Mike Palij writes: >Again, to be clear, the CBS miniseries controversy seems to >match some of the characterizations that Joan mentioned in >her post but it possible that there is some other project that >actually was cancelled.
Joan Warmbold wrote: >….do any of you recall that a production of Hitler's life was >planned for HBO or PBS but was canceled as it provided >some objective information about his abusive childhood. >I guess many folks prefer to believe the "bad seed" theory >as opposed to the influence of violence in a child's early >years. Please do check out the sources provided below >as my guess is that many of you are not aware of Hitler's >brutal childhood. Joan's second sentence is clearly (to me at least) suggesting that the miniseries was cancelled not just because it cited *Hitler's* abusive childhood but as more general evidence that the notion that childhood abuse may cause abusive behaviour in adulthood was being suppressed. But the items Mike cites are *specific to Hitler*, and indicate concern about how emphasis on his childhood experiences might be interpreted in some degree an excuse for *Hitler's* murderous behaviour, as the New York Times article to which Mike linked makes clear: >By focusing on Hitler's younger years, these critics worry, >the program will not include the main and essential ingredients >of Hitler's wickedness: Auschwitz, the Gestapo, the Final >Solution, 50 million dead across Europe. And by leaving all >that out, some people say, a film focusing on Hitler's childhood >might give him a kind of abuse excuse, portraying him as a >lonely, mistreated child of the sort for whom today's youths >might even experience a degree of fellow feeling. To generalise from the unique case of concerns about how the monstrous Hitler is depicted in a TV documentary to the (surely implied) suggestion that the motivation was within a context of suppression of the very notion of an abusive childhood being a cause of violent behaviour in adulthood seems to me to be an unjustified extrapolation. I don't know what the situation is in the States, but the notion that violent people will very likely have had an abusive childhood is frequently expressed in the media in the UK. I find it hard to believe it is so very different in the States, in which case it would indicate that the case of the Hitler documentary is highly specific to Hitler, and shouldn't be generalised to suggest a virtual conspiracy to suppress the notion itself. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London allenester...@compuserve.com http://www.esterson.org ---------------------------------------------------------- From: Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu> Subject: Re: Raising Hitler to be "a nice person" Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:41:51 -0400 On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:27:36 -0700, Allen Esterson wrote: >Thank, Mike, for your very comprehensive response to my queries >regarding Joan's posting. Again, to be clear, the CBS miniseries controversy seems to match some of the characterizations that Joan mentioned in her post but it possible that there is some other project that actually was cancelled. >Mike writes: >>Kershaw's biography paints a bleak life for the young Hitler, for >>example, quote Hitler's sister and saying that his bad relationship >>with his father resulted in a "sound thrashing every day"; see: http://books.google.com/books?id=nV-N10gyoFwC&lpg=PA13&dq=kershaw%20hitler%20thrashing%20harshness&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false >(bottom of page 12-13). > >Thanks (again) for that, Mike. I've ordered Kershaw's book, but >in the meantime, could you give me the reference citation for the >above quote from Hitler's sister. Although parts of Kershaw is availabe for preview, the notes section is not but the contextual info says that it was an interview done on June 5, 1946 by the U.S. Army at Berchtesgaden. Harold Marcuse has a link to this interview but it leads to a dead geocities page on Yahoo. A Google search turns up the following webpage which contains the interview and Kershaw's quote is located about midpage (there may be other websites that have more formal/academic connections); see: http://www.oradour.info/appendix/paula01.htm The relevant paragraph is this: |It was especially my brother Adolf, who challenged my father |to extreme harshness and who got his sound thrashing every day. |He was a scrubby little rogue, and all attempts of his father to |thrash him for his rudeness and to cause him to love the profession |of an official of the estate were in vain. How often on the other |hand did my mother caress him and try to obtain with her kindness, |were the father could not succeed with harshness! At the bottom of the page are comments by the interview about his (?) assessment of Paula (Wolf) Hitler's (she changed her name from Hitler to Wolf at some point during the 1930s) veracity. Though most of what she said appears to be consistent with her oath to tell the truth, some of her statements are not believed to be truth, such as: |I do not believe that my brother ordered the crime committed |to innumerable human beings in the concentration - camps or that |he even knew of these crimes. It may be possible however, that |the hard years during his youth in Vienna caused his anti-Jewish |attitude. He was starving severely in Vienna and he believed that |his failure in painting was only due to the fact that trade in works |of art was in Jewish hands. There are other websites containing info on Paula Hitler/Wolf(f), one of which is in the U.K.; see: http://www.paulahitler.btinternet.co.uk/ >Mike writes in relation to Alice Miller's books: >>I'll leave it to one of the clinical psychologists to point >>out the problems with Miller's approach to psychotherapy. > >One doesn't have to be a clinical psychologist to comment on Miller's >approach to psychotherapy. I'm fairly familiar with her writings, >having sought out the passages on Freud's seduction theory in several >of her books in the preparation for my article "The Myth of Freud's >Ostracism by the Medical Community in 1896-1905: Jeffrey Masson's >Assault on Truth", in which