Educational Violence in Algerian Society: A Psycho-Cultural and Analytical Approach to Beating as a Tool of Upbringing
❖ Introduction:
Violence inflicted on children in the name of education is a deeply rooted socio-cultural phenomenon in many traditional societies, including Algerian society. While such practices are often cloaked in legitimacy under the guise of “discipline” and “best interest,” they embed deep traces in the individual and collective unconscious—shaping the psychological representation of the self, the other, and authority.
This paper seeks to deconstruct the phenomenon of corporal punishment as a tool for building obedience, using a psychoanalytical and cultural lens. It aims to understand the long-term impact of such practices on ego formation, perceptions of love, and the reproduction of symbolic violence.
❖ Central Question:
What happens psychologically when a child receives beating as the first form of “love”?
And how does this type of upbringing shape the unconscious structure of the self and its relationship to authority, love, and dignity?
I. Institutionalized Violence and Inherited Culture
Corporal punishment in Algeria is practiced as a legitimate cultural component, embedded in popular discourse that claims to protect the child from deviance and to build “manhood” or “discipline.” However, this type of violence belongs to what Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, 1998): the exercise of power in an indirect manner, morally or culturally justified, which deepens its acceptance without resistance.
This violence is not always physical—it extends to threatening looks, insulting words, deprivation, and intimidation. It is a continuous experience for the child with “authority” as repression, not protection, making childhood an existentially unsafe space.
II. Psychoanalytic Perspective: When the Unconscious Is Raised on Pain
1. When the One Meant to Protect You… Becomes the One Who Scares You
From a child’s perspective, the adult—especially a parent—is the primary figure of safety. They are the protector, the first source of affection, the one who is expected to offer comfort during fear—not become the source of it.
When the adult hits the child, the latter does not interpret it as “educational discipline”—they lack the cognitive tools to understand complex intentions. Instead, the child experiences the act as a collapse of trust, a sudden transformation in the image of the person who was supposed to protect them.
At that moment, the child no longer sees a “father” or “mother,” but a larger, angry body, unpredictable and inescapable.
The first association between love and protection is distorted, and the child begins to internalize a warped equation:
-
“Those who love you… may hurt you.”
-
“No one in the world is truly safe.”
2. Beating: A Silent Confession of the Adult’s Incompetence
From an analytical viewpoint, beating is often a compulsive discharge of the adult’s failure to understand the child’s behavior or regulate their own emotions.
When an adult hits a child, it usually means they:
-
Failed to interpret the child’s behavior (“Why did they cry? Why did they insist?”),
-
Couldn’t manage their emotions (anger, stress, a sense of helplessness),
-
Did not activate conscious parenting tools—such as dialogue, explanation, or even wise silence.
As Alice Miller states:
“Adults do not hit children because they have power, but because they lack alternatives.”
3. Ego Distortion and Attachment Damage
According to Freud, the ego begins to form through interactions with caregivers. When this interaction is conditioned by pain or threat, the result is a fragile ego—built on defense rather than growth, saturated with anxiety and denial.
This creates an inner split within the child:
-
A part that seeks to please and obey,
-
And another filled with anger or guilt—repressed, but persistent.
Corporal punishment leads to anxious attachment, where obedience becomes a survival mechanism—not a step toward secure bonding.
The child internalizes an identity of being a “chronic wrongdoer” deserving of pain.
III. Violence as Institutionalized Power in the Collective Unconscious
When a child hears: “I hit you because I love you”, a dangerous psychological schema forms:
That love hurts, and that affection is conditional upon behavior.
This dynamic later manifests in distorted emotional relationships that thrive on tension and submission. Adults end up reproducing the model of love they learned in childhood: conditional love, where closeness is laced with fear.
This parenting model also helps perpetuate a broader authoritarian system—not just in families, but across the social and political fabric of society.
IV. Beating Does Not Educate—It Distorts Emotional and Cognitive Development
Developmental psychology research shows that:
-
Beating increases anxiety and chronic fear,
-
Weakens the neural circuits responsible for emotional regulation,
-
Makes the child more prone to aggression or withdrawal later in life.
Children do not learn values from slaps, but from:
-
Modeling,
-
Language,
-
Gentle, consistent boundary-setting.
Physical punishment disrupts moral development, replacing it with emotional submission.
❖ Conclusion:
Beating is not an educational act—it is a silent confession of a failure to educate.
The child who is beaten does not forget.
They store the pain in their emotional and bodily memory, growing up in search of safety in faces no longer capable of offering it.
Breaking this cycle begins with collective awareness that reexamines inherited ideas of “dignity,” “manhood,” and “parental love.”
We need to rebuild a model based on presence, not control; on compassion, not submission.
“When the one who was supposed to hold you… strikes you,
you don’t learn right from wrong—
you learn that safety is an illusion,
and that love hurts.”
