There is no question but that the drug abuse epidemic that has swept across our nation is a catastrophe. It is a catastrophe for those who are addicted and are subject to its cravings. It is a catastrophe for their loved ones, who suffer in innumerable ways. It is a catastrophe for our economy because of the lost productive value of those who are addicted and the cost of dealing with the drug problem. Estimates of the total overall costs of substance abuse in the United States, including productivity and health- and crime-related costs, exceed $600 billion annually.
Recognizing the importance of getting people off drugs, the government has engaged in a policy aptly named, “The War on Drugs.” Its concept is one of prohibition ... whether by criminalizing the use and sale of drugs and thus deterring such activity, or Nancy Reagan’s campaign of, “Just say no.”
What simple-minded approaches to a deep-seated problem! First of all, we know from our experience with alcohol prohibition that it not only doesn’t achieve the goal of reducing consumption, it has an actual negative impact by creating a whole illegal subculture around the manufacture and distribution of the substance. And that has been our experience with the war on drugs as well.
Then they decided that the deterrent aspect needed to be strengthened by making prison sentences mandatory, even for relatively minor possession charges. Well, our prisons have filled to overflowing, and yet it has made absolutely no impact on the demand for drugs.
The criminalization approach to drug control and Nancy Reagan’s appeal to people to just say no have failed for the same reason. As Time said in a report, “Americans tend to think of drug addiction as a failure of character.” Such approaches assume that one has the ability to make a rational choice whether to do something or not. Yet that is clearly not the case when it comes to drug abuse.
Others who recognize that it is not a failure of character, view drug addiction as primarily a biological problem relating to the chemical process of addiction. But that is also looking at the wrong place. That certainly describes why addiction is so hard to break out of, and why treatment rather than incarceration is often more appropriate, but it does not begin to help understand why people choose drugs to alter their mental state, which is where addiction and abuse begins.
Drug abuse is at root a societal problem. People want to alter their mental state because they feel painfully insecure and thus unhappy. It is an indictment of the failure of our society to raise children who feel secure, psychologically, and grow up be secure adults. There is an abundance of academic research stretching back decades that finds that, to quote from an NIH report, “factors such as peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, stress, and quality of parenting can greatly influence the occurrence of drug abuse and the escalation to addiction in a person’s life.” These are all factors that induce feelings of insecurity in children. The same can be said for almost every type of addictive behavior.
No one chooses to become a drug addict, or an alcoholic for that matter. The problem is not that addicts have less moral fiber or character flaws. The problem is that people who choose drugs or alcohol to alter/escape their mental state are typically people who are in agony. They are suffering from feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem that are so intense, even if they are outwardly successful, that they feel that their only escape is through drugs or alcohol. Yes, there are those who fall into drug addiction accidentally because of peer pressure, but the vast majority are trying to escape a world in which they can find no peace and security.
Indeed, one can argue that almost all of our social problems flow from a failure to raise secure children who go on to become secure adults. Assuming that our government or a local community understood this and wanted to address the root cause, how would it go about it? How could it change the pattern of insecure parents raising insecure children, with the situation repeating itself without end?
In my book, Raising a Happy Child, I note that it is a myth that childhood is a happy, carefree time. Typically it is neither carefree nor happy; it is instead fraught with insecurity. Raising a Happy Child seeks to change this fact of human development.
Why do children suffer this fate? What becomes of our lives is overwhelmingly a function of learned experience ... from our family, our peers, and the larger culture ... but first and foremost from our parents. The vast majority of parents are good people and would not do anything intentionally to harm their child. But parents are people who are a function of their own upbringing and learned experience. They have their own fears, frustrations, angers, and desires. And they see things through the lens of that experience and those emotions, which in turn impacts how they interact with their children.
The result is children who do not feel loved unconditionally, are as a consequence insecure, and grow up to become insecure adults who do not love themselves unconditionally. This is the primal basis of our fears and neuroses.
But this does not mean that parents should simply lavish praise on their children, give them what they want, or be uncritical of their children. Direction and criticism are important parental functions; the question is how they are given, in what context. Raising a Happy Child seeks to provide parents with the means to step outside themselves, to be able to experience their child, themselves, and the world around them mostly free of their learned experience and emotions, thus enabling them to provide their children at all times with the nurturing and unconditional love they need to be happy and secure.
The book then guides parents through the critical development stages of a child's life, providing advice on how to address the significant issues that arise at each stage within the context of unconditional love. Raising a Happy Child seeks nothing less than to fundamentally alter the quality of the relationship between parents and children, and thus change the way children relate to themselves and the world around them. For more on the book and sample text, click the book's cover in the sidebar.
What government, civic leaders, religious leaders ... anyone who is in a position of influence should do is read this book and encourage all parents to read the book and follow its advice. Beyond that, government must take action to reduce social problems that exacerbate these issues, especially the failure of our schools.
