of infants. Actually now that I think about it, I'm going to add it. I've had more than fucking enough with pedophilia supporters. -- Ark

Ark, what the hell are you trying to do here? SR and Roadrunner are trying to improve this article by at least making it sound neutral. Cursing, reverting their work and making inflammatory statements are very counter-productive. This is obviously a pet theory of yours and you obviously have strong feelings about this subject, but what you are doing here is very un-wiki. This is not Slashdot. Please stop this edit and flame war and try to work on a consensus on this article. You will not be able to get an article you are 100% happy with and neither will SR or Roadrunner. Accept this and lets get to work. --maveric149, Wednesday, June 5, 2002

They're NOT trying to improve the article. The way they're making it sound neutral is by saying things that are the exact equivalent of:

"Some people have accused Scientist Schmoe of being a pseudoscientist."

This is something that came up in another page somewhere. It got thrown out because even if it's true, it's not supported by facts, it's repeating vicious slander against the person. You could make that accusation against ANYONE and it would be equally relevant/important.

I'll be happy with an article I can tolerate. I don't have to be 100% happy with it, nor did I ever expect to be.

The reason why what SR is doing is intolerable is because he redefines what "inordinate sexual attention" means. No, it has a very specific meaning relative to our own culture. If SR wants to say that anthropologists reject the common sense standard of what is and what is not appropriate sexual attention, and thereby leave anthropologists wide open to ridicule by any layman, then he should point out EXACTLY what anthropologists believe. As I wrote above, I'm going to do that for him, including ridiculing anthropologists for their insane beliefs, because I'm tired of this game.

Further, when SR (and Roadrunner) write that "the model characterizes" something. That's wrong too. It makes it seem like 1) only deMause and his followers believe the observed facts (ie, put a non-culturally relativistic spin on the fact of incest and sexual abuse on primitives), and 2) like the only reason deMause and others believe the facts is because they fit the model. You tell me: how is this not slander?? How is this in any way NPOV??

There are a bunch of known facts which everyone agrees on. 99% of modern people will put a very specific interpretation on those facts. That interpretation is that primitives are pedophilic, incestuous child molesters. This isn't something which is cooked up by deMause's model. The fact that anthropologists put a different, utterly bizarre and alien, pro-pedophilia spin on the facts is not my problem.

NPOV means that the 99% view gets most of the attention, is dealt with first and most importantly, and is recognized as the overwhelming majority view. It does NOT mean that the 1% view gets as much coverage as the 99% view in order to create a doubt in people's minds about which view is the right one. Which is exactly what SR and Roadrunner have been systematically trying to do. They've been POVing the article, vandalizing and undermining it. -- Ark

Consider this your warning Ark. Stop deleting the talk for this page -- you may feel it is no longer relevant but others do. So it stays. Got that? I'm at work right now so I can't respond to your above comment yet. --maveric149

Ark:

First, let me quote someone who I have a fair amount of respect for:

...a theory is just a model of the universe, or a restricted part of it, and a set of rules that relate quantities in the model to observations that we make. It exists only in our minds and does not have any other reality (whatever that might mean). A theory is a good theory if is satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the result of future observations.

All models characterize things, indeed, it is precisely the power of Copernicus's model that he describes the moons of Jupiter as orbiting Jupiter, and the Earth, like Jupiter, as orbiting the sun.

I do not question that deMause has a theory (the fact that I do not think it is a good theory is for the moment besides the point; let's, for the sake of argument, assume it is a good theory). Clearly a significant part of any theory or model is DESCRIPTIVE statements. The proposition that "touching this child's genitals" = "inordinate" "sexual activity" is a descriptive claim, not a prediction and not an explanation. To call it a description is uncontroversial.

Second, to say that this is a claimed description is also noncontroversial. Not everyone would say it is sexual, and othose who say it is sexual, not all would say it is inordinate.

By the way, I am unimpressed by your hysteical claim that 99% of our society would agree with this (so, Mr./Ms. Scientist, have you taken a survey? random sample? What is the margin of error?). My claim is that people in different cultures describe things differently. Even if 99% of Americans agreed that this is sexual, it would only prove my point. My point is not that it "is" sexual, only that within the categories of American culture it is considered sexual. The issue for me is, what do Marquesans, or Yolngu, or Gimi, or whomever, think it is? An article that makes claims about a particular society MUST care what members of that society claim is going on.

