CHAPTER 12

CONCLUSION

Here, in this chapter, my task is to try to draw together the main threads of this study.

As I see it, there are five main aspects to be considered: cultural imperialism; the international character of the toys and games industry (these two are closely related the modern marketing strategies of the larger toy and game manufacturers; the links between children's playthings and the wider world of culture and politics; and the all-important matter of aggression. The ideology carried in toys and games (the word will be taken to include puzzles) is, overwhelmingly, expressed in terms of gender roles and the most crucial of these is the masculine, aggressive role.

Cultural imperialism

By cultural imperialism, I mean the export of an ideology from a rich and powerful country to a number of other countries, in this case by means of children's playthings. Naturally, the country concerned must dominate the other countries economically (which usually means militarily, as well). In fact, there's a sense in which economic domination almost inevitably involves cultural domination.

As far as toys and games are concerned, there are only a few countries-perhaps five or six - which are major producers, with the United States being the main one by far. Others are Japan, France and West Germany. Britain is also a major producer which, according to information put out by the British Toy and Hobby Manufacturers' Association in 1978 and again in 1984, was exporting toys and games to over 150 countries. It should be noted, however, that such exports would not necessarily originate in Britain. They could be made here on license from a US firm, for instance.

The firm of Spears, for example, which could hardly be thought of as a multinational, in 1979 had agents, representatives or distributors in 18 countries and in seven Caribbean islands. In 1982, Fisher-Price claimed that their toys were sold in about 80 countries. The ideological implications can be seen if we take a particular instance. Palitoy reported in 1983 that they were selling a lot of `traditional British-style dolls' in `Korea' (I presume South Korea is meant), Nigeria and Papua New Guinea. It's impossible to say how many of these were bought by white residents and it's doubtful whether many of the people of those countries would be able to afford them. In terms of race and cultural identity, however, this must have some significance.  More specifically, Palitoy reported that Tiny Tears, their white, toddler doll, was popular with the Chinese in Hong Kong, as well as with European residents.

Of course, other major ideas, values and attitudes, as well as those to do with race, are carried from one country to another by means of toys and games and I've indicated what these ideological strands are in the course of analysing particular playthings, such as Barbie, Sindy and Monopoly. In these cases, and in some others, I've given details of the extent to which playthings are marketed throughout the world. It can be assumed, however, that most of the present-day toys and games I've dealt with are sold widely throughout the capitalist world and this should be kept in mind. Something else that shouldn't be forgotten is that cultural imperialism takes place in other fields also - in films and television programmes, for instance, and in all kinds of popular entertainment.

And another thing! We shouldn't overlook the fact that, in countries with a class structure, there is such a thing as internal cultural imperialism, by means of which the dominant or establishment ideology is dinned into the have-nots to get them to believe that they are undeserving. The actual process is always the same and involves the destruction of a native or folk culture and its replacement by a commercial culture. Toys and games play a big part in this process.

Multinational manoeuvres (262)

I've said that only a few countries dominate the market. It's just as true to say that only a few firms do, and we now come to focus more strongly on the international character of the toys and games industry and the ways in which the multinationals work.

Even the larger firms in the industry are usually part of still larger commercial concerns which basically have nothing to do with toys or games. So - to take examples from the end of 1982 - the Ideal company was part of the Columbian Broadcasting System, Fisher-Price belonged to Quaker Oats, and Palitoy was owned by General Mills Inc. The picture is continually changing, at least amongst the subsidiaries and smaller or not-quite-so-enormous firms. Parent companies change in their composition, though they are not so likely to be taken over. However, the general rule - bigger fish eat smaller fish - applies. It so happens that most of the bigger fish, like the three I've just mentioned, hail from the USA.

If we narrow the focus still further, and look at the Palitoy/General Mills connection, we'll be able to see some important details. First of all, a few years before 1982, Palitoy's Action Man products were being manufactured or sold in over 13 countries (see p. 128). Palitoy itself made Action Man under licence from the CPG Products Corporation, a subsidiary of General Mills Inc. (Palitoy was a `division' of General Mills.) At that time, the parent company had 71 subsidiaries, and subsidiaries of subsidiaries, in 22 countries, including Bermuda and Hong Kong. General Mills was concerned with food mainly (one firm appeared to specialize in shrimps) but its interests ran also to insurance, textiles, crafts, jewelry, wallpaper and, as we know, toys and games.

263

I've been careful to specify the date, the end of 1982, because of the ever-changing situation. By mid-1986, Palitoy had gone and so had the interest in toys and games. These changes throw more light on the subject - but first we glance back. In the late 1960s, General Mills decided to go into toys and games and started to buy up firms which produced these, such as Parker Brothers in the USA and Palitoy, Denys Fisher and Chad Valley in Britain as well as companies in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, France, West Germany, Holland and Belgium. For the most part, the firms taken over continued to trade under their own names. Palitoy itself acted in much the same way as its parent company, gobbling up Airfix in 1981. (Airfix had swallowed Meccano which had swallowed Dinky.) Then, mysteriously, at the end of 1985, General Mills decided to move out of toys and games and, by the beginning of 1986, Palitoy had become Kenner Parker (UK), a division of Kenner Parker Toys International based in the USA.

At this same time, to give some further idea of the sort of thing that goes on, Salters, which had been described by Toys International and the Retailer in January 1984 as `one of the few wholly independent and wholly British toy companies that remain', had just been bought up by Peter Pan (seemingly another British company, however). Also, Hasbro and Milton Bradley had become associated under a holding company, Hasbro-Bradley, although they were to continue operating separately, at least for the time being. Still with the focus on early 1986 - Pedigree was in danger but was eventually bought up by a consortium, thus ensuring a future for Sindy who, as we've seen, was later to fall into the hands of Hasbro.

