(War) Toy Story - Where have you gone, G.I. Joe?

To Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan, it is the moment of crisis, the turning point when it all starts to go wrong: "You see this picture of a little boy with a stuffed bunny in one hand and a Lego gun in the other." Society, she argues, will push the tot to drop the rabbit, and this, she believes, is a tragedy, a brutal suppression of the sensitive man-child within. It is for insights such as these that Jane Fonda has just awarded Harvard $12.5 million, endowing a chair in Gilligan's name.

That's very fortunate for Gilligan, because my nephew, Oliver, would be unlikely to give her the time of day. Sitting amid the debris of last Christmas's festivities, the 6-year-old had a Seventh Cavalry revolver in his hand, a newly unwrapped Sherman tank at his feet, and, doubtless, dreams of battle on his mind. "This," he said, "is heaven." He was celebrating the season of peace and goodwill in an appropriately martial style, something difficult in his native England-a country where toy armies are in retreat and cowboys have to be armed with sticks.

Fortunately for Oliver, his uncle could help. In the finest tradition of the Atlantic convoys, I was able to come to the rescue with weaponry from across the ocean. The revolver came from the shop attached to the NRA's National Firearms Museum in Virginia (take your children!), and the tank from Toys "R" Us, a store that can usually boast at least one aisle where it is always 1944. It's all there: the armor, the artillery, and the dedicated, handpicked troops, including, of course, G.I. Joe, back now in uniform, after a post-Vietnam hiatus in which the poor fellow was shamefully repackaged as an "adventurer."

All, however, is not yet well in Toyland. In the more upscale FAO Schwarz, for example, it is still 1968. To be fair, if you look hard enough you can still find G.I. Joe and his friends, but they make up a small, desperate platoon, holed up in a last redoubt, lacking air cover and surrounded by Teletubbies, victims of our elite's continuing anxiety over the allegedly pernicious impact of plastic garrisons and battery-powered combat. (Even Toys "R" Us is not entirely safe: Every December, demonstrators picket selected outlets of this toy-town Krupp, calling for the withdrawal of the playthings of mass destruction.)

We all know the sort of households where such concerns prevail. They tend to be grim places, where chocolate is rationed, bread is bran, and the preferred entertainment is PBS. Permitted toys are dully educational, preferably Swedish, and, ideally, made out of (non- endangered) wood. To these folks, war toys are the NASCAR of the nursery: declasse, disreputable, and more than a little dangerous.

Such attitudes are rooted primarily in snobbery and the vague and sentimental pacifism that permeates this culture. They have been around for a long time. Opposition to military toys has, however, been given fresh impetus by Gilligan-style educational theorizing and its even uglier sister, fear and loathing of the exuberant male child. These ideas are nonsense, but they have been skillfully publicized and are now increasingly the stuff of schoolroom orthodoxy. Inevitably, the success of such theories may lead anxious and well-meaning parents to ask themselves the terrible question: Should Joe go?

To which the appropriate response is: Hell, no. It is not possible to say this for all war toys, but-contrary to the fears of many parents- toy soldiers are a constructive, not destructive, force. They encourage cooperative playing even if the form that cooperation takes-the arrangement of mock slaughter and atrocity-is not one that will bring joy to the heart of Kofi Annan; but as a spur to the imagination and a launch pad for creative thought, these toys are incomparable. These plastic warriors may be heavily armed, but there is not much they can do for themselves. In the era of PlayStation, they are a magnificent anachronism: The only programs they come with are in the heads of their owners.

What's more, the fact that these soldiers are drawn from the real past brings its own educational advantages. Sci-fi action figures are all very well, but the knowledge they encourage relates to Krypton, the Klingons, or the lore of the Jedi. Toy soldiers are, literally, more down-to-earth: They tell the story of what has happened on this planet. Detachments, say, of Union cavalry or World War I infantrymen are not much fun without some knowledge of the conflicts in which they fought. In an age in which history is taught as an afterthought-or, worse, a P.C. seminar-this is an incentive for children, and particularly boys, to turn to the real thing, glorious, bloody, confused, exhilarating, and endlessly fascinating.

And no, Mom, it will not turn them into killers. To judge by much of today's conventional wisdom, it is only a short step from the Hasbro tank to the Columbine library, a view that reflects the feminist prejudice that the entire male sex is mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Certainly, masculine aggression is a fact of life (I should know, I grew up with two brothers), but it is not a disease or nasty pathology that needs to be treated, repressed, or medicated away. Correctly channeled (and, yes, toy soldiers can be part of this process), it can be a powerful positive force. Hand in hand with associated characteristics such as competitiveness, assertiveness, and a willingness to take risks, it can be a great engine for a boy's development.

Attempts to suppress it are, moreover, doomed to fail. You might as well tell a tree not to grow leaves. Such efforts may be worse than useless: Children generally take great pleasure in doing the opposite of what they are told. I remember, still with some fear, two childhood acquaintances from a household where war toys were strictly forbidden. Before any visit there, my Tommy Gunn (a British equivalent of G.I. Joe) had to disarm. He could be a fireman, but never a commando. Unfortunately for me, however, the family's creed of nonviolence did not always extend to playroom behavior. In the end, naturally, both boys became career soldiers. That's merely ironic; but it is not difficult to imagine similar rebellions taking other, darker forms.

Instead of denying and deforming a small boy's aggressive energy, it would be better to acknowledge and direct it. Another topic must not be ignored: fun. But when it comes to that subject, those who are recommending "nonviolent" alternatives seem to be clueless. The list of suggestions posted on the web by one New Mexico counselor includes "building blocks, crayons, scissors, construction paper, hand puppets, and puzzles." Hand puppets?

This is not to say that there are no undesirably violent toys. Visit any toy store and you will see some lurking there on the shelves. In a secure family environment, I doubt if they would do any child much harm, although the Diamond Dallas Page interactive figurine (one of a World Champion Wrestling series of "Bashin' Brawlers") could certainly be said to be delivering a rather unattractive message to the nation's young: "Punch his gut, and he yells. Grab his nose, and he yelps. Pile drive his head, and he screams." Better than a hand puppet, to be sure, but grim stuff. Give me-and the kids-G.I. Joe.