Emotional Life of Nations

Rating:
Summary: Flawed....but read-worthy
Review: "...DeMause's "history" only goes back a millenium or two and does not leave the precincts of the Western world. His work supports the contention of this book-that there are profound psychic dislocations at the root of modern society-but he offers for comparison no archetype, no healthy paradigms for human groups.........I am encouraged by several anthropological friends to think, on the contrary, that there have been and are societies in which a demonstrable affection for children is manifest in loving concern and a benign strategy of appropriate age-grade care that fosters their growth toward maturity and the capacity of wisdom and mentorship." Not my words, but those of Paul Shepard in the introduction to his "Nature and Madness". And although he was referring to DeMause's "The History of Childhood", his arguments apply equally to "The Emotional Life of Nations". I am inclined to agree with Shepard and like writers. Cultures that practiced benign childrearing existed, but perhaps were few and are being lost to, or modified by, more violent and virulent ones like our own. DeMause argues that childrearing has steadily improved, evolving from child as provider of sexual gratification (!?) toward child as recipient of love and affection. His criteria for this are the decrease in homicide and violent crime as we come to the present. But many have considered the 20th century as one of the bloodiest with a scale of warfare not witnessed in any previous era. And forms of violence such as environmental destruction and coerced labor are not, but should be, figured into this assessment. None of this even addresses the fact that DeMause's vision of an ever-improving human as a by-product of intellect/love is very Judeo-Christian, much along the lines of an earthly human ascending towards heaven. Finally, women readers may detect intense "injured male syndrome" in the focus of DeMause's arguments on sex: Some of his rants seem to emanate more from personal trauma than drawing on research.

DeMause's expose of aboriginals of New Guinea is used to debunk the popular myth that such tribal groups are characterized by a peaceful, benevolent peopled that raise their children likewise. His point that anthropologists like Mead glossed over infanticide and abuse practiced by these New Guineas may be correct, but to accept this should not be the basis to indict all other cultures of the same. Perhaps some of the best information to be gleaned from "Nations" (and potentially as spring-board for a new analysis?) regards the psychic ramifications of children being confined by either swaddling or cribs and left stewing in their own excrement: What does this ultimately do to the person's adult view of their body specifically and the organic/earth in general? Finally, DeMause's depiction of the Community Parenting Centers as a nucleus for more loving parenting in the last chapter of "Nations" is flawed in that (a) it gives no descriptions as to how these centers are run vis-à-vis the current work/labor regimen of parents in our society, and (b) it suggests an improvement of the human condition that has no relationship to nature, i.e. it takes place in the inner city. In contrast to DeMause, I would say that healthy parents, few in number as they may have been, have been able to raise healthy children the world over and throughout time...DESPITE the cultural paradigm in which they may find themselves. Further I would argue that some cultures, not including ours (Western), were more supportive of healthy child-rearing habits.

Although flawed in its overgeneralization of all human societies being abusive to children and what the historical/biological roots of this were, DeMause's notions that child abuse has characterized civilizations globally and throughout time and indeed causes the production of a violent and potentially homicidal populace, are well founded. This is consistent with the observation that although some abused children may grow up into healthy adults, except in very rare cases, violently disturbed adults generally are the product of abusive childhoods. This may be extrapolated to the root cause of violent or psychologically-impaired societies, as Freud and Fromm alluded to. For this reason, I give "Nations" a four-star rating. I encourage readers to obtain a copy of "The Emotional Life of Nations"....and balance it with a read of Paul Shepard's "Nature and Madness", Calvin Luther Martin's "In the Spirit of the Earth: Rethinking History and Time" and Jean Liedloff's "The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost". Combined, these are powerful views of the place that we have come from in this world and where, before it's too late, we still may be able to go.

Rating:
Summary: A Revolutionary Look at History, Past and Present
Review: I should acknowledge at the outset that upon my first exposure to the ideas and writings of Lloyd deMause some twelve years ago, something inside me "snapped," and I have not since then been able to think about history, politics and culture the same way. Immanuel Kant is properly regarded as the first truly modern philosopher because he was the first to shift the fundamental phiolosophical problematic to the nature of the knower, rather than complacently accepting the human mind as accurately reflecting reality. Similarly, deMause's writings achieve an equally revolutionary effect by turning the historical telescope around, looking through the other end, and seeing historical events caused by the evolving human mind, rther than conditioned by the events of history.
"The Emotional Life of Nations" represents the fruit of a lifetime of thought and research into the relationship between history and the evolution of childrearing. DeMause teaches us that we cannot understand history without appreciating that the unit of history is not the individual, culture, or nation, but the evolving mother-infant diad, where the original "breach with nature" occurs."

Robert Godwin, Book Review in The Journal of Psychohistory

Rating:
Summary: An astonishing book
Review: It's a shame that Dr. deMause hasn't been consulted recently by some of the top-levels of the US-government.

His analysis of so-called "group-fantasies" just might turn out to be one of the most usefull and effective tools ever developed in human history in predicting collective processes and tendencies.

A man who not only succeeded in successfully predicting the murderous attack on President Ronald Reagan, but also the outbreak of the Gulf-war, just by listening very carefully to the "belly of the nation" should be considered as a very precious and innovative scientist indeed.

Nothing "paranormal" about this at all. >:-)

Bert