The general point here is that most toys and games are the products of a system over which the general public has no democratic control, an irresponsible system motivated, not by children's needs, but by profit. No wonder most teachers and other educationists have ignored the world of toys and games. It's had very little to offer them. I think they are wrong, however, in not, at least, recognizing its negative aspects, the way in which it makes their work more difficult.

Commercial developments on an international level, such as the ones just noted, are not new, except in scale. Through toys and games, these developments threaten to impose, on children throughout much of the world, a uniform culture, narrow and limited, selfish and shallow, and aggressive.

This culture reaches into every corner of children's lives, as never before. One of the mechanisms which help to ensure this is character merchandising which I've already mentioned. Here again, however, it's necessary to note that this is now on a never-before-seen scale. In the three years to the end of 1983, for example, character merchandise overall grew by 300 per cent and toys played a significant part in that growth. One character or concept - Mr. T, say, or Masters of the Universe - can have as many as 200, or even more, spin-offs. My Little Pony was a best-selling toy for girls throughout 1985. Over 65 manufacturers held licences to produce over 200 My Little Pony items in a range of categories as diverse as confectionery, clothing, party paper-ware, household furnishings and crockery. As for the ponies themselves - we know how children don't like to feel left out of things and it must be very hard on a little girl to be the only one in her class without one. Parents, however enlightened, are placed in an impossible situation over matters such as this and the general My Little Pony atmosphere, created through character merchandising, makes it all the worse.

264

Against this background of commercial structures and developments, and as an example of cultural imperialism, I'll cAte the inroads that have been made into the British toys and games industry by US firms. (I should perhaps add that this is not out of any patriotic motives - Britain doesn't differ all that much, ideologically, in any case - but just because I happen to know more about this particular example.) What concerns me, overall, with the necessity for urgent changes in the toys and games industry in mind, is that the more the industries in any given state are foreign-owned the less influence that state has over its own future. In other words, foreign firms are less answerable to public control.

As regards Britain and the United States, the commercial connections go back a long way, and some of them have been mentioned in the course of this study. Here, however, I'll concentrate on recent years. According to an article in The Economist of 25 December 1982, it was estimated that, by 1981, 21 per cent of the British toys and games market had been taken over by five US companies: Palitoy, Fisher-Price, Ideal, Milton Bradley and Atari. As we've seen, the first three of these were then part of multinationals. The general picture at the time was of a sales slump in which a few big industrial enterprises got even bigger. Revell was another US company well established in Britain at the same time. It had claimed in 1979 to be the world's largest manufacturer of plastic model kits. The previous year, so it was claimed, the British subsidiary itself was selling to over 60 countries. Mattel, with Barbie, was also well established here in 1981 and they brought us He-Man in 1983. Since that time, Hasbro, with My Little Pony and The Transformers, has also become very much part of the toy scene. More recently, in 1985, the very large US firm of Coleco has set up in Britain. The company's enormously profitable Cabbage Patch Kids had already been on sale here for about two years and in 1986 they brought us the macho, militaristic and vicious Rambo range.

Thinking more particularly of games, the Parker range was introduced into Britain in 1970 and, after one year, had gained 10 per cent of the market. Of course, certain games, such as Monopoly, had been produced here on license for many years. At about the same time, Milton Bradley began to expand into Europe. In the four years up to, and including 1980, they captured about 30 per cent of the games market in Britain. Avalon Hill, with its vast assortment of board war games, first exhibited at the Earls Court Toy and Hobby Fair in 1979. They now seem to have become established.

If the United States can do this in Britain, which is a wealthy country and which already had a strong toys and games industry, how can most other countries hope to survive the economic and, of course, cultural and ideological onslaught of the USA? The pattern outlined here has happened in other industries, as well, but in the case of toys and games we are, in the end, talking about children's minds.

265

Marketing strategies

The overall marketing strategies used by the companies concerned, and the implications of these, should also be noted. First of all, let it be said, there are large purses to be won. During the period covered by this study, the amount spent by the British public on toys and games steadily crept up to approximately £922 million in 1987. It could reach f:1 billion in 1989. Likewise, the stakes are high. Palitoy claimed that, in 1984, they would be spending over £10 million on promotion. In 1986, Mattel said they would be spending the same amount on promoting toys and that the sum represented 35 per cent of all toy advertising in Britain in the first half of the year. Of this amount, £7.7 million was to go on television advertising. No doubt Barbie would be heavily involved. Thus, Mattel aimed to boost retail sales of their products to over £100 million, twice that of 1985. Several of Hasbro's products were permanently in the best-selling lists in 1985. The company attributed this to heavy year-round promotion. At the beginning of 1986, Frank Martin, the group marketing director at Hasbro-Bradley, said they were intending to invest even more heavily in television, `because [their] results have proved it is possible to create wide and virtually immediate demand by this method'. The important word here, I think, is `create'.

It's sometimes easy to miss the obvious so we shouldn't fail to note that, in this illustration of the process of cultural imperialism, children's needs don't enter into the picture. We can develop this point further by considering a particular business tactic. Optimus Prime, a leading figure in the Transformer concept, was so much in demand for Christmas 1985 that supplies ran short. Nevertheless, by early 1986 it had already been decided to replace the figure by Ultra Magnus, in accordance with the tactic of killing off toys when they reach a sales peak. This, it can be said, is catering for children's wants (which are created by advertising and publicity). But then these wants are displaced by other wants (artificially created again) the whole operation being designed to set up a puppet-like consumerism, and a condition of endless dissatisfaction. To state the obvious again, the overriding motive is increasing profits, not catering for children's needs which - let's not forget - are not the same as children's wants.

A word about recent developments in marketing strategies will complete the picture, as far as the operations of the toy and game industry are concerned.

