PART THREE:  IMPLICATIONS FOR CHILD "DEVELOPMENT," SPIRITUALITY, AND PERSONAL GROWTH: EGO AND HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS AND "CAN IT BE OTHERWISE?"

Chapter Nine:
Can It Be Otherwise?

by

Michael Derzak Adzema

 

Can It Be Otherwise?

In another work (Adzema, 1993) I have delineated what I believe are some of the factors in creating the present state of consciousness as described as being the endpoint of the process of devolution in the last chapter.  I trace it back millions of years to bipedal locomotion, an increasing skull size, greater pain in childbirth, increased psychological repression, changes in pelvic size in the female, the forces of natural selection on the length of gestation, comparative prematurity of human newborns, secondary altriciality, increased pain in infancy and birth for humans, increased repression, increased neocortical capacities, the beginnings of culture, and increased skull size again.  I also trace this current patriarchal pathology back thousands of years to the "agrarian revolution" and the rejection of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

            So obviously I do not believe that this condition was always the case for us.  However, it goes back rather far in our line to the beginnings of our hominid existence.  And its more extreme form seems only to have come into existence within the last 30,000 years, and only then for part of the population.  It follows also, since I have claimed that it is more characteristic of "civilized" cultures, that I don't believe that its extreme form is as prevalent in "simpler" cultures, specifically, hunter-gatherer ones.  And I should mention that even among hunter-gatherers there is quite a bit of variety in the degree of severity of this expulsion from paradise.

            The reason for the disparities between cultures, as can be derived from the model I have constructed, has to do with the fact that we all, by virtue of being human, are in a separated state relative to the Divine.  We have all come into form, to put it bluntly.  Beyond that, we all have some amount of trauma from birth.  If nothing else, the separation from the mother represents enough trauma for a secondary duality to occur there; but there is almost always much more than that occurring in the womb or around birth to create a further separated, further removed condition. 

            So by reason of these species-specific factors, all peoples and all cultures attempt to work out their situation "in darkness" as to the real causes of things, oblivious of the motives behind at least some of their actions, and, in sum, liable to error.  Hence, any culture, any people is capable of creating cultural and social constructions that increase, or decrease, the amount of repression and fearfulness that already exists as part of the human condition.

            Thus, we can only say that in general hunter-gatherers are less repressed, less anxious, less "devolved," and so on, than are people from agrarian or industrial cultures.  Cultures have taken somewhat different paths, even hunter-gatherer ones (cf. Gregor, 1985; and Turnbull, 1972).  But generalities have their uses, and the evidence appears overwhelming that simpler lifestyles are correlated with radically different, more humane attitudes and behaviors toward children, toward other human beings, and toward nature in general—characterizing a less split-off state. (cf. Bird-David, 1992; French, 1985; Lawlor, 1991; Liedloff, 1977; Sahlins, 1972; Turnbull, 1961; and van der Post, 1986).

            Also, this analysis does not take into account any metaphysical or theological perspectives on the opportunities or, dare I say, "benefits" of a separated state, a more dismal and painful human condition.  There are those who claim that this "wounding" is a necessary prerequisite to truly human compassion and empathy.  Muller (1992) has said that the painful and traumatic human condition (and he is speaking particularly of that produced in childhood) represents our unique opportunity (he even uses the term "advantage").

            Still, hunter-gatherers don't seem to be any the less compassionate or empathetic; indeed, the opposite of that is most often asserted about them.  So one must conclude that there is no reason to go back to the poisonous pedagogical traditions which enjoined that sparing the rod would spoil the child, or to Christian, especially Catholic, ones that routed the roadways to heaven through valleys of torture (to which I can personally attest). 

            It would seem, to the extent we are able, that we should do all in our power to minimize this devolutional pull on consciousness, to do all in our power to minimize the separation from the source of our true identity, our knowing, our power and joy; to do all in our power to maximize the chances for future generations, as well as ourselves, to live in the nobleness, strength, at-home-ness, and glow of divinity that characterizes our species at its best.  I am sure, given that, that there would still be enough "darkness" hereabouts—within our still-separated state—to go around, providing more than enough "opportunities" and "advantages" for any other ends God might have in mind for us.