Why should it? You obviously don't care. If you did, you'd ask how the child or infant perceives the activity. Is it terrifying to them? Is it sexual? Et cetera. But of course, you've already answered these questions yourself. It is sexual to the infant.

This is your claim, I do not dispute that this is your claim. But it is not my claim. Do not write "you've already answered these questions yourself" and then insert your answer as if it were my own. I do not know if the infants consider it sexual, I do not know if they are terrified, and whether they consider it sexual or terrifying or not, I do not know that it is abuse. It may be -- I am not saying that it categorically is not. I am making only two claims: that it is deMause, yourself, and others (I do not know how many so I am not claiming that it is few or many) believe that it is abuse, and that more research is needed to discover whether these people consider it abuse. slrubenstein

I guess you don't recognize your own words. At the end of the nuked talk page, you said something along the lines that "If anything, the infant is sexually stimulated". That automatically makes it sexual. How could it be anything else?

I reject your position that "further research" is needed to determine whether sexual stimulation of infants and children is abusive. There is plenty of literature on the effects of child molestation in psychology journals, in case studies and elsewhere. That you are unaware of it is your problem and your problem only.

You're promoting a very specific POV, the one of the child molester, and don't seem to care at all about the POV of the infant. By the way, if we do consider them child molesters, and you seem open to the possibility we do, then answer me this question: do typical Western people care what child molesters think about their own activities?

hmmm... Perhaps I am beginning to see your point, in this particular regard. For example, I myself do not care one whit about what racist, Eurocentric, genocidal colonialists think of their own activities! slrubenstein

Agreed. Usually, the rationalization doesn't even provide significant insight into the perpetrator's psyche.

To be blunt, I do NOT redefine what "inordinate sexual attention means," I simply point out that it is inordinate according to deMause, which seems to be true. Maybe it does have a specific meaning "relative to our culture," (I am quoting you) but deMause is not making claims about our culture, he is making claims about another culture, so how they define "inordinate" and "sexual" is certainly important.

No, it's not! Same standard as 'incest'. ANY sexual attention to an infant is inappropriate, and in our culture constant masturbation of infants is not merely inappropriate and deviant, but it is completely inexplicable and inordinate. Only anthropologists care about how the members of the primitive culture rationalize their behaviours or think that we should suspend our moral judgements of primitives until we hear their rationalizations. If you want to talk about what anthropologists believe about child abuse, then make a 'anthropologists and pedophilia' subpage. That would be a completely legitimate move, which I regard as necessary in order to distinguish between people's normal moral judgement of primitives (which only cultural relativists consider illegitimate) and the anthropologists' view on the matter. Of course, if you make such a page, I will just slaughter the whole field of anthropology on it. (Being pedophile supporters will only be the first of many arguments.)

So to recap: people's abhorrence of what we regard as child abuse is a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia entry. In order to disambiguate matters, anthropologists' opinions should be separated out and made distinct. And in no case should it be ever said or implied that anthropologists have the final say about whether moral repugnance of what we consider child abuse is legitimate (that belongs only to psychologists, and probably not even them).

Third, it is not in any way slanderous to claim that deMause's model describes things in certain ways, or makes certain claims. That is a statement of fact; it is precisely what a theory does: it characterizes something in a certain way, and it makes certain claims. There is no negative implication here; to say that Copernicus characterized the Earth as orbiting the Sun does not mean that he is wrong, it only means that other people characterize it in other ways. Again, a statement of fact -- and in the fifteenth/sixteenth/seventeenth centuries, an important statement of fact. SImilarly, there are ongoing debates today about how to talk about non-Western cultures and how to talk about human sexuality; it is important to acknowledge that there are different views.