The trend in toy manufacturing over the last 20 years or so and where figures of any kind are involved, has been towards complete toy systems, or concepts. We've seen how these work, in the case of Strawberry Shortcake and the fashion dolls, for example, and with Action Force and Masters of the Universe. This is the most vital area to look at in the toy world because children can identify with figures and because an ideology can be readily presented to children through such means. (In fact, it would be impossible to have figures which didn't embody ideas and values of some kind.) The toy concept ensures that a more comprehensive view of the world can be presented and therefore this recent development is potentially a very powerful force in the shaping of children's minds. It's time now to summarize the main features of this approach to the selling of toys, and ideas.

267

One main figure will probably be at the centre of a toy concept. It will, most likely, be made of plastic but it can be a soft toy made up of a variety of fabrics and stuffings or, it may be made of rubber, or there can be versions in any or all of these materials, or mixtures of them, and there may also be different sizes in each. Then, there can be: other figures and perhaps domestic or pet animals, especially dogs, horses or ponies; outfits, neverendingly, for any or all of these; playsets; vehicles; and accessories for any or all of the items mentioned. The figures, these days, are likely to come with names and characters, and clothing to match, and probably with a place in a ready-made story as well. Sometimes, such marketing tactics are foisted onto the most unlikely toys, so, for instance, we get the ready-made, free-floating fantasies of My Little Pony and, even more unlikely, the fond whimsy of the Care Bears. Such toy concepts leave very little to the imagination and they are likely, if anything, to give rise to ritual, rather than play. I say `if anything' because it's difficult to know what children can do when they've got a concept toy; except get another, of course - which is just what the manufacturer wants. So children go on collecting, or consuming, and the profits mount up. (Once it was quite usual for a doll to come without name, character or story, and probably with little or nothing in the way of clothing either, and it was up to the child, and the child's family, to provide whatever was needed.)

Nowadays, toy systems such as the ones I've mentioned often start at a fairly advanced stage. Hasbro's fashion doll concept, Jem, for example, which first went on sale in late spring 1986, began with: eight different, clothed dolls with figurestands, which came with extra outfits or accessories, or both; 24 additional outfits, eight of them convertible (by removing, reversing or re-arranging garments); two playsets which included various accessories; and a car (see illustration). A cassette of 'Jem music' came with every doll except the main one, Jem, but, in this case, it could be obtained, as a limited offer, by sending proof of purchase. There was also a competition to win videos of `fabulous Jem music'. The whole was held together by a storyline with an already will developed conflict situation, set in the world of pop music.

The fictional element in toy concepts deserves further attention here. Conflict, of some sort, seems to be the germ of all fiction and, with toy concepts, it's usually of a simple good versus evil kind. However, it's important to note the form this takes. Such a good and evil conflict situation in the case of the Jem concept, for instance, is on a small scale, as this is for girls. In fact, it's more a matter of nice against nasty than good versus evil. Simply, Jem - who has a dual identity, by the way, like Superman, Batman and others - leads her nice pop group, the Holograms, against their nasty rivals, the Misfits.

The fiction which sustains the Transformers is on an altogether grander scale, as usual for boys - the heroic Autobots battle against the evil Decepticons for possession of the world. This is a framework familiar from comic books, and the object of the struggle is the same as that of certain board games. In so far as the story-line involves the invasion of the earth by robots from a distant planet, it recalls the basic set-up of many microprocessor games with their alien invaders. Even these recent toy concepts, therefore, having nothing really new to offer, in the way of fiction.

268

Returning from the fictional element to the general summary of toy concepts, we should note that it's easy for manufacturers to expand these, either just by adding more figures, by introducing different categories of figures or figures in supporting or parallel groups. So, we get `teams', as in Action Force or, developing from Masters of the Universe, the Evil Horde and (for `little girls') the Princess of Power collection. Further vehicles, playsets and so on then follow.

A club with badges, newsletters and competitions is a possible development, of a different sort, in connection with a toy concept.

If a given concept didn't start in films, or in a television series or fiction, in the first place, then it's likely - in the case of a popular success (which, these days, means one heavily advertised, especially on television) - that it will have a further lease of life in these areas. The move from toy concepts to full-length films is a very recent stratagem seen, for example, in the case of My Little Pony and the Care Bears.

A popular success in the toy world, whatever the origin, will be promoted further, as we've seen, by character merchandising, and the likeness, name or logo, or, more likely, all of these, will be licensed out for use in the production of, for example: other toys, games and puzzles, including trundlers, tricycles and bikes; clothing, especially T-shirts, playclothes and nightwear; jewelry, cosmetics and toiletries; watches; school equipment, including pencils, pencil sharpeners, rubbers and rulers, together with holders for these; stationery; food and drink containers and crockery; food cartons and wrappings, especially those for snack foods and confectionery; clocks and tape recorders; bedclothes; wallpaper; and practically any other products that children are likely to meet with in their everyday lives.

Thus, what the toys stand for, the way of looking at the world presented to children through them, and especially what they have to say about gender roles, is reinforced and repeated at every turn.

Games, of necessity, follow a different pattern. An overall summary of the main aspects, from a manufacturers' and social point of view, will complete the picture here. Commercially successful games will be produced in de luxe and travel versions and will be redesigned, repackaged or updated in some way from time to time (as fashion dolls are, for example). Also, there will be foreign language versions. However, the main line of development will be through clubs and via competitions and tournaments at local, national and international level. A game with all of these aspects would be fully developed commercially. Magazines might accompany this process, though it isn't usual for a game to have a magazine all to itself.

From the foregoing, it's clear that there isn't much point in asking, in general, whether children are influenced more by their friends or parents, by television, by comics and other fiction, or by games rather than toys; or - you might as well add - by bubble-gum wrappers, rather than cereal packets. Or, more particularly, if children are obviously influenced by He-Man, can we say it's the He-Man toy figure and not the He-Man in comics or the one in television cartoons? It isn't possible to make distinctions of this kind, broad or narrow, and children can be influenced by any or all of these.

