Killing for Christmas
Kline, Dr. Carl L.
KILLING for CHRISTMAS by DR. CARL L. KLiNE THE Pied Pipers of Madison Avenue are again hypnotizing our children with their annual Christmas toy extravaganza. Once again the mechanical...
...Observers in these schools always are impressed by the peaceful, non-violent atmosphere...
...Above all of these current dissents hovers the nuclear bomb, harbinger of world destruction...
...And replace Rudolph with the red-nosed nuclear missile...
...It then quoted Frank Caplan of Creative Playthings as saying, "Some of the larger manufacturers of war toys almost went bankrupt this year...
...We are teaching them to love war, to accept violence as a way of life, and to see killing as a permissible, even necessary, part of existence...
...There is some indication that the toy arms race is losing momentum...
...he asked...
...I asked...
...The more sophisticated parent probably would prefer to place under his child's Christmas tree an exploding mined road...
...And if I saw anyone try to run away, I'd let them have it...
...Violence invades our homes through television and the printed page...
...The parent who advocates a conventional approach to warfare and yet is up-to-date in his thinking might well settle for the JohnnySeven, billed as the "One-man Army...
...This remarkable brain will cause us to protest one pattern of violent behavior while condoning another which is even more destructive...
...Or, "War ,,·ill always be with us...
...Many experts have pointed out that parents cannot reassure children about the cold war as long as they themselves feel uncertain and helpless...
...They are so highly structured that they leave no room for the imagination...
...While mouthing ,,-ords such as "negotiate," "peaceful coexistence," and "one world," ,,'e go on building a multibillion dollar ,,'eapon stockpile capable of killing the population of the world many times over...
...Why is it that we condone-even approve-the manufacture and sale of toy weapons designed to play at destruction, wholesale murder, and nuclear annihilation...
...Where can creative toys be obtained...
...And once again the preponderance of how-to-kill play equipment testifies to the acceptance of violence and sadism in our adult society...
...Their rationalizations follow well-established patterns: "What harm is there in it...
...By demanding the best for them, we hope they will become happy, loving, and lovable human beings...
...The road really blows up, complete with U.N...
...Discard the outdated sleigh and reindeer for a sophisticated launching pad...
...Rather, it confronts me daily on the street corner, in the home, at the Cub Scout picnic...
...If parents do not buy war toys, companies won't manufacture them...
...Although the war toy industry has issued occasional statements explaining the good, clean, wholesome fun to be derived from its products, its spokesmen have been singularly reluctant to engage in public dialogue...
...The children are self-disciplined, quiet, and respectful of each other, busy learning new things...
...Our inconsistency lies in our persistent talk of ,,'anting peace while simultaneously perpetuating war...
...One of the books on Montessori is appropriately entitled, Learning How to Learn...
...Oh, sure," he said...
...If unable to persuade them to stock such toys, there are several outstanding sources of creative, nOllviolent toys...
...jeep and soldiers...
...Therefore, the evidence that shocks and appalls me, as a psychiatrist, comes not from the consultation room and not from the therapeutic session...
...CARL L. KLiNE THE Pied Pipers of Madison Avenue are again hypnotizing our children with their annual Christmas toy extravaganza...
...The hero, the dropout, would (just for fun, not for real) break windows, slug the teacher, rape the coeds, and stab anyone who interfered...
...Yet, we insist that we love our children...
...This eleven-year-old squinted at me as if to confirm my naivete...
...Ever since Hitler built his colossus we have endured war, hot and cold_ At this point in history we have a mixture of both kinds and find it increasingly difficult to differentiate one from the other...
...it is featured at the movies...
...My nuclear warhead deterrent retaliatory m iss i 1 e s were already launched...
...The human mind is attracted to self-destructive inconsistencies...
...This could include a school building, school room, principal, teacher, pupils, and 'weapons...
...Sure...
...Any war toy hawk can shrug off this kind of comment with ease...
...Records from guidance centers as December, 1966 well as from private psychiatric practices reveal that many emotionally sick children feel a morbid interest in war toys...
...Ha...
...Currently there is a dramatic example of this strange twist in human psychology...
...Our children are spectators to this panorama...
...Pow...
...Connecticut's Representative Bernard Grabowski, in a recent speech in the House, urged "every parent this Christmas to refrain from buying those products which may maim the mind of your child and at the same time produce within the child an emotional, traumatic experience which later may affect his adult life...
...The toy stores are filled with a great variety of these toys which encourage children to play at killing...
...It also conditions them to accept war and its legalized killing of other human beings as a reasonable solution to conflict and disagreement...
...They showed all these pictures of the shot-up buildings that got hit in the war...
