Early infanticidal childrearing

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Early infanticidal childrearing is a model developed by Lloyd deMause within the framework of psychohistory which purports that childrearing in the Paleolithic Era and in contemporary pre-literate hunter-gatherer tribes was or is infanticidal.^[1]

Contents 1 The model 2 Controversy 2.1 Criticism 2.2 Counter-criticism 3 See also 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] The model

This particular model is a psychological concept that aims to understand anthropological data, especially from such societies as the Yolngu of Australia, the Gimi, Wogeo, Sambia (tribe), Bena Bena, and Bimin-Kuskusmin of Papua New Guinea, the Raum, the Ok and the Kwanga, based on observations by Geza Roheim, Lia Leibowitz, Robert C. Suggs, Milton Diamond, Herman Heinrich Ploss, Gilbert Herdt, Robert J. Stoller, L. L. Langness, and Fitz John Porter Poole, among others. ^[2] While anthropologists and psychohistorians generally do not dispute the data of their particular research, they dispute its significance (both in terms of importance and in terms of meaning) and its interpretation.^[3].

Supporters attempt to explain cultural history from a psycho-developmental point of view, and argue that cultural change can be assessed as "advancement" or "regression" based on the psychological consequences of various cultural practices.^[4] While most anthropologists reject this approach, and most theories of cultural evolution as ethnocentric, the psychohistorians in their turn proclaim the independence of psychohistory and summarily reject the opinions of anthropologists.

This model makes several claims: that childrearing in tribal societies included ritual sacrifice, high infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape and tortures.^[5]

Early states also practiced the early infanticidal mode of childrearing, including sacrifice in Mesoamerica, the Incas and in Assyrian and Canaanite religions. Phoenicians, Carthaginians and other members of early states also sacrificed infants to their gods, as explained in the psychogenic mode table.^[6]

In the most primitive mode of childrearing mothers use their children as "poison containers": they project massively parts of their dissociated self or unconsciousness onto their children. The infanticidal clinging of the symbiotic mother prevents individuation so that innovation and more complex political organization are inhibited. On a second plane, supporters maintain that the attention paid by mothers of contemporary primitive tribes to their children, such as sucking, fondling and masturbating is sexual according to an objective standard; and that this sexual attention is inordinate.^[7]

The model is also based on a reported lack of empathy by infanticidal parents, such as mutual gazes between parent and child, observed by Robert B. Edgerton, Maria Lepowsky, Bruce Knauft, John W. M. Whiting and Margaret Mead among others. Such mutual gazing is widely recognized in developmental psychology as crucial for proper bonding between mother and child, the failure of which invariably results in mind-blindness, a characteristic most notable in the Refrigerator mother theory of autism.

Proponents of this model intend to explain many other well-documented facts, such as the large jump in the mortality rate of Papua New Guinean children after they reach the weaning stage; and that the infanticidal-mode of childrearing has consequences such as the recorded high rate of insanity and suicide even among young children.^[8]

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Criticism

Anthropologists generally argue that everywhere parents must negotiate between nurturing and loving their children on the one hand, and disciplining and socializing them on the other. They further argue that what constitutes "love", "sex", appropriate sexual behavior, and appropriate behavior in general is culture-bound; and that much of what counts as average or even ideal childrearing practices in industrialized societies would be inappropriate in non-industrialized societies, and might be considered abusive by people of other cultures. They suggest that documented increases in infant mortality, mental illness, and suicide are more likely consequences of stresses brought on by Western conquest or colonization. Finally, most anthropologists do not consider non-industrial societies to necessarily be more primitive than industrial ones and find the assertion of the model that all societies of the same technological level have the same childrearing practices to be suspect and unsupported by fact. They argue that most models of cultural evolution (including many devised by anthropologists) are not so much scientific theories as myths of colonialism used to justify the denial of human rights to non-Western peoples.

[edit] Counter-criticism

In return, psychohistorians accuse most anthropologists and ethnologists of being apologists for incest, infanticide, cannibalism and child sacrifice. They maintain that what constitutes child abuse is a matter of a general psychological law and that some of the practices which mainstream anthropologists apologize for, such as beatings of newborn infants, result in brain lesions and other visible neurological and psychological damage. Other practices may result in psychosis, dissociation and magical thinking. Supporters of the model also maintain that the extreme cultural relativism proposed by many anthropologists is contrary to the letter and spirit of human rights. ^[9]

[edit] See also

• Cultural relativism
• Lloyd deMause
• Moral absolutism
• Psychohistory

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Dinesh D'Souza and some anthropologists have pointed out that, ironically, some natives disagree with the orthodox anthropologists' relativism, as can be seen in this short article or in this long article.