The Spock Conspiracy

The Federal Grand Jury that indicted Dr. Benjamin Spock last month got him on the wrong conspiracy. "Conspiracy to encourage young men to violate the Selective Service Act?" Big deal. The real conspiracy involves his book--Baby and Child Care--the paperback manual that helped bring up nearly every one of today's young radicals and anti-war agitators.

From birth, the "war babies" were reared according to Spock. He told their mothers how to diaper them, how to feed them, and--most important-- how to mold their soft little heads. Spock was clever. The indoctrination would be a slow process, he reasoned in 1946, when he wrote the book. But eventually, he knew he would have a whole generation thinking as he wanted, opposing war.

Consider as evidence this passage from his chapter on "Aggressiveness and Timidity":

Do you worry when your 2-year-old pulls another's hair, and your 4-year-old plays with a toy pistol? ... There's no question that our civilized life couldn't last at all if people didn't learn to control their violent feelings. (pp. 309-10)

Cleverly disguised, another piece of anti-war propaganda can be found in a chapter on bowel training:

If the resistance persists for many weeks and increases, the child may hold back his movement not only while he is on the seat but for the rest of the day too. (p. 253)

Clearly, Spock is scrambling some of this propaganda on purpose. The resistance (or, The Resistance) will, by persistence, actually encourage the movement (or, The Movement). Close readers of the text--true Spock ideologues--will be able to catch these subtleties, certainly of the same genre as so-called Marxist "inconsistencies."

In 1946 it took a lot of nerve to advocate the use of pacifiers. After the war, the pacifier (a little plastic disc with a nipple on the end which babies suck to calm their nerves) was out of fashion for obvious reasons. But Spock, who has never let chauvinists or militarists bother him, pushed for social acceptance of the pacifier--clearly one of the major reasons we have so many pacifists around now.

Spock's is no piecemeal pragmatic philosophy. The overview is overwhelming:

Doctors who used to conscientiously warn young parents against spoiling are new encouraging them to meet their baby's needs, not only for food, but for comforting and loving.

But it's not possible for a civilization like ours to go through such a change of philosophy--it really amounts to a revolution--without raising doubts in many parents' minds and without getting some parents thoroughly mixed up. (p. 47)

Spock understands the changes we're going through. The Johnson Administration is one of those "thoroughly mixed up" parents, lashing out with strictness and hostility instead of permissiveness and love.