Nobody nowadays has any theory of planetary motion where the planets move around the stars. That's why I'm using GR as an example, and not the Copernican model. Similarly, nobody nowadays (in the modern world) would ever characterize fondling and masturbation of an infant's genitals as anything other than child molestation (if not outright child sexual abuse). And in Western societies they would invariably consider it inexplicable. Anthropologists are just very bizarre people, and about as relevant to most people's view of what constitutes child molestation as experts in the paranormal. "different views" among anthropologists just do not count unless someone is specifically interested in academic views. And as I already explained, what anthropologists think about infant molestation is irrelevant to the infant since infants have no culture. The relevant experts in the area are developmental psychologists, not ethnologists nor anthropologists. But of course, this is if you're interested in how the infant views the molestation as opposed to how the child abuser rationalizes it in their mind.

Irrelevant: Copernicus's theory still stands as a useful example of what a scientific theory is. I do not see any advantage in useing GR as an example of a scientific theory, over Copernicus's. This is a red herring.

I'll explain the situation among psychologists as best as I understand it. There is a substantial faction that regards any kind of sexual activity with children to be inherently abusive. They would reject the anthropologists' claims that cultural attitudes are at all relevant to the matter. They would rather emphasize the universality and uniformity of children's emotional needs. At the center of this faction are the likes of Alice Miller.

There is another faction that traces its lineage all the way to Freud. When possible, it denies that child abuse exists. When it can't do that it denies that it is traumatic. And when it can't do that, it denies that it is inherently traumatic. deMause provides lots of historical as well as personal evidence that this faction has pro-pedophilia sentiments and that it is run by outspoken pro-pedophiles. This faction has historically run all of psychology. And even today it remains influential, as demonstrated by the changes to the pedophilia diagnosis in the DSM-IV.

The pro-pedophile faction is in decline, whereas the pro-child faction is on the ascendant. I'm certain that the recognition of child (sexual) abuse by society dealt the former a severe blow in the 80s.

So what's my position on the matter? It's 1) that anthropologists' theories of psychology are simply irrelevant, 2) that the pro-pedophile faction's views are antiquated at best, and morally repugnant at worst, and that they are not supported by any evidence. So from my point of view, there is no serious competition to the view that child molestation is inherently abusive.

Some interesting details to confuse the issue. Psychohistorians are slap dab in the middle of the pro-child faction. The war / revolution in psychology is a silent one, with no clear battle lines. I don't think that most psychologists belong to either faction and I can't even guess where their sympathies lie (it might be 'neither' or even 'both' for all I know). The pro-pedophile faction is sympathetic to the arguments commonly made by anthropologists (shouldn't judge till we know what the child molesters say, cultural differences, etc) but so are pedophiles themselves.

Fourth, Similalry, "deMause interprets the observed data in a way that's contrary to anthropologists" is also a simple, non-controversial statement of fact. You claim that one should not make this statement of fact "because anthropologists do NOT have primacy in this," which is a non-sequitor. To claim that two people have different views is NOT in any way to suggest that one view has primacy over the other. The reason I would put it this way (rather than "anthropologists have views contrary to deMause" is because deMause wrote AFTER anthropologists, and cites anthropologists, and is reacting to anthropologists by criticizing them and presenting an alternate view, so you could say anthropologists have chronological primacy -- but there is no necessary or implicit claim that anthropologists are right and deMause is wrong. An analogy: one should write that Copernicus and Galileo had views contrary to the Church, but this wouldn't be slandering Copernicus or Galileo or suggesting that they are wrong). You also write that anthropologists "are themselves interpreting things in a completely insane manner." which is obviously lacking in NPOV.

Finally, I never nuked your responses in the Talk section. If anyone nuked them, please do restore them -- people have a right to read them. But you have no right to nuke what I wrote just on the basis that you do not like it. slrubenstein

I never believed you did or tried to, nor intended to imply it. This talk page was completely deleted after a series of serious errors with the database, just before the RecentChanges page went kaput. It's a pretty big coincidence so it may not have been intentional. The talk page now is the result of Maveric moving the old neolithic childrearing talk page here. I'd prefer the entire talk page to be restored or not at all, that's why I deleted the comments above (which are largely irrelevant: eg, demands for cites which were fulfilled).

