Talk:Psychohistorical views on infanticide

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[edit] Summary of archived 2002 discussions

For excerpts of the archived flaming discussion of 2002 that give the picture of this hotly controversial topic see this selection.

This talk page is only for discussions to improve the article. If anybody wants to discuss issues unrelated to the improvement of the article, please do it in the above-linked forum. —Cesar Tort 06:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rewritten section

I have replaced the section under the heading of Criticism because I believe it is impossible to properly to source it:

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.{Who|date=November 2007} 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.{Fact|date=November 2007} 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.{Fact|date=November 2007} 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.{Fact|date=November 2007}

Instead, I have used the Encyclopædia Britannica as a RS to write a completely new section.

—Cesar Tort 06:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] sources

Are there any sources for this topic aside from the views of Lloyd deMause? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Tricky question. There are lots of authors who write about the subject, some of them diverge vastly from deMause, even to the point of breaking openly with the psycho-historical organizations. But as far as I know all of them originally got these ideas from deMause. Some of these guys are sort of mavericks and go on to publish independently of deMause's journal, for instance Henry Ebel and Robert Godwin.
I have read the newer "histories of childhood", such as Colin Heywood's, that don't belong at all to the deMause school. However, even though Heywood rejects what critics may call the "black legend" of childhood history, it's fascinating to learn about how much data of child abuse Heywood collects in his 2001 study. And something similar may be said of Larry S. Milner's scholarly book on infanticide, published in 2000.
—Cesar Tort 17:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your commenting. Of course Wikipedia should cover notable research on childrearing, as well as child abuse, and infanticide. But this article makes claims about anthropology that does not square with what I know of anthropology, and seems to make claims about times (neolithic) and places today, that are not based on credible research, and that forward non-notable (fringe) views. I left requests for comments to invite the input of other editors. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I will be all too happy to hear from them. Meanwhile I have replied to you in the main article from which this one is an expansion. —Cesar Tort 01:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a notable psychological, sociological, historical, or anthropological concept?

This article seems to push a fringe POV, in effect promoting one person's view of things. If this concept is used by historians, does this article provide an acurate NPOV account of it?!!20:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


This article seems to push a fringe POV, in effect promoting one person's view of things. If this concept is used by sociologists or anthropologists, does this article provide an acurate NPOV account of it?!!20:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)


This article seems to push a fringe POV, in effect promoting one person's view of things. If this concept is used by psychologists, does this article provide an acurate NPOV account of it?!!20:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes: The concept is used by only a few sociologists or anthropologists and psychologists. If you read anthropology for a time, it is inevitable to stumble with the concepts presented in this article. AFAIK the article seems to be well sourced and has a valid "Criticism" section, so I see no problem (an apologetic "sales pitch" article WOULD be a problem). IMO tiny minority views also deserve a place here as long as the article is well sourced and written respecting the NPOV. For instance: Please take a look at Old Catholic Church.Randroide (talk) 22:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] My own objections to the article

  • Early infanticidal childrearing is a model used in the study of psychohistory to refer to the occurrence of infanticide in historical, pre-historical (aboriginal or ancient) or contemporary-primitive societies. "Early" means early in history or in the cultural development of a society, not to the age of the child.

These two sentences suggest unclear or biased thinking. Since the three kinds of societies that follow the word "infanticide" seem to cover all societies, this dependent clause seems superfluous. Why not just end it with "infanticide?" Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This sentence was the result of a complaint by an editor who had no idea of what the article was about. It was added to comply to his/her wishes. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The reason is, the name of the article includes the word "early" and the second sentence makes it clear that this means "early" in the development of a society. In that case, why does the dependent clause in the first sentence include "historical" societies? Does this theory apply to infanticide in any and all societies, or only in a certain class of societies? Why is infanticide in a pre-historic or so-called primitive society different from infanticide in the US, India, or China? But let's look at it from the other direction - why is infanticide in prehistoric societies and in so-called primitive societies lumped together? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you see the colored psychogenic mode chart, the reason is simply that infanticide was much more common in the past. That is the reason for the term. In his voluminous book on infanticide non-psychohistorian Larry S. Milner has reached to similar conclusions to deMause as to the frequency of infanticide in the past. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I question whether this is the mainstream view of historians and anthropologists. I question whether there is real evidence to support this. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

So there are two major problems I have with this. First, there is a real lack of clarity concerning the meaning of the word "early" and the inclusion of "historical." Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The term “Early infanticidal childrearing” is no OR of the editor who started this article: it is a pivotal part of the deMausean model. [1] —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Second, there is a real lack of clarity about the status of "contemporary-primitive societies" which of course are historical socieites - the problem is not just the semantic redundancy (once you have written "historical" you do not need to add "contemporary-primitive"); there is a conflation of contemporary-primitive with prehistoric that was rejected by anthropologists a hundred years ago; every advance in anthropological knowledge in the 20th century only made it clearer and clearer that contemporary so-called primitive societies could not be identified with prehistoric societies, except - some argue - in extremely limited and superficial ways. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Neolithic societies no longer exist; the last one disappeared the last century so we cannot study them. If the sentence needs clarification, it has to be changed. What proponents of the model are trying to tell is that some "contemporary-primitives" such as some indigenous people of the Oceania islands used to be (or still are in some places) proportionately more infanticidal than civilized people. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Psychohistorians maintain that childrearing in the Paleolithic Era and some contemporary pre-literate hunter-gatherer tribes was or has been observed to be infanticidal.

