Capitalism and Child Exploitation

The Tory Party has supported a campaign by the Mothers Union against the fashion industry's commercial exploitation of children. Although there is a little irony in the idea of the Tories rushing to defend anyone against capitalist exploitation, their intentions are at least superficially honourable. The danger is that the pendulum of popular culture will simply drive this market in the opposite direction. After all, agricultural based economies often exploit child labour in the service of the family. As someone who has worked with adults who have suffered horrific abuse as children I can testify that this area of practice, comorbid childhood PTSD, is a public health problem and an emotional quagmire. Psychological distortion and dissociation in patients leads to rapid burnout and enduring fatigue in staff. The ethical dilemmas involved become more obvious when we ask: Are the injuries suffered made worse or better by silence and the perpetuation of ignorance? Or who really has the need to know? As a result of our collective failure to deal with our emotions properly, I believe this issue has haunted our modern liberal western democracy since the second world war. Here are the reasons why I think this could be an explosive issue for any government and one that is not going to go away quickly. 

PSYCHOANALYTIC CULTURE

In 1897 Freud famously changed his "Trauma theory" about the cause of Neurosis (aka anxiety and depression) because of opposition among his peers. His theory could not be supported by objective evidence, and subjectively it did not distinguish between the unconscious fact and unconscious fantasy of his client’s reports. Trauma theory proposed  that the physical manifestation of repressed psychological conflicts (probably a form of what we now call Medically Unexplained Symptoms and/or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) was caused by, amongst other abuses, the sexual molestation of the patient as a child. However, because of peer pressure and the uncertainty inherent in psychological theories, he was forced to reverse the polarity implied by his theory, and argue that the condition was probably caused by the child’s powers to seduce the adult. This became known as the Child Seduction theory. In theory, this could still help heal, or exorcise, the neurotic expression of the repressed conflict, if not the conflict itself, because it gave the child the power to control the relationship, and therefore gave them more control over their own psychic destiny.

This has been a hugely contentious issue because of the succes of the Psychoanalytic movement since the end of the Second World War. So why did Freud capitulate to his aggressors? One theory is that many of his medical colleagues in Vienna were Jews who were combating the sort of anti-semitism that was popularised by Karl Lueger from 1875 to 1910. Lueger became Mayor of Vienna and his politics arguably sowed the seeds of the Nazi Party in Germany. So it could be argued that they were essentially defending their religious rite of circumcision. A practice that has been institutionalized within semitic cultures since pre-historic times. Freud’s theory reflects some aspects of this tradition insofar as an untamed "Id" is referred to as an Oedipus Complex. 

Freud suggested that the infant began life with an undifferentiated id arousal state and that this was a prepubescant, i.e. non-gential, form of libido, which eventually becomes an adult sexuality. He suggests that the id goes through a number of fixations during the child's development that are more or less tied into the child's adaptations to its host culture. Trauma theory might suggest that the fixations are related to abusive incidents, whereas his later theory interprets them more positively as libidinal attachments. During puberty, this process reaches its peak and the id must be restrained, or "repressed", by the superego, ergo the critical and/or hostile parental aggressor that is onternalised by the child. Ultimately, this process is used to explain the psychic division between childhood and adulthood that ends up as the "hardwired" personality. 

Most people in Western European cultures agree that good parenting tries to create a supportive environment for the formation of a child's ego, into an adult, through a compassionate form of intergenerational restructuring that promotes dydactic learning and tries to avoid direct interpersonal conflict. Freud (1905) explores the causes of anxiety in childhood. Boys and girls go through what Freud referred to as "castration anxiety" and "penis envy", respectively. Beyond this point, the uninhibited id is identified as the "oedipal" and "electra" complex in male and female adults, respectively. A lot can go wrong with this process which can result in the failure to internalise a civilised morality; as the mass externalistion of sexual and violent ideolgies by the Nazi Party might testify. So the traditional practice of male circumcision can be thought of as a (fairly brutal but fail-safe) precursor to this developmental phase, practised within a culture that still condones an 'eye for an eye' morality. Ironically, the same, or a very similar, process was identified by Freud's daughter,  Anna Freud, as a specific instance of a more general ability of humans to identify with and/or internalize the form/intent of an aggressor (Freud 1937).

