Does violence leads to the use of force, or does using force lead to violence?
According to the religious precepts of Christianity, violence was innate in man — and I must say, women also.
This meant that the proper way to raise them was to submit them to parental authority, and to control them through authority rather than through argument in order to bring them under control or domination. The Church and, beyond that, society itself felt that it was legitimate for parents to strike their children and they acknowledged parental corrective action to be effective.
But, honourable senators, the whole centuries-old concept of parental authority is based on religious beliefs and on empirical knowledge whose basis was laid down long before we began to understand the psychology of child development.
Since then, science has worked wonders, if I may put it that way.
Twentieth-century science has shown us that men and women are not aggressive by nature, but that they become aggressive because of forces in their environment. External stimuli play such an important role in the origin of violence that talking of an “innate” tendency to be aggressive makes little sense for animals, let alone for humans. Children learn to become aggressive when they are treated aggressively.
A solemn declaration to reflect a global scientific consensus was written in Seville, Spain, in 1986, and was made public during UNESCO’s general conference in Paris in 1989.
In 1917, science began to report on the disastrous consequences of corporal punishment. The following signs were evident in children: rebellion, hypocrisy, a taste for cruelty, vengeful feelings, anti-social tendencies, onset of nervous illnesses, loss of activities, and loss of capacity to enjoy and to act.
Since we now know that the way today’s children are raised will map society’s future and since we know that the community can pay dearly for parental use of force, state intervention is apparently not only justified but necessary. The use of force in child rearing, spanking for example, is not a problem that affects only families. It also affects society as a whole.
There is no reason to keep allowing ourselves to believe the traditional argument, under the guise of religious beliefs or some kind of empirical knowledge, that authoritarian child rearing, which includes physical violence, is necessary or more effective.
Consequently, please, support Bill S-204
