The Origins of War in Child Abuse - The Author Interview

[luomio]

Is DeMase a Progressive? If so, that would shatter my view of psychohistory, somewhat. I always thought that the next stage was anarchy, i.e. absence of government.

[luomio]

Demause's account of LBJ is dead on. My grandmother worked on his senate staff in Texas. This man was a lunatic!

[Qismekwik]

I wanna read deMause´s books. He totally makes sense.

[purplamazon]

There are so many good points in this interview, and so many excellent comments that I feel grateful for the honest look at these difficult issues. I have great respect for Lloyd deMause and his work, however it is very disconcerting to hear laughter when describing horrific trauma such as child rape. I also wish that we once and for all call "incest" child sexual assault instead of watering down the language to describe horrific acts of cruelty and violence against children.

[murf69]

This video contains my only problem with Stef. I can't understand why Stef didn't question the possibility that some of deMause's conclusions could be based on his own abuse and mistreatment as a child. Struck me as strange.

[ventper]

thx stefbot. Lloyd deMause you continue to do awesome research by aiding our pressing need to examine our "selves". many many thx 2 u!

[thinkrevolution]

Contact this guy on his website and ask him to do some more research about Obama. He obviously hasn't been paying attention.

[scramblethink]

Psychohistory, the Harry Seldon method!

[donotfret]

Interesting analogy about the showers.

[andthereisntone]

very interesting. tx.

[bigheb774]

Stef, are you a fan of Freudian psychoanalysis? DeMause's theories seem heavily grounded in psychoanalytic assumptions in early childhood personality determinism.

[imyourgod2]

I love DeMause's work... but like others, I am saddened and disappointed by what I interpreted as his support of statism, in particular state-paid maternity leave. Parents wouldn't have to abandon their children for the workplace if taxes and the state did not exist in the first place.

Great video, as always, Stef.

[daniel15671]

By utilizing a more populist presentation, Mr. DeMause perhaps lessened his own credibility by refusing to act like a talking head. The adoption of a socially approved professional discourse is a means of claiming authority over others.Even those who desire freedom from the governance of nation-states may respond more positively to messengers who adopt a bearing that connotes power. The love of power is indeed deeply en-grained into human culture.

[daniel15671]

There's no doubt, that with many people, there is no doubt that the mystical feeling called patriotism is akin to the feeling that many have for their parents. The same might be true of the feelings and desire that many have for God. A desire for cover, protection, approval, and structure, are endemic to most, if not all, sheepish people toward hierarchy.

[ewops]

I think Mr DeMouse's credibility can be hurt if he doesn't make clear his biases from his research. However it was an excellent interview in reinforcing not to "throw the baby out with the bath water" per say.

[cjellwood]

he looks like spike milligan

[dcba432100]

I was a little irked listening to this guy practically praise Obama and his regime. Doesn't he see the narcissism in Obama and his continuing and furtherance of Bush's wars/policies? Stef's expression when Lloyd starts praising Obama says it all.

[JizzonTheDark]

Apparently my comment was removed because I exposed his racial prejudice in a rude way. DeMause is full of it. Violence often begets violence, but war has and always will be about Greed and Fear. If you believe these quasi-Freudian ideas, then you're going to end up with a very dark view of humanity (with the exception of Jewish people?)  So boys are more likely to play fight because they're circumcised? Ahh! my penis has been mutilated! I must regain my manhood! This nonsense is not new.

[1schwererziehbar1]

good interview. and thanks a lot for reading the book, stef :)

[momentinpassing]

I think sometimes infants/children are abused out of shame, embarrassment and jealousy. Jealousy of the infant's youth, health, and prospects. Shame for failing to stop themselves from being abused as children, and for their past abuses against their own child that the child has born witness to. Anticipation of the child becoming much more successful than them and from a position of status, speaking badly of them.

My parents essentially went to war with me in between brief efforts to do better.

[momentinpassing]

I believe Obama is a poor example because he presents himself in a very carefully practiced and calculated way. I'd argue that he presents a brand, and not in fact himself. And so anything he says about himself is suspect. He's basically his own spokesperson for the brand Obama.

I think genetics and brain damage (although I would categorize PTSD as brain damage) are oddly missing from the analysis.

I have perhaps a slightly different perspective because I have many memories from infancy.

[pretorious700]

This is tiptoeing right on the edge of pyschobabble.

[Sugamari]

@pretorious700 Amazing distinction. Maybe, you should set the parameters for the real truth. And since you know what is psychobabble, and we obviously can't use it in our real lives, maybe you should be in control of the lexicon. |read|

[MisterC0]

While Lloyd does have some notable blind spots, he has done quite a bit of research in this area, and he comes to some great conclusions when they are outside of his blind spots.

