Gregg Milligan and his mother
In the first two weeks of February, Oprah Winfrey decided to focus on child sexual abuse. She aired two shows. The first interviewed four perpetrators. The second show interviewed a 40-something year old man, Gregg Milligan, who had been sexually abused by his mother.
Judging by the reaction on Oprah’s website, blogs and on self-help discussion boards that include male survivors, the interview with Gregg Milligan has done untold good. It has opened up discussion on this difficult topic. Even more important it has given survivors a chance to hear someone like themselves tell a story they identify with strongly. Male survivors of childhood sexual abuse often suffer in silence, afraid that no one can possibly understand their story.
In both interviews Oprah seems bound to a commonly believed but highly questionable idea: that abusers go on to abuse others. In the interview with perpetrators, she asks two of them whether or not they had been abused. One answers yes and it the statement goes without comment. One answers “no” and Oprah expresses surprise. There is an unstated assumption that abuse somehow causes abuse.
This assumption reappears in the middle of the interview with Gregg Milligan. Oprah and Gregg are discussing why Gregg’s mother treated him this way. Oprah tries to explain Greg’s abuse in terms of his mothers own suffering. Then at the end of the show she describes Gregg’s excellent parenting as “breaking the cycle”. She concludes the interview observing that his choice not to continue the cycle is a choice too few people make. This implies that abuse is a default choice and non-abuse requires positive and exceptional action.
We talk so easily about a “cycle of violence” but what is the evidence for it? One of the most frequently cited studies used to support the cycle of violence (Widom, 1989) in fact found that the vast majority of abuse survivors did NOT go on to abuse. Something can’t be a “cause” if it fails to produce the expected result in the majority of cases. The author herself stressed the variety of responses to abuse, but that hasn’t stopped people from using her study over and over as “proof” that abusers go on to be abusers.
Later studies that have broken down adult behavior by type of abuse find that among all forms of abuse, sexually abused individuals are among the least likely to themselves become abusers. In fact, it is possible that the reverse is true: those who have been abused this way often exhibit higher levels of altruistic behavior. Many of the people working in low-status and low-paying jobs in rape crisis centers are survivors of sexual abuse. Gregg Milligan sacrificed himself and his relationship with his mother to protect his sister.
The Golden Rule, mosaic designed by Norman Rockwell and donated to the UN in 1985
The altruistic behavior of survivors should hardly be surprising. One of the most basic rules of human relationships east and west is the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have others do to you”. Across centuries and cultures, this rule has taken many forms: For millenia doctors have been vowing to “do no harm” when they make the Hippocratic oath. The Hebrew Bible commands “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus, 19:18). Rabbi Hillel in the 1st century B.C.E. told his students to “Do not do to others what is hateful to yourself.”. Jesus told his disciples “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Confucius teaches a similar lesson to Tsze-kung:
Tsze-kung asked, saying, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not RECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”Analects 15:24
No matter how we word the Golden Rule, the Golden Rule presumes the existence of empathy. We need to be able to see and know what harmful, hurtful, unloving behavior is. Survivors don’t have to play guessing games about the injury caused by abuse. Some live it every day and others have spent long hours and many tears overcoming it. But all survivors know first hand how much abuse hurts. They are in fact in a better position to live the Golden Rule than those who have no personal experience of suffering.
The counter argument is that people do not act based on moral choice, but conditioning. We do as we see. Furthermore, some victims are so damaged psychologically that they lack the interpersonal skills to avoid abuse. This state of affairs can only be changed with extensive therapy.
Child survivors of Buchenwald leaving the camp
There is something deeply disturbing in this logic. By this reasoning children growing up in concentration camps during the Holocaust should believe that starving people and sending them to gas chambers and crematoria is proper behavior. Initially, their behavior after rescue from the concentration camps was wild – they would rage and insist on foraging for food. They were considered beyond redemption. After a time they began to settle down, and most moved onto foster care or job training within a matter of months, barely enough time for any sort of serious therapy. And yet, among this group of survivors include three rabbis, one of whom was the Chief Rabbi of Israel. Others grew up to be doctors, medical directors, children home directors. One, Eli Wiesel, even won the Nobel Peace Prize. You can read more about child survivors of concentration camps here.
Of course, the only solution to argument and counter argument is research. It may also be possible that neither thesis is right. It may be that trauma pushes human behavior to the extremes, producing both high morals and angry disregard of others. Unfortunately, there are few, if any, studies to test the hypothesis that abuse leads to higher levels of moral behavior. We have only theories and unanswered questions.
