24 | OCTOBER 22 • 2020 

W

hen JN Editor 
Andrew Lapin 
wrote about 
neo-Nazis as part of the JN’
s
Antisemitism Project, Dr. 
Gerald Katzman reached 
out to share his findings 
regarding what can happen 
in a child’
s development that 
might lead someone down a 
path of hate.
Katzman, of Farmington 
Hills, believes the answer may 
lie in “poisonous pedagogy,” 
a term that originates from 
Swiss psychologist Alice 
Miller in her book For Your 
Own Good. The term refers to 
an authoritarian upbringing 
that sets the stage for 
malevolence later in life.
Katzman has been a clinical 
associate professor at Wayne 
State University School of 
Medicine in the Department 

of Pediatrics since 1986. He is 
retired from clinical practice, 
but still occasionally lectures 
to medical students. 
His interest in human 
relations programs for 
children in the 1980s evolved 
into a concerted effort to 
understand the ways children 
are taught to hate and how 
such indoctrinations can be 
prevented. He has published 
several papers in peer-
reviewed journals over a 
15-year period starting in 
2005.
Although manipulative 
and violent parenting, 
potentially including 
corporal punishment, can 
be a factor in poisonous 
pedagogy, they are not the 
sole factors, Katzman says. 
His findings indicate while 
most practitioners of hate 

come from difficult or 
outright abusive family 
backgrounds, others 
do not. 
In these latter cases, 
research finds that a 
lack of coaching on 
good behavior, combined 
with an authoritarian culture 
and repressed emotions, can 
steer otherwise well-adjusted 
children on a pathway to 
hate.
“They’
re susceptible to 
indoctrination because they 
haven’
t gotten coaching 
on what good behavior is, 
and they haven’
t gotten any 
secondary gain from doing 
good things for other people,” 
he says.
Katzman says it is 
genuinely possible for an 
individual to turn from 
hate because of the brain’
s 
neuroplasticity, the ability of 
the neural networks in the 
brain to change over time.
Unfortunately, once 
indoctrinated, only a tiny 
minority of those filled with 
hate are able to turn it around 
in that way, Katzman says.
According to Katzman, 
the majority those who 
go down the path of hate 

suffered abusive or neglectful 
upbringings — or were 
raised in authoritarian 
cultures like Nazi 
Germany. Those cultures 
repeatedly push narratives 
that promote militancy 
and dehumanization of 
other groups and provide 
opportunity for violent 
expression of repressed 
emotions.
“It begins with abuse 
or neglect in the early 
years followed by the 
internalization of false 
narratives,” Katzman says. 
“These false narratives 
provide the target onto which 
the repressed emotions are 
projected and subsequently 
violently expressed. Because 
of the abusive upbringing 
and the fact that the kids 
were just trying to survive 
and get to the next day, there 
was very little chance of 
them developing emotional 
empathy, and if you can’
t 

“Poisonous pedagogy,” one
doctor says.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

How Are People 
Taught to Hate? 

IN 
THED
JEWS

UTILISATEUR BOOTBEARDBC DE FLICKR

AntiSemitism

the

Project

National Socialists at the 

nation’s capital in 2008

continued on page 25