...Why do parents passively accept having their children conditioned to love war...
...Many schools have been established using her methods...
...They actually cause a There are extra dividends when you give The Progressive for Christmas child to repress his real hostilities for they allow little flexibility in use...
...Caplan feels that there is a "newly found spirit of independence among retailers" who have learned that "They can do without the televised dictation of irresponsible manufacturers...
...When adults put their stamp of ap proval upon violence as the solution to conflicts, this callous disregard for human suffering is the tragic result...
...I asked...
...By their very nature they condition for destruction...
...He learns that life is made interesting when one's own inner resources are called upon...
...The old one-at-a-time philosophy no longer suffices...
...The old cowboy and Indian battle has been defeated by the KahnTeller game...
...They find this in the learning process...
...All your country will be gone too--just a few minutes now...
...Toy nuclear bombs might well be the answer for the truly auante garde parent...
...Today's playroom vocabulary has outdistanced the limitations of Dick and Jane by facile use of such terms as megakill, megadeaths, and saturation bombing...
...War toys do not stimulate creative play...
...I should have sprayed you with napalm bombs first...
...By providing children with creative play materials the child is challenged to use his imagination in a constructive and creative way...
...This, of course, is to be expected...
...Maria Montessori made some basic discoveries about children's patterns of learning...
...While claiming to seek loye, ,,'e create hate...
...When adults give their children war toys for play, they are providing the script for tomorrow's real life drama...
...Several of the leaders in the field are: 1) Creative Playthings, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey...
...And, finally, war toys do not introduce the child to the reality of adult life...
...But look-even a nice gentle little Sunday school teacher might cause some of these youngsters to flip...
...The truth, it seems to me, can be simply stated: War toys educate for barbarism...
...It is a fact that war is real...
...and it is even praised in the classroom...
...Until our country emulates the example set by Queretaro, concerned parents can take their own first step toward disarmament and abolish war from the playroom...
...A recent New York Post article mentioned declining war toy sales...
...You gotta shoot the other guys first...
...While psychiatrists express a great deal of healthy disagreement and debate on many facets of human behavior, there is general accord that childhood experiences determine, to a great extent, adult attitudes and behavior...
...Santa Claus might be given a State Department assignment...
...One of the intriguing facts of human psychology is also one of the most lamentable...
...War toys do not teach anything constructive...
...Instead of cowboys killing redskins, it is the grim game of Better Dead than Red...
...Recently an eleven-year-old with a charming smile (and a complete arsenal of war toys) was telling me about the home movies he had seen the night before...
...Parents should do something constructive to diminish hate and con flict...
...Caplan's own company, Creative Playthings, discontinued its war game, Diplomacy, in 1965...
...Santa Claus launching races would be one important goal with special aid going to those under-developed countries willing to buy their Christmas missiles from the United States...
...This is not surprising...
...One day you'll rock a real live baby...
...Another potential best seller might be a "School Dropout Game...
...Reality would demand a true presentation of the suffering and pain and devastation that accompany war...
...Hatred comes from exposure to hatred as a way of life...
...If a new toy policy is indeed beginning to find acceptance by the industry, the anti-war toy campaigns of many church groups, PTA's, and other concerned organizations cannot be disregarded as a causative factor...
...I asked...
...To encourage international understanding, Mrs...
...Then he shrugged...
...Children are provided with a macabre choice of ways to play at killing, singly or en masse...
...Relatives had just returned from Europe with the usual supply of travel films to document their trip...
...You can't prove a thing with this kind of material...
...When parents buy their little boys toy bombers, are they saying, "Learn how to fight with these today...
...What about the people who were killed and hurt when the buildings were hit...
...Or, "They have to take out their hostility some way, don't they...
...The child could use his own imagination about what to do to the principal...
...Ack-ack-ack-ack...
...Imagine the hours of parent-sanctioned play at murder available to thousands of children, come the dawn of Christmas day...
...Perhaps our cruelest hoax is the deceitful double-talk to which we expose our children...
...Instead of Christmas carols around the tree the conversation will sparkle with sophisticated dialogue: "Hey, Eddie, my 100 megaton H-bomb just wiped out your country...
...and 4) Lionel Corporation, which advertises "Sane Toys for Healthy Children" and which makes no war toys...
...It is to be suspected that the experts who plan lavish selling campaigns for war toys know that these products do not meet the basic requirements for good toys...
...Transform the jolly elves into junior grade desk officers...
...High on the popularity list are such war toys as hand grenades, H-bombs, flame throwers, bazookas, assorted missiles, and a wide variety of close range person-to-person weapons of murder...
...There will be lots of killing for kicks on Christ's birthday this year...