I'm not nuking what you wrote "just on the basis that I don't like it". I've explained my reasons extensively. The same courtesy was often denied me. -- Ark

I have edited the text of the article with the goal of NPOV -- at times that has led me to delete material you inserted, or to reword it, which is my right and obligation as a Wikipedian (as it is your right and obligation). But I have never knowingly deleted any of your explanation in the "talk" page and if I have I apologize. I am not sure what happened concerning the database, but like you I wish the original "talk" for this page were restored. slrubenstein

My view is that Talk is temporary. If people nuke it then it wasn't important and I don't sweat it. I wasn't even bothered that the entire Talk page got deleted. In fact, I favour nuking Talk regularly so that discussion can start fresh, unhampered by obsolete issues and preconceptions. But that's Talk: substantial changes to the character of an article are a different thing. -- Ark

2002.06.05:
A few thoughts to add to the debate (hopefully without getting too drawn into it myself):are a "moral absolutist". I'

I was an anthropology major in college, so I think I can speak with at least some pretense of knowledge about this area. First, the behaviors described by deMause and others are news to me. Do they surprise me? Not exceptionally so; there are cultures in which young adolescent and pubescent males participate in oral sex with adult males. This is rationalized as enhancing the young man's virility and preparing him for sex later in life, and is not categorized as "homosexuality" in any way whatsoever.

Do I like it or agree with it? No. But I do have to ask if deMause, et alii, ever asked the adults in these cultures whether they consider their behaviors to be sexual, and why (or why not). Because if they haven't, I smell undisclosed bias, and it reeks.

The purpose of anthropology is to describe culture, not judge it. If an anthropologist judges a culture under study, the ability to describe a culture objectively and explain how it is perceived by its members is lost. It is the job of psychologists, religious leaders, and laymen to judge a culture.

One example that is actually relevant is "northern" European notions of abuse and sexuality, which are in some ways the opposite of those of the United States. For example, Americans have little trouble allowing a 12 year old to watch a movie that contains graphic violence. Europeans have great trouble with this, and consider it to verge on child abuse. Conversely, Europeans see little difficulty with nudity and displays of genuine sexual affection, whereas Americans consider it to verge on child abuse if a 12-year-old is allowed to see a man and woman having loving, gentle sex. An anthropologist would simply describe the differing attitudes, without judging them -- A professional, if unable to overcome biases, should disclose them. (Much as an experimental physicist or biologist attempts to be neutral when testing a hypothesis, but must also disclose potential sources of bias in their interpretations.)

Napoleon Chagnon's work on the Yąnomamö is also relevant here. The Yąnomamö as a culture participate in husband-wife dynamics that would be considered severely abusive by American standards, but is perfectly normal to the Yąnomamö. In Yąnomamö territory, the anthropologist cannot interfere; if a Yąnomamö couple moved to the United States and continued the same types of behavior, social norms would require that even an anthropologist interfere, explaining that "in the United States, we do not act that way, and it is illegal here. Your choices are to change your behavior or end up in jail." (Just as I would never engage in homosexual acts in a Muslim country, despite what my own values hold. Caveat viator, so to speak. *grin*)

Hope that contributes some useful thoughts to the discussion. pgdudda

You bring up some good points.

The position of anthropologists (and historians) that they only describe cultures (or history) and not seek to explain them is exactly why their judgement of a practice as being abusive is irrelevant. Now, anthropologists widely report that primitives do not see their practices as abusive or sexual. I have no hesitation agreeing with that. But then, neither do typical pedophiles see their practices as abusive either.

As to whether the primitives' practices are sexual.

Definition: sexual is anything that, wholly or partially, does or would ordinarily, generate sexual arousal.

So masturbation is sexual. So are hair fetishes. And so is rape. In any case, it's difficult for us to imagine how a man can ejaculate without feeling sexual arousal. And if they don't feel arousal then a psychologist would have an easy canned answer to give: they're repressing it. The fact that it involves the genitals provides a very strong indication that it's sexual. (And thus that it's homosexual pedophilia, regardless of the rationalization.)