Three problems. First, we have very little evidence that paleolithic societies were "infanticidal." Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

May I remind you part of the 2002 discussion between two non-psychohistorians, Maveric149 and Josh Grosse, now archived?
“ This is an encyclopedia, not a soap box for new ideas. Sorry, but regurgitation of the canon of human knowledge is what we do here. --maveric149
I disagree, maveric. One of the things that makes wikipedia different from a standard encyclopedia is our ability to reflect new thinking, and it would be a shame not to take advantage of that [...].
Now, the whole that deMause put together and Ark is advertising here is striking, but I think that you will find most of the individual points are not nearly as radical or contrary to current understanding as you seem to present. To begin with, there are many people who would reject cultural relativism. The first example that comes to mind are the women's historians which have become increasingly common, but a proper search shouldn't have trouble coming up with others. Further, the idea of the noble savage is very controversial, and one should hardly consider it some sort of canon.
With regards to infanticide per se. I personally have very little knowledge about the Paleolithic, but that deliberate murder or abandonment of infants was common among ancient civilizations like Carthage, Greece, and Rome is well-known, and I can remember a mainstream text mentioning Mohammed's prohibitions against the then-widespread killing of children without any implication that might be controversial. In absence of further data, a backwards trendline would be all it takes to suggest that Paleolithic infanticide was very common indeed. And I can recall articles suggesting that tribal cannabilism, to take the most headline-grabbing example, was far more common than previously thought. [my bold type]
In short, I think this position is not nearly outlandish enough to deserve such curt rejection. An informative and lasting page on this would be valuable enough, with controversy, criticisms and any evidence against you can dig up, as well as evidence for, explained but not focused on to the point of putting parentheticals at the end of every paragraph. Beyond that, what are we worrying about? [Josh Grosse]
 ”
—Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Josh Grosse provided no verifiable source. I believe that this claim is pure speculation. There is no, zero, evidence to support the claim about paleolithic infanticide, none. As for cannibalism, so what? Most cannibalism is in the context of either warfare, in which yes, there is a victim, but it is no more immoral than any killing of an enemy combatant, or of mortuary rituals in which dead relatives are eaten. This harms no one since the eaten person died of other, often natural causes, and the ritual is a form of closure. Once again red flags like cannibalism are waved to distort the issue, which is infanticice. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Second, the text again identifies paleolithic with contemporary non-literte societies, an identification that anthropologists have been arguing against for quite a long time. Third, the article will have to really explain what it means to label a society "infanticidal." Infanticide surely occurs in England, the US, Germany ... are these socieites "infanticidal?" Or is there some threshold? The percentage of infants killed? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeap! You hit the nail. It is percentages all of what this discussion is about. Just one example, according to missionaries, Polynesians killed more than 50% of their babies. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Missionary records are, for obvious reasons, notoriously unreliable. Moreover, it is just as plausible that the colonial conditions that involved the very presense of missionaries is what may have led to any increase in infanticide - in other words, it is definitely not evidence that this was the infanticide rate prior to the arrival of missionaries. I am not playing with semantics, I am sticking to hard evidence. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The frequency? Or the meaning of it? Anti-Choice advocates consider abortion tantamount to infanticide, so why call a paleolithic society infanticidal, and not the US? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Same of what I said above. By the way, some child advocates that have nothing to do with the religious right consider abortion a sort of infanticide. The difference is that, to deMause, it is far more schizophrenogenic to watch a baby sister ritually sacrificed by the parents that knowing that mom has performed an abortion. The whole model has to do with what the surviving siblings might have felt (or actually felt, if you review the data of some decades ago by anthropologists who worked with primitives in New Guinea). —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • The model was developed by Lloyd deMause within the framework of psychohistory as part of a seven-stage sequence of psychogenic modes which describe the development of human cultures in their attitude to their children.

From everything I have read, Lloyd deMause represents a fringe approach within psychohistory. Does this concept have broader support among historians and psychologists? if not, I think calling it a "psychohistorical" theory is misleading. I think NPOV requires us to identify this simply as a theory of Lloyd deMause, and requires that we say something verifiable about the extent to which this concept or theory is fringe or notable, minority or majority, etc., i.e. what is its status among historians and scientists beyond deMause's circle of followers? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What is the status..? That it is a controversial field of study. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • The word "early" is meant to distinguish it from late infanticidal childrearing identified by deMause in relatively less barbarous established cultures in the ancient world.

The word "barbarous" was used originally to apply to all non-Greeks, and so would apply to Americans, Brits, etc. ... really, an empty word. In social science it was first advanced by Lewis Henry Morgan in his theory of cultural evolution - a theory which has been thoroughly discredited. The word has no scientific meaning. Anyone who wishes to use it as if it had some meaning in a scientific context is either engaged in pseudoscience or an extremely fringe form of social or human science. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that the word is un-encyclopedic. We must remove it. (However, I do think that, say, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia or Pol Pot’s Cambodia were more “barbarous” than the nations of today.) —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

None of these are paleolithic societies. If these are the basis o the model, then the model does not apply to paleolithic and pre-historic societies. Indeed, one would have to delete the sentence in the lead, that "Early" means early in history or in the cultural development of a society, not to the age of the child, because none of the societies mentioned are early in history or cultural development. We could say the model applies to non-state or non-market societies, or to horticultural or ranked societies - these are the most common ways of accurately identifying groups like the Yolngu and Gimi. If deMause identifies them as pre-historic, or paleolithic, or early in cultural development, then he is placing himself at the fringe of social sciences since no expert on these societies would accept those as accurate characterizations. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I surmise you know that psychohistorians are at war with anthropology on this point. You can see in the colored chart that the infanticidal mode of childrearing persists even in the 21st century (for instance, female babies are still thrown in China’s and India’s rivers). And yes: deMause and his followers believe in the evolvement of cultures. They reject the Boasian school. Childrearing practices do differ among the cultures. See for example the debate in talk:Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
You are repeating the same problem with the article itself - relying on a series of non-sequitors. No sentence in your response actually responds to any of my points in the paragraph above. I repeat, none of those societies were paleolithic. Your answer starts by saying there is a disagreement between anthropologists and psychohistorians on this point, but the rest of your paragraph supports precisely what I wrote! Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • 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.