These days there is probably no reason for psychoanalysts to have to accept Sigmond Freud's original theory. Anna's theory is consistent with more recent neurological evidence that human’s are able to identify with the aggressor because of special neurons in their brains called mirror neurons (Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004). The existence of these neurons enables the child to reflect upon their own actions through witnessing the actions of others. This internal process can assist in the resolution of psychological trauma independently of any external relationship. Thus, there is evidence that a process that helps the brain to restrain its sexual-aggressive impulses as it reaches maturity does have some "survival-value" for the species in evolutionary terms. Ultimately this feature of the brain may help children create a new cultural identity after they inevitably experience some form of ‘a defeat in battle’ as a young adult. In addition, whereas Psychoanalysis is not practiced outside Western liberal democracies, identification/internalisation with the aggressor is potentially a universal trait of human beings. 

But perhaps circumcision is a childhood trauma that has retained its legal justification because it reinforces the intergenerational transmission of control over the animalistic sexual-aggressive impulses. Perhaps the Christian practice of worshipping the birth of a baby Jesus, and the crucifixion of him as the adult Christ, has provided a symbolic equivalent of the same process. After all, the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are united in their positioning of the parent as potentially being called upon to sacrifice their own children to appease their God. Thus, the God-theory that unifies these religious myths and rituals is the same ideological representation: a powerful, beneficent, and yet vengeful, omnipresent parental figure. This is an archtype that Jung would have imagined buried deep within the genes of its adherents, through a process of socio-cultural, qua natural, selection.

From Freud’s experience, it is probably correct to say that the current concern over the ‘sexualization of children's clothing’ is about something going wrong with this process. What is wrong is the influence of the market on the child’s developing ego, and the errosion of parental power over their children's psychological development. I use probably in the sense that a symbiotic relationship exists between the child and its interpersonal environment from birth, and that all relationships tend to repeat previous generations so everything about the next generation is likely to reflect something about the former. However, from a Freudian perspective, it could be argued that through its appropriation of the symbols of sexual power, the child may also be communicating its need for attention. This can obviously be misinterpreted by some adults, provoking a response that is based on the sexual symbol rather than the need for attention. So some adults may respond inappropriately to the child’s provocations, to the extent that the child may either be harmed or neglected, not receiving the attention that they had ‘instinctually craved’, or the response that they could have safely internalised for the purpose of self-regulation. Clearly positive and negative cycles could result from over or under dominant relationship dynamics. Irregular dynamics could have positive and negative consequences, socially and psychologically, for the adult, and all the families concerned. 

A SUPRESSED UNCONSCIOUS ?

I have been working in child, adolescent, and family psychiatry since the age of 19, and now as an RMN and University lecturer I am currently working with the BPS community psychology section on a variety of different projects. In theory, the conceptualization of what childhood is and how children should behave in polite society has changed dramatically during recent UK history. Freud is only one example of many psychologists who have tried to tackle this thorny issue, but few have actually looked at the anthropological history. I am only really aware of the recent history, i.e. during my life-time, but I can guess from my parents what influences they were exposed to in their childhoods. The important thing is that when you look back on history it does appear to have been the battleground for a series of inter-generational contests between parents and their children, with an emerging role played by capitalism and the construction of identity within a more secular popular culture, at least since the end of the Second World War. So I would like to ask the government to review its current political strategy in favor of a more clinical/educational approach to the construction and maintenance of identities within our current capitalist system. 

Arguably the historical political landmarks are as follows, in brief (to be re-written as a chronological example of "identity politics/ identity capital/ identity studies"):

• 1790's to 1850's during the Industrial Revolution up to 50% of 8-11-year-old children are working (paid or unpaid?) in factories (Humphries 2015). 
• 1848 the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood of poets and artists are formed as a Romantic movement promoting an 'old testament' ideal of youthful innocence and chivalric honor as a way of life;
• 1858 the Goverent of India Act leads to the direct rule of the British in India, via the East Indian Trading Company, as a commercial enterprise. This was a model that would later be adopted by American capitalism after the Second World War.
• 1865 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 1871 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' depict childhood as a dream-like id-driven asexual fantasy world.
• 1875 Morris & Co. Is formed in an attempt to rival the alienation of the craftsman, the exploitation of Labour, and the standardisation of 'value', created by the mass production techniques of the industrial revolution and the growth of the British Empire.
• 1909 the Manifesto of Futurism is published ushering into existence the mass production of designer goods. The Art Nouveau/Belle Epoch period before the First World War promoted a nubile sexual form, as fashionable. Often referred to as promoting the 'sinuous lines of nature' it created a commercial aesthetic that fashionable people should aspire to, thereby introducing the commodification of the human body. 
• June 1914 The assasination of Arch Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo leads to the start of the First World War and the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
• 1918 After the First World War the Art Deco movement arises in response to Cubism and Fauvism, it signals the transition of design and fashion to the fully mechanised production processes of the industrial age. This period is often associated in the USA with prohibition and start of the movie industry in Hollywood. 
• From 1930 to 1939 Betty Boop becomes a popular icon of the age, recorded in a 1934 court case as: "combin[ing] in appearance the childish with the sophisticated—a large round baby face with big eyes and a nose like a button, framed in a somewhat careful coiffure, with a very small body of which perhaps the leading characteristic is the most self-confident little bust imaginable". Child Stars like Shirley Temple come to define a more wholesome image of childhood in the entertainment industry.
  