Are you intending to imply that the rape of a man in which the victim is forced to ejaculate is sexual for the victim? (I doubt it, I'm mostly asking rhetorically.) It is possible to force a man to ejaculate against his will; I can think of two ways to do this, and there may well be others. pgdudda

- It may not be pleasurable but it's still sexual. And actually, one of the problems with rape is precisely that it's partly pleasurable; the self-hatred that results from that drives people mad. Another problem is that it ends up closely associated with an activity that should be pleasurable. So it's sexual whether or not it's pleasurable.
- The issue of rapists being primarily dominance-motivated instead of sexually motivated is something else entirely.

deMause hasn't done any field work among contemporary primitive cultures AFAIK. He's spent most of his time on the history of Western cultures throughout the last couple millenia. His theory of childrearing spans all of history. The paleolithic part of it is primarily based on extrapolation of the theory to more primitive cultures, some salient facts about the psyches and childhoods of contemporary psychotics (not evidence anthropologists would consider), and a number of interesting facts from contemporary infanticidals. It's not his job to redo all anthropological work. Maybe some psychohistorian will do it in the future, maybe not. There are much more interesting questions in psychohistory than the infanticidal cultures; eg, our own culture.

Additionally, deMause's agenda seems to be to make psychohistory a separate academic field, independent of history, anthropology and (probably) even psychology. So the basic idea is to completely steal the psychology and childrearing of non-Western cultures (contemporary and historical) away from anthropologists. If that happens, then theories about these phenomena will be held to different standards than theories in anthropology. Obviously, I support this outright theft. :)

- Regarding western mores (pgdudda adds: see next paragraph for context). Northern European psyches are more advanced than American ones because NE childrearing is far in advance of America's. When psychologists believe this, it is very much similar to a physicist believing in, say, string theory. It's something based on conjecture, speculation and quite a bit of experimental evidence. It's also based on their own emotional reactions, which to a good psychologist are as much of an indispensible (research and clinical) tool, as sight is to an astronomer. Anthropologists are trained to ignore that tool. -- Ark

Ah, so you're an opponent of cultural relativism. That's your decision to make; I don't consider NE values to be "more advanced" - just different. The fact that I tend to agree with them is a personal judgment. But there's a difference between considering a set of values to be more amenable to one's conscience and labeling one set of values as "more advanced" than another. That's like implying that a Papuan is dumber than a European just because his culture doesn't use electricity. After all, a Papuan child adopted by American parents has the same capacity to learn and use electric gadgets that an American child raised by Papuan parents has - in this case, it's culture that mediates whether the person has the necessary skill set to use a given type of tool, not any innate intelligence. Anthropologists do regularly debate how much they can or should interfere when they disagree strongly with the values of a culture under study. The most sensible answer I've seen boils down to that change can only come from within a culture - people who want to change, will; people who don't, won't. Ethically, all we can do is present viable options and allow individuals to make their own choices and suffer the consequences of those choices. pgdudda

- But Papuans are dumber than Europeans because they don't use electricity. :) You just have to ask "why do we use electricity"? We use it because we have a high population density and a high technological level. Why is that? Because we are culturally evolved. Why is that? Because at some point a couple of millenia ago, our ancestors decided to stop murdering their children and start evolving culturally. Does that look like the Smart Thing To Do? It does to me! Of course, that only proves the Papuans are dumb, not that we're smart; we're just the product of a long line of smart mothers.
- Your ethics argument is a nice try but it doesn't wash. It doesn't apply to children at all. And because of that, you have to rely on moral arguments. And the moral arguments will all say, in any reasonable moral system, that you should take away their children and raise them to be non-Papuan.

pgdudda's comments, 2002.06.06
I have to wonder whether Australian Aborigines or Native Americans in the United States would agree with you. After all, their children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed with European families because they were "primitives incapable of raising their children properly". What you are proposing is a form of genocide: systematically destroying a culture, simply because you consider that culture to be primitive and immoral. Besides, decisions of mental health have to be placed in cultural context, too. We have to ask if the children in question are being raised in a manner that leads to them living successful lives in their communities as an adult, not whether they would lead successful lives in the US (or wherever) - a place they likely never will visit. If lip piercing, or trauma to the brain, or walking on one's hands, leads to successful adult lives (and successful production of offspring), is that not sufficient justification for continuing the practice? (Before you say "no", answer the question: "Why do Europeans and Muslims circumcise male infants? And why is the trauma induced by this not considered morally repugnant?") But then, you sound to me as if you are a "moral absolutist". I'd hazard a guess that you believe everyone should live under the same moral code (in the US, these people are likely to be conservative Christians). [Apologies if my assumption is incorrect.] But what happens when you try to impose, say, Biblical morals on people who categorically deny the existence of the Christian God? Why should Biblical morals apply to them, if they deny the validity of the very basis for that moral code's derivation?