Two problems. First, earlier, the article states that the model is based n anthropological data. The anthropological data in the studies cited overwhelmingly identify European colonization - the introduction first of extractivist economies (e.g. gold mining) and then the market economy, and the imposition of state control - as the principal cause of culture change in thse societies. If the article is correct that the model takes into account the data, then it cannot just assert this, it has to explain why deMause either ignores that data or how he comes to interpret it as secondary in importance. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

He does not ignore the data but interprets it in the opposite way: contact with Western cultures made these people become less infanticidal. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Based on what evidence? Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Second, anthropologists themselves experimented with theories drawn from Freud and his followers in the 1930s-1950s that applied to groups (societies) concepts first applied by psychoanalysts to individuals, i.e. that interpreted patterns in group behavior in terms of psychological consequences. After decades of research, anthropologists concluded that the data did not support this approach. My point is not that anthropologists reject deMause's approach. my point is that there was a peiod when anthropologists took psychoanalytic theory very seriously and applied it to the kinds of things deMause is talking about ... meaning, anthropologists are not so much rejecting deMause's approach as they are rejecting the approach of earlier anthropologists. Unless deMause engages these anthropological critiques of anthropological theory, again, he is locating himself at the fringe of academic debates. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I would rather say that he is locating himself along an analogous (though rather different) line of a school that Franz Boas and his followers managed to dethrone. I am talking about the evolutionist ideas (e.g., Leslie White in the 1950s). —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

A thoroughly weasel-sentence. This is just a long-winded way of saying anthropologists and deMause do not agree with one another. This was stated earlier in the article (in a sentence I do not quote because I do not take any exception to it). What is important is not that demause disagrees with anthropologists but rather why. But according to this, deMauss summarily rejects anthropological analysis. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Please remember the long flaming by Ark on this point. I do not think it is necessary to repeat it again. As I stated above, these excerpts of the flame give the picture. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This is simply not science, it is pure pseudoscience, since we have left the realm of reasons and evidence entirely. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • This model makes several claims: that childrearing in tribal societies included child sacrifice or high infanticide rates, incest, body mutilation, child rape and tortures, and that such activities were culturally acceptable. Psychohistorians do not claim that each child was killed, only that in some societies there was (or is) a selection process that would vary from culture to culture. In the Solomon Islands, for example, some people reportedly kill their first-born child. In other societies several female babies would be exposed to death or killed. The gist of deMause's point is that the surviving siblings of the sacrificed child will internalize a murderous super ego.

Mixing together infanticide (the focus of the article) with incest, bodily mutilation, child-rape, and torture does not really lend clarity to the article. As for the "gist," that sentence presents a hypothesis and one frankly that I find very interesting. But it is just a hypothesis. For this article to carry enough weight to sustain being an article, for it to meet our threshold of notability, it needs to do more than present a hypothesis. it has to go hrough the evidence and arguments that falsify or support the hypothesis. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a very interesting topic, Slrubenstein. I believe there is some evidence that people in the past were more dissociated psychologically than us. Are you familiar with Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind? —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

More confusion. Some states now - so it is not just "tribal" or paleolithic or prehistoric societies. And of course states today like the United States practice infanticide. This article is just very confusing. It is still entirely unclear why this is "early" infanticidal childrearing. Also, the clause "as explained in the...(table)" is misleading. The table provides no explanation, indeed, the article has yet to provide any explanation. The table just asserts a descriptive claim. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Slrubenstein: perhaps the best way to get the picture as to why psychohistorians believe that people in the past were far crueler than modern Westerners is to take a look at Human sacrifice in Aztec culture. Whereas I am not an apologist of the Spaniards, they certainly did not practice cannibalism, self-mutilation and child sacrifice. Again, the point is that surviving children of such a culture may have become more schizoid, or internalized a more murderous super-ego, than XVI-century Europeans. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Stimulated by Darwinian thought, 19th century British anthropology advanced a lineal, evolutionary sequence in a given culture from savagery to civilization (Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze age, etc.). The cultures were seen as a hierarchical ladder. For example, James George Frazer posited an universal progress from magical thinking to science. Most anthropologists of the late 19 century and early 20th century studied primitives outside Europe and North America. John Ferguson McLennan, Lewis Henry Morgan and others argued that there was a parallel development in social institutions.

This was the dominant theory in the 19th century, but it was not influenced by Darwin; in fact, Darwin's influence led to the rejection of this model. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The Encyclopædia Britannica does state that it was influenced by Darwin. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No, Boasian cultural relativism does not resist universal values. Most anthropologists are it is true dubious of claims of universal values, but then again, most philosophers have not gone very far in establishing substantive universalk values either. But for anthropologists this is a mater of common sense, not cultural relativism, which is for anthropologists primarily a methodological framework and not a moral stance. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I read the very long Encyclopædia Britannica on Anthropology and it seems to state otherwise. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I would recommend you read actual historians of anthropologists and anthropologists who are more reliable sources on this complex matter. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • It is understandable, therefore, that present-day anthropologists have been critical of the negative value judgments, and the lineal progression, in the new model advanced by psychohistorians as to what constitutes child abuse in either "primitive" or non-Western cultures.

