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avevale_intelligencer...on this article, and various reactions to it.
One possible definition of civilisation, used by Brian Aldiss in his The Dark Light Years (which I haven't read for a long time because I didn't like it much) is the amount of distance people manage to put between themselves and their own shit. For "shit," in this case, read "uncomfortable realities." I don't think much of this definition myself, but like anyone who grew up in Britain in the post-Victorian century, I am to some extent and in my own way a product of an attempt to put it into practice.
There is a lot more information about uncomfortable realities around these days than there was when I were a nipper, and some of it is even accurate. Accurate information is good, as long as one knows how to detect it, and how to deal with it when one's got it.
Kids, on the whole, look for limits. It's an important part of exploring their world. They want to know which walls they can break through, or tunnel under, or hop over when they've grown a bit, and also which ones they can lean on, build on, bounce off if they're going too fast. It's important, I think, that there are both kinds. To be told that there are no limits does not help them to build a coherent picture of the world, and in any case is not true. On the other hand, parents should only set limits that they can realistically keep, or their credibility will be destroyed.
If there is no information readily available to children on things that seem forbidden and therefore attractive, they will find whatever sources they can, whether they are accurate or not. If internet access is restricted in your house, you will (unless you're a pantywaist like I was) go to a friend's house, or a friend's friend's older brother's house, and look for whatever it was you couldn't find at home. The days when children could be kept under total control are gone; that ship has already encountered its iceberg.
I don't actually know where I'm going with this, if anywhere. I understand the anger that's been voiced in response to this article, which I think is ill-conceived, but on the other hand I don't know how I would have turned out if the deluge of information available to kids these days had been around when I was young and impressionable. It certainly doesn't sound, from the quotes and such mentioned, as if self-harm and other such things are being "promoted" or made to sound desirable, though that might not put off a sufficiently determined adolescent. I suppose one of the things I'm groping towards is that if it's easier for children these days to find information that helps them to discover who they are, even if that isn't who their parents think they are, that's a good thing; conversely, if it's harder for them to navigate through an increasingly confusing world where there seem to be fewer limits of any kind, it's all the more credit to them, and to their parents, when they do make it through safely.
As for the gender-specific lists, hm. I wonder how many of those books would have been deemed acceptable for any child back in 1963, when even "the odd" expletive was anathema? I can't imagine the teachers of my day being overly thrilled to discover one of their charges reading "Angelmonster," or even "True Grit." Perhaps Ms Gurdon isn't aware of how much "coarseness" and "misery" had already found its way into kids' lives when her own moral standards were set.
Please be aware when commenting that none of this is any more than one exceptionally uninformed old idiot's opinion.
One possible definition of civilisation, used by Brian Aldiss in his The Dark Light Years (which I haven't read for a long time because I didn't like it much) is the amount of distance people manage to put between themselves and their own shit. For "shit," in this case, read "uncomfortable realities." I don't think much of this definition myself, but like anyone who grew up in Britain in the post-Victorian century, I am to some extent and in my own way a product of an attempt to put it into practice.
There is a lot more information about uncomfortable realities around these days than there was when I were a nipper, and some of it is even accurate. Accurate information is good, as long as one knows how to detect it, and how to deal with it when one's got it.
Kids, on the whole, look for limits. It's an important part of exploring their world. They want to know which walls they can break through, or tunnel under, or hop over when they've grown a bit, and also which ones they can lean on, build on, bounce off if they're going too fast. It's important, I think, that there are both kinds. To be told that there are no limits does not help them to build a coherent picture of the world, and in any case is not true. On the other hand, parents should only set limits that they can realistically keep, or their credibility will be destroyed.
If there is no information readily available to children on things that seem forbidden and therefore attractive, they will find whatever sources they can, whether they are accurate or not. If internet access is restricted in your house, you will (unless you're a pantywaist like I was) go to a friend's house, or a friend's friend's older brother's house, and look for whatever it was you couldn't find at home. The days when children could be kept under total control are gone; that ship has already encountered its iceberg.
