In notebook, psychology, quotes on 18 January 2012
“Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defence against one’s own despised and unwanted feelings. And the fountainhead of all contempt, all discrimination, is the more or less conscious, uncontrolled and secret exercise of power over the child by the adult, which is tolerated by society (except in the case of murder or serious bodily harm). What adults do to their child’s spirit is entirely their own affair. For the cild is regarded as the parent’s property, in the same way as the citizens of a totalitarian state are the property of its government. Until we become sensitized to the small child’s suffering, this weilding of power by adults will continue to be a normal aspect of the human condition, for no one pays attention to or takes seriously what is regarded as trivial, since the vctems are ‘only children’. But in 20 years’ time these children will be adults who will have to pay it all back to their own children. They may then fight vigorously against cruelty ‘in the world’ – and yet they will carry within themselves an experience of cruelty to which they have no access and which remains hidden behind their idealised picture of a happy childhood.”
from The Drama of Being a Child (Alice Miller)
//@solle
//London