[shaurz]

I don't understand why he thinks Obama is any better, in his presidency we have seen an escalation of the conflict in Pakistan. Of course it's hilariously naive to think that the figurehead has any say in the matter.

[jojofulkrum]

check out this too;

fora tv; Matt Walker: Secrets of the Sleeping Brain

[PoiGhost]

öhm wait you say the origins of war can be found in child abuse? But why are children abused ... because the man go to war and leave the woman with the kids alone .... nice to blame it at the women ..... children need a father and a mother to grow up and not only one ... ok some may be ok with mother or father only but a intact familie is much more important than making war over and over agin .... thats a pity ... we are so stupid and do not learn from our mistakes

[jojofulkrum]

Great book - a book that brings one in direct conflict against the reality one otherwise is used to. Especially when it comes to the reports of sexual molestation of children...I literally lost my sex appetite for 3 weeks!

[cchessmaster]

This is bullshit. The banksters start the wars because they get richer and gain more control by war. If you want to psychoanalyze somebody pick out the bankers and tell me how they were raised.This guy is a socialist and thinks the state can do no harm. The only reason the woman needs time off from work is because she has to work to pay the taxes that the state has put on her to pay other mothers to take off from work.

[LTBL88]

@cchessmaster the bankers start the wars because they were abused as children

[cchessmaster]

@LTBL88 The bankers start wars because it makes them richer. It has nothing to do with how they were raised except for the fact that they were told that they were better than us landless peasants.

[LTBL88]

@cchessmaster The bankers are already rich beyond measure and do not need any more money. They start wars because they like the feeling of power it gives them. They need to feel powerful because they were humiliated and abused as children. If you think genocidal psychopaths just come about for no particular reason, greed alone or through just "choosing" it you need to read up more on psychology and childrearing

[SuperXwriter]

Lloyd deMause is the 21st century Freud! I read most of his articles and insights when his website came to be. This man is brilliant and has a revolutionary view on why this human world is so screwed up. Explains why statist are so evil! Thanks Stephen for giving this man more exposure.

[theherdmentality]

This man claims to have run away from home at the age of three and hid for a couple of days?!?!?! This couldn't possibly be true, and makes me question the rest of his claims.....i think stef picked a dubious interview this time...

[lnd3005]

@theherdmentality

What is unbelievable about that?

[theherdmentality]

@lnd3005 what is unbelievable about it is that I have a 3 year old and anyone else with one would tell you that they couldn't be left outside for 20 minutes without causing serious damage to themselves or someone else, so the idea that he ran away and survived by himself at the age of three is insulting to the intelligence of any parent, anywhere...

Also, did his parents reportt him missing, is this documented anywhere that a 3 year old ran away and was found days later??? come on!

[momentinpassing]

@theherdmentality All he would have had to do is go straight to a specific place that he had been to before and felt safe in, that by coincidence was warm and dry enough for him to endure in. Then he'd simply have to wait there in fear of his parents until finally surrendering. That's it. Not very complicated.

As far as food and water go. Abused children learn to ignore their needs because if they cry they are likely to be assaulted, and they can't meet them independently.

[momentinpassing]

@theherdmentality personally I learned to lay silently on a hard floor during many hours of neglect conserving energy in between scarce food. I would listen to cars go by, watch dust in the light and the light move across the room, and slowly rotate my head to avoid developing sores.

He may have spent a lot of the time sleeping too as the very young can sleep a lot and it can be a strategy to "make everything go away". Which is the sort of thing a toddler can understand before knowing the words

[theherdmentality]

@momentinpassing You learned these things as a result of abuse at the age of 3?

If you did, then I'm so very sorry you had to experience that...

But it is still very hard to beleive this mans' claims as he also makes other statements that are either exaggerated or twistedly interpreted........

Perhaps he just hid in his backyard or near his home and had access to food and water, but beleiving a toddler survived what some adults with more sense couldn't, is still highly suspet

[theherdmentality]

This man states things that are clearly interpretations as though they were facts.

Calling someone a pygmy is to insult their height, not their age. Kim JOng Ill was called a pygmy because pygmy animals and humans are notoriously short. For that to have meant "baby" one would have to be consciously aware of all the pshychological and Freudian interpretations behind it....this man is twisting things a little...

[gradiu3rox]

I'm from the South... It's a hell hole.

[Jangaboo]

LOL the penis ...

[texme]

Great interview, thank you both.

[kelpop12]

i'm only 32 mins into this video and i'm seeing some blind spots regarding obama and his upbringing, and his pro-war stance he has already displayed.

praising obama? calling what he is doing progressive when from what have seen is nothing more than an extension of all of bush's policies with regards to war and freedom.

not sure if one can asses our so called leaders without lookingat the powers behing them.