            So, then, the question still remaining is, Can it be otherwise?  Can we make it better?  Can we improve the human condition?  Looking cross-culturally, the answer would appear to be absolutely in the affirmative.  From the perspective of the new experiential psychotherapies, ditto.  From the viewpoint of conscious and responsible conception (Baker, 1986) and loving and welcoming gestation (Verny, 1981), without a doubt.  And from that of humane and natural birthing procedures (Leboyer, 1975); sensitive, physical, and loving infant care (Liedloff, 1977); and flexible, attentive, and accepting child care-giving (Mahler et al, 1975; Sroufe et al, 1992); a resounding yes!

Return to Grace: Birth

Let us look at some of the evidence for a more fortunate and favorable human condition and some of the factors correlated with it.

            We can start with the example of "social smiling."  Mainstream psychology and child development claim that "social smiling" does not occur in the infant until about four or five months, that even "true" pleasure smiling does not develop until around ten weeks, attributing any smiling that occurs before that either to "spontaneous discharge in lower brain regions" or "to gas." (Sroufe et al, 1992, especially pp. 196-201).

            Yet, Leboyer (1975) reported that babies who had entered the world in the humane manner of delivery he developed smile frequently and often from the day of birth.  These babies also show physical and emotional advantages way above average.  At any rate, it is hard to believe that newborns with the physical and emotional advantages of such a loving and beautiful welcome as is described and attested to for Leboyer babies are having all that much more gas than babies given the normal, harsh hospital welcome.

            In addition, the research used to support this idea that infant smiling is not indicative of pleasure has to do with the fact that this smiling occurs regularly for the infant upon going to sleep and that "If their smiles are a sign of pleasure, why don't they occur when infants are wide awake as well?" (Sroufe et al, 1992, p. 197). 

            This statement is laughable considering only what I have said so far.  For we know that babies do smile when awake, in fact a lot of the time, viz, Leboyer babies.  But beyond that, the reasoning involved in it clearly displays some of the problems with the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm I mentioned previously.  It seems we find it extremely hard to impute consciousness and awareness to beings other than ourselves . . . and that the furthest from our normal state another conscious state is, the more likely we are to deny its existence.

            The reasons for this refusal to acknowledge awareness should be apparent from the devolutional model, where we see, for example, that with each additional splitting of consciousness, at each, so called, "stage of development," the individual is further reduced in awareness until, as Huxley (1954) put it, "all that remains is the measly trickle of awareness necessary for survival on this planet."  So it makes sense, feeling that we've been forced to give up our awareness, we will want to deny awareness to others.  And, of course, we can get away with this all the more with those most unlike us, where we can expect community support in this kind of mutual illusory neurosis and scapegoating.

            But keep in mind that we are attempting here to maintain the new-paradigm insistence on the prior reality of consciousness.  So let us not stray from that and let us see just what is implied by this statement from the mainstream that babies don't feel pleasure because it happens regularly when they are falling off to sleep.  To put it bluntly, if I smile every time I have an orgasm, with strict conformity to certain specific neurophysiological characteristics each and every time, does that mean my orgasms are not pleasurable? 

            Well, if I were a mainstream psychologist I might have to say, yes, it means that they are not pleasurable.  Looking at me from the outside, and not including the factor of my subjectivity—which would cause them to ask me whether or not it was pleasure, to grant me that much respect—they would have to conclude in the negative.  However, I would have to disagree with them.  And I feel the newborn would probably disagree with them also, if she or he could but speak. 

            Since he or she cannot, I submit that we should at least leave the question open, rather, that we should assume it is not all that much different from our own experience of smiling and pleasure rather than to err in the direction of concocting bizarre explanations whose main benefit can only be to prop up crumbling and outdated paradigms.

