Human violence takes many forms,
but the vast majority of all personal violent interactions make
use of painful force inflicted upon another person against his
will. The most common means of exercising that force can be
described as some form or variation of hitting. It is obvious that
"hittings" regularly occur during rapes, riots,
wife-battering, child abuse, school violence against teachers and
students, and is regularly employed by violent delinquents and
adults through the use of fists, knives, murder by guns, and/or
other instruments.
If we could teach all people never to hit anyone under any
circumstances at any time, violence and its impact on mental
health would, of course, cease to be a major problem. But, in
order to begin that process, we first need to eliminate all the
approved methods by which we presently inflict intentional pain
upon our children. If we succeed in this task, we will
simultaneously destroy the major root of violence in our society,
for adult violence is essentially a reflection of early childhood
training and experiences.
Please note that at present we can hit any or all of our
children in our homes, schools, churches and in most child care
institutions any time we wish to do so, provided we call our
hitting "spankings," perform them with "good
intentions", and do not break any bones or bruise the flesh
to excess in the process. It is my contention that this
historically approved and presently sanctioned practice of hitting
children throughout our society provides the initial impetus for
teaching them how to become hitters themselves. When and if that
teaching is reinforced by other factors, many of the novice
hitters move on to become users of more extreme forms of violence,
up to and including the killing of other persons. Extensive
research data is now available to lend support to these
observations.
Therefore, to cry out against the horrors of child abuse, to
demand protection against rapists, wife-batterers, violent
teenagers, and destructive adults is entirely meaningless. You
cannot logically expect that these forms of hitting will ever
disappear from a society that preaches and teaches the value and
rightness of hitting children. And not only preaches and teaches
such, but also smiles with approval when that preaching and
teaching are converted into actual use.
We must therefore learn to stop the practice of hitting
children in our homes, in our schools, and throughout society in
general. To continue using this unnecessary, thoughtless, and
unkind practice is inconsistent with our proclaimed concerns about
human rights, human respect and human dignity. And we don't have
to wait until tomorrow; we can start right now.
The means for bringing about a significant reduction in
violence is already within our grasp. It can be accomplished by
creating and developing a new national ethic which is simply
stated as the twofold proposition: People are not for hitting
and children are people too. But, in order to bring this ethic
into national awareness, we need to mount a massive national
campaign that will reach into every level of our society. Once
national awareness has been achieved, all those who are able and
willing to subscribe to this viewpoint will then need help to
develop new learning, to help them relate more effectively with
children and adults without ever again resorting to hitting. All
of this can come about within a relatively short period of time -
a few years at most - if a host of national groups and
organizations simultaneously promote the new ethic.