This muddies the conflict. It is not really that anthropologistsw reject deMause's criticism of non-Western societies (there are plenty of anthropologists who are absolutely abhored by infanticide and rape in any society). The criticism is that deMause rejects any kind of local set of explanations for why people do things (including infanticide) and fails to provide evidence for his explanation from the society whose practices he claims to explain. The idea of cultural relativism here is that these practices make some sense (whether they are right or wrong) to people in Australia or New Guinea because they are in some way related to other beliefs and practices in that society. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Remember that guy, Ark, who always reminds my the troll that appeared in Harry Potter’s first film? :) Well, despite of his rudeness, he made a point: children are acultural and they feel as bad being sacrificed in the Paleolithic, in the Neolithic or in the Aztec culture. Since you include infanticide in your sentence above I wonder if you aren’t ignoring the pov of the child? DeMause does reject any kind of standard explanations (e.g., economics) that dismiss psychology and, more specifically, psychopathology. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • In return, psychohistorians accuse most anthropologists and ethnologists of being apologists for incest, infanticide, cannibalism and child sacrifice.

The article provides citations supporting the claim that psychohistorians level this accusation against anthropologists. But it provides no citations with evidence that any anthropologists (let alone most of them) are apologists for incest, infanticide, cannibalism, and shild sacrifice. What is the basis for this accusation? Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

At least I know that Géza Róheim was an apologist of all that, as can be seen in some of his statements. He said that New Guinea mothers who ate their children were good mothers. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd be curious to see the actual quote. Nevertheless, Geza Roheim is not a notable anthropologist, by any stretch of the imagination, and not representative. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Note by the way the slippage again from infanticide, the topic of this article, to cannibalism, incest, etc. It is hard not to interpret this whole article as a flimsy pretext to criticize anthropology, especially given the miserable job it does of explaining what exactly "Early infanticidal childrearing" is. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This is well explained in some of deMause’s online texts. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

One final point: infanticide means you kill a child. If the child is dead, it is impossible to rear the child. Thus, infanticidal childrearing is itself an oxymoron. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No oxymoron. As noted above, infanticidal childrearing means how the surviving siblings felt when they learned that a sister or brother had been sacrificed by their own parents. There is anthropological data of some decades ago suggesting that New Ginea kids became mentally disturbed and even suicidal. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In short, this article presents one interesting hypothesis. It does not explain the methodology by which the hypothesis would be texted/falsified, and provides no evidence to support the hypothesis. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Evidence is plenty that schizoid-type personalities, magical thinking and animism are far more common among primitives that in modern man. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
not really. anthropologists claimed this fifty years ago. There has been as much progress in cultural anthropology as there has been in genetics in the past fifty years. The schizoid personality hypothesis has been rejected and arguments about magical thinking and animism (which date to the 19th century) have been questioned and rejected by many as well. Science progresses with self-criticism and the accumulation of new knowledge. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This one interesting hypothesis is surrounded by a mass of contradictory, unclear and confused statements. The whole article is framed not as a scientific inquirey into the reasons for infanticide (presumably the issue at stake in the hypothesis); instead it is framed as a debate between moral absolutism and moral relativism - which makes the article at best confusing, at worse, disingenuous. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This can be corrected I guess. —Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