            But to continue, on this same issue of smiling, we get support cross-culturally that the human condition, as I have described it above, mostly for Westerners, can be different.  Pearce (1980) writes concerning the supposed lack of intelligence and lack of social smiling in the Western newborn:

   No less than Jerome Bruner of Harvard's Center for Cognitive Studies, surely one of our more brilliant researchers developed this idea.  The assumption is terribly wrong, but the academic rationale growing around it began to include more contradictions blithely ignored because once an idea is accepted into the body of knowledge, everyone "knows" and no one questions it.  Everyone "knew" that no smiling occurs for some ten to twelve weeks because infants are born prematurely and have no intelligence during that time.  If a mother reported smiling before that acceptable date, the cryptic diagnosis was "gas pains." (p. 42)

            Can it be otherwise?  Looking cross-culturally, it appears to be so.  Pearce (1980) writes further,

[I]n 1956, Marcelle Geber . . . made a momentous discovery.  She found the most precocious, brilliant, and advanced infants and children observed anywhere.  These infants had smiled, continuously and rapturously, from, at the latest, their fourth day of life.  Blood analyses showed that all the adrenal steroids connected with birth stress were totally absent by that fourth day after birth.  Sensorimotor learning and general development were phenomenal, indeed miraculous.  These Ugandan infants were months ahead of American or European children.  A superior intellectual development held for the first four years of life. . . .

    These infants were born in the home, generally delivered by the mother herself.  The child was never separated from the mother, who massaged, caressed, sang to, and fondled her infant continually.  She slept with her infant.  The infant fed continuously, according to its own schedule.  These infants were awake a surprising amount of time—alert, watchful, happy, calm.  They virtually never cried.  Their mothers were bonded to them . . . and sensed their every need before that need had to be expressed by crying.  The mother responded to the infant's every gesture and assisted the child in any and every move that was undertaken, so that every move initiated by the child ended in immediate success.  At two days of age (forty-eight hours) these infants sat bolt upright, held only by the forearms, with a beautifully straight back and perfect head balance, their finely focused eyes staring intently, intelligently at their mothers.  And they smiled and smiled. (pp. 42-43)

Return to Grace: Primal Scene

Let us turn now to the third fall from grace, that time when the child's potential is reduced to the acceptable spectrum, only, that reflects the socionormative constructs of the society.  Can this be different? 

            By contrast to Western attitudes to young children, Liedloff (1977) describes the kind of trust in the innate sociality of the child and the "respect" for the child and for his or her "inclinations" that characterized the Yequana:

   Perhaps as essential as the assumption of innate sociality in children and adults is a respect for each individual as his own proprietor.  The notion of ownership of other persons is absent among the Yequana.  The idea that this is "my child" or "your child" does not exist.  Deciding what another person should do, no matter what his age, is outside the Yequana vocabulary of behaviors.  There is great interest in what everyone does, but no impulse to influence—let alone coerce—anyone.  A child's will is his motive force.  There is no slavery—for how else can one describe imposing one's will on another and coercion by threat and punishment?  The Yequana do not feel that a child's inferior physical strength and dependence upon them imply that they should treat him or her with less respect than an adult.  No orders are given a child that run counter to his own inclinations as to how to play, how much to eat, when to sleep, and so on.  But where his help is required, he is expected to comply instantly.  Commands like "Bring some water!" "Chop some wood!" "Hand me that!" or "Give the baby a banana!" are given with the same assumption of innate sociality, in the firm knowledge that a child wants to be of service and to join in the work of his people.  No one watches to see whether the child obeys—there is no doubt of his will to cooperate.  As the social animal he is, he does as he is expected without hesitation and to the very best of his ability.  (pp. 90-91)

            In a similar fashion, the Mbuti, as described by Turnbull (1961), hardly notice a difference from child roles and expectations and adult ones:

And one day they find that the games they have been playing are not games any longer, but the real thing, for they have become adults.  Their hunting is now real hunting; their tree climbing is in earnest search of inaccessible honey; their acrobatics on the swings are repeated almost daily, in other forms, in the pursuit of elusive game, or in avoiding the malicious forest buffalo.  It happens so gradually that they hardly notice the change at first, for even when they are proud and famous hunters their life is still full of fun and laughter.  (p. 129)

            The holy man from India, Sathya Sai Baba, echoes these perspectives of the child as presented by Pearce (1980) and demonstrated in nonliterate cultures.  He says, "The human child sees itself as the center of the universe and the world as an extension of its being.  This divine child knows that it is so" (1991, p. 295).  Kasturi (1991), Baba's editor and translator explains,

