Heidi and Pinker

[mindstalk]

I re-read _Heidi_ recently (by Johanna Spyri; trans. Helen Dole.) It was still fun, though on the border of sentimental twee and piously didactic. But since I'm also reading a book on human violence, I was struck by something one normally wouldn't be, unless perhaps one read Dickens at the same time.

It's a very non-threatening story. IIRC, not even Peter the goatherd gets threatened with a beating, though he probably implicitly fears one. Heidi, a troublesome orphan in a strange household with a hostile governess, is not spanked, not even threatened with being sent to her room without supper. The worst thing that happens is confiscation of some belongings, and more out of arrogance than malice, and a kindly servant rescues them anyway.

Peter hits the goats, until Heidi makes him stop.

This probably doesn't seem like much, to us in 2012, when hitting children and animals is out of fashion. But this is a book published in 1880; actual children were getting regular beatings well into the 1950s, and some corporal punishment is hardly entirely verboten today. And hitting goats with a stick to keep them in line is very mild compared to what's been done to animals historically, like burning them alive for fun. Other fictional orphans get nearly fed to witches, beaten, starved, taken in by criminals... Dickens is full of this, and those are the good endings.

So Heidi stands out as part of what Pinker calls the Civilizing Process and the Humanitarian Revolution. Lessons of self-control and kindness and literacy and piety for the kids, and modeling an idyllic peaceful kind and non-violent world where not even goats or bad boys get thwacked.

Comments

[thistleburr]

"actual children were getting regular beatings well into the 1950s" - This made me laugh. I think I know what you meant, but... actual children are still getting regular beatings well after the 1950s.

[mindstalk]

Yeah, and I don't know the exact date, but there's been a big change in Western culture. You're not *supposed* to beat your children regularly -- hell, some European countries have made spanking *illegal*, and even in the US there's consensus against heavy thrashing, vs. debate over the disciplinary effects of a moderate spanking or "don't do that!" toddler slap.

Worse stuff happens -- but now it's stuff the state may step in to prevent, rather than recommended parenting practice.

[thistleburr]

Yeah, like I said, I know what you meant, but what you wrote was not that. It just kind of made me laugh.