269

A war culture

The complex of ideas, attitudes and values - the ideology - bound up in children's playthings, and carried by the process of cultural imperialism, has been analysed in this book as a whole. It's now time to begin to move towards the major aspect of this ideology - aggression - and to see it in a wider context.

Children in Britain, and male children in particular, are brought up in a war culture. This is part of a general atmosphere of aggression, which is closely based on the masculine gender role. The aggression, in turn, grows out of a system of competition which shows itself in every corner of society. This situation is, it seems to me, even more intense in the USA, and has its counterpart, to a lesser degree, in other capitalist states.

I've used the word `atmosphere' because I think that aggression is just as pervasive as the atmosphere and, for the most part, just as unnoticeable, or unnoticed - that is, until you start looking into children's culture! An experience of mine will illustrate this. One day in October 1983, I was checking on the advertising of toys and games on television, during the children's programmes. One advertisement was presented in the form of a television news bulletin and called `Action Force News'. It featured the Action Force figures in the style of news items about the early stages of the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. They were pictured as if embarking for the war zone and some of them were given the names they had in the Battle Action Force comic at the time. After this, I lingered a while and got caught up in the following part of the programme. This was a short play, lasting about 20 minutes, in which the boy hero constantly and proudly refers to the fact that his dad has been in the SAS. The boy is also shown as being strongly attached to his Airfix model kit which happened to be for making a Nazi German dive-bomber, the Stuka, from the second world war. One scene, quite incidentally, shows the boy and his father playing a video war game. This had nothing to do with the plot. In fact, there wasn't much of a plot at all but there was a strong emphasis on the interests, mood and thoughts of the boy. He thinks he might join the army when he grows up but, he says, his dad has told him that Britain probably won't have an army then and that they'll probably `throw stones at the Russians and run'. That's about all there was to this play - but let's go over these two items, the advertisement and the play, to see what they add up to. The advertisement was for aggressive toys, it drew upon the real-life Falklands/Malvinas conflict (possibly giving an extra boost to army recruitment on the way) and it glanced at fiction in the form of a war comic. The play aligned us favourably with the SAS (another boost for recruitment, perhaps), gave prominence to a war toy with Nazi associations (free advertisement), and presented a video war game in an attractive light. The boy's leanings were towards the army but this part soon turned into cold war propaganda with the `Russians' as the enemy. The theme running through all these elements is war, which we see in a male context and presented, very largely, through the masculine gender role of fighter. It all took place, on an ordinary day in an ordinary year. I have no reason to believe it was unusual or exceptional and no public outcry followed about the indoctrination of children or about bias in television programmes.

270

This is part of what I mean by war culture - the ordinary, everyday atmosphere of aggression - but there are other areas to be filled in, and connections to be made, in order to give a clearer picture.

With regard to aggression, we've already seen a good few connections between the world of toys and games and the adult world, most of them of a more direct kind than the ones just mentioned, which were to illustrate a general background of aggression. The Falklands/Malvinas conflict, in particular, has provided specific examples of the impact of actual events on both toys and games. Let it suffice here to add, in order to underline this kind of link, that the Palitoy catalogue in 1983 included a reference to the Parachute Regiment as `winners of 2 V.C.s and many other awards in the Falklands war' as a selling point for Action Man's Parachute Regiment outfit.

At school, the pressures on children are generally more subtle, but not different. The war culture is here also. Deadly Persuasion, a penetrating and informed booklet by Greta Sykes, Helen Mercer and Jan Woolf, gives a telling analysis of school history textbooks in relation to the cold war. The authors express the overall problem as follows:

the simple idea of the Soviet Union as `enemy' and `attacker' and the U.S. as friend and defender ... seems to be the message which the textbooks perpetuate. With few exceptions they operate with a scheme which moralistically determines the world as good and evil. The post-war world is basically divided into two sides and a rigid model established to interpret events. I

The `message' here is the same as that of several board and computer games I've described, while the good and evil model is basic to all the major toy concepts: Star Wars, Action Force, Masters of the Universe and Transformers, for example. Such toy concepts are for small boys. Do they, I wonder, when they grow older, simply substitute actual states for the factions labelled good and evil in their toys (and comics)? History textbooks would seem to encourage this and it certainly makes for easy thinking. At the end of a shocking recital of lies, misrepresentations and omissions in school history textbooks, the authors conclude, `to educate for peace is not indoctrination, far from it. The indoctrination already practised subtly educates for war'.

Other kinds of indoctrination in schools are not so subtle. The CND magazine, Sanity, reported in October 1982 that a missile regiment had taken a Lance missile, which can carry a nuclear warhead, to Matthew Humberstone Upper School at Cleethorpes in Humberside, to show to the children there. Presumably, the army had been invited to put on this display. At midsummer the following year one of the local free newspapers, in the district where I live, carried an article with the heading, `Assault Course at Fun Day'. Contrary to what anyone might have expected, following such a title, there was no trace of irony in the article. It described how a battery cadet regiment had put on a display for the Tubbenden Infants and Junior School, in the London Borough of Bromley, on the school's fun day which had been organized by the parents' association. The cadets, of course, were children as well, one who was mentioned being 13 years old. The article was illustrated by a large photo which showed cadets, and children from the school with their headmaster.

271

Again, I've no reason to believe such happenings are exceptional. I've made no effort to seek out material of this sort, nor have I checked on how many secondary schools still have cadet corps of their own.

There isn't space here to go into other aspects of the war culture that surrounds children, on television in general and in films, for example, but I've given particular instances along the way in this study, especially in chapter six. As for war comics, I analysed this very important aspect in Catching Them Young and the picture hasn't changed much since.²

The number of war toys and games, and the war culture of which they are part, reflect national, economic priorities, as might be expected. In Britain, in 1983, the Ministry of Defence was running 30 research establishments, and 40,000 scientists, out of 100,000, were working in `defence'. In comparison with five other western European countries, Britain was bottom in all areas of government spending except defence, where it was, massively, top.