And it identifies moral relativism, a philosophical stance, with cultural relativism, an anthropological methodological and heuristic device, which betrays a serious ignorance of anthropology. Why go to all this effort ... unless one just is looking for reasons to criticize anthropology? hardly encyclopedic. And nothing has led me to think that this argument is anything more than a fringe theory of a fringe theory. Slrubenstein | Talk 05:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course, you or any editor is entitled to your opinions.
Finally, I just want to state that I am sorry that Ark behaved the way he did so many years ago. I hope I can collaborate in a more civil manner with you guys.
—Cesar Tort 08:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "There is no, zero, evidence to support the claim about paleolithic infanticide, none"
Are you familiar with the fossil remains of sacrificed pre-human children? —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Pre human children? You mean Australopithecenes? you have to provide me with the citations because no, I know of no studies of pre-human murder of children. As for the paleolithic, I am aware of the evidence thaat children were killed. But the context of and reasons for the killings are not clear. It is fantasy to call it "sacrifice" and the cases I know of it is likely that one band of people killed another band - including their children yes; violent, yes; horrid, yes; a cultural pattern for childrearing? No evidence. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Missionary records are, for obvious reasons, notoriously unreliable. Moreover, it is just as plausible that the colonial conditions that involved the very presense of missionaries is what may have led to any increase in infanticide - in other words, it is definitely not evidence that this was the infanticide rate prior to the arrival of missionaries. "
I have heard this argument in the most extreme proponents of what in Mexico call "Indigenism". Last year there was a huge meeting of scholars all over the world in Mexico City and the consensus is that Mesoamericans did indeed practice human sacrifice (a practice that the Spaniards forbid). Have you read the Aztec article I called your attention to? —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Why is it that when I talk about infanticide, you tell me I am wrong and go on to talk about human sacrifice? Yes, ztecs sacrificed prisoners of war. Now let's go back to the actual topic of infanticide. By the way, the Spaniards can make something illegal while setting into motion forces that lead to the escalation of the criminal practice; this was certainly the case with witchcraft accusations, for example, and seems to be the case with some examples of head-hunting. One must distinguish between a law and a practice. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Indeed, one would have to delete the sentence in the lead, that "Early" means early in history or in the cultural development of a society, not to the age of the child, [...]
As I told you, this was an inclusion of a confused editor. In deMausean model "Early" just means that: early in lineal history or in the cultural development of a given society. —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "No sentence in your response actually responds to any of my points in the paragraph above.[...] "
Sorry. I responded in a hurry and didn’t pay due attention. Now I briefly responded in my previous post. —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "Based on what evidence? "
Are you familiar with, say, the history of XVI century Mexico or Peru? There’re lots of XVI century texts that provide the evidence. The symposia of the international meeting I was talking about will be published this year. It’ll obviously be a reliable source. —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Evidence that infanticide went down during that period? What kind of evidence? Most forms of infanticide I know of are indistinguishable from other means by which a baby may die; I have seen cases of infanticide where a medical examiner would not have had any empirical basis for finding the cause of death to be homicide. I guess you would really need to rely on general statistics of infant mortality. The problem is, we have no statistics for infant mortality prior to the conquest. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "I'd be curious to see the actual quote. "
Child sacrifice “doesn't seem to have affected the personality development” of the surviving children, Roheim said, and in fact, he concluded, these were really “good mothers [who] eat their own children.” (Geza Roheim, Psychoanalysts and Anthropology: Culture, Personality and the tin-conscious. New York: International Universities Press, 1950, p. 62.) —Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, as I said, Roheim is an utterly non-notable anthropologist; International Universities Press is not a notable Press. Roheim worked in the 1930s - 1950s and anthropology has changed tremendously since then; he cerrtainly does not represent anthropology today or even over the past thirty or forty years, by any stretch of the imagination. One review by Melford Spiro of one of his books in American Anthropologist faults him for a lack of rigor and dogmatism. Another review by Morris Opler of annother book says his work is inadequarte and simplistic at best, and his interpretations reveal a Central european male arrogance. William Morgan, reviewing another book, says he typically overstates facts, distorts material and misleads readers. The book you cited was never reviewed in any publication of the AAA, the world's largest association of anthropologists with an international membership. I do not question that he wrote this; I do thinjk it is sily to hold it up as somehow representative of anthropology. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "arguments about magical thinking and animism (which date to the 19th century) have been questioned and rejected by many as well. "
I have studied the ancient history of Mexico. There is no doubt that Mesoamericans were embedded in a magical, animistic Weltanschauung before the Spanish conquest. Have you read something about this classic "clash of psychoclasses" (deMause's jargon) of why millions of American Indians immersed in magical thinking were so easily defeated by a few hundreds of men led by Cortés and Pizarro? Julian Jaynes wrote much about the latter case.
—Cesar Tort 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Have you read any of the anthropological critiques of the concept of "animism?" Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to go to work and can only offer a brief reply.

  • "Pre human children? You mean Australopithecenes? you have to provide me with the citations"
No: I meant after Australopitecus. I can search for the specific source later.
  • "Why is it that when I talk about infanticide, you tell me I am wrong and go on to talk about human sacrifice? Yes, Aztecs sacrificed prisoners of war. Now let's go back to the actual topic of infanticide."
Because Mesoamericans sacrificed lots of kids every year. Again, take a look at Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures.
  • "Evidence that infanticide went down during that period? What kind of evidence? [...].I guess you would really need to rely on general statistics of infant mortality. The problem is, we have no statistics for infant mortality prior to the conquest."
But we have what even Indigenistas call "the first ethnologist" in Mexico, Bernardino de Sahagún's encyclopedic work on the ideas and customs of the natives. Sahagún recounts the months of the Aztec calendar in which lots of children were ritually sacrificed (sometimes even cannibalized).
—Cesar Tort 14:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have found a couple of sources about infanticide in the Paleolithic. There is an unbalanced sex ratio, revealing female infanticide (Henri Vallois, "The Social life of Early Man: The Evidence of Skeletons" in Social Life of Early Man (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 255). More to the point: they left considerable evidence that they were cannibals, eating the brains of children (Johannes Maringer, The Gods of Prehistoric Man. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1956, pp. 10-19).

Also, "the slaughter of newborn babies may be considered a common event in many cultures," including "the Eskimos, Polynesians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Scandinavians, the Africans, the American Indians, and the Australian aboriginals." (A. Rascovsky, Filicide: The Murder, Humiliation, Mutilation, Denigration and Abandonment of Children by Parents, NJ: Aronson, p. 107).

—Cesar Tort 16:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OR tag

How can this article be OR if it is a mere regurgitation of what deMause has been called "Early infanticidal mode" or "childrearing" in his books and articles (e.g., The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 246f)?? See also this

