[Substitute your favorite metaphor: smashing us like bugs; walking over our backs on the way to the top; raping the planet and its resources....(don't be shy...)]

  A theory has been percolating its way up in me over the past year.  The staggering plethora of Bad News for our population (excluding the Oligarchs, of course) this morning has riled me to the point of writing it up. 

  A theory has been percolating its way up in me over the past year.  The staggering plethora of Bad News for our population (excluding the Oligarchs, of course) this morning has riled me to the point of writing it up. 

  Attachment theory was first posited by John Bowlby  (1907-1990), a British psychologist, whose father was killed when he was five; his mother was essentially emotionally absent by belief and choice, and whose primary caregiver Nanny was separated from him when he was four.  Bit by bit, his work was informed by his early experiences, and his work with 'maladjusted and delinquent children' further affected his beliefs that interrupted emotional safety and bonding issues not only negatively affected early childhood, but also extended into later life.

  He qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1937, and became part of the Child guidance Clinic in London after the war.  His interest was in the family dynamics that might lead either to healthy or pathological children.

  Many others have furthered his work, and developed theories about 'bonding' principles and emotional and cognitive development, and the potentially permanent damage that can result when bonding was either altogether lacking, or severely diminished. 

  I'll run the risk of simplifying healthy bonding just to get moving along in the discussion; it's far more complex than is probably useful here.

  Optimally it requires giving Baby what she/he needs: food when Baby is hungry; nurturing physical contact and warmth; predictability in response to needs (someone reliably comes to Baby's aid when she cries; makes frequent eye contact and engages in emotional interaction (facial and vocal, if possible) with Baby, and provides developmental stimulation.  Even early stuff, like 'peek-a-boo' (object permanence, like that).

  In other words, providing a trusting and safe and predictable closeness between Baby and Mom, Baby and Dad, or Baby and Caregiver; letting Baby know that he is not alone.  If you've raised kids, you probably intuited that Baby needed to know that you'd come when she cried to let you know her diaper was wet and uncomfortable; she let you know she was happy when you changed her.   You intuited when a cuddle could soothe him; when the sound of your heart was crucial; she smiled when you raspberried her neck; you bonded with each other. 

  When your toddler first ventured out across the room he needed to know you'd be there when he either came back, or needed your help to.  Each step out into the world was made easier if Baby trusted you to encourage her, and give emotional praise for discovery and learning, empathetic hugs or "Oopsies" for accidents or hurts or frights along the road to interacting with the world.  You know the rest, really; it was about being there for Baby.

  But for many infants or young children, whether by accident or not, the bonding can be broken or absent. 

Here's a list from one website of various underlying causes; some not through choice:

• A young child gets attention only by acting out or displaying other extreme behaviors.
• A young child or baby is mistreated or abused.
• Sometimes the child's needs are met and sometimes they aren't. The child never knows what to expect.
• The infant or young child is hospitalized or separated from his or her parents.
• A baby or young child is moved from one caregiver to another (can be the result of adoption, foster care, or the loss of a parent).
• The parent is emotionally unavailable because of depression, an illness, or a substance abuse problem.

  There are degrees, of course, of attachment problems, the most severe of which has been labeled Reactive Attachment Disorder, and even that can present differently in different children, but the common thread is that they haven't developed consciences, and lack empathy for, and trust of, other humans.

  Some psychologists believe that such cases are on the rise, and I won't even attempt to guess whether they're right or wrong.    

  Chronically abused infants, or those parented by addicts or severe alcoholics are ripe for RAD, in part because they are by nature selfish: their needs come first, Baby's don't.  There is even a related theory that when Baby suffers from inattention or unmet needs, Baby can adapt by liking suffering, or at least finding it predictably familiar.  And that can lead a child to provoke negative reaction because it's at least familiar.  And that can in turn lead to severe control issues and manipulative behavior in general.  Food hoarding, secrecy, cruelty to animals, lying, and maybe the most important problem, IMO: an inability to put oneself into the framework of cause and effect; as in 'the glass fell off the table,' rather than, 'I knocked the glass off the table.'  If you think about it, that's a pretty big hole to have missing.  It creates 'victimhood' and the need to blame others for perceived suffering or lack of satisfaction with life, and not much incentive to change one's behaviors to achieve better results.

  Theory has it that this can easily become generational, i.e.:  If I am unattached, I won't know how to bond with my babies; perhaps my grandchildren will suffer the same fate, unless there is another caregiver to bond with them; not likely, but possible.

  Time for a disclaimer:  Children raised in foster care, at orphanages, or by addicts may have been nurtured, and bonded with, caregivers.  Those situations do not determine eventual emotional and cognitive development problems per se; there are likely abused children who get help, and become healthy adults, or kids who found bonding with peripheral adults.

  I also know you won't use this simplistic explanation to examine others too seriously by these metrics; this is intended, by and large, as a thought experiment.

  Without elaborating on it, I will say that I helped parent an adopted child with severe RAD; and I will say that at the time, attachment issues were misunderstood and misdiagnosed pretty universally, and I can only hope that's no longer so.  The plethora of shrinks from whom we sought help (even some authors on the subject) were woefully ignorant about it all.  Early intervention can help, but it is truly hard to unwind full-blown attachment disorders, and there are controversial therapies emerging partially because of the parental hair-on-fire nature of the disorder, and because traditional therapies are ineffective, or sometimes even make it worse.

  So.  How often do folks at the Café rail at the Evil that seems to be afoot; the Machiavellian perfidy that permeates Wall Street, and stalks the halls of Congress and the Senate?  Why do so many of them seem to lack basic human decency; why are so many so utterly careless about harming us?  How is it that so many are willing to cause our suffering while intent on amassing wealth and power?  We are told that that theory has it that after a person amasses X amount of fortune, the rest is simply superfluous, and can't add to their satisfaction. (Gotta love those theories...)  Why then do they continue acquiring more, and stepping on the backs of humans to do it?  And is power-seeking and acquisition at those levels generally sociopathic and psychopathological, and if so, what primarily causes it?   

  There are, of course, all degrees of these issues and traits, but here is my question and/or theory:  Might a lot of this be fueled by bonding issues?  Many of the True Monsters would easily qualify, but I had been thinking also of the Congress-critters who sell out our futures to lobbying money, just to stay in power (elective office, revolving doors...).  I then wondered about their lives at home, how they were raised, and wondered if in so many of their rarefied financial and social circumstances, was their early bonding time outsourced to a series of nannies and au pairs and the like?  And if their caregivers were serial, not consistent and long-term, to what degree might it have effected their abilities to see us as integral to their human family, and to care about the quality of our lives and futures?  

 Let me know what you think.  I might persuadable to another direction, but I don't really know.  (rueful grin)