MANY PEOPLE WORLDWIDE were horrified at the perversions practiced on Iraqi captives by American soldiers during the first years of the Iraq War. But I have rarely experienced such indignation in response to sadistic practices exercised on children, for example in American and British schools. The reason is that such practices have always been classified as part of their education. Brutality inflicted on adults is (quite rightly) branded as scandalous. The world is frequently astonished that such brutality should even raise its ugly head among Americans, who have successfully persuaded the international public that they are the guardians of global peace. But all this is susceptible of explanation, though this explanation is hardly ever advanced.
Accordingly, it is certainly a good thing that light has finally been cast on the situation, that the lie has been exploded by the media. This lie runs as follows: We are a civilized, freedom-loving nation, and we bring democracy and independence to the remotest corners of the earth. It was with this motto on its banners that the United States invaded Iraq, causing immense devastation while still insisting that it was importing cultural values. Now it transpires that the well-drilled, smartly dressed soldiers not only had bombs and rockets in tow but also a huge arsenal of pent-up rage, invisible for all, including themselves, carefully concealed but none the less dangerous for that.
One asks oneself where this suppressed rage comes from, this desire to torment, mock, and abuse helpless captives. What are these apparently doughty soldiers avenging themselves for? And where did they learn such behavior? The same place as everyone else learns it: first as small children in the family, where they were taught to obey with the help of physical abuse; then at school, where they were exposed as defenseless victims to the sadism of some of their teachers; and finally during their military training, when they were treated like dirt by their superior officers with a view to instilling in them the questionable ability to put up with anything and toughening them up.
Desire for revenge does not come from nowhere. Its origins are to be found in the first years of life, when children are forced to suffer in silence as they are cruelly abused in the name of good parenting. The torture methods are learned first from the parents, later from teachers and superiors. Yet many people expect this systematic instruction by example in the destruction of others to have no evil consequences, as if children were containers that can be emptied from time to time. But the human brain is not a container. The things we learn early on in life are more or less irreversible. This is the lesson of the incidents in Iraq.
In The Body Never Lies, I point out that in twenty-two states of the U.S., children and adolescents at school are legally beaten, humiliated, frequently exposed to sadistic treatment and hence to real-life torture.* But this behavior is not reckoned to be torture because it goes by the name of education, discipline, or leadership. The religions endorse these practices. No one raises their voice in protest, except in a few Web sites on the Internet. By contrast, the Internet is full of advertisements offering whips and other devices for the corporal punishment of small children so that they can become God-fearing individuals of the kind the Good Lord needs and can love. The scandal in Iraq indicates what actually becomes of these children, what kind of adults they grow into. These soldiers are the fruits of an upbringing based on violence, spite, and indeed perversion.
The media quote psychology experts insisting that the brutality displayed by these American soldiers is a product of wartime stress or commands from their superior officers. It is certainly true that the soldiers in Iraq were encouraged in their perverted behavior by instructions from their officers. But the ground had already been laid for this willingness to torture others. It is definitely true that a state of war will trigger aggression, but that aggression must have been present in a latent form beforehand. No individual who has been brought up in a nonviolent manner at home or at school could ever mock and maltreat defenseless captives. It would be impossible. We know from the history of the Second World War that, if they had grown up without violence inflicted on them, drafted soldiers were capable of showing a human face, even in the extremely stressful situation that warfare represents. We also know from many accounts of camp life and armed hostilities that even such extreme stress did not necessarily turn human beings into perverts.
Perversion has a long, obscure history invariably rooted in childhood. The fact that these stories normally remain hidden from society is by no means surprising. All too many people once cowed into obedience by violence have reason enough not to be reminded of their childhood sufferings and never to let the suppressed facts see the light of day. Instead, they prefer to have themselves lashed in S/M clubs and insist that they enjoy the experience instead of asking themselves why they are prepared to submit to such perversions. In our society the cult of the unconscious still appears to flourish untrammeled. It is not true that there is a “wild beast in all of us,” as is so often unthinkingly asserted. That beast only lurks in people who were treated in a perverted manner in their childhood and yet stoutly deny the fact. They seek and find scapegoats for their unconscious vengeance, or destroy themselves with drugs and other substances so as to drown out awareness of the deeds perpetrated on them. For the child this pain would have been unbearable. But adults can bear it, and thanks to their own awareness they can banish the “beast” forever.