—Cesar Tort 16:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Because regurgitation of one obscure writer's hypothesis (or whatever it is) and attempting to make it seem mainstream by adding unsourced material and additionally throwing in the names of a few other writers in a way that misleadingly indicates they are all referring to the same hypothetical construct is OR. Besides, using deMause as a source for deMause in not following WP:V but is rather using primary sources. You are using deMause to objectively support the accuracy and relevance of what deMause is saying. Mattisse 17:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What would you recommend? That we source all of the citation requests? And which specific sentences are misleading? As stated elsewhere, I cleaned up the article; didn't write all of it (with the exception of the paragraph that cites twice the Encyclopedia Britannica). —Cesar Tort 17:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I for one would recommend the deletion of this article. It reads as if it were written in the 18th century and is completely outside of notability. To say it is a fringe theory is a huge understatement.--Woland (talk) 17:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I would agree. All the hits on Google for the term "Early infanticidal childrearing" are to this article or mirror sites of Wikipedia using this article. It seems to have no independent meaning. Mattisse 18:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I see that no corresponding merging tag has been placed in the Infanticide article; and I wonder if those editors would be willing that a whole article such as this would be merged there (although I just noticed that the term "early infanticidal childrearing" appears there). What about merging it to psychohistory? As the initial sentence says, the whole article is an expansion of a section within the Psychohistory article.
—Cesar Tort 20:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I really don't think it belongs in the infanticide article, mostly because it just isn't notable enough. At the very minimun it should be merged with Psychohistory. In the mean time I think it should be redirected to that page. --Woland (talk) 22:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Now that I've tried to source the requested citations, could you tell me, Mattisse, which specific sentences are OR according to your perception (so that we may modify them and remove the OR tag)? —Cesar Tort 15:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Some cultures are more abusive to children

And Woland, BTW, this model could not have been developed neither in the 18th nor in the 19th century for the simple reason that the professionals who spoke out about child abuse in a major way is a 20th century phenomenon. It all started in the 1940s and 1950s with psychiatrists such as Theodore Lidz, Silvano Arieti and others.

—Cesar Tort 20:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I fully understand that. What I was saying is that the article is full of anachronistic language and ideas such as: contemporary-primitive societies, barbarous,that cultural change can be assessed as "advancement" or "regression", In the most primitive mode of childrearing. It is promoting a eurocentric, paternalistic world view that was dominant in previous centuries. They (i.e. psychohistorians) may be couching their rhetoric within a different framework but it is essentially the same. And all of that aside, any idea that simply dismisses an entire, well established, academic discipline is seriously suspect.--Woland (talk) 22:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The fact that psychohistory dismisses cultural relativism doesn't invalidate it.
You are Jewish Woland. Well: let me illustrate why pasychohistorians believe that some cultures treat children worse than other cultures.
Have you read The Land That Developmental Time Forgot by psychohistorian Robert Godwin? It pretty much demonstrates that children are more abused in Muslim countries than in Israel.
I don't see this as either eurocentric or paternalistic. Just stating the facts.
—Cesar Tort 22:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I am literally at a loss for words. --Woland (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A subject matter that is absolutely begging to be expanded and contextualised!!!!

Members watching WikiProject Anthropology were invited to have a look at this article and make comment! Having now done so, I wish to make the following comments:

1. the article presents readers with a single model (theory) of human childrearing practices many many milennia ago.

2. the model/theory is reported as having an 'origin'; it has a 'orginator'; it has a 'following'; it is discussed in a journal; and, it has advocates (of whom, from this talk page, it would seem Cesar Tort is one?!)

3. the article demonstrates the reach and unexpected benefits of the open Wikipedia editing processes; and I therefore give thanks to Wikipedia plus this article's author/s for bringing this model/theory about human childrearing to my attention??

4. the article does NOT however cover (and provide readers/users) with the FULL range and spectrum of models and theories surrounding human childrearing practices .. ONLY presenting users/readers with one of the more discomforting theories with some of the more unsavoury implications/connotations/applications (see controversy and controversy tags/talk above)

5. the article deals with a unversally significant, absolutely core subject matter of concern (interest?) to all parents with children ..and, therefore, it suffers from it's isolation from ALL other models and theories of human childrearing practices .. and it becomes most controversial by being the PRIMARY Wikipedia article specifically dealing with theories of human childrearing (search childrearing)

6. until such time as this article is contextualised within the full range and breadth of childrearing models and theories (past and present) .. dealing with such a significant, core human subject matter .. then, Popper and social science teaches us that the only way to bring balance (and reduce error) .. would be to also honestly report within this article, any existing reports/material that contradict (falsify the model/theory .. if there is any??

