one of the best, most succinct takes on the psychology behind this (literally) incredible mess. Unfortunately I've lost a lot of friends over this, even some non-Jews
or another take could be (historically to a degree in reports, but whether true?) that the Jewish people (some) were persecuted because they tended to exhibit an air of superiority. Certainly Ezra persecuted his own that did not follow his religious autocracy; The Maccabean revolt likewise; the Pharisees were persecuted by Herod and by the Sadducean-Roman alliance and themselves persecuted anyone who didn't include their own followers; including hassling (beating) Roman citizens and eventually Roman authority. Whether this remained true in the European dispersal, Shylock did not come out of nowhere.
But these are generalizations, as are such declarations of individuals in a group. It seems today in Israel many are opposed to the aggrresive treatment of the Palestinians. But the IDF is a citizen's army.
As to fathers who beat their kids---maybe they are beaten by their fathers---and perhaps they are just beaten down by an unjust system. The answer may be something wrong with the stresses put up on nuclear families instead of larger kin families, where the nuclear family tends to frequently view the kids belonging to them, while the larger kin family view children as a part of the kin group.
I'm sure there are "good" nuclear families. I didn't grow up in one---and I don't personally know anyone who did.
Well this is 1980s Bulgaria, so no such thing as nuclear family, almost everyone had relatives around that met childcare needs. In my very lucky case, all the grandparents were wonderful.
then my question would be, how did the father succeed in his beating of the children with no opposition from the extended family, or why was he not simply expelled from the family, as the historical record indicates would have been the norm.
I honestly don't know. I ask my mother now, why we spent any time with them, given his brutality against his kids. btw, his daughter, who was a little older, had a kidney problem, which led her to pee herself in school. This guy decided that she was doing it as some kind of sophisticated mental manipulation. Well it turned out the girl had kidney disease.
Different times I guess. My parents NEVER did corporeal punishment, but a lot of people did at the time. So it seemed within the norm to be friends with someone who hit his kids, even though now you'd call the authorities.
My childhood was like this. But my dad tells me stories of his childhood in a village in northern Pakistan where he justifies that his parents beat him to discipline him because if they didn’t drive the lesson home he would have been dead very quickly. He tells me of a time where he almost got sexually assaulted in the middle of a river on a ferry and has to jump into the river and swim away. And that’s like… only what I can share here lol. When I was a kid he hit me “less”, but I’m no less resentful about it. Animals will hit their children to get them to learn to not be eaten. But we shouldn’t aspire to such a world. To Ken, the joint family prevents devastating damage, and keeps the worst in line but if everyone is suffering from generational trauma… know what I mean?
Well my parents definitily hit me once or twice (which they are in denial about) and it was definitely from some sense of "It's for your own good" than sadism, like the guy I wrote about. So I'm not mad at them about it, and I certainly don't think it traumatized me. I don't know. Everyone has to reckon with what this stuff means in childhood.
As a youth, leaving on military bases, I remember a group discussion (roughly 40 classmates) and I was the only one who had never suffered physical abuse. On the other hand, I was never embraced or saw anyone embraced and I spent as little time in the home as possible, preferring to be anywhere else. On the other hand, while my father departed shortly after my birth to Okinawa and then to Korea; my mother, kicked out from her own family when she became pregnant, moved in with my paternal grandparents, and I remained close to them although I have no recollections of the earlier, nevertheless the early bond that must have been formed remained.
Later in life, when my first wife left me with an infant daughter, I remember an incident when she was nearing four and the daughter was being abnormally (for her) rambunctious, I told her to settle down or I would spank and she piped back, "no you won't." " Why won't I?" I responded.
"Because you don't believe in spanking"
And of course, negative "rewards"; i.e.punishment, has been consistently demonstrated to (almost) never have the intended consequence of behavioral change. Even Skinner, in his behavioral studies, found that to be true, and "escape" or "avoidance" techniques would develop.
