Does your rage at being usurped as the only child cause you to like the idea of torture?

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This was the idea put forth by some social scientist in a Wall Street Journal article back in the mid 1990s. He wowed the reporters by predicting with pretty high accuracy whether various world leaders were oldest children, based solely on their use or non-use of authoritarian methods. Supposedly oldest children are filled with unconscious rage at being usurped (as the parents' only child) by their younger siblings, and this rage transforms itself into support for torture and other extreme methods of population control. The exact mechanism by which this happens was laid out in more detail in the article. I think it had to do with the oldest discovering that torture can be a useful thing in punishing younger siblings for said usurpation, while younger siblings learn to view torture with horror because it was inflicted on them.

Can any oldest peace lovers / younger torture lovers disprove this idea?

Bnad (Bnad), Friday, 27 January 2006 21:49 (twenty years ago)

apparently not.

AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:01 (twenty years ago)

No, it was having a metal jack-in-the-box dropped on my head by my little brother and needing stitches to close the gushing, gaping wound that warmed me right up to a spot of drawing & quartering.

Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:04 (twenty years ago)

I could swear that I just saw this thread.

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:09 (twenty years ago)

weird concept, though not without truth. i have vague recollections of sometimes bullying my little sister when we were little. i dunno if that would make me want to torture the general populace though.

Vintage Latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:16 (twenty years ago)


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