Children are most concerned with the Now; Baba reminds us the past is past; do not turn back and look wistfully or wailingly on the road you have traversed already.  Children do not see the world as fragmented by walls:  Chinese, Berlinese, or erected just to tease; they are involved in everything and with everyone; they represent true innocence, love, forgiveness and fraternity.  The child has no conceit or contempt of gender; this divine child affirms:  "Among men I am man; among women I am woman; among children I am a child."  (p. 295)

This child inspires us to become children again so that we might be ever with Him, of Him, in Him.  (p. 295)

Return to Grace: Puberty

Finally, let us investigate the fourth fall from grace, the time around puberty when the ego is consolidated around a specific identity, task, role that marks her or him for life.  Can this be otherwise?

            Once again, Turnbull's (1961) report on the Mbuti provides a fitting example.  This example is especially illuminating in that he was able to observe and note differences between the hunter-gatherer Mbuti and nearby villagers with whom they had occasional contact.  Since the villagers have to be considered post-agrarian and definitely not hunter-gatherers, we are able to study any differences between these two lifestyles and possible differences in worldview, side-by-side.

            Indeed, Turnbull shows that these differences do exist, and we see one distinctly in connection to the rites of passage that are undergone respectively in each culture.

            The rite of passage is called the nkumbi and is conducted by the villagers.  The Pygmies undergo it, at a certain age, in order to enjoy certain respect and privileges in their dealings with villagers, as they must often have for various reasons.  Of their own, the Mbuti have no such rite of passage, certainly nothing severe and harsh like that of the villagers.  Turnbull (1961) describes the villagers' nkumbi:

    The physical ordeals sometimes start out as games but develop into cruel tests of physical endurance.  A crouching dance that might be fun for a few minutes becomes agony after half an hour.  A mild switching on the underside of the arm with light sticks is of no concern until, after several days, the skin becomes raw.  And then the villagers notch the sticks so that they fold over and pinch the skin sharply, often drawing blood.  When the boys have become used to being beaten with leafy branches, thorny bushes are substituted.  (p. 225)

He also explains the villagers beliefs concerning this rite of passage and its effect and purpose:

   The villagers believed that the initiate, Pygmy or otherwise, is everlastingly bound thereafter by all the laws of the tribe, sacred and secular.  He is put into direct relationship with the supernatural, whose representatives on earth are the villagers themselves.  If any Pygmy initiate offends a villager, therefore, he is also offending the supernatural—the ancestors—and will be duly punished by them.  The villagers live in such fear of the supernatural, with its power to bring down on an offender the curses of leprosy, yaws, dysentery and other diseases or to cause him to be injured by a falling tree, that they cannot conceive of any initiates daring to offend the ancestors.  (p. 224)

But offend the ancestors they do, these Pygmies, and with apparent relish.  They do not share the villagers fearful view of the world.  They cannot imagine any good reason to inflict these tortures on each other and laugh, secretly, behind the villagers' backs, at them.  Turnbull (1961) writes,

   Both the boys and their fathers enjoyed the chance to make fun, in a friendly way, of the villagers, but that was not their sole reason for deliberately breaking all the taboos.  They behaved as they did because to them the restrictions were not only meaningless but belonged to a hostile world.  The villagers hoped that the nkumbi would place the Pygmies directly under the supernatural authority of the village tribal ancestors; the Pygmies naturally took good care that nothing of the sort should happen, proving it to themselves by this conscious flaunting of custom.  (p. 224)

    To the Pygmies this all seems harsh and unnecessary, and as far as their own children are concerned they keep a strict watch over them to see that the villagers do not go to the length that they sometimes do with village children, even if this brings them into some contempt.  But to the villager this toughening-up process is essential and does not come naturally in the course of village life.  The child has to be fitted for adult life, and this is what the nkumbi sets out to achieve.  In a few months a boy becomes a man, tough and strong, physically and mentally.  The process is not a pleasant one, but it is the only way in which, under tribal conditions, the goal can be achieved.