I wish I knew the answer to violence, but as your article illustrates, violence begets itself.
one of the best, most succinct takes on the psychology behind this (literally) incredible mess. Unfortunately I've lost a lot of friends over this, even some non-Jews
or another take could be (historically to a degree in reports, but whether true?) that the Jewish people (some) were persecuted because they tended to exhibit an air of superiority. Certainly Ezra persecuted his own that did not follow his religious autocracy; The Maccabean revolt likewise; the Pharisees were persecuted by Herod and by the Sadducean-Roman alliance and themselves persecuted anyone who didn't include their own followers; including hassling (beating) Roman citizens and eventually Roman authority. Whether this remained true in the European dispersal, Shylock did not come out of nowhere.
But these are generalizations, as are such declarations of individuals in a group. It seems today in Israel many are opposed to the aggrresive treatment of the Palestinians. But the IDF is a citizen's army.
As to fathers who beat their kids---maybe they are beaten by their fathers---and perhaps they are just beaten down by an unjust system. The answer may be something wrong with the stresses put up on nuclear families instead of larger kin families, where the nuclear family tends to frequently view the kids belonging to them, while the larger kin family view children as a part of the kin group.
I'm sure there are "good" nuclear families. I didn't grow up in one---and I don't personally know anyone who did.
Well this is 1980s Bulgaria, so no such thing as nuclear family, almost everyone had relatives around that met childcare needs. In my very lucky case, all the grandparents were wonderful.
then my question would be, how did the father succeed in his beating of the children with no opposition from the extended family, or why was he not simply expelled from the family, as the historical record indicates would have been the norm.
I honestly don't know. I ask my mother now, why we spent any time with them, given his brutality against his kids. btw, his daughter, who was a little older, had a kidney problem, which led her to pee herself in school. This guy decided that she was doing it as some kind of sophisticated mental manipulation. Well it turned out the girl had kidney disease.
Different times I guess. My parents NEVER did corporeal punishment, but a lot of people did at the time. So it seemed within the norm to be friends with someone who hit his kids, even though now you'd call the authorities.
My childhood was like this. But my dad tells me stories of his childhood in a village in northern Pakistan where he justifies that his parents beat him to discipline him because if they didn’t drive the lesson home he would have been dead very quickly. He tells me of a time where he almost got sexually assaulted in the middle of a river on a ferry and has to jump into the river and swim away. And that’s like… only what I can share here lol. When I was a kid he hit me “less”, but I’m no less resentful about it. Animals will hit their children to get them to learn to not be eaten. But we shouldn’t aspire to such a world. To Ken, the joint family prevents devastating damage, and keeps the worst in line but if everyone is suffering from generational trauma… know what I mean?
Well my parents definitily hit me once or twice (which they are in denial about) and it was definitely from some sense of "It's for your own good" than sadism, like the guy I wrote about. So I'm not mad at them about it, and I certainly don't think it traumatized me. I don't know. Everyone has to reckon with what this stuff means in childhood.
Also I know my dad loves me in spite of all of this.
As a youth, leaving on military bases, I remember a group discussion (roughly 40 classmates) and I was the only one who had never suffered physical abuse. On the other hand, I was never embraced or saw anyone embraced and I spent as little time in the home as possible, preferring to be anywhere else. On the other hand, while my father departed shortly after my birth to Okinawa and then to Korea; my mother, kicked out from her own family when she became pregnant, moved in with my paternal grandparents, and I remained close to them although I have no recollections of the earlier, nevertheless the early bond that must have been formed remained.
Later in life, when my first wife left me with an infant daughter, I remember an incident when she was nearing four and the daughter was being abnormally (for her) rambunctious, I told her to settle down or I would spank and she piped back, "no you won't." " Why won't I?" I responded.
"Because you don't believe in spanking"
And of course, negative "rewards"; i.e.punishment, has been consistently demonstrated to (almost) never have the intended consequence of behavioral change. Even Skinner, in his behavioral studies, found that to be true, and "escape" or "avoidance" techniques would develop.
I wish I knew the answer to violence, but as your article illustrates, violence begets itself.