I don't actually know where I'm going with this, if anywhere. I understand the anger that's been voiced in response to this article, which I think is ill-conceived, but on the other hand I don't know how I would have turned out if the deluge of information available to kids these days had been around when I was young and impressionable. It certainly doesn't sound, from the quotes and such mentioned, as if self-harm and other such things are being "promoted" or made to sound desirable, though that might not put off a sufficiently determined adolescent. I suppose one of the things I'm groping towards is that if it's easier for children these days to find information that helps them to discover who they are, even if that isn't who their parents think they are, that's a good thing; conversely, if it's harder for them to navigate through an increasingly confusing world where there seem to be fewer limits of any kind, it's all the more credit to them, and to their parents, when they do make it through safely.
As for the gender-specific lists, hm. I wonder how many of those books would have been deemed acceptable for any child back in 1963, when even "the odd" expletive was anathema? I can't imagine the teachers of my day being overly thrilled to discover one of their charges reading "Angelmonster," or even "True Grit." Perhaps Ms Gurdon isn't aware of how much "coarseness" and "misery" had already found its way into kids' lives when her own moral standards were set.
Please be aware when commenting that none of this is any more than one exceptionally uninformed old idiot's opinion.
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Date: 2011-06-07 11:14 am (UTC)On the question of boundaries I totally agree, children will try to find the limits, and possibly go beyond them to see what really happens; as you said, if the people supposedly enforcing those limits are inconsistent then the children will 'learn' that boundaries have no force (until they come to one which kills them).
Not just children, either, one of Clarke's Laws is "The only way to find the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible". Or at least to try to do so. It was thought impossible for a person to survive travelling at over 30mph (and then at over the speed of sound), until someone did it.
On the impossibility of restricting what children see -- that's always been impossible, short of restraining them physically to their homes. I saw (and did) things which were forbidden at home by going to the houses of friends as a teenager. I brought in books which would have horrified my mother if she'd found them. That always happens. However, just because kids will find a way round it is no excuse for not bothering at all (just as the fact that some people evade taxes and break the speed limit is not justification for getting rid of taxation and speed limit signs), te point is that the child should know that what it is doing is considered unacceptable by those about whose opinion they care (if they don't respect the opinion of their parents then that's a different failure).
As I see it the problem is one of buck-passing -- many parents seem to expect schools or the government or some undefined 'them' to do the parenting for them. Of course, government has colluded in this by telling parents and teachers all the things they can't and must do (which started or at least became mainstream, as I recall, with Dr. Spock's ideas of "never punish a child"). The problem is that if an outside organisation does it then they impose their ideas on everyone (a parent who does let their child read LotR when "too young" will get punished, even if the child can perfectly handle it).
And along with that is the lack of parents actually talking and listening to their children. The number whose children read something they don't (fully) understand and don't then ask their parents (because the parents aren't interested).
I remember a story from a woman teaching in a poor area who had a kid come to her and confess that he's done something silly (and potentially criminal). When she took him back to his parents his father said "That was a bloody silly thing to do, and you'll have to be punished, you understand that?" "Yessir." "OK, now come and have a hug and we'll work out together what we can do to get through it." (Damn, that still makes me tear up! If you want to know the whole story as I was told it ask me offline sometime.) That's the sort of parent I admire -- firm and making sure that breaking limits doesn't avoid consequences, but still supoporting. Damn few of those around (I'm privileged to know several of a similar type, but I know of far more who will either let things slide or will punish without showing the support).
True, we didn't have the Internet when I was a kid ("back when FORTRAN was not even..."). But my mother found out pretty quickly that sending me to my bedroom wasn't much of a punishment, I had books there! She found other chores for me to do, and yes I was 'grounded' on occasion (not that the term was in use then). If parents can't physically stop their kids from going out now, because of legal issues, that shows where the problem is.
Yes, I looked at that list of 'recommended' books. I was actually wondering whether that was tongue-in-cheek, because I woudn't recommend many of them at all from the descriptions (yes, I read Fahrenheit 451 as a teenager, but I can't say that it increased my happiness). As for Ayn Rand as a role model, words fail me (whatever I think of her politics, her life was not something I would hold up as ideal).