• Starting with Snow White in 1937 and the Wizard of Oz in 1939 there are a series of consecutive Disney hits including: 1937 Snow White, 1951 Alice in Wonderland, 1953 Peter Pan and 1964 Mary Poppins that flood the new transatlantic market for moving pictures. Ultimately this demonstrated US dominance in the commercial exploitation of children's fairytales on an industrial scale in pre- and post-war Europe, and the rapid advance of new visual and auditory media technologies throughout this period of history.
  
• 1938 the German annexation of Austria leads to the start of the Second World War and the end of the British Empire. Freud is forced to leave Vienna due to the rising tide of antisemitism. The life of Austrian Jews had been tied to the patronage of the Hapsburg Dynasty in Europe between 1856 to 1900.
• 1942 "Five on a Treasure Island" is published in the UK. For the next twenty years, Enid Blyton's Famous Five series depicts a group of young children, displaying a full gamut of middle-class Christian morals and virtues, enjoy the independence and autonomy of adulthood, in an economic vacuum free of any ties to the workplace or their respective families.
• The "American Dream" popularised by Hollywood in technicolor for the benefit of an aspirational Middle class, ends with defeat in the Vietnam War (1955-1975) and a retrospective reformulation of Alice in Wonderland as a manifestation of psychoactive drug use and/or psychotic states, e.g. 1967 "White Rabbit" Jefferson Airplane; 1967 "I am the Walrus" The Beatles. 
• 1964 to 1973: In pop music, teenage male figures like Donny Osmond and Michael Jackson become multi-million dollar Pop Stars and TV personalities in the early sixties. Up until their twenties they perform as frontman to family acts. Into adulthood they embark on successful solo careers. This establishes the marketing potential of children and the longevity of youth as a valuable commodity within modern culture. In fashion, a 16 year old Twiggy redefines modelling with a 5'6" androgynous look to become the "The Face of 1966". As the Daily Mail put it as she took-off in the US: "Twiggy came along at a time when teen-age spending power was never greater...With that underdeveloped, boyish figure, she is an idol to the 14- and 15-year-old kids. She makes a virtue of all the terrible things of gawky, miserable adolescence."

• 1973 A 12 year old Jodie Foster appears as a child prostitute in ‘The Taxi Driver’ and receives an Oscar nomination for her role. The same year she appears in ‘Bugsy Malone’ as Tallulah, a seductive gangster's moll singing in a nightclub: "Lonely, You don't have to be lonely, Come and see Tallulah, She'll chase your troubles away, ... When they talk about Tallulah, You know what they say, No-one south of heaven's gonna treat you finer, Tallulah had her training in North Carolina". This represents quite a dramatic change from the previous decade. The previous clear distinction between adulthood and childhood in the entertainment industry is blurred. This may have had disastrous consequences. For example, 
• from 1975 to 1994 the DJ Jimmy Saville presented 'Jim'll Fix it' a children's TV show. He was posthumously prosecuted for over 200 predatory sex offences against women and children. During this same period a covert War between the US and the UK was being fought out on the streets of Northern Ireland. This was significant for the fact that although the conflict was inter-cultural, it was largely fuelled by inter-generational abuses against children on both sides. Relevant movies depicting various perspectives on this conflict appeared after the height of the Troubles and include: 'The Long Good Friday' (1980), "The Crying Game' (1992), 'Patriot Games' (1992), 'Five Minutes from Heaven' (2009), ''71' (2014), and 'Black Mass' (2015).