In Britain, systematic co-operation between governments or the military establishment on the one hand, and toy and game manufacturers on the other, is either not very common or kept very quiet. Such co-operation was taking place long ago, however, in the United States, as Carol R Andreas tells us in a very revealing article, `War Toys and the Peace Movement':

A Detroit [toy] buyer informed me in the spring of 1964 that military men from Washington attended the toy fairs to help promote military items and to offer their consultant services to those who wished to produce or display authentic military toys.

Articles in the trade periodical, Toys and Novelties, pointed out that `these services were available as part of the Defense departments's mandate "to promote wide public understanding of its objectives and accomplishments" ' 4 The toy manufacturers returned the help. Andreas, using information from Toys and Novelties, records that the Defense Department regularly purchased military toys for use in training and also that Mattel was `expanding its line' to manufacture real weapons under contract to the United States government. Andreas also quotes a representative of Hassenfeld Brothers (later to become Hasbro), makers of the original GI Joe figure, as follows:

Let me say that the United States government is extremely cooperative at all levels of its military structure, in helping any organization in any manner that it can. We ourselves have been working in close contact for a number of years with local officials in our own National Guard and Reserves, as well as military officials up through, and including, the Pentagon.⁵

272

Contacts, such as the ones referred to in this article by Andreas, are indications, I would say, of a fully developed war culture.

From this, it can be seen that banning war toys has to be considered as part of a much wider problem. Also, the argument which manufacturers of war toys put forward - that they're only catering for a demand - has some truth in it, but they also help to create that demand. It's a chicken and egg situation. In any case, this is a poor argument. Dealers in hard drugs also cater for a demand but not many people seem to think that that excuses them.

Aggression

Toys and games reflect this war culture and also play a large part in reproducing it; by socializing children into gender roles, in the first place, and then by conditioning boys into being aggressors.

We must now concentrate on the masculine role of aggressor, as a matter of urgency, I suggest, because if we don't manage to change it altogether it's likely to bring proceedings on the earth to a halt. Apart from the fact that this is an urgent matter, enough to justify all our attention at the moment, I must say that the question of male conditioning, in general, has been very much neglected. It isn't widely enough recognized that boys, and men, are emotionally crippled through the imposition of the role of fighter, or even that they are killed and maimed because of it. There may be other reasons for fighting but this has all too often been the only one - fulfilling a role. (It's worth noting, as well, that men also suffer when the breadwinner role is no longer available to them, as the suicide rate amongst unemployed men shows.) What I have to say here will, I hope, help to rectify this neglect of male conditioning.

We now, therefore, settle firmly on the theme of aggression and, first of all, I have to deal with some beliefs that have a bearing on the matter, especially since they are likely to get in the way of any new approach to children's toys and games.

Inevitably, aggression looms very large in the nature/nurture controversy which, in various aspects, has been going on for many years now. Briefly, it's a question of how much of human psychological make-up we inherit genetically - that is, how much is inborn; and how much we owe to influences in our environment - that is, our cultural and social and even our geographical surroundings. This is a vast area of knowledge and research and the subject of aggression, within it, is itself far too large to be dealt with here in anything like a thoroughgoing way. So, I'll merely point to the features which have a bearing on the matter in hand, which is the aggressive, masculine gender role as presented to boys through playthings.

The part of the nature/nurture controversy which relates to aggression has gone on largely within the fairly new study of ethology. This deals with the behaviour, especially of an automatic or instinctive kind, of animals, including humans; and especially as this behaviour is affected by their environment, social and otherwise_ It is very much, I would say, the study of how animals relate to one another and of the factors which have a bearing on this. At the outset, however, it's important to recognise that a definition of such a thing as instinct in humans, or even its existence, is very much open to question. Also, there's nothing in the way of undisputed scientific evidence to show that aggression is inherited.

273

Certain books have been at the centre of the debate about aggression: Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression (first published in English in 1966), Desmond Morris's The Naked Ape (1967), Robert Ardrey's The Territorial Imperative (1967), and The Imperial Animal by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox (1972). I'll give some account of these books, after first making some general points.

These authors, while writing about human nature (whatever that is), usually base their arguments on other than human, animal species. Their opponents, while continually exposing these arguments, base their own views mainly on human behaviour. As this is the case, it's best to start with a summary of the situation amongst non-human species. As regards conflict between species, though `conflict' is perhaps too strong a word, we have to take hunting into account; the fact that certain animals prey upon others. Also, different species compete and sometimes come into conflict over territory, though the reason is the food supply the territory provides rather than the territory itself. Within a species, certain groups or individuals may compete for territory, either - again - because it's a source of food or because it's a way of securing mates, or both. It isn't often that killing occurs within a species, as there are many inbuilt signals animals use to stop encounters short before they reach this stage. A dog will acknowledge defeat, for instance, by putting its tail between its legs.

Lorenz's theories are firmly based on animal behaviour, especially on the behaviour of the greylag goose. He believes that aggression is instinctive in all animals and, furthermore, that without necessarily being stimulated, it wells up from time to time and has to be expressed and so drained off. Because of the draining-off process, this idea of aggression has come to be known as the catharsis theory. It is, in fact, a widely held and seldom questioned view. There's evidence of it, for instance, in The Good Toy Guide 1983, where it's said of two punchballs that they are, respectively, `wonderful for letting off steam' and `great for releasing tension and energy'. Of course, children need exercise and need to use their plentiful energy but the words here, especially the `letting off steam' figure of speech, do seem to point to the cathartic model of aggression. (It should be added that the punchballs are at least as likely to prompt aggressive behaviour.) Antonia Fraser, in her book, A History of Toys, gives unthinking support to the same notion. She `feels', she says:

that children are better off provided with safe guns, to drain off their natural aggressiveness, [my emphasis] than sheltered from things which will soon be apparent to them in the world around.⁶

Another instance of this widely held assumption about aggression came when, during a phone call to the British Association for Early Childhood Education in January 1982, I mentioned my concern about war toys. The woman I was talking to gave a superior chuckle and asked me 'How do you cater for children's aggression?'