PS the bush's are not christian despite what we are lead to believe.

[iamdspaz1]

Numerous issues with this video. For instance, Obama comes from a very chaotic childhood who was abandoned by his father and at times his mother. He praises how Obama's mother raised him, but Obama himself doesn't identify as strongly with her as his father who completely abandoned him when he was a baby. Marriage counseling has a very poor success success rate. Trauma diminishes the capacity for empathy and doesn't heal the childhood trauma therefore his strategies for peace will fail.

[insearchofsomthing]

In the UK they want to get soldiers the teach in schools. watch?v=WAomePaOQxQ

[Ksabrs45]

The word for country or nation in Chinese is 国家 - 家 literally means family or home.

[CalgaryAlpineStyle]

People of the World, start electing your head of states from

the groups with the tinyest winnies!

[TheRealNickBravo]

Stef, I gotta correct you on something. Obama, Napalitano, and Pelosi are in fact REACTIONARIES! They do not have empathy even though they claim to. Look at the TSA for example, its all about reactionary dominance, humiliation, and the need to feel powerful.

[CurtHowland]

As much as I respect his work, I must take exception with the idea that the only people who oppose Progressive, interventionist govt are reactionary warmongers who were abused as children.

I agree that the Tea Party has been usurped by Republicans (who are generally reactionary warmongers).

The Tea Parties were started by people who wish to be treated as responsible adults, who oppose being robbed "for our own good" by a smothering Big Mommy just as much as they oppose slaughter by Big Brother.

[CurtHowland]

Mr. deMause lets it slip around the 40 minute mark, with his idea of "Giving rights to children."

Rights are NOT GIVEN, Mr. deMause. That's a Progressive delusion.

Rights are RECOGNIZED and RESPECTED, not granted.

Which reinforces my conclusion that Mr. deMause is, sadly, just another ivory tower Socialist.

I recommend to Mr. deMause, if he dares read it, Ludwig von Mises' book "The Anti-Capitalist Mentality" which he suffers from.

[RuddODragonFear]

@CurtHowland I think it is fairly easy to understand that deMause metaphorically meant to say "we need to start recognizing children's rights more" when he said "giving rights to children".

[CurtHowland]

@RuddODragonFear Don't count on it.

I fully expect, especially the way he waxed lovingly over this law and that law, bemoaning how the US doesn't have those same laws enacting what he thinks is good behavior, that he meant exactly what he said: Granting rights to children, by law.

[Gettinghitonattheban]

@CurtHowland

Well I'm anti-capitalist, but pro freemarket. :)

[CurtHowland]

@Gettinghitonattheban If you define "capitalism" as the merchantilist/Fascist system of govt favors for vested interests, then me too.

In a truly free market, it might be possible for a "sector" of the market to fail, such as banks, but the rest of the market would swoop in like vultures and recycle the assets into actually productive ventures.

[lnd3005]

@CurtHowland

Protecting children from violence, through law or whatever means, is something I would think worth waxing over, lovingly even.

[CurtHowland]

@lnd3005 What about protecting them from the violence of the state?

Or does being a govt bureaucrat magically make those with the power to take children from their parents at will somehow, magically, perfectly sane and rational people?

Might as well pass a law saying "all parents are sane and rational". Same effect.

[sundancekid122]

There is peace because Germany owns their debt lol.

[sundancekid122]

dont like how you agreed about him saying tea party were reactionary's because in a previous video you were talking about how anyone with a dissenting opinion is automatically crazy or reactionary. Anything against the standard of society.

[CurtHowland]

@sundancekid122 Having met Mr. Molyneux, I believe he was agreeing with the portrayal of the reactionary elements, rather than the Tea Parties themselves.

Mr. deMause clearly falls into the same trap of thinking that interventionist govt can be a Good Thing, if run by the right "healthy" people.

[CurtHowland]

Depressing is an understatement.

But it's also uplifting, because it's all something that can be overcome by acknowledging that people have the choice how they treat each other.

[AlterEgoTrip]

@CurtHowland It was like looking deep into the canyon of the deepest wound of humanity and understanding that it can't be fixed as easily as anything dealing with a single person's emotions and perceptions and experience but this vast injury of humanity taken away from true maternal and paternal feeling as many animals have.. and they, unlike us, the supposed intelligent creature, do not willingly harm their young... do not (generally) sexually abuse them, nor do they go to war.

[CurtHowland]

@AlterEgoTrip Humans are both blessed and cursed by intelligence. We will either figure out how to make it work, or we will fail like 99% of all the other species that have ever lived.