Perhaps a larger, more encompassing article on childrearing, (past and across cultures), is another one of those 'core' anthropological concepts upon which WikiProject Anthropology needs to work (along with those already identified on the project's talk page) .. perhaps as part of some future monthly collaboration?? Bruceanthro (talk) 03:36, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that instead of trying to fix this article to represent things like the consensus in anthropology (considering that it goes against pretty much all of anthropological thought since Boaz) that one or both of these things could be done: (1) renamed (it is a really strange title for an article) so that it is obvious that the topic is only linked to 'psychohistory,' (2) merge with the psychohistory article, perhaps with the help of Cesar Tort. --Woland (talk) 16:45, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer to rename it than to merge it. What about Infanticidal cultures? —Cesar Tort 16:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Still way too broad. I really feel like it would have to be some thing like Psychohistorical views on infanticide. I don't understand why you're against a merge though. Why do you think this needs it's own article? --Woland (talk) 17:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes: your title is better. Maybe it's a good idea to merge it. My concern was that if in the next decades psychohistory becomes less controversial, the other six childrearing modes may have their own articles. But this is wishful thinking... —Cesar Tort 17:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Go ahead and change the title then, since I don't think that anyone would disagree about that. That would seem, to me at least, to lessen the need for a merge (though others may disagree). I think you'll also have to fix links from other articles that direct there, so keep that in mind. If you need help let me know.
On a complete aside (and no offense intended) the reason it is 'controversial' is because of things I've already mentioned, specifically that it is in line with thought from previous centuries that have pretty much been washed away through academic research. In order for it to be less controversial it would have address the mountains of evidence collected within anthropology instead of simply asserting that it's wrong.--Woland (talk) 17:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with that. (Have you read this by the way?) I will move the page now. Thanks for the advice. —Cesar Tort 17:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I read some of it, if you care to know, its around paragraph six or seven that he starts to take a horribly wrong turn.--Woland (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
And what about this anthropologist? Has she also taken a wrong turn? —Cesar Tort 18:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban is not an anthropologist. Although her title is "professor of anthropology" which explains perhaps why you were misled, Cesar, she has a PhD. in Education and is not widely published in anthropology. I won't go into detail about the article you link except that most anthropologists do not mean what she means when she says "cultural relativism." I think the real problem in this discussion is Lloyd de Muase's overcompensation and continued splitting, perhaps as a result of a not-fully resolved Oedipal conflict concerning his relationship with freud. As de mause describes it, when he first turned to psychoanalysis he had a naive but strong attachment to Freud, which led him to identify non-Western societies with childhood and to identify both with some kind of unrepressed freedom. Freud said a lot of smart things, but if he ever identified contemporary non-Western peoples either with our (including their) paleolithic ancestors, or with "childhood," he was wrong. for what it is worth, this is a common mistake among Western thinkers but it is one that virtually all anthropologists rejected by the 1930s. To be clear: we are not now talking about "cultural relativism." We are talking about the identification of primitive people with paleolithic people with childhood. That is just false, unsupported by scientific evidence, and rejected by most anthropologists by the 1920s and virtually all by the 1930s. de Mause's symptomatic mistake was to believe (blindly? in terms of the oedipal drama?) Freud that non-Western people were unrepressed, and I am glad that de Mause came to reject his mistake, but all de Mause did was disown the symptom. Alas, he disowned it by manifesting a new symptom of the same underlying problem: his unresolved attachment to freud. As is typical in the case of many such unresolved attachments the symptoms take the form of splitting. Originally de Mause viewed non-Western peoples as unrepressed, representing some kind of ideal. Now he views them as the polar opposite, as people who devour and traumatise their own children, who grow up caught in a cycle of fear and hate. The problem is that this view of non-Western people is as false as de Mause's earlier view. I suspect that the pathology present here is a projection of de Mause's desire to murder Freud, his original psychological father-figure, projected onto the primitive people who are symbolic substitutes for de Mause's own view of himself as Freud's naive (and abused) child. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that de Mause really was Freud's child or that de Mause was actually a child when he experienced this; I think de Mause's childishness is the subconscious and internal projection of his own unconscious understanding of his relationship with Freud which in objective terms of course was not one of child to parent but of one scholar to another ... but I think de Mause experienced his initial turn to psychoanalysis as childish, and thus viewed Freud as the father, ultimately the abusive father who had to be rejected, a rejection which of course could only be metaphorical and took the form not only of rejecting freudian theory but of rejecting de mause's original understanding of childhood and in the signifying chain of his own unconscious, his identifications with non-Western (i.e. "childish") peoples.

I will not presume to suggest what would be a healthy relationship between de Mause and Freud. Obviously in metaphorically "killing" the "abusive" father (Freud) and taking his place (by founding his own school of psychonalytic theory) de Mause has channeled his aggressions in a very constructive way and perhaps we can say in a way that has benefited others.

But his attitudes towards childhood, especially vis a vis non-Western peoples, still reflects an unresolved pathology and it is easy to suggest what a healthy attitude would be. instead of splitting, and viewing non-Western people as wither wholly good or wholly bad, he would see that, like us, they have good and bad characteristics. Some are good parents, who are undefensive and do not project onto their children, who form healthy attachments with their children that mature into healthy relations between adults who can both respect one another's autonomy while also providing a healthy affection and concern for one another that is appropriate between adults. Other parents are physically abusive. Others are emotionally abusive. others try their best but, like most neurotic parents everywhere, manage to screw up their kids. Are these societies perfect? No. There is much to admire in them, and also things we can condemn or pity. They are a mix. This is by the way the view that most anthropologists - even the most devout cultural relativists - have of the peoples they study, whether Western or non-Western. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

You have advanced quite a Freudian interpretation of deMause's motives, which wholly differs by the way with his own interpretation of what dragged him into his chosen field of inquiry, as confessed in the above-linked essay On writing childhood history. I wonder, however, if this page is not becoming more of a Soapboax that it should? —Cesar Tort 17:21, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it probably is becoming too much of a soap-box. I still think there are major flaws with this article. For what it is worth, I think you have made significant improvements to the main Psychohistory article, well-done! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] flaws