274

This common belief about aggression was obviously around for a long time before Lorenz came on the scene, but he did, by adding evidence based on his own observations of (non-human) animal behaviour, give it the status of a theory. However, things have now moved on. Apart from the dubious practice of drawing conclusions about humans from the behaviour of other animals, and apart from the question mark over instincts, especially as regards humans, the catharsis theory itself no longer stands up to serious examination. Firstly, aggression can be taught or copied, a matter which Lorenz seems to have ignored very largely but one which is soundly documented, mainly by reference to experiments with people, in Albert Bandura's book, Aggression: a Social Learning Analysis, in which he gives a very good overview of research in the subject. Secondly, much evidence, both in this book and in The Child's World of Make-Believe by Jerome L Singer and others, which likewise takes in many research studies, goes to show that aggression, far from being reduced when vented, is generally increased, at least for a time.

I should add that the catharsis theory of aggression is, to all intents and purposes, the same as the idea of sublimation as put forward by the inventor of Apocalypse (see p. 236).

Taking a common-sense approach, and returning to toys and games in general, we may ask: is it an accident that the most aggressive state, the USA, produces the most aggressive playthings? And we may wonder why, if such playthings serve to drain off aggression, the USA is not the most peace-loving of states. To look at the question from another angle, let's suppose, for a moment, that aggression is inborn in boys and that playing with toys which stimulate aggression works it out of their systems - according to the popularly held belief. Supposing also that there's a maternal instinct in girls, shouldn't it follow that playing with baby dolls would work the desire for motherhood out of girls' systems? 

Judging by the popularity of his book, Morris, in The Naked Ape, must be telling a lot of people what they want to hear. (The title, which refers to human beings, gives the basic attitude.) Otherwise, and in spite of the insights in it, it's difficult to account for the success of a book which contains so many careless statements, contradictions and generalizations. As far as aggression is concerned, Morris maintains that, in humans, it takes place over questions of hierarchy, over territory and in defence of the family. Since there's no proof, this is very much a take it or leave it kind of proposition. More to the point for present purposes, however, is Morris's extraordinary assertion that co-operation causes war! The argument goes, that men had to co-operate with one another in order to be successful in hunting, that the bonds of loyalty thus established became in-built, and that they developed into notions of patriotism and other group loyalties for which men were prepared to fight. The aggression in such cases would, presumably, according to Morris, arise over questions of hierarchy, territory or the family, as already mentioned, though there don't seem to be any obvious links. Nor can this theory account for odd details such as the fact that Innuit peoples (Eskimos), who have been hunters well into modern times, are both co-operative and very peaceful.

275

Ardrey's arguments, in The Territorial Imperative, are even more astonishing but they've found a ready acceptance in many quarters and they are representative of writers who base their views on non-human animal life and biological inheritance. At the outset, Ardrey tells us that his starting point is the urge to own and defend territory (this soon comes to mean the same thing as property) and he says that this urge is `fixed in our genetic endowment'. Patriotism he regards as an `open [modifiable] instinct' and as the equivalent of territorial behaviour in other animal species. I've already mentioned the reasons for territoriality in the rest of the animal world - where it occurs, that is. Many species are not territorial at all and amongst those that are, there are huge variations, and even considerable ones within single species, depending on such environmental factors as the density of population and the season of the year. But the whole approach of arguing from what other species do is fraught with danger because, in any comparison, there comes a point where the differences are more important than the similarities. At one point, Ardrey instances slime moulds in support of his argument! Clearly, he's free to believe that he has a lot in common with slime moulds, but he shouldn't speak for the rest of us.

For me, the crux of the book is when Ardrey (a US citizen) describes his outrage on hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in the Hawaiian Islands (a US colony) which brought the USA into the second world war. To be fair, he wonders whether his response was something he'd been born with or something he'd been taught. But how can there be any doubt? Even supposing we agree for a moment that he was born with some kind of territorial instinct, why should we suppose, further, that it could extend to the Hawaiian Islands? which are about 3,700 kilometres distant from the USA, over the sea; which the USA took from Spain in 1898; and which Ardrey would never have heard of but for modern, human means of communication. The factor of distance alone makes this a totally different matter from territoriality in other animal species which only claim what they can physically range over. Japan, I should add, is even further away from Pearl Harbour. Also, I wonder what happened to the Hawaiian `territorial imperative'. They must have one, if it's instinctive, even though the big beasts do win.

Finally, on this particular line - since the USA now seems to look upon the greater part of the globe with a very possessive eye, we should be extremely wary when biology is used to justify such an attitude, even though it is called a 'territorial imperative'. In similar fashion, religion was used in the nineteenth century to justify British imperialism.

Amongst other things, Ardrey also asserts that the `biological nation' is one of `outward antagonism', that the `normal condition' for humankind is one of `mutual animosity' and that `war ... has been the most successful of all our cultural traditions'. This, he says, is because it satisfies what he singles out (perhaps correctly) as the `needs' of all animals - identity, stimulation and security. How war could satisfy such needs in any meaningful or positive way is quite baffling.

It's worth adding a point or two on the whole question of using evidence drawn from the behaviour of other animal species. Apart from the fact that such an approach is full of pitfalls, it should be added that evidence from the same source can be used to support views directly opposed to the ones put forward by writers such as Lorenz, Morris and Ardrey. For instance, in one very impressive experiment kittens brought up with rats became attached to them and rarely attacked them.

276

Another experiment has shown that, when the breast of a female chaffinch was painted red, like that of a male, the males treated her as if one of them, and then her behaviour changed and became as aggressive as theirs. Also, in an experiment on pigeons lowest in the pecking order, the male hormone, testosterone, was insufficient to increase aggression, but it could be increased by conditioning.⁸ Such work shows that behaviour presumed to be instinctive can be modified by environmental factors. However, those wanting to learn about human behaviour should study people.

