Empathic Parenting

Winning through co-operation reveals why the current emphasis on competition is so harmful and proves that competition is not instinctive but "has to be carefully taught". Dr. Orlick explores other cultures, such as the Eskimos and Chinese, where co-operative ideals have been practised for many generations. He documents his case with strong experimental evidence from studies on children in competitive and non-competitive situations. His conclusion is that introducing more non-competitive games into early childhood will greatly enhance the future.

Last night I watched the news. I saw nothing out of the ordinary -- another assassination attempt on a President's life; people tied up and mercilessly shot through the head, another series of bombs blast their way to human destruction. The places change but the name of the game remains the same. The daily news reports are frightening exposes of man's inhumanity to man. Almost daily we see wars, bombings, killings, hijacking, kidnappings, assassinations, muggings, rapes, and a host of other examples of man's ruthless exploitation of his fellow man.

It has been estimated that 59 million human beings were killed in wars or peacetime crimes between 1890 and 1945. That's almost three times the entire population of Canada. Throughout the world, $7800 is spent every year to train and equip each soldier, while only $200 is budgeted to educate each child. The equivalent of fifteen tons of TNT is stockpiled for every man, woman, and child. We have created weapons of destruction that boggle the imagination - nuclear warheads, napalm, nerve gas, laser deathrays, special undetectable poisons. At the same time that enormous sums have been poured into military research, very little money or effort has been invested in peace research.

In the United States, a violent crime occurs every 48 seconds. In the city of Baltimore one out of every 40 people is the victim of a violent crime every year. At the 1975 murder rate, more than one out of very 200 Americans will be murdered during the course of a normal lifespan. Since 1970 there has been a steady and rapid rise in the number of forcible rapes and the chances of a Los Angeles woman being raped is better than one in ten.

Crime rates for youngsters aged 10 to 14, and for women, have risen dramatically in the past few years. Between 1963 and 1973 Canadian murder rates increased five times as quickly as the population, and incidences of assault and rape increased ten times faster than the population. In addition, the multitude of while collar and corporate crimes, in which people are deceived and cheated, most often go undetected or ignored.

Fortunately there are also countless co-operative interactions which occur regularly, in what, at times, appears to be a ruthless cutthroat jungle. Man does show his capacity to be a warm, loving, compassionate creature, in spite of having been raised in a highly industrialized and competitive culture. We each know examples within our own experiences. Numerous illustrations exist that show man's warm hospitality and tender concern for his fellow man, particularly in times of distress. We know of countless personal sacrifices for loved ones. It is this great capacity for co-operation and compassion for one another which must be nurtured, rather than destroyed. Each of us would feel more fulfilled and would profit considerably if we could both exhibit and be the recipient of humane acts such as these.

Our quality of life can be enriched by people who are warm and generous in the same way that it can be impoverished by those who are ruthless and cold. Other people trigger our happiness or misery. It is those people with whom we come in contact every day, at work, at home, on the road, on vacation, anywhere, anytime, who can make us feel good or miserable.

Our happiness and our feelings of well being are so closely linked to what others do, or do not do that we can no longer be concerned only with ourselves. It is in our own individual and collective best interest to help others become more positive, considerate and co-operative. Think of what makes you feel really good, what makes you feel accepted and appreciative of other people - a simple gesture of friendship, a compliment or two, an unsought word of kindness, some genuine concern expressed for you. Isn't it wonderful when someone goes out of their way to help you, or to make you feel accepted, when there is no obvious payoff for them? Think of how beautiful life would be if each day the number of compassionate acts were increased a thousand fold and the number of destructive acts decreased a thousand fold.

Imagine what it might be like if, for even one day, everyone with whom you came in contact was pleasant, honest and concerned with your best interests. What would it feel like if you could always believe what politicians or government officials said; or if you could really trust a salesman; or if you could walk down the street and know that no one would harm you; or if all waitresses, secretaries, and operators treated you pleasantly, not as if they were doing you a favour by "serving" you, and if you treated them in the same manner, not as if they were slaves; or if all your neighbours were consistently kind and considerate toward you and your family?

WHY BOTHER?

I am sure that every individual who has been committed to positive change within society has asked, why bother? Will it really make any difference? I often wonder if I am not wasting my time putting these words down on paper. But what keeps me going is the ocean of destruction that I see around me and my recognition on the positive potential of man.

In addition, a short visit to New Jersey recently was enough to remove any doubts as to whether there was a reason "to bother". During one week several ghastly events occurred. A friend who just begun teaching elementary school was stabbed and stomped for no apparent reason, while working at a carnival in Newark. When I attempted to find him at the hospital, the nurses went through some deliberation deciding which stab victim he was. "He wasn't the first one". "I don't think he was the fourth." "Maybe he was the second one" that came in that night, they murdered. After four hours of surgery, the doctor said they had come close to losing him. The knife had pierced his lung and the bottom of his heart.

