I have been reading Alice Miller's book, "For your own good" a must read for those who want to understand the motives behind the socialization of childhood cruelty. I think that a lot of her work is well regarded.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Own-Good-Child-Rearing-Violence-ebook/dp/B007237VUA/ref=la_B000APM0AI_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446428708&sr=1-8
Thank you for sharing this. What are your opinions on the book?
This book was first published in the 1980s so some things have moved on since, such as corporal punishment being removed from the classroom made illegal, but if you grew up in the 1970s its very valid. It was re-published about 10 years ago with some additional work.
The author is a German lady and she draws parallels with the holocaust and how it was possible that the whole of society could unquestionably murder millions of people. It was and still is the intention of pedagogy to remove the will of children to be themselves, to have a mind of their own.Sociologists call it socialisation. For hundreds of years socialisation was brought about by extreme brutality and humiliation of children. To some degree this still exists in so far as children are conditioned to be obedient and unquestioning of authority. We have seem this of late with the media and neo-liberal governments in western countries have set about victimising the unemployed, the sick and disabled in order to shrink the welfare state, they have been able to do so without any real opposition.
Through my own struggles in life and those of people around me, having read this book I realised that it is about time that we stopped judging people as bad or difficult. It is not the fault of the individual that they are the way they are, but simply a product of a deeply flawed system that brings about hardship, depression and suffering where there should be lightness and joy.