❖ References:
-
Alice Miller (1979). The Drama of the Gifted Child
-
Daniel Siegel (2012). The Whole-Brain Child
-
Pierre Bourdieu (1998). La domination masculine
-
John Bowlby (1969). Attachment and Loss
-
Sigmund Freud (1923). The Ego and the Id
-
Franz Alexander (1934). The Psychoanalytic Study of Psychosomatic Medicine
By: S.A – Bleuming Iris Blog
❖ Introduction:
Violence inflicted on children in the name of education is a deeply rooted socio-cultural phenomenon in many traditional societies, including Algerian society. While such practices are often cloaked in legitimacy under the guise of “discipline” and “best interest,” they embed deep traces in the individual and collective unconscious—shaping the psychological representation of the self, the other, and authority.
This paper seeks to deconstruct the phenomenon of corporal punishment as a tool for building obedience, using a psychoanalytical and cultural lens. It aims to understand the long-term impact of such practices on ego formation, perceptions of love, and the reproduction of symbolic violence.
❖ Central Question:
What happens psychologically when a child receives beating as the first form of “love”?
And how does this type of upbringing shape the unconscious structure of the self and its relationship to authority, love, and dignity?
I. Institutionalized Violence and Inherited Culture
Corporal punishment in Algeria is practiced as a legitimate cultural component, embedded in popular discourse that claims to protect the child from deviance and to build “manhood” or “discipline.” However, this type of violence belongs to what Pierre Bourdieu calls “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, 1998): the exercise of power in an indirect manner, morally or culturally justified, which deepens its acceptance without resistance.
This violence is not always physical—it extends to threatening looks, insulting words, deprivation, and intimidation. It is a continuous experience for the child with “authority” as repression, not protection, making childhood an existentially unsafe space.
II. Psychoanalytic Perspective: When the Unconscious Is Raised on Pain
1. When the One Meant to Protect You… Becomes the One Who Scares You
From a child’s perspective, the adult—especially a parent—is the primary figure of safety. They are the protector, the first source of affection, the one who is expected to offer comfort during fear—not become the source of it.
When the adult hits the child, the latter does not interpret it as “educational discipline”—they lack the cognitive tools to understand complex intentions. Instead, the child experiences the act as a collapse of trust, a sudden transformation in the image of the person who was supposed to protect them.
At that moment, the child no longer sees a “father” or “mother,” but a larger, angry body, unpredictable and inescapable.
The first association between love and protection is distorted, and the child begins to internalize a warped equation:
-
“Those who love you… may hurt you.”
-
“No one in the world is truly safe.”
2. Beating: A Silent Confession of the Adult’s Incompetence
From an analytical viewpoint, beating is often a compulsive discharge of the adult’s failure to understand the child’s behavior or regulate their own emotions.
When an adult hits a child, it usually means they:
-
Failed to interpret the child’s behavior (“Why did they cry? Why did they insist?”),
-
Couldn’t manage their emotions (anger, stress, a sense of helplessness),
-
Did not activate conscious parenting tools—such as dialogue, explanation, or even wise silence.
As Alice Miller states:
“Adults do not hit children because they have power, but because they lack alternatives.”
3. Ego Distortion and Attachment Damage
According to Freud, the ego begins to form through interactions with caregivers. When this interaction is conditioned by pain or threat, the result is a fragile ego—built on defense rather than growth, saturated with anxiety and denial.
This creates an inner split within the child:
-
A part that seeks to please and obey,
-
And another filled with anger or guilt—repressed, but persistent.
Corporal punishment leads to anxious attachment, where obedience becomes a survival mechanism—not a step toward secure bonding.
The child internalizes an identity of being a “chronic wrongdoer” deserving of pain.
III. Violence as Institutionalized Power in the Collective Unconscious
When a child hears: “I hit you because I love you”, a dangerous psychological schema forms:
That love hurts, and that affection is conditional upon behavior.
This dynamic later manifests in distorted emotional relationships that thrive on tension and submission. Adults end up reproducing the model of love they learned in childhood: conditional love, where closeness is laced with fear.
This parenting model also helps perpetuate a broader authoritarian system—not just in families, but across the social and political fabric of society.
IV. Beating Does Not Educate—It Distorts Emotional and Cognitive Development
Developmental psychology research shows that:
-
Beating increases anxiety and chronic fear,
-
Weakens the neural circuits responsible for emotional regulation,
-
Makes the child more prone to aggression or withdrawal later in life.
Children do not learn values from slaps, but from:
-
Modeling,
-
Language,
-
Gentle, consistent boundary-setting.
Physical punishment disrupts moral development, replacing it with emotional submission.
❖ Conclusion:
Beating is not an educational act—it is a silent confession of a failure to educate.
The child who is beaten does not forget.
They store the pain in their emotional and bodily memory, growing up in search of safety in faces no longer capable of offering it.
Breaking this cycle begins with collective awareness that reexamines inherited ideas of “dignity,” “manhood,” and “parental love.”
We need to rebuild a model based on presence, not control; on compassion, not submission.
“When the one who was supposed to hold you… strikes you,
you don’t learn right from wrong—
you learn that safety is an illusion,
and that love hurts.”
❖ References:
-
Alice Miller (1979). The Drama of the Gifted Child
-
Daniel Siegel (2012). The Whole-Brain Child
-
Pierre Bourdieu (1998). La domination masculine
-
John Bowlby (1969). Attachment and Loss
-
Sigmund Freud (1923). The Ego and the Id
-
Franz Alexander (1934). The Psychoanalytic Study of Psychosomatic Medicine
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