she gets a passing mention: > http://www.esterson.org/Myth_of_Freuds_ostracism.htm I made the suggestion for clinical psychologists because, regardless of the connection to Freud, her work seems to be related to other theoretical position, especially with Miller's focus on the importance of experience in the first three years and how these experiences affect the "brain" for the rest of one's life. Here is a link to a 1998 presentation made at the "92nd Street Y" in NYC where she lays out her position (which seems to rely relatively little on Freud); see: http://www.vachss.com/guest_dispatches/alice_miller2.html >I can't comment generally on her historical research, but on the >seduction theory episode she gets just about everything wrong. In >regard to her therapeutic approach, her contention is that virtually >all the evils that beset humankind, outside of events in the natural >world (for want of a better expression), are the result of the >experiencing of physical and emotional abuse in childhood. Her >methodology is such that she always, apparently without exception, >finds this to be the case, both with individual patients and in the >case of historical figures. To cite just one example, in *Banished >Knowledge* she writes that one specific case "confirmed something >I have long suspected: A child's autism is a response to his environment, >the last possible response open to a child." Well, her "explanation" aside, the larger issue is what to make of early childhood experience and to what extent do they have lifelong effects. It seems that a general thesis that Miller is asserting is that "adult problems have their roots in childhood experience" and one doesn't have to be Freudian to have such a view (though that is Miller's chosen theory). Regardless of theoretical framework, there is the question of what is the effect of early childhood abuse (i.e., physical, sexual, emotional), "normal punishment" by parents who believe in the power of corporal punishment, and childrearing practices that are "stern" or "authoritarian". Given what Lovaas originally said about his ability to change a 4-5 year old, here is what Miller had to say (quoting from Miller's YMHA presentation): |At that time I quoted in For Your Own Good at length the |pedagogical advice given to parents in Germany a century ago, |and detailed what I believed to be a connection between the |systematic cruelty of these methods and the systematic cruelty |of Hitler's executioners forty years later. The numerous and |widely-read tracts by Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Schreber, the inventor |of the Schreberg?rten (the German word for "small allotments"), |are of major interest here. Some of his books ran to as many as |forty editions around the year 1860, and their central concern |was to instruct parents in the systematic upbringing of infants |from the very first day of life. Many people—motivated by what |they thought to be the best of intentions—complied with the |advice given them by Schreber and other authors about how |best to raise their children. Today we would call it a systematic |instruction in child persecution and maltreatment. One of Schreber's |convictions was that when babies cry they should be made to |desist by the use of spanking, assuring his readers that "such a |procedure is only necessary once, or at the most twice, and |then one is master of the child for all time. From then on, one |look, one single gesture will suffice." Above all, these books |counseled that the newborn child should be forced from the |very first day to obey and to refrain from crying. | |We all know—or, today, we should all know—that physical |punishment only produces obedient children but cannot prevent |them from becoming violent or sick adults precisely because of |this treatment. This knowledge is now scientifically proven and |was finally officially accepted by the American Academy of |Pediatrics in 1998. Contrary to common opinion prevalent as |recently as fifteen years ago, the human brain at birth is far from |being fully developed. It is use-dependent, needing loving |stimulation for the child from her first day on. The abilities a |person's brain can develop depend on experiences in the first |three years of life. A contrary perspective, called the "indeterminist thesis" by some, is summarized in the following quote from the PsycCritiques book review by John Bruer of Clarke and Clarke's book: |A Path Not Taken |A Review of |Early Experience and the Life Path |by Ann M. Clarke and Alan D. B. Clarke |London: Jessica Kingsley, 2000. 127 pp. ISBN 1-85302-858-4. $19.95 |paperback |doi: 10.1037/001116 |Reviewed by John T. Bruer | |“Whether or not a child becomes a toxic or nontoxic member of |society is largely determined by what happens to the child in terms |of his experiences with his parents and primary caregivers in those |first three years” (Barton, 1998). This statement, made by the actor |Rob Reiner to county government officials in 1998 promoting his |I Am Your Child campaign, is a strong formulation of the thesis of |infant determinism. Infant determinism is the doctrine that early |childhood experiences have irreversible, lifelong effects. A child's |first steps on the path of life determine the child's final destination. |Judging from policy discussions, media coverage, and conversations |with parents, infant determinism is extremely popular. | |“The effects of early experiences, important at the time, will only be |prolonged if similar experiences follow” (p. 22). This quote is Ann |and Allen Clarkes' thesis in Early Experience and the Life Path. |Their statement captures a view of child development that emphasizes |long-term complexity and indeterminism. The first steps on life's path |are important, but still leave many routes open to diverse outcomes. |This indeterminist thesis is relatively unpopular in policy, parenting, |and even some academic circles. The rest of Bruer's review can be accessed through PsycCritiques. Bruer has been an advocate for the indeterminist thesis for some time. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4509 or send a blank email to leave-4509-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