The views of Tiger and Fox, in The Imperial Animal, are less outlandish than those of Ardrey. For one thing, their arguments are based less on behaviour in other animal species. Central to their approach is the claim that the social relationships appropriate to the hunting stage in the development of human societies have been built in, genetically, and determine social relationships (and roles) now. Some crucial assertions, of a political nature, are based on this claim (which, of course, cannot be proved). They state, for instance, that `the basic economic group is the hunting group or its analogue, and basic economic activity is on the predatory model'.⁹ This statement, which isn't very clear, does, however, seem to ignore the fact that other animals don't prey upon members of their own species. Hunting is carried out by one species upon another, or others, whereas all economic activity, of whatever kind, only takes place within the human species. Other species aren't involved. Therefore, the activity of hunting (an affair between species) can scarcely have led to war (a problem within the human species) as Tiger and Fox contend.

In the area of gender roles (though they would call them sex roles) Tiger and Fox have quite a lot to say which has a bearing on aggression. What is adds up to, in their own words, is that `war is not a human action but a male action; war is not a human problem but a male problem'. 10 Just suppose, for the sake of argument, that what this statement implies is true-that aggression, of the sort involved in warfare, is innate in human males. Why, then, aren't more men willing to leave home to go and fight in wars? Why do we have conscription and why were there press-gangs before that and, earlier still, the military obligations of serfs under feudalism? Why has compulsion been necessary if what Tiger and Fox say is true?

The deeply reactionary framework of The Imperial Animal is revealed in a comment on sexual activity and killing, both of which, the authors say, `were part of the package of original sin and therefore of human nature'. The doctrine of original sin - the belief that people are inherently evil - must surely be the most psychologically damaging idea ever to be inflicted on humankind. `Human nature' stands in as its everyday representative, the familiar resort of people arguing against the possibility of change. It's comforting, and an easy way out, to base your argument on human nature, as it means you don't have to do anything. In fact, it means that nothing can be done because, in the well-worn expression, `you can't change human nature'. That is, in effect, what all these writers have been saying, and they've been saying you can't change it because it's underpinned by biology and you can't argue with biology. In this, such writers both reflect and reinforce popular belief, However, we need to keep on asking: what is human nature? unless we're satisfied with the answer; biology. We need to take note, as well, of other answers such as the one put forward by Bandura: `From the social learning perspective, human nature is characterized as a vast i potentiality that can be fashioned by social influences into a variety of forms'.' the term suggests, the social learning approach, which Bandura favours, puts the emphasis on environment, in the nature/nurture debate.

277

As far as aggression is concerned, he says:

the specific forms that aggressive behaviour takes, the frequency with which it is expressed, the situations in which it is displayed, and the specific targets selected for attack are largely determined by social experience.

However, the book which gives an overview of the whole subject I've been dealing with in this section is Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature by Steven Rose, Leon J Kamin and R C Lewontin. This is a recent, thoroughly researched and carefully argued book in which the focus is firmly on human, social behaviour. The authors reject biological determinism -the view that genes determine the behaviour of individuals - and also the closely-allied views of the sociobiologists who maintain that genetics determines society. They also reject the view that the social environment, alone, determines human behaviour, which is a stance they call `cultural determinism'. They even reject the interaction between genes and environment as determining the organism because, they contend, this implies a distinction between the organism (animal or plant) and its environment and supposes that the second makes the first - that environment dominates. Also, they hold that this `interactionism' puts the emphasis on individual rather than social development. Instead of these various approaches, they propose `interpenetration' between the organism and the environment. This means `a dialectical development of organism and milieu in response to each other'. In other words, the environment changes the organism but the organism, especially in the case of the human species, also changes the environment which then, again, changes the organism - and so the process goes on. This is very much the core of the book which the authors sum up as follows: `The theory of this dialectical relation, in which individuals both make and are made by society, is a social theory, not a biological one'.¹³ It could scarcely be otherwise, as they dismiss all theories based on biology:

up to the present time no one has ever been able to relate any aspect of human social behaviour to any particular gene or set of genes, and no one has ever suggested an experimental plan for doing so. Thus, all statements about the genetic basis of human social traits are necessarily purely speculative, no matter how positive they seem to be.¹⁴

It's against this background that we have to see the problem of aggression. Up to now, I've talked about it in general terms but with the accent strongly on war which is what concerns me here. However, it's important to recognize that there are, amongst humans, different forms of aggression. At an everyday, individual, personal level, it can be verbal or physical but it always involves anger, to some degree or other, and perhaps hatred. The collective aggression which we see in warfare is quite different and, I might add, peculiar to the human species. Anger and hatred, at least at the outset of a war, if not later on, are absent. Rose and his co-authors put the matter well:

278

warfare among state-organized societies has little to do with prior individual feelings of aggression. War is a calculated political phenomenon undertaken at the behest of those in power in a society for political and economic gain. `Hostilities' begin without the least hostility between individuals except as deliberately created by the organs of propaganda. People kill each other in wars for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that they are forced to do so by the political power of the state. 15

As regards the causes of war, here we need only concentrate on greed (though it's a fairly comprehensive cause). The greed has usually been for greater power and wealth (often in the form of territory) and this brings us back to children's playthings again. It has to be noted that toys and games for boys are, overwhelmingly, about power and wealth. Furthermore, the idea of power is strongest in toys - in figures and vehicles, for instance - while wealth enters more into games. Think of all the games concerned with money, treasure and property, amongst the ones not directly concerned with war, that is.

With the question of aggression still in mind, as it relates to the masculine gender role of fighter and to boys' playthings, we now move to another field of study, anthropology, to have a very brief look at actual societies.

