All That We Are is the Result of What We Have Thought
ALL THAT WE ARE IS THE RESULT OF WHAT WE HAVE THOUGHT Guy Burneko Golden Gate University, San Francisco The young child which lieth in the cradle is both wayward and full of affections; and though his body be but small, yet he hath a reat [wrong–doing] heart, and is altogether inclined to evil. . . . If this sparkle be suffered to increase, it will rage over and burn down the whole house. For we are changed and become good not by birth but by education . . . . Therefore parents must be wary and circumspect . . . they must correct and sharply reprove their children for saying or doing ill. ROBERT CLEAVER AND JOHN DOD, A Godly Form of Household Government (1621)
The gentle rod of the mother is a very soft and gentle thing; it will break neither bone nore skin; yet by the blessing of God with it, and upon the wise application of it, it would break the bond that bindeth up corruption in the heart . . . . Withhold not correction from the child, for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die, thou shalt beat him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell. JOHN ELIOT, The Harmony of the Gospels (1678) It is quite natural for the child's soul to want to have a will of its own, and things that are not done correctly in the first two years will be difficult to rectify thereafter. One of the advantages of these early years is that then force and compulsion can be used. Over the years children forget everything that happened to them in early childhood. If their wills can be broken at this time, they will never remember afterwards that they had a will, and for this very reason the severity that is required will not have any serious consequences. J. SULZER, “Versuch von der Erziehung und Unterweisung der Kinder” [An Essay on the Education and Instruction of Children] (1748) It was constantly impressed upon me in forceful terms that I must obey promptly the wishes and commands of my parents, teachers, and priests, and indeed of all grown–up people, including servants, and that nothing must distract me from this duty. Whatever they said was always right. These basic principles by which I was brought up became second nature to me. RUDOLF HÖSS, Commandant at Auschwitz What good fortune for those in power that people do not think ADOLF HITLER Alice Miller. For Your Own Good:–Hidden Cruelty in Child–rearing and the Roots of Violence. (New Preface). Trans. Hildegarde and Hunter Hannum. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1990.
The twentieth century has bequeathed us both boons and banes aplenty; so, as we enter the twenty–first, I'd like to use Gebser scholarship, however awkwardly, to address, and perhaps to help redress, some of the injury. For that reason, I'd like to begin this essay with a note on context. 18