Btw, I have a hard time imagining someone who's studied moral philosophy becoming a cultural relativist, so it seems to me like cultural relativism is a type of ignorance. -- Ark

And I consider moral absolutism to be a type of ignorance, too. To quote Tanita Tikaram, "different thoughts are good for me". *grin* Without divergent thinkers, we'd still be chipping away at obsidian to create stone knives. For that matter, the US would still be a colony, Columbus would never gotten out of Europe, non-Europeans would be considered to be without souls, and the Chinese would still be using gunpowder solely for fireworks. ;-) pgdudda

This of course, is not true. (Though nice try.) It's possible for a person (let alone a society) to be a moral absolutist and change their beliefs about what constitutes the absolute moral truth over time. This position is very similar to physicists', the majority of whom are realists (believe there is a single absolute reality) yet certainly do not believe that we have perfect access to that reality! Just because I'm a moral absolutist doesn't mean I think I have a perfect access to moral truth. It does mean, based on my provisional judgement, that I have a far, far better understanding of basic moral truths than people who beat or sexually abuse kids. -- Ark

Ark, pgdudda is right. Cultural relativism is an important line of current modern thought and their criticism needs to be reflected in the article. --maveric149

Pro-pedophilia is an important line of thought in modern psychology. Does that mean the views of (pro-)pedophiles get the same treatment on a child abuse entry as developmental psychologists and child psychologists?

Post-Modernism is an important line of thought in academia. Does that mean it gets the same treatment in political science entries as the work of Chomsky?

Questioning (or doubting) Realism is an important line of thought in philosophy, as well as many religious people and cranks. Does that mean we should reflect it in a physics entry?

Like I said, I think that moral relativism (and hence cultural relativism) is only prevalent among people ignorant of moral philosophy. Even if we decide to reflect morally relativistic views, and I'm not ready to concede we should, that decision doesn't dictate how we're going to reflect it. There are many possibilities.

We could explain the anthropologists' views side by side with psychohistorians'.

This seems like the preferred option of many. It's not mine since 1) psychohistory is a new field and most laypeople don't even know it exists, let alone understand its status, 2) by right of expertise, I think the issue is best handled by psychohistorians. So there is a wide disconnect between the respect psychohistory can expect to get and the respect they should get.

There is no way to correct that though. If we gave an extensive explanation of psychohistory in the article, people would perceive it as irrelevant to the entry (and remove it), or defensive (and not believe it).

Then there's my solution; which I'm making up as I go along.

We could emphasize that anthropologists don't really try to understand their subjects' psyche, that many don't even consider it a proper avenue of study, and that they lack the psychological tools or training to do a proper job of it.

But as soon as you do that, that cuts anthropologists out of the loop, doesn't it? This seems faintly unsatisfying to me because it leaves out a lot of issues. Like the danger of counter-transferance when working with a foreign culture. Like the horror that anthropologists must feel when they're watching some of these barbaric practices, and what kinds of defenses (and I think cultural relativism is one) they've had to built up to protect themselves from it.

Either way, there's the peripheral issues which are important and should be addressed. The main one is that anthropologists concern themselves with the wide diversity of cultures, distinguished by language, practices, beliefs, et cetera, whereas psychologists concern themselves with the essential similarities in people's mental and emotional functioning. This difference in attitude is related to psychologists at least trying to create a complete theory of the human mind whereas anthropologists have given up on a complete theory of human culture. So anthropologists don't think you can extrapolate culture back in time based on contemporary examples, but psychologists do think you can extrapolate the psyche with that kind of basis. -- Ark