Margaret Mead's book, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, is an account of the Arapesh, Mundugumor and Tchambuli peoples of New Guinea. She describes their societies, respectively, as follows:

In one, both men and women act as we expect women to act - in a mild parental responsive way; in the second, both act as we expect men to act - in a fierce initiating fashion; and in the third, the men act according to our stereotype for women - are catty, wear curls and go shopping, while the women are energetic, managerial, unadorned partners. 16

The astonishing thing is that these three groups were living within a hundred miles of one another. Also, it's worth pointing out that they weren't specially chosen to demonstrate the above gender roles.

Mead's purpose, in undertaking her field study, is very much to the point here. It was:

to discover to what degree temperamental differences between the sexes were innate and to what extent they were culturally determined, and furthermore to inquire minutely into the educational mechanisms connected with these differences.

Although the author doesn't go into detail about games, she makes the interesting observation that the first group, the Arapesh, `play none that encourage aggressiveness or competition' and adds that `there are no races, no games with two sides'.

278

The norm, for the men of this culture, is `to be gentle, unacquisitive, and co-operative' but, of course, neither the Arapesh nor the Mundugumor take any account of sex difference as a basis for differences in personality. As Mead puts it: `the Arapesh ideal is the mild, responsive man married to the mild, responsive woman; the Mundugumor ideal is the violent, aggressive man married to the violent, aggressive woman '.¹⁸ Thus, the Arapesh have a feminine society while the Mundugumor have a masculine society and this is all the more remarkable as both groups share a very similar economic, social and cultural background. Amongst the Tchambuli, the woman is the `dominant, impersonal, managing partner' while the man is `less responsible' and `emotionally dependent'; in other words, the reverse of the gender roles (or the presumed sex roles) in our society.

In view of her findings in these three cultures, Mead concludes that `we no longer have any basis for regarding such aspects of behaviour as sex-linked' and adds, `the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the strength of social conditioning'. She sums up as follows:

We are forced to conclude that human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions. The differences between individuals who are members of different cultures, like the differences between individuals within a culture, are almost entirely to be laid to differences in conditioning, especially durin1₉early childhood, and the form of this conditioning is culturally determined.

More specifically, Mead states that, `To consider such traits as aggressiveness or passivity to be sex-linked is not possible in the light of the facts'.²⁰

Nor are the societies described in this book isolated examples of variations between cultures. For instance, in Cooperation and Competition Among Primitive Peoples, edited by Mead, there are accounts of 12 other cultures, again showing great diversity. (The general approach in these two anthropological books, as shown by the use of the word `primitive', isn't one I go along with, though the information recorded in them is valid and useful. Many technologically developed societies are extremely primitive, if not backward, in a moral sense.) Those wanting to look at differences in more industrialized societies should read Two Worlds of Childhood by Urie Bronfenbrenner (with the assistance of John C Condry, Jr) in which a comparison is made between children's upbringing in the USA and the USSR.

This has been, necessarily, a very brief look at a very large subject but I hope I've said enough here on aggression to show that something can be done about it.

What is to be done? If the human race is to survive, the masculine role of aggressor has to be dealt with. While confronting this problem in every way possible, it's obviously best to deal with it in its early stages, before boys have been completely strait-jacketed into the role and while they are moving through the education system, and before then if at all possible.

Children's playthings, as a whole, probably make up the most powerful of the cultural influences brought to bear on children by the adults of their society. This is because playthings can convey ideas, attitudes and values at a very early age when children are most impressionable and most open to influences. After all, children play with toys and simple games before they can read and long before they are able to question what the toys and games say to them. Also, the messages bound up in toys and games are largely at a subconscious level and in symbolic form, and are all the more powerful for that.

The question of banning playthings should not be undertaken lightly (and neither should the introduction of new ones, come to that). However, several countries have accepted the principle, and acted upon it, that children should be given some protection, as far as aggressive toys are concerned. (I haven't heard of any action being taken over games.) Usually, it's only toy weapons that are thought of in this connection but it seems to me that figures, of the Action Man and Action Force kind, which present adult roles to children, are more harmful. However, legislation along the lines of that adopted in Sweden - the banning of toy replicas of any weapons and armaments in use since 1914 - would effectively disarm the likes of Action Man, and this would be a step in the right direction.

It has to be understood, though, that banning war toys, and perhaps war games as well, without doing anything else, would be treating the symptoms and not the disease. We need to recognize that such things exist within a war culture. People have often told me of how children who are forbidden to have toy weapons simply proceed to improvise them. Of course they do. What could anybody expect? This just goes to show that the problem is wider than the toys and games themselves - but it certainly doesn't mean that we can neglect the matter of playthings and their manufacture until wider changes are made. War culture takes many different forms and we have to confront them all.

Also, it's important to note that the situation doesn't stand still. In autumn, 1986, I saw two estimates about the sale of war toys in the USA. One said that sales had risen about 500 per cent since 1982 and the other that they rose 600 per cent from 1982-5.

The remaining problems that playthings give rise to can only be dealt with, in the end, by bringing the toys and games industry under public control so that it's answerable to its clients. Responsibility for all playthings, on behalf of the public, could go to the local education authorities which could form a council to approve toys and games. These authorities could, in fact, take on more of the actual manufacture. Here, the Cambridgeshire authority and, most notably, the Inner London Education Authority have shown the way. Toys and games for children under five could also come within such a scheme (and better still, of course, in the context of a national system of creches and nursery schools).

This is only the sketch of a solution. As I see it, my task in this book has been to outline the problems and alert people to them. That has to be the first task, in any case.

Nor can the suggestions I've made be seen in isolation. Bigger problems have to be tackled, of which playthings are only a part, however important. The role of fighter is only one of the gender roles into which children are manacled, even though it is the one most needing urgent attention, We have to ask what kind of society is is which needs gender roles and why it needs them. And we have to ask, who benefits?

280