   The Pygmy can understand and appreciate this, but the very nature of his own nomadic hunting and gathering existence provides all the toughening up and education that are needed.  Children begin climbing trees sometimes before they can walk.  Their muscles develop, and they overcome fear in a number of daring tree games.  Adult activities are learned from an early age by observation and imitation, for the Pygmies live an open life.  Their life is as open inside their tiny one-room leaf huts as it is in the middle of a forest clearing, and so the children have no need of the sex instruction which forms so large a part of the teaching given to village boys during the nkumbi. (pp. 225-226)

    Far from illustrating the dependence of the Pygmies upon the villagers, the nkumbi illustrates better than anything else the complete opposition of the forest to the village.  The Pygmies in the forest consciously and energetically reject all village values.  When they are in the village they temporarily adopt its values and customs, not wanting to desecrate their sacred forest values by bringing them into the village.  That is why they never sing their sacred songs in the village the way they do in the forest, and why they refuse to consecrate the nkumbi with special music, although every other event of importance in their lives is marked in this way.  There is an unbridgeable gulf between the two worlds of the two peoples.

   The Pygmies have their own way of growing naturally into adulthood.  A boy proves himself capable of supporting a family when he kills his first real game, and proves himself a man when he participates in the elima.  (p. 227)

            Aminah Raheem (1991) gives a final example of how this stage can be different in other cultures:

    By the onset of adolescence, most children are intricately programmed into the cultural complex of their time and place.  The "still small voice" of the soul is rarely heard and, when it is, it is usually discarded as fantasy or nonsense.  For example, when I worked with late adolescents, I found that they often received deep soul promptings through dreams of visionary experiences.  These numinous events seemed to contain valuable guidance for direction in their lives, but usually they were discounted by the dreamers and their peers as fantasy.  By contrast, in American Indian culture such experiences are valued as clear messages of life purpose, especially when they appear during puberty.  (p. 29)

Return to Grace

What can be the result of making these kinds of changes?  Once again I look cross-culturally to give examples.  But looking at the extraordinary childhoods of particular people provides contrast and insight also.

            First, let us hear how Turnbull (1961) describes the results of the more trusting, more respectful childhood of the Mbuti.  He describes the emotional openness and joy that characterizes the Pygmy adult:

When Pygmies laugh it is hard not to be affected; they hold onto one another as if for support, slap their sides, snap their fingers, and go through all manner of physical contortions.  If something strikes them as particularly funny they will even roll on the ground. . . .  (p. 44)

 They clapped one another on the back and held onto one another for support as they laughed, inventing all sorts of things they would do and say to any girl who answered them in such a way.  The Pygmy is not in the least self-conscious about showing his emotions; he likes to laugh until tears come to his eyes and he is too weak to stand.  He then sits down or lies on the ground and laughs still louder.  (p. 56)

            But this is not to mean that they do not feel sorrow.  In fact, quite the opposite is the case.  They seem to be equally as open to grief as to laughter, able to go into either deeply and fully.  Considering all we are being taught by counseling psychologists on the need to fully have a period of grief when confronted by loss, it may be that we need to look to the Pygmy temperament as an example of that ideal.  Turnbull (1961) relates,

But when someone really dies, for ever, there is among the Pygmies a burst of uncontrollable grief, not only from the relatives, but from friends.  Even men will weep if they have been close to the dead person.  It is a very different sound, and a terrible one. . . .  (p. 42)

            Raheem (1991) describes her understanding of the state of not losing the soul, which apparently happens in some unusual people.

   On the other hand, the person who follows her own soul and uses the vehicle of personality to execute its purpose, will become "lighter" through life.  There will be a sense of flowing easily from one moment to the next, as though she were in a beautifully choreographed dance which she had thoroughly mastered.

    The free, expansive soul energy can dance through the whole person, bringing creativity, spontaneity and vitality throughout mind, body and emotions.  And since such a person is on course, integrated with her own Tao, she can experience strength, tranquility and certainty from within herself.  (p. 31)

---

Go Forward to Falls From Grace:  Chapter Ten:  Is a "Fully Functioning Ego" a Prerequisite to Higher Consciousness?

Return to Falls From Grace:  Chapter Eight:  The Fourth Fall From Grace: Puberty

Return to Falls From Grace:  Contents

Return to What's New

Return to Mickel Adzema's Writings

Return to Primal Spirit Home Page