Raising a Happy Child assumes that there is nothing fundamental that we can change about the competitive, consumption-driven society we live in. I think that is beyond hope. But governments and parents can take steps to improve the quality of life (and I don’t mean the number of possessions one has) that the average person experiences, insuring that everyone feels part of the larger community, equal in opportunity, and that everyone is nourished by their immediate family.
In my previous post, I addressed the problems caused by widespread insecurity ... abuse and violence in personal relationships and in social interactions, as well as much unhappiness and stress even without those particular outcomes. But insecurity also plays a major role in the larger issues of social conflict and international war.
For hundreds if not thousands of years, there has been a divide in most societies between the haves and the have-nots. Whether we look at the English nobility, or the WASP establishment in the United States prior to 1960, Southern whites, or the caste system in India, the haves put in place a system which protected their interests and kept “others” or the masses from having the power to be a threat.
The reader might look at these leaders of society and say that they were immensely secure; that this is not an example of insecurity causing conflict. But I would argue that they were only secure because they had put in place these systems, which they did out of insecurity and fear. They were at some level afraid of “others” or the masses gaining power.
The English nobility put in place a system where there was little upward mobility, and then only to a certain point. The English class system ... which was the gate into good schools and good jobs ... was firmly in place until after WWII; many would say it still is. Politically, even after election reforms in the 1800s which gave a political voice to men who either owned or rented property worth a certain amount, the House of Lords, which was the province of the nobility, had the power to veto what they didn’t like until 1911.
In the United States, the WASP establishment until around 1960 had a pretty exclusive grip on all handles of power. Whether someone was Jewish or Catholic, let alone black, all “others” were excluded from the seats of real power, for example, WASP law firms, country clubs, and private clubs. Representative politics provided a path to elected status for many of the “others,” but real power was reserved for members of the WASP establishment until well after WWII.
In the South, whites from the highest to the lowest socio-economic groups put in place and violently supported a system in which blacks had no rights, or what rights they had were systematically denied them. The language may have been one of superiority and security, but here more than in the other instances I discuss, the fear of losing control was always close to the surface and apparent.
Today in the United States, while we live in a very egalitarian society in many respects and there are many laws protecting the equality of people, discrimination based on fear and insecurity is still a major issue. Much has been written, for example, about the vehemence of the Tea Party’s and Far Right’s attitude towards President Obama as being in large part based on their fear of blacks’, and other people of color, gaining more social and political power as the majority status of whites in this country begins to fade away, an opinion with which I agree.
And this is not just a Western phenomenon. For example, the caste system in India, which until relatively recently was very rigid and still causes many problems, especially for those formerly labeled “untouchables,” was an ancient system devised to keep everyone in their place and protect those with power from those below them.
As to the issue of international war, the issue of insecurity is more visible. Virtually all alliances and wars have been an effort to make countries feel secure against the threat of enemies, real or imagined. Even the strong have constantly been worried about attacks on their hegemony. And understandably so.
Obviously, in the larger social context and international relationships, the problem is not directly that children, spouses, and others are not loved unconditionally. However, the basic dynamic resulting from this which impacts interpersonal relationships ... a feeling of insecurity, of not feeling safe, of needing to project strength to counter such feelings ... directly impacts actions in the larger social and world arenas. If those in positions of power felt love towards and from all, then there would be no need for both the national and international systems that have ultimately caused much suffering in the world.
If everyone were raised with unconditional love, listened to deeply, and spoken to with loving kindness, then man would not grow up to be the way man is now and has been for millenia, at least in so-called “advanced” societies.
So far I have discussed the impact of man’s insecurity vis a vis others and its impact on his relationship with other individuals or groups. Another major aspect of man’s insecurity that has affected the course of human development has been his insecurity vis a vis nature, read broadly. It is this insecurity that resulted in the development of religion, from the earliest to the current leading religions.
Man formed religions to answer questions of why nature and other aspects of life are the way they are, and most importantly to provide a way for man to impact their course, whether through sacrifice in ancient times or through modern prayer. And since religion was formed in answer to man’s insecurity, it is not surprising that it was made to serve his other insecurities, whether it was providing a respectable foundation for the continued practice of slavery or lending its authority to a country’s going to war against enemies. Far from being the bringer of peace and understanding, religion has thus been the hand-maiden of war and untold human suffering.
And so, the book I’ve written which has just been published, Raising a Happy Child, is relevant regarding these larger issues as well. It is available through www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com. as well as through the major online retailers and your local bookstore by special order. While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of ones religious affiliation. For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to the website.
In the aftermath of the massacre at Newtown, CT most of the discussion has centered around how to lessen the risk of such events happening through better gun control measures, including improved data bases to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed. While these are important measures that need to be taken, they avoid the real issue ... why is it that so many people are killed in the United States each year by guns.