• 1985 The Theory of ‘Gillick competence’ (re: the legal/ clinical age of competent/ confidential decision making) is introduced into Law; 
• 1986 The Oprah Winfrey show begins to popularise the theory that child abuse is the single biggest cause of mental illness, legitimising allegations, empowering victims, and generating renewed political capital for the 1960’s anti-psychiatry movement; 
• 1989 The Children’s Act ensures greater equality of decision making among families in crisis.
• 1990 a series of scandals erupt regarding the institutional abuse of children in Social Services residences with no fixed conclusion (NSPCC 2011); 
• 1993 Bill Clinton, a survivor of childhood physical abuse, becomes president;
• 1996 the film 'The Sleepers' depicts the brutal murder of a staff member of a Young Offenders Institution in NY who was a sexual predator of children by two of his victims after a chance encounter as adults.
• 1999 The FBI start referring to the defense mechanism, previously referred to as ‘Identification with the Aggressor’ by Anna Freud, as ‘the Stockholm Syndrome’ after hostages in Sweden refuse to testify and instead start to defend their captors; this is a common experience in Child Protection and Adult Safeguarding services.
• 2000 Father’s for Justice begin a campaign for more equality for seperated and divorced fathers in relation to access to their children, in particular when allegations regarding parental misconduct have been made; 
• 2000 The murder of Victoria Climbie in Brent leads to the Laming Inquiry, that investigates failings in the NHS and Local Authority care of children, which is not closed until 2003; 
• 2000 a series of scandals regarding the institutional abuse of children in Catholic residences in the US and Ireland coincides with the Irish peace process (CICA 2011); 
• 2001 The 'Spotlight' team in Boston uncover a peadophile ring operating in the Catholic Church in Boston (see a movie of that name released in 2015) and Bill Clinton retires; 
• 2003 Grayson Perry receives the Tate prize for his ceramic work, dressed as one of his transvestite 'alter-egos', a gregarious female child;  
• 2005 updated 2008 The Mental Capacity Act requires a view to be taken on a client’s capacity to give ‘informed consent’ during clinical decision-making, potentially applying to clients of any age.
• 2011 Oprah Winfrey retires and the Conservative Party begin a campaign to ban/criminalize the supply of sexualized products to children. 
• In 2016, a left-wing working-class political pressure group in the UK, called Momentum, are accused of conducting a campaign of anti-semitism in support of ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn; the reality on the ground  appears to be the eruption of a "post-modern class conflict" between 'Freinds of Palestine' and 'Freinds of Israel' groups of MPs that cross Party lines in the Houses of Parliament.
• In 2017 a right-wing working-class political pressure group called QAnon begins to spread a conspiracy theory about an 'international elite of Satan-worshipping paedophiles' in support of ex-President Donald Trump. 
• In 2019 convicted paedophile and US financier Jeffrey Epstein (a freind of Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Ghislaine Maxwell) is found dead in a prison cell.
• March 2022, Prince Andrew, now stripped of his Royal titles and privileges, reaches an out of court settlement in the USA with Virginia Giuffre, who had previously alleged his knowledge of her being trafficked to the UK by Epstein for sex (with Prince Andrew?), when she was 17 years old.
• March-April 2022, BBC 2 airs "Banned!: The Mary Whitehouse Story" (BBC Studios: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015xrx) directed and produced by Hannah Berryman. A documentary detailing the conflict between sexual liberation and Christian conservatism in the UK, over the period from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. 

I am personally unaware of the exact connection between these events, although the historical record does seem to demonstrate a continuing struggle over the representation of truth and justice by the press is not always 'black and white'; there is real power in the commodification of sex and aggression in the manufacture of fantasies for law-abiding citizens; and political attempts to control the popular press, bohemian artists, and 'youth culture' is an ongoing battle that affects us all at some level. While such ‘permanent revolutions’ may not be what Trotsky had originally intended when he coined the phrase; and while the class struggles that they represent may or may not have been a force for peace and prosperity in the West; there is clearly a cost in terms of our public mental health from this particular form of capitalist exploitation which has yet to be fully addressed. 

As a clinician and educator, I sometimes think that a sort of ‘Identity Studies’ course, made available to students of all ages/ stages of their development, could help our community engage and interact with the ‘permanent revolution’ on a more informed and equitable basis. The professionals who deal with relapse and recovery only have someone's perceptions of themselves and of others as their basic material to work with at any stage of life. So why not educate people on their own psychological survival from an early age as possible? Psycho-therapy is for victims and perpetrators alike. Surely this is preferable to the belief that some form of prohibition is the answer - however distasteful that prospect might be for some of us - and no treatment for anyone at all? 

This may not be a direct solution to the problem identified by the Conservative government, but it is one based on a good deal of knowledge and experience in this area. Better still, perhaps the government could supply funds to the BPS Community Psychology section, to investigate this area, and the broader topic of community PTSD, in the future.