How can we correct the flaws? Way above I asked Mattisse what could be done to remove the OR tag (frankly, I see no OR at all, but I must concede he is far more knowledgeable of WP policies than me). I am still awaiting for an answer to that question. —Cesar Tort 17:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I went through a detailed list of what I thought was wrong with the article. Many of your responses were defensive. At best - i am assuming good faith - you were trying to explain your point of view rather than understand my point of view. I would suggest that you try responding to my comments in a more compromising spirit (if you wonder why I won't be compromising, I tell you this: I did not delete a single sentence I find problematic. I did not change a single sentence I find problematic so it would reflect my view. This is my spirit of compromise: rather than change the article unilaterally, I try to explain my concerns on the talk page). Try to understand my concerns. In some case, it is a matter of POV: ultimately, anthropologists and psychohistorians may simply disagree. Since Wikipedia believes in verifiability, not truth, that is okay, as long as it is very clear that this is what psychohistorians claim, and not "the truth." But I would go further. For example - just an example - the claim that this form of childrearing is found in historical societies AND pre-historical societies just sounds dumb. Why not say "all societies?" If it is not found in all societies, then the text has to be clearer and more precise. For example - lumping paleolithic societies with contemporary hunter-gatherers is for anthropologists bad science. Let's agree to disagree - people can do that. But the article would still be better if it could explain why psychohistorians lump together people who lived 10,000 years aparrt in different social as well as physical environments. Do psychohistorians and anthropologists disagree because psychohistory does not claim to be a science and does not hold itself to the scientific standards of anthropology? Or does psychohistory consider itself a science and appeal either to different evidence or different logic? Or is this a misunderstanding/misrepresentation, maybve psychohistorians do not really claim this? Or do anthropologists and psychoistorians define terms differently, leading to misunderstanding? These are just two examples. In every case i think if you want to improve the article there is a simple algorithm you could apply to my criticisms of the article, if you really want to act in good faith and begin by assuming my criticisms were in good faith:
  1. Does the sentence I criticize accurately reflect what psychohistorians really have claimed?
  2. Is the sentence as clear as it can be?
  3. Do special terms have to be defined, or explained more precisely?
  4. Can the evidence relied on be described in greater detail?
  5. Can the reasons for interpreting the evidence a certain way be explained more clearly?

There are probably other things to ask that could lead to fruitful revisions, this is just a starter. Finally, I think that the article must retreat fom overgeneralizations. Instead of saying When criticizing anthropology, for example, do not say "anthropologists;" name the actual anthropologists. Be aware that de mause's interpretation of the anthropologists' intented meaning may not be what the anthropologist thinks s/he intended to say. Be aware that an anthropologist who wrote something may not be a prominent anthropologist; one can criticize an individual without condemning a whole group of individuals whose work you have not read. I hope this helps. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I will re-read the article and try to change it. Meanwhile:
*"Why not say "all societies?" If it is not found in all societies, then the text has to be clearer and more precise."
Of course it is found in all societies! Anyone who has studied this chart carefully —:
Image:Evolution of psychogenic modes.png
—would notice that the long "infanticidal" scarlet red strip at the bottom goes from 200 A.D. to the present day "in advanced nations", which means the West (although far less common in our hemisphere than, say, today's deadly exposure of baby girls in Asia).
  • "Or does psychohistory consider itself a science and appeal either to different evidence or different logic? [...] 5. Can the reasons for interpreting the evidence a certain way be explained more clearly?"
I believe that both anthropologists and psychohistorians agree with the data. The disagreement, as can be fairly illustrated in my fiendly discussion with Woland, is mainly about the interpretation of the data. Trying to approach the phenomenon of man and social science with the rules of hard science has its roots some Enlightenment writers. To do it from developmental psychology, and more precisely thru attachment theory, is a far more recent approach. Psychohistorians are light-years closer to John Bowlby than to Freud (who IMHO was "the Vienna quack", as Nabokov called him).
—Cesar Tort 20:04, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Cesar, please do not take this the wrong way, but: I don't care. wrote my comments because you wanted suggestions on how to improve the article, not in order to have a conversation with you. If my suggestions are constructive, great, go improve the article. If they aren't, so be it. But this isn't a chat room. Don't take this personally or get defensive, this is not about you and I having a dialogue it is about improving the article. Maybe this is why all your responses to my comments above seem to me to be defensive. My comments are about what I believe is wrong about the article. I do not care what you believe. But instead of responding to my comments by improving the article, you responded to me. Your responding to me does nothing to improve the article. If you think you are doing something that benefits me, you are wrong - not only in that your responses do not benefit me, but in that this talk page is not about my benefit and that is not why I wrote comments. If you think you were doing something that made you feel good, well, that is not what talk pages are for either. it is solely for discussing improvments to the article. I spelled out what I see wrong. If what I say is unconstructive ignore it. If it is constructive make changes to the article. Either way, there is no reason to respond to me. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

As one of my wikipedian friends said above, I am "literally at a loss for words" :) Cesar Tort 03:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Context

The context for a paragraph in the critical section is this:

“ When I published the results of my research into both historical and cross-cultural childhoods, documenting how childhood both in the past and in other cultures has been massively idealized, both historians and anthropologists concluded that I surely must have been mad. As Melvin Konner put it in his book Childhood:
Lloyd deMause, then editor of the History of Childhood Quarterly, claimed that all past societies treated children brutally, and that all historical change in their treatment has been a fairly steady improvement toward the kind and gentle standards we now set and more or less meet. [...] Now anthropologists — and many historians as well — were slack-jawed and nearly speechless. [...] Serious students of the anthropology of childhood beginning with Margaret Mead have called attention to the pervasive love and care lavished on children in many traditional cultures.

The only way to disprove this widespread opinion about parenting in traditional cultures is to examine what anthropologists have written and see whether their evidence actually shows something other than "pervasive love and care lavished on children". In order that the effects of culture contact with the West may be kept to a minimum, I will concentrate here on child rearing in New Guinea, with a few forays into nearby areas, because Western contact was in these areas both late and minimal as compared with Africa and other areas. [...]

Margaret Mead, for instance, kept infanticide out of the published reports, but wrote in her letters such observations as "we've had one corpse float by, a newborn infant; they are always throwing away infants here." [...] Anthropologists commonly pass over these statistics quickly. [The Emotional Life of Nations, Ch. 7, pp. 257-259]

 ”

I wonder if some balancing context ought to be included in the criticism section? —Cesar Tort 09:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)