The next day, when the crime was reported to the local police, the officers mentioned that they have 10 to 15 stabbings or shootings every night in their precinct alone. They said, "it's a real jungle out there", and added that there wasn't much chance of finding out who did it. The people who live in that area are afraid to open their doors or venture out after dark for fear of being stabbed, raped or mugged. They're not safe in the day either. A teenage girl was raped and beaten to death in broad daylight in a busy section of the city.

That same week, a man was released from prison on weekend pass and threw his two young children off the fourth storey of a building. He had been jailed originally for having thrown them off the third storey. All the animals at a baby zoo in upstate New York were stabbed or beaten to death. Human scavengers combed the wreckage of one of the worst air disasters in history for souvenirs, money, or anything else they could find. Elderly people living in one-room slums in downtown New York told of their fear of sleeping at night, of their endless battle with cockroaches and rats, of their futile battle with their landlord who had turned off their heat and water. One of the men had been mugged five times in the last year. And one of my close friends, who teaches in an inner city school, told me, "There's no peace here, it's just one confrontation after another." He spoke of a teacher who was attacked and beaten by fourth grade students, of an epidemic of venereal disease in elementary school, and of a third grade student who stabbed another student in school.

This inhuman jungle is sweeping out of the cities into the suburbs, out of the suburbs into the countryside, out of disturbed societies into serene societies. If we do not halt this movement we will be rapidly swallowed by competitive insanity and life will not be worth living.

Corruption and distortion of human values exists at all levels, in all domains - in politics, law, business, sports. The competitive win ethic has become so intense that it is threatening to destroy our society. Millions of little "watergates" happen every day in the name of victory.

The tragedy is that the wins of Watergate, Vietnam, etc. represent very serious losses to society. When large numbers of people become deceitful, conniving and exploitative, all of us are affected. If not financially, then certainly we are affected with respect to quality of life and psychological peace. When major decisions within a society are based on material rather than human profit, it is not surprising that we are moving in a direction away from human values. We cannot even hope for a decent quality of life in the future unless this trend is reversed.

I have lived half my life in the United States, the other half in Canada. I saw a serious decline in many of our most precious values and ideas in the United States and am beginning to see the same values declining in Canada.

Ironically, people are being destroyed by an extension of their own competitive ethic. They know their game of football, their game of politics, their game of life. Win in any way you can. The wholesale subscription to this principle motivates the most "savage" acts of our time. Assassins, terrorists, warriors, and war makers are not "crazy", they have merely bought the win-at-all costs dictum wholeheartedly. Most of our values are declining because people are being rewarded socially, politically, or materially for their inhumanity to their fellow man. The child who cheats, the lawyer who misleads, the politician who deceives, the corporation that misrepresents, the terrorist who kills, all have something to gain in the short run. Often it is at the expense of others.

Perhaps we should no longer ask what kind of environment is producing such a twisted sense of values, but instead, we should ask what kind of environment could untwist them and would not allow them to become warped in the first place. Each time something barbaric occurs, each time the potential for human destruction and corruptions is strengthened, each time the incident of violent crime increases (which is daily), I feel more obligated and committed to try to do something.

To merely attempt to jail or kill offenders after the fact will not solve our problems. We cannot possibly police everyone and everything in society. We must therefore work to change the value system so that people control their own behaviours and begin to see themselves as co-operative members of the family of man. To change our environment so that corrupt and destructive people can never again exist, will solve our major problems for today and many for tomorrow.

I have gained a substantial amount of knowledge about psychological and social development, particularly as it occurs through the realm of play and games. It is my hope to draw upon this knowledge in an attempt to provide some rationale and mechanisms for positive change within our society. Perhaps if some of our most destructive adults today had as young children been exposed to the warmth, acceptance and human values which I am attempting to promote through co-operative play and games, they would have grown in another direction. If other aspects of their environment had also supported a more positive orientation toward human life, they would have acquired alternative, more positive ways of relating to people and problems. As people become more sensitive to others' feelings and more willing to co-operate for the collective good, our planet will become a much healthier and happier place to live, for all of us. Moves in this direction are absolutely essential to ensure a decent quality of life, and to ensure life itself.

For those who feel that nothing can be done for nothing need to be done, Erich Fromm has an important message. He maintains that pessimism functions largely to protect the pessimists from any inner demand to do something, by protecting the idea that nothing can be done. On the other hand, the optimists defend themselves against the same inner demand by persuading themselves that everything is moving in the right direction anyway, therefore nothing needs to be done. The position Fromm holds is one of rational faith in man's capacity to extricate himself from what seems to be the fatal web of circumstances that he has created. As will become clear by reading this book, we have both the knowledge and capacity to effect positive change. All we need is the collective motivation to act.

Considering the direction in which we have been moving, and the direction in which we need to move, the statement made by Robert Kennnedy shortly before his assassination has special relevance for our society: All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world, is for enough good men to do nothing. This is why I have chosen to bother