julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (03/15/84)
[] Reprinted from Friends Journal (15 Mar 84), Reprinted from the Vermont Vanguard Press (Sept 82) A Modest Chance to Save the World by Alan MacRobert We've heard a lot about people's schemes to save the human race from itself. ... [research suggests] It seems that the human race might be made radically nicer through quite simple means. The research in question was begun by James W Prescott, who performed a statistical analysis of 400 primitive societies around the world. He found that cultures which lavish physical affection on infants tend to be disinclined to war and violence. Even societies without notable fondling of infants develop non-violent adults, providing that sexual activity in adolescence is not repressed. Where physical affection is a common part of life, Prescott found among cultures all over the world, not only warfare but theft, hierarchical religion, and ostentateous displays of wealth are less conspicuous. Where infants are physically punished, the adults they become tend to engage in slavery, frequent killing, toture of prisoners captured in battle, and belief in supernatural intervention in daily life. The implication is clear: developing a strong capacity for physical affection, both in early childhood and later in a sexual context, radically changes a society's behaviour. You can make love or war, but doing one tends to displace the other. The correlation turned out to be one of the most reliable ever discovered for predicting social traits. Prescott published his findings ... in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nov 1975). ... It was this research, for instance, which inspired the "Have you hugged your child today?" bumper sticker movement. Carl Sagan [says] in 'Cosmos', "If Prescott is right, in an age of nuclear weapons and effective contraception, child abuse and sexual repression are crimes against humanity." ... [I guess this also explains the "Make Love Not War" stickers. jd]