In addition to the well-publicized random mass shootings, there is a far greater problem out there. In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans. Roughly 20,000 of these were suicides; the rest were intentional homicides. Only 5% were accidental shootings. In addition, 73,505 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2010.
These numbers are huge. They evidence a significant problem in the psychological stability of Americans. I include in this group not just those who perpetrate mass shootings or commit suicide, but also those who commit intentional homicide. One does not kill another person if one is emotionally stable.
But the vastness of America’s psychological problem is far greater than evidenced by gun deaths. If we look at the extent of domestic violence, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that between 960,000 and 3 million people are physically abused by their spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend per year. Other sources report estimates ranging between 600,000 to 6 million women and 100,000 to 6 million men per year. Even taking the more conservative DOJ figures, the problem is serious.
There are no statistics for those who suffer verbal/mental rather than physical abuse. But as anyone who has observed friends and family, as well as strangers, the numbers if they were available would be frightening.
Whether someone verbally abuses a spouse or child, or physically abuses them, or commits suicide, murder, or a mass shooting is a matter of degree, both as to the severity and nature of their psychological disturbance. But in most cases, whether the disturbance is mild or severe, the root of the disturbance is insecurity.
What has caused this epidemic of insecurity? The cause lies in the simple fact that children, spouses, parents, and siblings are typically not loved unconditionally, or certainly do not feel so loved. To most people reading this, this will sound like rubbish for a variety of reasons. First, people think that it is quite right not to love people unconditionally; the very idea sounds like nonsense. Second, it sounds like the ultimate example of permissiveness, which rightfully would be viewed negatively.
The first reaction arises because most of us have no experience with, no role models for, unconditional love. We have not experienced it ourselves, either from our parents or spouses, nor have we seen that trait in others. A recent cartoon in the New Yorker showed a mother with her arm around her young son, saying, ““Heavens no, sweetie – my love for you has tons of conditions” Take away the hyperbole and that states the basic fact of much child-rearing, at least in America (I can’t speak to other countries), and not just currently but probably for a good century and more.
This is not a judgment of parents. Most parent are good people who would never do anything intentionally to harm their child. But parents are people who are a function of their own upbringing and learned experience. They have their own fears, frustrations, angers, and desires. And they see things through the lens of that experience and those emotions, which in turn impacts how they interact with their children.
And so, as children we have been exposed to conditional love at home and conditional respect among our peers. The result is an epidemic of insecurity. And not just among those who receive negative “reviews” from family and peers. Those who get positive feedback are also insecure because they realize that their approval is based on their status at that point in time; should that change ... whether it’s ones looks, ones grades, ones wealth, ones physical ability, ones talent ... they will lose their position at the top of the social pecking order. They know that their approval is very conditional and the fact that they have so much to lose makes them even more insecure, which they mask with huge egos and bravado. This is what accounts for so many people at the top being imperious and often belittling others ... whether it’s “mean girls” in school or financial titans.
As to the second reaction, it stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of unconditional love. Unconditional love is a Buddhist concept that pretty much means what it seems to ... that one loves someone, whether child or spouse, for who that person is. And so regardless what that person does, they are still loved because it does not change who they are. An example of this are parents who accept a child who turns out to be gay because it doesn’t change who the child is in their eyes and thus doesn’t change their love, as opposed to those parents who ostracize such children because they have committed an abomination or at least unpardonable social behavior.
What it does not mean is that one does not provide direction or criticism to a child. An important factor in the development of a child is receiving direction on a large variety of matters from its parents. To love unconditionally means to provide that direction or criticism within the context of such love and when one gives it, to couch it in such a way, to use such words and tone of voice, so that it is clear to the child that the direction or criticism does not impact the unconditional love that they are given. If one loves a child unconditionally, one never yells at a child or calls them “bad” or other negative labels. That would be an example of not speaking with loving kindness, which is the opposite of unconditional love.
As an aside I should note that unconditional love also does not mean that if one finds oneself in an abusive relationship that one stays in it. One may have unconditional love and compassion for the abusive spouse/partner, but if your mental or physical well-being is threatened, one should put as much physical and legal distance as necessary between yourself and the abuser to protect yourself, and if you have children, your children.
Assuming that to some degree at least you agree with my assessment, you may well ask how this problem can be addressed? If generations of insecure people are raising insecure children in a vicious cycle, how can it be broken? The answer is by making prospective and existing parents aware of this problem and encouraging them to take steps to both raise a happy and secure child and at the same time make their own lives better as well. Bit by bit we must start with individual parents and have the effect spread outward.
To that end I have written a book which has just been published, Raising a Happy Child. While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of ones religious affiliation. It is available through www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com. as well as through the major online retailers and your local bookstore by special order. For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to the website.
Next, “Insecurity as the Cause of Social Conflict and International War.”
