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Tree-Roots silhouetteThe Roots of Violence
by Alice Miller


Wikipedia (accessed 7 April 2014)
explains:-

According to Alice Miller, worldwide violence has its the roots in the fact that children are beaten all over the world, especially during their first years of life, when their brains become structured... She said that the damage caused by this practice is devastating, but unfortunately hardly noticed by society... She argued that as children are forbidden to defend themselves against the violence inflicted on them, they must suppress the natural reactions like rage and fear, and they discharge these strong emotions later as adults against their own children or whole peoples: "child abuse like beating and humiliating not only produces unhappy and confused children, not only destructive teenagers and abusive parents, but thus also a confused, irrationally functioning society."... Miller stated that only through becoming aware of this dynamic can we break the chain of violence. She was appalled by the fact that in the USA, there still remain 20 states, which allow corporal punishment to children even in schools.


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Wikipedia (accessed 7 April 2014; some hyperlinks removed)
:- 

A common denominator in Miller's writings is her explanation of why human beings prefer not to know about their own victimization during childhood: to avoid unbearable pain. She believed that the unconscious command of the individual, not to be aware how he or she was treated in childhood, led to displacement: the irresistible drive to repeat abusive parenting in the next generation of children, or to direct unconsciously the unresolved trauma against him or herself (eating disorders, drug addiction, depression) or against others (war, terrorism, delinquency).

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Also see:-

Violence & Socio-Cultural Shifts

Violence articles


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