Childhood Conditioning

However I look at it, 1984 was a momentous year for me. Apart from envisioning
locomotion in a free-operant lab, this was the year I read Alice Miller's historical
research on Adolf Hitler's childhood.* Reading her book for one of my courses at
KU, I began to view Hitler not as The Devil Incarnate, but as a child.

Lately I read it again on the internet and - unexpectedly - found myself agreeing with
Alice Miller much more than before.
She - the psychoanalyst - concludes:
"... human destructiveness is a reactive (and not an innate) phenomenon ... "
(p. 142 in the print edition).

She also mentions childhood conditioning as causing - or leading to - adult hatred
and violence: 
   If psychoanalysis could only free itself of its stubborn belief in the death instinct,
it would be able to begin to answer the question of why wars occur, on the basis of
material available on early childhood conditioning.  Unfortunately, however, most
psychoanalysts are not interested in what parents did to their children, leaving this
question to family therapists." (p. 145 in the print edition)

No problem seeing myself as a family therapist and a behavior-analytic practitioner
- especially not, since Miller thinks about animals:
   Animals do not suffer from the tragic compulsion of having to avenge, decades
  later, traumata experienced at an early age - as was the case, for example, with
  Frederick the Great .... In any event, I am not familiar enough with an animal's
  unconscious or degrees of awareness of its past to make any statements on the
  subject." (p. 143 in the print edition)

Oddly enough, Pavlov wrote similarly in connection with data showing that dogs can
be conditioned to feel no pain whatsoever when touched by generally noxious stimuli
of great strength:

   These experiments have been apt to upset very sensitive people, but we have
   been able to demonstrate, though without any pretension of penetrating into
   the subjective world of the dog, that they were labouring under a false
   impression ... not even the tiniest and most subtle objective phenomenon
   usually exhibited by animals under the influence of strong injurious stimuli
   can be observed in these dogs.** 

My point is humans and other (all?) species react alike in basic and unmistakable ways.
They are attracted by something they need to survive - thus distancing themselves from
danger. Notice that means going in one and the same direction!
By looking and listening, one can observe what is in front and behind the individual in
motion and judge which condition pushes and which is pulling.
The protest: "Don't push me around!" comes to mind - though I suppose pulling could
also be scary; e.g. the parent pulling a child to the dentist's chair.
"All we need is love" and empathy: human nature par excellence!

Alice Miller reverberates:

   Empathy, ie, in this case the attempt to identify with the perspective of the child
   himself and not to judge him through adult eyes, is my sole heuristic tool, and
   without it, the whole investigation would be pointless. I was relieved to discover
   that for the purposes of my study I was successful in keeping this tool intact and
   was able to regard Hitler as a human being. (p. 142 in the print edition)

I believe most - if not all - radical behaviorists might now communicate profitably
with psychoanalysts, cognitive psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists - not to
mention with non-professional people! Behaviorists could clarify further research
... coordinate ... integrate ... disseminate the history of  behavior analysis, starting
with Ivan Pavlov, BF Skinner, Murray Sidman & other pioneer environmentalists.
We need to monitor health and normalcy:
from hidden to manifest feeling, from private to public thought, from personal error
to collective amendment of human rights.
Homicide is illegal but it seems to have turned into the law of the land; nonetheless,
it is not the law of nature, nor a command of benevolent gods.
________________________

*   For Your Own Good, 1983
** Conditioned Reflexes, 1960: republication of the first 1927 English translation 
________________________

James Thurber (1894 -1961) All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running
from, and to, and why.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) When a man wants to kill a tiger, he calls it 'sport'.
When a tiger eats a man, they call it 'cruelty'.      

13 March, 2012