Society today

Is the field of psychology a function of society?

I'm reading about how children are scared for life if an authority figure raises a voice in anger toward them. There goes the planet.

But really. There is a contingency stating yelling at children irreparably harms them. Forever. They are lessened by the 'violence' of the act. They point to the psychology contingent saying they have proved this.

I've been watching some You Tube clips and I like the nature ones. Say you are watching a bunch of lionesses with their cubs. All is well for a while with the cubs practicing their skills and horsing around, as it were. Then, as all children in crowds do, they get out of control. A lioness will take a paw with claws withdrawn and smack the living crap out the cub. The cub can roll for feet. A lion will roar. Now that's yelling.

That's how Mother Nature intended it. Most mother/child relationships in the wild show mothers walloping the living daylights out of their offspring. There isn't a lot of forgiveness out there. If you make a mistake, you are someone's lunch. Mothers have to teach their children how to survive.

Then we have people and society. Walloping children who misbehaved used to be the norm. Now it is an abomination before God if there is a God. If not, it is an abomination before Man.

Baby lions aren't damaged by being smacked across the veldt but swatting a child on the diapered behind will destroy him. How did this happen?

Psychology is an inexact science. I have an acquaintance who claims if it isn't in numbers, it isn't science. So maybe psychology/psychiatry isn't even science. The practice is merely a reflection of the norms of society.

In the wild, incest isn't an issue. In the world of psychology, this is a biggie. We have complexes and diagnoses and it is enough to make us all shudder. Mother Nature doesn't think so, society does.

In the wild, violence is a way of life. It is kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. Even plant life has developed traits to ensure its survival – i.e. poisonous plants. In civilization, we have become so frightened of violence we have abdicated all sense. And added a variety of diseases to the DSM-IV.

Somehow, what was once normal behavior is now the reason for all that is bad. Instead, perhaps we should look at the societies themselves. We were not made for this overcrowding and the constant stimulus we endure today. In olden times, 150 years ago, nightfall meant you were done for the day. There were candles and oil lamps, but the jobs needing light were finished until the next day's sunris

In the evening, there was talk. The television wasn't switched on and the computer wasn't calling out to us. Video games weren't screaming in the background. There was true social interaction.

We call our modern parenting into question when any child is reprimanded and believe we are wounding him or her. Just look at how violent our society has become, it is said. And it is because of poor parenting and violence perpetrated against the child. You can treat a patient for bad parenting. How do you treat someone for bad world? But it is my contention that the world has become too much for us little humans.

There is no bonding time. Parents are rushed and so plop their children in front of a television beginning with Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer and continuing on to the reruns viewed over and over in nursing homes.

We expect our children to learn the rules of the game by osmosis or observation rather than by knocking sense into the heads. We are so frightened of the big, bad world we keep trying to make it safe. It was never safe. It will never be safe. And what we do is often counter productive.

We have wandered far from how Mother Nature intended us to be. Things won't much improve until we learn the rules of the game from her and then willingly teach them to our offspring. So take that.