...The other day, when several planes flew overhead in formation, I heard an eight-year-old say, "Boy, would I like to turn my Johnny-Seven on them...
...Little kids, too...
...This, of course, is true...
...War toys offer a major example of our orientation to violence...
...Everybody's dead...
...The one doing the most damage (makebelieve, of course) wins the game...
...How outraged parents would be if the toymakers flooded the market with other kinds of toys glorifying violence...
...For nearly thirty years the world has existed in the shadow of war or in actual war...
...Recently the Mexican state of Queretaro declared a ban on all war toys...
...A child finds it hard to believe in the kindness of parents who are anxious to destroy children and parents in other parts of the world...
...However, the toys that imitate this phase of life actually deceive and mislead children...
...Even though children do not use words like "value system" and "social milieu," they nevertheless sense that grownups prepare them for adult roles by the toys they give them for practice today...
...2) Edutech, Inc., 709 Woodward Boulevard, Washington, D.C...
...Our textbooks of daily living are filled with hostility and the other by-products of war...
...Truth doesn't derive from a mystique of deceit, lies, intrigue, and a double standard...
...The little ones can play at the same war games as their adult tutors who play their games for real...
...Once again the mechanical ingenuity and physical beauty of the toys are a tribute to the skill of the toy industry...
...Possibly the same factors operate here as are operative in enabling adults to accept cold wars and hot wars for the past twenty-five years...
...Nick's headquarters from the North Pole to the Pentagon...
...They need to put their convictions into action in the ways avail able in our free country-by voting, by writing to the President, to Senators and Representatives, and by joining and supporting groups to advance the cause of peace...
...One of the exciting educational experiments is the Montessori movement...
...They need to inform themselves on the issues, test alternative views, come to their own conclusions...
...the kids might as well get used to it...
...That was the best part...
...These children don't need television sets for excitement and entertainment...
...CARL KLINE is a praclicing psych;aIrisl in Wausau, Wisconsin...
...And then he added wistfully, "I'd sure like to finish them off...
...The fable might be altered to relocate St...
...That's what guns are fod" he said, with obvious disgust for anyone not smart enough to understand this basic principle...
...This tends to give children a large measure of confidence and security and a minimum incentive for cynicism...
...When parents buy their little girl a baby doll, they are saying, "Learn how to rock her in your arms...
...A child can find it hard to believe in Lhe love of parents who give toy weapons of hate to the children they profess to love...
...Love is not made from the mortar of hatred...
...If their product does not sell, they either change the product or go out of business...
...Suppose, for instance, the stores featured a "Violence on the Streets Kit...
...Children are basically creative, imaginative, curious, and thirsty for knowledge...
...One day you'll fight with real-life ones...
...Jeez...
...Such a kit might include (toys, of course) brass knuckles, a broken coke bottle neck, a piece of lead pipe, an instruction book with complete directions for making a zip gun, instructions on rape and the easy way to mug a victim...
...Creative toys provide children with the opportunity to open their minds to the excitement and satisfaction of learning...
...I could have cut your guys up plenty good with my Lazy Dog bombs...
...When children are provided with creative toys or the material for creative play, they do not ordinarily react with violence...
...Well, of course disturbed children might overreact to war toys...
...War toys do not provide a wholesome outlet for aggressive play...
...We struggle to provide them with homes, food, clothing, luxuries, and schooling...
...Perhaps in keeping with the times, some genius will re-write the traditional Santa Claus story...
...3) Science Materials Center, 59 Fourth Avenue, New York...
...Parents can go to toy stores in their communities and discuss this with the managers...
...KILLING for CHRISTMAS by DR...
...Children are reassured by having their parents active in opposing war and injustice...
...It is important that parents have the courage to maintain their own ethical, moral, religious, and intellectual con victions...
...You know what was the neatest...
...If questioned about this war-toy phenomena in our society, parents often react with surprise, or indignation, or anger...
...Maybe they're already frightened by their own hostile feelings, or maybe they're insecure in their family relationships...
...His lucky child can then play at megakilling...
...It's only a game, isn't it...
...Rack at the turn of this century, Dr...
...As we preach freedom and self-determination, we back dictators and put down people's revolutions...
...Toy companies, like any other industry, are in the business to make money...
...Oh, yeah...
...That's how you win...
...Why...
...That day of the year when we celebrate the birth of Christ, the Prince of Peacenot the day for celebrating the birth of the vicar of violence...
...People who learn to play non-violently as children can learn to live non-violently as adults...
...On this basis, it is evident that the sanctioning of war through the condoning of war toys desensitizes children to the evils of war...
Vol. 30 • December 1966 • No. 12
